for this particular Number of Five Senses Whether enough of them and to prove that These are suflicient by comparing and distinguishing them and the Uses they serve All Bodies say they without us which are Objects of our Senses are either very near and close to Our Body or they are at some distance from it If they be close to us and still remain without us then they fall under our Touch If they approach and come into us then they are the Objects of our Taste If they are more remote and stand before us so that their Distances are measur'd by a Right Line then the Sight discerns them If the Line be Oblique and the Motion Reflex then the Hearing does it Now methinks the Distinction were better thus Of the Five Senses accommodated for the Service of the whole Man as he is compounded of Body and Soul some are appropriated to the Use of the Body only and These are the Touch and the Taste the One for all that enters within the Other for that which continues still without it Some again are first and chiefly design'd for the Benefit of the Soul and those are Sight and Hearing the Former to assist Invention the Latter for Improvement and Instruction and all manner of Communication And One more in the midst of these Extremes sitted to those Spirits and Avenues that belong to Soul and Body both which is Smelling Again They answer to the Four Elements and their respective Qualities The Touch to the Earth Hearing to the Air Taste to Water and Moisture Smelling to Fire and Sight to a Compound of Water and Fire because of the Brightness of the Eye It is likewise pretended that there are as many Senses as there are General Divisions of sensible Objects and these are Colours Sounds Scents Relishes and a Fifth sort which wants a Name to express it adapted to the Touch and comprehending all the Tactile Qualities as Hot Cold Hard Soft Rough Smooth Sharp and the rest of them But This is evidently a Mistake for the Number of the Senses is by no means adjusted according to the Number of the Objects they are capable of Nor are these Objects the Cause of their being just so many and no more Were this a good Account it wou'd follow that we must have been endu'd with a great many more than we now have whereas now one and the same Sense entertains Objects of different Kinds and one and the same Object creates a Perception and impresses it self upon several Senses at once The most probable Account of this Matter seems rather to be That the Senses were intended for Means and Instruments of conveying Knowledge to us and that Nature which as she is not niggardly so neither is she profuse hath given us as many Senses as are suflicient for this purpose and that when she had supply'd us with enough for our Use she did not think sit to give us any more Of These the Sense of Seeing does surpass all the rest in the Quickness of its Operation A Comparision of them For it reaches the very Heavens in an Instant and acts in the Air which is full of Light and Images without any Trouble or Motion whereas all the rest of the Senses receive their Impression by the Motion of those Bodies which make it And all Motion requires Time to be perform'd in so that all the other Senses must needs proceed more slowly than This which need but open its Organ and is sure to find Light and Colours stand always ready to be discern'd by it All the Senses are likewise capable of Pleasure and Pain but This is observable of the two grossest of them That the Touch is capable of abundance of Pain and but very little Pleasure and the Taste just contrary feels a great deal of Pleasure and little or no Pain The Weakness and Uncertainty of our Senses is the Great Cause of our Ignorance and Errour The Weakness and Uncertainty of them and all sort of Misapprehension For since Knowledge is attain'd by the Mediation of the Senses only if these make a false Report what can we do but receive and stick to it But after All who can tell what Reports they make or how can any Man accuse them of Falshood since we learn all from Them and consequently even That which gives us this Jealousie and is the Ground of the Accusation Some indeed affirm That the Senses are faithful in all their Messages and represent the very Truth That when we imagine they deceive us the Fault is not in Them but in something else and that we ought rather to lay it at any other Door for no other thing is so free from so incapable of imposing upon us Some again run into the contrary Extreme cry out upon the Senses as downright infamous Lyars and tell you that nothing at all of Certainty can be had from them * See Advertisement But the Truth lies between these Extremes Now Whether the Senses themselves are deceiv'd or not thus much at least is evident The mutual Deceits of the Mind and the Senses that they put a Cheat nay sometimes a Constraint upon Reason and that by an unhappy Vicissitude Reason pays them back in their own Coin and returns the Cheat upon Them And is not Man think you like to be wonderful Wise and Knowing when the outward and the inward Instruments of Instruction are Eternally tricking one another and his whole Composition is full of Falshood and Weakness in the most necessary and essential Parts of it Now that the Senses deceive and commit a Violence upon the Understanding we see plain enough in those Instances where Some of them immediately put us in a Rage Others sweeten and appease the Soul and Others again tickle and please it exceedingly And why shou'd Men turn their Heads away when they are let Blood or lanced or suffer Incisions and Burnings but from their Consciousness of the Power the Senses have to disturb their Reason and that the same thing is better born when the Eyes do not observe the Operation The Looking down a Pit or vast Precipice disorders and confounds a Man though he knows at the same time that he stands safe himself and cannot reasonably apprehend any danger of salling into it And to instance in no more 't is evident that Sense of Pain and Pleasure both does every Day vanquish and utterly confound the best and bravest Resolutions of Virtue and Temperance and Patience Again It is no less evident that the Senses on the other hand are cheated by the Understanding This is demonstrated by those Agitations of Anger and Love and Hatred and other Passions which impose upon us and make us see and hear things quite otherwise than they really are Nay sometimes our Senses are not only deceived but perfectly stupify'd and bound up from all power of Action by violent Disorders of the Soul as if the Soul retir'd inwards and were entirely taken
Frost and Snow made only this Answer That other People cou'd bear their Faces naked and he was Face all over History tells us of several very great Persons who went constantly bare-headed as Masinissa and Caesar and Hannibal and Severas And some Nations there are who being accusiom'd to no Defence for their Bodies at other times never trouble themselves for any when they go into the Wars but engage in the hottest Action whole Armies of naked Men together Plato thinks it adviseable for the Health never to cover either the Head or the Feet at all Varro pretends that when Men were commanded to stand bare in the Temple of the Gods and in the Presence of the Magistrates it was not only the Respectfulness of the Ceremony but the Wholsomness of it that the Law had regard to since Men by this means harden'd their Bodies against the Injuries of Wind and Weather and strengthen'd themselves while they paid a due Reverence to their Superiours In a Word abstracting from what Revelation hath taught us and looking at Nature only I shou'd make no doubt but the Contrivances of Hutts and Houses and other Shelters against the Violence of the Seasons and the Assaults of Men was a much more ancient Institution than that of Cloathing and there seems to have been more of Nature and universal Practice in it for we see that Beasts and Birds do the same thing The Care and Provision of Victuals was unquestionably of far greater Antiquity than either of the former for this seems to have been one of the first Impulses and Dictates of Nature the Necessities and Appetites whereof return so thick upon us that it is not easie to suppose Man cou'd subsist at all without this Care Book III. In the Vertue of Temperance But of these Matters we shall have other Opportunities to treat more fully when we come to give Rules for the Use and Regulation both of Food and Raiment hereafter CHAP. VII Concerning the Soul in general WE are now entring upon a Subject of all others the most difficult and nice One which has been treated of and particularly canvassed by the greatest Philosophers and most penetrating Wits of all Ages and Countries Aegyptian Greek Arabian and Latin Authors but yet so that their Opinions have been infinitely various according to the several Nations from whence they sprung the Religions they embrac'd the Professions in which they had been educated and the Reasons that offer'd themselves to their Thoughts So that how far soever each Man might satisfie his own Mind yet they have never been able to come to any general good Agreement or certain Determination in the Matter Now the main Points in Controversie upon this occasion are those Ten that follow What may be the Definition of the Soul What its real Essence and Nature Its Faculties and Actions Whether there be One or More Souls in a Man Whence its Original What the Time and Manner of its entring the Body the Manner of its Residence the Seat where it dwels the Sufficiency to exercise the several Functions belonging to it and lastly Its End or Separation from the Body First of all It is exceeding hard to give an accurate Definition of the Soul It s Definâ—tion or be able to say exactly What it is And this in truth is the Case of all Forms in general and we cannot well conceive how it shou'd be otherwise with Things which are Relative and have no proper and independent Subsistence of their own but are only Parts of some Whole Hence without question it hath come to pass that the Definitions of it put abroad have been so many and at the same time so infinitely various too that not any one of them hath been receiv'd without Clashing or Contradiction Aristotle hath rejected no less than Twelve among the Philosophers who had written before him and yet he hath found but little better success with That of his own which he labour'd but in vain to establish in the room of them Nothing can indeed be more easie and obvious than to determine what the Soul is not We dare be confident that it is not Fire Air nor Water nor a Mixture and due Temperament of the Four Elements together the Qualities or the Humours nicely adjusted For This is a thing in perpetual Flux and Uncertainty the Animal subsists and lives without it And besides This is manifestly an Accident whereas the Soul is a Substance To this we may add that Minerals and several inanimate Creatures have a Temperament of the Four Elements and prime Tactile Qualities and still continue Inanimate notwithstanding Nor can the Soul be the Blood for several Instances may be given of Animated and Living Creatures without any Blood at all belonging to them and several Creatures die without losing one Drop of Blood Nor is it the Principle and First Cause of Motion in us for several Inanimate things impart Motion So does the Loadstone to the Iron the Amber to the Straw Medicines and Drugs and Roots of Trees when dry'd and cut to pieces draw and create very strong Motions Nor is it the Act Life Energy or Perfection for Aristotle's Term Eutclechia hath been interpreted in all these dissering Senses For all this cannot be the very Essence of the Soul it self but only the Operation and Effect of it as Living Seeing and Understanding are plain and proper Actions of the Soul Besides admitting this Notion it wou'd follow from thence that the Soul were not a Substance but an Accident only that it could not possibly subsist without that Body whose Act and Perfection it is any more than the Roof of a House can subsist as such without the Building which it covers and is supported by or a Relative without its Correlate In a word When we express our selves after this manner we only declare what the Soul does and what it is with respect to something else but we pronounce nothing of its proper and abstracted Nature or what it is in it self Now though things are thus far clear and easie yet when we go farther the Case alters extremely A Man may say indeed that the Soul is an Essential Life-giving Form which distributes this Gift as the Receiver is capable of it To the Plant it imparts Vegetation to the Brute Sense which includes and contains Vegetation under it and to Man Intellectual Life in which both the former are imply'd as the Greater Numbers comprehend the Less and as in Figures a Pentagone includes a Quadrangle and That again a Triangle I rather choose to term this the Intellectual Life than the Rational which is compriz'd and understood by it as the Less is within the Greater and that particularly in deference to those many renown'd Philosophers who have allow'd Reason in some Sense and some Degree even to the Brutes but not Any of them have ever gone so high as to attribute the Intelligent Faculty to Them and therefore I take Intellectual Life to be a
Thing we attempt to give an Account of By this Temperament is to be understood the Mixture and Proportion of the Four Prime Qualities Of the Temperament of the Brain Hot and Cold Moist and Dry or rather a Fifth Quality which is as it were a Harmony resulting from a due Conjunction of all these together like that Concord in Sounds which arises from a Friendly Complication of different Notes Now upon that Mixture of the Brain it is that the State and the Operations of the Reasonable Soul depend Only This is Man's great Unhappiness that the Three Faculties Understanding Memory and Imagination do each of them require different nay contrary Temperaments for their Exercise and Perfection The Temperament proper for the Understanding is a Predominance of Dry and this gives us some Account how it comes to pass that Persons far gone in Years are more Intelligent and Judicious than those that are Younger For besides the Advantages which Art and Study and Experience may give them they have a Disposition to it from Nature The Brain as Men grow older purifying it self from Excrementitious Humours and growing dryer every Day For the same Reason in all likelihood Melancholy Persons and those under Affliction and Want and Persons that are fasting it being an Effect of Grief and Fasting to keep the Brain dry may be better disposed to think and qualified to do it to good Purpose as well as some of them are necessitated by their Circumstances to apply themselves to it This is farther observable in Brutes Ants and Bees and Elephants as they are the Dryest so they are the most capable and ingenious of any and those of a moist Constitution the Swine for Instance are Stupid and Senseless Thus again in Men Those of Southerly Countries excel in Wisdom from the Drought of their Brain and their inward Heat being moderated by that of a Violent Sun without which exhales it The Temperament best accommodated to the Memory is Moist and hence it is that Children are more ready and perfect in it than old People hence it is most apt and faithful in a Morning when the Brain hath been well refreshed and throughly moistned by a good Nights Sleep hence also the Inhabitants of the Northern Climates have the strongest Memories for These are under a moister Air by Means of their great Distance from the Sun But this Moisture must not be so mistaken as if I meant that the Temper of the Memory is fluid like Water but rather such a Moisture as we may observe in Air Glew Grease or Oyl something of such a Substance and Continuity of Parts as may both take the Impression easily and keep it a great while as we see Pictures do that are laid in Oyl Colours The Temperament sittest for the Imagination is Hot which makes Distracted Hair-brain'd and Feverish People excel all others in bold and lofty Flights of Fancy Thus Poetry Divination and all that depends upon Imagination were always thought to proceed from a sort of Fury and Inspiration This Faculty is for the same Reason most Vigorous in Youth and the Flower of our Age The Poets accordingly flourished at these Years and Almighty God who even in Supernatural Influences and Effects made great use of Natural Causes and did as little Violence as was possible to a Course of his own Instituting ordered the Matter so that most of the Prophets should do so too The same Reason holds likewise for those Middle Regions and more Moderate Climates between the North and the South where Men are observ'd to excel in those Arts and Sciences which are derived from the Strength and Sprightliness of Fancy Now from this great inequality of these Mixtures and Proportions it frequently happens that a Man may be tolerably well to pass in all these Three Faculties and not arrive at an Excellence in any one of them as also That a Man may be conspicuous and exceeding well Accomplish'd in one of these Respects and yet very Wanting and Despicable in the other Two It is manifest the Temperaments adapted for the Memory and the Understanding are the most Distant and Contrary in the World for what can be more so than Moist and Dry That of the Imagination does not seem so remote from the Rest for Hot will agree well enough with Moist or Dry and is far from being Incompatible with either and yet though these seem so consistent in Nature we see them very seldom reconcil'd in Fact For those who are esteemed most Excellent in Imagination are generally found very Weak both in Point of Memory and Understanding and thought near a Kin to Fools or Mad-Men The Reason whereof may possibly be This. That the Heat which feeds and exalts their Imagination wasts and exhausts that Moisture with which the Memory is assisted and also the finest and most volatile of Those Spirits of which that Dryness Partakes which is serviceable to the Understanding and the Faculty when destitute of these grows flat and heavy So that in Effect This is an Enemy to both the other Temperaments and Experience shews it to be Destructive of them From all that hath been said we may plainly see that the Principal Temperaments which serve But Three of them assist and set the reasonable Soul on working and which distinguish the Excellencies of the Mind according to its Faculties are Three and cannot exceed that Number For Cold which is the Fourth is of no significance at all Hot and Moist and Dry only can contribute to Mens Ingenuity The Other is a sluggish unactive Principle and instead of quickening does only benumb and stupifie the Soul and put a Stop to all its Motions Therefore when in reading some Authors we find them recommending Cold as of use to the Understanding and saying that Men of a Cold Brain such as those of Melancholy Complexions or under the Southern Climes are Prudent Wise Ingenious and the like we must not there understand the Word Cold in its Natural and most received Sense but interpret it of a large Abatement and more moderate Degree of Heat only For nothing can be more opposite to Wisdom and a good Understanding than that Excess of Heat which yet to the bettering of the Imagination and refining the Fancy would be of great Importance And according to the three Temperaments of the Brain there are three corresponding Faculties of the Reasonable Soul But both the One and the Other of these admit of several Degrees and may be variously subdivided and distinguished The Principal Offices to be discharged by the Understanding and the different Qualifications of Men The Faculties Subdivided with regard to it are Three To conclude truly To distinguish nicely and To choose wisely The Sciences that fall properly under this Faculty are School-Divinity The Speculative Part of Physick Logick Natural and Moral Philosophy The Memory hath likewise Three Qualities to be distinguished by For there is One sort of Memory which easily receives Impressions and
it between conquering and not hazarding our Persons in the Engagement And when Men are in a Capacity of becoming beneficial to Others and may be Instruments of Great and General Good to excuse Themselves from serving the Publick and abandon all Society when they might adorn and be useful in it is to betray their Trust to bury their Talent in a Napkin to hide the Candle which God hath lighted under a Bushel when the setting it on a Candle-Stick might enlighten others and do great Service to all that are in the House It requires then much Deliberation and many uncommon Circumstances to give Men a Right thus to dispose of Themselves And they who presume to do it merely out of private Considerations and make the Publick no part of their Concern are so far from deserving to be applauded for their Virtue and Resignation that they are guilty of a great Fault and liable to very just and severe Censure CHAP. LV. A Life in Common compared with That of distinct Properties SOme Persons have been of Opinion that a Life where all Things are in Common and there is no such Distinction as Mine or Thine hath the greatest Tendency to Perfection and is best accommodated for the cherishing and maintaining of Charity and Concord and Union among Men. But Experience shews us daily that whatever Conveniencies it may really have of this kind yet are they not so great nor so effectual to the Purposes before-mention'd as those Persons have imagined For in the first Place whatever Appearance there may be outwardly of Kindness and good Agreemeent yet there is no such Thing as an entire and hearty Affection nor the same tender Regards for That which is in Common as a Man finds where he alone is concern'd To this purpose it is that we have two Proverbs The College Horse is always ill saddled and Every Body's Business is No Body's Business Men consider that Others are equally concern'd in the Care and in the Damage that the Loss is not immediately their own and that each Member of the Society stands in that respect equally related to them and that begets a Coldness and Indifferency among them But which is a great deal worse this State does naturally produce Quarrels and Discontents Murmuring and mutual Hatred every Community is but too full a Demonstration of it and the very Holiest and Best that ever was the Primitive Church it self could not you see be exempted from the Misfortune For though the Institution design all Things should be equal yet unless you could make the Desires of the Persons so too they will always be full of Complaints and Jealous that some are preferred and others neglected Acts vi like the Grecians and their Widows in the Daily Distributions The Nature of Love is like that of Great Rivers which while they continue united in one Stream are Navigable and carry Vessels of Vast Burden but if you cut them into fresh Channels and divide the Water they are no longer Serviceable in that kind and thus when Men's Affections are divided and parted as it were among a great many Objects not any one of those Persons or Things is of very tender Concern for all the Force and Vigor of the Passion is scattered and broke to Pieces Now in a Life of Community there are several Degrees To live that is to eat and drink together at a common Table is very decent and well Thus we find it practised in some of the best and most ancient Commonwealths as Lacedemon and Crete particularly such publick Meals are very useful for the teaching Men to be Modest and reserved and keeping up Dicipline Society and Good Order and they do also minister occasion for great variety of very useful and improving Discourse But to think of pulling up the Fences and Inclosures and lay all in Common is a wild Imagination Plato was once of this Opinion but he thought better of it afterwards And indeed the Project would be so far from reconciling and uniting All that the certain Consequence of it would be to overturn and confound All. CHAP. LVI A Town and a Country Life compared together THis is a Comparison very easie for any Man who is a true Lover of Wisdom to make for almost all the Advantages lie on one side The Pleasures and Conveniences both of Body and Mind Liberty Contemplation Innocence Health and Delight In the Country a Man's Mind is free and easie discharg'd and at his own Disposal But in the City the Persons of Friends and Acquaintance one 's own and other People's Business foolish Quarrels ceremonious Visits impertinent Discourse and a Thousand other Fopperies and Diversions steal away the greatest part of our Time and leave no Leisure for better and more necessary Employment What infinite Perplexities Avocations Distractions of the Mind and which is worst of all what abominable Debaucheries and Depravation of Manners does such a Life expose Men to Great Towns are but a larger sort of Prisons to the Soul like Cages to Birds or Pounds to Beasts This Celestial Fire within us will not endure to be shut up it requires Air to brighten and make it burn clear which made Columella say that a Country Life is Cousin-German to Wisdom For a Man's Thoughts cannot be idle and when they are set loose from the World they will range and expatiate freely in noble and profitable Meditations But how shall a Man hope to command his Thoughts or pretend to call them his Own in the midst of all the Clutter and Business the Amusements nay the Confusions of the Town A Country Life is infinitely more plain and innocent and disposed to Purity and Virtue In Cities Vice assembles in Troops the very Commonness of it makes it unobserv'd it hardens and reconciles us to the Practice Example and Custom and the meeting with it at every Turn makes the thing familiar and thus the Disease seizes us strongly and presently and we are gone all on the sudden by living in the midst of the Insection Whereas in the Country those things are seen or heard with Abhorrence and Amazement which the Town sees and does every Day without Remorse or Concern As for Pleasure and Health the clear Air the Warmth and Brightness of the Sun not polluted with the Sultry Gleams and loathsome Stenches of the Town the Springs and Waters the Flowers and Groves and in short All Nature is free and easie and gay The Earth unlocks her Treasures refreshes us with her Fruits feasts every Sense and gives us such Entertainment as Cities know nothing of in the stifling press of Houses so that to live there is to shut one's self up and be banish'd from the World Besides all this a Country Retirement is more active and sit for Exercise and this creates an Appetite preserves and restores Health and Vigour hardens the Body and makes it lusty and strong The greatest Commendation of the Town is Convenience for Business and Profit It is
immoderate Love of Riches Book I. Chap. 23. and the peevish and humoursom Hatred of them have been spoken to in the former parts of this Treatise And therefore all I have now left me to do is to lay down that Golden Rule which consists in the Mean between these two Extremes and that I think will be done in these Five Particulars First It consists in preferring and being pleas'd with them but not setting our Affections upon them Thus the Philosopher describes his Wise Man * Sapiens non amat divitias sed mavult One that is not fond of Riches but yet had rather have them than not A Man may be sensible of the Convenience of a Thing and know how to value it as it deserves without placing his Heart and his Happiness in it Thus for Instance a Person of low Stature and weak Limbs would be glad and well pleas'd to be taller and better built and yet it never breaks his Rest nor makes him reflect upon himself as miserable for not being so He that seeks what Nature desires without Passion and Uneasiness puts himself out of the Power of Fortune and he that is content with what Fortune cannot take away from him is the Man agreeable to this first part of the Character But Secondly If Passion and Anxiety be a Fault even in those who seek to enrich themselves by fair and honest Means only much less can we be allow'd to endeavour our own Profit by the Loss and Detriment of others For this is to feed and grow fat at their Expence No nor yet may we pursue Riches by base and pitiful and sordid Arts but should take care that all our Increase be so honourable and becoming that no Man shall have any Temptation but his own Wickedness and Ill-nature to complain of our Proceedings or grudge us our good Fortune or once to say That it is pity such Blessings should be bestowed upon us Thirdly When the good Providence of God puts these Opportunities and Advantages into our Hands and Wealth comes in upon us in an honest and creditable Way we are not to reject and disdain it but receive it with Thankfulness and Satisfaction and let it in but not let it in too far Riches should be admitted into our Houses but not into our Hearts we may take them into our Possession but not into our Affections For this is going too deep and doing them an Honour much greater than they can ever deserve Fourthly When we have them we should employ them honourably virtuously discreetly and convert them into Instruments of doing good Offices and being obliging to others That the manner of their Going out may be at least as innocent and as creditable as that of their Coming in Lastly Whenever they take their Flight and forsake us we are not to be dejected nor melancholy at the Loss but thould consider that tho' they took themselves away they did not deprive us of any thing which was properly and truly our own And therefore * Si Divitiae effluxerint non auferent nisi semetipfas if they give us the slip there is no Robbery or Wrong in the Case for we had no indeseasible Right in them before In one Word That Man ill deserves the Love and Favour of God and ought to quit all his Pretensions to Virtue and Philosophy and Religion who cannot support himself with these Comforts but allows the Enjoyments of this World the principal Place in his Esteem †Aude Hospes contemnere opes Te quoque dignum Finge Deo Dare to be Poor accept of homely Food Be more than Man and emulate a God Mr. Dryden Of Justice between Man and Man Or The Duty towards our Neighbour ADVERTISEMENT THis Duty is very comprehensive and shoots out into a great many Branches For the convenience of treating it more methodically we will make our first Division into two general Parts The First of these shall contain all such Duties as are Common and Vniversal requir'd from All and every Man to All and every Man And that whether they regard Thought Word or Deed And these are Love Fidelity Truth Freedom in Advising and Admonishing Beneficence Humanity Liberality and Gratitude The Second extends it self to all special Duties such I mean as depend upon particular Reasons and express Obligations which concern some certain Persons and Relations and not others As Those between Husband and Wife Parents and Children Masters and Servants Princes and Subjects Magistrates and Private Persons the Great and the Mean Man CHAP. VII The First Part of Justice or Those Universal Duties due from All to All in Common And first of Love LOVE is a Pure a Holy and a Generous Fire What it is kindled in our Breasts by Nature It s Primitive and Original Warmths were first discern'd in the mutual Affection of Husband and Wife Parents and Children Brothers and Sisters But then cooling by degrees as it dilated it self Art and Human Invention found means to blow it up again and supply fresh Fewel by the Institution of Alliances Societies Fraternities Colleges and other Incorporations by which the parts of Mankind are cemented and united Now in regard that These Artificial Flames underwent the same Fate with those Natural and burnt more feeble and dim as they were expanded and subdivided as also that their Heat is much allay'd by the Mixture of Profit Convenience Delight and such other Selfish Considerations therefore to cherish and recruit this Fire again Choice hath contriv'd to unite its scatter'd Forces and contract them into the narrowest compass that can be by the ferventest and tenderest of all Affections that between true Friends And This indeed is Love in Perfection as much more ardent and endearing and refin'd than any other as the Vital Heat in the Heart is more intense than than of the Liver or the Blood in the Veins Love is the very Life and Soul of the World more necessary to its Subsistence and Well-being say the Philosophers than those two Servants which we cannot want Fire and Water The Latins therefore have given a good Intimation of This in terming Friendship Necessitudo and Friends Necessarii This is the Sun the Staff the Salt of Life all is dark and comfortless without the Light of this cheering Fire all seeble and tottering without this firm Support all flat and insipid till this Seasons and gives it a grateful Relish Ecclus vi 14 16. To this purpose that Wise Man * A Faithful Friend is a strong Defence the Medicine of Lise and He that findeth him sindeth a great Treasure Nor may we suppose this Virtue serviceable and necessary to private Persons only It s Usefulness or that the Pleasures and Charms of it are confin'd to small Numbers and secret Retirements Its Joys and its Beauties are equally nay more ravishing and delightful more useful and seasonable to larger Bodies and publick Communities of Men. For This is the true Mother