I also adde it is of that good which the impressions of the brain represent to her as her own that I may not confound this Joy which is a Passion with that Joy purely intellectuall which comes into the Soul by the sole action of the Soul and which may be called a pleasing emotion in her excited by her selfe wherein consists her enjoyment of good which her understanding represents to her as her own it is true while the Soul is joyned to the body this intellectuall Joy can hardly be rid of the company of that which is a Passion for as soon as ever our understanding perceives that we possesse any good although this good may be so farre different from all that belongs to the body that it be not imaginable yet will not the Imagination forbear to make immediatly some impression in the brain whereupon ensue the motion of the spirits which excite the Passion of Joy The 92 Article The Definition of Sadnesse SAdnesse is a displeasant languishing wherein consists the discommodity the Soul receives from evill or defect which the impressions of the brain represent unto her as belonging to her and there is also an intellectuall Sadnesse which is not the Passion but which wants but little of being accompanied by it The 93 Article What are the causes of these two Passions NOW when the intellectuall Joy or Sadnesse so excites that which is a Passion their cause is evident enough and one may see by their defintions that Joy comes from the opinion a man hath that he possesses some good and Sadnesse from the opinion of some evill or defect but it oft falls out that a man is Sad or joyfull and yet he cannot distinctly observe the good or evill which are the causes of it to wit when this good or this evill make their impressions in the brain without the intercourse of the Soul sometimes because they belong only to the body and sometimes too although they belong to the Soul because shee considers them not as good or evill but under some other notion the impression whereof is joyned in the brain with that of good and evill The 94th Article How the Passions are excited by Goods and evills which only respect the budy and wherein consists tick ling and pain SO when a man is in sound health and the weather is fairer then ordinary hee feels a lightsomnesse in himselfe which proceeds not from any function of the understanding but only from the impressions which the motion of the spirits makes in the brains and he feels himselfe sad likewise when his body is indisposed although he know not that it is Thus the tickling of the senses is so closely followed by Joy and pain by sadness that most men cannot distinguish them yet they differ so farre that a man may somtimes suffer pains with Joy and receive ticklings that displease but the cause why Joy commonly follows tickling is because all that is called tickling or a pleasing touch consists in this that the objects of the senses excite some morions in the nerves which would be apt to hurt them if they had not strength enough to resist it or the body were not well disposed which makes an impression in the brain which being instituted by nature to signifie this good disposition and this strength represents it to the Soul as a good belonging to her seeing she is united to the Body and so excites Joy in her the cause is almost the same why a man naturally takes delight to feel himself moved to all sorts of Passions yea even Sadness \ and Hatred when these Passions are caused only by strange adventures which he sees personated on a stage or by such like occasions which not being capable to trouble us any way seem to tickle the Soul by touching it And the reason why pain usually produces Sadness is because that feeling which is called pain proceeds alwayes from some action so violent that it offends the nerves so that being instituted by nature to signifie to the Soul the dammage the body receives by this action and its weaknesse-in not being able to resist it it represents each of them to him as evils alwayes displeasing unlesse then when they cause some good things which she esteems of more than them The 95th Article How they may also be excited by goods andevils which the Soul observes not though they belong to her as the delight a man takes to run into a danger or remember an evil past SO the delight which oft-times young men take to undertake difficult things and expose themselves to great perills though they do not so much as look for any profit or honour thereby comes from hence the conceit they have that they undertake a difficult thing makes an impression in the brain which being joyned to that which they may make if they thought it a good thing to be couragious fortunate active or strong enough to dare to hazzard so farre is the reason that they take delight in it and the content which old men take when they remember the miseries they suffered proceeds from hence they imagine to themselves it is a good thing that they could subsist in spight of them The 96th Article What are the motions of the blood and spirits that cause the five preceding Passions THe five Passions which I have here begun to explain are so joyned or opposed to one another that it is easier to consider them all together then to treat distinctly of each as I handled Admiration and their cause is not like that in the braine onely but also in the Heart Spleen Liver and all other parts of the body in as much as they serve to the production of the blood and afterwards of the Spirits For although all the veins convey the blood they contain into the heart yet it sometimes falls out that the blood of some of them is driven with a stronger force than the rest and it happens also that the overtures through which it enters into he heart or those through which it goes out are more dilated or contracted one time than another The 97th Article The principall experiments conducing to the knowledge of these motions in Love NOW considering the sundry alterations that experience lets us see in our bodies while our Soul is agitated with divers Passions I observe in Love when it is alone that is when it is not accompanied with any extream Ioy desire or Sadnes that the beating of the pulse is even much greater and stronger than ordinary that a man feels a gentle heart in his breast and quick digestion ofmeat so that this Passion is profitable for the health The 98 Article In Hatred ON the contrary I observe in Hatred that the pulse is uneven weaker and oftentimes faster that a man feels colds intermingled with I know not what sharp and pricking heat in the breast that the stomack ceases to do its office is enclined to vomit and reject the meats he hath
of it or which else might extinguish it wherefore the spirits which ascended from the heart to the braine excited in the Soul the passion of Hatred And at the same time also these spirits went from the braine to the nerves which might drive the blood from the spleene and the small veines of the liver to the heart to hinder this noxious juyce from getting in and more to those which might repell this juyce to the intrailes and the stomack or else sometimes to make the Stomack disgorge it From whence it comes that the same motions are used to accompany the Passion of Hatred And in the liver one may discern by the eye that there are inthe liver an abundance of veines or pipes indifferent broad through which the juyce of meates may passe from the Port-veine into the hollow-veine and from thence to the heart without stopping any whit at the liver but that there are also an infinite number of lesser ones where it may stop which alwayes contain a reserve of blood as the spleene doth too which blood being thicker then that which is in the other parts of the Body may better serve for nutriment to the fire in the heart when the Stomck and entrailes lack wherewithall to supply them The 109th Article In Joy IT hath also come to passe at the beginning of our life that the blood contained in the veines was an Alimony sufficiently convenient to maintain the heat of the heart and they contained so great an abundance of it that there was no need to exhaust nutriment elsewhere This hath excited in the Soul the Passion of Joy and at the same time hath caused the Orifices of the heart to be more open then ordinary and that the spirits trickling abundantly from the braine not onely into the nerves which serve to open these Orifices but also universally into all the rest which drive the blood of the veines to the heart hinder any from coming a fresh from the the liver splcen intrailes and Stomack Wherefore these very same motions accompany Joy The 110th Article In Sadnesse SOmetimes on the contrary it hath happened that the body hath wanted nutriment and this hath made the Soul feel her first Sadnesse at least that which hath not been joyned with Hatred this very thing hath also caused the Orifices of the heart to be contracted because they received but little blood and that a good quantity of this blood came from the spleen by reason that is as the last reserve which serves to supply the heart when there comes none to it from any where else Wherefore the same motions of the spirits and nerves which so serve to contract the Orifices of the heart and to convey the blood thither from the the spleen alwayes a company Sadnesse The 111th Article In Disire LAstly all the originall Desires which the Soul might have when it was newly joyned to the body were to admit things convenient for her and repell hurtfull and it was for the same purpose that from that instant the spirits began to move all the muscles and all the organs of the senses in all manners that they could move Which is the reason that now when the Soul desires any thing the whole body becomes more active and disposed to move than usually wichout it and then it fals out on the other side that the Body is so disposed then are the Desires of the Soul more strong and vehement The 112 Article What are the exteriour signes of these Passions WHat I have laid down here makes the differences of the pulse and all the other properties which I have here before attributed to these passions be fufficiently understood so that I need not stand any further to explaine them But because I have onely observed in each what may be remarkable onely when it is single and what shewes to know the motions of the blood and spirits that produce them it yet remaines that I should treat on divers exteriour signes which usually accompany them and which may be better noted when many of them are mixed together as ordinarily they are than when they are distinct The chief of these signes are the gestures of the eyes and face changes of colour tremblings languishing swouning laughter tears groanes and sighes The 113th Article Of the gestures of the eyes and face THere is no Passion but some particular gesture of the eyes declare it and it is so palpable in some that even the stupidst serving-men by the eye of their master observe whether he be angry with them or not But though a man may easily perceive these gestures of the eyes and know what they signifie yet it is not an easie matter to describe them because every one of them is composed of severall alterations which happen in the motion and figure of the eye which are so peculiar and so small that each of them cannot be discerned distinctly though the result of their conjunction be easily marked The same thing almost may be said of the gestures of the face which thus accompany the Passions for though they be greater then those of the eyes yet it is difficult to distinguish them they so little differ that there are men almost of the same aspect when they weep as others when they laugh It is true there are some very remarkable as the wrinkling of the forehead in wrath and certain motions of the nose and lips in indignation and derision but they seem rather to be voluntary then naturall And generally all the gestures as well of the face as eyes may be altered by the Soul when being willing to conceal her Passion she strongly imagines one contrary to it so that they may serve as well counterfeit as declare Passions The 114th Article Of changing Colour A Man cannot so easily refrain from blushing or looking pale when any Passion disposseth him thereunto because these changings depend not on the nerves and muscles as the former and because they come more immediately from the heart which may be called the source of the Passions seeing it prepares the blood and spirits to produce them Now it is certain that the colour of the face comes from nought but the blood which flowing continually from the heart through the arteries into all the veines and from all the veines into the heart colours the face more or lesse according as it more or lesse fills the little veines towards the superficies thereof The 115th Article How Joy causes blushing SO Joy renders the colour livelyer and more Vermillion because by opening the sluces of the heart it makes the blood flow quicker in all the veines and becomming hotter and more subtile it moderately raiseth up all parts of the face which makes the aspect of it more smiling and brisk The 116th Article How Sadnesse makes one look pale ON the contrary Sadness by contracting the Orifices of the heart makes the blood flow more slowly into the veins and that becomming colder and thicker hath not
by some kind of tickling which exciting the Passion of Joy in her breeds afterwards Love of that she believes to be the cause of it and at last Desire to acquire that which may either cause this Joy to continue in her or to enjoy after it another like it which shews that they are all five very usefull in behalfe of the body and indeed that Sadnesse is in some sort superiour to and more necessary than Joy and Hatred than Love because it is of more moment to repell things noxious and destructive than to acquire such as adde some kind of perfection without which it is possible to subsist The 138th Article Of their faults and the means to correct them BBut although this use of the Passions be the naturallest they can have and all irrationall creatures regulate their life only by corporall motions resembling those which in us use to follow them and whereunto they incite our Soul to consent yet it is not alwayes good seeing there are many things hurtfull to the body which at first cause not any Sadness nor yet conferre Joy and others beneficiall to it though at first they be incommodious And besides they most commonly make the evills and goods they represent to us seem much greater and weightier then they are so that they incite us to seek after the one and avoid the other with more vehemency and anxiety then is convenient as we see beasts are often entrapped by baits and to shun little evills they precipitate themselves into greater Wherefore wee ought to make use of our experience and reason to distinguish good from evill and know their just valew that we may not take one for the other nor addict our selves to any thing excessively The 139th Article Of the use of the same Passions as they relate to the Soul and first of Love THis were sufficient if wee had only a body or if that were our better part but seeing it is the least we ought chiefly to consider the Passions as they relate to the Soul in respect whereof Love and Hatred proceed from Knowledge and precede Joy and Sadness except when these two last hold the place of Knowledge whereof those are sorts and when this Knowledge is true that is when the things it inclines us to love are truly good and those it inclines us to hate are truly evill then Love is incomparable better then Hatred nor can it be too great or fail to produce Joy I say this Love is extraordinary good because joyning true goods to us it makes us so much the more perfect I say also that it cannot be too great for what the most excessive can do is but to joyne us so absolutely to those goods that we put distinction between the love we bear to that and our selves which I beleeve cannot be evil And it is necessarily followed by Joy because it represents what we love as a good be-belonging to us The 140 Article Of Hatred HAtred on the contrary cannot be so small but it hurts and it is never without Sadnesse I say it cannot be too small because we are not incited by Hatred to any Action but what we may be by Love of the good contrary to it at least when this good and evil are enough understood For I confesse that the Hatred of evil which is not manifested but by pain is necessary in respect of the Body but I speak here of that which proceeds from a more cleare knowledge and I attribute it only to the Soul I say also that it is never without Sadnesse because evill being but a privation it cannot be conceived without some reall subject wherein it is and there is nothing reall but hath some goodnesse in it so that the Hatred which make us refrain from evill doth also make us refrain from the good whereunto it is annexed and the privation of this good being represented to our Soul as a defect in her excites Sadnesse For example the Hatred which makes us refrain from the evill manners of any one does by the same meanes make us refrain from his conversation wherein we might otherwise finde some good which we are vexed to be deprived of And so in all other kinds of Hatred some subject of Sadnesse may be observed The 141. Article Of Desire Joy and Sadnesse FOr desire it is evident that when it proceeds from a true knowledge it cannot be evill provided it be not immoderate and that this knowledge regulate it It is evident also that Joy cannot chuse but be good nor Sadnesse but be evil in respect of the Soul because in the last consist all the inconveniences that the Soul receives by evil and in the first all the enjoyment of good belonging to her So that if we had no Bodies I durst say we could not give our selves up too much to Love and Joy nor too much shunne Hatred and Sadnesse But the corporall motions that accompany them may be all hurtfull to the health when they are very violent and on the other side usefull when they are but moderate The 142 Article Of Joy and Love compared with Sadnesse and Hatred FUrthermore since Hatred and Sadness ought to be rejected by the Soul even then when they proceed from a true knowledge much more ought they to be when they come from any false opinion but it may be doubted whether Love and Joy are good or no when they likewise are ill grounded and me thinks if it be only considered what they are precisely in themselves in respect of the Soul it may be said that although the Joy be less solid and the Love lesse advantagious then when they have a better foundation they are at the worst to be preferred before Sadness and Hatred as ill grounded so that in the occurrences of life where we cannot avoid the hazard of being deceived wee doe alwayes best to lean to those Passions which tend towards good then those which have relation to evill although it be to shun it Nay sometimes a false Joy is better then a Sadness from a true cause but I dare not say the same of Love in relation to Hatred For when Hatred is just it removes us not from any thing but the subject which contains the Evill from which it is good to be separated whereas unjust Love joyns us to hurtfull things or at least to such as desire not to be so much considered by us as they are which devours and abases us The 143 Article Of the same Passions as they relate to Desire ANd it must be exactly noted that what I now spake of these foure Passions takes place only when they are considered precisely in themselves and encline us not to any action for seeing they excite Desire in us by whose interposition they regulate our manners it is certain that all those that come from a wrong cause may hurt and on the other side those that come of a just cause may be usefull and further that when they are
insist in answering every particular I will onely tell you two reasons that me thinkes might deterre you from it the first is I have not any conceit that the designe I suppose you had in writing it can succeed the second that I am no whit of that humour you suppose me that neither indignation nor distaste hath taken away my desire to be serviceable to the publick whereunto I think my selfe very much obliged for that those things I have already published have been by many favourably received That I did not formerly bestow what I had written of the Passions on you was because I would not be engaged to let some others see it who would have made no use of it for since I compiled it to be read onely by a Princesse whose wit is so far above the common pitch that she conceives without difficulty what seemes hardest to our Doctours I onely purposed to unfold what therein was new And that you may not doubt what I say I promise you to review that tract of the Passions and to add what I conceive necessary to make it more intelligible and then I will send it you to doe what you please with it for I am c. Egmont Dece 4. 1648. A second letter to Mousieur des Cartes Sir It is a long while since you have made me expect your tract of the Passions which I begin to despaire of and fancy with my selfe that you promised it to me onely to hinder me from publishing the letter I formerly writ to you for I have reason to beleeve that you would be vext if a man went about to barre you of the excuse you make to finish your Physickes and my designe in that letter was to barre you since the reasons I have there laid down are such that me thinkes they cannot be read by any one who hath the least seruple of respect to honour or vertue but they will incite him to wish as I doe that you might obtaine of the publick what is requisite for the experiments you say are necessary and I hoped it might happily alight into the hands of some who had power to make that desire effectuall whether because they had accesse to those who dispose the publick treasure or because they dispence it themselves so I was confident I should find you doing whether you would or no for I know you have so great a hart that you would not fail to repay what should thus be given you with usury and that would make you absolutely shake off that carelesnesse whereof at present I cannot refraine from accusing you although I am c. July 23. 1649. In answer to the second Letter Sir I am very guiltlesse of the slight you are pleased to beleeve I used to hinder the long Letter you sent me last yeere from being published for besides that I cannot thinke it can any whit produce the effect you pretend I have not such a propension to idlenesse that the feare of labour whereunto I should be tied were I to dive into many experiments could prevaile over the desire I have to instruct my selfe and write any thing usefull for other men had I from the publick received conveniences to doe it I cannot so well cleare my selfe of the carelessenesse you charge me with for I confesse I have beene longer in reviewing the little tract I send you than I was in making it and yet I have added to it but very few things and have not a whit altered the discourse which is so plain and briefe that it will be easily known thereby my designe was not to lay open the Passions like an Oratour nor yet a Morall Philosopher but onely as a Physician so I foresee that this tract will have no better successe than my other writings and although the title it may be may invite more people to read it yet it will not give satisfaction to any b ut them who take the paines to examine it considerately Such as it is I commit it to you c. Egmont Aug. 14. 1649. The Passions of the Soul The first part Of Passions in Generall and occasionally of the Universall nature of Man The first Article That what is Passion in regard of the subject is alwayes Action in some other respect THere is nothing more clearly evinces the Learning which we receive from the Ancients to be defective than what they have written concerning the Passions For although it be a matter the understanding whereof hath ever been hunted after and that it seems to be none of the hardest because every one feeling them in himself need not borrow forraign observations to discover their nature yet what the Ancients have taught concerning them is so little and for the most part so little credible that I cannot hope to draw nigh truth but by keeping aloof off from those roades which they followed Wherefore I shall here be forced to write in such a sort as if I treated of a matter never before handled And first of all I consider that all which is done or happens anew is by the Philosopers called generally a Passion in relation to the subject on whom it befalls and an Action in respect of that which causes it So that although the Agent and Patient be things often differing Action and Passion are one and the same thing which hath two severall names because of the two severall subjects whereunto they may relate The second Article That to understand the Passions of the soul it is necessary to distinguish the functions thereof from those of the body FUrthermore I consider that we observe not any thing which more immediately agitates our soul than the body joyned to it consequently we ought to conceive that what in that is a Passion is commonly in this an Action so that there is no better way to attain to the understanding of our Passions than by examiing the difference between the soul and the body that we may know to which of them each function in us ought to be attributed The third Article What rule ought to be observed for the purpose WHich will not be found a very hard task if it be taken notice of that what we experimentally find to be in us and which we see are in bodies totally inanimate ought not to be attributed to ought else but the body and contrarily that all which is within us and which we conceive cannot in any wayes appertain to a body must be imputed to our soul The fourth Article That heat and the motion of the members proceed from the Body and thoughts from the Soul VVHerefore since we doe not comprehend that the body in any manner thinks 't is but equitable in us to believe that all sorts of thoughts within us belong to the soul and since we make no question but there are inanimate bodies which move as many or more severall wayes than ours and which have as much or more heat which experience shows us in flame which
drunk much wine The vapours of this wine entering suddenly into the blood mount up from the hear to the brain where they convert into spirits which being stronger and more abundant than ordinary are apt to move the body after many strange fashions This inequality of the spirits may also proceed from the divers dispositions of the heart liver Stomacke spleene and all other parts contributing to their production For it is principally necessary here to observe certaine little nerves inserted in the basis of the heart which serve to lengthen and contract the entries of its concavities by meanes whereof the blood there dilating more or lesse strongly produces spirits diversly disposed It is also to be noted that although the blood which enters into the heart comes thither from all the other parts of the body yet it falls out often times that more is driven thither from some parts than others by reason the nerves or muscles which answer to those parts oppresse or agitate it more and for that according to the diversity of the parts from whence it comes most it dilates it selfe diverfly in the heart and at last produces spirits of different natures as for example that which comes from the lower part of the liver where the gall is dilates it selfe otherwise in the heart than that which comes from the spleene and this after another manner than that which comes from the veines of the leggs or armes and lastly this quite otherwise than the juyce of meats when being newly come out of the stomack and bowels it passes through the liver to the heart The 16th Article How all the members may be moved by the objects of the sences and by the spirits without the help of the Soul Lastly it is to be observed that the machine of our body is so composed that all the changes befalling the motion of the spirits may so worke as to open some pores of the braine more than others and reciprocally that when any one of these pores are never so little more or lesse open than usuall by the Action of those nerves subservient to the senses it changes somewhat in the motion of the spirits and causes them to be conveyed into the muscles which serve to move the body in that manner it ordinarily is upon occasion of such an Action So that all the motions we make our will not contributing to them as it often happens that we sigh walk eat and to be short doe all actions common to us and beasts depend onely on the conformity of our members and the streame which the spirits excited by the heat of the heart follow naturally into the braine nerves and muscles Just as the motion of a watch is produced meerely by the strength of the spring and the fashion of the wheeles The 17th Article What the functions of the Soul are HAving thus considered all the functions belonging to the body only it is easie to know there remaines nothing in us which we ought to attribute to our Soul unlesse our thoughts which are chiefly of two kinds to wit some Actions of the Soul others her Passions Those which I call her actions are all our wills because we experimentally find they come directly from our Soul and seem to depend on nought but it as on the contrary one may generally call her Passions all those sorts of apprehensions and understandings to be found within us because oftimes our Soul does not make them such as they are to us and she alwayes receives things as they are represented to her by them The 18th Article Of the Will Again our Wills are of two sorts For some are actions of the Soul which terminate in the Soul it selfe as when we will love God or generally apply our thought to any object which is not materiall The other are actions which terminate in our body as in this case that we have onely a will to walke it followes that our legges must stir and we goe The 19th Article Of the Apprehension OUr Appprehensions also are of two sorts the Soul is the cause of some the Body of the other Those whereof the Soul is the cause are the apprehensions of our wills and all the imaginations or others thoughts thereon depending For we cannot will any thing but we must at the same time perceive that we doe will it And although in respect of our Soul it be an Action to will any thing it may be said also a passion in her to apprehend that she wills Yet because this apprehension and this will are in effect but one and the same thing the denomination comes still from that which is most noble therefore it is not customary to call it a Passion but onely an Action The 20th Article Of Imaginations and other thoughts framed by the Soul WHen our Soul applies her elfe to fancy any thing which is not as to represent to it selfe an inchanted Palace or a Chimera and also when she bends her selfe to consider any thing that is only intelligible not imaginable for example to ruminate on ones owne nature the apprehension she hath of things depends ptincipally on the Will which causeth her to perceive them Wherefore it is usuall to consider them as Actions rather than Passions The 21 Article Of Imaginations caused onely by the body Among the apprehensions caused by the body the greatest part depend on the nerves But yet there are some that depend not at all on them which are called Imaginations too as well as those I lately spoke of from which neverthelesse they differ herein that our Will hath no hand in framing them which is the reason wherefore they cannot be numbred among the actions of the Soul and they proceed from nothing but this that the spirits being agitated severall wayes and meeting the traces of divers impressions preceding them in the brain they take their course at haphazzard through some certaine pores rather than others Such are the illusions of our dreames and those dotages we often are troubled with waking when our thought carelessely roames witout applying it self to any thing of its own Now though some of these imaginations be Passions of the Soul taking this word in the genuine and peculiar signification and though they may be all called so if it be taken in a more generall acception yet seeing they have not so notorious and determined a cause as those apprehensions which the Soul receives by mediation of the nerves and that they seem to be onely the shadow and representation of the others before we can well distinguish them it is necessary to examine the difference between them The 22 Article Of the difference betwixt them and the other apprehensions ALL the apprehensions which I have not yet explained come to the Soul by mediation of the nerves and there is this difference between them that we attribute some of them to the objects from without that beat upon our senses some to our body or some parts of it and lastly
the rest to our Soul The 23th Article Of apprehensions which we attribute to objects from without us Those which we attribute to things without us to wit to the objects of our enses are caused at least if our opinion be not false by those objects which exciting some motions in the organs of the exteriour senses by intercourse with the nerves stir up some in the brain which make the soul perceive them So when we see the light of a torch and hear the sound of a bell this sound and this light are two everall actions who meerly in this regard that they excite two severall motions in some of our nerves and by meanes of them in the brain deliver the Soul two different Resentments which we so attribute to those Subjects which we suppose to be their causes that we think we see the very flame and hear the bell not onely feel certain motions proceeding from them The 24th Article Of apprehensions which we attribute to our body THe apprehensions which we attribute to our body or any of the parts thereof are those we have concerning hunger thirst and other our naturall appetites whereunto may be added paine heat and the rest of the affections we feel as in our members and not in the objects without us So we may at at the same time by the intercourse of the same nerves feel the coldnesse of our hand and the heat of the flame it drawes neere to or contrarily the heat of the hand and the cold of the aire whereto it is exposed and yet there is no difference between the Actions that make us feel the heat or the cold in our hand and those which make us feel that which is without us unlesse that one of these Actions succeeding the other we conceive the first to be already in us and that which followes not to be yet in us but in the object that causeth it The 25th Article Of the apprehensions which we attribute to our Soul THe Apprehensions attributed only to the Soul are those whereof the effects are felt as in the Soul it selfe and whereof any neer cause whereunto it may be attributed is commonly unknown Such are the resentments of joy wrath and the like which are sometimes excited in us by the objects which move our nerves and sometimes too by other causes Now although all our Apprehensions as well those attributed to objects without us as those relating to divers affections of our body be in truth Passions in respect of our Soul when this word is taken in the more generall signification yet it is usuall to restrain it to signifie onely those attributed to the Soul it selfe And they are onely these latter which I here undertake to explaine under the notion of Passions of the Soul The 26th Article That the imaginations which depend onely on the accidentall motion of the spirits may be as reall Passions as the apprehensions depending on the nerves IT is here to be observed that all the same things which the Soul perceives by intercourse with the nerves may also be represented to it by the accidentall course of the spirits and no difference between them but this that the impressions which come from the brain by the nerves are usually more lively and manifest than those the spirits excite there which made me say in the one and twentieth Article that these are onely as the shadow and representation of those It is also to be noted that it sometimes fals out this picture is so like the thing it represents that it is possible to be deceived concerning the apprehensions attributed to those objects without us or those referred to any parts of our body but not to be srved so concerning the Passions forasmuch as they are so neer and interiour to our Soul that it is impossible she should feele them unlesse they were truely such as she doth feel them So oftentimes when one sleeps and sometimes too being awake a man fancies things so strongly that he thinkes he sees them before him or feels them in his body though there be no such thing but although a man be asleep and doate he cannot feel himselfe sad ormoved with any other Passion but it is most true that the Soul hath in it that passion The 27th Article The definition of the Passions of the Soul AFter we have thus considered wherein the passions of the Soul differ from all other thoughts me thinkes they may be generally defined thus Apprehensions resentments or emotions of the Soul attributed particularly to it and caused fomented and fortified by some motion of the spirits The 28th Article An explication of the first part of the definition THey may be called Apprehensions when this word is used in a generall sense to signifie all thoughts that are not Actions of the Soul or the wills but not then when it onely signifies evident knowledges For experience shewes us that those who are most agitated by their Passions are not such as understand them best and that they are in the Catalogue of those apprehensions which the strict alliance between the soul and the body renders confused and obscure they may also be called resentments because they are received into the soul in the same manner as the objects of the exteriour senses and are not otherwise understood by her but they may justlier be stiled the emotions of the Soul not only because this name may be attributed to all the mutations befalling her that is all the various thoughts thereof but particularly because of all kinds of thoughts that she can have there are none that agitate and shake it so hard as these Passions doe The 29th Article An explication of the other part I Adde that they are attributed particularly to the Soul to distinguish them from other resentments relating some to exteriour objects as smells sounds colours the others to our body as hunger thirst pain I also subjoyn that they are caused fomented and fortified by some motion of the spirits to distinguish them from our Wills which cannot be called emotions of the Soul attributed to her but caused by her self as also to unfold their last and immediate cause that distinguisheth them again from other resentments The 30th article That the Soul is united to all the parts of the body joyntly BUt to understand all these things more perfectly it is necessary to know that the Soul is really joyned to all the body but it cannot properly bee said to bee in any of the parts thereof excluding the rest because it is One and in some sort indivisible by reason of the disposition of the organs which do all so relate one to another that when any one of them is taken away it renders the whole body defective and because it is of a nature that hath no reference to extension dimensions or other properties of matter whereof the body is composed but only to the whole masse or Contexture of Organs as appears by this that you cannot
conceive the half or third part of a Soul nor what space it takes up and that it becomes not any whit less by cutting off any part of the body but absolutely withdraws when the Contexture of its organs is dissolved The 31th Article That there is a little kernell in the brain wherein the soul exercises her functions more peculiarly than in the other parts IT is also necessary to know that although the foul be joyned to all the body yet there is some part in that body wherein shee exercises her functions more peculiarly than all the rest and it s commonly believed that this part is the brain or it may bee the heart the brain because thither tend the organs of the senses and the heart because therein the Passions are felt but having searched this businesse carefully me thinks I have plainly found out that that part of the body wherein the soul immediatly exercises her functions is not a jot of the heart nor yet all the brain but only the most interiour part of it which is a certain very small kernell situated in the middle of the substance of it and so hung on the top of the conduit by which the spirits of its anteriour cavities have communication with those of the posteriour whose least motions in it cause the course of the spirits very much to change and reciprocally the least alterations befalling the course of the spirits cause the motions of the kernell very much to alter The 32th Article How this kernell is known to be the principall seat of the soul THe reason which perswades me that the soul can have no other place in the whole body but this kernell where shee immediatly exercises for functions is for that I see all the other parts of our brain are paired as also we have two eyes two hands two ears lastly all the organs of our exteriour senses are double and forasmuch as we have but one onely and single thought of one very thing at one and the same time it must necessarily be that there is some place where the two images that come from the two eyes or the two other impressions that come from any single object through the double organs of the other senses have some where to meet in one before they come to the soul that they may not represent two objects in stead of one and it may bee easily conceived that these images or other impressions joyn together in this kernell by intercourse of the spirits that fill the cavities of the brain but there is no other place in the body where they can be so united unlesse it be granted that they are in this kernell The 33th Article That the seat of the Passions is not in the heart FOr the opinion of those who think the soul receives her Passions in the heart it is not worth consideration for it is grounded upon this that the Passions make us feel some alteration there and it is easie to take notice that this alteration is only felt in the heart by the intercourse of a small nerve descending to it from the brain just as pain is felt in the feet by intercourse of the nerves of the foot and the starres are perceived as to be in the firmament by the intercourse of their light and the optick nerves so that it is no more necessary that our soul exercise her functions immediatly in the heart to make her Passions be felt there than it is necessary shee should be in the sky to see the stars there The 34th Article How the Soul and the Body act one against another LEt us then conceive that the Soul holds her principall seat in that little kernell in the midst of the brain from whence she diffuseth her becames into all the rest of the body by intercourse of the spirits nerves yea and the very blood which participating the Impressions of the spirits may convey them through the arteries into all the members and remembring what was formerly said concerning this machine our body to wit that the little strings of our nerves are so distributed into all parts of it that upon occasion of severall motions excited therein by sensible objects they variously open the pores of the braine which causeth the animall spirits contained in the cavities thereof to enter divers wayes into the muscles by whose means they can move the members all the severall wayes they are apt tomove and also that all the other causes which can differently move the spirits are enough to convey them into severall muscles let us here adde that the little kernell which is the chief feat of the soul hangs so between the cavities which contain these spirits that it may be moved by them as many severall fashions as there are sensible diversities in objects but withall that it may be moved severall wayes by the soul too which is of such a nature that she receives as many various impressions that is hath as many severall apprehensions as there come severall motions into this kernell As also on the other side the machine of the body is so composed that this kernel being only divers wayes moved by the soul or by any other cause whatsoever it drives the Spirits that environ it towards the pores of the brain which convey them by the nerves into the muscles by which means it causeth them to move the members The 35th Article An example of the manner how the impressions of objects unite in the kernell in the middle of the brain AS for example if we see any creature come toward us the light reflected from his body paints two images one in each eye and these two images beget two others by intercourse with the optick nerves in the interiour superficies of the brain that looks towards its concavities from thence by intercourse of the spirits wherewith these cavities are filled these images glance in such a manner on the little kennell that these spirits encompasse it and the motion which composes any point of one of these images tends to the same point of the kernell to which that motion tends that frames the point of the other image which represents too part of this creature by which meanes the two images in the brain make up but one single one upon the kernell which acting immediately against the Soul shews her the figure of that creature The 36 Article An example how the Passions are excited in the Soul FUrthermore if this figure be very strange and hideous that is if it have much similitude with such things as have formerly been offensive to the body it excites in the Soul the Passion of fear afterwards that of boldness or else an affright or scaring according to the various temper of the body or the force of the soul and according as a man hath formerly protected himself by defence or flight against noxious things whereunto the present impression hath some resemblance for this renders the braine so disposed in some men that the
which may be presented to him afterwards but common Yet when it is excessive and causeth the attention to be fixed onely on the first image of the objects represented not acquiring any farther knowledge it leaves behind it a habit that disposeth the Soul to stop in the same manner on all other objects which present themselves provided they appear never so little new This prolongs the disease of those who are blindly inquisitive that is who seek out rarities only to admire them and not to understand them for by little and little they become so full of Admiration that things of no consequence are as apt to puzzle them as those whose scrutiny is commodious The 79th Article The definitions of Love and hatred LOve is an emotion of the Soul caused by the motion of the spirits which incite it to joyn in will to the objects which seem convenient to her and hatred is an emotion caused by the spirits which incite the soul to will to be separated from objects represented to be hurtfull to her I say these emotions are caused by the Spirits to distinguish Love and Hatred which are Passions and depend of the body as well from the judgements that encline the Soul to joyn in Will to the things she esteems good and separate from those shee esteemes evill as from the emotions which these Judgements alone excite in the Soul The 80th Article What is meant by joyning or separating in Will FUrthermore by the word Will I do not mean here Desire which is a Passion apart and relates to the future that of the consent whereby he at that instant considers himself as it were joyned to what he loves so that he imagineth a whole whereof he thinks himself to be but one part and the thing beloved another as on the contrary in Hatred he considers himself alone as a Whole absolutely separated from the thing whereunto he hath an aversion The 81 Article Of the usuall distinction between the Love of Concupiscence and Benevolence IT is frequent to distinguish that there are two sorts of Love one called Benevolence that is to say wishing well to what a man loves the other Concupiscence that is to say which caufeth to desire the thing beloved but me thinks this distinction belongs to the effects onely and not the essence of Love For assoon as a man is joyned in Will to any object of what nature soever it be he hath a well wishing to it that is to say he also thereunto joynes in Willt he things he believes convenient for it which is one of the main effects of Love And if he conceive it a good to possesse it or to be associated with him in any other manner than in Will he desires it which is also one of the most ordinary effects of Love The 82 Article How different Passions concurre in this that they participate of Love NOr is it necessary to distinguish as many sorts of Love as there are diversitie of objects which may be beloved For example although the Passions of the ambitious man for glory the avaritious for money the drunkard for wine the bestiall for a woman he would violate the man of honour for his friend or mistris and a good father for his children be in themselves very different yet in that they participate of Love they are alike but the foure first beare a Love meerely for the possession of the objects where unto their Passion relates and none at all to the objects themselves for which they have onely a desire mingled with other particular Passions Whereas the Love a good Father bears to his children is so pure that he desires to have nothing of them and would not possesse them any otherwise than he does nor be joyned neerer to them than he is already but considering them as other Selfes he seekes out their good as he would his owne or rather with more care because representing to himself that he and they make but one whole whereof he is not the better part he oftentimes prefers their interests before his own and fears not his ruine to save them The affections which men of honour bear to their friends is of this very same nature though it seldom be so perfect and that they bear to their Mistresse participates much of but it hath also a smatch of the other The 83th Article Of the difference between bare Affection Friendship and Devotion ME thinkes Love may more justly be distinguished by the esteeme a man makes of what he Loves in comparison of himself For when he vallues the object of his Love lesse then himself he bears only a bare Affection to it when he rates it equall with himself it is called friendship when more that Passion may becalled Devotion Thus a man may bear an Affection to a flow a bird a horse but unlesse he have a brain greatly out of tune he cannot have friendship but for men And they are so far the object of this passion that there is no man so defective but one may bear a perfect friendship to him if one but thinke ones selfe beloved by him and that one have a Soul truly noble and generous as shall accordingly be explained in the hundred fifty fourth and hundred fifty sixt Article As for Devotion the principall object thereof is undoubledly the Soveraigne Divinity whereunto a man cannot chuse but be devout If he but understand it as he ought to doe But a man may carry a Devotion to his Prince too to his Country to his City and even to a particular man when he esteemes him much more than himselfe Now the difference betwixt these three sorts of Love appears chiefly by their effects for since in all of them a man considers himselfe as joyned and united to the thing beloved he is ever ready to abandon the least part of all which to conserve the other he attones therewith Therfore in bare Affection he alwayes prefers himself before what he loves contrariwise in Devotion he so much prefers the thing before himselfe that he fears not to die for the conservation of it Whereof we have seen frequent examples in those who have exposed themselves to a certain death for the defence of their Prince or their City and sometimes too of particular Persons to whom they have been devoted The 84th Article That there are not so many sorts of Hatred as Love FUrthermore although Hate be directly opposite to Love yet it is not distinguished into so many sorts because a man observes not so much the difference between the evils a man is seperated from in Will as he does betwixt the goods whereunto he is joyned The 85 Article Of Liking and Horrour ANd I find only one considerable distinction alike in each It consists in this that the objects as well of Love as Hatred may be represented to the Soul by the exteriour senses or else by the interiour and ones own reason For we commonly call that good or evil which
our interiour senses our reason make us judge convenient for or contrary to our nature but we call that handsome or ugly which is so represented to us by our exteriour senses chiefly by the sight which alone is more considered then all the rest From whence arise two sorts of Love that which a man beares to good things and that he bears to handsome things whereunto we may give the name of Liking that we may not confound it with the other nor yet with Desire whereunto the name of Love is often attributed And from hence spring in the same manner two sorrs of Hatred one whereof relates to things evil the other to ugly and this last for distinction sake may be called Horrour or Aversion But the most observable thing herein is that these Passions of liking and Horrour are usually more violent then the other kindes of Love and Hatred because that which comes to the Soul by the senses touches her more to the quicke then what is represented by her reason and yet most commonly they have lesse truth So that of all the Passions these are the greatest cheaters whom a man ought most carefully to beware of The 86th Article The Definition of Desire THe Passion of Desire is an agitation of the Soul caused by the spirits which disposeth it to Will hereafter the things that she represents unto her selfe convenient So a man not onely desires the presence of an absent good but the canservation of a present and moreover the absence of an evil as well of that he now endures as that which he beleeves may befall him hereafter The 87th Article That it is a Passion which hath no Contrary I Know very well that in the Schools that Passion which tends to the seeking after good which onely is called Desire is opposed to that which tends to the avoiding of evil which is called Aversion but Secing there is no good the privation whereof is not an evil nor any evil taken in the notion of a positive thing the privation whereof is not good for example that in seeking after riches a man necessarily eschewes poverty in avoiding diseases he seekes after health and so of the rest Me thinkes it is still the same motion which enclines to the seeking after good and withall to the avoyding evil which is contrary to it I onely observe this difference that the desire he hath when he tends towards some good is accompanied with Love and afterwards with Hope and Joy whereas the same Desire when he tends to the avoyding an evil coutrary to this good is attended with Hatred Fear and Sorrow which is the reason why it is conceived contrary to it self But if it be considered when it relates equally at the same time to a good sought after and an opposite evill to shunne it it may be cleerly perceived but one Passion onely which causeth both the one and the other The 88th Article What are the severall kinds of it IT were more fit to distinguish Desire into as many severall sorts as there are severall objects sought after for example Curiosity which is nothing but a Desire to know differs much from the Desire of glory and this from the Desire of revenge and so of the rest But it is enough here to know that there are as many sorts of it as of Love or Hatred and that the most considerable and strongest desires are those which are derived from Liking and Loathing The 89th Article What is the Desire arising from Horrours NOW although it be but one selfe-same Desire which tends to the seeking after good and avoyding its contrary evill as hath been said already yet the Desire springing from Liking ceases not to be very different from that which ariseth from Horrour for this Liking and this Horrour which are in truth two contraries are not the good and the evill which serve for objects to these Desires but only two serve for objects to these Desires but only two emotions of the Soul which dispose it to seek after two very different things Horrour is instituted by nature to represent a sudden and unexpected death to the Soul so that if it be sometimes no more but the touch of a little worme the noise of a shaking leafe or ones own shadow that causeth Horrour a man immediatly feeles as great an emotion as if a most evident danger of death were laid before his eyes this causeth a sudden agitation which enclines the Soul to employ all her strength to shun an evill if present and it is this kind of Desire which is commonly called flight or Aversion The 90th Article What is that arising from Liking ON the contrary Liking is peculiarly instituted by nature to represent the enjoyment of what is liked as the greatest good belonging to man which causeth a man very earnestly to desire this enjoyment it is true there are severall sorts of Liking and the Desires which arise from them are not all alike powerfull for example the lovelinesse of flowers incite us only to look on them and that of fruits to eat them but the chiefe is that which proceeds from the perfections a man imagines in another person which he thinkes may become another Selfe for with the distinction of sexes which nature hath bestowed on man as well as irrationall creatures she hath also put certain impressions in the brain which makes a man at a certain age and at a certain season to look on himself as defective and as if he were but the halfe of a Whole whereof a person of the other sex ought to bee the other halfe so that the acquisition of this halfe is represented to us confusedly by nature as the greatest of all imaginable goods and although he see many persors of the other sex he doth not therefore Desire many at the same time by reason nature makes him conceive that he hath need of no more but one halfe but when hee observes something in any one that likes him better then any thing he hath marked at the same time in the rest that fixes the Soul to feed all the inclination which nature hath given him to seek after the good that she represents to him as the greatest hee can possibly possesse on that woman only and this inclination or this Desire which is bred thus by Liking is called by the name of Love more commonly then the Passion of Love formerly described indeed it hath much more strange effects and this is he that furnisheth all the Writers of Romances and Poets with stuffe The 91 Article The definition of Joy Ioy is a pleasing emotion of the Soul wherein consists her enjoyment of good that the impressions of the brain represent unto her as her own I say in this emotion consists the enjoyment of good for in truth the Soul receives no other fruit of all the good shee possesses and when there is no Joy in her a man may say shee enjoyes it no more then if shee had not any
both equally ill grounded Joy is commonly more hurtfull then Sadness because this enduing a man with reservednesse and Warinesse doth in some sort encline him to Prudence whereas the other render those who give themselves up thereunto inconsiderate and rash The 144th Article Of Desires whose events depend only on our selves BUt because these Passions cannot sway us to any actions but by the interposition of the Desire that they excite it is Desire which wee ought peculiarly to regulate and therein consists the principall part of Morality Now as I said just now it is alwayes good when it follows a true knowledge so it cannot chuse but be bad when it is grounded on an errour and me thinks the most ordinary errour committed in Desire is when a man doth not clearly enough distinguish the things which absolutely depend on our selves from those which doe not For concerning those which depend of us that is of our free disposition it is enough to know that they are good not to desire them with too much vehemence because it is a following of vertue to doe the good things that depend of us and it is certain he cannot have too ardent a Desire after Vertue Besides what we thus desire cannot chuse but be accomplished since it depending only on us we ever receive the plenary satisfaction wee expect but the usuall fault herein is not that we desire too much but too little and the soveraigne remedy against that is as much as in us lies to ridde the spirit of all kind of Desires less usefull then to strive to know clearly and consider with attention the goodness of that which is to be desired The 145 Article Of those which depend meerly on other causes and what Fortune is FOr those things which depend not any wayes of us how good soever they be they ought never to be desired with Passion not only because they may not befall and by this means afflict us so much the more by how much more they were desired but chiefly because when they possesse our thoughts they divert us from bending our affection to other things the acquisition whereof depends of our selves and there are two generall remedies against these idle Desires the first generosity which I will speak of hereafter the second is that we ought to reflect on divine Providence and imagine to our selves that it is impossible that any thing happen otherwise then this Providence hath determined from all eternity so that there is a kind of fatality or unresistable necessity to oppose Fortune to destroy her as a Chimera proceeding only from the errour of our understandings for wee can desire nothing but what we think in some manner possible and wee cannot suppose things which depend not of as possible seeing we think they depend not on Fortune that is wee suppose they may happen and the like hath happened formerly Now this opinion is only grounded upon this that wee not undersTanding all the causes contributary to every effect for when a thing which we supposed to depend on Forume doth not fall out that shewes some of the causes necessary to produce was wanting and consequently that it was absolutely impossible and that the like did never happen that is where a like cause of its Production was wanting so that had wee not been ignorant of that before we should never have imagined them possible nor consequently should ever have desired them The 146th Article Of those that depend of us and others too THis vulgar opinion then that there is without us a Fortune which causeth things to fall out or not to fall out according to her pleasure must be utterly rejected and it must be understood that all things are guided by a divine Providence whose eternall decree is so infallible and immutable that unless those things which the same decree hath pleased to let depend on our free disposition we ought to think for our parts that nothing happens but what of necessity must as if it were fatall so that without a crime we cannot desire it may happen otherwise But because the most part of our Desires extend to two things which depend not altogether on our selves nor altogether else-where we ought exactly to distinguish what in them depends on our selves that we may not let our Desire ramble any farther then that and for what is over and above though we should esteem the successe thereof absolutely fatall and immutable that our Desire busie not it selfe thereabout we should not omit to consider the reasons why it ought lesse or more to be hoped for that they may serve to regulate our actions For if for example wee had any businesse at a place whither wee might goe two severall wayes one whereof uses to be much safer than the other although the decree of Providence may be such that if we go that way which is conceived safest wee shall not escape robbing and on the contrary we might have gone the other way without any danger yet we ought not therefore to be indifferent which we take nor rest upon the immutable fatality of this decree But reason wills us to choose the way which used to be safest and our Desire herein ought to be fulfilled whatsoever evill befall us by following it because this evill or mischiefe having been as to us inevitable we have no occasion to wish to be exempted from it but only doe the best our understanding can comprehend as I suppose we have done and it is certain that when a man exerciseth himselfe so to distinguish betwixt Fatallity and Fortune he easily habituates himselfe so to regulate his Desires that seeing the fulfilling of them depends onely on our selves they may alwayes give us an absolute satisfaction The 147th Article Of the interiour emotions of the Soul I Will onely adde here one consideration which me thinks is very usefull to hinder us from receiving any discommodity by our Passions it is that our good and will depends chiefly of interiour emotions excited in the Soul onely by the Soul her self wherein they differ from these Passions which ever depend of some motion of the spirits And although these emotions of the Soul be often joyned to the Passions resembling them they may also be often found among other Passions and even spring from those that are contrary to them For example when a husband weeps for his deceased wife whom as oft it falls out it would vex him to see restored to life againe it may be his heart is straightned by Sadnesse which the solemnity of the funerall and the absence of a person whose conversation he was used to excite in him and it may be some remnants of Love or Pity which present themselves to his imagination draw true tears from his eyes notwithstanding that in the mean time he feels a secret Joy in the most interiour part of his Soul whose emotion is so strong that the Sadnesse and tears accompanying it cannot diminish any of its force And
alone hath more heat and motion than any of our limbs we may be assured that heat and all the motions within us seeing they depend not on the mind belong onely to the body The fifth Article That it is an errour to believe the Soul gives motion and heat to the body WHereby we shall eschew a very considerable error which many have faln into so farre that I believe it the cause of hindering the Passions and other things which belong to the soul from being explained hitherto It is this that seeing all dead bodies are deprived of heat and consequently of motion people imagine the absence of the soul wrought this cessation of motion and heat and so erroniously conceive that our naturall heat and all the motions of our body depend on the soul whereas indeed the contrary should be supposed that the soul absents it self in death only because this naturall heat ceaseth and the organs which seem to move the body are corrupted The sixth Article What is the difference betwixt a living and a dead dody THat we may then avoid this errour Let us consider that death never comes by any defect of the soul but onely because some one of the principall parts of the body is corrupted and conceive that the body of a living man differs as much from that of a dead one as a watch or any other AUTOMA that is any kind of Machine that moves of it self wound up having in it self the corporeall principle of those motions for which it was instituted with all things requisite for its action and the same watch or other engine when it is broken and the principle of its motion ceases to act The seventh Article A brief explication of the parts of the body and of some of its functions TO make this more intelligible I will in few words display the pieces and lineaments whereof this Machine our body is composed There is none that doth not already know there is within us a heart a braine a stomach muscles sinews arteries veins and the like it is as commonly known that meats eaten descend into the stomack and bowells from whence the juice of them trickling into the liver and all the veines mixes it self with the blood in them and by this means augments the quantity thereof Those who have heard talk never so little of Physick know besides this how the Heart is composed and how all the blood of the veines may with facility drop into the hollow vein on the right side of it and from thence passe into the Liver by a vessell called the venous arterie then return from the liver into the left side of the heart through the Pipe called the arterious vein and at length passe from thence into the great arterie the branches whereof spread themselves all over the body Yea even all those whom the authority of the Ancients hath not totally blinded and who have vouchsafed to open their eyes to examine the opinion of Harvy concerning the circulation of the blood make no doubt but all the veins and arteries of the body are like channells through which the blood continually and easily glides taking its course from the right cavity of the heart through the arterious veine whereof the branches are dispersed into every part of the Liver and joyned to those of the venous arterie by which it passeth from the Liver into the left fide of the heart from thence going into the great arterie the branches whereof being scattered over all the rest of the body are joyned to the branches of the hollow vein which cary the same blood again into the right cavity of the heart so that the two cavities are as it were the sluces of it through each of which all the blood passes every round it walks about the body Moreover it is notorious that all the motions of the members depend upon the muscles and that these Muscles are opposite to one another in such a manner that when one of them shrinks up it drawes after it that part of the body whereto it is knit which causes the muscle opposite to it to stretch forth at the same time then again if at another time this last shrink up the first gives way suffering the other to attract that part it is joyned unto In fine it is knowne that all these motions of the muscles as also all the senses depend on the sinews which are as little strings or like small tonnells coming all from the braine and containing as that does a certain aire or exceeding subtle wind which is tearmed the Animall spirits The eighth Article What is the principle of all these functions BUt it is not commonly known in what manner these animall Spirits and nerves contribute to these motions and senses nor what is the corporeall principle that makes them act wherefore although I have already glanced upon it in former writings I will not here omit to say succinctly that while we live there is a continuall heat in our heart which is a kind of fire that the blood of the veines feeds and this fire is the corporeall principle of tall the motions of our members The ninth Article How the motion of the heart is wrought THe f irst effect of it is that it dilates the blood wherewith the cavities of the heart are fill'd which is the reason that this blood having need of a larger room passes impetuously from the right cavity into the arterious vein and from the left into the great arterie then this dilatation ceasing immediately new blood from the hollow vein enters into the right cavity of the heart and from the veinous arterie into the left for there are little skins at the entrance of these foure vessells so contrived that they will not let the blood get into the heart but by the two last nor come out but by the other two The new blood being gotten into the heart is there immediately rarified as the former was Hence onely is that pulse or palpitation of the heart and arteries for this beating is reiterated as often as any new blood gets into the heart It is also this alone which gives motion to the blood and causeth it uncessantly to run very swiftly in all the arteries and veines by means whereof it conveyes the heart acquired in the heart to all the other parts of the body and is their nutriment The tenth Article How the animall spirits are begotten in the braine BUt what here is most considerable is that all the most lively and subtle parts of the blood that heat hath rarified in the heart continually enter in abundandance into the cavities of the braine and the reason why they go thither rather than any where else is because all the blood that issues out of the heart by the great artery bends its course in a direct line thither ward and it not being possible for all to get in because there are none but very narrow passages those parts thereof that are the most
spirits reflected from the image so formed on the kernell go from thence to fall part into the nerves which serve to turn the back and stirre the legs to run away and part into those which as is spoken of before let out or draw upon together the orifices of the heart or which else so agitate the rest of the parts from whence the blood is sent that this blood not being rarified there in the usuall manner sends spirits to the braine that are fitting to maintain and confirm the passion of fear that is such as are proper to hold open or open again the pores of the brain that convey them into the very same nerves for the meere entry of these spirits into these pores excites in this kernell a particular motion instituted by nature to make the soul feel that passion and because these pores relate principally to the little nerves that serve to lock up or open wide the orifices of the heart this makes the soul feel it as if it were chiefly in the heart The 37th Article How it appears they are all caused by some motion of the spirits ANd because the like happens in all the other Passions to wit that they are principally caused by the spirits contained in the cavities of the brain seeing they direct their course towards the nerves which serve to enlarge or straiten the orifices of the heart either to thrust the blood in the other parts differently to it or whatsoever other way it be to feed the self same Passion it may be clearly understood by this wherefore I formerly inserted in my definition that they are caused by some peculiar motion of the Spirits The 38th Article An example of the motions of the Body that accompany the Passions and depend not of the Soul MOreover as the course which these spirits take towards the nerves of the heart is sufficient to give a motion to the kernell whereby fear is put into the soul even so by the meere going of the spirits at that time into those nerves which serve to stirre the legges to run away they cause another motion in the same kernell by meanes whereof the soul feels and perceives this flight which may in this manner be excited in the body by the meere disposition of the organs the soul not at all contributing to it The 39th Article How the same cause may excite divers Passions in divers men THe same impression that the presence of one formidable object workes upon the kernel and which causeth fear in some men may in others rouze up courage and boldnesse the reason whereof is that all braines are not alike disposed for the same motion of the Kernell which in some excites feare in others causeth the spirits to enter into the pores of the brain which convey them part into the nerves which serve to use the hands for defence and partly into those which agitate and drive the blood towards the heart in that manner as is requisite to produce spirits proper to continue this defence and retaine a will to it The 40th Article What the principall effect of the Passions is FOr it must be observed that the principall effect of all the Passions in men is they incite and dispose their Souls to will the things for which they prepare their Bodies so that the resentment of fear incites him to be willing to fly that of boldnesse to be willing to fight and so of the rest The 41th Article What is the power of the Soul in respect of the Body BUt the will is so free by nature that it can never be constrained and of two sorts of thoughts which I have distinguished in the Soul whereof some are her Actions to wit her Wils others her Passions taking that word in its generall signification which comprehends all sorts of apprehensions the first are absolutely in her owne power and cannot but indirectly be changed by the body as on the contrary the last depend absolutely upon the Actions which produce them and they cannot unlesse indirectly be changed by the Soul except then when her selfe is the cause of them And all the Action of the Soul consists in this that she meerely by willing any thing can make the little kernell whereunto she is strictly joyned move in the manner requisite to produce the effect relating to this Will The 42th Article How the things one would remember are found in the memory SO when the Soul would remember any thing this Will is the cause that the kernell nodding successively every way drives the spirits towards severall places of the braine untill they excounter that where the traces which were left there of the object one would remember are For these traces are nothing else but the pores of the braine through which the spirits formerly took their course by reason of the presence of that object have thereby accquired a greater facility to be open in the same manner again than the rest can have by the spirits that come to them so that these spirits meeting these pores enter into them easier than the others whereby they excite a peculiar motion in the kernell which represents the same object to the Soul and makes it know that is it she would remember The 43th Article How the Soul can imagine be attentive and move the Body SO when one would imagin any thing one hath never seen this Will hath the power to make the kernell move in the manner requisite to drive the spirits towards the pores of the braine by the opening of which this thing may be represented So when one would fix his attention some pretty while to consider or ruminate on one object this Will holds the kernell still at that time leaning ever to one side So in fine when one would walk or move his body any way this Will causes the kernell to drive the spirits towards the muscles which serve to that purpose The 44th Article That every Will is naturally joyned to some motion of the kernell but that by industry or habit itmay be annexed to another NOtwithstanding it is not alwayes the Will to excite in us any motion or other effect that can cause us to excite it but that changes according as nature or habit have differently joyned each motion of the kernell to each thought as for example if one would dispose his eyes to look on an object farr distant this Will causes the ball of them to dilate themselves and if one would prompt them to behold an object very neer this Will contracts them but if one thinks onely to dilate the ball he had as good doe nothing that dilates it not at all because nature hath not joyned the motion of the kernell which serves to drive the spirits to the optick nerve in that manner as is requisite to dilate or contract the ball of the eye with the will of dilating or contracting it but with the will of looking on objects remote or at hand and then when we
speak we only think the sense of what we would say yet that makes us move our tongues and lips much better and farre readier than if wee thought to move them in all the manners requisite to pronounce the same words Forasmuch as the habit we have acquired in learning to speak hath taught us to joyn the action of the Soul which by the intercourse of the kernell can move the tongue and the lipps with the signification of the words which follow out of these motions rather than with the motions themselves The 45th Article What the power of the Soul is in respect of her Passions OUr Passions also cannot be directly excited or takenaway by the action of our Will but they may indirectly by the representation of things which use to be joyned with the Passions which we will have and which are contrary to those we will reject Thus to excite in ones selfe boldness and remove fear it is not enough to have a will to do so but reasons objects and examples are to be considered of that perswade the danger is not great that there is ever more security in defence than flight that there is glory and joy in vanquishing whereas there is nothing to be expected but griefe and dishonour in flying and the like The 46th Article What is the reason that hinders the Soul from disposing her Passions totally NOw there is a peculiar reason why the Soul cannot suddenly alter or stop her Passions which gave me occasion to put formerly in their definition that they are not only caused but somented and fortified by some peculiar motion of the spirits the reason is they are almost all coupled with some emotion made in the heart and consequently in all the blood and spirits too so that till this emotion cease they remain present in our thoughts just as sensible objects are present in them while they act against the organs of our senses and as the Soul being very sattentive on any other thing may choose whether shewill hear a little noise or feel a little pain or no but cannot keep her self from hearing thunder or feeling fire that burns the hand so shee may easily overcome the smaller Passions but not the violentest and strongest untill after the emotion of the blood and spirits is allayed The most the Will can doe while this emotion is in its full strength is not to consent to its effects and to restrain divers motions whereunto it disposes the body For example if wrath makes me lift up my hand to strike the Will can usually restrain it if fear incites my legs to fly the Will can stop them and so of the rest The 47th Article Wherein consist those contestations which use to be imagined between the superiour and inferiour part of the Soul ANd it is only in the repugnance of those motions which the body by its spirits and the Soul by her Wil endeavour to excite at the same time in the kernall that all the contestations which use to be imagined between the inferiour part of the Soul called sensitive and the superiour which is reasonable or else between the naturall appetites and the Will consist for there is in us but one Soul only and this Soul hath no diversity of parts in it the same which is sensible is rationall and all her appetites are her Wills The errour committed in making her act two severall parts which are usually contrary one to another proceeds meerly hence that her functions have not been distinguished from them of the body to which only all that can be observed in us repugnant to our reason ought to bee attributed so that there is here no other contestation unlesse that the little kernell in the middle of the brain being driven on one side by the soul and on the other by the animall spirits which are only bodies as I laid down before it happens oftentimes that these two impulsions are contrary and that the strongest hinders the operation of the other Now we may distiguish two sorts of motions excited by the spirits in the kernell some represent to the soul the objects which move the senses or the impressions found in the brain which use not any violence on the Will others doe use violence to wit such as cause the Passions or motions of the body concomitant with them And for the first though they often-times hinder the action of the soul or else be hindered by it yet by reason that they are not directly contrary there is not any contestation observed in them it is only taken notice of among the last and the Wills which resist them for example between that violence wherewith the spirits drive the kernell to cause in the soul a desire of any thing and that wherewith the Soul beats it back by the will she hath to avoid the same thing and what chiefly makes this contestation appear is that the Will having not the power to excite the Passions directly as hath been already said is constrained to use art and fall on considering successively divers things if but one wherof chance to be strong enough to alter the course of the spirits one moment it is possible that which follows is not and so the others many immediately resume it a-again because the disposition preceding in the nerves heart and blood is not changed which makes the soul feel her self instigated almost in the same instant to desire and not desire the very same thing From hence it was that occasion was taken to imagine two contesting powers in her Yet there may some kind of contestation be conceived herein that oft times the same cause which excites some Passion in the soul excites also certain motions in the body whereunto the soul contributes not and which she stops or strives to sto assoon as ever she perceives them as is then tried when that which excites fearfullnesse causeth also the Spirits to enter into the muscles that serve to stirre the legges to run away and the Will to be bold stops them The 48th Article Wherein the strength or weaknesse of souls are known and what is the misery of the weakest NOw it is by the successe of these contestations that every one may understand the strength or weaknesse of his soul For those in whom the Will can most easily conquer the Passions and stop the motions of the body that come along with them have without doubt the strongest souls But there are some who can never try their own strength because they never let the Will fight with her own weapons but onely with such as are borrowed from some Passions to resist others Those which I call her own weapons are firm and determinate judgements concerning the knowledge of good and evil according to which she hath resolved to steere the actions of her life and the weakest soul of all is such an one whose Will hath not at all determined to follow certaine judgements but suffers it self to be swayed with the present Passions
caten or at least corrupt them and convert them into ill humours The 99th Artick In Joy IN Joy that the pulse is even and quicker than ordinary but not so strong nor so great as in Love and that a man feels a pleasant heat which is not onely in the breast but spreads its self over all the exteriour parts of the body with the blood which is seen to flow abundantly thither and the mean while he sometimes loses his appetite because the digestion is lesse than usuall The 100th Article In Sadnesse IN Sadnesse that the pulse is weak and slow and that a man feels as it were strings about his heart which bind it close and Icycles that freez it and communicate their cold to the rest of the body yet in the mean while he hath sometimes a good appetite and feels his stomack not failing of its duty provided there be no Hatred mingled with the Sadnesse The 101 Article In Desire LAstly I observe this peculiar in Desire that it agitates the heart more violently than any of the other Passions and furnishes the brain with more spirits which passing from thence into the muscles make all the senses quicker and all parts of the body more agile The 102 Article The motion of the blood and spirits In Love THese observations and many more too long to insert gave me occasion to conceive that when the understanding represents to it self any object of Love the impression which this thought makes in the brain conveyes the animal spirits through the nerves of the sixth paire to the muscles about the intestines and the stomack in the manner requisite to make the juice of meats which convert into new blood passe suddenly to the heart without any demurre in the Liver and which being driven thither with greater force than that which is in the rest of the body it gets in thither in more abundance and excites a stronger heat by reason it is thicker than that which already hath been often rarified by passing and repassing through the heart which also causeth it to send spirits to the brain whose parts are grosser and more agitated than ordinary and these spirits fortifying the impression that the first thought of the object beloved stuck there bind the Soul to fix upon the thought and herein consists the Passion of Love The 103 Article In Hatred CContrarywise in Hatred the first thought of the object that breeds aversion so conveyes the spirits in the brain to the muscles of the stomack and intestines that they hinder the juyce of meats from mixing with the blood by contracting up all the passages through which it is used to runne and so conveyes it to the small nerves of the spleen and the lower part of the Liver where the receptacle of choler is that those parts of the blood which use to be cast out to those places get out and runne with that in the branches of the hollow vein to the heart which causeth much inequality in the heat of it seeing the blood that comes from the spleen is not heated nor rarified but with much difficulty and on the other side that which comes from the lower part of the Liver where the gall is inflamed and dilated suddenly by which consequence spirits that go to the brain have parts very unequall and motions very unusuall from whence it comes that they there fortifie the Id'aea of Hatred already imprinted and encline the souls to thoughts full of rancour and bitternesse The 104th Article In Joy IN Joy not onely the nerves of the spleen Liver stomack or intestines act but those in the rest of the body and particularly that about the Orifices of the heart which opening and dilating these Orifices enables the blood which the rest of the nerves have driven from the veins to the heart to get in there and issue forth in greater quantity then ordinary and because the blood which then gets into the heart hath often passed and repassed through it coming from the arteries into the veines it easily dilates and produces spirits whose parts being very equall and subtle are fit to form and fortifie the impressions of the brain which deal lively and quiet thoughts to the Soul The 105th Article In Sadnesse COntrariwise in Sadnesse the Orifices of the heart are hugely straitened by the small nerve that environs them and the blood of the veins is no whit agitated which causeth but very little to go to the heart and in the mean while the passages through which the juyce of meats glides from the stomack and entrailes to the Liver are open wherefore the appetite diminisheth not unlesse Hatred which is an ordinary companion of Sadnesse close them The 106th Article In Desire LAstly the Passion of Desire hath the peculiar property that the Will a man hath to attain any good or avoid any evill sends the Spirits of the brain immediately to all the parts of the body that may serve any wayes to actions requisire to that purpose and particularly to the heart and those parts which supply it with blood most that receiving it in greater abundance than ordinary it sends a great number of spirits to the brain as well to maintain and fortifie the Idaea of this Will as to passe from thence into all the organs of the senses and all the muscles which may be set on work to attaine what one desires The 107th Article What is the cause of these motions in Love ANd I deduce the reason of all this from what hath formerly been said that there is such a tye betwixt our soul and body that when we have joyned any corporall Action with any thought one of them never presents if selfe to us afterwards without the other As may be seen in such who with much aversnesse when they have been sick have taken some drink they can neither eat nor drink afterwards but they have the same aversion nay further they cannot think of their a version to medecines but the very same taste comes into their thought For met thinks the first passions our soul admitted when she was first joyned to our Body came from hence that sometimes the blood or some other juyce which got into the heart was an alimony more convenient than ordinary to maintain heat there which is the principle of life this caused the Soul to joyne in will to this alimony that is to love it and at the same time the spirits trickled from the braine into the muscles which might presse or agitate the parts from whence it came to the heart that they might send more of it thither and these parts were the Stomack and entrailes whose agiration augments the appetite or else the liver and lungs which the muscles of the Diaphragma may presse Wherefore the same motion of the spirits ever since accompanies the passion of Love The 108 Article In Hatred SOmetimes on the contrary some strange juyce came to the heart which was not good to cherish the heat
need of so much room so that retreating into the largest which are neerest the heart it deserts the remotest the most apparent whereof being those of the face that makes it look pale and wanne especially when the Sadness is great or comes upon one suddenly as is seen in Affrights whose surprizalls augment the action that obstructs the heart The 117th Article How a man looks red oft-times when he is Sad. BUt it oft-times befalls that a man does not wax pale when he is Sad but contrarily becomes red this ought to be atributed to other Passions joyned to sadness to wit Love Desire and sometimes even Hatred too for these passions heating or agitating the blood which comes from the liver entrailes and the rest of the interiour parts drive it to the heart and from thence through the great Artery to the veines of the face the Sadness which obstructs the Orifices of the heart on each side not being able to hinder it unless when it is mighty excessive but when it is only moderate it easily hinders the blood so come into the veines of the face from descending into the heart while Love Desire or Hatred drive other thither from the interiour parts Wherefore this blood being setled about the face makes it look red and indeed redder then in Joy because the colour of the blood appears so much the better as it flowes quicker and also because more blood can then get up into the veins of the face then when the Orifices of the heart are more open This is more palpable in shame which is compounded of self-Love and an earnest Desire to shunne present infamy which causeth the blood to come from the interiour parts to the heart from thence through the arteries into the face and withall of a moderate Sadness which hinders this blood from returning to the heart The same is also seen ordinarily when a man weeps for as I shall say hereafter it is Love joyned to Sadness which for the most part causes tears it appears also in Anger or oft-times an eager Desire of Revenge mixed with Love Hatred and Sadness The 118th Article Of Tremblings TRemblings have two severall causes one is that there come sometimes too few spirits from the brain into the nerves the other that there come sometimes too many so that the little passages of the muscles cannot be duly shut which as hath been said in the eleventh Article ought to be shut to determine the motion of the members the chiefe cause of it appears to be in Sadness and fearfulness as also when a man shakes with cold for these Passions as well as the cold of the aire may so thicken the blood that it may not furnish the brain with spirits enough to send any into the nerves the other cause appears often in those who ardently desire any thing and in those who are moved with wrath as also in those who are drunk for these two Passions as well as Wine sometimes make so many spirits go into the brain that they cannot regularly be conveyed from thence into the muscles The 119th Article Of Languishing LAnguishing is a disposition to ease ones selfe and be without motion which is felt in all the members it comes as trembling because there are not spirits enough in the nerves but in a different manner for the cause of trembling is that there are not enough in the brain to obey the determinations of the kernell when that drives them to any muscle whereas Languishing proceeds from hence that the kernell doth not determine them to goe to some muscles rathen others The 120th Article How it is caused by Love and by Desire ANd the Passion which most commonly causeth this effect is Love joyned to the Desire of a thing the acquisition whereof is not imagined possible for the present time for love so busies the Soul in considering the object beloved that it employes all the spirits which are in the brain to represent the image of it to her and stops all the motions of the kernell not subservient to this purpose And it is to be noted concerning Desire that the property which I ahve attributed to it of rendring the body more active agrees not to it but when a man imagines the object desired to be such that he may from that very time doe something which may serve to acquire it For if on the other side he imagines it is impossible for him at that time to doe any thing that may conduce thereunto all the agitation of Desire remaines in the brain not at all passing into the nerves and being wholly employed in fortifying the Idea of the object desired there leaves the rest of the body languishing The 121 Article That it may also be caused by other Passions ITis true that Hatred Sadness yes and Joy too may cause some kind of Languishing too when they are very violent because they wholly busie the Soul in considering their objects chiefly when the Desire of a thing to the acquisition whereof a man cannot contribute any thing for the present is joyned with them But because hee fixes more on the consideration of the objects which he hath joyned in Will to himself than those which he hath separated or any else and because Languishing depends not on a surprize but requires some time to be formed it is more frequently found in Love than any other Passion The 122 Article Of Swouning THere is not much difference betwixt Swounning and Death for a man dies when the fire in his heart is utterly extinguished and he falls in a Swoune only when it is smothered so that there remains only some residue of heat that may afterwards be kindled again Now there are divers indispositions of the body which may make a man fall to fainting thus but among the Passions none but extream joy is observed to have this power and the manner whereby I suppose it works its effect is thus opening extraordinarily the Orifices of the heart the blood of the veines doth so huddle in and in so abundant a quantity that it cannot there be rarified by the heat soon enough to lift up the little skins that shut the entries of those veines by which means it smothers the fire which it used to feed when it came into the heart in fit proportion The 123 Article Wherefore a man doth not swoun with Sadnesse ONe would think that a great Sadness unexpectedly falling might so shut the Orifices of the heart that it might extinguish the fire but yet that is not observed to happen or if it doe very rarely the reason whereof I believe is that there can scarce be so little blood in the heart but that it is sufficient to maintain the heat when the Orifices thereof are almost lockt up The 124th Article Of Laughter LAughter consists in this that the blood which comes from the right cavity of the heart by the arterious veine blowing up the lungs suddenly and at severall fits constrains the aire
equally distant the one from the other and so were separated They come to meet because the order of these pores is molested by which meanes they joyn together and so convertinto teares The 131. Article How one weepes for Sadnesse THe other cause is Sadnesse followed by Love or Joy or generally by any cause which makes the heart thrust much blood into the arteries Sadnesse is requisite thereunto because making the blood cold it contracts the pores of the eyes But because according as it contracts them it also decreases the quantity of vapours whereunto they should allow passage that is not yet sufficient to produce tears unlesse the quantity of vapours be at the same time augmented by some other cause And there is nothing that encreaseth it more then the blood sent from the heart in the Passion of Love We see also that they who are sad do not continually shed tears but onely by intervalls when they make any new reflexion on the objects they affect The 132. Article Of the groanes which accompany tears ANd then sometimes the lungs two are blown up all at once by the abundance of blood which gets into them and drives away the aire they contained which breaking forth through the gullet begets groanes and cryes which usually accompany tears And these cries are commonly more sharp than those which accompany Laughter though they be produced almost in the same manner the reason whereof is that the nerves which serve to enlarge or contract the organs of the voice to make it stronger or sharper being joyned to those which open the Orifices of the heart in Joy and contract them in Sadnesse cause these organs to be dilated or contracted at the same time The 133. Article Wherefore children and old men are aptest to Weep CHildren and old men are apter to Weep than they of a middle age but for severall reasons Old men Weep oft-times out of affection and for Joy for these two Passions joyned together send much blood to the heart and from thence many vapours to the eyes and the agitation of these vapours is so retarded by their natural coldnesse that they are apt to convert into tears although no sadnesse preceded But if some old men are apt to Weep for vexation too it is not so much the temper of their Body as that of their mind which disposeth them thereunto And this befals only those who are so weak that they suffer themselves to be absolutely overcome by small occasions of griefe fear or pitty the same happens to children who doe not Weep commonly for Joy but rather for sadnesse that unaccompanied with Love For they ever have blood enough to produce many vapours the motion of which being retarded by Sadnesse they convert into Tears The 134. Article Wherefore some children wax pale instead of Weeping YEt there are some who wax pale instead of Weepig when they are vexed which may denote an extraordinary judgement and courage in them that is when it proceeds from the consideration of the greatnesse of the evil they prepare themselves for a strong resistance as they doe who are elder But it is ordinarily a mark of an ill nature that is when it proceeds from their inclination to Hatred or Fear follow for they are Passions that diminish the matter of tears And on the contrary it is seen that those who are prone to Weep are inclined to Love and Pity The 135. Article Of Sighes THe cause of Sighes is very different from that of tears though it like them presupposes Sadnesse For whereas a man is excited to Weep when the lungs are ful of blood he is incited to sigh when they are almost empty and when some imagination of Hope or joy opens the Orifice of the venous artery which Sadnesse had contracted because then the smal remainder of blood in the lungs falling all together into the left side of the heart through this venous artery and driven on by a Desire to attain this Joy which at the same time agitates all the muscles of the Diaphragma and breast the air is suddenly blown through the mouth into the lungs to fill up the vacant place of the blood And this is called sighing The 136. Article From whence proceed the Passions which are peculiar to certain men FUrthermore that I may here in few words supply all that may be added hereunto concerning the several effectts or causes of the Passions I am content to repeatthe principle whereon all that I have written of them is grounded to wit that there is such a tye betwixt our Soul and Body that when we once have joyned any corporall Action with any thought one of them never presents it self to us without the other and that they are not alwayes the same Actions which are joyned to the same thoughts For this is sufficient to give a reason of all that any man can observe peculiar either in himself or others concerening this matter which hath not been here explained And for example it is easie to conceive that the strange Aversions of Some who cannot endure the smell of roses the sight of a Cat or the like come only from hence that when they were but newly alive they were displeased with some such like objects or else had a fellow-feeling of their mothers resentment who was so distasted when she was with child for it is ceertain there is an affinity between the motions of the mother and the child in her womb so that whatsoever is displeasing to one offends the other and the smell of Roses may have caused some great head-ach in the child when it was in the cradle or a Cat may have affrighted it and none took notice of it nor the Child so much as remembred it though the Idea of that Aversion he then had to Roses or a Cat remain imprinted in his brain to his lives end The 137th Article Of the use of the five precedent Passions as they relate to the body NOw the definitions of Love Hatred Desire Joy and Sadness are laid down and the corporall motions that cause them or accompany them treated of we have no further to doe but consider the use of them Concerning which it is to be observed that according to the institution of Nature they all relate to the body and are not given to the Soul but as joyned to it so that their naturall use is to incite the Soul to consent and contribute to the actions which may be useful to conserve the body or make it in some kind more perfect and in this sense Sadnesse and Joy are the two first that are set on work for the Soul is immediatly warned of those things that are hurtfull to the body by the feeling of pain whch first of all produces the Passion of Sadness in her then Hatred of that which causes this pain and in the third place the Desire to be rid of it as also the Soul is not immediatly advertised of things beneficiall to the body but
it in one that is worthy of it And when this comes unexpectedly the surprize of Admiration causeth him to breake out into laughter according to what hath formerly been said of the nature of Laughter But this evill must be a small one for if it be great it cannot be thought that he who hath it is worthy of it unlesse one be of a very ill nature or bear him a great deal of Hatred The 179 Article Why the most defective men are commonly the greatest Deriders ANd it is seen that they who have apparent defects for example who are lame one-eyed crook backed or have received some affront publickly are peculiarly enclined to derision For desiring to see all other men asmuch disgraced as themselves they rejoyce at the ills that befall them and think them worthy of it The 180 Article Of the use of Jeasting AS for modest Jeasting which wholsomely reprehends vices by making them appeare ridiculous so a man laugh not at them himself nor shew any hatred against persons it is not a Passion but a becoming quality in a man that makes the livelinesse of his disposition appeare and the tranquillity of his Soul which are markes of Vertue and oftimes the nimblenesse of his wit too in that he knowes how to set a handsome glosse on things he jeasts at The 181 Article Of the use of Laughter in Jeasting ANd it is not unhandsome to laugh at the hearing of another mans jeasts nay perchance they may be such that it were doltishness not to laugh at them But when a man jeasts himselfe it is more seemly to abstaine from it that he may not seeme to be surprized by the things he speakes nor admire the dexterity of their invention and that causeth those who hear them to be surprized so much the more The 182 Article Of Envy THat which commonly is called Envy is a vice that consists in a perversnesse of nature which causeth certaine men to fret at the good that they see befalls other men But I here use this word to signifie a Passion which is not alwayes vicious Envy then as it is a Passion is a sort of Sadnesse mixed with Hatred which comes from seeing good betide those we thinke unworthy of it Which cannot be thought with reason but of the goods of fortune For as for those of the Soul yea and the Body too seeing a man hath them by birth it is to be sufficiently worthy of them that he received them from God before he was capable to commit any evill The 183. Article How it may be just or unjust BUt when fortune sends goods to any one whereof he is truly unworthy and Envy is not excited in us but because naturally loving justice we are vext that it is not observed in the distribution of those goods it is a zeal that may be excusable especially when the good a man envyes others is of such a nature that it may turn to an evill in their hands as if it be some command or office in the exercising whereof they may misdemean themselves Yea even when he desires that good for himselfe and cannot get it because others lesse worthy possesse It. This makes this passion become the more violent and yet it may be excusible provided the Hatred in it relate only to the ill distribution of the thing envied and not to the persons that possesse or distribute it But there are few who are so just and generous as to bear no Hatred against those that prevent them in the acquisition of a good that is not communicable to many and that they desired it for themselves though they who acquired it are as much or more worthy of it And what is most usually envied is Glory For although that of others doth not hinder us from aspiring thereunto yet it makes the accesse to it more difficult and enhaunceth the price The 184 Article From whence it comes that envious men have sallow complexions BEsides there is no vice so banefull to the felicity of man as Envy For besides that those who are tainted with it afflict themselves they also to the utmost of their power trouble the delight of others And they have commonly sallow complexions that is a pale mingled with yellow and black and like blood in a bruise Whence Envy is called in Latine Livor which agrees very well with what hath been said here before of the motions of the blood in Sadnesse and hatred for this causeth the syellow choler comming from the lower part of the Liver and the black comming from the Spleen to spread from the heart through the Arteries into all the veines and that causeth the blood of the veines to have lesse heat and flow more slowly than ordinarily which is sufficient to make the complexion livid But because choler as well yellow as black may be also sent into the veines by many other causes and Envy may not drive enough into them to alter the colour of the complexion unlesse it be exceeding great and of long continuance it ought snot to be thought that all those of this complexion are thereunto enclined The 185 Article Of Pitty PItty is a sort of Sadness mingled with Love or good will towards those whom we see suffer any evill whereof we esteem them unworthy so it is contrary to Envy because of it object and Derision because it considers them in another manner The 186 Article Who are most Pittifull THose who feel themselves very weak and subject to the adversities of Fortune seem to be more enclined to this Passion than any else because they fancy the evill of another as possible to befall them and so they are moved to pitty rather out of the love they bear themselves than that they bear to others The 187 Article How the most generous men are sensible of this Passion BUt neverthelesse they who are most generous and have the greatest spirits so that they feare not any evill to themselves and hold themselves above the power of fortune are not exempted from Compassion when they see the infirmity of other men and hear their complaints for it is a part of Generosity to bear good will to every man but the Sadness of this Pitty is not bitter and like that which tragicall actions personated on the stage cause is more in the exteriours and the senses than the interiours of the Soul which in the mean while is satisfied to think she hath done her duty in that she hath a fellow feeling with the afflicted and there is this difference in it that whereas the vulgar pitty those who comlain because they think the ills they suffer are very grievous the principall object of great mens Pitty is the weaknesse of those that they see complain because they esteem not any accident that may befall to be so great an evill as is the Baseness of those who cannot suffer constantly and though they hate the vices yet they hate not those they see subject to them they only