favour of the Stoicks and that a man cannot undertake to plead their Cause without attracting their hatred and censure I know that the severity of their principles is had in suspicion of many persons that their Sentiments are disliked by popular spirits that their Doctrine surpasseth the belief of Aristotle and Plato and that they both declare nothing more extravagant than that which we admire in their Writings those that side with these laugh at the others paradoxes and affirm that they are glorious but in shew that their words are fuller of ostentation than Reason that the world admires them because they understand them not and that learned men do not esteem them but because they raise their thoughts to a higher pitch of sublimity They protest they cannot comprehend that a wise man can be the only rich man of the world since he often falls into want since fortune reduceth him to Ambs-ace since he is often without things necessary and for the most part hath neither Clothes to cover him House to put his head in nor Servant to attend him that he can always enjoy himself since he is sometimes at a nonplus making vain eruptions forsaking his discretion in discourse and acting at certain times the part of mad men That he should be the Monarch of the World since he hath seldom any Subjects to command being often constrained to serve ignorant Masters and do such work for them as is opposite to that Soveraignty he pretendeth to have over them But amongst the absurdities wherewith they charge their Paradoxes they admire none so much as those which exempt him from opinions which disintangle him from the knowledg of uncertain things affirming that it is as impossible for him to doubt of a truth as to be ignorant of it What say they is a wise man infallible in his conjectures Can he not err in his Judgment Do we not see that he discourses of things he understandeth not And descending to particulars doth he not undertake to render an account of the influences of the Stars and Planets of which he comprehends as little the nature as the power Would you make a God of him after you have filled him with Pride And would you make him partaker of the Almighties secrets after you have assigned him the Knowledg of Angels the Power of Kings and the Government of the Creation But their astonishment will cease if they take the pains to examine the Sense of their Paradoxes and to learn from the explication which they give them that they are grounded upon Reason that they are not so much contrary to Truth as to their opinions and that they teach nothing but what may be received by the greatest Criticks of our Age For if they say that their wise man is the only man without want and make him Master of all that Wealth which causeth covetous men to be indigent it is for that he acknowledgeth no other Benefits but those of the Soul he expects nothing from Fortune what he hath he useth with discretion and judiciously dispising those forreign things he knows how to enjoy what he contemplates though he possess it not If they affirm that he is not deceived in what he doth it is because the Light is ever his Companion and because Reason is his Counsellor in all his enterprizes If they make him a King in this world and if without the load of a Scepter or Diadem they give him the charge of States and Empires it is for that he being in tranquillity knows how to regulate his Passions he is alone capable of commanding his equals and his integrity makes him not less in humane society than the Pilot in a Ship the Magistrate in a City the General in an Army the Soul in the Body and the Spirit and Reason in the Soul If in fine they banish opinions from his mind and if they will that his knowledg be as certain as himself judges it to be true it is because he rejects all doubtful propositions approves no conclusions but what are drawn from infallible principles and forms no Arguments but what he knoweth before hand bear a conformity to the matter whereof he discourseth Knowledg is the portion of the wise and he is simple or temerarious that perswades himself that he is Master of a Truth which he knoweth not For this cause it is that Seneca maintains so bloody a war against Fear and informed of the disorders with which she entertains her guests he gives her battel whereever he finds her For as she is but a doubtful knowledg and the opinion of an absent evil which threatens us he condemns her foresight he forbids her the Counsel of his wise man and he would think that he rob'd his Soul of tranquillity if he permitted him to entertain her in his service To speak truly nothing so much distracts our quiet as this Passion and nothing so much abaseth our Courage as her provident curiosity For as if she were ingenious at nothing but our destruction she assumes all imaginary forms to make us miserable One while she advanceth our disasters to make us feel them before they come anon she makes us look upon them through a magnifying Glass to render them less supportable to us another while she represents them inevitable to run us headlong into despair and already overwhelmed with the evils she gives us to expect she causeth us to wish for Death that we may be delivered from a Passion which constrains us to suffer it with tedious and divers repetitions she is of so timorous a nature that she is afrighted at every thing she fancies to be able to hurt her she formeth monsters that will never be brought forth she confoundeth imaginary with real evils and suffers her self to be so much surprized by the Senses that without knowing the cause either of the one or the other she is equally afraid of both Hatred in this particular seemeth more reasonable than Fear for if she resist an evil if she employ all her dexterity to oppose the violence thereof it is because it is real and its presence obligeth her to Revenge If audacity swell against her enemies and puts her self in a posture to oppose all their fury 't is for that they attack her and danger or honour constrains her to a self defence Sadness all melancholy as she is regards nothing but the evil that hurts her she complains of its rigors for that she feels them and sinks not under their weight but because it 's not in her power to avoid them But Fear multiplies our sorrows she sees them as soon as they threaten us she seeks them before they come and by an ambitious industry she makes use of the past and the future to torment us What greater folly saith Seneca can be observed in a man than to run to meet his disasters to feel them ere they touch him and lose the present by fear of that which is to come A man
so much fixt to the Earth that her desires are limited there and her thoughts are so little generous that she seeks for no other goods but what our common Sense hath set a price upon The honour she pretends to is fickle and vain her Resolutions uncertain her Counsels dark and she passeth Judgment expertè If some times she have good intervals and being hurried by the vanity of the Objects which she pursueth she wing her self towards Heaven yet those agitations are so short and inconstant that they last but a few moments She is presently stagering if what she desireth agree not with our Flesh She gives the Title of Error to our choicest thoughts and pleasing her self with Novelty She soon rallies her Counselers and makes them appeal from their first advices But Reason is the Daughter of Heaven her Extraction augments her Excellence and if some Philosophers may be credited She is a proportion of Gods Essence an effusion of his being and an expression of his Greatness Trismegistus thought her formed of his Substance a Branch of the Diety and as the Sun shooteth forth his light without diminution of his Power God produced Reason from himself without weakening his Nature These bold words though they seem to destroy our Faith by which we know Reason to be a part of our Soul produced by time yet it cannot be denyed but that she is an Image of the Diety having the Characters of the Almighties greatness and that without thinking it Robbery she imitates those perfections that render Him onely worthy of Adoration They also which could not comprehend the adorable Mistery of the Incarnation who doubted whether the Divine Nature were compatible with ours and whether He that was begotten from all Eternity could become Man by time made no difficulty of apprehending that God allied Himself to our Soul by Reason and that he communicated daily with our Spirit by means of this His Image Indeed this production seemeth to be His legitimate Daughter since she hath so much share in his glorious qualities being Heiress of his perfections and bestowing upon our Souls the same Advantages which she hath received from her Father For besides that she representeth the plurality of His Persons by the Trinity of His powers and sheweth us without confusion the unity of His Nature in the division of the faculties whereof it is composed Reason makes her so unchangeable in goodness that she never forsakes her when once she hath owned her repentance never succeeds her wishes her Counsels are as just as her Designs and she is assured she shall keep her innocence so long as all her thoughts please her and that she consult her in all her undertakings So that Reason is the most excellent part of us her glory maketh all our felicity and a Philosopher said truely that if the Spirit were the Soul of the Body Reason was the Soul of our Spirit She is also the most Majestical part of the Soul and if any Philosophers were found so rash as to deprive her of that quality they might boast of having destroyed her by doing violence to themselves Those who value a Man by the abundance of his Treasures who Judg of his Blood by the long continued line of his Ancestors and place his good Fortune in the Beauty of his Mannors his gaudy Apparel and the number of his Servants and Slaves that surround him do plainly discover that they never knew Nature and that they have been ignorant that these gifts which they so much prize are favors that God for the most part vouchsafeth to his Enemies But to know well the Excellencies of a Man to proportion his esteem to his merit he must be viewed in his Shirt Strip him of all that Splendor that dazles our Eyes consider him without those Ornaments that set off his Body and press the plummet to the depth of him to be informed whether Reason hath preserved her priviledges in him if she have not suffered her self to be abused by common opinion if Passions have not deceived her and if she have not permitted Forraign Commodities to prejudice the Productions of her own Countrey to cheat her Subjects and debauch her Ministers I acknowledg with our Divines that Reason is weakened and conceiveth proud designs that her lights are darkened by Sin and that she is subject to illusions since her revolt against God I confess that the Soul since her disobedience is light in her undertakings and embraceth falshood for truth that she often sides with Vice and seldom takes part with Vertue To enlarge upon these defects and to add to her own disorders the Tyranny of her Body I do know that they agree not that this Earth plays the Rebel against the Sun that enlightens it and that overwhelming the Laws of Nature the Mistress becomes often the Captive of her Slave Briefly I know that in her operations she hath need of the Organs of this Tyrant seeing with his Eyes hearing with his Eares judging of the diversity of tastes by his Tongue and that she would be condemned to perpetual ignorance if these parties concerned undertook not to inform her of their knowledg of Colors of Sounds of the softness and hardness of Objects How be it these disorders destroy not her good inclinations She is undistracted in her misery the advantages she had in her innocence are not lost by her fall and although she be thought blind she can yet find out the Truth in the midst of sensual illusions She is so generous in all her Enterprizes that with a little Care to redress her she gives us fresh assurances of her fidelity those Remains of Light that are yet in her since the State of innocence put her in mind of her first Glories and although she be guilty she is yet righteous enough not to commit any thing unworthy of her Birth Her disobedience caused her submission She knows God after she hath offended him She emplores his aid when she remembers her contempt of his Commandments and as she findeth her self bound to restore what she hath robbed Him of she obligeth the Soul to acknowledg Him her only Soveraign The Messengers she sends abroad for forraign intelligence cannot deceive her unless she please their falshoods make her prudent and if they be cunning enough to give her false informations they are neither so powerful nor industrious as to perswade her into the belief of them That Prison that surrounds her cannot arrest her thoughts The Diseases that weaken her Body cannot touch her and as if she held no commerce with the Earth She remains at Liberty in the midst of her Fetters and keeps her health in an infected habitation If Passions are able to obstruct her operations if they can cool that Fire that makes her Act as a Commander in chief they are not able to put it out and if Sin have disfigured this living Image of God it hath not been able to deface her first lineaments the
spirits weakned the activity of their Bodies and if to be in health were to be happy it might be concluded that Wise Men are miserable the one half of their Lives Beauty is but a result of health and as subject to decay as the principle to alteration Yet have we some Philosophers that love her that present her with praises after vows of affection and by a blindness the more blamable for being voluntary fancy her to be the second part of their Felicity they call her the Mate of Vertue they describe her to be Divinely animated and will have it that she doth not less influence the Souls of Wise men then the imagination of Fools To hear them discourse She is the delight of all our Senses and although she be the most pleasing object of our sight yet is she the ravishment of our Eares in the recital of her perfections If we believe some Heathen the Gods themselves behold nothing here below more glorious then a face on which they have bestowed their favours and men draw not more vanity from any thing what ever then to find themselves inriched with a benefit that appears without difficulty and may be enjoyed without Envy For she exerciseth so absolute a Dominion upon humane conceit that she converts all that behold her into Lovers the persecutors of the innocent are friends to her and more happy then Vertue it self she hath not yet found an Enemy to make War against her nor envious persons to bespatter her perfections Do but see her and you love her when you have once seen her you cannot be her Enemy and her allurements are so potent that she takes us from our selves at her very first appearance to our Eyes But alas who is there that may not easily discern that so fading a perfection cannot make us happy and that a Benefit which hath all its glory from our opinion is too light to satisfy our desires too little Solid to stay our hopes for what can there be shewed us upon Earth more frail then Beauty or what is there more to be slighted then a Face whose Charms are only in the Eyes of them that are taken with it and which oweth the greatest part of its Dazling Flashes to the blindness of its Adorers Those Famous Beauties that have put the most ingenious of the Poets into a Sweat and suck't so many Praises from his Pen in excuse of the disorders which they have caused in the World are not so much the works of Nature as his witty Invenâ—ions and if the Love he bare to Corinna had not disturbed his mind Helena had been at this day without Admirers and Penelope without Gallants To be in love is to have sore Eyes and if Passion did not often cajolle mens Fancies in favour of them they adore it might be said that Love had long since had no buisiness in the World or that if he had made new Conquests the Fools head must have been the Seat of the War Beauty is so frail that she cannot be kept a few Years and what Art soever Women use to preserve her they must resolve to become ugly if they will grow old That Clearness which contributeth to her Splendor advanceth her Ruin the Sun which gives her a dazling quality disfigures her Time who is her Guardian is her mortal Enemy The Body that sustains her puts her to Death and if some times the strength of Constitution prolong her Ruin it is but to reserve the Spoils for the meanest of her Maladies To draw Reason from the Proud Mistresses of Beauty that Tyrannize the Spirits of indiscreet men and to be avenged of of the Evils wherewith they afflict their Martyrs it is not needful to Negotiate with death to cast pale Colors into their Faces to employ the Nails of a she Rival to deface their most curious Features or that some strange accident should carry away the Off-sets which they value more then their Lives 〈◊〉 of an Ague or Feaver hath force enough to overthrow these charming Adversaries their choicest Complexions yeild to disordered Seasons the Rose forsaketh their Cheaks when it feels the Cold and as there is no distemper that is not able to change their Comeliness there is not any Beauty but may become the scorn of her Slaves But if sickness did not attack these Beauties if the seasons were sufficiently constant not to alter their hew and if the injurious air had any respect for their perfections yet time which Periods Empires would not spare them in prolonging their days he would diminish their Beauty and by a strange but ordinary Metamorphosis he would change the proudest of Natures works into Monkees and Baboons The Sun when he sets hath charms that attract the consideration of the curious the pleasant raies which he sheddeth at bidding us good night are our Shepheards delights and Astrologers observe that his withdrawing lights are not less beneficial to us then when he apears again in our Horizon and rides triumphant over our heads The latter season hath her pleasures if she carry in commodities in one hand she brings equal advantages in the other She is the Expectation of the Husband-man and the reward of the Vine keeper and if she drive the people from the hills and open Countrey she fills their Cellars with Wines the Garners with Corn and the Barns with fruits of the Harvest But when Women look towards age when their hairs assume the Colour of Ashes when wrinckles furrow their foreheads when their Eyes betake themselves to the faculty of casting Pearls when their Cheeks incline to their Chin and when those two Milky Mountains become one double bag full of Blood they are no more desired by men then they seem horrible to their Lovers they which courted them before now hate them and as if all those lines in their foreheads were so many marks of their indiscretion they shun the sight of them as of the most frightful Monsters of Nature Also those that understand well the Nature of Beauty consider her as a remote advantage and esteem the fruit more then the possession they are content to see her on the Faces of their beloved and knowing that her quality is too inconstant to make them happy they give her freely up to those soft Ladies that seek only to be beautiful But of all that made so great accompt of the benefits of the Body I meet with none less reasonable then they who joyn them to voluptuousness and who believed that to live happily it was necessary that Pleasure should make the last perfection of their felicity For although health be but an even temper of the Body though the concord which proceedeth from the mixture of the Elements be a pure effect of their good understanding and that the vigor of the Body have its dependance on the heat and Humidity of the Blood yet the good offices which health rendereth unto her Land-Lord are considerable enough to gain some reputation
members that compose it For as man is a friend to Society and that Society cannot subsist without Peace as Peace followes union as union is inseparable from good order and as good order cannot be without dependance nor dependance without Authority Policy hath happily invented Government she got the people to be subject to Magistrates she placed Princes at the head of the Nobles and according to that instinct that is common to all men she made servitude necessary to us and obedience delightful Isaac who is lookt upon in Scripture as the model of Politicks thought he did Esau no wrong when he commanded him to obey his younger Brother this preference according to the words of Philo was not so much a maladiction as a testimony of his love he satisfied the Divine Justice by hearkening to the solicitations of his wife and knowing that a man that lives by his weapon is subject to many Passions he judged he might appoint Jacob to be his Governor without injury to his primogeniture It was with this Reason that the Roman Common wealth justified her usurpations that she perswaded the World that her Conquests were lawful since their Empire became beneficial to the people whom they overcame and that giving them Philosophers to instruct them in vertues they made their subjection of greater advantage to them then their liberty That as the Body obeys the mind and Reason commands our Passions they alleadg that the weaker ought to submit to the stronger Cowards to Valiant Men and the less perfect to the more accomplisht This feeble argument hath made so strong an impression on the Spirits of ambitious men that they thought they might lawfully aspire to greatness that the desire of honors was not so much a mark of Pride as of generosity and that the most excellent thing in this World might be sought after without scruple They affirmed with much Reason that man was born to command that nature had given him extraordinary parts for that purpose and that as she had granted strength to wild Beasts to offend or defend policy to some to avoid the Hunters and swiftness to others to fly from their Enemies she had placed in man a generous Spirit fit to command which delighted in Dignities and which esteemed all things below himself but Government and Empire In fine that the Passion that made him affect greatness was natural to him that Soveraignty was approved of all Nations that the Son of God proposed it to his Disciples when he promised they should sit upon Thrones judging the Tribes of Israel But what colourable Reasons soever are formed by Historians and Orators to excuse the desire of greatness they cannot deny but that it is fatal to the ambitious and that if it be not always sufficiently unjust to render them guilty it is too extravagant not to make them unhappy For besides that they aim at that which is out of their power that they are enclosed with Enemies that oppose their designs that they see themselves often deceived in their hopes that their friends forsake them and that they are forced to confess by the Travels that attend their Projects that it is no less difficult to arrive at dignity then to preserve it Besides that envy is inseparable from their condition that men often conspire against their Persons that their Subjects hate them and that their equals suspect them they endure miseries that give the lye to the opinion of the World the honors they hunted after with so much earnestness procure their disquiet and by an inevitable misfortune they meet with grief amongst those things from which they expected their joy and felicity Fear assaults them at every turn they suspect the countenance of their friends as well as the looks of their Enemies all that approach them create their jealousies and by a suspition that discovers their Calamities they have often an apprehension of the Valour or vertuous comportments of their successors They are afraid that they which are one day to sit on their Throne should contrive their ruin and as they know that the people delight in novelty they fear least their Children should becom their Soveraigns Indeed goodness is not the object of the love of all men if some reverence it in the person of their Prince others grow weary of it or despose it What integrity soever Kings bring to the Throne they become guilty enough by reigning long and it 's sufficient to know that they have successors to render them odious to their Subjects The vulgar are so fantastical in their affections that their greatest constancy lasts but a moment they hate the blessing which they enjoy they desire it when it 's expected and never truly esteem it but when they have lost it What contentment can a man have amidst so many apprehensions What felicity can he tast in the Government of an ungrateful people who are never satisfied with his Conduct who expect his death every time he is indisposed who wish it under the shaddow of enlarging their liberty who find fault with the favors they have obtained from him and magnify them only which they expect from his heirs Without doubt these Reasons made Augustus think so often of a Retreat and which inspired him with the despicable thoughts of an Empire which exposed his actions to censure his safety to hazard and his life to perils For although he gave Laws to the greatest part of the world held the Roman fortune in his hands and saw the wisest Senat upon earth pay reverence to his Commands yet he sighed after retirement he ceased not to request the Senat for leave to surrender his most serious Speeches ended with these pleasant expectations and he stiled that his happy Day that should strip him of his Dignities He had learned by a long experience how toilsom a publick Charge is how many hazards were to be undergone to obtain it and how many cares were required to preserve it having been often obliged to arm himself to tame his Subjects give Battels to supplant his Competitors and bring Armies into the Field to warrant him from the surprizes even of his friends How often was he seen constrained to abandon his Frontiers to march into Sicilia travel into Egypt carry Armies yet covered with Roman Blood into Asia to bring the factious to obedience When he is busied in reconciling the Alpes when he is drawing the Rebels to their Duty when he is making Slaves of his Enemies and is projecting new Conquests beyond the Rhine and Euphrates even then they contrive plots against his Person they prepare Weapons in the City of Danube for his Assassination and he that was coming triumphant from the subduing of all the Rebels of his State finds himself designed for death by a Band of seditious men Hardly had he escaped these Ambuscades but his own Daughter attended by a company of young Gallants whom she had gained by her Prostitutions renewed his fears and by alarms
Seas the winds favorable and their Navigation prosperous Who can warrant the Souldiers that their Arms shall be victorious and assure them of the Rout of their Enemies Who shall be able to promise a lover that the Marriage he designs shall be happy that the Woman he courts will be faithful to him that the Children she shall bring him will be obedient and that they shall honor him as their Father and that she shall love him as her Husband We reason according to outward appearances and not according to that which shall happen we look upon that which is profitable but we examine not the difficulties that surround it Our arguments are rather grounded upon our Opinions then upon Reason and according to the good liking we have to the objects we easily promise our selves the possession although it be sometimes impossible From thence cometh that we live always in instability that our resolutions are various that we add injustice to danger and that we are but little afraid to become guilty provided we can but obtain what we desire But we see likewise that when fortune opposeth our designs that the success of our affairs answereth not our Hopes and that our toilsome labours have only served to increase our unhappiness we fall into sadness we leave the event to chance we condemn our own easiness to hope and we are troubled that the injustice of our enterprizes was not able to give us possession of the good we had in pursuit This caused Seneca to say that our parts were fatal to us and that our good qualities rendred us miserable or guilty The ingenuity of our Spirits serves to discover the evils before they come our memory calls them back when they are past and the will often shuns them before they make shew of assaulting us In fine we convert all our faculties into torments and as if we had made a conspiracy against our selves we turn all the distinctions of time to our own affliction But the wise man that is a friend to Tranquillity and whose felicity consisteth not so much in the calmness of his Spirit as in an innocent assuredness despiseth all the counsels of Hope he laughs at her promises he braveth Fortune and finding nothing out of vertue that is able to content him he as little desireth her presents as he feareth her disgraces He considers indifferently all the advantages of the Earth he builds all his glory or pleasure upon the innocence of his actions and satisfied with vertues merit he avoids the delights of the unchaste the Grandurs of the ambitious and the treasures of coveteous men Discourse V. That Anger is blind in taking of Revenge Rash in Quarrels and insolent in Chastisement ALthough I were not obliged to follow Seneca and betraying the opinion I have conceived of his Doctrin I were disingenious enough to forsake his party or so unfaithful as to side with his adversaries yet would it be a repugnance to me to believe that Anger can be serviceable to Vertue and that she must necessarily be employed by Commanders in giving of Battells by judges in the condemnation of the guilty and by Kings in the chastisement of the Rebells of their State Her fury is too much suspected to approve her Conduct her manner of proceeding is too much void of equity to justify her decrees and the punishments which she ordaineth are too rigorous to clear her from the imputation of injustice and cruelty If our other Passions be sufficiently odious because they rebel against Reason and that it is not for nothing that we so much apprehend their Tyranny since they drive us from our selves to the subject of their fury the benefits wherewith they keep us in hand do alay their rigor if their defects beget our hatred their fair proffers cause us to affect them and all savage as they are they have charms that tempt us to give them employment Desire doth not at all times torment us if it disturb our mind it tickles our imagination this languishing humor is mingled with delight and if it sometimes ravish our rest it labours to give us possession of the advantages we stand in need of If love pitch his Tents in our Souls if he break in upon our liberty and if by an injustice which gives the lye to his name he give us our Slaves to be our Mistresses he unites us to the oâ—ject we affect and so much delights us with her perfections that we prefer her enjoyment above all the Grandures of of the Earth If Hope hold us in suspence and by a too ingenious foresight she redouble the measure of that time which we remain in expectation she gives us with it the promise of fortunate success she assures us that our Travels shall not be in vain and our reward shall bear proportion to our patience If fear darken our judgment if it fling horror into our Spirits and cause us to apprehend mischiefs contrary to our hopes she teacheth us moderation in prosperity she foretels us of our evils to come and prepares us to bear them with constancy when they have laid hold on us So that all our disorders have some charms if they persecute us they do us good service if they are violent they abate sometimes of their cruelty and give us intervals that cause us the more to esteem our liberty but anger is ever insolent and take her which way you will she is equally savage and precipitate If she punish the guilty her blindness causeth her to commit excess if she force satisfaction for outrageous actions she her self becomes guilty of the prophanation of all natures Laws if she assault her Enemies she often runs headlong into their ambushes and like unto those tumbling ruins that throw down the houses on which they fall she finds her own punishment in her revenge her own defeat in her victory and her own execution in her condemnations But that which yet better discovers her blindness and makes her injustice less supportable is that she makes fuel of all wood she proceeds from love as well as hatred takes up Armes against friend and foe and falls not less violently upon those that have obliged then on those that have done her injury Those pass times which heal or charm the other Passions discompose this she is as much displeased at play as at serious business as much offended at a jest as an afront and it matters but little whether the motives which excite her be considerable if the person who has them in apprehension be but susceptible of her violence For as the fire operates but according as it finds the disposition of the matter and its activity is not always the measure of its working as we find bodies that indure not its heat and others that retain a spark till it amount to a flame Anger waits upon cowardly Spirits she burns them up in giving them courage and seldom forsakes them till she hath made them scornful
Anger espied a Souldier of his returning from a party Convoy without his companion this return served him for a pretext to punish him he thought it warrant enough to pass the sentence of death upon him to have him but suspected of murder and to cause him to be led to Execution for not having his fellow Souldier in his company This unhappy condemned man stoutly denies the crime calls the Gods to be witnesses of his innocence craveth some time to justify himself and assures him that by his diligence he would bring the man to light who he said was massacred The General refuses him this favor is angry at the request and without farther delay commands him to be put to death He is carried out of the Trenches and the Heads-man had already hold on the sword to strike off his Head when the Souldier who was supposed to be slain appeared suddenly in the midst of the assembly the Captain that attended this Execution at the sight of this Souldier directs a stop commands the Executioner to unloose the Felon and not to proceed without new orders from the General He brings the Prisoner then back to Piso to put into his hands an innocent man whom error had caused him to condemn as guilty The whole Camp concluded that this Prince would let himself be overcome of Justice that clemency would succeed his rigor and that being undeceived in his belief he would make no difficulty of pardoning the man a crime which he had not committed But seeing the Souldier yet alive and taking his return as a contempt of his Commands he goes back to the Tribunal all in a fury pronounceth sentence of death upon both the Souldiers and that they should be Executed upon the place What can be imagined more unjust then to condemn two innocent men because one of them was not guilty Or to make too men Felons because one of them was found innocent His Passion carried him yet farther and violently throwing him from one Precipice to another adds to these two a third which was the Captain that had brought back the Prisoner His ingenious rage had furnisht him with Reasons to justify this proceeding and examining their offences helped him to raise from the diversity of their fortunes the different causes of their punishment I caused thee said he to the Souldier to be lead to Execution because thou wast thereunto condemned and thou speaking to his Companion for that thou wast the cause thereof and thou looking upon the centurion for that having received command to put a Felon to death thou hast not done it He subtilly invented the way to make them all guilty and to commit three crimes at once because he could not find any in the persons he condemned From this Example it is easie to discover the cruelty of Anger and to learn how insolent she is in chastisements and dangerous in courts of judicature and great Councels For as she is proud and takes no other advices but her own she pursues the dictates of her own fury and can endure as little to be governed as reprehended likewise we see that none but Barbarians and men of mean Spirits make use of her who know not how to forgive an injury when they have it in their power to revenge it It is true that Anger seemeth in some sort more useful in Camps then in Courts of Justice that her violence hath some thing of agreement with a Martial humor and that her aspect better becometh the face of Commanders then the countenance of a Judg and a King For if we credit Aristotle nothing contributes more to Valor then Anger she it is that swells the courage of Conquerors that animates them in the thickest of the combat that awakens their generosity and causeth them to hazard their own to become Masters of the life of their Enemies Fortitude by the Doctrin of this Philosopher is feeble without her company this vertue must be asisted with her fury to make her despise the dangers that threaten her and she must be warmed with her fire to be able to give Battel and gain the Victory For although man be naturally of a generous Spirit and endued with dexterity sufficient to cope with or defend himself against such as would oppress him nevertheless he is faint hearted when destitute of this Champion he is weak without this succor and he ceaseth to bring forth any thing that is great from the time that this forsakes him But surely if this Rule were true that vertue owes the happiness of her successes to Anger and that Souldiers are Cowards unless they be furious I know not why we may not infer that drunkenness is a necessary Martial vertue since it often makes them fearless since it renders them bold pusheth them into the Battel and causeth them to despise both wounds and death it self Some have been seen that could not be got into the engaged Camp but by the animation of Wine they had forsaken their Post had they been sober and the sight of the Enemy had put them to flight if the vapors that clouded their Brains had not been the Author of the greatest part of their Courage Who knows not that the most timorous of our Passions sometimes inspires us with valor that fear will make us adventurous that necessity stirs up our courage that despair finds us weapons to fight with and often changeth our timidity into audacity Good successes are not always the works of Valor and Wisdom oftentimes fury doth not less triumph over the Enemy then vertue And the Politicks do tell us that there are Rencounters wherein unadvisedness proves more lucky then prudence But there is no man who confesseth not that these qualities are weak and unbecoming that they excite the Soul without giving it strength that they corrupt vertue in stead of informing her and that they make no impression but on the Spirits of them that want resolution when they are deprived of Anger 's aid Likewise we see not a valiant man that draws not his Courage from the depression of Anger that is not stout without fury and who becomes not more couragious when he is heated by her fire but because he himself is of a generous nature This Passion is too rash to have any service from her her headiness brings her prudence in doubt she is too impetuous to observe the Maximes of Battel and she seeks danger with too much heat to avoid the perils into which she would draw the Enemy In fine her service is as fatal to us in War as in Peace since in the midst of Peace she is the Image of War she Acts there but her furious part she forgets the vicissitude of Arms and she falls into the Power of her adversaries because she cannot contain her self within her own THE THIRD TREATISE OF FEAR Discourse I. Of the Nature of Fear I Know it is accounted a Crime amongst modern Philosophers to say any thing in
a Brazen Sky Our Country is that place where we live contented our felicity depends on us and not on our habitation and it is to little purpose to drive us from the Land of our Nativity since into what Coast soever we are carried we bear about us our Vertue which ought to make all our Happiness A Prison seemeth to have something more vexations than Banishment For besides that this deprives us of the advantages of Nature that it is the general Residence of Darkness that it shuts out the Sun Beams and that the light enters not but at the Grates and sighing holes it debars us of Liberty it tumbleth us alive into the Grave and makes us as Exiles in the midst of our own Country The Lawyers confound Imprisonment with Exile and put no difference between the time that we spend in the Dungeon and that which is wasted in Banishment Mean while that which makes others unfortunate is no incommodity to a Wise man His mind never suffers restraint and as he lives content in Solitude he remains at liberty in Prison The Walls which enclose his Body the Chains by which he is fastned to a corner of the Goal cannot limit his Soul He is free whilest his Companion is a Slave and without clearing the Gates that enclose him he takes his advantage to escape into all parts of the World As in his freedom he loaths Voluptuousness he laughs at Pain in Servitude and he careth little into what place they put him since he demands not to have his Portion here upon Earth That which afflicts the weak and makes a Prison so odious to persons of honour is because it is infamous because it passeth in the conceit of Men for Satans habitation the abode of evil Spirits where his family recides and that letting the innocent go free they fancy that none but the unfortunate and miserable are there left behind But all these words ought not to affright us for if we be true Christians let us go in boldly let us prepare our selves to fight with a Tyrant even in his own house and to trample under foot an Usurper who is not less an Enemy to the Just than to the wicked If the hole into which we are thrust be the Possession of Darkness let our Vertue serve us for a Light let our Patience bruise the Fetters let our inward sweet smell expel the Stenches of the place and let our innocence triumph over the rigour of the Goalers We trade well when we gain by our Commerce when our profits exceed our losses and when adventuring some vain pleasures of this life we exchange them for solid and eternal Joys It is really true that the Guard about us those Fetters with which they load our Bodies and the Dungeons in which they bury us alive are advantageous to us they attract us from the Earth they are the Ladders by which our thoughts climbe into Heaven they give us there the contemplation of Divine things and insensibly pour into us Charity with knowledge They do what Providence daily performs in the World and as she gives cessation to the labours of Mortals by the sweet refreshments of night they allay our miseries by the consideration of the rewards they work for us In fine a Prison restoreth to the Soul that which by violence it takes from the Body The liberty of the one ariseth from the servitude of the other as it causeth our sufferings it begins our health and stripping us of the delights of the Earth it leaves us only the desires of Heaven But if the Prisoners be not attended with all comforts yet ought they not to be much afflicted A Prison hath nothing but what may be born with if it have its Shame it hath also its Glory and if it have incommodities that cause it to be hated it hath advantages which have rendred it desirable Some Philosophers have made it the habitation of the Muses they stiled it a Wise mans retirement there they composed the most Excellent of their Works and as if it had been a Schoole they there taught their Disciples Vertue unfortunate men Constancy and their Oppressors Mercy it was there that Anaxagoras studied the Square of the Circle by which he put the greatest Artists to a Nonplus and proved by Reason what they could never demonstrate by Experience It was there that Boetius writ his Consolations by which he shews that it is God that sends afflictions that Philosophy is a proper Remedy and that that which came from so just a Hand could not be offensive but to such as were without hope of reward It was there that St. Paul preached the Gospel that he writ the greatest part of his Epistles that he confuted both the Jews and the Gentiles and proved to all the World that we cannot enter into Glory but through the straight Gate of affliction In fine it is there that we may learn to be sober to be contented with what we have to retrench our selves of superfluous things to contemn Earthly benefits and by a generous violence to prepare for those Mansions where the unfortunate shall be happy the innocent at rest and the Captives free Discourse IV. That Pity and Envy are Enemies to Wisdom AS we see nothing in the world purely simple that all we find there hath a mixture that the Pleasure we tast in it is mingled with pain and that the highest of human Felicity is always attended with troubles and disquiet As there is hardly any compleat Vertue upon Earth as the most excellent have their defects the most enlightened their mists the most innocent their faults and the most couragious their weaknesses it must not be wondered that Vice doth so often deceive us in its appearance and that assuming a proportion of its contrary qualities it needs only a little outward shew to represent it self glorious we magnifie Ambition because she apeth Generosity because she despiseth Dangers affronteth Death and to gain a piece of Earth makes little of all those laborious toyls which give exercise to Valor We esteem Prodigality because it opposeth Covetousness because it claimeth kindred of Liberality and gives largely without hope of reward We pay reverence to the Dissimulation of Politicians because it hath an affinity with Prudence because it hides our Designs covers our Anger and waits for the day of Vengeance We honour Compassion because it resembles Charity because she takes the Prisoners out of the Dungeon comforts the distressed and without any consideration of their merits relieves equally the innocent and the guilty All the Orators have given her Elogies they make her the Vertue of Princes they have lifted up her head above her Companions and do assure us that if Valor and Justice made Kings great it was Compassion that rendred them worthy of our admiration Nothing likens you so much unto the Gods saith Cicero speaking to Cesar as your Compassion your Clemency makes you his Image and if your