the Next The Instructions he gives are built upon Humane Nature and the Foundation of them all is Man considered as a Rational Soul making use of the Body as its Instrument of Operation Upon this Account he allows all those innocent Pleasures which Nature requires and such as are necessary to keep up a Succession of Mankind in the World and so he does likewise the Enjoyment of such other Things as the Condition of the present Life makes desirable to us But then it is constantly with this Reserve that the Reasoning Faculty preserve its own Liberty so as not to be enslaved to the Body or any of its sensual Inclinations but be constantly raising it self up above these and aspiring to the Enjoyment of its own proper Happiness So that of all Outward Things which are commonly esteemed good those that can any way conduce to the promoting our real Happiness we may take the Advantage of provided it be done with due Temper and Moderation But as for such as are wholly inconsistent with that True Good we are absolutely forbidden the having any thing at all to do with them One very remarkable Excellency these Writings have That they render all who govern themselves by them truly happy in present and do not content themselves with turning Men over to a long Payment by distant Promises of their Virtues being rewarded in a Future State Not but that there most certainly shall be such a State and such Rewards For it is impossible that that Being which serves it self of the Body and its Appetites and Affections as so many Instruments to act by should not have a distinct Nature of its own a Nature that continues entire after these are lost and destroyed and consequently must needs have a Perfection of its own too peculiar and agreeable to its Essence and Nature Now though we should suppose the Soul to be mortal and that It and the Body perish both together yet he that lives according to these Directions will be sure to find his Account in them for he cannot fail of being a truly happy Man because he attains to the Perfection of his Nature and the Enjoyment of that Good which is accommodated to a Rational Soul And thus the Body of a Man which is confessedly mortal enjoys its own proper Happiness and can ask nothing farther when it attains to all that Vigor and Perfection that the Nature of a Body is capable of The Discourses themselves are short and sententious much after the manner of those Precepts which the Pythagoreans call their Memorandums or Moral Institutions Though among these indeed there is some sort of Method and Connexion and a mutual Relation almost all through as will appear hereafter when we come to consider them particularly And these Observations and Maxims though they be put into distinct Chapters are yet all upon one Subject and belong to the same Science viz. That of Amending the Life of Man They are all directed to one and the same End which is To rouze and invigorate the Reasonable Soul that it may maintain its own Dignity and exert all its Powers in such Operations as are agreeable to uncorrupt Nature The Expressions are perspicuous and easie but yet it may not be amiss a little to explain and enlarge upon them and that as well for the Writer's own sake who by this means will be more sensibly affected and carried to a closer and deeper Consideration of the Truths contained in them as for the Reader 's Benefit who perhaps not being very conversant in such kind of Writings will be led into a more perfect Understanding of them by these Explanations Now the first Thing to be cleared upon this Occasion is What sort of Persons these Instructions were designed for and what Virtues especially they are capable of cultivating in the Men that submit to be directed by them And first it is plain they are not proper for the Man of Consummate Virtue who hath absolutely purged away all the Dregs of Humane Nature for he so far as his mortal State will admit of such Perfection makes it his Business to divest himself of Flesh and Sense and all the Appetites and Passions that attend and serve the Body and is entirely taken up with the Improvement of his own Mind Much less can they sute the Circumstances of a speculative Virtue which is a Degree still higher than the former For such a Person is exalted even above the Rational Life and attains to a sort of God-like Contemplation They are adapted then more peculiarly to an inferiour Rank who lead their Lives according to the Dictates of Reason and look upon the Body as an Instrument of Action contrived for the Use of the Soul That do not confound these two nor make Either a part of the Other nor the Body and Soul both as equally constituent parts of Humane Nature For he that supposes the Man strictly speaking to consist of Body as well as Soul hath a Vulgar Notion of Things is deprest and sunk down into Matter hath no more Pretensions to Reason than a Brute and scarce deserves the Name of Man He that would answer that Character in good earnest and assert the Dignity and Prerogative of his Nature by which God hath distinguished him from Beasts must take care to preserve his Soul as Nature requires it should be in a State of Superiority over the Body so as to use and manage it not as a part of the same common Nature out as an Instrument wholly at its Government and Disposal And such a Person as this is the proper Object of those Moral and Political Vertues which the following Discourses are intended to excite Men to That the Real Essence of a Man is his Rational Soul Socrates hath undertaken to demonstrate in that Dialogue which Plato gives us between him and his beloved Alcibiades And Epictetus proceeding upon this Foundation directs his Scholars what sort of Practices and Conversation are proper to make a Man thus framed by Nature perfect For as the Body gathers Strength by Exercise and frequently repeating such Motions as are natural to it so the Soul too by exerting its Powers and the Practice of such things as are agreeable to Nature confirms it self in Habits and strengthens its own natural Constitution I would not have the Reader take it ill to be detained a little longer from the following Discourses only whilst I present him with so necessary an Introduction to them as the explaining a little this Notion which Epictetus all along takes for a granted Truth viz. That the Real Essence of the Man is his Rational Soul which makes use of the Body as its Instrument of Action For Epictetus sets before us the Operations peculiar to such a Person and becoming his Character and then makes it his Business to excite all his Scholars to get a perfect-Knowledge and employ themselves in the constant Practice of them That by such daily Exercise we may as I said
Wisdom and Sobriety and worse by Perverseness and a Dissolute Behaviour and can confirm it self in each of these Courses by the frequent Repetition of Acts suitable to them then the Soul is the true Cause of all this Though in truth it must not be admitted for a general Rule neither That the Liberty and Power of the Will is to be judged of by Mens being able to do Things contrary to one another For those Souls that are immediately united to the Original Good prefer that constantly and yet the Freedom of their Choice is still the same for that Preference is no more constrained and necessary than if they took Evil instead of it But it is their Excellence and Perfection that they continue stedfast in their own Good and never suffer themselves to be drawn off to the contrary But as for our Souls which are more remotely descended from that great Original their Desires are according to their Tempers and Dispositions those of them that are well disposed have good Desires and those that are ill have evil ones But still these Souls of ours are capable of great Alterations they frequently recover themselves from Vice to Virtue by Reformation and better Care they decline too and sink down from Virtue to Vice by Supineness and a foolish Neglect and both these Changes are wrought in them by their own voluntary Choice and not by any Force or Necessity that compels them to it So that there can be no manner of Pretence for charging any part of our Wickedness upon God He created the Soul after such a manner indeed as to leave it capable of being corrupted because its Essence is not of the first and best sort of Natures but hath a Mixture of the middle and the lowest and this Mixture was fit that so all might remain in its Perfection and the first and best continue still such without degenerating into Barrenness and Imperfection and Matter God therefore who is infinitely good himself made the Soul in a Condition that might be perverted and it is an Argument of his Mercy and the exceeding Riches of his Goodness that he did so For he hath set it above the reach of all external Violence and Necessity and made it impossible for it to be corrupted without its own Consent There is one Argument more still behind which pretends That a fatal Revolution of the Heavens hath so strong and absolute a Power upon us as not only to influence our Actions but even to determine our Choice and all our Inclinationss and leave us no Liberty at all to dispose of our selves but only the empty Name of such a Liberty Now to these we may answer That if the Rational Soul be Eternal and Immortal which I shall not go about to prove that being foreign to this Subject but desire at present to take for granted though it must be confest not in all Points agreeable to the Doctrin of the Stoicks in this particular but If the Soul I say be Eternal and Immortal it cannot be allowed to receive its Being or to have its Dependance upon Matter and Motion It s Instrument indeed that is the Animal taken in the gross by which I mean the Body animated by the Soul may owe its Nature and its Changes to such Causes For material Causes produce material Effects and these may differ according as those Causes are differently disposed with regard to Things here below And the Instrument is formed so as to be proper and serviceable to the Soul whose Business it is to make use of it now as the difference of Tools teaches us to distinguish the several Professions that use them so as to say These belong to the Carpenter's those to the Mason's and others to the Smith's Trade and not only to distinguish the Trades themselves but the Skill and Capacity of the Artificers themselves to judge of their Designs and Intentions and the Perfection of the Work it self for those who are Masters of their Trade have better Tools and use them with greater Dexterity than others In like manner they who have attained to the Knowledge of Astrology find out the Nature and Temper of the Instrument the Body from the different Constitution of Material Causes and from hence make their Conjectures of the Disposition of the Soul and this is the Reason why they often guess aright For indeed the Generality of Souls when falling under ill Management and the Conversation of naughty Men a sort of Degradation inflicted upon them by way of Punishment for the loss of their primitive Purity addict themselves too much to the Body and are govern'd and subdu'd by it so as to use it no longer as their Instrument of Action but to look upon it as a part and piece of their own Essence and conform their Desires to its brutish Appetites and Inclinations Besides this Position and fatal Revolution of the Heavens carries some sort of Agreement to the Production of the Souls united to Bodies under it yet not so as to impose any absolute Necessity upon their Appetites and Inclinations but only to infer a Resemblance of their Temper For as in Cities there are some particular solemn Seasons and Places that give us good Grounds to distinguish the Persons assembled in them as the Days and Places of Publick Worship commonly call those that are wise and religious and well-disposed together and those that are set apart for Pomp and publick Sports gather the Rabble and the Idle and the Dissolute so that the observing these Solemnities gives us a clear Knowledge of the People that attend upon them By the same Reason the particular Seasons and Places the Houses and Conjunctions of the Planets may be able to give us some Light into the Temper of the Souls united to Bodies under them as carrying some Affinity to the Conjunctions under which Men are born For when God in his Justice hath ordained such a particular Position and all the Fatalities consequent to it then those Souls which have deserved his Vengeance are brought under that Position For Likeness and Affinity of Tempers hath a strange Power of bringing all that agree in it together This fatal Revolution then does by no means constrain or bind up the Soul nor take away its native Freedom but the Soul only bears some Resemblance to the Temper of this Revolution and is framed agreeably to such a Body as it self hath deserved to be given it for its Use and by this means gives Men an Opportunity of learning its particular Desires and Inclinations from the considering of the Consteilations that People are born under Again the Souls chuse their particular Ways of living according to their former Dignity and Disposition but still the behaving themselves well or ill in each of these Ways is left in their own Power And upon this Account we see many who have chosen a Way of Trade and Business and great Temptation yet continue very honest and good Men in it and
Bodies compounded of those Elements But farther If these Things contribute to some good Effect if by the infinite Revolutions of Matter and Motion the Corruption of one Thing produces the Generation of another how then can the Corruption of any single part be Evil when at the same time it conduces to the Benefit of the whole This is a Rule which Nature it self hath made evident to us and every particular Creature practises it in slighting the Advantage of its Parts in Comparison of the Good of the Whole Thus when any Noxious Humours are redundant in the Body Nature throws them off from the Heart or Bowels or Lungs or Brain and all the parts that are principally concern'd in the functions of Life into the Hands the Feet the Skin or any of the Extream Parts she raises Blisters and causes Putrefactions to remove the Humour and is content to corrupt some parts for the preservation of the whole This is sometimes I say the work of Nature and when it is not so we endeavour to supply it by art For when Physicians and Chyrurgeons draw Sores and Cup and Scarify and Sear and cut off Limbs to save our Lives they only imitate Nature and do that by Medicines which she was able to do without them And yet there is no Wise Man that blames these Methods nor thinks those Pains Evil which he suffers upon such good Accounts From hence it appears that if Bodies subsisted by themselves alone and whatever they endured had no relation at all to the Souls of Men none of the different Changes they undergo would be esteemed Evil So that if there be any real Cause for this Complaint it must be upon the account of the Souls in those Bodies Now some of these are Irrational perfectly of a piece with the Bodies and no more than the animating part of them Their Essence their Power and their Operations subsist in and depend entirely upon and are in inseparable Conjunction with the Body But others are Rational of a Nature superiour to the Body and distinct from it acting upon a free Principle of Motion and Choice a Principle of their own by which they dispose their own Inclinations and Desires as they see fit themselves all which hath been abundantly proved already Now the Irrational Souls have not the least Sign or Footstep of Free-Agency no manner of Tendency or Appetite from within but are only the principle of Life and Activity to the Body and Consequently their Being was ordained by the same Fate and is subject to the same Casualties with the Body They have no Dignity no Merit or Demerit of their own but are more or less valuable according to the Dignity of their respective Bodies and are as irresistibly disposed to their Motions as Shadows are to their Substances It is true indeed This is more peculiarly the Condition of Plants which have only a Vegetative Soul and want the Sensitive one and are not exercised with those Motions that accompany the Desires and vehement Impulses of the Soul But Beasts are in a higher Form and are endued with this also And therefore the Souls of Brutes being considered in a middle State in a Capacity Superiour to Vegetables and yet inferiour to such as Nature hath made free Agents must in all Reason have some Resemblance some Footsteps at least of Appetites and Affections arising from within and such as shall be moved sometimes in Agreement to the Nature of its particular Species and sometimes contrary to it As when a Lion hath that Courage and Fury agreeable to its kind and this is sometimes more and sometimes less than it ought to be And in this respect the Dignities and Degrees of such Souls are different and their Lives are so too according to the Disposition which Fate and Nature hath given them which is such that they are still moved mechanically and by external Impressions For it is necessary that whatever is placed between two Extremes should in some measure partake of each of these Extremes But now the Rational Soul which is a Free Agent and hath an absolute Dominion over her own Desires and Propensions derives its Dignity from Choice she uses the Body indeed but hath all its Appetites and Passions at her Devotion This Soul therefore when she makes use of the Body only as an Instrument of Action and maintains her own Superiority over it is obstructed in all those Operations in which the Body bears a part by the Sufferings and Diseases of the Body but is not it self at all affected with those Pains From whence it was that the great Socrates used to say the Anguish was in the Leg but not in the Mind But if the Soul contract too intimate a Familiarity with the Body and grow fond of it as if it were no longer its Instrument but a part of its self or rather its very self then it communicates in all its Afflictions degenerates into Brute and esteems all the Extravagancies of Anger and Desire its own is enslaved to them descends to little Trickings and is eternally contriving how to compass those Objects and being thus corrupted and diseased in such manner as a Soul is capable of being so stands in need of Physick and strong Remedies to cure these Distempers For it is a Rule in Application that one Contrary is cured by another And thus when the Desire is depraved by Lusciousness and Pleasure and hath conformed it self to the Body too much by the Love of Sensual Enjoyments and Riches and Honours and Preserments and Posts of Authority and the like there is a necessity of meeting with Crosses and Disappointments that so the subsequent Pain in the very same Instances may correct and chastise the Excess of Pleasure we formerly took in them And this is no where more requisite than in Bodily Pains and Pleasures For this is nearest to the Soul and its Torments are received with a quicker and more tender Sense than any other When therefore the Soul hath revolted from her Supreme Commander and forsakes her own Reason abandoning her self to the Body and the World and thinking their Enjoyments and their Happiness her own and by this means grows vitiated and distempered there seems no other way to be left of putting her out of Conceit with these Things and poising the Byass that carried her to them that so she may despise them and condemn her self and return to God and right Reason again and expect all her Happiness from an Obedience to these but by making her sensible both of the Evil of her former Courses and of the Smart that follows them This only can take off the Propensity to that Pleasure which she hath felt in and by them For so long as she continues to find this she continues fond of and fastened down to these Enjoyments And no Nail takes faster hold or fixes Things closer than Pleasure and the Allurements it brings do the Soul to the Objects that occasion it And this
and engaging one Party with another when they train together And the more lusty and strong the Persons are that perform these Exercises the more effectually does this Practice attain its End So that if any Man would get a Mastery over Pleasure it is necessary whenever any entertaining Objects offer themselves to learn and practise the Contempt of them and they that would conquer Pain must use themselves to endure it and to master our Fears we must make Danger familiar to us and to slight Torments we must imitate the Patience of the Noble Lacedemonian Youths who plaid Prizes of Scourging and exercised themselves in every Thing that was painful to qualifie them for it Or do as Salust in our Times did that laid a red-hot Coal upon his Thigh and blow'd the Fire to try how long he was able to undergo the Smart For these Tryals and the principal Actions they are intended to perfect us in do not differ in Nature and Kind but in Degree and Duration only as these are easier and lighter and may be desisted from at Pleasure Since therefore Almighty God when he disposed of Mens Souls in mortal Bodies and assigned them to the Condition in which we live at present endued them with Faculties capable of managing every Accident so as to receive no Injury either from the enticing Pleasures or from the Terrors and Disasters of the World and of setting the Mind above them all the same infinite Wisdom keeps those Faculties in Exercise that they should not grow sluggish and consequently feeble and slack for want of Action and puts the Soul upon many sharp Conflicts that when there is Occasion for exerting her Powers she may not be found Unexpert and Defective This is it which hath made so many illustrious Heroes This made Hercules and Theseus and Diogenes and Socrates to become Persons of such eminent Virtue and Renown Their Characters would have been little and their Excellencies lost nor would Mankind ever have known to what wonderful Perfection an exalted Virtue can carry them if there had been no such Things as Wild Beasts and Monsters Tyrants and wicked Oppressors Mortification and severe Abstinence to perpetuate these Mens Memory and provoke the Proofs of their Courage and Resolution and recommend their Examples to Posterity Now I think no Man that considers the Matter well will doubt whether Afflictions do not better those that have supported them as they ought and add infinitely to their Fortitude and Patience For since we see by the Instances of Gladiators and the like that Use reconciles Men to the most for midable Dangers and makes them a perfect Sport and Diversion insomuch that they enter the List cheerfully and play their Prizes for a very small Consideration how can we imagine that Exercise should fail in Matters of less Difficulty and enable Men to disdain those Calamities which only they esteem insupportable who have not hardned themselves by Practice From all which we may conclude that when we consider Afflictions either in the Quality of Remedies to cure our Distempers or as Tryals and Exercises to confirm our Health and Strength they cannot be Evil with respect to the Soul which receives such mighty Benefit both these ways how harsh and unpalatable soever the Application may seem For at this rate we must run into another intolerable Absurdity and condemn all those Medicines and Exercises as Evil in respect of the Body to which though they be grievous for the present all our Recovery and all the Continuance of our Health is owing Again Whatever is done in such Proportion and Manner as Nature and Choice both require cannot be Evil for a due regard to this is just and whatever is Just is Good Nay even Cutting and Burning is not Evil to our Bodies for these considered absolutely and by themselves are insensible and the Resolution of a Compound into its Simples is not in Nature Evil to that Compound Since then we allow that Physick and Exercise Burning and Binding and Lopping off of Limbs and all the Tortures that Men use when they turn their own Executioners are not Evil but Good since we think the Persons who put us to these Pains for our Advantage deserve to be thanked and rewarded for it why do we find Fault with Almighty God when he proceeds in the same Method For alas It is not Anger nor Revenge nor Injustice or Cruelty nor any Design of Tormenting us that puts him upon these Courses but he acts with all the Skill and prudent Care of a Physician with the Faithfulness and Tenderness of a Friend with the Bowels of a Father with the kindest Intentions of our greater Benefit and to say all in one Word with all that incomprehensible Love and Goodness which is any way agreeable to the Nature and Perfections of a God Now the Remedies he administers upon such Occasions are divers Some he humbles with Diseases or Poverty or Disgrace some with the more publick Calamities of Famines or Earthquakes or Inundations or Shipwracks or Wars some he cures with such Medicines as come immediately from his own Hand and others by more remote and distant ones making Men the Ministers of his Justice and Instruments of punishing one another But still if Physick and the Methods of Cure be not Evil but Good all these and all other Remedies must be allowed to be so too notwithstanding any Uneasiness that we may feel in the Operation If any one shall scruple the calling of these Things Good because they are not eligible purely for their own sakes as all Things absolutely and truly Good must be yet at least let him forbear stigmatizing them with the Name of Evils and rather call them necessary Expedients for the attaining what is truly Good In Order to which and for the sake whereof we chuse these because that other is not to be had without them For there is no Man so sottish and senseless as to chuse Amputations and Searings or any such violent Remedies for their own sakes but yet we do it from our Desire of Health which these means must be assisting to us in And indeed the Philosophers have with great Propriety styled all those Things necessary Expedients which are so ordered as to be preliminary to our Good and such as we must make use of for it These very Things then so far as they conduce to our Good and in that respect are themselves Good some as they contribute to the Health of the Body and others to that of the Soul though indeed they be so in a Qualified Sense only and much inferiour in Dignity and Value to those Tâ—ings that are absolutely Good And it is with regard to these more excellent Things that the Generality of People look upon them and so think them comparatively Evil which yet surely is a Censure too Severe to be justified if they do not only Contribute but are Necessary to our Happiness If then the Objector's Arguments are sufficiently refuted
in that all Things that happen are so ordained of God as that Nature and Choice have both their due and as is most beneficial to Mankind every Wise Man certainly will think himself obliged to be well content Things should be just as they are unless you will suppose him to envy the Giving every Thing its Due and the Recovering such as are Distempered and need sharp Remedies he will most sincerely love and honour and adore this Excellent Physician and look upon him as the World 's great and only Benefactor Now that Calamitous Circumstances are a sort of Remedies and that the Administration of proper Physick where the case requires it is good both to the Body and Soul no Body I presume will take upon them to dispute But what course shall we take to perswade Men that this very Distemper it self of Soul or Body this miserable Condition that renders such painsul Applications necessary is Good and not Evil and that the Author of it is not the Cause of Evil to us To this purpose I shall briefly recollect what was observed before That Diseases are not Evil to the Body it self as being by Nature made subject to them and tending to a dissolution of the Compound Resolving each of its Parts and Restoring the Simple Elements to their proper Masses the Releasing them from a strange place where they were kept in Bondage and putting an end to the perpetual Combat of opposite Qualities among them Neither can the Disease of the Body be Evil to the Soul for it hath been already shewn to be its Physick and its Cure And thus Experience often shews it to be But granted that Sickness and Corruption were injurious to one particular Body yet still it appears to be for the advantage of the Soul that owns that Body and to the Constitution of the Universe in general of the Elements of which it is formed and the infinite Râ—volutions of Matter and Motion which are therefore Infinite because the Destroying of one thing becomes the Production of another Well therefore may the wise Governour of all things not value a Creature which was by Nature corruptible and a particular inconsiderable Corruption confined to a single instance when the whole Creation is benefited and the Better Ends are served and the Eternal Revolution of Things are continued and kept up by this means But perhaps you will say though all this should be admitted with regard to the Body yet what shall we account for the Diseases of the Soul The frail and distempered State she is in can neither be for the good of her self that languishes under it nor does it contribute any Advantage to the Creation in common So that the Author and Ordainer of this state must needs be the Cause of Evil to her and he that is content she should be thus deprived and seâ—s and suffers her Sicknesses must needs be an Ill-natur'd Being and therefore as to this particular the Difficulty remains still the same Now in answer to this Scruple I beg leave to refresh your Memory with what was discoursed before concerning the Cause of Evil and Vice to the Soul while we were explaining Epictetus's Distinction between what is and what is not in our own power viz. That the Good and Happiness of the Soul consists in Prudent Regular Desires and Aversions and that the Evil and Misery of it proceeds from such as are Vicious and Exorbitant Now I hope the Desires and Aversions have been sufficiently proved to be in our own Disposal and if so then we our selves are the Cause of our own Vices and Virtues This is the true ground of all that Commendation which is thought due to Good Men that their Happiness and Excellence is the Effect of their own free Choice for which reason the Greeks call Virtue by a Name which bears some Affinity to that which imports Choosing And for the same Reason Wicked Men are Condemned and Reproached because they are such through their own Sloath and Baseness of Soul when it was in their own power to be otherwise But now if these Matters proceeded from any External Causes this Virtue or Vice would be no longer Choice but blind Chance or fatal Necessity And consequently our Evil and Misery can with no colouâ— of Reason and Justice be charged upon Almighty God May we not indeed drive this Argument a great deal farther and urge that even Vice which is properly the Disease of the Soul is not positively and in all respects Evil but is it self in some degree necessary to the very Being of Virtue among Men For as our Bodies if Nature had not made them capable of Sickness and Infirmities could not properly be said at any time to enjoy a state of Health because in truth this would not be Health but a simple and fix'd Disposition above the power of Frailties and Diseases such as the Celestial Beings enjoy So the Virtues proper to Humane Souls such as Temperance and Justice and Prudence and all the rest of that Glorious Catalogue would be no such thing unless the Soul were of such a Nature as is liable to be depraved For at this rate she would be graced not with the Virtues of a Man but with the Perfections of an Angel or a God whose peculiar Excellence it is that they can never be seduced or deviate into Vice But is rooted in the very Nature of Men and Humane Virtues that they may degenerate and be corrupted If then Human Virtues in the Soul and if the Health of the Body though neither of them absolutely Uniform and Inflexible be yet Good and if the Order of Nature required that beside the First Simple and Fix'd Beings others of a Middle and of Inferior Nature should derive themselves from the great Original and common Source of all Good then there was likewise a necessity that there should be Depravations of such good things as are subject to be Depraved which have not any positive and absolute Existence of their own but only a sort of additional one cast in to those that have And in this the exceeding Goodness of God is very remarkable that he hath ordained the Dissolution of the Body which as I said does as necessarily follow upon Matter and Motion as the Shadow attends upon its Substance this Dissolution he hath made even a good thing both with regard to the Bodies so Diseased and Dissolved as they are restored back again to their Primitive Elements and so the Simples out of which they are compounded are renewed and with regard to the Souls that own and use them as they are cured and made better by this Means and also to the Universe in common by reason of that infinite Succession of Changes and Motions which these Dissolutions as I shewed before keep continually on Foot But as for Vice the Evil of the Soul and indeed the only thing which when well considered proves to be Evil of this he utterly acquits himself and hath no
course we can take is to let the Incorrigible Wretch alone in his Wickedness and not discompose our selves but take care at least to save one But when he had proposed the highest pitch of Resolution and advised rather to choose Poverty and Death with Wisdom and Virtue than Plenty and Sollicitude without them and if a Man be driven to that hard Necessity rather to overlook the Vice and Ruin of one under his Care than to lose his own Happiness and undo himself by trying to preserve another to shew that Men must be wound up to this pitch by degrees and that he had a just regard to the Abilicies of his Scholar he advises them here to begin with less and gentler Tryals and such as the Condition of Young Beginners are capable of For Exercise and Practice in Matters of less Moment and Difficulty is a safe and a successful Method but when such things are look'd upon with Disdain and below ones Notice and a Man scorns the instances hereof his Oyl being spilled or his Wine stolen and will needs fly at all and attempt great Hardships at first he will fall under this double inconvenience neither to be a Match for what he encounters as having not made his way up to it gradually nor to receive that Benefit and Advantage that he might have done from those others which had he not slighted them would have qualified him for the Combat he hath lost for want of them For let us imagine that a Man without any preparation or previous practice in Matters of less consequence would needs all upon the spurt take upon him to rival Crates and divest himself of all his Possessions at once how is it possible that this Person should not immediately repent and condemn himself and wish Ten Thousand times that the thing were undone and he in his former Circumstances again For though Crates himself or Diogenes or Zeno or some other Eminent Philosopher may perhaps have made a sudden turn and brought themselves to extream Strictness and Virtue and voluntary Poverty without such leisurely advances yet still this is a thing that very rarely happens and that which is extraordinary is no rule for us to follow especially too when we consider that these were themselves very extraordinary Persons and consequently no proper Measure for others that are but of the common rate of Men to govern themselves by And after he had directed us how to make greater Losses and Misfortunes in our Estates easie and familiar to us by First despising those that are small and inconsiderable for the improvement and confirmation of our Virtue he instructs us which way to get above all the Discomposure and Passion that the Negligence or the Sauciness of our Servants may be apt to cast us into For he tells us we ought before-hand to represent to our selves that it is very possible your Servant may not give his Attendance when called upon or that if he answer to your Call he may not observe your Commands And that we should settle our Minds not to give him so great Advantage over us as the putting us into Disorder would be And this settling our Minds is very considerable in that the Inconvenience is in a great measure defeated by being foreseen For it is the suddenness of an Accident that is most apt to confound young Proficients this breaks their Measures puts them out of their Biass and beats them from their Posts But Premeditation keeps the Mind firm and cool it preserves our Thoughts and gives us the power and leisure to recollect and by Use and Custom prepares and arms the Mind against all those things which our Hopes and Imaginations represent most difficult and insupportable Now what a mighty Advantage this Preparation is and how much better we entertain any Accident when we are not surprised every Man 's own Consideration and Experience will inform him Nor is this the case of Misfortunes only but even of Pleasures and Good Fortune too when they come upon us unexpected Afflictions immediately overturn our Thoughts and cramp up the Faculties of Reason and put both Body and Soul out of Temper and Pleasures and Good Fortune when sudden and surprising scatter and dissolve them and enervate both Body and Mind From whence it comes to pass that these Causes though so very distant in themselves are yet attended with the same Effects and the same Symptoms plainly prove the Disease to be the same For an Excess either of Joy or Grief shocks the Constitution equally and throws us into Swoonings and Sweats and the loss of Sense sometimes even to Death it self But these things are so evident that they need no enlargement and therefore I rather choose to observe the Method Epictetus hath taken upon this occasion and the Improvements we may make of it When any Loss or Disappointment in our Affairs have happened to us he advises that we would compose our selves with this Reflection That Constancy and a Composed Mind are Treasures which must be bought and this it seems is the Price which we must pay for them But when our Servants provoke us either by being out of the way and not ready to receive our Commands or by being insolent and not obeying them the Remedy in this case is to prepare our Minds and consider before-hand that these were things very likely to happen This is the Method he prescribes but the improvement we may make of it is to joyn both these Directions together and apply them to either of the Cases indifferently For indeed we are no less obliged to receive any Losses whatsoever with all that Premeditation and shall find them infinitely lessened to us by Expectation and a possessing our Minds early with the Thought that these things may very probably happen to us And on the other Hand when we are incensed by the Negligence or the Disobedience of Servants or any other Provocation of that kind it will turn to very good account to recollect That Constancy and a Composed Mind are Treasures that will not come for nothing and this is the Price that we are to purchase them at Now the Reasons why Epictetus himself did thus apply both indifferently seem to be That the Instances produced by him of Oyl spilled and a little paltry Wine stolen are too mean and trivial to need the solemnity of any such Preparation and that in Matters so small a short Recollection is sufficient after the thing hath happened And not only so but because in things of less Consideration the prospect of the Gain and comparing the Price with the Purchase is abundantly enough to prevail upon the Soul For what occasion can there be of Grudging or Discontent when for such a Trifle as a little Oyl or Wine lost a Man hath it in his power to receive a thing so valuable as Constancy and a Composed Mind by way of Exchange Nay and not only to procure this for once and no more but to gain the
degree comparable to this Freedom of the Will For in truth there is no Thing no Priviledge in this lower World so desirable And there is no Body so stupid and lost as to wish that he were a Brute or a Plant rather than a Man And therefore since God displayed the Abundance of his Goodness and Power in giving Perfections inferior to this how inconsistent would it have been with that Bounty of his not to have bestowed this most excellent Priviledge upon Mankind Besides as hath been intimated formerly take away this Undetermined Propension of the Soul by which it inclines it self to Good or Evil and you undermine the very Foundations of all Virtue and in effect destroy the Nature of Man For if you suppose it impossible to be perverted to Vice you have no longer any such thing as Justice or Temperance or any other Virtue left the observing of these things may be the Excellence of an Angel or a God but impeccable and indefectable Goodness can never be the Virtue of a Man From whence it is plain that there was a necessity of leaving the Soul in a capacity of being Corrupted and of committing all that Evil consequent to such Depravation because otherwise a Gap had been left in the Creation there could have been no Medium between the Blessed Spirits above and Brutes below no such thing as Humane Nature nor Humane Vertue in the World So then we allow that this Self-determining Power by which Men are depraved is a thing of God's own Creation and appointment and yet consider withal how necessary this is to the Order and Beauty of the Universe and how many good Effects it hath In other respects we can by no means admit that he should be traduced as the Cause and Author of Evil upon this account When a Surgeon lays on a Drawing Plaister to ripen a Swelling or Cuts or Sears any part of our Bodies or lops off a Limb no Man thinks he takes these Methods to make his Patient worse but better because Reason tells us that Men in such Circumstances are never to be cured by less painful Applications Thus the Divine Justice in his deserved Vengeance suffers the Passions of the Soul to rage and swell so high because he knows the condition of our Distemper and that the smarting sometimes under the wild Suggestions of our own furious Appetites is the only way to bring us to a better Sense of our Extravagance and to recover us of our Phrensy 'T is thus that we suffer little Children to burn their Fingers that we may deter them from playing with Fire And for the same Reasons many wise Educators of Youth do not think themselves oblig'd to be always thwarting the Inclinations of those under their Charge but sometimes connive at their Follies and give them a loose there being no way so effectual for the purging of these Passions as to let them sometimes be indulged that so the Persons may be cloyed and nauseate and grow Sick of them And in these Cases it cannot be said that either those Parents and Governors or the Justice of God is the Cause of Evil but rather of Good because all this is done with a Vertuous Intent For whatever tends to the Reformation of Manners or confirming the Habits of Virtue may be as reasonably called Virtuous as those things that are done in order to the Recovery and Continuance of Health may be called wholsome For Actions do principally take their denomination and quality from the End to which they are directed So that although God were in some measure the Cause of this necessity we are in of deviating from Goodness vet cannot Moral Evil be justly laid at his Door But how far he is really the cause of our Deflection from our Duty I shall now think it becomes me to enquire God does not by any Power or immediate Act of his own cause that Aversion from Good which the Soul is guilty of when it Sins but he only gave her such a power that she might turn her self to Evil that so such a Species of free Agents might fill avoid Space in the Universe and many good effects might follow which without such an Aversion could never have been brought about God indeed is truly and properly the Cause of this Liberty of our Wills but then this is a Happiness and a Priviledge infinitely to be preferred above whatever else the World thinks most valuable and the Operation of it consists in receiving Impressions and determining it self thereupon not from any Constraint but by its own mere Pleasure Now that a Nature thus qualified is Good I cannot suppose there needs any proof we have the Confession of our Adversaries themselves to strengthen us in the Belief of it For even they who set up a Principle of Evil declare they do it because they cannot think God the Author of Evil and these very Men do not only acknowledge the Soul to be of his forming but they talk big and pretend that it is a part of his very Essence and yet notwithstanding all this they own it capable of being vitiated but so as to be vitiated by its self only For this is the manifest consequence of their other Tenets that it depends upon our own Choice whether we will overcome Evil or be overcome by it that the Vanquished in this Combat are very justly punished and the Victors largely and deservedly rewarded Now the truth is when they talk at this rate they do not well consider how directly these Notions contradict that irresistible necessity to Sin which they elsewhere make the Soul to lye under But however whether the Soul be depraved by its own Foolish Choice or whether by some fatal Violence upon it from without still the being naturally capable of such depravation is agreed on all Hands for both sides confess it to be actually depraved which it could never be without a natural Capacity of being so Therefore they tell us the First Original Good is never tainted with Evil because his Nature is above it and inconsistent with any such Defect as are also the other Goodnesses in the next degreee of Perfection to him such as in their Cant are called the Mother of Life the Creator and the Aeones So then these Men acknowledge the depravable Condition of the Soul they profess God to be the Maker of it and to have set it in this Condition and yet it is plain they think the nature of the Soul depravable as it is Good and not Evil because at the same time that they ascribe this Freedom of the Will to God they are yet superstitiously fearful of ascribing any Evil to him And this I think may very well suffice for the Nature and Origin of Evil. Let us now apply our selves to consider the Passage before us and observe how artificially Epictetus hath comprised in a very few Words the substance of those Arguments which we have here drawn out to so great a length
the Soul be affected with it or move towards it and the Evil must be disapproved before she flee from it Though indeed the Stoicks have advanced a contrary Method and represented the Affections by which the Soul is carried to or from its Object as if they were antecedent to Desire and Aversion thus considering these Affections as the beginnings and immediate Causes of those Desires and Aversions in the Soul But after all the brutish Inclinations such particularly as Anger and Sensual Appetite are so much of a piece with the Body so closely and manifestly interwoven with the Blood and Animal Spirits that they seem to grow from the particular Complexions and Constitutions of Men. So that these must of necessity derive their Motion from an External Cause in great measure and cannot be perfectly at their own disposal nor under the absolute mastery of the Persons thus desiring c. though they are begun too and proceed Originally from within And not only so but the Rational Soul itself when subdued by the Body and the brutish impulses of Sense does in a great degree degenerate into Machine is violently agitated drawn and managed at pleasure and loses much of its native liberty and power But when it acts in agreement with Nature and Reason it maintains an absolute freedom and moves only by an Internal Principle of its own In a Mind thus regularly disposed it is very easie to discern how much we have in our own Power though in the former instance of a disorderly Mind the case be somewhat intricate and perplexed But however in order to a more exact understanding of the whole Matter both what this Liberty and Power is and what Objects it extends to as also to shew that all the Happiness and Misery of a Man's Life depends upon the use or the abuse of this Liberty I will trace the thing up to its first Cause and examine the whole matter particularly The Sourse and Original of all things is Good for indeed that must needs be both the Cause and Beginning and the End and Consummate Perfection of all in which all Desires Center and to which all things naturally tend Now this Good forms and produces all things out of its own fullness both the most excellent the middle sorâ— and the last and lowest rank of Beings The First and most excellent bear the closest affinity to it self are of a piece with it as it were and express Images of it Thus one Good Being produces many Good Beings one simple and uncompounded Being Independent and Supream produces many other simple Beings like it self one Principle produces many Principles And this One this Simple Being this Principle and this Good are but so many several Names for God who is before all things and the cause of all things Now whatever is First must of necessity be the Purest and most Simple Being for all compounded Things and Numbers are after the Simple and unite in order of Nature and inferior to them in Dignity And all Compounds and Things not Good do desire the Good as something above and better than themselves And whatever is not Self-existent must have received its Being from something else So that the First Principle and Original Cause must have all Absolute and Infinite Power the Excellence of which consists and its Exuberance is seen in the Production of all things from it self and giving to those that resemble its own Perfections the Precedence before others that bear no such Resemblance to it And hence it is that one common Principle produces many Principles many Simple Beings many Goodnesses immediately from it self and its own fulness Thus all Beings which are distinguished from one another by their own peculiar Differences and multiplied into several Species according to the particular Forms and Circumstances in which they differ are yet each of them reducible to one Principle more properly their own All things Beautiful and Lovely for instance of what kind soever that Loveliness and Beauty be or what Object soever it belong to whether Bodies or Souls are yet derived from one common Sourse of Beauty and Gracefulness The case is the same with all manner of Congruities and all Truths and all Principles for these so far forth as they are Principles and Originals to other things do exactly agree and are of the same Nature with that primary Goodness and original Truth and first Principle of all allowing only for some Abatements and taking that Agreement in such Proportions as the capacity of these derived and secondary Causes will admit For the same relation that that first Universal Principle bears to all Beings in general the same does each of these Subordinate Principles bear to the several Species and Individuals contained under it and partaking of the Property peculiar to it For every Species which is distinguished from the rest by a peculiar difference of its own must needs have a tendency to and terminate in its proper Principle from whence one and the same Form is reflected down upon all the particular Kinds and Creatures comprehended under it Thus an Unit is the Foundation of all Numbers and a single Cause is the Original of all Properties in this vast Variety of Beings So that all partial and subordinate Causes do really subsist and are contained in the first and universal one and this not locally or numerically but essentially and virtually as the Parts in the Whole as Generals in a Singular and as Numbers in an Unit. For this indeed is it self All Above and Before All and out of one Principle many Principles grow and in one Common Good many Goodnesses subsist and dwell Nor is this Principle a limited or particular one as for instance a Principle of Beauty or Gracefulness or Goodness or Truth as each of the rest are but simply and universally a Principle or Cause a Principle not only of Species and Beings but even of all other Principles too For the Property of a Principle cannot take its Rise from Particulars and from many but must center at last in an Unit and that One is the great Original of All the first Beginning and Cause of Causes Now the first and immediate Productions of this first Original Good are of the same Kind and Nature with it self They retain their Native Goodness and like that from whence they spring are fixed and unchangeable rooted and confirmed in the same Happiness they stand in need of no additional Good from abroad but are themselves naturally and essentially Good and Happy Now all other Beings whose Descent from that one original Good is more remote and who derive themselves from that First and these Secondary Causes in Conjunction lose that Perfection of being Essentially Good and enjoy what they have by participation only Fixed indeed they are in God's Essential Goodness and therefore he continually communicates it to them But the last and lowest sort which have no power of acting or moving themselves as Bodies for
Example as to their Existence and Motion is something without and what themselves are purely passive in so likewise is all their Good owing to something without them too And that their Motion and Existence is from without is plain because they have no discerning or governing Faculty they are subject to perpetual change and division and consequently cannot be present to themselves in every part so as to be all in all or produce themselves entire at once Nor have they any power of moving themselves as being in their own Nature void of Spirit and Life But now there is a middle state between these Extremes a sort of Beings inferior to that fixed immutable nature which is always consistent with it self and yet superior to the Lowest and Mechanical sort And these are moved yet not in the same manner with Bodies by a Motion impressed upon them from something else but by one internal and purely theirs And in this capacity are Souls Masters of their own and the Bodies motion to which they are united For which reason we call all those Bodies that are set into motion by a principle from within Animate and those that have none but what proceed from something without Inanimate Bodies So then the Soul gives motion both to itself and to the Body for if it received its own motion from something without and after that put the Body into motion this motion of the Body could not without any propriety of Speech be imputed to the Soul but would be wholly owing to that which first moved the Soul Now this free Being is beneath the fix'd and unchangeable Goodness and enjoys its Good by participation only and so is carried towards it but this by no Foreign Force but by its own Spontaneous Act it s own Inclinations and Desires For Inclinations and Desires and Affections and Choice are Motions proper to Souls and entirely their own Now of these the first and best being the immediate production of things Essentially and in their own nature good though with this abatement that they are not so themselves but only are desirous of Good yet they bear so near a Relation to them that they desire it with a natural and unchangeable Affection their Choice is ever uniform and consistent determined to the good part and never perverted to the worse And if by Choice we mean the preferring of one thing before another they can scarce be allowed to have any unless you will call it so because they ever take the chiesest and most perfect Good But the Souls of Men are so contrived as to link together into one Person a Heavenly and an Earthly Nature and consequently must be capable of inclining to both sides of soaring upwards or sinking downwards When they make the former their constant care their Desires and their Determinations are uniform and free and above Contradiction but when they lose this power all is inverted and out of course because they employ themselves wholly upon pursuing mean ends and only affect low Actions whereas Nature hath qualified them for the animating and moving of Bodies inanimate and purely passive and for governing those things which are incapable of procuring or partaking of any Good by their own Act and giving them a power not only of acting to please themselves but of putting other things into action at pleasure too which otherwise are not capable of any such thing Now when the Soul hath conversed too familiarly and addicted her self too much to Temporal and Corruptible things such as have but a perishing and transitory Good in them her Choice is no longer above Contradiction but attended with many Struggles and strong Oppositions directed still indeed to Objects eligible and good but then this is sometimes a real Good and sometimes a treacherous and deceitful one which upon the account of some Pleasure attending it prevails upon us And because this is most certain that true Good is always attended with true Pleasure hence it is that wherever the Soul discovers the least shadow of this she catches at it greedily without staying to consider of what kind the Pleasure is whether real and agreeable to that Good which is truly so or whether it be false and only carries a counterfeit face of Good never recollecting neither that it is necessarily attended with many Troubles and great Uneasinesses and would not be Pleasure without these to introduce and recommend it to us For he that takes pleasure in eating would have none if he had not first been Hungry nor would Drinking give a Man any but for the Thirst that afflicted him before Thus Unasiness and Pain is the constant Attendant of Pleasure and ever mingled with it So that if you suppose any Pleasure in Drinking you shall find that it comes from some remains of Thirst for the Pleasure lasts no longer than while the pain continues with it So long as we are Hungry or Dry or Cold or the like the Meat and Drink and Fire that allays these uneasinesses are agreeable to us but when once the Sense of those Pains ceases we quickly grow weary and have too much of them And what before gave satisfaction and relief soon becomes our loathing and aversion and is it self a pain to us Thus also the Men who suffer themselves to be carried away into inordinate and extravagant Enjoyments and make Pleasure the only End and Business of their Lives generally undergo a great deal of trouble and uneasiness along with it Now the Choice of this pleasant treacherous Good is the cause of all our Faults as on the contrary the Choice of true substantial Good is the Foundation of all our Vertues And indeed all the Good and Evil of our whole Lives the Happiness and Misery of them depend upon this freedom of Will and power of Choice in us For when the Will is disingaged when it proceeds from a free principle and its determinations are properly the acts of that Rational Soul of which our very Essence and Nature consists then it is directed to Objects truly Eligible and Good And for this reason Vertue which is the proper Happiness and Perfection is called in Greek * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. a Name which hath great affinity to a Word that signifies Eligible not only because Vertue is properly the Object but also because it is the effect of our own Choice But when the Will acts in compliance with the brutish Appetites and Inclinations and proposes their Enjoyments to it self as its own Happiness then it makes an ill Choice and fixes upon counterfeit Good instead of true So that all this Freedom and Choice is in our own disposal For the Opinions and Affections of the Soul its Inclinations and Aversions are but so many Steps towards Choice and all terminate in that at last and these are properly the motions of the Mind arising from within and not from any violent impulses from without us So that we our selves
many that profess Philosophy and the Improvement of Wisdom and Virtue are yet of very loose Conversation notwithstanding all the Advantages of such an Employment For the different Methods of Life as that of Husbandry or Merchandise or Musick or the like are chosen by the Soul according to her former Disposition and Mens Station in the World is assigned them suitable to their Dignity and Deserts But the Management of themselves in any of these Callings is the Choice and Work of the Soul afterwards and we do not so much blame or commend Men for their Callings themselves as for their different Behaviour in them Farther yet This fatal Position or Revolution does never as some Men too boldly affirm it does cause any thing of Wickedness in us so as to make it necessary that Men born under it should be Knaves and Cheats adulterous or addicted to beastly and unnatural Lusts For though the Casters of Nativities sometimes say true when they foretell these Things yet this only happens according as we receive particular Qualities or Impressions which is done sometimes in a moderate and sometimes in an immoderate Degree And it is not the Insluence of the Stars but the Corruption of the Mind that makes Men Knavish or Lascivious or Unnatural and Brutish Those that receive these Insluences moderately and do not assist them by their own Depravity are Cautious and Wary correct the Heats of Youth and use it vertuously but those that receive them immoderately that is give way to them and promote them debase and prostitute themselves to all manner of Wickedness And what a Reflection upon Nature is this For even that which is most beneficial to us may turn to our Prejudice by a perverse Use of it The Sun gives us Light it both makes Things visible and enables us to see them And yet if a Man will be so foolish as to take too much of it to gaze upon his Rays when they shine in their full Strength he may lose his Eye-sight by his Folly But then that Folly and not the Brightness of the Sun is to be blamed if that which is the Author of Light to all the World be the Occasion of Blindness and Darkness to him Now when the Astrologers have as they think formed to themselves certain Marks and Rules whereby to know who will receive these Impressions in a due measure and who in a vicious Excess then they pronounce some Men Wise and others Subtle and Knavish accordingly Though after all I very much doubt Whether the erecting of any Schemes can furnish them with such Marks of Distinction or no. Some Things indeed are so manifest that all the World must allow them as that when the Sun is in Cancer our Bodies feel excessive Heat but some again are exceeding dark and doubtful and such as none but those who have made themselves Masters of Astrology can make any thing of Now that those Things which act constantly according to the Design and Directions of Nature that preserve the Original Constitution given them at first by their Great Creator and are endued with the greatest Power and Strength that such Things I say always act upon a good Design and properly speaking are never the Cause of any Evil seems to me very plain For all Evil is occasioned not by the Excess but by the Want of Power and if it were not so Power ought not to be reckoned among those Things that are Good And yet it is as plain that even Good Things in Excess oftentimes prove hurtful to us but then that Hurt is not owing to the Things but to our Selves And thus much may suffice in Answer to them who deny the Freedom of the Will upon the Pretence of any Fatality from the Motion or Position of the Heavens †If this Argument seem obscure in some of the Parts of it that must be imputed to the dark Notions of the Old Philosophers upon this Matter and the Superstitious Regard they had to Judicial Astrology which Simplicius himself is content only so far to comply with as to allow some considerable Influence of the Heavens upon the Bodies and Tempers of Men and that Stroke which the Complexions of People have in forming the Dispositions of their Minds Some Passages there are too which proceed upon the Hypotheses of the Pre-existence and Transmigration of Souls and their being provided with Bodies of Good or Bad Complexions here according to their Merits or Demerits in some former State But in truth this whole Notion of Judiciary Astrology is now very justly exploded as groundless and fantastical and many Modern Philosophers have proved it by very substantial Arguments to be no better See particularly Gassend in his Animadversions on the 10th Book of Diogenes Laertius But indeed to all who deny this Liberty upon any Argument whatsoever it may be replied in general That those who go about to destroy it do by no means consider or understand the Nature of the Soul but overthrow its very Original Constitution without seeming to be sensible of it For they take away all Principle of Internal and Self-Motion in which the Essence of the Soul chiefly consists For it must be either moved of its own Accord and then it is excited by a Cause within its self to its Appetites and Affections and not thrust forward and dragg'd along as Bodies are or else it is moved by an External Force and then it is purely Mechanical Again They that will not allow us to have our Actions at our own Disposal do not attend to nor are able to account for the Vital Energy of the Soul and its Assenting and Dissenting Accepting or Rejecting Power Now this is what Experience and Common Sense teaches every Man that he hath a Power of Consenting and Refusing Embracing and Declining Agreeing to or Denying and it is to no purpose to argue against that which we feel and find every Moment But all these are internal Motions begun in the Soul it self and not violent Impulses and Attractions from Things without us such as Inanimate Creatures must be moved by For this is the Difference between Animate and Inanimate Bodies that the one Sort are moved by an Internal Principle and the other are not Now according to this Distinction that which puts the Inanimate into Motion must have a Principle of Motion of its own and cannot it self be moved Mechanically For if this derived its Motion from something else too then as was urged before the Body is not moved by this but by that other cause from whence the Motion is first imparted to this and so the Body being moved no longer from within but by some forcible impression from without as all other Inanimate Creatures are must it self be concluded Inanimate Once more By denying that we have power over our Actions and a liberty of Willing or not Willing of Considering Comparing Choosing Defining Declining and the like all Moral Distinctions are lost and gone and Virtue
and Vice utterly confounded there is no longer any such ground left for Praise or Dispraise Applause or Reproach Rewards or Punishments the Laws of God and Man instituted for those Purposes and enforced by these Sanctions are evacuated and the very Foundations of them all torn up and quite overturn'd And then do but consider how dismal the Consequences must be for when once we are come to this pass all Order and Society must needs be lost and nothing left us but a Life of Rapine and Violence of Misery and Confusion a Life not of Civilized Men but of Ravenous and Wild Beasts But I expect that the Adversaries of this Opinion will appeal back again to our own Experience and urge afresh What do we not often find our selves by the Tyranny of Ill Men and the over-bearing Torrent of our own Passions and the strong event of Natural Sympathies and Antipathies Do not these compel us to do and suffer many things against our Wills and such as no Man in his Senses would choose if it were in his power to avoid To this my Answer is still the same That notwithstanding all this our Liberty is not destroyed but the Choice upon these Occasions is still free and our own For here are Two things proposed and though the side we take be not eligible for its own sake and when considered absolutely yet it is so with regard to the present streights we are in and when compared with something which we avoid by this means and for this Reason it is that we make choice of it And it is utterly impossible that a Man should be carried to do any thing without the consent of his own Mind for he that seems to do a thing without his own Choice is like a Man that is thrust down a Precipice by some stronger Hand which he cannot resist and this Person is at that time under the circumstance of an Inanimate Creature he does not act at all but is purely passive in the case So that when we really do act though with never so great unwillingness and reluctancy yet still we choose to act after such and such a manner This is further evident from Men's own practice for we find that several Persons take several ways when yet the necessity that lies upon them is the same Some choose to comply with what is imposed upon them for fear of enduring some greater Evil if they refuse it and others again are peremptory in the refusing it as looking upon such compliance to be a greater Evil than any Punishment they can possibly undergo upon the account of their refusal So that even in those Actions that seem most involuntary there is still a place for Liberty and Choice For we must distinguish between what is Voluntary and what is Free That only is Voluntary which would be chosen for its own sake but that is Free when we have power to choose not only for its own sake but for the sake of avoiding some greater Mischief And indeed there are some cases in which we find both something Voluntary and something Involuntary meet for which Reason those are properly called Mix'd Actions that is when what is Eligible upon these Occasions 't is not simply and absolutely so but carries something along with it which we should never choose if we could help it And Homer very elegantly described this perplexity of Thought and this mixture of Voluntariness and Involuntariness in the Soul when he says to this purpose Great Strife in my divided Breast I find A Will consenting yet unwilling Mind These things I thought fit the rather to enlarge upon because almost all the following Pook depends upon this distinction of the things in our own power For the Design of it being wholly Moral and Instructive he lays the true Foundation here at first and shews us what we ought to place all our Happiness and all our Unhappiness in and that being at our own Disposal and endued with a Principle of Motion from within we are to expect it all from our own Actions For things that move Mechanically and necessarily as they derive their Being from so they owe all their Good and Evil they are capable of to something else and depend upon the Impressions made upon them from without both for the thing it self and for the degree of it But those Creatures that act freely and are themselves the cause of their own Motions and Operations receive all their Good and Evil from these Operations Now these Operations properly speaking with regard to Knowledge and Speculative Matters are their Opinions and Apprehensions of things but with regard to Desirable Objects and Matters of Practice they are the Appetites and Aversions and the Affections of the Soul When therefore we have just Ideas and our Notions agree with the things themselves and when we apply our Desires and our Aversions to such Objects and in such measures as we ought to do then we are properly happy and attain to that Perfection which Nature hath designed us for and made peculiar to us but when we fail in these Matters then we fail of that Happiness and Perfection too Now by our own Works I mean such as are wrought by our selves only and need nothing more to effect them but our own Choice For as to our Actions that concern things without us such as Sciences and Trades and supplying the Necessities of Humane Life and the making our selves Masters of Knowledge and the instructing others in it or any other Employments and Professions that give us Credit and Reputation in the World these are not entirely in our own power but require many Helps and external Advantages in order to the compassing of them But the regulating of our Opinions and our own Choices are properly and entirely our own Works and stand in need of no Foreign Assistances So that our Good and Evil depends upon our selves for this we may be sure of that no Man is accountable for those things that do not come within the compass of his own power But our Bodies Possessions Reputations Preferments and Places of Honour and Authority and in short every thing besides our own Actions are things out of our own power The Reason why these are said to be out of our own Power and Disposal is not because the Mind hath no part in them or contributes nothing towards them for it is plain that both our Bodies and our Estates are put into a better or a worse Condition in proportion to that provident Care the Soul takes of them or the Neglect she is guilty of with regard to them The Soul does also furnish Occasions for the acquiring Credit and Fame and by her Diligence and Wisdom it is that wâ— attain to Posts of Greatness and Government For indeed there could be no such thing as the exercise of Authority especially as the World goes now without the Choice and Consent of the Soul But because these things are not totally at
And consequently That our Fears and Troubles concerning it do not come from the Thing it self but from a disquieting Persuasion of its being evil with which we possess and disorder our own Minds And such a Persuasion there may very well he though there be no Ground for it in the Nature of the Thing For Honey is not bitter and yet Men in the Jaundice that have their Palates vitiated from a constant Bitterness occasioned by the overflowing of the Gall are prejudiced against it as if it were so Now as the only way to bring these Persons to discern Tastes as they really are is to carry off that Redundancy of Choler which corrupts their Palate so in this Case we must remove the Distemper of the Mind correct our Notions of Things and make a right Judgment of what is really Good and Evil to us by just Distinctions between Things that Are and Things that Are Not in our own Power what is properly ours and what belongs not to us For according to this Rule if Death be none of the Things in our Power it cannot be evil and though it should be granted such with regard to the Body yet if it do not extend to the Soul nor do that any Harm it cannot be evil to us Plato indeed or Socrates as he is introduced by Plato goes a great deal farther and boldly affirms that it is Good and much to be preferred before this Life that we lead in the Body and this not only to some Persons and in some Circumstances as Men may be better or worse but in general and without Exception to all For thus Socrates expresses himself in his Phoedon It may possibly surprize you and seem a strange Paradox That this should be the only Accident that is good at all Times and without any Reserve but yet so it is In all other Cases nothing happens to a Man which as his Circumstances may alter he might not at another time better be without But no Time no Circumstance whatsoever can render it more for a Man's Advantage to Live than to Dye And Plato in his Book concerning Laws speaking in his own Person delivers himself to this purpose If I may be allowed to speak my Opinion freely it is really my Judgment that the Continuation of Soul and Body together upon no Consideration ought rather to be chosen than the Separation and Dissolution of them Now Epictetus 't is true hath drawn his Argument from that which is generally esteemed the most formidable Evil that we are capable of suffering But however since most of us when we lye under the present Smart of any Calamity straitway imagine it worse than Death for what can be more usual than for People in Pain and very often in no great Extremity of it neither to wish for Death to deliver them from it and when reduced to Poverty to tell us they had much rather be Dead than Live in Want upon this Account we may apply Epictetus's Argument to these Instances also As to Pain What Degree of it is there so violent that Men nay even those of low and vulgar Spirits are not content to go through to cure a dangerous Disease They do not only Endure but Chuse and Pray for it They thank their Physicians for putting them to Torture and look upon Cutting and Burning as Acts of the greatest Tenderness and Friendship Now though this makes it pretty plain that Men who are well pleased to purchase Life so dear must needs be of Opinion that no Pain is so terrible to Humane Nature as Death yet the principal Use I would make of this Observation is to shew that Men can really suffer with great Patience and Resolution can harden themselves against what they count very dreadful and meet it with a composed Countenance when once they are persuaded that the enduring it will be for their Advantage What prodigious Instances of Patience were the Lacedemonian Youths who endured Scourgings so barbarous as almost to expire under the Rod and all this merely for a little Ostentation and Vain-glory Now this it is evident they did not out of any Compulsion but freely and cheerfully for they offer'd themselves to the Tryal of their own Accord And the Reason why they held out so obstinately was not that their Sense of Pain was less quick and tender than other Peoples though more hard'ned too than People that indulge themselves in Effeminacy and Ease but because they thought it their Glory and their Virtue to suffer manfully and resolutely For the same Reason Epictetus would tell you that Poverty is no such formidable Thing neither because he can produce the Example of Crates the Theban to the contrary who when he disposed of all he was worth to the Publick and said Let others keep or mourn lost store Crates own Hands make Crates poor That Moment put an End to his Slavery and that his Freedom commenced from the time he had disburdened himself of his Wealth Now the manifest Consequence of all this is That nothing of this kind is terrible and insupportable in its own Nature as we fondly imagine so far from it that there may be some Cases when they are much more eligible and better for us I mean when they are converted to higher and more excellent Purposes for our own Selves by tending to the Advantage and Improvement of the Reasonable Soul The only Expedient to retain an Even Temper in the midst of these Accidents is to possess our Minds with just Notions of them and the regulating of these Notions is in our own Power consequently the preventing those Disorders that proceed from the Want of such a Regulation is in our own Power too And one great Advantage to Persons thus disposed will be The Learning how to manage those Things that are not at our Disposal as though they were For if it be not in my Power to prevent Defamation or Disgrace the Loss of my Goods or my Estate Affronts and violent Insults upon my Person yet thus much is in my Power to possess my self with right Apprehensions of these Things to consider them not only not as Evils but sometimes the Instruments and Occasions of great Good Now such an Opinion as this makes it almost the same Thing to a Man as if they did not happen at all or which is all one makes him think himself never the Worse but sometimes the Better for them when they do And I take it for granted that every Wise Man will allow it more for Our that is for the Souls Honour and Advantage to have behaved our Selves gallantly under Afflictions than never to have been afflicted at all And the greater these Afflictions were the greater in proportion still is the Honour and Advantage gained by them For as to Bodies that are able to bear it the violentest Motions exercise them best and make greatest Improvements of Health and Strength and Activity so the Mind too must be put upon sharp Tryals
immediate Discoveries of Heaven for the benefit and support of Mankind such as Physick and Architecture and the like we have no more than some faint Shadows and imperfect Images remaining How I say is it possible that these and many other Calamities and monstrous Wickednesses which the present Age is perfectly overrun with should be matter of Pleasure or Contentment And who is there that can take Satisfaction I do not say in seeing or bearing a part in them but so much as to endure the very hearing them named except he be first forsaken of all Humanity and all Goodness Such Doubts as these which give sometimes great Perplexity not only to the Weak and Common Man but to the Thinking and more Accomplished Persons will receive satisfaction if either Epictetus be allowed to have any Authority in what he says or the great Governor of all things be granted to order the World in Wisdom and Justice For our Piety and our Advantage will be sure to terminate in the same Object as Epictetus himself will assure us more fully hereafter In answer therefore to the Objection I say That if all these deplorable Accidents which the Objector hath given so Tragical an Account of be really Evil and such as they are generally esteemed to be it is not possible that either any Good Man should without forfeiting that Character be pleased to have them so nor could the Providence of Almighty God be acquitted from the Imputation of being the cause of Evil to us nor could Men ever prevail with themselves to Honour or Love or pay Adoration to such a Deity For let Men pretend what they will no Arguments in the World are able to produce these Affections for the Author of Misery and Mischief It is a Principle rooted in every Creature as Epictetus will shew you to hate and decline and run away from all things that are prejudicial to it themselves or the cause of other things being so to it But whatever is for its Benefit and productive of its Happiness these things it naturally courts and admires Thus much is certain upon supposition that these Accidents are really Evil but now if notwithstanding our dreadful Apprehensions of them they be in truth no such matter but rather Good as conducing very much to some mighty Benefit and directed to excellent Purposes and that if any Evil do indeed attend these Dispensations this is what the Nature of the things is no way concern'd in but is wholly owing to the Desires and strong Impulses of our own Minds In this case it will by no means follow that he who is well enough pleased all things should be just as they are is either a Vicious or a Barbarous Man nor can we with any colour charge the Evil we find in the World upon these Occasions to Almighty God but must acquit his Providence and acknowledge it to be infinitely Wise and Good Now the Things in which all these seeming Evils are and from whence they spring must be considered in this Condition of Mortality and undergoing the vicissitudes of Generation and Corruption either as Bodies or Souls And of these Souls again some are Irrational of the same Date and Duration with the Body and having none or but very little peculiar Excellence of their own their Office and Power extends no farther than meerly the animating those Bodies to which they belong and therefore all their Motions depend upon and proceed in Conjunction with the Bodies But other Souls are Rational These have an inward principle of Motion and an Essence and Excellence distinct from their Bodies they move by their own Choice and are absolute in the disposing their own Desires and Inclinations Now the Bodies belonging to these being in their own Nature purely Mechanical and deriving their Essence from External Causes are subject to the Motions of Heavenly Bodies which influence their Generation and Corruption and the various Alterations through which they pass But if we come nearer and descend to the Immediate and Material Causes then they are moved and affected by a mutual Operation upon one another For this is agreeable to all the Reason in the World that Temporary and Corruptible things should depend upon the Eternal for their Subsistence and be obedient to their Influences Mechanical Beings upon such as are endued with a Faculty of Self-Motion and those that are contained within others upon the Ambients that contain them This is the constant Method and Rule of Nature that these should follow the others Superiour to them as having no Principle of Motion in themselves no Faculty of Choosing no Power of Determining their Deâ—ires or Affections of their Nature no Merit or Demerit from Choice or Actions but are only Good or Evil in respect and proportion to their Causes Just as the Shadows of Bodies do not choose their Sides or Shapes as they please but are necessarily determined by their Causes and their Circumstances and are never the worse or the better for those Determinations Now as to Bodies whatever Changes they undergo this Variety can be no Ill to them whether they be Compound or Simple Bodies First of all because it is what the Condition of their Nature hath made them liable to They are bound in Laws irrevocable which they may neither controul nor resist and consequently can receive no Harm by whatever they impose as having no Power to do otherwise For Ignorance would be no Evil nor the most brutish and extravagant Conversation nor would the Rational Soul be one whit the worse for either had not Nature endued her with a Faculty of Discerning and Understanding the Truth and given her a Power over the brutish Appetites by which she is enabled to subdue and over-rule them Secondly Because the Compound Bodies which consist of simple Ingredients that are of contrary Qualities such as are perpetually strugling with and usurping upon one another by Diseases and Excess of Humours are sometimes strengthned by throwing off the corrupt Parts and sometimes by Decay and Death are delivered from all that Trouble and Pain and mutual Strife of contrary Qualities in them And in this Case each of the Simples is restored to its primitive Mass and recovers it self from that Weakness which was occasioned by this Opposition of contrary Humours For as each of the Ingredients in Composition made some Impression upon its Opposite so it likewise continually received some from it and suffered by it But now when the Simples are changed according to the Changes of the contrary Qualities they return again to their own primitive Being Thus Water evaporates into the Air from whence it came and Air is turned into Fire from whence it originally was And I cannot suppose any Evil in Things of this kind though Inundations or Fires or any the most violent Changes in Nature should be the Effect of these Inequalities in the Elements that compose the Universe or though Pestilences and Earthquakes should destroy and dash in pieces the
is the Reason why our skilful and tender Physician mingles Bitter with our Sweets and makes what we are fondest of to become nauseous and painful to us he deals with us as Nurses do with sucking Children and puts Wormwood and Mustard upon the Breast to wean our Affections and make us loath Things that are no longer convenient for us In such Cases then the first Choices of our Minds are determined to the less of two Evils they prefer Death before Bodily Pain and Afflictions and had rather be quite out of the Body than miserable in it a Wish which no Man would ever make if he were always easie and prosperous And thus by Degrees we are wrought up to an Hatred and Aversion of present Pleasure by a Prospect and Dread of a much greater and more complicated Misery that attends it As Children are brought off from what is hurtful to them at first by a Principle of Fear Or a Man that loves any Meat or Drink prejudicial to his Health and hath found by Experience that it gives him Gripings or is offensive to his Stomach is content afterwards to forbear the gratifying his Palate provided that Abstinence will but secure his Ease and prevent the much more lasting Pains which that short Pleasure uses to bring after it This is the Case of most of us For alas How very few are there that will be content to forego even those Pleasures which they are satisfied ought not to be indulged so long as they find no Trouble or Inconvenience from them Now the Truth is this abstaining from Pleasure for fear of some greater Pain is not so properly the subduing or destroying our Passion as the exchanging of one Passion for another For we are willing to make a saving Bargain and barter the Pleasure of Enjoyment away for the Pleasure of Ease and Security And thus one Passion rises up in Succession to another But yet this is a very good Method to begin with while we retain our silly Childish Dispositions that we may grow jealous and fearful of those Things to which our Inclinations lead us most and when this Distaste is once given then by considering their Nature and observing that besides their being vicious the very Uneasiness and Troubles that attend them are more exquisite and more various than the Pleasures they afford and so returning to Reason and finding that our Happiness is really within our own selves and expected in vain from the Delights of the Body or the Advantages of the World and thus by degrees growing conscious of some Resemblance between Us and God and reverencing his Image in our Souls we thuse a wise and good Life now no longer out of Fear but from the more generous Principles of a vertuous and well-instructed Mind For even Children when they grow wiser come at last to decline and to do those Things out of Judgment and Inclination which at first nothing but Fear and the Rod could have driven them to And this is the Design of our good God and his tender Care over us That the Soul should neither cling too fast to the Body and its Pleasures and the Enjoyments of the World nor yet abstain from them when driven only by a Principle of Fear but from its own free generous Choice as considering that all our Good and all our Evil consists in our own Choice and our own Aversions So that all the healing Methods of his Providence are directed to no other purpose than this to restore the Soul to Reason and Prudence and the preferring a Vertuous Life Just as the most eminent Physicians when they proceed to such smarting Severities as Cutting and Burning and the like do it only with a Design to reduce the Body to its natural and healthful Temper and to enable the Parts that were before obstructed to perform their proper Functions again Now punishment is the best Cure for Wickedness and this is the peculiar Use and Benefit of those Calamities which we account Evils And as we are commonly very angry at our Physicians when they torture and put us to Pain so do Men likewise generally take it ill to have these sharper Remedies of Providence applied to them But they are only the Childish and Effeminate the Foolish and Unthinking Part of the World that do so For whoever will give himself the Trouble of making a diligent Observation of himself and others upon Occasion of the several Accidents that befall him and takes Notice of the Dispositions of his Soul by what Springs they 're moved and how they 're corrected and changed I make no question will readily acknowledge That Afflictions are generally the first Occasion of Mens conquering their Inclinations and coming up to a due Contempt of the Body and the World or as our great Author expresses himself of all those Things that are out of our own Power But as the Physick applied to our Bodies is of two sores the one Restorative the other Preservative one to purge off our Diseases and correct the Noxious Humours by Drugs of contrary Qualities the other to continue and confirm Health by convenient Diet due Regimen and moderate Exercise And as some Exercises require great Labour and Activity and are fit only for hardy and robust Bodies so this excellent Physician of our Souls does not only administer to the Sick and Diseased and recover them by Sufferings and Misfortunes but he exercises the Sound and Healthful and by so doing adds to their Strength and Vigour and renders their Virtue more conspicuous a Pattern to others and a Provocation to be good And this is but necessary for the Souls of Men even the Good and Vertuous stand in need of Exercise to confirm them no less than healthful Bodies do And Hippocrates's Maxim will hold good upon this Occasion too That Motion gives Strength but Sloth and Inactivity wastes it And the Reason is plain for those Things which are so ordered that they are continually as perfect as Nature intended them and are continually employed in such Operations as Nature appointed for them perform these Operations with great Readiness and Dexterity But those that are not thus continually must imitate and supply the Want of that perpetual Motion by their own Practice that so they may not forget by Disuse and find themselves at a Loss when any urgent Occasion calls for the exerting their Powers For whatever is sometimes in and at other Times out of Motion confesses its own Weakness of which this Vicissitude is the Effect and that Weakness must be worn off and Strength acquired by Action Now all Exercise consists in the same Acts frequently repeated the very same I say with that principal Act for the sake of which we use this Exercise Thus in the Olympick Sports the Exercise used to perfect them in Wrestling is Wrestling very often and that in order to the Caestus and Cuffing is the inuring themselves to Blows Thus Men learn the Art of War by imitating Action
part in it at all First Because he only permits to it an Additional and Accidental Being and that not in the quality of Evil neither but as being it self a necessary Expedient for the promoting of Good And Secondly Because even after all these Limitations it depends wholly upon the Choice and Determination of the Soul and can have no being at all without our own Consent and actual Concurrence For which Reason it is that all the Laws both of God and Man suffer such Actions as are done involuntary to go unpunished And indeed all Evil whatsoever is in some Sense an involuntary Misfortune to the Soul for the Soul never chooses Evil considered as Evil but under the Desire and Pretence of some Good as sometimes Riches sometimes Senfual Enjoyments or Honours or Proferments and Greatness Now in such Cases the Mischiefs attending these are either wholly overlooked or else they are lessened and stifled by that prevalency of Passion which bribes and sways the Soul So that there cannot possibly be any such thing in nature as an Absolute Evil when considered in all the Circumstances of it And that which never had any Being may sooner be than that even this Accidental Being in the Soul should be entirely Evil and chosen as such Some perhaps may imagine that God is the Cause of Evil as having given the Soul this Freedom to Virtue or Vice to the ill Management whereof that Evil is owing Now indeed if the Soul 's being indued with a Faculty of acting freely and absolutely be Evil then he who gave this Faculty must be confessed the Cause of Evils But if such a Power be Good a greater and more valuable Good than all the Advantages of the World besides why then should he who hath given us the Good be for so doing charged with the Evil Since therefore that which is most agreeable to our Nature and Reason is also most eligible and desirable what account can be given why any one that is a Man and understands at all wherein the peculiar Excellence of a Man consists should rather wish to be a Plant or any other Irrational Creature than that which God hath made him Though at the same time we must allow that even Plants and other Irrational Beings are Good in their Kind and Capacity that is in a lower Degree and a qualified Sense and in proportion to the Uses they are designed to serve Now if it be in our own power to be Good and Happy and we have the sole Disposal of this Matter so that nothing can possibly bring our Desires or our Aversions under any Compulsion to act as we would not have them or under any Restraint not to act as we would have them such a Free Nature and Absolute Power as this is in my Opinion a Glorious Priviledge a most Magnificent and Royal Prerogative and the Person in whom it is lodged is thereby made a Great a Happy an Arbitrary Prince But if such a Soul contribute to its own Deviations and can choose whether it will so deviate or no where can any Miscarriage of that kind be laid with any tolerable Justice but to the charge of the Soul it self which is the true Original and Cause both of its own Good and of all the Deflexions from it since in and by it such Deflexions first began For the Great Creator who hath thus made it so as to be the Cause of its own Ruin did not absolutely ruin it but only made it capable of being ruined and yet at the same time too utterly incapable of it without her own Consent If therefore this Volition or Consent be an internal Motion of her own she is the sole Cause of her own Sin and Misery Behold therefore the Goodness and the Wisdom of God! For since the Constitution of the World and Order of Nature made a middle sort of Beings necessary that should stand between those that are always above and those that are always below things that should bear a Resemblance and be conformed sometimes to one and sometimes to the other of these Beings and thus make the whole perfect by partaking of and knitting together the distant Extremes Since also this tendency to things below us is but an accidental and additional thing and this Prudence is the very thing capable of Depravation he hath endued this middle sort of Beings with such a Tendency yet so as that it may still remain Untainted and Undepraved if it will do so and that he himself might be clear upon all Accounts and in no degree the Cause of any manner of Evil. These Arguments I have insisted on the more largely not only because they are proper for the explaining what Epictetus have delivered upon this occasion but also in regard they give us a great light into what he tells us afterwards concerning the Nature of Evil. For we might have made very short work of the Case now before us and needed only have given this Answer to all the Objections that when Epictetus advises Men to be well pleased Things should be just as they are he does not intend it of Vice or that which is Evil to the Soul for he could never have said that Men who are pleased with their own or other People's Vices are easie and happy but that we must restrain it to those Accidents that affect our Bodies or our Fortunes For these are things that a Wise and Good Man will be sure to make an Advantage of however they are ordered and the more Cross and Difficult they are the more still will he profit by them And these are the things he means which foolish and ignorant Men wish may be conformable to their own Wishes and Desires and not the Desires and Aversions themselves in which all our Good and Evil consists For they are in our own power just what we please to make them and consequently it were most absurd and foolish to wish they were as we would have them But he advises that we would forbear wishing thus of Things out of our power because this is what we cannot compass by any strength of our own nor would it always prove for our Advantage to do it if we could For we often are passionately desirous of what is pleasant though at the same time it be prejudicial to us and as often decline what is harsh and unpalatable though Providence intend it for Physick and design our mighty Benefit in the application Sickness is a Hindrance to the Body but it does not enfeeble the Mind nor can it obstruct her Freedom unless she please her self And Lameness is a Confinement to the Foot but it can put no Restraint upon the Will nor make that one jot the less Active And the same Consideration is applicable in proportion to every Accident of Humane Life For you will find that though these may prove Obstructions to something else yet they cannot or need not ever be so to you He had told us immediately
what we are capable of discharging To this purpose he proves that the Great Creator to whom the Soul of Man owes its Being was pleased to give it such a Frame and Temper that it should not be constantly determined to Sublime and Heavenly things nor always dwell above as the Blessed Spirits the Angels and those other of a Divine and still more Excellent Nature do but hath ordered the Matter so that this should sometimes be degraded to a State of Matter and Motion and Mortality be joyned to the Body and converse with Frail and Corruptible things But though he hath subjected the Soul to these Hazards and Tryals yet he hath endued her with particular Faculties and Powers suitable to each occasion by means whereof she may both engage with all the Accidents that can assault her and come off without Loss nay and vanquish and keep them under too Against such as tempt us with an Appearance of Pleasure he proposes Continence and this he rather chose to mention than those higher Degrees of absolute Chastity and Temperance in consideration that the Persons now addrest to are but Imperfect and Young Proficients in Virtue Now these Objects stir the Passions up to Rebellion and beget a Combat between Reason and them but by Discipline and a strict hand over ones self they are subdued and reduced to Obedience again And this is a true Description of that which we properly call a Continent Life as on the contrary that Man is properly said to be Incontinent whose Reason is impotent and tho it may struggle for a while yet yields at last to the stronger Insults of Passion But now in Persons who have attained to the Perfection of Wisdom and Virtue the Passions and Appetites which as I hinted before are the Child to be trained up in every one of our Minds are in absolute Subjection to Reason without any Dispute or Mutiny at all so that they are moved and directed entirely towards such Objects and at such Times and in such Measures as this sees fit to prescribe to them And this is truly Temperance which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being that which secures the Reason and preserves the Government and Prerogative of the intelligent Part in us For when this is brought under and distracted by Passion the Mind is torn in pieces and destroyed But while it maintains its own Superiority over the Affections it continues vigorous and sound So again to Persons that are Masters in Philosophy Fortitude is always a present Security against all Difficulty and Pain it keeps the very Out-guards of the Soul and suffers nothing of this kind to get the least Footing there but perseveres without any Perplexity or Disturbance and looks upon all the Hardships that come in its Way as so many Tryals to exercise it But the Proficients who are less expert must be content with Hardiness and Resolution such as may maintain its Post and make a gallant Resistance and prevent the Sinkings of the Soul by enabling it to continue the Fight and ward against the Blows when Trouble and Pains assault it For a constant and vigorous Opposition and hardening ones self against Difficulties will conquer all our Eâ—â—eminancy and Passion and make Reason and Virtue triumphant and by such Conquests frequently gained and prudently managed our Passions will be used to the Yoke submit to Discipline and obey without Reluctancy And when a Man hath brought himself to this Pass there will be no farther Trouble to exercise his Patience He is now above it all for he neither desires any Thing that is capable of giving him Disappointment nor does he make any Thing his Aversion that can overtake him whether he will or no and consequently can have no Trouble and Pain which always must proceed from one of these Causes Against Scandal and an Ill Tongue he tells us we shall find our best Defence in Meekness For in truth Scandal in its own Nature hath nothing that can afflict us and all that uses to do so is not what is said but the Judgments and Reflections we pass upon it which we ever aggravate to our selves according as we are blown up with Vanity or transported with Anger For all that Scandal can do without this is only to make us condemn the Defamer And for the proceeding regularly in this Condemnation without Heat or Prejudice we shall do well to consider wherein the Defamer is really to blame and that it is upon one of these two Accounts that he slanders and asperses us either falsly or out of Malice Now the Scandal it self may very well be born with because it is not capable of doing us any real Injury and so in truth may the Party that raises or spreads it too when we consider that the Injury is done not to Us but Himself for so it is in reality when his own Mind is the Sufferer by doing an ill and a base Thing Nay if this be too little we may consider farther that Scandal is always capable of being made an Advantage to us It is manifestly so when false and when it is true we gain this by it That it discovers our own Faults and Failings and either shews us something we did not know before or which though we did know yet we were apt to indulge upon a Presumption that no Body knew it but our selves And this very Consideration is of great Importance to restrain young Proficients in Virtue For such tho they are not come up to that noble Principle of practising Virtue for its own sake will yet give check to many exorbitant Passions and abstain from gross Evils out of Shame and Tenderness to their own Reputation And indeed this must be said in behalf of Ambition and a Desire of Praise that though it be a Passion it self yet it is of excellent Use for the moderating and correcting all the rest For this Reason it hath been called by a pertinent Allusion the Shirt of the Passions Because it sits closest to the Soul and when the Mind hath by the help of this put off all other Passions it divests it self of this last of all that so it may come to Virtue naked and stripp'd of all its former Prejudices and Incumbrances For this Reason says Epictetus we must not suffer our selves to be surprised or over-born by any Accident that would engage our Minds and draw them off to any External Advantages or Calamities so as that we should be discomposed with any false Idea's of its being Good or Evil. Nor must we give too great a Scope to our Desires and our Aversions nor let them be too hasty in their Motions but call up the Powers within us to our Assistance and when we have found which are the Succours proper for each Circumstance to rally them together and enter the Lists with Resolution and ward off every Accident accordingly CHAP. XV. Never use your self to say upon any Occasion That you have lost any
who knows and is sensible of the Difference between them when he does it But this Misfortune happens generally from a blind Admiration of some apparent Good which so dazles our Eyes that either we do not at all discover the Evil it is attended with or if we do discern that yet we see the Thing through false Opticks such as magnifie the Good and lessen the Evil to the Eye Now it is a frequent and a reasonable Choice when we are content to take a greater Good with the Incumbrance of a less Evil As for Instance When we suffer an Incision or a Cupping and account the Evil of these Pains much too little to counterballance the Good there is in that Health which they restore to us Once more yet That all Things desire Good is farther plain from hence That supposing Evil to have a real Being and a Power of Acting whatever it did would be for its own Advantage that is in other Words for its own Good And thus much they who ascribe a Being and Operation to it confess for they pretend that it pursues after Good would fain detain it and uses all possible Endeavours not to let it go And if Evil be the Object of no Desire then is it not any primary and designed Nature But since the Condition of it is in all Particulars according to the Description here given of it it is most truly said to be an Accidental and Additional Thing superinducive to something that did subsist before but to have no Subsistence of its own Well says the Objector I allow what you say We will suppose that Evil is only an Accident a Defect and Privation of Good and an additional Disappointment of the first and original Intent of Nature And what of all this How are we advanced in the Question before us For let this be what or after what manner you please still it must have some Cause otherwise How in the Name of Wonder did it ever find the way into the World How then will you get out of this Maze You allow God to be the Cause of all Things you must grant that Evil hath some Cause and yet you tell me that God is infinitely Good and so cannot be that Cause This Objection hath been already considered and spoken to both at the Beginning of the Book where we explained this Author's Distinction of the Things that are or are not in our own Power and also in the Comment upon the XIII Chapter upon Occasion of those words Trouble not your self with wishing that Things may be just as you would have them c. But however I will speak to it once more here too and that briefly as follows God who is the Source and Original Cause of all Goodness did not only produce the highest and most excellent Things such as are good in themselves nor only those that are of a Rank something inferiour to these and of a middle Nature but the Extremes too such as are capable of falling and apt to be perverted from that which is agreeable to Nature to that which we call Evil. Thus As after those incorruptible Bodies which are always regular in their Motions and immutably good others were created subject to Change and Decay so likewise it was with Souls the same Order was observed with these too for after them which were unalterably fixed in Good others were produced liable to be seduced from it And this was done both for the greater illustration of the Wise and Mighty Creator that the Riches of his Goodness might be the more clearly seen in producing good things of all sorts as many as were capable of subsisting and also that the Universe might be full and perfect when Beings of all kinds and all Proportions were contained in it For this is a Perfection to want nothing of any kind And also to vindicate the Highest and the Middle sort which never decline or deviate from their Goodness from that Contempt which always falls upon the Lowest of any sort and such these had been if the Corruptible and Mortal things had not been Created and Supported the others Dignity by their own want of it And Corruptible they must be for it could never be that while the First and the Middle sort of Bodies continued as they are some Immutable both as to their Nature and their Operations others Immutable indeed as to their Substance but Mutable in their Motion it could not be I say that the Lowest and Sublunary Bodies should ever hold out while the violent Revolutions of the Heavenly ones were perpetually changing their Substance and putting them into unnatural Disorders For these Reasons certainly and perhaps for a great many others more important than these which are Secrets too dark and deep for us these Sublunary Bodies were made and this Region of Mortality where the Perverted Good hath its Residence For there was a Necessity that the lowest sort of Good should have a Being too and such is that which is liable to Change and Depravation Hence also there is no such thing as Evil in the Regions above us for the nature of Evil being nothing else but a Corruption of the Meanest and most Feeble Good can only subsist where that Mean and Mutable Good resides For this Reason the Soul which considered by her self is a Generous and Immutable Being is tainted with no Evil while alone in a State of Separation but being so contrived by Nature as to dwell in this lower World and be intimately united to Mortal Bodies for so the good Providence of our great Father and Creator hath ordered it making these Souls a Link to tye the Spiritual and Material World together joyning the Extreams by the common Bonds of Life it seems to bear a part in all those Distempers and Decays which Evil subjects our Bodies to by disturbing their natural Habit and Frame Though indeed I cannot think this to be Evil strictly speaking but rather Good since the Effect of it is so For by this means the simple Elements of which these Bodies are compounded come to be set free from a great Confinement and severed from other parts of Matter of a different Constitution with which they were interwoven and entangled before and so getting loose from the perpetual Combat between contrary Qualities are restored to their proper Places and their primitive Mass again in order to acquiring new Life and Vigour And if this proceeding be the occasion of perpetual Change yet neither is that Evil because every thing is resolved at last into what it was at the beginning For Water though evaporated into Air yet is by degrees congealed into Water again and so even particular Beings lose nothing by those Vicissitudes But that which ought to be a Consideration of greater Moment is that the Dissolution of Compound Bodies and the mutual change of Simple ones into each other contributes to the Advantage of the Universe in general by making the Corruption of one thing to become
time CHAP. XXXVI Now I advise thee Friend first of all to consider perfectly the Nature of the Thing thou would'st undertake and then thy own Qualifications for it whether this be what thou art cut out for or no. Examine thy Limbs and thy Sinews every Man is not built for the Olympick Exercises Do you imagine when you apply your self to Philosophy that you can be allowed to live at the same rate you do now To indulge your Appetite and be as nice in all you Eat and Drink Alas you must prepare for Want of Sleep for hard Labour for Absence from your Family and your Friends for Contempt and Insolence from your Inferiors and to have others less worthy put over your Head in Preferments countenanced more than you in Courts of Justice and respected more in Conversation Sit down now and ask your self if the Prize be worth all this Pains Whether you can be content at so dear a Rate to purchase an equal Temper a quiet Mind perfect Freedom and unmovable Constancy If you think the Price set upon these Things too high leave them for some other Purchaser and do not expose your self like those ridiculous Boys I mentioned by being a Philosopher this Hour and an Excise-Man the next a School-master to Day and a Statesman to Morrow These Things are not for your Credit In short you have but one Man to make and you may make him either a Good or a Bad one You must either make your Self or the World your Care In a Word you must be either a Fool or a Philosopher COMMENT THE Thing Epictetus drives at is very much illustrated by the Comparisons he uses here and setting our Selves in Opposition to Others and the Soul to the Body For to be injured by ones own Self is much worse than if it were done by another If we are apt to resent an Unkindness when coming from a Friend with much more Impatience than the same Thing from a Common Man because the Considerations of intimate Acquaintance and former Obligations step in and heighten the Provocation by telling us we had Reason to expect better Usage how much more is the Injustice aggravated when a Man does any Thing to his own Prejudice And again If the Affronts and Injuries done to the Body are â—o deeply resented how much more tender ought we to be when the Soul is injured and abused Again If we think it an insupportable Insolence in any other Person to expose our Body to Abuses when yet his Affronting or not Affronting us aâ—ter this manner is a Thing not in our own Power and if the exposing our Minds to be abused by the next Man we meet by suffering our Selves to be disordered at the Calumnies of every malicious Railer be a Thing that depends purely upon our own Choice whether it shall be done or not then we ought to be ashamed upon a double Account First for taking a Thing ill which was not in our Power to help and which too when done was not strictly Evil to us and then for exposing our own Selves to that which is a real Evil and that Evil so much the worse because such a one as it was in our Power to prevent Now upon this Occasion he changes his Expression and does not call it Indignation but Shame For the Injuries that come upon us from another Hand we receive with Resentments of Anger but those that our Selves are guilty of we reflect upon with Shame and Remorse and surely there is much greater Reason for doing so when we our Selves have been guilty of injuring our Selves especially when these Injuries need not have befallen us indeed could not have done so but by our own Choice And this is the proper Notion of Shame the being out of Countenance at the Folly and Foulness of our own voluntary Miscarriages And what can more deserve a Blush than the not discerning the mighty Difference there is between the several Branches of so lively a Companion as this And when one does discern it what can be more scandalous than not to act accordingly CHAP. XXXVII It may be said generally speaking That the Quality of the Reasons we converse with and the mutual Relations they bear is the true Standard of a Man's Duty and Behaviour toward them Thus my Duty to a Father is to assist and take care of him to support his Age and his Infirmities to yield to him and pay him Service and Respect upon all occasions and to receive both his Reproofs and his Chastisements with patience and submission But you 'll say He is a rigorous and unnatural Father What 's that to the purpose You are to remember this Obligation to Duty does not arise from the Consideration of his Goodness but from the Relation he bears to us No Failings of his can make him cease to be a Father and consequently none can abselve you from the Obedience of a Son Your Brother hath done you an Injury but do not suppose that this dispenses with the Kindness you owe him You are still to observe what becomes you not to imitate what misbecame him Besides no body can do you a real Injury without your own Concurrence You are not one whit the worse unless you think your self so After this manner it will be easie to discover what is fit for you upon all occasions For it is but considering your self under the several Qualities of a Neighbour or a Subject or a Civil Magistrate or a Military Officer and you will soon discern what Behaviour is proper from or to a Person in each of these Stations respectively COMMENT THE Duty of a Man is properly that which it becomes him to do upon every occasion and the rendring to every one what is fit to be expected from him This is more peculiarly called the Work of Justice taken in a sence so comprehensive as to include all manner of Vertue For the Word is sometimes restrained to one particular Vertue distinguished from the rest and sometimes enlarged and extended to them all Now it is the business of Justice to give every one his due Upon which account all Institutions both Moral and Political have this for their proper Object There is private Justice with regard to a Man 's own Mind and this assigns to every part of the Soul what belongs to it and there is the Publick Justice of a Country which distributes to every Member of the Commonwealth according to his Dignity and Deserts Having therefore instructed his young Philosopher as you see before which Precepts have indeed some reference to this kind of Duty too he proceeds here to direct him Now he may discover what it is and discharge it upon all occasions And what others have been very prolix and voluminous upon as particularly Nicolaus Damascenus he hath here reduced into a very narrow compass and laid before us with wonderful Energy and Clearness Now the Duty of a Man if you will branch it out into its several
Forms according to which those Productions and Motions are modelled and proportioned For if the constituent Forms are not in Bodies originally but derived immediately from some free Agent then certainly the Soul is the efficient Cause and assigns to each Body its particular Form Now these Forms in the Soul are exceeding pure and untainted As for example Beauty in the Body of an Animal consists in the Flesh and Skin and Vessels and Blood that make and fill up this Mass Now it does indeed to the best of its power temper and adorn these things but at the same time it is sullied and changed by them and sinks into their Deformity But now this Beauty in the Soul is free from all these Allays and is not only the Image and Representation of Beauty but pure substantial unblemished original Beauty not graceful in one place and not in another but perfectly and all over so From whence it comes to pass that when the Soul contemplates its own or another Soul's Beauty all bodily Graces lose their Charms and appear despicable and deformed in comparison And this instance hints to us the purity of all other original Forms as they are in the Soul Now it is very plain that as there are different Bodies moved by these Souls so there are likewise different sorts of Souls that move them and some of these are celestial and others sublunary For it were an intolerable absurdity to suppose that Bodies less refined and inferiour in Dignity and Duration should have Life and Souls and that those above should want both It is therefore in this case with Souls as with Bodies the heavenly ones are the Causes of the sublunary ones And indeed the Soul is a noble and most excellent Being especially the heavenly one advanced by Nature to the Prerogative of being a Principle though not the First and Highest in the Order of Causes For though the self-moving and self-existent Being is superiour to those whose Motion and Existence is derived from something else yet still even this is capable of being considered in a double Capacity as Active and Passive as a Cause and as an Effect and it is plain that Simples must have been before Compounds and One before Two Again Though this self-moving Agent depend upon no other for its Motion yet Motion it hath and Motion inferrs Mutation not an essential Change indeed but such as respects its Operations And neither are these Motions Local and Corporeal for in that respect it is immovable but Spiritual and peculiar to the Soul such as we call Consideration and Debate and Disâ—erning and Opinion and according as â—he is moved by these motions she impresses corporeal ones upon the Body Now whatever this Change be yet that which is mutable in any kind or proportion must have something besore it absolutely immutable that so those things that are mutable may still be preserved so For all motion and mutation â—oth above and in our lower Regions proceeds from the impression made by the First Cause But since all things undergo such various Changes and great motions are violent How come the heavenly Bodies to continue so much the same in their Constitution their manner of moving the Centre about which they roul their mutual Order and Position And whence is it that though the sublunary ones undergo more visible and frequent Alterations yet still there is a perpetual restitution and constant return to their first Form Thus we observe it plainly in Elements and Seasons and Plants and Animals For though these do not continue to be numerically the same as Celestial Bodies do yet they go round in a Circle till at last they return to the point from whence they set out at first Thus 〈◊〉 is convertâ—d into Air Air condensed into Water Water into Earth and then Earth 〈◊〉 into Fire again So the Year brings us first into Spring then to Summer after that Autuâ—n and at last Winter thaws into Spring again So again Wheat is turned into the Stem then the Blade after that the Ear and so ripe Wheat again So from Man proceeds first the Seminal Principle after that the Formation and Vital Nourishment and this at last comes to be Man again Now I would ask any one since motion is of it self always violent and always tending to Change how it comes to pass that the same Species and the same Course and Constitution of Nature is so exactly preserved Certainly this must needs be the Effect of some Superiour Cause which is it self Immoveable and Immutable and remains for ever in all Points exactly the same For even in mental Motions that Agent which is uncertain in his Motions and acts sometimes with ease and freedom and speed and sometimes slowly and with difficulty must needs have some other mind antecedent to it one whose Essence and whose Operations are always the same that brings all thingsto pass in an instant and at pleasure And no Man need be told how much such a Being as this which is fix'd and unchangeable not only as to his own Nature and Essence but as to his Influence too is more excellent than that which is still in motion and liable to Change though that Motion be from it self alone and Reason will convince us that those Beings which are most Noble and Excellent must needs have had an Existence before those that are indigent and depending Now we shall do well according to this Rule to ascend the whole Scale of Causes in our Thoughts and try whether we are able to find any Principle more Excellent than what is already fix'd upon and if we can do so then to drive that still higher till we come to rest at last in the loftiest and most majestick Notions that we are capable of entertaining and this is a Course we may boldly take nor is there any fear of going too far or overshooting the Mark by conceiving any Ideas too great and above the Dignity of this First Cause For alas the boldest Flights our Minds can aspire to are too low and feeble so far from surmounting that they fall infinitely short of his Divine Perfections This Contemplation upon God as it is the most Excellent so it is the only One in which we are sure not to be guilty of any Excess or an over-valuing the Object And when we have taken all imaginable pains to collect all the Ideas that are Great and Venerable and Holy and Independant and Productive of Good all these Names and all these Persections put together do yet give us but a very poor and impersect Notion of him only he is graciously pleased to pardon and accept these because it is not in the power of humane Nature to admit any higher and better When therefore our Consideration hath carried us from Self-moving Beings up to that which is Immovable and absolutely Immutable always the same in Essence its Power and its Operations fix'd for ever in a vast Eternity out of which Time and all
much more likely to be so And indeed considering that Pleasure and sensual Prospects tempt Men to offend the Rule of curing Diseases by their Contraries makes Sorrow and Pain absolutely necessary to remove this Sickness of the Mind and expel the Humours that brought it upon us And Repentance wants no Qualifications of this kind for the truly penitent Person chastises himself with the Scourge of a guilty Conscience and feels such bitter Remorse and Anguish of Heart as are infinitely more sharp and stinging and more inconsolable than any Smart or bodily Pains can possibly be And thus much in Opposition to the Third Objection against God and Religion which is indeed the worst and most impious of all the Three For it were a much more excusable Error to deny a God and a Providence than to allow both these and yet advance such Incongruous Notions concerning him better it were for us and him both that he had no Being and no Concern in governing the World at all than that he should be guilty of so much Treachery and Baseness as this Objection lays to his Charge For this is to be Evil and that is much worse than not to be at all The Reason is evident because Goodness and Happiness is Superiour to Existence it is the Principle of Being the Cause from whence all things derive it and the very End for which they have it For Existence it self is what no Man would desire but meerly upon the Apprehension of its being Good and therefore whenever we apprehend our selves in Evil Circumstances we naturally wish not to be at all If I have here again enlarged beyond the just Bounds of a Commentary the Importance of the Argument will justifie me in it For in Truth a regular and well-grounded Devotion towards God Just and Becoming Apprehensions concerning the Perfections of his Nature the Certainty of his Providence and the Justice and Goodness of all his Proceedings with Mankind and consequent to such a Perswasion a submissive resigned Temper and easie Acquiescence under all his Dispensations as the Effects of a most excellent Wisdom and such as are always best for us These are the Sum of all Humane Accomplishments the Foundation and the Perfection the First and the Last Step of all Moral and all Intellectual Vertue For though the Soul of Man be 't is confess'd a Free Agent and proceed upon Internal Principles of Good and Evil yet still this Liberty and Power of determining her self was the particular Favour and Gift of God and therefore while she holds fast by the Root she lives and improves and attains the Perfection God made her capable of But when she separates her self and as it were disengages and tears her self off she grows barren and withers and putrefies till she return and be united to the Root again and so recover her Life and Perfection once more Now nothing but a firm and a vigorous Sense of these Three Points we have been explaining can ever prevail upon the Soul to endeavour such a Restoration For how is it possible to apply to God when we do not believe that he is Or what Encouragement is the belief of his Existence without a Perswasion that he is concerned for us and takes notice of us Least of all should we address to a Being that does inspect and govern our Affairs if we were possess'd with an Opinion That all that Care and Inspection were directed to Evil and Malicious Purposes and that he only waited over us for our Misery and Mischief CHAP. XXXIX When you consult the Oracle remember it is only the Event that you are ignorant of and come to be instructed in But though you do not know what that shall be particularly yet Philosophy if you have any hath already taught you of what Quality and Consequence it shall prove to you For you are satisfied before-hand That if it be any of the Things out of our own Power it must needs be indifferent in its own Nature and neither good nor bad of it self Therefore when these Occasions call you abroad leave all your Hopes and Fears behind you and do not approach the Prophet with such anxious Concern as if you were to hear your Doom from his Mouth but behave your self as becomes a Man fully persuaded That no external Accident is any thing to you and that nothing can possibly happen but what by good Management may be converted to your Advantage though all the World should endeavour to obstruct it When therefore you address to the Gods come boldly as one that asks their Advice and withal when they have given it be all Compliance for consider whose Counsel you have ask'd and how impious a Disrespect it will be not to follow it When therefore you apply your self to the Oracle observe Socrates his Rule To ask no Questions but what the Event is the only material Consideration to be cleared in they should be Matters of great Importance and Difficulty and such as are not capable of Resolution by Reason or Art or any humane Methods But if you are in dispute whether you ought to assist your Friend in distress or expose your Person for the Defence of your Country these are not Questions fit to be put because they answer themselves For though the Sacrifice be never so inauspicious though it should portend Flight or Banishment loss of Limbs or loss of Life yet still Reason and Duty will tell you That in despight of all these Hazards you must not desert those that have a right to your Service and Assistance And therefore in this case you need no other Determination than that memorable one which Apolio gave so long since when he thrust that Wretch out of his Temple who suffered his Friend to perish for want of help COMMENT AFter having given Directions for the understanding and due discharge of our Duty to one another and towards God the next thing to be done was to inform us What we owe to our selves But before this could be methodically undertaken it was necessary to take notice of a sort of mix'd Duty which respects both God and our selves and this is what arises from Divination or the consulting of Oracles To this purpose he divides his Discourse into Three Parts and tells us upon what Occasions we ought to consult them with what Disposition it should be done and what use is to be made of their Determinations He begins with the Second of these thinking it perhaps the First both in Consequence and in Order of Nature and tells us That the Mind should preserve such a firm and even Temper upon these Occasions as neither to bring any Desires nor any Aversions along with it For at this rate it would be impossible to come without great anxiety and disorder If our Desires are eager we shall be afraid of hearing that what we wish will not come to pass and if our Aversions are violent we shall be in no less concern to be told
and unreasonably in refusing Credit to such a Testimony but still this is only Faith and differs very much from Science And if God vouchsafe to communicate to any Man the Knowledge of Natural Causes by immediate Revelation this is to be look'd upon as an extraordinary Favour a special Case and such as falls not under the common Rules of Divination nor to be depended upon from it For the primary Talent and proper Object of this is only to instruct Men in such uncertain Events of humane Actions as no Art or Consideration can bring them to any certain Knowledge of And though some Persons have address'd to Oracles for Mysteries in Nature yet there were but very few that did so and those none of the most eminent Reputation for Philosophy neither but such as contented themselves with credible Testimonies and chose rather to take Things upon Trust than to be at the trouble of attaining to a demonstrative Evidence Whereas God seems plainly to have designed to have made this the Soul 's own Work and by infusing into us a Principle of Liberty and Reason to have left the Contemplation of our own Nature as one of the Subjects most proper to employ our own Study and Pains And upon that account both Epictetus and Socrates before seem to condemn and forbid such Questions as impertinent and superfluous in regard that the Soul is sufficiently qualified to make those Discoveries by her own Strength For the same reason you see he disapproves of that Quaerie Whether a Man ought to relieve his Friend in distress or expose his Person in defence of his Country Because right Reason cries out aloud that these things must be done and no Hazards can be so formidable as that the most certain prospect of them should justifie our neglecting to do so To what purpose then do we trouble the Gods for that which hath no difficulty in it and where we must be lost to all sense if we be not able to satisfie our selves And besides he gives us an instance wherein the Prophetick God declared his Displeasure against One that came to have this Scruple resolved For what our own Reason will convince us is fit and necessary to be done we must set about it without more ado and not raise idle Doubts or frame frivolous Excuses though we are satisfied that the performance of it would cost us our Fortunes or our Lives And though this may seem a Hardship yet it is back'd with this invincible Argument That Vertue is our own proper Good and ought to be dearer to us than our Bodies or our Estates which in comparison of our Souls bear but a distant Relation to us After this Argument intimating That our Duty ought to be discharged even at the expence of the greatest Sufferings and Dangers he introduces a God confirming this Opinion by his own practice and expelling that Miscreant out of his Temple who did not relieve his Friend but suffered him to be murdered that he might save himself The Story in short is thus Two Persons upon their Journey to Delphos were set upon by Thieves while one of these was no farther sollicitous than to make his own escape the other was killed The Surviver continued his Travels and when he came to the Oracle the God rejected his Address expelled him the Temple and reproached his Cowardice and base Desertion of his Friend in this following manner Do not presumptuous Wretch these Rites prophane Nor with polluted Gifts our Altar stain Nor prudent Fears and threatning Fate pretend False to thy God thy Honour and thy Friend These claim thy Blood in any danger near And must condemn that base and guilty Fear Which of a Coward made a treacherous Murderer Henceforth dare to be just and brave for know He that declines to ward it gives the Blow Now though it is plain that this Person would he never so sain yet possibly he might not have been able to save his Fellow-Traveller's Life yet that Uncertainty did by no means dispense with him for not attempting it His Inclination and Endeavour should not have been wanting though that Relief he intended had been never so unsuccessful nay though it had involved himself in the same Fate That then which rendred him unworthy to approach the Shrine of Apollo was the Disposition of his Mind which prevail'd upon him to betray his Friend and sacrifice that Life which he ought to have defended in tenderness to that which he ought to have exposed And that this is the true state of the Case is no less evident from another Instance of two Persons who were likewise beset with Thieves These had got one of them at an Advantage and whilst the other darts at the Rogue he missed his Aim and killed his own Friend When he came to the Oracle he durst not approach as having Blood upon him but the God justified his Action cleared him of the Scruple he lay under and gave him this following kind Invitation Approach brave Man the Gods are Just and Kind They only hate a base and murd'rous Mind Thy slaughter'd Friend to Vs for Justice cries And his expiring Groans have pierc'd the Skies Yet not for Vengeance but Rewards they sue Reward to Courage and to Friendship due That Zeal which Death and Danger did disdain A disobedient Weapon cannot stain Spotless thy Hand and generous thy Design The Guilt misguiding Fate 's the Glory 's Thine 1 Now if by the shedding this Blood he did not only contract no Pollution at all but was more pure and recommended by it to the Acceptance of the Deity because he intended well though it was his Misfortune that the Event was so very Tragical so exceeding contrary to his Intention then it is very plain that Men's Vertues and Vices are not to be measured by Success or by the Actions themselves but by their innocent Intentions honest Desires and the Sincerity of their own Hearts One Caution I think necessary to be added here for the better understanding of our Author which is That we are to consider what sort of Persons these things are addressed to Now those which I have last explained and several of those which follow afterwards are adapted particularly to a middle sort of Men such as are neither utterly ignorant of Philosophy nor absolutely Masters of it but have applied themselves to the study of it for some time and made tolerable advances towards Perfection though they have not yet atrained to it And this is sufficiently intimated to us by the frequent repetition of those Words If you have any Philosophy upon every occasion CHAP. XL. Consider with your self seriously what Figure is most fit for you to make in the World and then fix upon a Method and Rule in order hereunto which be sure to observe nicely both at home alone and abroad in Company CHAP. XLI Let one of your Principal Rules be Silence and when you discourse confine your self to such Subjects as are necessary
give the finishing Stroke to Nature and be as perfect as our Condition is capable of being This is the Ground Epictetus goes upon which he does not at all attempt to prove but takes it as I said for a Fundamental Truth sufficiently plain and acknowledged before But the Method in which Socrates proceeds is this He makes use of clear and familiar Examples and tells us That a Man in Cutting for instance uses his Knife and he uses his Hand too Then inferring from hence that the Thing used considered as an Instrument is different from that which employs it he concludes that it is the Man which employs the Body as an Instrument Now in truth it is the Rational Soul and nothing else that imploys this Body in the Exercise of Arts and Trades and all manner of Operations From hence again he draws this farther Inference That that which employs the Body hath the Government and Diâ—posal of what it so employs And then he forms his Argument into this Disjunctive Syllogism Either the Soul alone or the Body alone or both together must needs be the Man Now if the Man have the command of the Body and the Body cannot command nor dispose of it self then it is evident that the Body alone cannot be the Man It is evident again that Body and Soul together cannot be the Man for the very same reason for if the Man have the Government of the Body and the Body it self have no part of that Government then it is plain this prerogative does not extend to Soul and Body both and therefore both cannot be the Man But in short if the Body in its own Nature be void of all Life and Motion and if it be the Soul which animates and moves it as we see in Handicraft Trades the Work-man is the Principle of Motion and the Tools have none but what they derive from him then it follows that the Body is to the Soul what a Tool is to the Artificer And consequently that the Soul being the Original of all Operation is truly and properly the Man So then whoever would make the Man his Care must consult the advantage and improvement of the Soul and pursue the Happiness peculiar to this For he that bestows his pains upon the Body does not it seems advance himself and his own Good properly speaking but only that of his Instrument Much more extravagant and absurd is it then to lay himself out upon Riches or any External Advantages of that kind because in so doing he pursues a very Foreign Interest one much more distant than the former For he neither makes the Man nor the Man's Instrument the Object of his Care but all terminates in those things which make for the Convenience of this Instrument only Epictet Enchiridion CHAP. I. All things whatsoever may be divided into Two Sorts those that are and those that are not within our own Power Of the former sort are our Opinions and Notions of Things * Affections This is the most convenient Rendring I could think of for the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which though the Latine Impetus may do right to yet I question whether any English Word will fully express it If any this of Affection which yet I do not so nicely confine my self to in this Translation as not to render it by Paraphrase in some Places But I must own that in the midst of my Doubts what to express it by generally the Authority of our Learned Gataker in his Latine and of Meric Casuab in his English Translation of Antoninus very much prevailed with me who hath both chosen this Expression for it in that Passage of his Book which seems very pertinent and directing to this purpose Lib. III. Sect. XVI 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gat. Affectus Casub Affections Our Affections our Desires and our Aversions And in short all our Actions of every kind are in our own power COMMENT HE calls those Things in our own power which we our selves are Masters of and which depend purely upon our own Disposal and Choice as we commonly say any thing is a Man 's own which he is not beholden to any body else for so as that it should fall within the compass of a Second Person to grant or deny it to permit or debar or any way hinder him in the Enjoyment of it Now such are the Motions and Operations of the Soul They are born and bred within us and owing solely to our own Judgment and our own Choice for indeed it is not possible for any thing without us to determine our Choice The Object of our Choice 't is confest is very often something without us but the Act of it and the Motions toward it are entirely our own and within us Such for instance are the particular Opinions we entertain and the Judgments we make of Things as that Riches or Death or the like are things in their own Nature Good or Evil or Indifferent And though we are often induced to take up this or that particular Opinion upon Trust and the Credit we give to what we hear other People say upon it yet is not their Authority or their Perswasion of such absolute efficacy as that the Opinion should not still be our own For at this rate we should make our selves as senseless Creatures as Parrots who when they call for a Cup of Sack know not what they say If we be allowed then to think at all the Opinion must be our own Act and Deed occasion'd 't is true sometimes by things without us and recommended and conveyed to us by the Instructions and Arguments of others but not infused so Mechanically as that we should be purely passive in the case Thus again The Object that moves our Affection is without us but the Affection itself is excited and arises within us For there is a great difference observable between the Internal Motion of the Mind and the External Motive or Inducement to it This Motion is not like that of Men thrust forward by another forcibly and against their Wills but such an one as when we move our own Bodies by our own Strength and of our own Accord The Case is the same with our Desires by which the Soul does as it were put her self forward and go in pursuit of the thing desired and so likewise with our Aversions too which are but a kind of turning aside or running away to avoid the Object that provokes them Now it is sufficiently manifest that of all these the First in order of Nature must be Opinion by which I understand such a Knowledge or Judgment of things as is grounded upon Reason and worthy the Character of a Man When this Opinion relates to any real or seeming Good or Evil which we apprehend our selves to be concern'd in then it presently excites either Desire or Averson and pursuant to either of these the proper Affections or Motions of the Soul For the Good must needs be desired before
agreeable to the Vertue of Temperance and the Intemperate is no less fond of all occasions to exercise his Extravagance Thus the Designs of them both are fixed and it is not in their power to alter them For some we see plainly who are angry at themselves condemn their own Desires and wish with all their Souls that they could restrain and subdue them yet find their Habits and Customs so violent and prevailing that they are hurried on and thrust forward like so many Engines and feel and lament the force which they cannot resist when Objects which are agreeable to their Inclinations and such as by frequently gratifying before are become familiar and natural to them offer themselves By the same Reason a Skilful and Judicious Man will give a right Judgment of things and entertain true Opinions of them and the Ignorant and Unlearned will have false and mistaken Notions For it cannot agree with the Character of a Wise Man to take up with an Error nor with that of an Ignorant one to find out the Truth But it stands to great Reason that the Ignorant one should assent to a Falshood and the Skilful and Learned should reject it And yet if these things were entirely at ones one disposal this would not be for the Ignorant Man would never prefer Falshood before Truth if he could help it and the Wise Man if we should allow him to assent to Truth meerly by virtue of his own Free-will might also be allowed to take up false Opinions if you do but suppose his Will to incline him that way too But this they tell you cannot be for it is with the Understanding and the Objects about which it is employed as we find it with the Senses of the Body and sensible Objects where it is impossible to have things apprehended otherwise than they represent themselves unless we suppose some weakness or defect in the Organs which should apprehend and represent them to us These are the Cavils commonly made use of against Free-will though indeed a great many Men insist upon one more and fancy that there is a Fatality in the Motion and Position of the Heavens that influences not only all other things but even our very Desires and Inclinations too determines us in the Opinions we shall espouse and the Choices we shall make And in confirmation of this Argument they produce the Predictions of Astrologers who upon calculating Men's Nativity and finding what Planet each Person is born under take upon them to pronounce very peremptorily that such a one shall be a Voluptuous Person a Second Covetous a Third a Lover of Learning and Wisdom and thus declare beforehand the Inclinations and Desires which in the whole course of their Lives shall afterwards be discovered by their Behaviour and Conversation Now these Men could never say true nor describe such Tempers and Practices so exactly as they do if there were not some Constellation some fatal over-ruling Influence that infuses these particular Inclinations and Appetites and puts it past Men's power to change or conquer them And if any such Fatality there be how absurd is it to pretend to a power of regulating and determining our own Desires and fixing them upon what Objects we please when we are absolutely and irrevocably staked down to this or that particular Object beforehand and must desire and pursue it whether we will or no This I think is the Sum of all those Objections that use to be urged against that Liberty we profess to assert and the power of disposing our Desires and our Aversions the Resolutions we take and the Actions we do as we see fit our selves Now in answer to the first of these which made our Wants the Foundation of that Necessity and Constraint they pretend we may reply that if this were true then Want would always create Desire But this it does not do For there are many things and particularly Inanimate Creatures that are oftentimes in great want of some Quality or other Heat or Cold or Drought or Moisture and yet they never desire what they stand so much in need of and the reason is plain because their Nature is not capable of Desire For in order to Desiring it is necessary both to have a Sense of the thing desired and to be moved by that Sense From whence it is plain that Want does not always infuse nor infer Desire But the Creatures which are endued with a faculty of designing when they feel themselves in want do then exert Desire in order to the Relief of the Wants they feel Thus to illustrate the Thing by a familiar Instance Itching disposes us to Scratch and upon a Sense of the Uneasiness it gives us the Hands apply themselves to the Relief we want but yet this Itching does not give us the Hands we scratch with Nor is it true that the Necessities of Humane Life have invented the Arts and Trades that are made use of for the Support of it for it is the Mind of Man which invented them saw the Need there was of them and took Occasion from thence to seek out this Relief For all Desire is a Motion of the Soul desiring born and begun within and exerted by the Soul when called out by any desirable Object but it is by no means infused into the Soul from without Now the Irrational Life of Brute Beasts being wholly corporeal and having in truth little or nothing but what is Matter and Body belonging to them is troubled with no difference or distraction of Desires hath no Wants except those relating to the Body to supply and consequently but one sort of Desires to exert And this constant Uniformity in their case makes us think them the Effect not of Liberty but Necessity But now the rational Soul of Man being placed as I said before in a middle Station may be considered in a threefold Capacity and Disposition One that inclines it to the worst part that is the Bodily and Brutish a Second that regards its own self and a Third that better and more excellent part above it so that here may be a threefold Conversation a threefold Want and a threefold Desire Now when it gives it self tamely up to the Body and consults the Brutish Appetites and Wants of that part only then of necessity it complies and concurs with all the Bodily Desires And this is that sort of Desire which captivates the Will and hath brought the Freedom of it to be a Matter of so much Controversie But when it pursues the Inclinations and lives agreeably to the Nature either of its own self or the excellent Beings above it then it exerts its Faculties freely and desires the Good peculiar to these Conditions without Difficulty or Opposition Now the Power and Liberty of the Soul consists in this that whereas Nature hath made her capable of Desires of several Qualities some of a better and more excellent kind and others of a worse and more vile she can so
far dispose of her self as to fix upon either the one or the other of these sorts which yet is done with this Difference that by pursuing the worse her Faculties are enfeebled and debased and by following the better they are exalted and confirmed for the Choice of these is indeed truly and properly Choice And hence we see it often happens that when the Body finds it self low and empty and requires Meat or some other Sustenance the Mind steps in and countermands this Desire with another over-ruling one of Fasting or Abstemiousness and this too taken up possibly upon some Religious Account or in Obedience to some Law or possibly merely in point of Prudence as thinking it better upon its own Account or more conducing to the Health of the Body Now I think no body can say but the Mind in such a Case might if it had so pleased have complied with those first Desires as indeed we sind the Generality of People do upon these Occasions but you see it exerted another opposite Desire and prosecuted that as the greater Good and so more eligible of the two So that Epictetus looking upon the Soul as endued with Reason might upon this Account very justly say that she had it in her Power to qualifie her Desires and to place them upon such or such Objects as she saw Cause The next Objection that tells us The Object of Desire necessarily excites the Soul to a Desire of it must be acknowledg'd to have a great deal of Truth in it but yet not so much as the Persons who urge it imagine For the Object does not move the Soul to Desire forcibly and mechanically but by proposing it self as something fit to be embraced and thus calling forth those Powers of the Soul into Action which Nature hath qualified to meet and to receive it Just as the sensible Object does not infuse the Faculty of Sensation into the Person who receives its Impressions nor draws him by violence to it self but only presents it self to the Eye in such Proportions as are proper for uniting with that Organ of Sense which was ordained by Nature and fitted for that Union And so the Object of Desire presents its Convenience and Fitness to the Soul and this invites such Motions as Nature hath provided proper for this Purpose Thus it must needs be because we see that when desirable Objects offer themselves some People are and others are not affected with them whereas if the Object were enduced with such Efficacy and Power as perfectly to constrain the Person desiring and the Motion of the Mind were necessarily impressed by it it must needs follow that upon such Occasions every one must be affected with it though perhaps not every one in the same Degree And in truth such an Operation upon the Mind would not be Desire but a violent Impulse or forcible Attraction such as we see when one Body is thrust forward or dragged along by another For Desire is a kind of Expansion in the Mind a moving forwards toward the Thing desired without any local Motion in the Person desiring such as we may resemble to a Man's stretching out his Hands to meet or embrace one while the rest of his Body is in no Motion So that Desire is a Motion begun originally and proceeding from within as are also our Opinions and the other Things mentioned here by Epictetus This Motion indeed is sometimes what it ought to be and is duely proportioned to the Nature of the Thing which we desire or conceive of And sometimes it is mistaken and very different from it when we are inclined to something which to us appears very desirable but is really what should rather provoke our Aversion When it shews us a gaudy Out-side to invite our Desire and hath a great deal of hidden Evil within which all the while lies concealed under some Advantage which the Idea of this Object flatters us with Thus the Thief is carried away with an Idea of Gain and Riches as a desirable Thing and this keeps him from considering or having any dread at all of that horrible Evil which lies sheltered under this Gain that defiles his Soul and taints it with Injustice And then as for any Apprehensions of Discovery and Imprisonment and Punishment which are the only Calamities so wicked a Wretch fears the excessive Eagerness of his Desire utterly overlooks and stifles all these for he presently represents to himself what a World of Men do such Things and yet are never found out Now thus much is plainly in our Power to examine this Object of our Desire more nicely and to inform our selves well whether it be a real Good and worth our pursuing or whether it only cheat us with a fair Out-side and counterfeit Appearance of Good as particularly in the Instance of Gain just now mentioned Nay we may go something farther yet for we may correct and regulate our Desires may bring them to fix upon such Objects only as are truly desirable and teach them not to be imposed upon with false Appearances We are told again That our Desires and our Opinions are carried to their proper Object with as invincible a Necessity as a Stone or Clod of Earth is carried downwards and consequently that Nature hath left us nothing in our own Power Nor have we any more reason to conclude that we are free to think or to desire after this or that manner when we see our Assent and Appetite always moved by the Credibility or the Desirableness of their Objects than we have to suppose that a Stone can ascend when we never see it do so Now to this it may be replied that there is a twofold Necessity the one absolutely destructive of Free-Will the other very consistent with it That kind of Necessity which proceeds from any Things without us does indeed take away all Liberty and Choice for no Man can be said to act freely when he is compelled by any other external Cause to do a Thing or to leave it undone But then there is another sort of Necessity from within our Selves which keeps every thing within its due Bounds and obliges each Faculty and Part to act agreeably to its own Nature and original Constitution And this is so far from destroying Free-Will that it rather preserves and supports it For by this means it comes to pass that a Free-Agent can be wrought upon by no other ways but such as are consistent with the Nature of a Free-Agent which is from a Principle of Motion within its self And this Necessity is by no means a Mechanical Necessity because it is not imposed by any Thing from without us but is what the Nature of such an Agent admits and requires what is necessary for its Preservation and for exerting the Operations proper to a Creature endued with such a Faculty as Self-Motion Besides if the Soul can bring it self to such Habits and Dispositions as are Vertuous or Vicious can grow better by
be great hazard of your losing the latter by pursuing the former but if not so you will be sure to find your self frustrated in all that can make you Free and Happy while you pursue the latter COMMENT HAving directed us what it is we are to expect Happiness from and how desirable the Life of such Persons must needs be who depend not only upon External Enjoyments and things out of their power for it but place it in their own natural Liberty and what falls within the compass of that That such a Life is above all Molestation and Controul safe from the Assaults of any ill Accidents not only advantagious but easie and delightful too the Good it desires never deceiving the Evil it declines never overtaking but in one Word exquisitely Happy and divinely Blest he now proceeds to excite in his Reader a Zeal worthy of such mighty Expectations and tells him that he must not look upon this as a Business by the by while his main Design and Care is for something else but that his Pains and his Affection must be so entirely devoted to this one thing as not to admit of any thing besides into a partnership with it The External Enjoyments of the World then must sit so loose about his Heart that as many of them as are inconsistent with a Virtuous Conversation and the Rules of right Reason such as Excess and Sensual Pleasure and sordid Wealth and Power and Ambition must be absolutely discarded it being impossible that any Man who makes these his Concern should at the same time preserve his own Freedom and Innocence and Wisdom But as for such others of them as may be no Obstructions to the Souls Good provided they be managed with Discretion such as a Decent Dwelling a competent Equipage the satisfactions of Marriage the care of continuing a good Family the Exercise of just Authority and some degree of Sollicitude and Pains for the providing all necessary Supports These and all the rest of the like nature he advises his Scholars to supersede for some convenient time at least and that for very good reason for it is necessary that they who would be truly and eminently Good should make the Exercise of Virtue their whole Business and constant study and suffer no other thing whatsoever to divert them from it Whoever proposes to himself not merely to be popular and impose upon the World with a dissembled Virtue but to answer the Character of a Sincere and Truly Good Man must take care of two Things first He must attain to such a Degree of Wisdom as may enable him to distinguish between what will really make for his Advantage and what will turn to his Prejudice and then he must keep under his brutish Appetites that they may never revolt nor rebel against Reason but may be so ready and observant to it as to move only at such Times and in such Proportions and toward such Objects as the Soul shall limit and prescribe to them For Men are betrayed into Vice two ways either for want of the Understanding's being sufficiently enlightned when we do not discern what is good and proper to be done or else through the Ungovernableness of the Affections and Sensual Appetites when though the Mind hath a Notion though but a weak and imperfect one of what ought to be done yet the Passions mutiny and make head usurp a Power that belongs not to them and over-rule the calm Judgment of sober Reason Thus the Tragaedian introduces Medea complaining of the Impotence of her Mind when about to murder her Children Remorse and Sense of Guilt draw back my Soul But stronger Passion does her Powers controul With Rage transported I push boldly on And see the Precipice I cannot shun It is necessary then in order to the enjoying of the World so as to maintain ones own Virtue and Innocence that a Man provide himself with a competent Degree of Knowledge and Prudence and reduce his Appetites to Moderation and Obedience And when he engages in Business and Conversation that he be sure to do it cautiously and seasonably and to put on this impenetrable Armour For this Reason Epictetus is urgent with his young Beginners to suspend even those Things that are consistent with Virtue for a while till Time and Practice have confirmed their good Habits and qualified them to use the World with Safety and Discretion For as it is Rashness and Folly to go into the Field unarm'd so is it to engage with the World till a Man hath fortified himself with Temper and Prudence But he acquaints us farther that for those that are but raw and unexperienced in Virtue to employ themselves in Business and Worldly Care is not only inconvenient and hazardous but ridiculous and vain and to no manner of purpose They that place their Desires and their Aversions upon such Things as are out of a Man's Power must needs fail of Prudence and Moderation and cannot have Inclinations and Aversions grounded upon and govern'd by right Reason which are the only Things that make Men free and easie and happy For they must of Necessity live in Subjection to their wild and brutish Passions which Lord it over them like so many cruel Masters or enraged Tyrants They must live perpetually too in a slavish Fear of all those Men in whose Power it is either to gratifie their Hopes or to obstruct and defeat them who can intercept the Good they wish or inflict the Ills they fear lest they should exert this Power to their Prejudice Besides all this When our Care and Concern is laid out upon the seeming good Things without us it exposes us to Disappointments in our true Happiness by taking off our Care from those Things that are more properly Ours For they who divide their Desires and Endeavours between both do neither make a just Distinction between those Things that are and those that are not really good nor do they express a becoming Concern for that which is their own peculiar Happiness nor bestow the Pains about it that it deserves and till they do so it is impossible they should attain to it For the most part therefore they fall short of those external Advantages they propose to themselves too because they do not apply their Minds to these entirely but now and then are diverted by Desires and Endeavours after their true and proper Happinesses and out of a secret Shame and Consciousness that this requires their Care fall into such Perplexities and Distractions as restrains and stops their Career and will not suffer them to do nor to endure every Thing that is necessary for obtaining the false Good they chiefly pursue Now though such a divided Life as this must be acknowledg'd to be less vicious than that which addicts it self wholly to the World without any Check or Interruption at all yet it cannot but be exceeding troublesome and uneasie much more so indeed than that of the Worldling For it is
be his meaning in that Advice that All Desire should for the present be wholly laid aside There is a manifest Reason why we should discharge all those Desires that concern Things without our Power for this evidently makes for our Advantage both in regard of the Disappointments and perpetual Uneasinesses that this Course delivers us from and also in Consideration of the Things themselves which though we should suppose no such Troubles and Disappointments attending them are not yet capable of bringing us any real Advantage nor that which is the proper Happiness of a Man But what shall we say to his forbidding the Desire even of those good Things which come within the Disposal of our own Wills The Reason he gives is this Because you are not yet come to this But if you were come to it there would then be no farther Occasion for Desire for this is no other than a Motion of the Mind desiring by which it reaches forward to what it is not yet come to And this seems to cut off all Desire in general for how is it possible to obtain any Good without first desiring it And especially if as hath been formerly shewn the Good and Happiness of a Man consist not so much in Actions and the effecting what we would as in the entertaining such Desires and Aversions as are agreeable to Nature and Reason what Ground can there be for suspending all our Desires and utterly forbidding us for a while to entertain any at all Or how can we imagine it possible for a Man to live vold of all Desire I add that this looks like a direct Contradiction to what went before when in the 4th Chapter he gave this Advice Since therefore the Advantages you propose â—o your self are so exceeding valuable Remember that you ought not to content your self with a cold and moderate pursuit of them For by that Pursuit he did not understand any Bodily Motion but the Eagerness of the Soul by which in the Act of Desiring she moves towards and makes after the Object And again How can we suppose any Affections and Propensions without Desire For the Order of Things insers a Necessity of Desire before there can be any such Affections and Propensions of the Soul In Answer to these Objections it may be replied that Epictetus here addresses himself to Young Beginners in Philosophy for whom it cannot be safe to indulge any Desires at all till they be first competently informed what are the Objects which they ought to fix upon And so that these Affections and Propensions of the Soul are only to be understood of those first Motions to or from its Object which the Stoicks contend are always antecedent to Desire and Aversion Or if he direct his Discourse to Men already instructed then we must not interpret the Words as they seem to sound nor suppose that he intends to cut off all Desire of the good Things in our Power absolutely speaking but only to restrain the Vehemence and Eagerness of that Aversion and Desire which in a moderate Degree he is content to allow For you see that he advises in the very same Place to make use of our Propensions and Affections of the Soul gently coolly and cautiously For we must necessarily move towards the Object in our Desires and from it in our Aversions our Desires and Aversions being antecedent to such Motions and producing them as Causes do their proper Effects Again When he advised before that Men would not content themselves with a cold and moderate pursuit of such valuable Advantages it was no part of his Intention to recommend an eager and violent Desire but rather that we should be so fixed and resolved in this prosecution as to satisfy our selves in doing what he adds immediately after the abandoning some Enjoyments for all together and the suspending of others for some convenient time Now a Vehement Degree in any of these things either the Propensities of the Mind or the Desires and Aversions of it is with great reason condemned because of the ill Consequences it is apt to have when Men shoot beyond the Mark through an Excess of Desire and attempt things above their Strength For this usually tends to the weakning of the Soul as much as overstraining injures the Body And this is an Inconvenience which many have found experimentally from that immoderate Violence and heat of Action which Men that are fond of Exercise and eager in it are most unseasonably guilty of For there are but very few Persons of such a Constitution either in Body or Mind as to be able all on the sudden to change from a bad State to a sound and good one Diogenes indeed and Crates and Zeno and such eminent Lights as these might be so happy but for the generality of People their Alterations are gradual and slow they fall by little and little and they recover themselves so too and this is such a Condition as Nature hath appointed for us with regard to the Soul as well as the Body For gentle Methods are commonly more likely to hold and a more safe way of proceeding These keep the Soul from spending its strength too fast and put some Checks upon its Forwardness which is the true way both of preserving and by degrees though but â—ow ones of consirming and increasing the vigour of it This is the true Reason why we are advised to put a Restraint upon the Affections of the Soul to move leisurely and gradually and with much coolness and caution That is to slacken the Reins by little and little and not to let loose our Desires and our Aversions nor give them their full range immediately For the Man that from a dissolute and headstrong course of Life would bring himself to the contrary Habits of Sobriety and strict Discipline must not presently leap to the distant Extream from Luxury and Excess to Abstemiousness and Fasting but he must advance by Steps and be satisfied at first with abating somewhat of his former Extravagance For what the Author of the Golden Verses hath observed is very considerable upon these Occasions The Rash use Force and with soft Pleasures Fight The Wise Retreat and save themselves by Flight Thus it is in Matters of Learning and Knowledge Young Students must admit the Ideas of things warily and not take every Appearance of Truth for an uncontestable Axiom that so if upon a Second view there be occasion to alter their Judgments it may be done with greater Readiness and Ease when their Minds are not too strongly possess'd with their first Notions Once more Epictetus advises his Scholars to move leisurely and gradually to Objects of both kinds but now if so much Caution and Coldness be necessary why does he allow our Aversions any more than our Desires for he bids us take off our Aversions from those Prejudicial things that are not in our power and bend them against those that are but at the same time he prohibits all
manner of Desire and for some time will not permit us to indulge that at all One probable account of this may be taken from the nature and Condition of Men who are beginning to reform for the first step to be taken toward a good Life is to throw off all the Venom and Corruption of a bad one and till the Breast have discharged it self of this no Nourishment can be had from any Principles of Virtue infused into it For what the great Hippocrates has most excellently observed concerning our Bodies is much more truly applicable to our Souls That so long as a Man continues full of gross and noxious Humours the Nourishment he receives does not feed him so much as his Distemper For the Vicious Principles that had taken Possession corrupt all the Good ones that are put to them Sometimes they make us disrelish them as unpleasant sometimes dread and avoid them as hurtful and injurious to us sometimes condemn them as Evil and reject them as impossible to be complied with And all this while the Disease gathers more strength and grows upon us by bringing us to a Contempt of better Principles after a pretence of having tried and found them defective And thus at last it becomes Incurable and will not so much as suffer us to admit of any Arguments or Actions that might advance us in Vertue but produces in us a Loathing of all those Remedies that might contribute to our Recovery Just as in the Jaundies when the Vitiated Palat thinks Honey bitter a Man nauseates it presently and will never endure to taste Honey after in order to the removing that Prejudice Thus the Aversions are allowed in Young Beginners because the Method of their Cures require it and the first step towards a Reformation is by growing into a Dislike of Vice to put themselves into a Condition of receiving Vertuous Principles and Good Instructions This Discourse is also excellently well suited to such Persons as it shews them the right way to Liberty and Security and an easie Mind that so their Lives may be pleasant and sweet to them which indeed is the very thing that all Creatures aim at Now though an absolute freedom from Passion and a Conversation in all points agreeable to the Rules of Decency and Nature be the proper Excellency which we ought to desire and pursue yet Beginners must satisfy themselves with less and think they do very well when they can abate of their Passions and reduce them within some reasonable bounds though they cannot gain an absolute Mastery over them And they must expect to relapse sometimes and are not to be condemned so much for falling as encouraged and commended when they rise again Such as these therefore are not yet arrived to the perfection of those things that should be the Object of their Desires And this I take to be the meaning of that Expression This is not come to your turn yet i. e. the imperfect State you are in hath not qualified you for such Desires For when we aim at something that exceeds our Capacity and find we cannot reach it then Troubles and Disappointments and a sinking of our Spirits and sometimes a desponding Mind follow upon it They that are violently bent upon things above their Strength slight such as are proportionable to it and think them vile and despicable because they judge of them by way of comparison with greater And yet it is by small beginnings only that we can ever arrive at great Perfections and before we can cope with things above us we must practise upon less and make our selves Masters of such as we are a Match for CHAP. VIII Remember upon all occasions to reslect with your self of what Nature and Condition those things are that minister Delight or are useful and beneficial to you or that you have a natural tenderness for And these Reflections may answer their End make them familiar by beginning at the slightest and most inconsiderable things and so rising to the higher and more valuable For instance if you are fond of an Earthen Cup consider it is but Earthen Ware and you cannot be much troubled or surprised when ever it happens to be broke And if you be fond of a Child or a Wife consider that these are of Humane that is of a Frail and Mortal Nature and thus your Surprise and Concern will be the less when Death takes either of them away from you COMMENT AFter the distinction between things within and things out of our own power and an Advertisement how we ought to esteem each of them That the former sort only must be look'd upon as our own the latter as Foreign and in the Disposal of others he had told us how we ought to be affected with regard to those that fall within our power to make such of them as are contrary to Reason and Nature the Object of our Aversion and to suspend all manner of Desire for some convenient time Which Advice in all probability is grounded upon the Arguments already mentioned But since it is impossible to live without having something of Interest in and much Dealings with those things that are not at the Disposal of our own Will he now informs us how to converse with them and tells us that though they be not at our own pleasure yet they shall not be able to create to us any manner of Disquiet and Confusion And here he takes notice of Three sorts of these External Things First Such as can only pretend to please without profiting us at all for these are they that minister to our Entertainment and Delight The Second are such as are beneficial and convenient for use And the Third such as we have a particular Affection for by reason of some natural Relation they bear to us and what we are tender of without any regard to our own Benefit and Convenience And this is a very just and true Distinction for Pleasure and Profit and Natural Affection are the Three things that engage our Hearts and it is always upon one or other of these Accounts that we are fond of this Mortal State and reconciled to all the Hardships and Miseries that attend it Now the Entertainments and Diversions that Men are delighted with differ according to their several Tempers and Inclinations Some find their pleasure in Plays and others in Sports and Exercises in Races or Tilting or the like Others in Dancings or Tricks of Legerdemain in Jugglers or Zany's or Buffoons Some again in curious Sights either the Beauties of Nature as the Colours of Peacocks and other fine Birds pleasant Flowers and Gardens and Meadows and Groves Or in the perfections of Art as Pictures and Statues and Buildings or the exquisite Workmanship of other Professions Some value those of the Eye less and find greater satisfaction in the Entertainment of the Ear as the Harmony of Vocal and Instrumental Musick and which is a Pleasure more generous and improving in Eloquence or
despight of all Dangers and Discouragements is our own Good for it is the Good of our Souls which are truly and properly our selves And this Advantage is considerable enough to be set against many Troubles and Losses and Banishments and Disgraces nay it is sufficient not only to be set against but to over-balance them all because the Good of this does so very much exceed the Evil that seems to be in them For if a Man think himself obliged to choose a Greater Good when attended only with a Less Evil how is it possible that he should be discouraged and uneasie under the expectation of some cross Accidents that sometimes follow upon Vertuous Actions when the Good of these Actions is truly and properly his own but the Evil of those Accidents is only something remote and not His Especially too when this is by no means a superficial and notional Distinction but such a real Difference as his whole Practice and Behaviour shews him sensible of This is the very Reason that Men of Virtue and Wisdom have made it their Glory to choose Good with the greatest Dangers that they have done it chearfully and sacrificed their very Lives for it and accounted their Sufferings upon such an Account matter of the greatest Joy to them So did * This Person was Son to Creon King of Thebes and upon an Answer of the Oracle that a Plague which then infested the City could not be removed till the Race of Cadmus were all extinct He who was the only remainder of that Family slew himself Of the same nature was that Act of Curtius and the Decii so much celebrated by the Roman Poets and Historians Menoeceus particularly and all those other Heroes famed in Story who have voluntarily devoted themselves and died for the Service and Sake of their Country Now Epictetus couches his Advice here under one of the Meanest and most Insignificant Instances that can be partly to illustrate what he says by an Example taken from common Conversation and so to gain the Assent of his Hearers to the truth of what he would infer from it and partly too as himself hath told us before to put his Scholars upon exercising their Virtue in Lesser Trials that so from Trivial Matters they may rise by degrees to others of greater Difficulty and Consequence And the Success of this Method hath been already shewn to depend upon Reasons which need not be repeated here But his Design is also that we should be careful to apply these things to Affairs of Moment in proportion as the Hazards of them are more discouraging and in those Occasions always to take our Measures from the Nature of the thing whether it be what is agreeable to Decency and our Duty and what those Hardships are that usually accompany it And after such Prospect taken to settle our Minds in this Resolution that if the worst happen yet we will bear it with Temper and Moderation For this is the way to maintain the Character of Vertuous and Rational Men this must let us into all the Advantages of doing well and defend us from all that Perplexity that unexpected Events commonly betray Men to For he that is troubled and Discomposed and fancies himself unhappy in what he suffers it is plain either had not sufficiently considered what he went about before he engaged in it or if he did foresee all this then his Disorder is the Effect of Effeminacy and Cowardice which makes him give out and repent his Undertaking And both these Failings are highly Criminal and contrary to the Rules of Nature and Right Reason CHAP. X. That which gives Men Disquiet and makes their Lives Miserable is not the Nature of things as they really are but the Notions and Opinions which they form to themselves concerning them Thus even Death which we look upon as the most perplexing and dreadfu hath in truth nothing of Terror in it For if it had Socrates must needs have feared it as much as we But our Opinion that it is Evil is the only thing that makes it so Therefore whenever we meet with Obstructions and Perplexities or fall into Troubles and Disorders let us be Just and not lay the blame where it is not due but impute it all to our own Selves and our prejudicate Opinions COMMENT WE were told before what Means would be Proper and Effectual for the preserving an Even and Composed Temper of Mind in the midst of all those Hardships that frequently attend our best Actions That this might be accomplished by the Power of Premeditation by representing these Inconveniences as sure to happen and when we had made the worst of it convincing our Selves that such Notions were worth our Undertaking even with all those Incumbrances Now that Rule proceeded upon the Work of our own Minds but there is another here fetch'd from the Nature of the Things themselves and the Consideration of those Difficulties and Dangers that use to give us Disturbance And here he changes his Method and confirms what he says not by some slight and trivial Instances as he did before but by Death the greatest and most confounding one to Humane Nature that can be For if the Argument hold good in this case it must needs be a great deal stronger with regard to all the rest which are by our own Confession less dismal and affrighting To this purpose then he tells us That those Things which we apprehend to be Evil and which for that Reason discompose our Spirits because we think our Selves miserable under them are really neither Evil themselves nor the true Causes of any Evil to us But that all our Troubles and Perplexities are entirely owing to the Opinions which we our Selves have entertained concerning them For proof of this Determination he produces that which of all the Things that we apprehend as Evil is confessedly the greatest and most terrible and shews that even Death nay a violent and untimely Death is yet no Evil The Argument he uses is short indeed but very full and conclusive the Method and Consequence whereof lies thus Whatever is Evil in its own Nature must needs appear so to all Mankind and especially to those whose Apprehensions are most improved and most suitable to the real Nature of Things Thus all Things that are naturally hot or cold or beautiful or the like appear to all People in their right Senses But Death does not appear evil to all People nor are they universally agreed in this Notion of it For Socrates did not think it so He chose to undergo it when it was in his Power to have declined it He endured it with all the Calmness and Composure imaginable He spent that whole Day in which he died with his Friends demonstrating to them the Existence and Immortality of the Soul and the Efficacy of a Philosophical Life in order to Virtue and Reformation From all which Premises this Conclusion evidently follows That Death is not in its own Nature evil
sometimes to qualifie it for suffering gallantly wheâ— any Accident gives us an Occasion And this may be accomplish'd these two Ways By getting a right Notion of them and By being well prepared against them which is to be done partly by accustoming the Body to Hardship which indeed is of general use and hath enabled even Ignorant and Ill Men to slight Blows and other Pains which we commonly think intolerable and partly too by fixing the Mind in a provident Forecast and distanâ— Expectation of them And all these Things we may certainly do if we please Now if neither Death nor any of those Things we dread most have any Thing that is formidable in their own Nature it is plain neither they nor the Persons that inslict them are the Cause of our Trouble but we our Selves and our own Opinions bring this upon our Selves When therefore the Mind feels it self perplexed with Grief or Fear or any other Passion the Blame is our own and nothing but our Opinions are accountable for such Disorders None but ignorant and undisciplin'd People tax others with their Misfortunes The Young Proficient blames himself but the Philosophâ—r indeed blames neither others nor himself The Connection of this with what went before is so close that if a Conjunction were added and we â—â—ad it thus For none but ignorant and undisciplin'd People tax others with their Misfortunes it had given a very good Reason why we should never lay our Troubles or Fears or Disorders or any other Calamity we fancy our Selves in to any Thing or any Bodies Charge but our own Since this Way of proceeding he says comes from want of being taught better And then to this Character of the Ignorant and Undisciplin'd he adds that of One who is a Beginner only in Philosophy and one who hath attained to a Mastery in it The Perfect Philosopher never thinks any Thing that befalls him Evil nor charges any Body with being the Occasion of his Misfortunes because he lives up to the Dictates of Nature and Reason and is never disappointed in his Pursuits and Desires nor ever overtaken with his Fears He that is but Raw and unfinish'd does indeed sometimes miss of his Desires and falls into the Mischiefs he would flec from because the brutish Inclinations move too strongly in him at such Times And when this happens the first Elements he learn'd which taught him to distinguish Things In and Out of our Power teach him too That he himself and none but he is the true Cause of all his Disappointments and all his Disasters And the Occasion of them all was his mistaking the Things without us and placing a Man 's proper Good and Evil in them But you will say perhaps Since this Young Philosopher knows That our own proper Good and Evil depends upon our own Power and Choice and the accusing himself implies that he knows thus much how comes it to pass that he takes wrong Measures and renders himself liable to this Blame Probably because the Knowledge of Good and Evil is the first step to be made toward Virtue this being the proper Act of Reason But the brutish Appetites do not always presently submit to Reason nor suffer themselves to be easily reduced and tempered by it and especially where it happens as it does very often that Reason is Negligent and Sluggish and the Irrational Part active and perpetually in Motion by which means the Passions gather Strength and usurp an absolute Dominion This was the Case of her in the Play Remorse and Sense of Guilt draw back my Soul But stronger Passion does her Powers controul With Rage transported I push boldly on And see the Precipice I cannot shun So that for some time it is pretty tolerable if Reason can work upon the Passions and either draw them by Force or charm and win them over some soster way For when this is done then the Knowledge of the Intelligent Part is more clear and instructive and proceeds without any Distraction at all No wonder therefore if Men but little trained in Philosophy make some false Steps while their Passions are not yet totally subdued and their Reason does not operate in its full Strength And when they do so they accuse Themselves only as having admitted that Distinction of Things in and out of our own Power though as yet they seem to have but an imperfect Notion of it But they that are Ignorant and absolutely untaught must needs commit a World of Errors both because of that violent Agitation which their Passions are continually in and of the Ignorance of their rational Part which hath not yet learn'd to distinguish real Good and Evil from what is so in appearance only Nor does it take them off from Brutality not so much as in Thought only By Brutality I mean such low and mean Notions as persuade us that our Body is properly our Selves and our Nature or which is yet worse when we think our Riches so as the Covetous do Now while we continue thus ignorant there are several Accounts to be given for our doing amiss We do it because we think all our Good and Evil consists in Things without us and not being at all sensible what is properly the Happiness or Unhappiness of Humane Nature or whence it proceeds we fall foul upon other People and fancy that they who obstruct or deprive us of those External Advantages we so eagerly pursue or that bring upon us any of the Calamities we would avoid are the real Causes of all our Misery Though in truth neither those External Advantages which we call Good nor those Calamities we call Evil are what we take them for but as Circumstances are sometimes ordered may prove the direct contrary For our Folly in this case is just like that of silly Boys that cannot endure their Masters but think them their worst Enemies and the Cause of a World of Misery but value and love those as their Friends indeed that invite them to Play and Pleasure Thus Epictetus hath given a short but exact Character of these three sorts of Persons The Perfect Philosophers are guilty of no Miscarriages for their Understanding is sufficiently accomplished to direct them and the Irrational Part readily submits to those Directions So that here is nothing but Harmony and Compliance and consequently they have no Body to lay any Misery to the Charge of for indeed they cannot labour under any Thing that is truly and properly Misery They cause none to themselves for this were a Contradiction to the Perfection of their Wisdom and Virtue and nothing else causes them any for they do not suppose any External Causes capable of doing it The Ignorant and Untaught err in both these Respects Neither their Reason nor their Passions are rightly disposed And they lay all their Unhappiness to others upon an Erroneous Imagination that it proceeds from Things without us And indeed it is easie and pleasant and fit for ignorant Wretches to shuffle off
think to be Good and decline and abhor that which we think to be Evil. And this may very well be called our own proper Excellence because the Regulation of our Desires and Aversions according to Reason and Nature is always in our own power though the Exerting these and making them effectual by outward acts is not always so And yet it is highly probable that Epictetus may intend something farther still by this right use of Ideas which is That our Practice and Behaviour should express a constant Conformity to these True Opinions and Regular Desires That we should not think it sufficient to declare it our Sense that Temperance is a Virtue but should be actually Temperate and make all our Actions speak the Conceptions of our Mind and the regulâ—rity of our Desires upon this occasion Not to satisfy our selves with the empty Commendations of Justice no nor with a few faint and feeble Desires of this Vertue for this is what follows of course and whatever we apprehend as Good we cannot but apprehend as Desirable too at the same time and yet allow our selves in Acts of Injustice This is the Case of Impotent and Incontinent Persons they desire Vertue but that Desire is overborn by a stronger that inclines to Pleasure Their Reason discerns what should be done though not so clearly and powerfully as it might and ought and for a while stands up in its Vindication and the Vertuous Desires and Aversions which are rightly disposed but weak and confused strike in and take its part but presently the Brutish Inclinations like an Impetuous Torrent bear down all before them distract and divert the Man from his cooler purposes and drive him to do what is most agreeable to his present heat This is just the Description I gave before of Medea when the Tragedian brings her in with these Words which I have so oft had occasion to repeat Remorse and sense of Guilt pull back my Soul But stronger Passion does her Powers controul With Rage transported I rush boldly on And see the Precipice I cannot shun So then it is by no means sufficient that a Man's Judgment is rightly informed and that his Desires are vertuously inclined in many instances unless he be all of a piece and take care that the Commendableness of his Practice hold correspondence with the truth of his Opinions This is the right and best use of our Ideas and this we may think our own peculiar Excellence but no External Advantage can ever be so For as the particular Commendation of a Carpenter considered as a Carpenter is his working according to the Rules of Art and Proportion so the peculiar Excellence of a Philosopher depends upon the Ideas and Affections of his Mind being Just and Good and the Exerting this Excellence is the calling these out into act and demonstrating them to the World by a Vertuous Conversation CHAP. XII As when a Ship lies in Port and you go out for Fresh Water you happen to meet with Shell-Fish or Sallads upon the Coast this is an accidental Advantage and beside your main purpose but still your Thoughts must be fixed upon the Ship and it should be your great care to attend the Masters Call that so when he gives you the Signal you may quit all readily and not be bound and carried away by Violence as Sheep must be served So here in the Affairs of the World if it be your Fortune instead of Fish or Sallad to light upon a Beloved Wife or Child which give an agreeable relish to Life none of these Matters must be suffered to detain you But when the Master gives you the Signal all must be left and the best of your Way made to the Ship But if you are in Years be sure you never stir far from the Ship for fear you be out of the way when the Master calls COMMENT HE hath by a Short but Ingenious Discourse endeavoured to draw us off from the pursuit of those External Advantages upon which we are used to set so great a value by shewing us that all these things are neither in our Disposal nor any such Happiness as can be properly called ours But now lest this Argument of his should be so far mistaken or wrested beyond its true purpose as to be thought to debar us of Marriage and other innocent Enjoyments and Satisfactions and absolutely to forbid us the having any thing at all to do with the World and its Advantages he acquaints us in the next place what things those are which he allows the Enjoyment of and with what Limitations we ought to enjoy them viz. That we should leave our Selves and them at the Disposal of God and resign all to his Providence without Reserve and then in such an Humble Dependence as this is to use and value them moderately and as they deserve That our Concern is due in the greatest Measure to the Necessities of Life and such as Humane Nature cannot subsist without which Epictetus here hath expressed by a Ship 's Watering meaning by this Food and Raiment and Dwelling and such other things as they who look no farther than just needful Supplies satisfy themselves withal These things therefore are allowed to be a part of our Care provided it be but in the Second place and with subordination to a Higher Good As for such things as are not absolutely necessary but only the Conveniences of Life as a Wife Children Estate and the like these he calls Accidental Advantages and besides our main purpose and therefore they are allowed the Third Place in our Esteem When a Bountiful Providence bestows these upon us we are to receive and use them seasonably and be sure to keep our Mind ever fixed upon our Chief and most Desirable Good But as for Pleasures and Riches and Honours and Preferments and such other Impertinencies he will not so much as admit these into the number of his Accidental Advantages but supposes them inconsistent with a strictly Rational and Virtuous Conversation For these are what he told us before must be wholly laid aside But the Enjoyments of Marriage and such other Conveniences of Humane Nature he advised to have suspended for a time only while Men were Young and Unexperienced in the Study of Virtue that so their first Beginnings might meet with no Interruption but take good Root and fasten upon the Mind And for this Reason when Men have made some progress and are arrived to such a degree of Perfection as may qualify them to use these with safety then he allows them to enjoy them provided still it be in the quality of an Additional Advantage and not a Principal Design Now the Allusion he hath made use of for this purpose seems to be exceeding proper and pertinent for the old Moralists in their Fables have commonly chosen the Sea to represent this Mortal State the Roughness of its Waves its frequent Ebbs and Floods the Tempestuous Weather to which it lies exposed and the
suffocating all that sink into it do abundantly justify the Metaphor By the Ship may be meant that which unites the Soul to the Body and brings her into this Mortal State whether it be Fate or Fortune or whatever else you will please to call it The Master of this Ship is God who governs and disposes all things and commands the Souls into their respective Bodies according as his own infinite Wisdom and tender Care sees fit and in proportion to their own Deserts The bringing this Ship into Port is the assigning to these Souls their proper Station and Country and Family by vertue whereof some are born in one Climate and Nation and some in another Some are descended from Great and Noble Families and others meanly born some of Virtuous or Healthful Parents and others of Vicious and Diseased ones The going out for fresh Water is the Care we take for supplying the Necessities of Nature without which it is impossible that Life should be supported And indeed what is there in this state of Mortality of such general use what that we can so little want both for the making of our Meat and Drink as Water What is intended by gathering Sallads or Shelfish by the by himself hath very elegantly informed us by instancing in a Wife and an Estate and acquainting us withal that when Providence is pleased to bestow them upon us we are not to refuse them but so neither are we to receive or value them as either the principal and most desirable Goods or indeed such as are properly ours For the First and Chief Good is that Disposition of Mind that is ever obedient to the Master of the Ship ever attentive to his Call Nor must we lay our selves out upon these Matters as we were allowed to do upon Water or necessary things but look upon them as additional Comforts and such as help to make Life easie and convenient Now if this Master call us to the Ship and give order for our returning back to himself and to that which is our True our Native Country make the best of your way says he to the Ship leave every thing that relates to this Mortal Life be ready to obey his first Orders and do not loiter or hanker upon any thing behind for fear when Nature cuts the Cable your Inclinations still be left on Shore Go you must that 's most certain and therefore it is that he tells you if you do not follow readily and chearfully and quit all of your own accord you shall be tied Neck and Heels like Sheep and thrown under Hatches that is you shall be forced and torn away and thrust out of the World like those Foolish and Sheepish Wretches that dye with Cowardice and Reluctancy and Unmanly Lamentations of themselves and their Friends But there is yet another Caution observable here which is That the Person to whom the Enjoyment of Marriage and such others as are the additional Advantages of Life are allowed must be sure to indulge himself in such Enjoyment of them only as is seasonable that so when he hath taken as much of these as is fit for him he may remove without any delay and readily comply with the Master's First Call But if a Man be Old and draws near his End he will do best to keep himself wholly disingaged and entertain himself with nothing so much as the constant Thought and Expectation of the Ships Sailing and his quitting the Shore for fear when the time of his Return comes and the Master calls he be retarded by his Burden and fastned down to the Land and be forced with a great deal of unbecoming Concern to leave a Young Wife and Pretty Children behind And surely an Old Man upon all Accounts hath much greater reason to prepare for leaving the World than to entertain himself with vain Projects of setling in it CHAP. XIII Trouble not your self with wishing that things may be just as you would have them but be well pleased they should be just as they are and then you will live easie COMMENT THE last Chapter instructed us what External Advantages those are which we are allowed to partake of and how we must govern our selves with regard to them that those which are necessary for the Support of Humane Nature must be used and valued accordingly those which are convenient as Additional Comforts and only things by the by but that neither the one nor the other must be made our chief aim Now after the Enjoyment of these things allowed under such Limitations he proceeds here to direct us by what means we may use and enjoy them without any Prejudice or Passion so as to avoid Disquiet and live always free and easie The great Obstruction to this is a perpetual Fretfulness of Temper and repining at whatever happens to us and this can never be cured but by one of these Two ways either that Providence should order all things agreeably to our Humour or that we should bring our own Humour to be satisfied with whatever Providence thinks fit to order The former of these that Providence should appoint every thing just as we would have it is neither possible for us to bring about nor would it at all times be for our Advantage if we could for it often happens that we are most eager and fond of those things which are prejudicial to us either upon the account of our Ignorance because we do not see the Nature and Consequence of them or through the predominancy of our Passions which puts a Biass upon the Judgment and inclines Reason to comply with the Sensual and Brutish part So that in effect there is but one way left to be easie and that is to be of so equal so resigned a Disposition as to sit down well content with whatever Providence sees good to appoint Now this may possibly be censured by some as an exceeding hard and indeed an Impracticable Precept and that no Man can be in good earnest when he pretends to perswade People that they ought to be well pleased things should be just as they are For what Man of Common Sense can be so when he observes the publick and general Calamities of Mankind Is it possible that such dire effects of Providence as Earthquakes and Inundations and Fires and Famines and Pestilences and Murrains of Cattel and Blastings of Fruit or that the Wicked and Barbarous Insolencies Men are guilty of to one another the Ravaging whole Countries Burning and Sacking of Cities the Imprisonments and Slaveries the Murders and Robberies the Rapine and Violence and unbounded Lust that have driven them past all Sense of God and Religion and utterly destroyed Morality and Vertue and Friendship and Mutual Faith and have so utterly ruined several Arts and Sciences which it hath cost many Ages to contrive and bring to maturity that we have nothing left of some but the empty Names and of others which ought to be look'd upon as the especial Gifts and
before that the Way to live Easie and Happy was for a Man not to wish that things might be just as he would have them but to be well pleased that they should be just as they are And now he proves the Argument intended to be deduced from thence which is That all outward Misfortunes are to be entertained with Temper and Moderation and not only so but he removes as I conceive an Objection that might be raised against it The Argument it self seems to me to lye thus If those Calamities that happen in our Fortunes or from any External Causes were properly Ours yet even upon this Supposition we ought to suffer them with great Patience and Resignation though they were much more Disastrous than really they are when it is remembred that even these are for our Advantage But if they be not indeed ours but each of them terminates in something else and cannot extend to us then it would be the last degree of Folly to be disturbed at the Misfortunes which are none of our own Sickness he says is a Hindrance to the Body and he says very well that it is a Hindrance only not an Evil. For we have seen already that neither the Diseases nor the Dissolution of the Body is Evil but all that it does is only to put a stop to its Operations as Lameness likewise does which was Epictetus's own Infirmity so that he does not speak to us now in a Formal Speculative way but from his own Practice and Experience Thus Lameness is an Obstruction to the Parts affected and Poverty is so to a Man's Expences and way of Living but neither the one nor the other is so to the Will and the Mind unless they voluntarily submit to be obstructed by it I confess if the Body or the Foot or our Estates were our very Essence and Nature then these Hindrances would be truly and properly ours but since we subsist in none of them none but the Rational Soul only is our selves since our Bodies are no more than Instruments by which we act and our Possessions only Conveniences for ministring to our necessary Occasions and since all our Good and Evil depends upon the Choice of our own Mind and consequently cannot be restrained or obstructed by them it is evident that we our selves are not hindred by these things neither For no outward Accident whatever can put any Confinement upon us but only upon something else something which we are not And therefore we must not suffer our selves to be disordered at these Misfortunes as if they were our own because by this means we shall fall into an Evil that is properly ours upon the account of something that is not so For Discontent and a Disturbance of the Mind are truly our own Evils This I take to be the Force and Connexion of his Argument But besides this he removes at the same time an Objection drawn as the Rhetoricians use to term it Ab Utili from the point of Advantage and Convenience For it may be said upon this Occasion that Sickness and Poverty cannot possibly be for our Benefit for how is it possible that a Diseased Man should perform all the Functions of Nature as he ought or how can we deny that a Man when reduced to extream Poverty is under an absolute Constraint to bend all his Care and Pains to the relief of his Wants and furnishing himself with necessary Supports This Objection now he takes off by shewing that Sickness and Poverty and all Hardships and Inconveniences of that kind put the Will under no Consinement at all and that in this free Principle it is that the very Being of Men consists and all their Good and Evil depends entirely upon it For how is the Sick Man tied up from choosing and desiring such things as are Vertuous and Reasonable and hating and declining the contrary Or what violence can the Extreamest Poverty put upon a Man which shall be able to compel him to act contrary to the principles of Honesty and Honour Were not Diogenes and Crates and Zeno in these Circumstances And did they ever shew themselves more truly Philosophers Did they ever give more Illustrious Proofs of Virtue and Greatness of Soul of Contentment and Satisfaction and even of Abundance in the slenderest Fortune than when they chose to forego their Plenty and thought it Wisdom to exchange that for Want and no Possessions of their own at all And indeed who is there so Blind and Brutish but would be pleased and proud to sustain such a Man in his Necessities and think his Liberality a greater Obligation and Honour to himself than to the Receiver But what need we go so far for Examples of this kind when even Epictetus himself that makes this Declaration was so eminent an instance of it As to his Fortune and Condition he was a Slave Infirm in his Body Lame from a Child and one that was so much exercised with Poverty and made it so much his Choice that his little Cottage at Rome was not thought worth a Lock or a Bolt for alas there was no Temptation within nothing but a course Coverlet and a hard Mattrice upon which he lay And yet this is the very Man that tells us Lameness may obstruct the Feet but the Mind it cannot except we please to let it Thus you see he did not make it his Business as a great many do to say fine things and entertain his Readers with sublime and airy Speculations but made the Experiment himself and speaks from his own Knowledge and Practice And for this Reason his Discourses are the more valuable for they manifest a truly Great Soul in himself and will make the deeper Impression upon all others whose Minds are well disposed CHAP. XIV Vpon every fresh Accident turn your Eyes inward and examine how you are qualified to encounter it If you see any very Beautiful Person you will find Continence to oppose against the Temptation If Labour and Difficulty come in your way you will find a Remedy in Hardiness and Resolution If you lye under the obloquy of an Ill Tongue Patience and Meekness are the proper Fence against it And thus if you do but prepare and use your self by degrees no Accident whatever will be able to surprise or subdue you COMMENT AFter having advanced some strange sublime Notions and required Men to do that which the generality of the World will be sure to think Romantick and Impossible as for Example to slight the Diseases of the Body as no Evil of ours and to be well pleased let our Circumstances be what they will that things should go just as they do never to suffer ones self either to be caught with the Bait of Sensual or Worldly Pleasure or to be dejected with any outward Calamities It is but reasonable that he should apply himself in the next place to shew that these are Transactions not above the Powers of Humane Nature and that he enjoyns us nothing but
well to all Mankind and rejoycing at the Prosperity of others And here we shall do well to observe what a mighty Good he makes this seeming Evil to contain and how prodigious an Honour this Disrespect derives upon us For this indeed is the very Quality of the Mind that brings us to the truest and nearest resemblance of God which is the greatest Happiness that any of his Creatures can possibly attain to For God is himself of absolute and unbounded Power being indeed the only Source of whatever limited Power is communicated to any other Beings And as his Power is infinitely great so his Will is infinitely Good From hence it comes to pass that he would have all things good and not any thing Evil so far as that can be And because his Will can intend nothing but what his Power is able to accomplish therefore he does really make all things Good and this he does not niggardly and grudgingly but communicates to every Creature of his own Goodness in as large Proportions as the Condition of each Creature is capable of enjoying Now the Soul of Man does not resemble God in infinite and uncontroulable Power 't is true for this is a Perfection of the Divine Nature which our Constitution cannot receive and besides there are many Degrees of intermediate Beings which though much inferior to God are yet much superior to us in point of Power But still in the other part of his Excellence he hath condescended to make us like himself and given us the honour of a Will Free and Unbounded a Will capable of extending its good Wishes and kind Inclinations to all the World provided we have but the Grace to make this good use of it It is therefore an instance of his wonderful Wisdom and adorable Goodness that he hath made this to be his Image and Similitude in our Souls because this is the true and proper principle of all Operation and Action And though the Soul cannot punctually make all things Good as God can and does yet it goes as far as it can in making them so and for the rest it does its part by wishing that Good which it cannot give them For that indeed is perfect and true Volition when the Person willing exerts his whole Strength and all the Faculties assist and concur with it for we have the absolute Disposal of our own Minds and so the wishing well to all Mankind is what any Man may do if he please And indeed a truly Good Man goes farther than all this he wishes the Prosperity of all Men whatsoever and he stops not there but extends his Kindness to Creatures of different Species to Brutes and Plants and even Inanimate things in a word to all that make up this great Body of the World of which himself is a part 'T is true he cannot make those Wishes effectual to all because as I said the Willing is a Perfection given us by Nature but the power of Effecting is not for this requires the Cooperation of many other Causes the Permission of the Gods and the Concurrence of several Agents which we cannot command And for this Reason it is that all our Virtue consists in our Will the Merit of all our Actions is measured by that and all the Happiness and Misery of our Lives made to depend upon the Good or Ill use of it And thus you have the force of this Argument proceeding upon a Supposition that these things are Good But if on the other hand the Respects denied to the Philosopher and paid to others be Evil this can be no ground of dissatisfaction but ministers a fresh occasion of Joy Not upon his account indeed who hath them but upon your own who have them not And at this rate the Good Man can never be Melancholy at the want of these things nor look upon it as any disparagement to his Person or diminution of his Happiness but is sure to be pleased let the Event be what it will that is either for others good Success if it be Good or for his own Escape if it be otherwise And thus all angry Resentments are taken off in point of Interest and Advantage for though we allow these things to be what conduce to our Happiness yet it is a much greater Happiness to aspire after a Resemblance of the Divine Perfections which the missing of them gives Men an opportunity to do and if they rather tend to make us Miserable then the Being without them is not so properly a Want as a Deliverance After this he proceeds to Two other Topicks the Possibility of obtaining them and the Reasonableness of expecting them From the former of these he argues that it is not to be imagined that one who never makes his Court should have the same Priviledges with one that is eternally labouring to ingratiate himself And this must consist of all the Ceremonious Fopperies and Servile Submissions imaginable the waiting at the Great Man's Rising expecting his coming out cringing and bowing in the Streets the Court and all Places of publick Concourse the Commending all he does though never so Base and admiring all he says though never so Senseless And therefore for a Philosoper and a Man of Honour and Truth who cannot submit to these unworthy Methods of insinuating himself to meet with the same Countenance and Marks of Kindness with those that prostitute themselves at this rate for them is as the World goes absolutely impossible Nay it is not only unreasonable upon that account to expect them but in point of Justice too it argues a Man greedy and insatiable when he expects his Meal and yet will not consent to pay his Ordinary It is desiring to invade another's Right and ingross to your self what he hath already bought and paid for For though he left no Mony under his Plate yet he gave that purchase which you would have thought much too dear And consequently as he shews by that instance of the Lettice you that went without the Dinner have as good a Bargain at least as he that was admitted to it He had the Varieties indeed but then you have your Liberty you did not inslave your self so far as to laugh at his dull Jests nor to commend what your better Sense could not like nor to bear the affected Coldness of his Welcome nor the tedious Attendance in an Anti-Chamber In short you were not the Subject of his haughty Negligence and stiff Formality nor the Jest of his saucy Servants All this you must have been content with to have Dined with his Greatness if you expect it upon easier Terms you are mistaken for it will come no cheaper and if you expect it without paying as others do it argues you greedy and an unfair Chapman And this Character is not consistent with that of a Good Man so that you must change your Temper and be more moderate in your expectances of this kind CHAP. XXXIII * The Condition of Nature and our
Sun and Moon to the Good Principle but putting all the Stars into the Possession of the Evil and deriving them from a Bad Cause The Light of the Moon they do not agree to be borrowed from the Sun but think it a Collection or Constellation of Souls which she draws up like so many Vapours from the Earth between Change and Full and then translates them by degrees into the Sun from the Full to the next New Moon In short they have a World of extravagant Fancies which do not so much as deserve to be reckoned among Fables and yet they are by no means content to have them look'd upon as Fabulous nor do they use them as Figures or Hieroglyphicks so as to signifie something else of more substantial Goodness but will needs have them believed to be strictly and literally true Thus the Image they give us of Evil is a Monster compounded of five several Creatures a Lion a Fish an Eagle and some other two Things I do not well remember what but all these put together are supposed to make a very ravenous and formidable Composition Such abominable Impiety against God are these Notions and Principles chargeable with and yet which is still more amazing the Persons that advance them profess to take Sanctuary in these Opinions out of a more than common Respect and a profounder Reverence to the Divine Perfections than the rest of the World as they think express They could not bear the imputing any Evil to God and to avoid this Inconvenience they have found out a particular Principle and Cause of all Evil a Principle equal in Honor and Power to the Good or rather indeed Superior and more Potent than He. For in all the Attempts that have been made hitherto to corrupt the World and render it miserable Evil seems plainly to have got the better For they represent Evil upon all Occasions taking Advantage against Good and contriving all manner of Ways not to let it go This is constantly the bold and daring Aggressor while Good in the mean while gives way to and mingles it self with Evil would fain compound the Matter and for any thing that yet appears hath discovered nothing in its whole Management but Fear and Folly and Injustice Thus while they abhor to call God the Cause of Evil they make him nothing but Evil in the most exquisite Degree and according to that vulgar Proverb leap out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire But besides these vile Profanations of the Majesty of God this System of Philosophy does as much as in it lies tear up the very Roots of all Virtue and moral Instruction by destroying and utterly taking away all that Liberty of Choice which God and Nature have given us For besides those Attributes of Eternity and Immortality it does also ascribe to this Principle of Evil a compulsive Power over our Wills and that so very absolute and strong that it is not only out of our own Disposal whether we will commit Wickedness or no but such as even God himself is not able to controul or over-power In the mean while it must be confest that this is a very idle and extravagant Imagination For if our Souls are violently thrust and born down into Murder or Adultery or any other that are reputed the most grievous Crimes and commit these merely by the Impulse of some stronger Power without any Consent or voluntary Concurrence of their own then are they clear of all Guilt And this is a Matter so evident and acknowledged that all Laws both Divine and Humane acquit Persons in Cases of Violence and such a Force as they could not resist and where it is plain they acted against their Will And indeed there is not nor can be any Sin at all in such Actions where Mens own Minds are supposed to have no Concern but to proceed upon Necessity and Constraint and such as could not be resisted by them Now if these wise Philosophers while they were at a loss where to fix the true Cause of these Things considered as Evils bethought themselves of this Remedy and set up such a Principle of Evil as you have heard to resolve the Difficulty they have done their own Business effectually and by a very pleasant Blunder over-turned their whole Scheme at once For if it follows likewise upon the Supposal of such a Constraint put upon the Wills of Men by that Principle that nothing they do is any longer Evil then observe how pleasant a Conclusion they have brought their Matters to for the Consequence lies plainly thus If there be such a Thing as a Principle of Evil then there is no such Thing as Evil in the World and if there be no such Thing as Evil then there cannot possibly be any such Thing as a Principle of Evil and so upon the whole Matter they have left themselves neither a Principle of Evil nor any Evil at all Since therefore this is discovered to be but a rotten Foundation if any conscious of its weakness shall presume to affirm that God is the Author of Evil as well as Good the Falshood and Impiety of this Assertion will ask but little Time and Pains to evince it For how indeed can we suppose it possible that that Opinion should be true which casts such unworthy Aspersions upon him who is the Author and Giver of all Truth And first which way can one conceive that God whose very Essence is perfect and immutable Goodness should produce Evil out of himself For since Evil and Good are contrary to each other as our Adversaries themselves grant How can we imagine one Contrary to be the Production of another Besides He that produces any thing out of himself does it by being the Cause of its existing by having the Cause within himself and having some Likeness to it in his own Nature and so if you respect him as the Cause the Producing and the Produced are in some degree the same So that the Promoters of this Opinion seem not to have attended to the manifest Dishonour they put upon God by making him not only the Cause and Author of Evil but to be the first and original Evil in his own Nature Since therefore there is no such Thing as a Common Principle of Evil and since God is not the Author and Cause of it what Account shall we give of its coming into the World For it is impossible any Thing should have a Beginning without a Cause And the best Course we can take for this will be first to explain what we mean by Evil and then enquire into its Original for the Causes of Things will very hardly be found till their Natures are first known Now as to that Evil which they suppose who profess to believe a Common Principle of Evil and many of those that dispute this Question understand we may be bold to pronounce that there is no such Thing in Nature For they pretend that this Evil hath a positive Subsistence of
the Rise and Birth of another And by this perpetual Round it is that Matter and Motion have been sustained all this while Now it is obvious to any observing Man that both Nature and Art as was urged heretofore do frequently neglect a part when the detriment of that in particular may conduce to the good of the whole The former does it as often as our Rheums and Ulcerous Humours are thrown off from the Vitals and turned into Sores or Swellings in any of the Extream Parts And Art imitates this Method of Nature as oft as a Limb is seared or lopped off for the preservation of the Body So that upon the whole Matter these Shocks and Corruptions of Bodies deserve rather to be esteemed Good than Evil and the Cause of them the Cause of Good and not Evil Events For those Sublunary Bodies that are Simples suffer no Injury because they are subject to no Decay or Destruction And for the Evil that the Parts seems to undergo this hath been shewn to have more Good than Evil in it both in Simples and Compounds even when considered in it self but if taken with respect to the Benefit which other Creatures reap by it then it is manifestly Good So that the Distempers and Decays of Bodies take them which way you will are not Evil but produce great Good But if any one shall be scrupulous upon this occasion and quarrel with that being called Good which is confessed to be no better than a perverting of the course of Nature let not this Nice Caviller take upon him however to call it Evil in the gross Sense and common Acceptation of the Word by which we understand something utterly repugnant and irreconcileable to Good But let him rather call it a Necessity or Hardship as being not desirable for its own sake but having some tendency and contributing to that which is so For were it simply and absolutely Evil it could never be an Instrument of Good to us Now that which I mean by Necessary though it have not Charms enough of its own to recommend it yet does it deserve to be accounted Good for leading us to that which is Good and that which can become a proper Object of our Choice under any Circumstance is so far forth Good Thus we choose Incisions and Burnings and Amputations nay we are content to pay dear for them and acknowledge our selves obliged both by the Prescription and the painful Operation all which were most ridiculous to be done if we thought these things Evil. And yet I own this is but a Qualified and an Inferior Good not strictly and properly so but only in a Second and Subordinate Sense Yet so that the Creator of these things is by no means the Cause of Evil but of a necessary and meaner Good but a Good still for such we ought to esteem it since it is derived from the same Universal Fountain of Goodness though embased with some Allays and Abatements And thus much I hope may be thought sufficient in Vindication of the Nature and Cause of that Evil which Bodies are concern'd in Nothing indeed can so truly be called Evil as the Lapses and Vices of the Soul of Man and of these too much hath been said before but however we will resume the Discourse upon this Occasion and enquire afresh both into the Nature and the Cause of them And here we shall do well to take notice That the Soul is of a more excellent Nature which dwell in the Regions above us are immutably fixed in Goodness and wholly unacquainted with any Evil. There are also the Souls of Brutes of a Baser alloy than ours and standing in the middle as it were between the Vegetative Souls of Plants and our Rational ones These so far forth as they are Corporeal are liable to that Evil to which Bodies are subject but so far as concerns their Appetites and Inclinations they bear some resemblance to the Humane and the Evil they are in this respect obnoxious to is in proportion the same so that one of these will be sufficiently explained by giving an account of the other Now the Humane Soul is in a middle Station between the Souls above and those below it partakes of the Qualities of both of those more Excellent ones in the Sublimity of its Nature and the Excellence of its Understanding Of the Brutal and inferiour ones by its strict affinity to the Body and Animal Life Of both these it is the common Band by its Vital Union with the Body and by its Habitual Freedom assimilates it self sometimes to the one sort and sometimes to the other of these Natures So long as it dwells above and entertains it self with Noble and Divine Speculations it preserves its Innocence and is fixed in Goodness but when it begins to flag and droop when it sinks down from that blissful Life and grovels in the Filth of the World which by Nature it is equally apt to do then it falls into all manner of Evil. So that its own Voluntary Depression of its self into this Region of Corruption and Mortality is the true Beginning and proper Cause of all its Misery and Mischief For though the Soul be of an Amphibious Disposition yet it is not forced either upwards or downwards but acts purely by an internal Principle of its own and is in perfect Liberty Nor ought this to seem incredible in an Agent which Nature hath made Free since even those Brutes that are Amphibious dwell sometimes in the Water and sometimes upon dry Ground without being determined to either any otherwise than by their own Inclination Now when the Soul debases her self to the World and enters into a near Intimacy with the Corruptible Body and esteems this to be the other consistent part of the Humane Nature then it leads the Life of Brutes and exerts it self in such Operations only as they are capable of It s Intellectual part degenerates into Sense and Imagination and its Affections into Anger and Concupiscence By these the wretched Mortal attains to Knowledge just of the same pitch with that of other Animals such as puts him upon seeking fresh Supplies for a Body that is continually wasting and upon continuing the World by Posterity to fill the place of one that must shortly leave it and upon making the best Provision he can for his own Preservation and Defence in the mean while For these Cares are what no Mortal would have were he not endued with Sensual Faculties and Passions For what Man that is any thing Nice and Considering would endure to spend so many Days and Years upon the support of this Body when the Burden of the whole Matter comes to no more than always filling and always emptying if Sensual Inclinations did not whet his Appetite Or who could undergo the tedious fatigue by which Succession is kept up if vehement Desires did not perpetually kindle new Flames and the prospect of Prosperity make us more easie to be warmed by
them These Arguments have been in some measure insisted on before and I take them to be abundantly clear in this point that though our Passions and Appetites be the Cause of Moral Evil yet they are extreamly Beneficial to the Creatures in which Nature hath implanted them as being necessary to their Constitution and giving a Relish to some of the most indispensible Actions of Life Upon all which accounts even these cannot with any Justice be called Evil nor God who infused them the Cause of it But the truth of the Matter is this The Soul is by Nature superior to this Body and Animal Life and hath a commanding power over them put into her Hands this Dignity and Power so long as she preserves keeping her Subjects under and at their due distance while she uses the Body as her Instrument and converts all its Functions to her own Use and Benefit so long all is well and there is no danger of Evil. But when once she forgets that the Divine Image is stampt upon her when she lays by the Ensigns of Government and gives away the Reins out of her own Hands when she sinks down into the Dregs of Flesh and Sense by preferring the Impetuous Temptations of Pleasure before the Mild and gentle Perswasions of Reason and enters into a strict Union with the Brutish part then Reason acts against its own Principles divests it self of its Despotick Power and basely submits to be governed by its Slave and this Confusion in the Soul is the Root of all Evil an Evil not owing to the more Excellent and Rational part while it maintains its own Station nor to the Inferior and Sensual while that keeps within its due Bounds but to the inverting of these the violent Usurpation of the one and the tame Submission of the other that is The perverse Choice of Degenerating into Body and Matter rather than forming ones self after the similitude of the Excellent Spirits above us But still all this as I said is Choice and not Constraint it is still Liberty though Liberty abused And here I would bespeak the Reader 's Attention a little to weigh the Reasons I am about to give why Choice and Volition must needs be the Souls own Act and Deed an Internal Motion of ours and not the Effect of any Compulsion from without I have already urged the Clearness of this Truth at large and that the Soul only is concern'd and acts purely upon the principles of her own Native Freedom in the Choice of the Worse no less than the Better part Thus much I apprehend to have been plainly proved from the Example of Almighty God himself the Determinations of all Wise Laws and well Constituted Governments and the Judgment of Sober and Knowing Men who all agree in this That the Merits of Men are not to be measured by the Fact it self or the Events of things but by the Will and Intention of the Person And accordingly their Rewards and Punishments their Censures and their Commendations are all proportioned to the Intention because this alone is entirely in a Man 's own power and consequently it is the only thing he can be accountable for From hence it comes to pass that whatever is done by Constraint and Irresistible Force though the Crime be never so grievous is yet pardoned or acquitted and the Guilt imputed not to the Party that did it but to the Person that forced him to the doing of it For he that used that Force did it Voluntary but he that was born down by it had no Will of his own concerned in the Fact but became the mere Instrument of effecting it against the Inclination of his own Mind Since then our own Choice is the Cause of Evil and since that Choice is the Souls Voluntary Act owing to no manner of Compulsion but it s own internal mere Motion what can we charge Evil upon so justly as upon the Soul But yet though the Soul be the Cause of Evil it is not the Cause of it considered as Evil for nothing ever is or can be chosen under that Notion But it disguises it self and deludes us with an Appearance of Good and when we choose that seeming Good we take at the same time the real Evil that lay concealed under it And thus much in effect was said before too And now having thus discovered the true Origine of Evil it is fit we proclaim to all the World That God is not chargeable with any Sin because it is not He but the Soul that does Evil and that freely and willingly too For were the Soul under any Constraint to do amiss then indeed there would be a colourable Pretence to lay the Blame on God who had suffered her to lye under so fatal a Necessity and had not left her free to rescue and save her self Though in truth upon this Presumption nothing that the Soul was forced to do could be strictly Evil. But now since the Soul is left to her self and acts purely by her own free Choice she must be content to bear all the Blame If it shall be farther objected That all this does not yet acquit Almighty God for that it is still his Act to allow Men this Liberty and leave them to themselves and that he ought not to permit them in the Choice of Evil then we are to consider that one of these Two Things must have been the Consequence of such a Proceeding Either First That after he had given Man a Rational Soul capable of choosing sometimes Good and sometimes Evil he must have chained up his Will and made it impossible for him to choose any thing but Good Or else that it ought never to have had this Indifference at all but to have been so framed at first that the Choice of Evil should have been naturally impossible One of these Two Things the Objector must say or he says nothing at all to the purpose Now the former of these is manifestly absurd for to what purpose was the Will left Free and Undetermined either way if the Determining it self one way was afterwards to be debarred it This would have been utterly to take away the power of Choosing for Choice and Necessity are things Inconsistent and where the Mind is so tied up that it can choose but one thing there properly speaking it can choose nothing As to the latter It must be remembred in the First Place that no Evil is ever chosen when the Mind apprehends it to be Evil But the Objector seems to think it were very convenient if this Freedom of the Will which is so Absolute in the Determining of it self sometimes to real Good and sometimes to that which deceives it with a false Appearance of being so were quite taken away Imagining it to be no Good to be sure and perhaps some great Evil But alas he does not consider how many things there are in the World that are accounted exceeding Good which yet are not really in any
Duty Observance and awful Concern to consider him as the Means made use of by God to bring us into the World to remember that his provident Care and Tenderness sustained the Being he gave us and that our Preservation as well as our Production is in a great measure owing to Him And therefore Children should look upon themselves as Debtors to their Parents and pay back all their Kindness with much Gratitude and large Interest They should give most ready Obedience to all their Commands except such as tend to the detriment of the Soul and in these cases their Compliance is dispensed with because they are under a higher Engagement to the Father of Spirits and must not displease him at any rate And yet upon these occasions too they should endeavour to give as little Offence as is possible and though their Refusal may and ought to be resolute yet Modesty must temper their Zeal and contrive that it may be respectful too In all other Matters we are to serve them with our utmost power both in our Bodies and our Goods For if the Persons and the Possessions of Slaves are at the absolute disposal of those whom Fortune and Purchase have made their Masters how much more ought ours to be at the Command of them whom Nature made the Cause of our very Being For this reason we ought to submit to their Correction with much more easiness and patience than Servants do to their Masters and if to their Blows then certainly rather still to their Reproaches and hard Usage The ancient Romans had a Law grounded it seems upon the Dignity of this Relation the absolute Right it gave the infinite Trouble Parents are at for the sake of their Children the unlimitted Subjection due to them presuming favourably withal of the natural Affection of Parents that gave the Parents a Power if they pleased to sell their Children and if they killed them call'd them to no account for it And the Times of greater Antiquity still bore so great a Reverence to Parents as almost to venture to call them Gods But finding some check from the incommunicable Devotion due to the Divine Nature they called their Parents Brothers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by that intimating what profound Respect belonged to their Parents themselves when even their collateral Relations were complemented with the Name of something Divine in them Now indeed in the Discharge of our Duty to Parents the first and principal Motive is the equity of the thing and the acting as becomes Men that make Pretensions to Wisdom and Vertue which this is most highly agreeable to And after this we should represent to our selves the Divine Justice and Vengeance which is very likely to punish us in our own kind and we have a great deal of reason to expect that we shall hereafter find the same measure from our Children which we give our Parents now So again if a Brother deal unjustly by you let it be your part to answer all the Particulars of the Relation between you and make good that Covenant which Nature hath ratified and made unalterable For though the World be a wide place yet you can have no other Parents nor Brethren nor Kinsmen but those you have And therefore since you must take them upon Content and there is no remedy behave your self as though you had made them your own Choice Consider too that his Behaviour toward you is not in your own power to determine but yours toward him is And therefore you should not so much regard his Actions which you cannot help nor are in any degree responsible for as what is agreeable to your own Duty and fit for you to do for in this consists all the real Advantage and Prejudice that can happen to you He can do you no harm let him design never so much provided you do but depend upon your own selâ— for your Good and Evil But if you ramble abroad and expect to find it there you are the worse then indeed though not by your Brother's Malice but your own Mistakes that place Happiness and Misery in things without you Add to all this the Advantage of winning him over by good usage for if your Forbearance and Meekness and Affection can render him not only your Brother but your Friend too these two Relations meeting in one and joining Forces will make the Union wonderful close and strong Now the Duties that we owe to our Masters and Teachers whose Business it is to instruct us in Wisdom and Vertue are much of the same nature with those due to Parents though in some respects I confess the Obligations seem to be greater in the case before us For these Persons nourish and train up not our Bodies but which is much more considerable our Souls that is our very selves They do it too upon a different Principle not constrained to it by Nature and Necessity like our Parents and by such an instinct as Brutes obey no less than Men but they do it out of a free Choice and a Desire to promote Goodness and Vertue And this makes a near Approach to and is a lively Resemblance of the Divine Bounty which takes Compassion upon sunk and lapsed Souls and is perpetually retrieving them from their Misery and restoring them to the Bliss they have lost Now these Observances must needs be peculiarly due to our Instructors because we ought to look upon their Instructions as coming out of the mouth of God Himself and consequentâ—y submit to them without troubling our selves to find out peevish Cavils and frivolous Exceptions against them For certainly it is not easie to conceive how he whose End and Profession it is to inform us in true Wisdom and Goodness should impose any thing upon us but what tends to the furthering so excellent a Design But now if our Parents take the pains to teach us and thus to the Engagement of being our Parents that other be added of being our Teachers too then we are to pay them all that Observance and Respect which can be challenged upon both these accounts We must then look upon them as the very Image of God reverence them as the Formers of our Souls as well as of our Bodies and like God the Causes to which not our Being only but also our Well-being ought to be ascribed The next thing that offers it self is the Duty of Friends and of this I shall treat with what Clearness but withal what Brevity so weighty and useful a Subject will bear The first thing to be regarded here is The Choice of Friends The next is How to use and keep those we have chosen and upon these things all the Benefits of Friendship depend The first thing we should look at in our Choice of Friends is Likeness of Temper and Disposition For there are several Humours which though very good when single yet will make but â—ill Musick when brought together The Sour and Phlegmatick and Cold Temper will suit but
ill with the Brisk and Sanguine one though each of these alone and each well coupled may be excelâ—ent Persons The next Consideration is How the Person whom we make choice of hath behaved himself to his other Friends before The third Rule which is indeed of such moment that it may be justly thought to include all is to observe Whether he be a Man governed by his Passions or his Reason When this is done we shall sind it very proper to examine into his Inclinations and see which way the Bent and Byass of his Soul lies whether they draw him to Goodness and Vertue and such Actions and Enjoyments as are commendable and befitting a Man of Piety and Honour or whether to vile and unmanly Pleasures and such as none but shameless Fellows and Scoundrels abandon themselves to We shall do well to observe farther whether these Desires and Inclinations be tractable and gentle such as are fit to be spoken with and ready to hearken to Reason or whether they be violent and unpersuadable such as mind nothing but their own Gratification and are deaf to all Arguments that would draw them off from it For Men of such Passions are always hot and peremptory and by no means fit to make Friends of Those also that are fond of the World and expect their Happiness any where but from their own Minds are very improper to fix upon For they dote upon Riches or Mistresses or Preferments and in all those things that are of a communicable nature they carve themselves too largely and are desious to engross the Whole so destroying that Equality which Friendship either supposeth or introduceth This in Riches and such instances is plain beyond a doubt and the Vain glorious discovers it as evidently too in the desires of Reputation and Applause Now it is the peculiar Excellence of those things that tend to the Soul 's Good that the Possessor hath them entirely to himself even when he imparts them to others They are not diminished but augmented by Communication For they are excited and kindled in the Breasts of those on whom we bestow them and the farther they spread the more they are scattered the more and larger they grow So that the Light of Truth and Vertue takes fire by Conversation as a Match does by the mutual Attrition of Flint and Steel that kindles by the Sparks that drop from it but loses none of the Virtue it gives away Again When Friends make true Good their End and right Reason their Rule they are sure never to differ in point of Interest for they judge of Advantage by the same common Standard Now when they are thus agreed in one Measure and judge of Pleasure and Profit and the contraries to these alike they have secured themselves against the most dangerous and usual Bane of Friendship For without a perfect Agreement in these Matters Disputes and Quarrels are always unavoidable And so much for the Choice of our Friends As for our Behaviour to the Friends thus chosen That in one Word must make Reason and Equity its constant Rule And upon this account we must never do any thing to our Friends which we would not be perfectly satisfied with when done by them to us Whatever Kindnesses they receive from us must be extenuated and thought moderately of but whatever Obligations we receive from them must be very highly esteemed and rated above their just Value The Course directly contrary to this must be observed in Failings and Miscarriages Theirs must be lessened and excused our own aggravated and severely condemned We must think nothing so strictly our own as that a Friend should not have an equal or rather indeed a greater Share and Right in it And upon all Occasions we should give them Precedence and Respect and we should do it willingly and chearfully as considering that their Honours devolve upon us and that a Friend according to the Proverb is a Man's second Self But since after all our nicest Circumspection and Care it is impossible for us to continue Men and not give some occasion of Offence this Point is to be managed very tenderly A Man that will be a Friend in good earnest ought especially to guard this Breach and to reprove what is done amiss with great Temper and Softness in Obedience to that old and truly Golden Rule Lose not a Friend on every slight Pretence Ready to pardon slow to take Offence Pythag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That so you may admit him to a perfect and firm Reconciliation and deliver him from the Remorse of his own Mind by leaving no ground of Jealousie that he hath not still the same place in your Affection and Esteem It is certain too that our Kindness and Concern ought not to be confined to our Friend alone but extend to his Relations and Acquaintance and those whose Affairs and Successes he thinks himself interested in So that he should be as ready to serve them upon his Account as he would be upon their own Our Concern and Affection ought not to be restrained to Place neither but we should have the same and upon some Accounts a more tender Regard to our Friend in his Absence than we think our selves obliged to express when he is present with us an eminent instance whereof I could give from my personal Experience in a Friend of my own And to conclude all when once we have made a prudent Choice and laid the Foundations of Friendship in an agreeable Humour and tryed Constancy and vertuous Dispositions the Affections that will naturally follow upon such powerful Attractives will not fail to conduct us in the right Method of Conversation and all the Duties and good Offices that can be expected as the Testimonies and Endearments of Friendship will follow of Course Now what a Blessing Friendship is how rich a Treasure and how fruitful in the Advantages of Life is a Subject worthy of a long and studied Discourse but at present I shall content my self with a few Particulars only and such as occur to my present Thoughts First then Every Friend hath Two Souls and Two Bodies and it is plain from the soregoing Rules that he must needs have Two Estates And if a Man have several such Friends then his Advantages grow upon him still more and he is multiplyed into more Souls and Bodies and Estates in proportion to the number of his Friends In the Study of Wisdom and Nature Souls thus united have an infinite Advantage and the Light of Truth displays it self much more early and fully to them Nor have they less in the Exercise of Vertue by mutual Conferences and joynt Endeavours These bring their Improvements into one common Bank from whence every Man supplies his own Occasions and easily grows rich at the publick Stock Besides that such united Perfection will find a more than ordinary Blessing and Encouragement from Heaven they are secure of prudent and seasonable Advice in all their Difficulties their Motions will
of Men be so disposed as to express this Persuasion of a Wise and Good Providence so as not to fly out into peevish Murmurings and Complaints nor think that Almighty God hath done us wrong in any of his Dispensations But this is a Temper we can never attain to so long as we expect Happiness and dread Misery from any thing but our selves The Management of our own Will must be our only Care and all our Desires and Aversions restrained to the Objects of Choice and then we need never be disappointed in our Hopes nor surprized by our Fears But this must needs happen to all that place their Happiness and Misery in the Enjoyment or the Want of any external Advantages and such Disappointments and Surprizes will necessarily carry them to a Detestation of that which they look upon as the cause of such Misfortunes And they will very hardly refrain from speaking ill of that Power which might have prevented their Misery but took no care to do it For every Creature naturally desires Good and abhorrs Evil and therefore not only the Things themselves but the Causes of them are shunned and hated courted and admired in proportion as they really are or as we apprehend them to be Good or Evil. There is no such thing in Nature nor can there be as that a Man should take delight in and bear a true Affection to the Person whom he looks upon to have done him some real Injury or Hurt any more than he can be fond of that Hurt or Injury it self And since all Good naturally attracts our Love and Desire and all Evil provokes our Aversion we must needs be affected alike both to the Things themselves and the Causes of them to us And though we be mistaken in our Notions of Good and Evil yet that we shall proceed according to our apprehensions of these Things as if they were really so and cannot restrain our selves from hating and reviling the Authors of our Calamity or the Deceivers of our Hope he proves from hence That the strictest Ties of Nature and Duty and Affection are generally found too feeble Engagements to keep Men in Temper or moderate their Resentments Thus we see greedy and impatient Children perpetually railing at their Fathers for keeping them out of their Estates which they account their Good or for inflicting some Severities upon them which they think Evil as when they chastise their Follies or deny them their Liberty And thus Oedipus his two Sons Polynices and Eteocles forgetting that they were Brothers quarrell'd and kill'd one another for the Crown in which they were Rivals Thus the Farmer when his Seed-time or his Harvest happens ill if it rain too much or too little or if any other cross accident come to his Crop presently rails and murmurs against the Gods or if he have the modesty to hold his tongue yet he is sure to fret and curse inwardly Thus Mariners when they want a fair Wind and though they are bound to different Ports and must sail with different Winds one perhaps wishes for a Northern another for a Southerly Gale and the same can never serve or please them all yet they swear and rant at Providence as if it were obliged to take care of them only and neglect all those whose Business requires it should blow in the Quarter where it does So likewise Merchants are never content When they are to buy they would have great plenty and a low Market but when it is their turn to sell then they wish for scarcity and a rising Price And if either of these happen otherwise they grow discontented and accuse Providence And in general when Men bury their Wives or Children or have something very dear taken from them or fall into some disaster they feared they grow angry at the Disposer of these Events For we are naturally inclined to honour and respect the Persons that oblige and gratifie us and as nothing excites these Resentments in us so soon or so powerfully as our own advantage so nothing gives such an effectual disgust and so irreconcilable a disrespect as the apprehension that any Person hath contributed to our loss and disadvantage So that a Man in taking care to fix his Desires and his Aversions upon right Objects does at the same time secure his Piety and Reverence for God for this Man's Hopes are always answered his Fears always vanish into nothing for he neither hopes nor fears any thing out of his own power is consequently always pleased and under no Temptations to accuse Providence for any thing that can possibly happen to him But the Man that gives his Desires a Loose and expects his Fate from enternal Accidents is a Slave to all the World He lies at the mercy of every Man's Opinion of Health and Sickness Poverty and Riches Life and Death Victories and Defeats nay even the Wind and the Rain the Haâ—l and the Meteors and in short every Cause and every Effect in Nature is his Master For except every one of these fall out just according to his mind his Desires must be frustrated and his Fears accomplished What a Weather-cock of a Man is this How uneasie and unsetled his Life How tedious and troublesome must he be to himself How dissatisfied in his Breast and how impious in his Reflections upon Providence So that in short there is no one Circumstance wanting that can conduce to the rendring such a one miserable Having thus laid the Foundations of Religion in true Notions of the Divine Nature in a contented Submission to all Events and in a firm Persuasion of a Wise and Good Providence that disposes them as we see and having moreover shewn the necessity of despising the World and depending upon our own Will and the Objects of it for all the Happiness and Misery we are capable of he proceeds now to direct us what methods we should take to express our Reverence and Honour for the Gods Some of those that are generally practised and become universal it is highly probable that God himself instituted declaring as some Histories inform us he did what Services would be most acceptable to Him and this with a gracious Design of bringing us better acquainted with Himself and likewise to sanctifie and enlarge our Enjoyments that our Offerings might envite his Blessings and his Bounty and for giving back a little we might receive the more As therefore we hold our selves bound in the first place to set apart that Soul which we received from him to his Service and to consecrate it by refined and holy Thoughts by worthy and reverend Ideas of his Majesty and a regular uncorrupt Life so it should be our next care to purifie and dedicate this Body too which came to us from the same hand and carefully to wash away all the seen or hidden Blemishes and Pollutions which it may have contracted When the Soul and its Instrument are thus clear from all their Stains let us come decently cloathed into
you The same Argument holds as strong with regard to Motion too for if we trace this up to its beginning we shall find that those Bodies which made the first Impressions were either such as moved by an Internal Power and Principle of their own or such as were fixed themselves and had no share in the Motion they impressed upon others For whatever is moved Mechanically is moved by something else and that again by some other thing and so on for ever But such an account as this of Motion in Infinitum is neither possible to be nor to be conceived For at this rate if there were no Beginning of Motion the only Consequence from hence must needs be That there would be no Mover nor no Moved Bodies at all And if we will allow any Beginning as allow it we must that First Mover must be either endued with a principle of Self-motion or it must have no motion at all But the latter of these it cannot be neither for this is evident in all motion that fix'd Bodies are so far from communicating motion to those Bodies that have it not that on the contrary they check and stop it in those that have and dispose them always to continue in the same State and Posture without any manner of alteration So that free motion must at last be resolved to be the first Cause of Mechanical Now the Things that are concerned in mechanical motion are such as are subject to Generation and Corruption to Augmentation and Diminution and to any sort of Alteration whether that refer to the Qualities of the Things themselves or whether to their Local Distances and Situations For whatever is produced could never produce it self because then it must have had a Being before it was produced and so begin to be both before and after it self And whatever receives increase is not augmented by it self for Augmentation is nothing else but the addition of something which it had not before So again whatever is altered is altered by some other thing and not from it self for alteration is properly the introducing of a contrary Quality So likewise Local motion cannot be from the Body moving for since all motions are subject to the Rules I have here laid down and Generation Corruption Augmentation and Alteration are all but so many Effects of motion it is plain this must be derived from something else and could not set it self on going Those things therefore which are in the Course of Nature superiour to these Productions and the Causes of necessary motion must needs be capable of moving themselves For if we should suppose but one minute in perfect Repose nothing would ever move again except some Free Self-moving Agent began the Dance For whatever is once six'd is disposed to continue so to all Eternity and whatever moves mechanically must wait for the leisure of some other Body and cannot stir till it receive the impression and is put into action Now whatever the first Principles of Things are 't is necessary that they should be of a simple Nature For all mix'd Bodies are compounded of Simples and consequently the Ingredients must have a Priority in Nature before the Composition that is made up of them And now let us consider some of the grossest and most obvious Bodies and so by degrees ascend higher to try at last whether it be possible for us to conceive Body to be such a Principle as Reason will tell us the first Principles of all things must needs have been or whether it will not be impossible to conceive that these Bodies which we see move and subsist should ever have had that Motion and that Existence from themselves For whatever moves it self is called Self-moving either because one part of it is active and the other passive in this motion or else because the whole is active and the whole passive Now if we imagine one part to communicate and the other only to receive the Impression still the same Question will return for that part which begins the motion whether this be done from a Principle of its own or from any external Impulse and so up till at last you must be forced to stop at something which must be acknowledged an entire moving and entire moved The same is to be said of Self-existence too for whatever is originally and properly must be an entire Existence and the sole and entire Cause of its own Existence And whatever is so must be indivisible and without Parts For whatever consists of Parts and is capable of being divided could never unite its whole self to its whole self so as to be entirely moving and entirely moved entirely subsisting and yet the entire Cause of so subsisting at the same time Again It is no less impossible that any Bodies should be of a simple Nature for they must of necessity consist of Matter and Form and several other Properties that must go to the compleating of their Nature such as Magnitude and Figure and Colour and sundry other Qualities which are not original and causal Species themselves but only participations of these produced in some Matter without Form that partakes of them For where these Original Forms lie there every thing is in its true Essence and Perfection and there is no need of any Matter unform'd to receive them But when those Originals are communicated then there must of necessity be some Matter to receive them which till it hath done is it self void of Form Since then the First Principles of Things are incorporeal and indivisible since their Nature must be simple and that they are properly Efficient Causes since their Existence and their Motion must be entirely from themselves and since it hath been shewed that Bodies are not in any degree capable of these Qualifications it must needs I think be concluded that Body could not be the First Principle nor the Universe owing to any such Original Where then shall we find such a self-moving Agent as infuses Motion into the necessary ones and may be considered as a Cause with respect to them This sure must be something that moves from an internal Principle But still if this Motion from within were derived from something else and not from it self we should not call this an Internal Motion but an External Impulse as we do in Bodies For if I by a Staff that is in my Hand move a Stone though both my Staff and my Hand contribute to that Motion more immediately yet I my self am the true and proper Cause of it What shall we say then moves Bodies from within What indeed but the Soul For animated Bodies are moved from an internal Principle and all Bodies so moved are Animates If then it be the Soul which gives an internal motion to Bodies and if this internal Mover be self-moving it remains that the Soul is a free and spontaneous Mover the cause of Productions and beginning of Motions containing in her self the several Patterns and Measures and
the Motions that measâ—re it are taken and derive their Being there we may contemplate the Primitive Causes of much greater Antiquity than those we observed in the Self-moving Agent and there we shall see them lie in all their Perfections Immovable Eternal Entire United to each other so as that each should be all by Virtue of this intimate Conjunction and yet the intelâ—ectual Differences between them should remain distinct and unconfused For what account can be given of so many different Forms in the World but only that the Great God and Creator of the World produces these as he thinks fit to separate and distinguish the Causes of them in his own Mind which yet we must not suppose to make such actual and incommunicable differences between the Originals as we observe between the Copies of them here Nor are the Distinctions of the differing sorts of Souls the same with those of Bodies Each of the Eight Heavens we see and the Constellations peculiar to them are a part of the whole Heaven taken together a full and integral Part and yet each hath its Essence and Influences and Operations proper to it self And so likewise the Forms of Sublunary as well as Celestial Bodies that are always the same as that of a Man a Horse a Vine a Fig-tree each of these are perfect and full though not in Individuals as the Heavenly Bodies are yet according to the various Species with which they fill the World and the Essential Differences which distinguish them from one another Just thus it is with those more simple and Intellectual Considerations of which these Forms are compounded such as Essence Motion Repose Identity Beauty Truth Proportion and all those other Metaphysical Qualities belonging to the Composition of Bodies each of which is perfect in its own kind and hath a distinct Form of its own and many Differences peculiar to it self only And if this be the Case in so many Inferiour Beings how much more perfect and entire shall every thing subsist in the great Soul of the World These are the spontaneous Causes of the Bodies here below and all their differences lie united there According to this Pattern all things here are formed but that Pattern abundantly more perfect and pure and exact than any of its Resemblances Much more persect still then are these Divine and Intellectual Forms than any Corporeal ones of which they are the great Originals For these are united not by any mutual Contact or Continuity of Matter or bodily Mixture but by the Coalition of indivisible Forms And this Union being such as still presents the Distinctions between them clear and unconsus'd makes each of them perfect in it self and qualifies it to be the common Principle and Root of all the Forms of its own likeness and kind from the highest to the lowest Now the several distinct Principles of things derive their Causal Power and Dignity from some One Superiour Principle For it is plain that many could not exist without an antecedent Cause For which Reason each of Many is One but not such a One as was before those Many For the One of Many is a part of that Number and is distinguished from the rest by some particular Qualifications which give him a Being a part to himself But the One before Many was the Cause of those Many he comprehended them all within himself existed before them is the Cause of Causes the first Principle of all Principles and the God of Gods for thus all the World by the meer Dictates of Nature have agreed to call and to adore him He is likewise the Supreme and Original Goodness For all Effects have a natural desire and tendency to the respective Properties of their first Cause Now that which all things desire is Good and consequently the first Cause must be the Original and the Supreme Good So likewise he must be the Original and Supreme Power For every Cause hath the highest Power in its own kind and consequently the first Cause of all must needs exceed them all in Power and have all of every kind He must needs be endued with perfect Knowledge too for how can we imagine him ignorant of any thing which himself hath made It is no less evident too from hence that the World and all things were produced by him without any difficulty at all Thus by considering of particulars we are at last arrived to a general Demonstration and from the parts have learnt the whole for indeed we had no other way of coming to the Knowledge of it but by its parts the whole it self is too vast for our Comprehension and our Understandings are so feeble as often to mistake a very small part for the whole And the result of the Argument is this That as all Things and Causes are derived at last from one Cause so they ought to pay all manner of Honour and Adoration to that Cause for this is the Stem and Root of them all and therefore it is not an empty Name only but Similitude in Nature too by which every Cause is allied to this Universal One. For the very Power and Privilege of being Causes and the Honour that is due to them when compared with their Effects is the free Gift of this Supreme Cause to all the inferiour and particular ones Now if any man think it too great an Honour for these lower and limited ones to be called Causes or Principles as well as that original and general one it must be owned in the first place That there is some Colour for this Scruple because this seems to argue an equality of Causal Power But then this may easily be remedied by calling These barely Causes and That the First and Universal Cause And though it be true that each particular Principle is a first and general one with respect to others of less extent and power contained under it as there is one Principle of Gracefulness with regard to the Body another with regard to that of the Mind and a third of Gracefulness in general that comprehends them both yet in Truth and strict Propriety of Speech none is the First Principle but that which hath no other before or above it and so likewise we may and do say by way of Eminence the First and Supreme Cause the First and Supreme God and the First and Supreme Good Moreover we must take notice that this First Cause which is above and before all things cannot possibly have any proper Name and such as may give us an adequate Idea of his Nature For every Name is given for distinction's sake and to express something peculiar but since all distinguishing Properties whatever flow from and are in Him all we can do is to sum up the most valuable Perfections of his Creatures and then ascribe them to Him For this Reason as I hinted at the beginning of this Discourse the Greeks made choice of a name for God derived from the Heavenly Bodies and the swiftness of their
God created all these Things to think that he does not now inspect and concern himself for his own Productions But now after this general Consideration I shall apply my self more particularly to those who either do really or would seem to entertain a due sense of the Divine Majesty and in pretended Honour to that disparage and lower the Affairs of humane Life as Things below his Notice and such as it would be an unbecoming Condescension a debasing of Himself to express any Care or Concern for And here I must take leave to vindicate the Honour of Humane Nature and tell the Objectors That Mankind and their Affairs are no such small and contemptible matter as they have thought fit to represent them For in the first place Man is not only an Animal but a Rational Creature too his Soul is of exceeding Dignity and Value capable of Wisdom and which is more of Religion and qualified for advancing the Honour of God above any other Creature whatsoever There is no manner of ground then for so wild a Supposition as That God should undervalue and disiegard so very considerable a part of the Creation nor are the Actions and Affairs of Men to be thought despicable neither since they are the Results of a Thinking Mind But withal I must add That they who thus lessen Mankind furnish us with another Argument in behalf of Providence and cut themselves off from taking any advantage of that part of the Objection which would suppose these things to exceed the Power of God For the more you disparage Mankind the more easie still you confess it to take care of them The Senses 't is true discern greater Objects with more ease than smaller as we find plain by the Proportion of those that affect our Sight and the Loudness of those that strike our Ears but the Faculties of the Mind and Body quite contrary bear small Trials and master them much more easily and speedily than greater A Pound weight is carried with less pains than a Hundred and a half Acre of Ground ploughed sooner and easier than an Acre so that by Parity of Reason the less Mankind is represented the less troublesome you make the Government and Care of them to be Again They who deny That Providence descends to every little Nicety as they call it do yet acknowledge a Superintendence over the whole World in general But what Providence is that which takes care of the Whole and not of its Parts At this rate we shall imagine the Almighty God to come behind what every Art and Science almost among Men pretends to For the Physician whose Profession obliges him to study the Distempers and the Cure of the whole Body does not think himself at liberty to neglect the several Parts and the same may be said of the Master of a Family the Commander of an Army and the Civil Magistrate in a State For indeed which way is it possible to preserve the Whole from ruine but by consulting the Safety of the Parts of which it is compounded Far be it therefore from us to imagine that Almighty God should betray that want of Skill and Industry which feeble men attain to who take care of the Whole and the several Parts of it at the same time and with the same trouble and this most wisely for the sake of the Parts themselves in a great measure but much more with a design to promote the Good of the Whole Whereas we poor unthinking Mortals are often tempted to Impatience by particular and private Misfortunes not duly considering how far these contribute to the Benefit of the Whole Now if any Man shall imagine the Disposal of humane Affairs to be a business of great Intricacy and Trouble and Confusion and consequently that it must needs perplex the Almighty distract his Mind and disturb his Happiness This Person must be taught to make a difference between the Frailties of a Man and the Perfections of a God For it is plain all this Objection is built upon a vain Imagination that God is such a Supervisor as one of us and that he is under the same necessity of attending every part of his Charge distinctly and proceeding by single and subsequent Actions so that while he is employed in one Affair it is not possible for him to apply his mind to any thing else Methinks it were easie for such a person to reflect how Law-givers and Princes manage themselves upon these occasions They ordain wise and convenient Laws and assign particularly what Rewards shall be given to Merit and Vertue what Punishments inflicted upon Vice and Disobedience what Satisfaction made for Injuries and the like And these Laws they contrive so as to extend even to the smallest matters so far as they can foresee and provide against them When this is done they do not give themselves the trouble of watching and prying into every Corner they live and enjoy their Ease as they used to do and the Care they take of the State is not seen in perpetual Confusion and Disquiet of Heart but in the Establishment and Observation of these wholesome Constitutions Now if men can have so general an Influence and so effectual too without personal anxiety much more must we confess it possible for God He founded the World and formed every Creature in it and fixed wise Laws for the Government of them all He considered that our Actions are such as are proper to Souls that there is a great mixture of Vertue and Vice in them and according as each person exceeds in the one or the other of these he allots his punishment and his portion Some he places more commodiously and others less so and ranks us according to our Deserts those that have done well with good and those that have done ill with worse Souls and hath determined too what each of these shall do to one another and suffer from one another Now herein is the Justice of God vindicated that the Fundamental Cause of all these different Fates is absolutely left to our own disposal For it is in our power what sort of persons we will be and we may make our selves such as we chuse and resolve to be by the native Liberty of our Minds and by having Vertue and Vice properly and entirely the Object of our own Choice And besides this God hath appointed over men particular Guardian Spirits which nicely observe the smallest actions and are exact in such retributions as each man's behaviour deserves Now in this the Care of God differs from that of men That his Providence did not satisfie it self to constitute Things in good Order at the beginning and afterwards dispense with any farther Concern about them nor cease from acting as the Law giver in the State was supposed to do For indeed properly speaking the Goodness of God knows no Beginning nor is there any time when it was not and when it did not communicate it self and make all Things good from its
False Accuser or if my Country and the Peace of it command this Assurance of my Fidelity in such Cases and other such like we may take an Oath indeed but then we must be sure not to prostitute our Consciences For when once we have brought our selves under so solemn an Obligation and engaged God as a Witness and a Party in it no Consideration must ever prevail with us to be unfaithful to our Promise or untrue in our Assertions CHAP. XLV Decline all Publick Entertainments and mixed Companies but if any extraordinary occasion call you to them keep a strict Guard upon your self lest you be infected with rude and vulgar Conversation For know that though a Man be never so clear himself yet by frequenting Company that are tainted he will of necessity contract some Pollution from them COMMENT THE former Chapter was intended to give us a due and awful regard to God and to check those Liberties which light thoughts of his Majesty are apt to encourage in us His next design is to chain up that many-headed Monster Desire and in order hereunto he prescribes Rules and sets Bounds to several instances of it beginning with those which are most necessary for the sustenance of Life and so proceeding to others that make Provision for the Body till at last he instances in those which Nature is most prone to And there was good reason here to give a particular Advertisement concerning Feasts and large Companies in regard there is so mighty a difference observable between those of Philosophers and those of common Men. The Eating and Drinking part and all the Jollity which is the End and Business of most Invitations Men of Sense have always look'd upon as the least part of a Feast And their Meetings have been designed only for Opportunities to improve one another by mutual Conference wise Diâ—courses assiduous Enquiry into the Truth and a free Communication of each others Studies and Opinions This is exceeding plain to their immortal Honour from those admirable Pieces of Plato and Xenophon and Plutarch and others that go by the Name of their Symposia and are an account of the Discourses that passed when Friends met to eat and drink together But the Entertainments of the greatest part of the World propose nothing to themselves but Luxury and Excess and the gratifying Men's Palates and sensual Appetites They are not the Entertainment of a Man but the Cramming and Gorging of a Brute and most justly fall under the Reproach of an old Observation The Table that gives us Meat without Discourse is not so properly a Table as a Manger A good Man therefore will be careful how he mingles himself in such Meetings and decline them as much as is possible But if any extraordinary occasion draw him abroad such as a Solemn Festival the Invitation of a Parent a common Meeting of Friends or Relations or Civility and Complaisance where the thing cannot in good Manners be refused then the next care is That we keep a strict guard upon our selves That we awaken our Reason and call up all our Powers that they watch the Motions of the Mind and keep her under a severe Confinement for fear she ramble abroad and indulge her self in the Diversions of the Company and by degrees degenerate into their Follies For there is a strange Contagion in Vice and no Disease conveys it self more insensibly or more fatally than sensual and brutish Inclinations do Whoever therefore allows himself in the Conversation of Persons addicted to them and grows accustomed to their Vices for that I take to be the meaning of frequenting them will soon contract their Pollutions his own Innocence and Purity will not be able to secure him In these cases the least touch leaves a Tincture behind it And this indeed is the proper Notion of Pollution the soiling a clean thing with an unclean and thereby casting a Blemish and Stain upon it CHAP. XLVI Let Vse Necessity be the Rule of all the Provisions you make for the Body Chuse you Meat and Drink Apparel House and Retinue of such Kinds and in such proportions as will most conduce to these Purposes But as for all beyond this which ministers to Vanity or Luxury retrench and despise it COMMENT THE necessary Supports and Conveniences of the Body must first be acquired and then made use of but Epictetus hath inverted this Order for he gives us Directions for the Use of them here and reserves the Procuring of them to be treated of hereafter It were a thing perhaps much to be wished and would make greatly for the Honour of Humane Nature that so noble a Being as the Rational Soul should be independent and not stand in need of these outward Conveniences But however whatever Glories belong to that Soul considered in its self yet it s own Immortality will not suffice in this indigent and precarious state where it is joined to a mortal and corruptible Body and acts in and by it But still though this Consideration exposes it to some wants yet it shews us withal That those Wants are not many For the Body being the Instrument of the Soul can need no more than just what will qualifie it for service and action this is the true measure of our Expences upon it and all beyond savours of Luxury and Extravagance When the Carpenter chuses an Axe and sees afterwards that it be kept in good order he concerns himself no farther than to consider the Size and the Shape and the Sharpness of the Edge He is not sollicitous to have the Head gilded nor the Handle studded with Pearl or Diamonds and the reason is because such costly Ornaments would not only be superfluous but prejudicial they would be extreamly ridiculous and singular too and they would be a hindrance to his Tools and render them less fit for the Uses they were designed to serve Just thus ought we to behave our selves to this Body of ours this Instrument of our Soul being concerned our selves for no other Supplies but such as may contribute to the making it of constant use to us That which should determine our Choice in Meats and Drinks should be the Consideration which is most natural and the most ready at hand for those that are so are generally the most simple most easie of digestion and most wholesome For we are to remember that the Animal Life in us must be supported but that Nature hath not made Varieties and Quelques Choses necessary to this purpose And therefore we may very well dispense with the Niceties of the Kitchin and Preserving-Room and all the arts of studied Luxury for the only Business we have to do is to repair the Decays of a Body that is perpetually wasting and that this may be done at a much easier rate is very plain from the Examples of those whom necessitous Circumstances compel to a plain and course Diet who yet generally have more Strength and better Health than those that indulge
all its Effects went off together But it leaves a Sting behind it wounds the Soul disarms Reason and if it be indulged to excess does not stop there neither but many times proves of terrible Consequence to the Body too Whereas Abstinence from Pleasure and the Conquests we gain over it are of infinite Advantage to the Soul fill it with durable Satisfaction and inspire Joys of quite another kind Joys agreeable to Reason and uncorrupted Nature such as no Guilt pollutes no mixture or remains of Sorrow taint no Time wears away Thus much I thought necessary to premise in general by way of Introduction to Epictetus his Advice which begins in these Terms When the Idea of any Pleasure strikes your Imagination as you must in other Cases such as Power or Riches or the like so should you in this of Pleasure more especially stand upon your Guard and not suffer your self to be hurried away from Thought to Act. Be not too rash and hasty but allow your self leisure for better Consideration And when you have so far prevailed upon your self as to gain time and suspend the gratifying of your Fancy for a while employ this time in making a just Computation Weigh first the time of Enjoyment well and consider how short how very short it is and afterwards observe how infinitely this is over-balanced by that of Repentance Think how many sad Remembrances what bitter Remorse what lasting Shame what self condemning Reflections the being vanquished by this Temptation will cost you and then you will be ashamed to purchase so fugitive a Pleasure with so permanent a Misery But that you may have no Preteâ—â—â— no Colour left for so imprudent an Exchange consider once more the durable Advantages of Self-denial the sincere and never fading Satisfactions that result from a Lust subdued the perpetual Applauses of a good Conscience and the Happiness of being approved by ones one Breast For if you do but cast these things into the Seale and give them their due weight the Disparity will be so manifest that Appetite must yield to Reason And if you repeat this again and again as fit Occasions offer themselves you will by degrees gain an habitual and compleat victory and so absolutely reduce the sensual Inclinations that they will not be in a Condition to rebell or give you any considerable disturbance Since then the Pleasure lasts no longer than the single Instant of an Action when once that Instant is over there is no difference between one that hath had this Enjoyment and one that had it not it is evident that Pleasure can have but very little to recommend it You will say perhaps that the Voluptuous Person hath the Satisfaction of Remembrance and recollecting the Delights he enjoyed which is a kind of bringing them back again and an acting them over in Imagination a second time But alas this is a very poor and lame Satisfaction and we need no other proof of its being so than those dark and imperfect Ideas which the remembrance of a pleasant Dream gives us for those of a past Pleasure are exactly the same every whit as feeble and imaginary But in regard there are some Pleasures no way inconsistent with Duty and right Reason such as those of the Marriage Bed or Bathing after a Fever and the like therefore he adds one necessary Caution more That even these Pleasures which may be innocent and convenient in themselves should yet be so tempered with a prudent Restraint that the Gratefulness of them to Sense do not over-bear our Reason nor we so absolutely give our selves up to the Enjoyment as to be transported with Rapture and Joy But even then when we allow our selves the Fruition to check and correct the Exuberance of our Pleasure by a seasonable Reflection That Reason ought always to be uppermost and that it is infinitely more becoming and advantageous to be above Sense than to be a Slave to it For indeed this is as much more eligible as the due Government of our Passions is better than the living under the Tyranny and Usurpation of them as much more Noble as Reason is Superiour to Instinct and the Dignity of the Humane Nature above that of a Brute CHAP. LVII When upon mature Deliberation you are persuaded a thing is fit to be done do it boldly and do not affect Privacy in it nor concern your self at all what impertinent Censures or Reflections the World will pass upon it For if the thing be not Just and Innocent it ought not to be attempted at all though never so secretly And if it be you do very foolishly to stand in fear of those who will themselves do ill in censuring and condemning what you do well COMMENT THere is not any thing that Epictetus seems more concerned for than that Vertue should be chosen for Vertue 's sake That so the Good we do might be compleat and perfect when done out of a just sense and value of its own intrinsick Worth without any sordid Allays or indirect Ends such as the Opinion of the World and the desire of Applause and Reputation particularly For whoever chuses Good upon this account makes this and not doing well his ultimate End that is indeed his Good Now if a Man hath consulted his own Reason and is upon good Ground convinced That such or such a thing ought not to be done no consideration whatsoever should prevail upon him to do it because it ought not to be done And again if upon a grave and wise Debate with himself he come to a Resolution That it should be done and do it in this Perswasion it is most senseless and sneaking to endeavour the concealing of it from any Apprehensions of Construction other People will put upon it For if he be right in resolving they cannot be so in interpreting it to his Disadvantage and at this rate a Man betrays less Honour and Regard for a real Good for such is a wise and vertuous Action than he does for a real Evil for such is a false Opinion and malicious Censure And indeed generally speaking this is the Case of the Errors and Misapprehensions of the Vulgar which Men stand in so much fear of and are so apt to forego or at least to disown the Practice of Vertue lest they should fall under them From hence likewise results another very mischievous Effect which is That the Conclusions and Dictates of right Reason should be look'd upon as Evils for so they plainly are when Men decline and disavow them since nothing is ever shunn'd or disclaimed but under the Notion of Evil. Further yet there is a Third great Inconvenience consequent upon taking these mean and indirect Methods which is That such a Man turns Deserter to Vertue and runs away from the true Standard of all his Behaviour viz. the Nature of the Actions themselves and the Judgment and Testimony of his own Breast and gives himself up entirely to be governed by common Opinion expects
into this two-fold Inconvenience first to miscarry in what you have undertaken and then to lose the opportunity of undertaking somewhat else more proportionable to your ability in which you might have come off with Honour COMMENT VVE are not always to aim at that Good which is most noble and excellent in it self but that which we are best qualified for and is most suitable to our own Circumstances For there never comes any good of extravagant Undertakings So that we shall do well to proceed leisurely in the choice of the Figure we desire to make in the World and not aspire to things above us An eminent Orator or a Philosopher in a Common-wealth a Pilot or Master in a Ship a Prince or publick Magistrate in a State These are Characters that look great and gay but yet every body should not desire them because every body is not cut out for them And it is much more graceful for a Man to be in a lower Station where he fills his Post and tops his part than to be in a higher which he cannot come up to nor discharge the Duties of with that decency and applause that is expected Thus a Man had better be a good Usher and teach the first grounds of Learning well than an unable Master who cannot finish what is well begun And it is more desirable to be an honest and prudent Manager of a private Family than a bad Governour of a City or Nation For besides the prejudice such persons do themselves in not coming up to the Dignity of a Character too lofty for them which miscarriage I would have rated not by the Approbation or the Censure of the World but according to the real Nature of the Character it self they are unfortunate in another respect For they have not only come off very scurvily in attempting what they were not fit for but they have slipp'd an opportunity too of behaving themselves well and gaining applause in something else which they were fit for For it is in Humane Life as it is in a Play-house where the Praise is due not to the Part but to the Performance and he that plays a Servant well is look'd upon with more approbation and reputed a better Actor than he that attempts to play a Man of Honour or a Prince and does it ill This Chapter too seems to me to have a more immediate regard to Equity and Justice for it advises every body to be content with that part which Providence sees fittest for them upon this Stage of Life that they should not affect Characters above them nor be desirous of or dissatisfied with those that are assigned to other people CHAP. LX. As in walking it is your great Care not to run your Foot upon a Nail or to tread awry and strain your Leg so let it be in all the Affairs of Humane Life not to hurt your Mind nor offend your Judgment And this Rule if you observe it carefully in all your deportment will be a mighty security to you in your Vndertakings COMMENT THE Soul of Man is injured or wounded two ways Either when it is pricked with brutish Inclinations and vehement Passions which fasten it to the Body in which it makes some resistance but yet is overpowered by the prevailing force of Passion and yields at last though with reluctancy Or else when its Judgment is perverted and the Byass of sensual Objects draw it so strongly that it does not make any distinction betwixt its own rational Nature and the other inferiour and irrational parts which are the Seat of the Passions This excellent Guide therefore warns us to have a care of both these Inconveniences and to proceed warily in all the Affairs of Humane Life as we do when we would tread sure in walking That we decline those brutish Appetites which would gall and wound the Soul that fix wholly upon bodily Objects and flatten down the Soul to Body much stronger and closer than any Nail can possibly join material things for they make the Mind forget it self and mistake these Affections and the Body they serve for one and the same Substance This therefore is analogous to piercing the Foot with a Nail but the other Misfortune that of a perverted Judgment he resembles to treading awry and straining or putting out a Leg because this Error of the Mind proceeds from the Imagination that part which is lowest in the Soul as the Foot is in the Body and by which it holds correspondence with the corporeal and animal Life And the Advice he gives upon this occasion is that as we take care to keep our Body upright when we walk so we should be exceeding cautious and tender of the Soul when it goes abroad and concerns it self in the Affairs of the World That the Faculty of Reason which is predominant in our Minds and the very Character and Prerogative of Humane Nature make no false steps That it do not forget it self or its Authority that it be neither giddy through eagerness of Desire and heat of Passion or grow corrupt and dull and stupid through Sloth and Effeminacy And if we did but manage our selves with the same wariness in our Actions as we do in our steps If we would but look before us constantly and be sure to take good footing this he tells us would be a mighty security to us in all our Undertakings For though Humane Nature will be the same still and all our Vigilance cannot set it absolutely above Error and Frailty yet the ill Consequences of these Infirmities would be in a great measure prevented We might slip but we should never fall and the slips we did make would be but few and those easily recover'd too For thus we find that when through some little incogitancy we happen to touch upon a Nail or make a false step a small recollection will serve the turn to disengage our Foot before the Nail hath run in too deep and to correct that Trip which was but a slight one and made before we were aware of it CHAP. LXI The Necessities of the Body are the proper measure of our Care for the things of the World and those that can supply these are enough as the Shooe is said to fit the Man that answers to the bigness of the Foot but if once you leave this Rule and exceed those necessities then you are carried into all the Extravagancies in the World Then you do not value your Shooe for fitting the Foot unless it be gilded too and afterwards from gilding you go to a rich Purple and from that again to having it studded and set with Jewels For when once a Man hath exceeded the bounds of Moderation and Convenience he never knows where to stop COMMENT THere are two things to be considered in Cloths and Diet and Goods and Estate and whatever else is requisite for our Bodies that is the getting and the using of them He hath informed us already after what manner they are
to be used and commanded us to this purpose That those wants of the Body which are necessary to be supplied so as to render it serviceable to the Soul ought to determine in this point By which means all superfluities are cut off and every thing that tends only to Luxury and vain Pomp. Now he tells us what proportion we ought to be content with and what should be the measure of our Labours and our Desires in the getting an Estate and this he says is the Body too For the end of getting these things is that we may use them so that as far as they are of use to us so far and in such proportions may we desire and endeavour after them and they are only so far useful as they become serviceable to the Body and supply its necessities Consequently then the Body and its wants which determine how far these things are capable of being used do also determine how far they are fit to be desired and what measure of them a Man ought in reason to sit down satisfied with Let us look then at the Foot for instance and see what wants it labours under and what supplies are sufficient for it and when we have done so we shall find that good plain Leather is all it needs A good upper Leather to keep the Foot tight and warm and a stout Sole to defend the Ball of the Foot from being hurt by what it treads upon But now if a Man bear regard to Ornament and Luxury as well as Use and Convenience then nothing less than Gold and Purple and Jewels will serve the turn and one of these Extravagancies only serves to make way for another For it seems the Romans were grown so curious and vain as to wear rich Purple Shooes and Shooes set with precious Stones and these were more exquisite and modish Vanities than gilded ones Now just thus it is in the getting and the spâ—nding an Estate When a Man hath once transgressed those bounds which Nature and Necessity have set him he wanders no body knows whether and is continually adding one foolish Expence to another and one idle whimsie to another till at last he be plunged over Head and Ears in Luxury and Vanity For these were the only Causes of seducing him at first and when once he had broke loose from his measures a thousand imaginary wants presented themselves and every one of these gave him as great a disturbance as if they had been real ones At first he wanted only ten thousand pound then twenty and when he was possess'd of this he wanted forty as much as even he did the first Ten so he would a hundred if he had forty and so to all Eternity for he has now let his Desires loose and these are a boundless Ocean never to be filled Now nothing is more evident than that those Desires which do not keep within the bounds of Use and Convenience do and must needs be infinite and insatiable Not only because this is the last Fence and there is nothing left to stop them afterwards but because we see plainly that when they exceed these things they quickly neglect and disregard them too forget the ends to which they are directed and instead of preserving sometimes destroy the Body Thus we often ruine our Health and distort our Limbs only for Ornament and Fashion and make those very things our Diseases which Nature intended for Remedies against them And possibly upon this account more particularly Epictetus might make choice of a Shooe to illustrate his Argument For this instance is the more emphatical and significant because if we do not take care to fit the Foot but make it bigger than it ought to be for Beauty and Ornament it hinders our going instead of helping us and oftentimes makes us stumble and fall very dangerously So that it is plain the Considerations which relate to our using the things of the World will give us great light into that part of our Duty which relates to the getting of them and the Rules we are to be governed by are in a great measure the same in both Cases And these Chapters too which prescribe to us the Rules and the Duty of Moderation both in using and getting an Estate may in my Opinion be very properly referred to the same common Head of Justice with the former CHAP. LXII When Women are grown up to Fourteen they begin to be courted and caressed then they think that the recommending themselves to the Affections of the Men is the only business they have to attend to and so presently fall to tricking and dressing and practising all the little engaging Arts peculiar to their Sex In these they place all their hopes as they do all their happiness in the success of them But it is fit they should be given to understand that there are other attractives much more powerful than these That the Respect we pay them is not due to their Beauty so much as to their Modesty and Innocence and unaffected Vertue And that these are the true the irresistible Charms such as will make the surest and most lasting Conquests COMMENT SInce he had in the foregoing Discourses allowed his Philosopher to marry it was but reasonable that he should instruct him here what Methods are most proper to be made use of in the choice of a Wife and which are the most necessary and desirable Qualifications for her This therefore he does in short but very significant Observations shewing what a wise Man should chiefly regard and exposing at the same time the mischiefs that the generality of Men fall into by taking wrong measures Most people says he when they are disposed to marry look out for a young and a beautiful Mistress then they cringe and flatter and adore her keep a mighty distance and accost her in the most respectful and submissive Terms imaginable and the end of all this is no other than the Enjoyment of her Person The Women know the meaning of all this well enough and manage themselves accordingly they dress and trick and set of their Persons to the best advantage and these are the Arts they study to recommend themselves by Now in truth though we declaim against this Vanity and Folly in the Sex yet the Men are much more to blame than they For the Original of all this Vanity is from our selves and the Folly is ours when we pay so much respect upon accounts that so little deserve it It is in our power to reform what we condemn and it is our Duty to do it We should shew them that no Beauty hath any Charms but the inward one of the Mind and that a gracefulness in their Manners is much more engaging than that of their Person and Mien That Meekness and Obedience and Modesty are the true and lasting Ornaments For she that has these is qualified as she ought to be for the management and governing of a Family for the bearing and educating
of Children for an affectionate and tender Care of her Husband and for submitting CHAP. LXIV When any Man does you an Injury or reflects upon your Good Name consider with your self that he does this out of a Persuasion that it is no more than what you deserve and what becomes him to say or do And it cannot be expected that your Opinion of things but his own should give Law to his Behaviour Now if that Opinion of his be Erroneous the Misfortune is not yours but his who is thus led into Mistakes concerning you For the Truth of a Proposition is not shaken one whit by a Man's supposing it to be false the Consequence is not the worse but the Person that judges amiss of it is Such Considerations as these may serve to dispose you to Patience and Meekness and by degrees you will be able to bear the most scurrilous Reproaches and think the bitterest and most insolent Traducer worth no other return than this mild Answer That these it seems are his Thoughts of you and it is not strange that Man should vent his own Opinion freely and act according to it COMMENT THis Chapter is plainly intended to persuade us to bearing of Injuries with Meekness and Moderation and the Arguments made use of to this purpose are Two The first proceeds upon a Foundation evident to common Sense and confirmed by the Practice and Experience of all the World which is That every Man acts in agreement with his own particular Notions of things and does what at the instant of doing it appears to him fittest to be done And therefore if his Apprehensions differ from ours as it cannot be any great Matter of Wonder so neither does it minister any just Cause of Resentment because he follows the Dictates of his Breast and I follow mine and so do all the World So that it would be a most extravagant and senseless thing for me to be angry for his acting according to Nature and upon a Principle universally consented to by all Mankind But you will say perhaps That his following his own Opinion is not the thing you quarrel with but the entertaining an ill Opinion of you for which there is no Ground or Colour of Justice Now upon Examination of this Pretence too it will be found that you have not at all mended the Matter but that this is as ridiculous and absurd a Passion as the other For if he have done you no harm where is the Provocation and that it is plain he hath not for no body is the worse for it but himself He that thinks he does well when he really does ill and mistakes Falsehood for Truth is under a dangerous Delusion and suffers extreamly by his Error And therefore the Man that injures your Person or your Reputation does but wound himself all the while And this he does more effectually and to his own greater Prejudice than it is possible for you in the height of all your desired Revenge or for the most Potent and malicious Enemy in the World to do For whatever the world commonly esteems most noxious can reach no farther than the Body or the External Enjoyments and consequently does not in strict speaking hurt the Man himself But Error is a Blemish upon the Soul an Evil that affects his Essence and taints the very distinguishing Character of the Humane Nature Now that the Person who entertains this false Opinion and not he concerning whom it is entertained receives all the Prejudice by it he proves beyond all Contradiction by the Instance of a compleat Proposition For suppose one should say If it be Day then the Sun is above the Horizon and another Person should maintain that this is false his standing out against it does not in any degree weaken the Truth of the Assertion nor invalidate the necessary dependence of the Two Parts of it upon each other It remains in the same Perfection still but the person who judges amiss concerning it does not so Thus the Man that affronts or traduces you contrary to all the Rules of Justice and Honour and Duty injures himself but you continue untouch'd and neither the Edge of his Weapon nor the Venom of his Tongue can enter you Especially if you are as you ought to be fully convinced that there is no such thing as Good or Evil to be had from any thing but what falls within the Compass of our own Choice When therefore you have called up your Reason and have reflected first how natural it is for every Man to be governed by his own Sense of things and then that the Injury does not really reach you but falls back upon the Person who vainly intended it for you this will cool your Passion and fill you with a generous Disdain you will think his impotent Malice deserves to be slighted only and may check both his Folly and your own Resentment with some such scornful return as this That he does but what all the World do for though all are not of the same mind yet in that vast variety of Opinions every man acts according to his own CHAP. LXV Every thing hath two Handles the one soft and manageable the other such as will not endure to be touched If then your Brother do you an Injury do not take it by the hot and the hard handle by representing to your self all the aggravating Circumstances of the Fact but look rather on the soft side and extenuate it as much as is possible by considering the nearness of the Relation and the long Friendship and Familiarity Obligations to Kindness which a single Provocation ought not to dissolve And thus you will take the accident by its manageable handle COMMENT ALL the parts of this material World are composed of different Principles and contrary Qualities From whence it comes to pass that in some respects they agree and can subsist together and in others they are opposite and incompatible and destructive of one another Thus the Fire hath the two Qualities of hot and dry most remarkable in it with regard to its heat it agrees well with the Air and is compatible with it but its drought is repugnant to the moisture of the Air and contends with it and destroys it And this Observation holds in Moral as well as Natural Philosophy For thus an Injury received from a Brother hath two handles and is capable of different Constructions and different Resentments according to that handle we take it by Consider the Man my Brother my Friend my old Play-fellow and Acquaintance and this is the soft and pliable side it disposes me to Patience and Reconciliation and Kindness But if you turn the other side and regard only the Wrong the Indignity the unnatural Usage of so near a Relation this is the untractable part it will not bear the touch and disposes to nothing but Rage and Revenge Now it is plain that what we esteem light and very tolerable is entertained by us with easiness
Company may be confident and rude enough to tell you so But if you hear this Reproach without being concerned then be assured your Philosophy begins to have its due effect For as Sheep do not give up again the Grass they have eaten to shew how well they are fed but prove the Goodness of the Pasture and their own Case by concocting their Meat well and bringing a large Fleece and giving large quantities of Milk so must you approve the Excellence of your Doctrines to the World not by Disputes and plausible Harangues but by digesting them into practice and growing strong in Vertue COMMENT BY this Passage you may plainly perceive that the Person address'd to is not supposed to be a compleat Philosopher for such a one is in no danger of bringing up indigested Notions nor can he need the Advice given to that purpose This is applicable only to one that is still in a state of Probation and Proficiency who hath not yet absolutely delivered his Mind from the importunate Passions of Popularity and Self-conceit and affecting to be thought wise Vices which this Author hath taken great Pains to expose and reform and that as by other Arguments so particularly by one which the Method taken in this Chapter plainly insinuates viz. That as one cannot with any truth say That the Brass while it is melting down is a Statue or that an Embryo is a Man so neither can we That a Person who is still under Discipline and Proficiency is a Philosopher These are the rude and imperfect Beginnings of what is to come after but they are not the Things themselves They are the Matter under preparation but they have not the Form which must constitute their Essence And though they be in never so fair a Disposition to receive it yet till this is done they are not the perfect Beings which they must and would be But though in other cases it be sufficient to say That to call them so were a Breach of Truth yet in this that seems too gencle an Imputation For there is in a truly Philosophical Life something so great and venerable something so much above the common Condition of Humane Nature and so very near approaching to Divine that the ascribing such exquisite Perfection to Persons who are as yet only climbing up to it may justly seem not only a bold Falshood but an imperious and blasphemous one too Shall then that Man who must not preâ—ume to call himself a Philosopher take upon him the Office of one Shall he set himself in the Chair and think it becomes him who is but a Learner to teach and magisterially dictate to others No certainly It is fit he should know his distance and keep it But youâ—ll object That this will be a mighty Hindrance to his Proficiency by debarring him that Discourse with Men of less Attainments which should exercise and improve his Talent I answer That the Discourse Epictetus disallows is not such as is intended for a Trial but the Effect of Vanity nor is the Design of it Advancement in Wisdom but Ostentation and Applause Well but How must he behave himself in such Company then Why the properest and most effectual course to recommend himself will be to forbear the vending his Principles in Words which is but an empty and a very superficial way of propagating them and to demonstrate the Power and Influence of them in his Actions This is a substantial Argument and answers the true End of Philosophy which is not florid Harangue and nice Dispute but prudent and unblamable Practice for this was never intended to teach us to talk well but to live well If therefore you be at a Publick Dinner do not trouble your self to read grave Lectures to the Company concerning Temperance in Eating and its just Bounds and Measures but take care to observe those Measures and to keep within those Bounds your self For by this means you will gain Authority to your Instructions and when it comes to your turn to prescribe to others every Word will make its own way For how ridiculous and absurd is it to set other Men Rules of Temperance or Patience and at the same time to be guilty of Gluttony or sink under the Burden of Afflictions one 's self What force or weight can such a one expect his most studied Discourses should find And How unreasonable and inconsistent is it to impose such Laws upon other Men's Conduct as we are not content to submit to in our own But this is not all He requires a higher degree of self-denial still He does not only forbid the beginning of such kind of Discourse but if any of the Ignorant and Vulgar engage in it of their own accord he will not allow us to join with them nor set up for an Oracle or great Doctor among Men of meaner attainments than our selves For this he says is very suspicious and looks as if what is so very ready to come up loaded the Stomach and was never well digested For as Meats when they are duly concocted distribute themselves into the several parts and mix with the vital Juices and Blood to nourish and strengthen the Body so do Maxims and Doctrines when well digested convert into nourishment and make the Soul healthful and vigorous There they lie like Sap in the Root which when occasion serves spreads it self and brings forth the Fruits of vertuous Actions first and when the proper Season comes and these have attained to a just maturity then of edifying Discourses in great abundance But if any one shall force this Fruit of Discourse before its time when it is not yet ripe and kindly this in all likelihood will turn to no better account than the discharging ones Stomach of undigested Meat And there cannot be a clearer proof that it wants digestion than our not being able to keep it any longer For this is directly that Man's Case that brings up his Precepts of Philosophy again while they are raw and whole and does not shew the effect and strength of them in the improvement of his Mind and growing in those vertuous Habits which they were intended to produce and confirm And in regard the Soul is naturally given to look abroad into the World and for that reason feels it self very powerfully wrought upon by good Examples he proposes Socrates for an eminent pattern of Modesty Who though a most accomplished Philosopher and declared by the Testimony of Apollo himself to be the wisest Man in the World One who consequently had good warrant to take more upon him than any mere Proficient ought to pretend to was yet the farthest that could be from an assuming Temper and made it the business of his whole Life to decline and discountenance Pride and Ostentation One very remarkable instance of this kind was his behaviour to some silly people who came with a design to put a Slur upon him and desired that he would recommend them to some Philosopher capable
gather a number of Spectators †The Account given of this passage by Casaubon in his Notes on this Chapter seems much more pertinent and satisfactory than this given here by Simplicius He tells us that the Asceticks formerly amongst other Trials in which they exercised themselves used to practise the enduring of Cold To which purpose in a Frosty Winter's Morning it was very common to go out into the Streets and Publick Places and there â—ling round one of the Brass or Marble Statues And because this was very justly suspected to be done more to get the Observation and Applause of a gizing Râ—bble than out of any good design upon themselves therefore Epictetus chuses that instance of exposing Vain-glory upon these Accounts This is a very clear and natural account of the place and seems grounded upon Authorities sufficient to give it the preference before that of Simplicius See Casaub in Epictet Not. 57. like those Wretches who when they run away from the violence of too mighty an Enemy implore the assistance of the People and get upon the Statues to cry help that they may be more seen and sooner get a Rabble about them Their business being only to draw Company together in their own defence and make themselves and their Oppression more conspicuous and deplorable But if you will be mortifying do it privately and in good earnest when you are extreme thirsty take cold Water into your Mouth and though your Entrails are ready to to be burnt up yet spit it out again and when you have thus subdued the importunate Clamours of Nature and Necessity tell no body what you have done This is mortification and severity indeed but the things of this kind that are done to be seen and commended of Men shew plainly that the bent of the Soul lies outwards that the Man is more concerned for the Fame of the World than the real and intrinsick Goodness of the Action and lays a greater stress upon their Praise or Dispraise than upon the Approbation or the Reproaches of his own Conscience Besides he loses all the real Good of his Abstinence and Severity and profanes a vertuous Action by an end so base and indirect as Popular Applause Now that the practising such Austerities as these upon ones self is of excellent use Experience daily demonstrates For by this buffeting of the Body we keep that and its sensual Inclinations under and reduce them so low as not only to prevent any rebellious Insurrections against Reason but to bring them to a willing and ready compliance even with those of its Commands which are of hardest digestion to Flesh and Sense And there is moreover this mighty Convenience in it that these voluntary Hardships fit and prepare us for necessary and unavoidable ones Every Man's Circumstances are fickle and changeable and sure when any Affliction as Want or the like happens to us it is no small advantage for the body to be so habituated as to bear those Evils without any great alteration or reluctancy which it is not possible to run away from This gains us an absolute Mastery over the World and sets us above all the uncertainties of Humane Affairs when it is no longer in the power of the most spightful Fortune to hurt us for whatever extremity of suffering she can possibly drive us to is only what we have by long Custom made easie and familiar to our selves before CHAP. LXXI It is the peculiar Quality and a Character of an undisciplin'd Man and a Man of the World to expect no advantage and to apprehend no mischief from himself but all from Objects without him Whereas the Philosopher quite centrary looks only inward and apprehends no Good or Evil can happen to him but from himself alone CHAP. LXXII The marks that a Proficient in Philosophy may be known by are such as these He is not inquisitive or busie in other Men's Matters so as to censure or to commend to accuâ—â— or to complain of anybody He never talks big of himself nor magnifies his own Vertue or Wisdom When he falls under any hindrance or disappointment in his Designs he blames none but himself If any Person commend him he smiles within himself and receives it with a secret Disdain and if other People find fault with him he is not at all solicitous in his own vindication His whole behaviour is like that of a sick Man upon recovery full of caution and fear lest he should relapse again and injure his advances toward health before it be confirmed and perfectly sound As for desire he hath utterly abandoned it except what depends upon his own self and Aversions he hath none but to such Objects only as are vicious and repugnant to Nature and Reason The Affections and Appetites which Nature made strong he hath abated and taken off all the edge and eagerness of them If he be disparaged and pass for an ignorant or insensible Man he values it not And to sam up all in a word he is exceeding jealous of himself and observes every Motion of his Mind as rigorously as a Man would watch a Thief or an Enemy that lies lurking to rob or kill him COMMENT HE hath now gone through all the instructive part of his Book and is drawing on towards a Conclusion And the Substance of what he chuses to close up all with is this most necessary Caution That we must not content our selves with reading or understanding or remembring Rules of Morality but take care that they influence our Lives and be transcribed in all our Actions And that no Man who addicts himself to the Study of Philosophy must propose so mean an end as only the informing his Judgment the filling his Head with curious Notions or furnishing his Tongue with Matter of learned Discourse but the reforming of his Vices and bettering his Conversation as considering that the Design of Moral Precepts is never answered by any thing short of Practice To this purpose he first describes to us three sorts of People whose Characters are so comprehensive that all Mankind come under some one or other of them For every Person whatsoever is either a secular Man one that lives at the common rate and minds the Affairs of the World and this is one extreme Or else he is a Philosopher who hath abandoned all other Care and Concern but what relates to Vertue and the Improvement of his own Mind and this is the other opposite Extreme Or else he must be one of a rank between both these neither so untaught as the secular and common Man nor yet so accomplished as the Philosopher but such a one as hath renounced the World and is aspiring to a Moral Perfection These are called Proficients and to them the several Exhortations that have lately fallen under our Consideration are particularly directed But of these we are to take notice that Epictetus makes two sorts some that are young Beginners and lately entred into this Discipline and
not be an intolerable reproach to any sick Man that should read Prescriptions proper for his own Distemper and value himself upon pronouncing the Receipts gracefully and descanting handsomely upon the Virtues of the several ingâ—edâ—ents and value himself upon being able to direct others how these are to be applied and yet make use of none of them himself Does such a Man deserve pity And is he not his own Murderer who knows his Cure and yet will not take it And yet as extravagant and absurd a Folly as this is ours is every whit as bad or worse when we have the Diseases of our Souls set plainly before us and are fully instructed in the Medicines and Restoratives proper for them and yet are so wretchless and stupid as to do nothing towards our Recovery CHAP. LXXIV Whatever Directions are given you look upon them as so many Laws that have a binding Power and such as you cannot without Impiety depart from Persevere therefore in the Observance of them all and be not diverted from your Duty by any idle Reflections the silly World may make upon you for their Censures are not in your Power and consequently should be no part of your Concern COMMENT ONE Swallow we commonly say makes no Summer and no more do a few single Acts of Vertue make a Habit or observing the Directions of Chrysippus in one or two Instances constitute a good Man But our Obedience must be firm and constant we must consider our Duty as that which is our Happiness and truest Advantage and suffer no Consideration how tempting soever to draw us off from it We must look upon our selves as under indispensible Obligations such as cannot be broke loose from without the highest Impiety And reason good there is to do so for if we esteem it dishonourable and impious to fail of our Promise or fly off from an Agreement in every trifling matter because though the thing is of no value yet the Violation of our Word is of horrible consequence as tending to the taking away that mutual Faith and good Assurance by which all Society and Coâ—merce is maintained among Men How solemn and sacred ought those Engagements to be esteemed by which we have tied our selves up to Wisdom and Vertue and Innocency of Life Now these are violated when a Man assents to the Truth of what he is taught and the Reasonableness of what he is commanded and expresses this Assent by living accoâ—â—â—â—â—ly for a time but afterwards relapses and 〈◊〉 Deserter Upon this account he advises us by all 〈◊〉 to persevere in Goodness and particularly not to be discomposed with any Reflections the â—â—le World shall cast upon us For as he inâ—imaâ—ed before Chap. XXIX it is highly probable they will take upon them to censure our Conduct pretty freely they will tax us with Singularity and Preciseness and call our Change Pride or Affectation Now such Discouragements as these we must be provided against and not let them cool our Zeal or thake our Vertue and that because other Men's Tongues are not at our disposal and therefore what they say should give us no disturbance This Passage may probably enough allude to that allegorical Saying of Pythagoras and his Followers That when a Man comes into the Temple he should never look behind him Bâ— which they designed to insinuate That Religious Purposes should be fixed and steddy and that when we come to God we should come with seâ—led Resolutions not with doubtful and wavering 〈◊〉 such as would fain divide themselves between God and the World CHAP. LXXV Vp then and be doing How long will you deferr your own Happiness and neglect the due observance of those Directions that shew you the way to it and the Dictates of Reason which if duly followed would always chuse the best You have the Rules and Precepts to this purpose laid plainly before your Eyes you have perused and assented to the Truth and Equity of them What Master do you stay for now Whom can you with any colour lay these Delays of Reformation upon You are past the Giddiness of Youth and have all the Advantages of sound Reason and a ripe Judgment If you neglect this Opportunity and grow slothful now and make one Resolution after another and fix first one Day and then another for the turning over a new Leaf with your self and still do nothing you will cheat your self and go backwards and at last drop out of the World not one jot a better Man than you came into it Lose no time then but set about a good Life just now and let the Determinations of Right Reason be an inviolable Law to you from this very Moment If you meet with a discouraging Difficulty or an enticing Pleasure if you are envited by a prospect of Honour or assrighted with the Fear of Disgrace encounter the Temptation bravely whatever it be Remember this is the Combat you are called to this is the Field in which you are to signalize your self and there is no declining the Trial all your Fortunes depend upon one Engagement and the Ground you have gotten heretofore must either be maintained by one gallant Victory or lost by one base Retreat It was thus that Socrates grew so great by putting himself forward upon all occasions pushing every Advantage as far as it would go and never hearkning to any other Persuasions but those of his own Reason And if you are not so great a Man as Socrates yet it will become you to live and act as if you intended in time to be as great as he COMMENT THis also is an Admonition no less requisite than the former and highly necessary it is that a Man who hath embraced this philosophical Discipline and resolved to submit to it should be put in mind how precious Time is and awakened into Diligence Delays as we commonly say of them are dangerous and one certain ill effect of them is that they are but so many Pretences for indulging our Sloth To what purpose therefore says he do you deserr your own Happiness and the practice of these Rules you have received For it is this Practice only that can render you vertuous and happy and answer the Design both of the composing and the learning them The Operation expected from them is To conform all your Actions to Right Reason to fix this as a perpetual and inviolable Lawâ— to retrench your Desires alâ—ay all your Passions and bring every Inclination and every Aversion to fix upon proper Objects and confine themselves within their just bounds Another possibly might alledge want of Instruction in his own excuse and declare himself most ready to be good were he but sufficiently taught how to be so But this cannot do you any service wâ—o have had all the advantages imaginable of Knowledge and Improvement You I say who have noâ— only had the Maxims of Philosophy and the Measures of Vertue fully explained and illustrated but have applied your Mind to
the study of these things and made some considerable progress in them and especially who have had it evidently proved to you That you are by no means to coâ—tent your self with having your Understanding enlightned and your Judgment convinced by these Rules unless you digest and make them of a piece with your Soul that they may be like a Principle of new Life within you exerting it self in vertuous Habits and influencing your whole Conversation Since therefore all this and indeed all that can be necessary for your due Information hath been so fully opened and so pathetically urged upon you make not Ignorance and want of means a pretence as if you still were to wait for some more powerfull Call Others may possibly plead their Age and the Heats and unthinking Follies of Youth which render them incapable of sober Reflection and severe Discipline But you are in the very Season of Life that is most kindly for Vertue the Vehemencies of Youth are worn off and the Weaknesses of old Age have not yet disabled you Your Passions are sedate your Judgment solid and your Strength in its perfection And if this enviting Opportunity be suffered to slip through your hands if you cannot now find in your heart to take some pains to be good when you are best qualified to master what you attempt if Sloth and Supineness get the power over you to make Appointments and break them to fix upon particular Days for setting about this Great Work and when they are come to drive it off to a farther Day again you do but play booty with your Conscience and deal like dishonest Debtors who stop their Creditors mouths with fair Promises and fix a time for those Payments which they never intend to make Thus your Soul is deluded with a vain Hope and Expectation of doing something you stifle the Reproaches from within by fresh Resolves but still those new are as insignificant as the old and pitch upon a To-morrow which will never come And it were well indeed if this were the worst of it but alas in Vertue there can be no such thing as standing still While you deferr growing better you necessarily grow worse and by insensible Decays relapse into Ignorance and Vice again Thus after a number of Years spent in fruitless Intentions you live and die a Fool and so must continue for ever For as our state of Separation before we came into these Bodies had a great influence upon what we do here and the Disposition of the Souls we brought into the World is a marvellous advantage to our future Vertue so our Behaviour here is but the Preface and Preparation to what we shall do there again For the whole of this taken together is one entire Life and the time we pass here but one stage of it only the * This proceeds upon the Platonick and Pythagorean Hypothesis and agrees to the Notions more largely taken notice of Chap. I. state of Prae-existence makes some alteration in our Life here and our Life here makes a considerable one and indeed determines us as to the state of our Separation hereafter Now therefore now aspire says he to perfection and live as one that does so Absolute Perfection he does not mean for then his Exhortation would be needless but the Perfection of a Proficient such a degree as a state of Discipline and Probation is capable of that is so as never to lose ground but to be continually advancing forwards And to this purpose whatever upon mature Consideration appears most reasonable let it have the force of a Law with you a Law I say which cannot be satisfied with being known and understood but requires a positive and actual Obedience To strengthen you in this Resolution you may have one mighty Encouragement which is That all the Accidents of humane Life are so far in subjection to you that you may with a prudent Care make them all though never so different in themselves conspire together to your own advantage For whether you meet with any thing successful or disastrous pleasant or painful whether it tend to Honour or Ignominy all are manageable only be sure let the Temptation be never so small never slight or neglect it and though it be never so great do not be dispirited at it Security will give a defeat where there was not Strength to do it and Despondency lose the Prize where there is force enough to win it Be sure then that you let no Accident pass unimproved but imagine that every one is an Adversary that challenges you to the Field and that vertue is the Crown you are to contend for remember that there is no middle state no getting off without Blows but Conquest or Ruine must be the Fate of the Day Nor are you to slip one Day or overlook one single Action upon a vain imagination That such little things cannot turn to your prejudice For that one Day that single Action determines your whole Fortune and your Preservation or your Destruction depends upon this nice point Thus Epictetus assures you and he tells you very true And if it seem incredible and surprizing pray be pleased to consider that every Indulgence of a Vice gives it new force to assault us and abates of our power to resist it He that is slothful and irresolute to day will be a great deal more so to morrow and if there be as there will be sure to be any fresh Objection to palliate his idleness he will have a great deal less mind to encounter it the third day than he had the second And thus by degrees the Dispositions to Goodness will waste away and all the Vigour of his Mind languish and die It will yield more and more tamely to every fresh attack till at last Reason be quite enfeebled and over-powered and all the advances the Man had formerly made in Goodness be lost to all other Intents and Purposes except that only of adding to his Shame and his Guilt Now the very same single Trials which when neglected do thus lose ground do when attended to and improved maintain and get it And Vertue increases by the same methods and much in the same proportions that it declines For the practice of one Day and the performance of one Act leaves an Impression behind it and confirms the Mind so that the next Attempt proves a great deal more easie the Reluctancies of Sense wear off and repeated Acts become habitual and familiar and we daily feel our own Advantages Frequent use gives us a more masterly hand and what we can do well and with ease we naturally come to do with delight Thus Men never continue long the same but every Hour every moral Action every single Accident of their Lives makes some alteration in them Socrates had a just sense of this and express'd it abundantly in the circumspection of his Life for the very thing that raised him so high and gave him the Character of the Wisest
her Disposal and she is not the sole and absolute Mistress of them but must be beholding to the favourable concurrence of several other things to compass them therefore they are said not to be in our own power Thus the Body requires sound Seminal Principles and a strong Constitution convenient Diet and moderate Exercise a wholsom Dwelling a good Air and sweet Water and its Strength and Ability to perform the functions of Nature will depend upon all these And yet these are all of them things so far out of our own reach that we can neither bestow them upon our selves nor keep off the contrary Inconveniences when we would When a more Potent Enemy rushes in and assaults us we would be glad to lye undiscovered but cannot make our selves Invisible When we are Sick we desire a speedy Recovery and yet our Wishes do not bring it to pass The cafe is the same with our Wealth and Possessions too for they are owing to a World of fortunate Accidents that contribute to our getting them and to as many unfortunate Accidents that conspire to deprive us of them Accidents too mighty for us to struggle with or prevent Reputation and Fame is no more in our power than Riches For though by the management of our selves we give the Occasions of Esteem or Dis-esteem yet still the Opinion is not ours but theirs that entertain it and when we have done all we can we lye at their mercy to think what they please of us Hence it comes to pass that some who are profane and irreligious Men at the bottom gain the Character of Piety and Vertue and impose not upon others only but sometimes upon themselves too with a false appearance of Religion And yet on the other hand others who have no Notions of a Deity but what are highly reverent and becoming that never charge God with any of our Frailties or Imperfections or behave themselves like Men that think so of him are mistaken by some People for Insidels and Atheists And thus the Reserved and Temperate Conversation is despised and traduced by some for meer Senselesness and Stupidity So that the being well esteemed of is by no means in our own power but depends upon the pleasure of those that think well or ill of us Posts of Authority and Government cannot subsist without Inferiors to be governed and subordinate Officers to assist in the governing of them And particularly in such States as allow Places to be bought and sold and make Preferment the price not of Merit but Money There a Man that wants a Purse cannot rise though he would never so fain From whence we conclude that all things of this Nature are not in our own power because they are not our Works nor such as follow upon our Choice of them I only add one Remark more here which is That of all the things said to be out of our power the Body is first mentioned and that for this very good Reason because the Wants of this expose us to all the rest For Money is at the bottom of all Wars and Contentions and this we cannot be without but must seek it in order to the providing convenient Food and Raiment and supplying the Necessities of the Body CHAP. II. The things in our own power are in their own Nature Free not capable of being countermanded or hindered but those that are not in our power are Feeble Servile liable to Opposition and not ours but anothers COMMENT AFter having distinguished between those things that are and those that are not in our own power he proceeds in the next place to describe the Qualities proper to each of them The former sort he tells us are Free because it is not in the power of any other Thing or Person either to compel us to them or to keep us back from them Nor is the management and the enjoyment of them at any Bodies Disposal but our own for this is the true notion of Freedom to govern ones self as one pleases and be under the command and direction of no other whatsoever But the things out of our power that are subject to be given or withheld we are not Masters of but they in whose power it is to communicate them to us or keep them from us and therefore these are not Free but Servile and at the pleasure of others So again those things are Self-sufficient and consequently firm and strong but these that depend upon the assistance of another are weak and indigent Again Those cannot be countermanded as being in a Man 's own Power For who can pretend to correct my Opinions and compel me to such or such particular Notions Who is able to put a restraint upon my Desires or my Aversions But now the things that are not in our power are so contrived as to depend upon the Inclinations of other People and may have them or lose them as they please And accordingly these are subject to many Hindrances and Disappointments so as either never to be at all or to be destroyed again when they have been never to be put into my Hands or to be snatched away from me after that I am possessed of them Once more It is evident that the things in our power are our own because they are our Actions and this Consideration gives us the greatest propriety in them that can be But those that depend upon the pleasure of any Body else are properly anothers From whence we must infer that every kind of Good or Evil which respects the things in our power is properly ours as for instance True or False Apprehensions and Opinions Regular or Irregular Desires and the like These are the things that make a Man happy or unhappy But for the things out of our power they are none of ours Those that relate to the Body belong not to the Man strictly speaking but only to our Shell and our Instrument of Action But if we talk of a little Reputation an empty and popular Applause alas this is something much more remote and consequently of little or no concern at all to us CHAP. III. Remember then that if you mistake those things for Free which Nature hath made Servile and fancy That your own which is indeed another's you shall be sure to meet with many Hindrances and Disappointments much Trouble and great Distractions and be continually finding fault both with God and Man But if you take things right as they really are look upon no more to be your own than indeed is so and all that to be anothers which really belongs to him no body shall ever be able to put any constraint upon you no body shall check or disappoint you you shall accuse no body shall complain of nothing shall never do any thing unwillingly shall receive harm from no body shall have no Enemy for no Man will be able to do you any prejudice COMMENT HE had told us before what was and what was not in our own power
and Stealing And when you have done thus you may with more Security go about the thing To which purpose you will do well to say thus to your self My Design is to Bathe but so it is too to preserve my Mind and Reason undisturbed while I do so For after such wise preparation as this if any thing intervene to obstruct your Washing this Reflection will presently rise upon it Well but this was not the only thing I proposed that which I chiefly intended is to keep my Mind and Reason undisturbed and this I am sure can never be done if I suffer every Accident to discompose me COMMENT AFter giving Instructions concerning our Behaviour with regard to the things of the World that use to engage our Affections either upon the account of the Delight they give us the Convenience they are of or the Relation they bear to us the next Step in order is to consider our Actions for these too have a great many Circumstances that lie out of our power and must therefore be undertaken with great Prudence and much Preparation The Rule then that he lays down is this That you take a just account of the nature of each Action and fairly compute the several Accidents which though they do not necessarily yet may possibly attend it and to expect that these are very like to happen in your own case particularly And the Fruit of this will be either not to be surprised if such Difficulties do encounter you or if the thing be not of absolute necessity to decline the hazard by letting it alone For the Great Cato reckons this for one of the Errors of his Life that he chose to take a Voyage once by Sea to a Place whither he might have travell'd by Land Now in such a case though no misfortune should actually happen yet if there be a likelihood of any such Accident and if it do frequently happen to others it is an act of Imprudence to make choice of such a Course without being driven to it by necessity And this Answer that many People do the same and come off safe will not bear us out in choosing a more dangerous when it is left to our own Liberty to take a safer Passage But now where there is absolute occasion for our running some Risque as if we have necessary Affairs to dispatch which require a Voyage to or from some Island or if we are obliged to stand by a Father or a Friend in some hazardous or unlucky Business or if we are called upon to take up Arms in defence of our Country Then there is no thought of declining the Matter wholly and our Method must be to undertake it upon due deliberation and after having first laid together the several accidental Obstructions that use to arise in such a case That so by this timely Recollection we may render them easie and samiliar and not be disturbed when any of them come upon us For a Man thus prepared hath this double Advantage if they do not happen his Joy is the greater because he had so fully possest himself with an expectation that they would that it is almost a Deliverance to him And if they do then he hath the advantage of being provided against them and so can encounter them without much danger or disorder Now against this Counsel I expect it will be urged First That if any one should take such Pains to represent all the Crosses and Disappointments that may probably happen to them in every Undertaking the Effect of this would be Cowardice and Idleness for Men would find themselves utterly discouraged from attempting any thing at all Besides that nothing can be more grievous to any Man than to have the Image of his Troubles and Misfortunes constantly before his Eyes and especially if the Affair he be engaged in continue any time to converse all that while with this gastly Apparition Therefore that Demosthenes his Advice seems much more Prudent and Eligible To be sure that what you attend be Good and Vertuous then to hope well and whatever the Success be to bear it generously and decently But by the Objector's good leave if by hoping well Demosthenes mean a good Confidence grounded upon our undertaking what is Vertuous and Commendable and a resting satisfied in this Consideration whatever the Event be he says the very same thing with Epictetus only indeed he gives us no Direction which way we shall attain to this generous Temper of Mind that may enable us to entertain the Dispensations of Providence decently though they should happen to be harsh and severe But Epictetus declares himself of Opinion that the Method to qualify our selves for so doing is to take a true Prospect of the whole Affair and represent to our selves that it is what is fit for us to undertake and that there may be several Circumstances attending it which though they may not be agreeable to us are yet very tolerable and such as we may reconcile our selves to upon these Two Accounts First Because the Action it self which brings them upon us is Vertuous and Becoming and then because whenever they happen they are no more than what are expected and were provided against before But if by hoping well Demosthenes intend a firm perswasion of Safety and Success then I think it is very difficult nay I may venture to say it is impossible to conceive how a Man thus perswaded can ever bear Disappointments and Crosses with Moderation and Temper For when a Man falls from what he was in imagination the shock is the same as if he were so in reality And neither the Body nor the Mind are of a Constitution to bear sudden and violent Alterations without great Disturbance You see that the very Weather and Seasons of the Year though they change gently and by degrees yet put our Humours into a great ferment and generally occasion many Distempers among us and the more Violent this Change at any time is the Greater in Proportion the Disorders that follow upon it must needs be For it is true that a just Computation of all the Difficulties and Dangers that are used to attend our Actions must needs condemn Men to Slavish Fears and an Unactive Life For if our Reason convince us that what we attempt is good for the advantage of the Soul or which is all one of the Man for that Soul is the Man the Desire of that Good must needs inspire us with Courage and Vigour notwithstanding all the discouraging Dangers that attend it And the consideration of this danger will be very much softened by this most Rational and Vertuous Perswasion that we ought to persevere in such an Undertaking though at the expence of some Hazard and Inconvenience For all Danger and Detriment that concerns either our Body or our Fortunes is not properly an Evil to us nor shall we think it ours if we be wise But the Benefit of choosing a Vertuous Action and persisting in it in