The vanity of dogmatizing, or, Confidence in opinions manifested in a discourse of the shortness and uncertainty of our knowledge, and its causes : with some reflexions on peripateticism, and an apology for philosophy / by Jos. Glanvill ... Scepsis scientifica Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680. 1661 Approx. 314 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 145 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2003-01 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A42833 Wing G834 ESTC R3090 12267851 ocm 12267851 58119 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A42833) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 58119) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 186:2) The vanity of dogmatizing, or, Confidence in opinions manifested in a discourse of the shortness and uncertainty of our knowledge, and its causes : with some reflexions on peripateticism, and an apology for philosophy / by Jos. Glanvill ... Scepsis scientifica Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680. [33], 250, [6] p. Printed by E.C. for Henry Eversden ..., London : 1661. Published also as: Scepsis scientifica, or, Confest ignorance the way to science. Reproduction of original in Huntington Library. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. Gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. EEBO-TCP is a partnership between the Universities of Michigan and Oxford and the publisher ProQuest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by ProQuest via their Early English Books Online (EEBO) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). The general aim of EEBO-TCP is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic English-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in EEBO. EEBO-TCP aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the Text Encoding Initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). The EEBO-TCP project was divided into two phases. The 25,363 texts created during Phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 January 2015. Anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. Users should be aware of the process of creating the TCP texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. Text selection was based on the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). If an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in NCBEL, then their works are eligible for inclusion. Selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. In general, first editions of a works in English were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably Latin and Welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. Image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. Quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in Oxford and Michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet QA standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. After proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. Any remaining illegibles were encoded as s. Understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of TCP data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. Users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a TCP editor. The texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the TEI in Libraries guidelines. Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng Philosophy -- Early works to 1800. Knowledge, Theory of -- Early works to 1800. 2002-08 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2002-09 SPi Global Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2002-10 Emma (Leeson) Huber Sampled and proofread 2002-10 Emma (Leeson) Huber Text and markup reviewed and edited 2002-12 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion The VANITY of Dogmatizing : OR Confidence in Opinions . Manifested in a DISCOURSE OF THE Shortness and Vncertainty OF OUR KNOWLEDGE , And its CAUSES ; With some Reflexions on Peripateticism ; AND An Apology for PHILOSOPHY . By IOS . GLANVILL , M. A. London , Printed by E. C. for Henry Eversden at the Grey-Hound in St. Pauls-Church-Yard . 1661. TO THE Reverend my ever honored FRIEND , Mr. IOSEPH MYNARD , B. D. SIR , I Dare not approach so much knowledge , as you are owner of , but in the dress of an humble ignorance . The lesser Sporades must vail their light in the presence of the Monarch Luminary ; and to appear before you , with any confidence of Science , were an unpardonable piece of Dogmatizing . Therefore whatever be thought of the Discourse it self , it cannot be censur'd in this application ; And though the Pedant may be angry with me , for shaking his indear'd Opinions ; yet he cannot but approve of this appeal to one , whose very name would reduce a Sceptick . If you give your vote against Dogmatizing : 't is time for the opinionative world , to lay down their proud pretensions : and if such known accomplishments acknowledge ignorance ; confidence will be out of countenance ; and the Sciolist will write on his most presumed certainty ; This is also vanity . Whatever in this Discourse is less consonant to your severer apprehensions , I begge it may be the object of your charity , and candor . I betake my self to the protection of your ingenuity , from the pursuits of your judicious censure . And were there not a benign warmth , as well as light attended you , 't were a bold venture to come within your Beams . Could I divine wherein you differ from me ; I should be strongly induced to note that with a Deleatur ; and revenge the presumption , by differing from my present self . If any thing seem to you to savour too much of the Pyrrhonian : I hope you 'l consider , that Scepticism is less reprehensible in enquiring years , and no crime in a Juvenile exercitation . But I have no design against Science : my indeavour is to promote it . Confidence in uncertainties , is the greatest enemy to what is certain ; and were I a Sceptick , I 'de plead for Dogmatizing : For the way to bring men to stick to nothing , is confidently to perswade them to swallow all things . The Treatise in your hands is a fortuitous , undesigned abortive ; and an aequivocal effect of a very diverse intention : For having writ a Discourse , which formerly I let you know of , of the Soul's Immortality : I design'd a preface to it , as a Corrective of Enthusiasm , in a Vindication of the use of Reason in matters of Religion : and my considerations on that Subject , which I thought a sheet would have comprised , grew so voluminous , as to fill fourteen : which , being too much for a Preface ; I was advised to print apart . And therefore reassuming my Pen , to annex some Additional Inlargements to the beginning ; where I had been most curt and sparing : my thoughts ran out into this Discourse , which now beggs your Patronage : while the two former were remanded into the obscurity of my private Papers : The latter being rendred less necessary by his Majesties much desired , and seasonable arrival ; and the former by the maturer undertakings of the accomplisht Dr. H. More . I have no Apologie to make for my lapses , but what would need a new one . To say they are the Errata's of one that hath not by some years reach't his fourth , Climacterical , would excuse indeed the poverty of my judgement , but criminate the boldness of this Address . Nor can I avoid this latter imputation , but by being more criminal : and to shun this respectful presumption , I must do violence to my gratitude . Since therefore your Obligations have made my fault , my duty ; I hope the same goodness , that gave birth to my crime , will remit it . Hereby you 'l further indear your other favours : and make me as much an admirer of your vertues , as I am a debtor to your civilities : which since I cannot do them right in an acknowledgement ; I 'le acknowledge , by signifying that the greatness of them hath disabled me from doing so : an impotence , which a little charity will render venial ; since it speaks your self its Author . These your indearments will necessitate me to a self-contradiction ; and I must profess my self Dogmatical in this , that I am , SIR , Your most obliged And affectionate Servant JOS. GLANVILL . Cecill house in the Strand , March 1. 1660. The Preface . Reader , TO complain in print of the multitude of Books , seems to me a self-accusing vanity , whilest the querulous Reprehenders add to the cause of complaint , and transgress themselves in that , which they seem to wish amended . 'T is true , the births of the Press are numerous , nor is there less variety in the humors , and phancies of perusers , and while the number of the one , exceeds not the diversity of the other , some will not think that too much , which others judge superfluous . The genius of one approves , what another disregardeth . And were nothing to pass the Press , but what were suited to the universal gusto ; farewel Typography Were I to be Judge , and no other to be gratified , I think I should silence whole Libraries of Authors and reduce the world of Books into a fardle : whereas were another to sit Censor , it may be all those I had spared , would be condemn'd to darkness , and obtain no exemption from those ruines , and were all to be supprest , which some think unworthy light ; no more would be left , then were before Moses , and Trismegistus . Therefore , I seek no applause from the disgrace of others , nor will I Huckster-like discredit any mans ware , to recommend mine own . I am not angry that there are so many Books already , ( bating only the Anomalies of impiety and irreligion ) nor will I plead the necessity of publishing mine from feigned importunities . Those that are taken up with others , are at their liberty to avoid the divertisement of its perusal : and those , to whom 't is not importunate will not expect an apology for its publication . What quarter the world will give it , is above my conjecture . If it be but indifferently dealt with , I am not disappointed . To print , is to run the gantlet , and to expose ones self to the tongue - strapado . If the more generous spirits favour me , let pedants do their worst : there 's no smart in their censure , yea , their very approbation is a scandal . For the design of this Discourse , the Title speaks it . It is levied against Dogmatizing , and attempts upon a daring Enemy , Confidence in Opinions . The knowledge I teach , is ignorance : and methinks the Theory of our own natures , should be enough to learn it us . We came into the world , and we know not how ; we live in 't in a self-nescience , and go hence again and are as ignorant of our recess . We grow , we live , we move at first in a Microcosm , and can give no more Scientifical account , of the state of our three quarters confinement , then if we had never been extant in the greater world , but had expir'd in an abortion ; we are inlarg'd from the prison of the womb , we live , we grow , and give being to our like : we see , we hear , and outward objects affect our other senses : we understand , we will , we imagine , and remember : and yet know no more of the immediate reasons of most of these common functions , then those little Embryo Anchorites : We breath , we talk , we move , while we are ignorant of the manner of these vital performances . The Dogmatist knows not how he moves his finger ; nor by what art or method he turns his tongue in his vocal expressions . New parts are added to our substance , to supply our continual decayings , and as we dye we are born daily ; nor can we give a certain account , how the aliment is so prepared for nutrition , or by what mechanism it is so regularly distributed ; the turning of it into chyle , by the stomachs heat , is a general , and unsatisfying solution . We love , we hate , we joy , we grieve : passions annoy us , and our minds are disturb'd by those corporal aestuations . Nor yet can we tell how these should reach our unbodyed selves , or how the Soul should be affected by these heterogeneous agitations . We lay us down , to sleep away our diurnal cares ; night shuts up the Senses windows , the mind contracts into the Brains centre . We live in death , and lye as in the grave . Now we know nothing , nor can our waking thoughts inform us , who is Morpheus , and what that leaden Key , that locks us up within our senseless Cels : There 's a difficulty that pincheth , nor will it easily be resolved . The Soul is awake , and solicited by external motions , for some of them reach the perceptive region in the most silent repose , and obscurity of night . What is 't then that prevents our Sensations ; or if we do perceive , how is 't , that we know it not ? But we Dream , see Visions , converse with Chimaera's , the one half of our lives is a Romance , a fiction . We retain a catch of those pretty stories , and our awakened imagination smiles in the recollection . Nor yet can our most severe inquiries finde what did so abuse us , or shew the nature , and manner of these nocturnal illusions : When we puzzle our selves in the disquisition , we do but dream , and every Hypothesis is a phancy . Our most industrious conceits are but like their object , and as uncertain as those of midnight . Thus when some dayes , and nights have gone over us , the stroak of Fate concludes the number of our pulses ; we take our leave of the Sun and Moon , and bid mortality adieu . The vital flame is extinct , the Soul retires into another world , and the body to dwell with dust . Nor doth the last Scene yield us any more satisfaction in our autography ; for we are as ignorant how the soul leaves the light , as how it first came into it ; we know as little how the union is dissolved , that is , the chain of the so differing subsistencies , that compound us , as how it first commenced . This then is the creature that so pretends to knowledge , and that makes such a noise , and bustle for Opinions . The instruction of Delphos may shame such confidents into modesty ; and till we have learn't that honest adviso , though from hell , ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΕΑΥΤΟΝ Confidence is arrogance , and Dogmatizing unreasonable presuming . I doubt not but the opinionative resolver , thinks all these easie Knowables , and the Theories here accounted Mysteries , are to him Revelations . But let him suspend that conclusion till he hath weigh'd the considerations hereof , which the Discourse it self will present him with ; and if he can untie those knots , he is able to teach all humanity , and will do well to oblige mankinde by his informations . I had thought here to have shut up my Preface , being sensible of the taedium of long praeliminaries . But lest the Ingenious stumble at my threshold , and take offence at the seemingly disproportionate excess , which I ascribe to Adam's senses : I 'le subjoyn a word to prevent the scruple . First then , for those that go the way of the Allegorie , and assert pre-existence ; I 'm secure enough from their dissatisfaction . For , that the aetherial Adam could easily sense the most tender touches upon his passive vehicle , and so had a clear and full perception of objects , which we since plung'd into the grosser Hyle are not at all , or but a little aware of ; can be no doubt in their Hypothesis . Nor can there as great a difference be supposed between the senses of eighty , and those of twenty , between the Opticks of the blind Bat and perspicacious Eagle , as there was between those pure un-eclipsed Sensations , and these of our now-embodyed , muddied Sensitive . Now that the prae-existent Adam could so advantageously form his vehicle , as to receive better information from the most distant objects , than we by the most helpful Telescopes ; will be no difficult admission to the friends of the Allegory . So that what may seem a meer hyperbolical , and fanciful display to the Sons of the letter ; to the Allegorists will be but a defective representation of literal realities . And I cannot be obnoxious to their censure , but for my coming short in the description . But I am like more dangerously to be beset by them that go the way of the plain : and 't will be thought somewhat hard , to verifie my Hypothesis of the literal Adam . Indeed , there is difficulty in the Mechanical Defence ; and Dioptrical impugnations are somewhat formidable . For unless the constitution of Adam's Organs was diverse from ours , and from those of his fallen self ; it will to some seem impossible , that he should command distant objects by natural , as we do by artificial advantages . Since those removed bodies of Sun and Stars ( in which I instance ) could form but minute angles in Adam's Retina , and such as were vastly different from those they form in ours assisted by a Telescope . So that granting Adam's eye had no greater Diametrical wideness of the pupil , no greater distance from the Cornea to the Retiformis , and no more filaments of the Optick nerves of which the tunica Retina is woven , than we : the unmeasurable odds of Sensitive perfections which I assign him ; will be conceiv'd mechanically impossible . These difficulties may seem irresistibly pressing , and incapable of a satisfactory solution . But I propound it to the consideration of the Ingenious Objectors , whether these supposed Organical defects might not have been supplyed in our unfallen Protoplast by the vast perfections of his Animadversive , and some other advantageous circumstances : So that though it be granted , that an object at the distance of the Stars could not form in the eye of Adam any angles , as wide as those it forms by the help of a Tube ; yet I think my Hypothesis may stand unshaken . For suppose two Eyes of an equal and like figure , in the same distance from an object ; so that it forms equal angles in both : It may come to pass by other reasons , that one of these Eyes shall see this object bigger then the other : yea , if the difference of the reasons on both sides be so much greater , one Eye shall see it clearly , and the other not at all : For let one of these eyes be placed in an old body , or in a body deprived quite , or in a great measure of those spirits which are allowed the Instruments of sight , or of the due egress and regress of them , in their natural courses and channels ; and let the other have a body of a clean contrary quality ; or let the soul that actuates one of the said eyes , be indued with an higher faculty of Animadversion ( I mean with a greater degree of the Animadversive ability ) than the soul hath , that actuates the other . In either of these cases , the fore-mention'd difformity of vision , will fall out in the same uniform case of Dioptrical advantages . For a little angle made in the Eye , will make as discernible an impression to a Soul of a greater Animadversive power , and assisted by more and meeter instruments of sight ; as a greater angle can make to a soul of a less power , and destitute of those other Instruments , which are as necessary to sight as those Dioptrical conveniencies . So that grant that the object set at the same distance made angles in the eye of Adam , no wider than those it formes in ours ; yet that which we discern not , might have been seen by him , having more and better spirits , and being endued with a stronger Animadversive , according to mine Hypothesis . For there is the same proportion between a great power , and a little help , or a little Angle ; which is between a small power , and a great help , or a great Angle . If all this satisfie not , I begg from the ingenious the favour of this consideration : That some grains must be allow'd to a rhetorical display , which will not bear the rigour of a critical severity . But whether this mine Hypothesis stand or fall , my Discourse is not at all concerned . And I am not so fond of my conjectures , but that I can lay them down at the feet of a convictive opposition . To the Learned Author , of the Eloquent and Ingenious Vanity of DOGMATIZING . POets are but Libe'lers , I implore no Muse ; Parnassian praise is an abuse . Call up the Spirit of Philosophy : Your worth 's disgrac't by Poetry . Summon Des-Cartes , Plato , Socrates : Let this great Triad speak your praise . Other Encomiasts that attempt , set-forth Their own defects , and not your worth . As if a Chamber-light should dare essay , To gloss the beauty of the day . He that thinks fully to describe it , dreams : You 're only seen by your own beams ▪ And only Eagle-eyes can bear that light ; Your strength and lustre blindes weak sight . Let pedants quarrel with th' light that detects Their belov'd vanities and defects . And let the Bat , assoon as day 's begun , Commence a suit against the Sun. Let reprehended Dogmatizers stamp ; And the scorch't Moore curse Heavens lamp : While nobler souls , that understand what 's writ , Are debtors to your strength and wit. You have remov'd the old Antipathy 'Tween Rhetorick , and Philosophy : And in your Book have cloath'd Socratick sense , In Demosthenian Eloquence . Yo 've smooth'd the Satyr , and the wanton have Reform'd and made Rhetorick grave . And since your Pen hath thus oblig'd them both , 'T is fit they club t' express your worth . H. Darsy , Esq To his Worthy Friend Mr. IOSEPH GLANVILL ; Upon the Vanity of DOGMATIZING in Philosophy , displayed in his Ingenious Book . NO controversies do me please , Unless they do contend for Peace : Nor scarce a demonstration , But such as yours ; which proves , there 's none . Doubful I liv'd , and doubtful die : Thus ΑΥΤΟΣ gave Ε'ΦΗ the lye ; And with his own more aged Criticks , Expung'd his Youthful Analyticks . To make my Shrift , that certain I Am only of Uncertainty ; Is no less glorious , then due , After the Stagirite and You : I am absolved , if the Hand Of great Apollo's Priest may stand . You have made Ignorance a Boast : Pride hath its ancient channel lost ; Like Arethusa , only found By those , that follow 't under ground ▪ Title your Book , The Works of MAN ; The Index of the Vatican : Call it Arts Encyclopaedy ; The Universal Pansophy ; The State of all the Questions , Since Peter Lumbard , solv'd at once ; Ignorance in a learned dress , Which Volumes teach , but not profess ; The Learning which all Ages knew , Being Epitomiz'd by you . You teach us doubting ; and no more Do Libraries turn'd o're and o're : Take up the Folio , that comes next , 'T will prove a Comment on your Text ; And the Quotation would be good , If BODLEY in your Margin stood . A. Borfet , M. A. TO HIS Ingenious Friend the Author , on his Vanity of DOGMATIZING . LEt vaunting Knowledge now strike sail , And unto modest Ign'rance vail . Our firmest Science ( when all 's done ) Is nought but bold Opinion . He that hath conquer'd every Art Th' Encyclopaedy all by heart ; Is but some few conjectures better Than he that cannot read a letter . If any certainty there be , 'T is this , that there 's no certaintie . Reason's a draught that do's display , And cast its aspects ev'ry way . It do's acknowledge no back parts , 'T is fac'd like Ianus : and regard's Opposite sides ; what one frowns on , T'other face sweetly smiles upon . Then may the Sciolist hereby Correct his Metoposcopy . Let him , e're censure reason , found And view her lineaments all round . And since that Science he has none , Let him with you his nescience owne . Weakness acknowledged is best : And imperfection when confest . Meek and unboasting Ignorance , Is but a single impotence : But when 't is clad in high profession , 'T is then a double imperfection . A silly Ape struttingly drest , Would but appear the greater jest . But your example teacheth us To become less ridiculous . He that would learn , but what you show , The narrow bounds of what men know : And would but take a serious view , Of the foundations with you : He 'd scarce his confidence adventure , On bottomes which are so unsure . In disquisitions first gust It would be Shipwrackt , sunk , and lost . P. H. READER , That the Author may not be accountable for more faults , then his own ; he desires thee to correct , or at least to take notice of these Typographical mistakes : some of which are less considerable , but others , if unobserv'd , may disturb the sense , and render the meaning less obvious : thou art therefore requested to exercise thine ingenuity , in pardoning the Printer ; and thy justice , in doing right to the Author . ERRATA . Page . line . read . 20. 5. unite . 22. 2. apprehenders . 24. 9. spirits . 25. 7. spontaneous . 27. 7. principles and. 28. 27. motions . 29. 21. conceive it . 41. 10. considerations . 42. 11. composition . 60. 6. makes . 67. 16. and our . 70. 12. of reason . 99. 25. mad , that . 102. 5. be what . 103. 26. of . 113. 9. cousenage . 129. 20. the world . 140. 1. the best . Books newly published . A perfect History of The Civil Warrs of Great Brittain and Ireland , by an Impartial pen , in folio . Britannia Baconica , or the Natural Rarities of England , Scotland and Wales , as they are to be found in every Shire , in octavo . The Vanity of DOGMATIZING ; OR , Confidence in Opinions . CHAP. I. A display of the Perfections of Innocence , with a conjecture at the manner of Adams knowledge , viz. that it was by the large extent of his Senses ; founded upon the supposition of the perfection of his Faculties , and induc'd from two Philosophick principles . OUr misery is not of yesterday , but as antient as the first Criminal , and the ignorance we are involved in , almost coaeval with the humane nature ; not that we were made so by our God , but our selves ; we were his creatures , sin and misery were ours . To make way for what follows , we will go to the root of our antient happiness , and now ruines , that we may discover both what the Man was , and what the Sinner is . The Eternal Wisdome having made that Creature whose crown it was to be like his Maker , enrich't him with those ennoblements which were worthy him that gave them , and made no less for the benefit of their receiver , then the glory of their Author . And as the Primogenial light , which at first was difused over the face of the unfashion'd Chaos , was afterwards by Divine appointment gathered into the Sun and Stars , and other lucid bodies , which shine with an underived lustre : so those scatter'd perfections which are divided among the several cantons of created beings , were as it were constellated and summ'd up in this Epitome of the greater World , MAN. His then blisful injoyments anticipated the aspires to be like GODS ; being in a condition not to be added to , as much as in desire ; and the unlikeness of it to our now miserable , because Apostate , state , makes it almost as impossible to be conceiv'd , as to be regain'd . A condition which was envied by creatures that nature had plac't a sphaere above us , and such as differ'd not much from glory , and blessed immortality , but in perpetuity and duration . For since the most despicable and disregarded pieces of decay'd nature , are so curiously wrought , and adorned with such eminent signatures of Divine wisdome , as speak it their Author , and that after a curse brought upon a disorder'd Universe ; what think we was done unto him whom the King delighted to honour ? and what was the portion of He●●ens Favorite , when Omniscience it self sat in Councel to furnish him with all those accomplishments which his specifick capacity could contain ? which questionless were as much above the Hyperbolies that fond Poetry bestowes upon its admired objects , as their flatter'd beauties are really below them . The most refined glories of subcoelestial excellencies are but more faint resemblances of these . For all the powers and faculties of this copy of the Divinity , this meddal of God , were as perfect as beauty and harmony in Idea . The soul was not clogg'd by the inactivity of its masse , as ours ; nor hindered in its actings , by the distemperature of indisposed organs . Passions kept their place , as servants of the higher powers , and durst not arrogate the Throne , as now : no countermands came hence , to repeal the decretals of the Regal faculties ; that Batrachomyomachia of one passion against an other , and both against reason , was yet unborn . Man was never at odds with himself , till he was at odds with the commands of his Maker . There was no jarring or disharmony in the faculties , till sin untun'd them . He could no sooner say to one power go , but it went , nor to another do this , but it did it . Even the senses , the Souls windows , were without any spot or opacity ; to liken them to the purest Crystal , were to debase them by the comparison ; for their acumen and strength depending on the delicacy and apt disposure of the organs and spirits , by which outward motions are conveyed to the judgement-seat of the Soul : those of Innocence must needs infinitely more transcend ours , then the senses of sprightful youth doth them of frozen decrepit age . Adam needed no Spectacles . The acuteness of his natural Opticks ( if conjecture may have credit ) shew'd him much of the Coelestial magnificence and bravery without a Galilaeo's tube : And 't is most probable that his naked eyes could reach near as much of the upper World , as we with all the advantages of art . It may be 't was as absurd even in the judgement of his senses , that the Sun and Stars should be so very much , less then this Globe , as the contrary seems in ours ; and 't is not unlikely that he had as clear a perception of the earths motion , as we think we have of its quiescence . Thus the accuracy of his knowledge of natural effects , might probably arise from his sensible perception of their causes . What the experiences of many ages will scarce afford us at this distance from perfection , his quicker senses could teach in a moment . And whereas we patch up a piece of Philosophy from a few industriously gather'd , and yet scarce well observ'd or digested experiments , his knowledge was compleatly built , upon the certain , extemporary notice of his comprehensive , unerring faculties . His sight could inform him whether the Loadstone doth attract by Atomical Effluviums ; which may gain the more credit by the consideration of what some affirm ; that by the help of Microscopes they have beheld the subtile streams issuing from the beloved Minerall . It may be he saw the motion of the bloud and spirits through the transparent skin , as we do the workings of those little industrious Animals through a hive of glasse . The Mysterious influence of the Moon , and its causality on the seas motion , was no question in his Philosophy , no more then a Clocks motion is in ours , where our senses may inform us of its cause . Sympathies and Antipathies were to him no occult qualities . Causes are hid in night and obscurity from us , which were all Sun to him . Now to shew the reasonableness of this Hypothesis , I 'le suppose what I think few will deny ; That God adorn'd that creature which was a transcript of himself , with all the perfections its capacity could bear . And that this great extent of the senses Horizon was a perfection easily competible to sinless humanity , will appear by the improvement of the two following principles . First , as far as the operation of nature reacheth , it works by corporeal instruments . If the Coelestial lights influence our Earth , and advance the Production of Minerals in their hidden beds , it is done by material communications . And if there be any virtue proceeding from the Pole , to direct the motion of the enamour'd steel ( however unobserv'd those secret influences may be ) they work not but by corporal Application . Secondly , Sense is made by motion , caus'd by bodily impression on the organ , and continued to the brain , and centre of perception . Hence it is manifest that all bodies are in themselves sensible , in as much as they can impress this motion , which is the immediate cause of sensation : And therefore , as in the former Principle , the most distant efficients working by a corporeal causality , if it be not perceiv'd , the non-perception must arise from the dulness and imperfection of the faculty , and not any defect in the object . So then , is it probable that the tenuous matter the instrument of remoter agents , should be able to move , and change the particles of the indisposed clay or steel , and yet not move the ductile easie senses of perfected man ? Indeed we perceive not such subtile insinuations , because their action is overcome by the strokes of stronger impressors , and we are so limited in our perceptions , that we can only attend to the more vigorous impulse : but this is an imperfection incident to our degraded natures , which infinite wisdom easily prevented in his innocent Master-piece : Upon such considerations , to me it appears to be most reasonable , that the circumference of our Protoplast's senses , should be the same with that of natures activity : unless we will derogate from his perfections , and so reflect a disparagement on him that made us . And I am the more perswaded of the concinnity of this notion , when I consider the uncouth harshness either of the way of actuall concreated knowledge , or of infant growing faculties ; neither of which methinks seem to be much favour'd by our severer reasons . Thus I have given a brief account of what might have been spun into Volumes ; a full description of such perfections cannot be given but by him that hath them ; an attainment which we shall never reach , till mortality be swallowed up of life . CHAP. II. Our Decay and Ruins by the fall , descanted on . Of the now Scantness of our Knowledge : with a censure of the Schoolmen , and Peripatetick Dogmatists . BUt 't is a miserable thing to have been happy : and a self-contracted wretchedness , is a double one . Had felicity alwayes been a stranger to humanity , our now misery had been none ; and had not our selves been the Authors of our ruines , less . We might have been made unhappy , but since we are miserable , we chose it . He that gave them , might have taken from us our extern injoyments , but none could have robb'd us of innocence but our selves . That we are below the Angels of God , is no misery , 't is the lot of our natures ; but that we have made our selves like the beasts that perish , is so with a witness , because the fruit of our sin . While man knew no sin , he was ignorant of nothing else , that it imported humanity to know : but when he had sinned , the same trangression that opened his eyes to see his own shame , shut them against most things else , but it , and his newly purchased misery . With the nakedness of his body , he saw that of his soul ; and the blindness , and disaray of his faculties , which his former innocence was a stranger to : and that that shew'd them him , made them . Whether our purer intellectuals , or only our impetuous affections , were the prime authors of the anomie , I dispute not : sin is as latent in its first cause , as visible in its effects ; and 't is the mercy of heaven that hath made it easier to know the cure , then the rise of our distempers . This is certain , that our masculine powers are deeply sharers of the consequential mischiefs , and though Eve were the first in the disobedience , yet was Adam a joint partaker of the curse . We are not now like the creatures we were made , and have not only lost our Makers image , but our own : And do not much more transcend the creatures , which God and nature have plac't at our feet , then we come short of our antient selves ; a proud affecting to be like Gods , hath made us unlike Men. For whereas our ennobled understandings could once take the wings of the morning , to visit the world above us , and had a glorious display of the highest form of created excellencies , it now lies groveling in this lower region , muffled up in mists , and darkness : the curse of the Serpent is fallen upon degenerated humanity , that it should go on its belly , and lick the dust . And as in the Cartesian hypothesis , the Planets sometimes lose their light , by the fixing of the impurer scum ; so our impaired intellectuals , which were once as pure light and flame in regard of their vigour and activity , are now darkned by those grosser spots , which our disobedience hath contracted . And our now overshadow'd souls ( to whose beauties stars were foils ) may be exactly emblem'd , by those crusted globes , whose influential emissions are intercepted , by the interposal of the benighting element , while the purer essence is imprison'd within the narrow compasse of a centre . For these once glorious lights , which did freely shed abroad their harmeless beams , and wanton'd in a larger circumference , are now pent up in a few first principles ( the naked essentials of our faculties ) within the straight confines of a Prison . And whereas knowledge dwelt in our undepraved natures , as light in the Sun , in as great plenty , as purity ; it is now hidden in us like sparks in a flint , both in scarcity , and obscurity . For considering the shortness of our intellectual sight , the deceptibility and impositions of our senses , the tumultuary disorders of our passions , the prejudices of our infant educations , and infinite such like ( of which an after oecasion will befriend us , with a more full and particular recital ) I say , by reason of these , we may conclude of the science of the most of men , truly so called , that it may be truss'd up in the same room with the Iliads , yea it may be all the certainty of those high pretenders to it , the voluminous Schoolmen , and Peripatetical Dictators , ( bating what they have of first Principles and the Word of God ) may be circumscrib'd by as small a circle , as the Creed , when Brachygraphy had confin'd it within the compass of a penny . And methinks the disputes of those assuming confidents , are like the controversie of those in Plato's den , who having never seen but the shadow of an horse trajected against a wall , eagerly contended , whether its neighing proceeded from the appearing Mane , or Tail , which they saw moving through the agitation of the substance , playing in the winde : so these in the darker cels of their imagin'd principles , violently differ about the shadowes and exuviae of beings , words , and notions , while for the most part they ignore the substantial realities ; and like children make babies , for their phancies to play with , while their useless subtilties afford but little intertain to the nobler faculties . But many of the most accomplish't wits of all ages , whose modesty would not allow them to boast of more then they were owners of , have resolv'd their knowledge into Socrates his summe total , and after all their pains in quest of Science , have sat down in a profest nescience . It is the shallow unimprov'd intellects that are the confident pretenders to certainty ; as if contrary to the Adage , Science had no friend but Ignorance . And though when they speak in the general of the weakness of our understandings , and the scantness of our knowledge , their discourse may even justifie Scepticism it self ; yet in their particular opinions are as assertive and dogmatical , as if they were omniscient . To such , as a curbe to confidence , and an evidence of humane infirmities even in the noblest parts of Man , I shall give the following instances of our intellectual blindness : not that I intend to poze them with those common Aenigma's of Magnetism , Fluxes , Refluxes and the like , these are resolv'd into a confest ignorance , and I shall not persue them to their old Asylum : and yet it may be there is more knowable in these , then in lesse acknowledg'd mysteries : But I 'le not move beyond our selves , and the most ordinary and trivial Phaenomena in nature , in which we shall finde enough to shame confidence , and unplume Dogmatizing . CHAP. III. Instances of our Ignorance propounded , ( 1 ) of things within our selves . The nature of the Soul , and its origine , glanc'd at and past by ; ( 1 ) It 's union with the body is unconceivable : So ( 2 ) is its moving the body , consider'd either in the way of Sir K. Digby , Des-Cartes , or Dr. H. More , and the Platonists . ( 3 ) The manner of direction of the Spirits , as unexplicable . IN the prosecution of our intendment wee 'll first instance in some things in the generall , which concern the soul in this state of terrestriall union ; and then speak more particularly to some faculties within us , a scientificall account of which mortality is unacquainted with . Secondly we intend to note some mysteries , which relate to matter and Body . And Thirdly to shew the unintelligible intricacy of some ordinary appearances . § 1. It 's a great question with some what the soul is . And unlesse their phancies may have a sight and sensible palpation of that more clarified subsistence , they will prefer infidelity , it self to an unimaginable Idea . I 'le onely mind such , that the soul is seen , as other things , in the Mirrour of its effects , and attributes : But , if like children they 'll run behind the glass to see its naked face , their expectation will meet with nothing but vacuity & emptiness . And though a pure Intellectual eye may have a sight of it in reflex discoveries ; yet , if we affect a grosser touch , like Ixiō we shal embrace a cloud . § 2. And it hath been no less a trouble to the world to determine whence it came , then what it is . Whether it were made by an immediate creation , or seminall traduction , hath been a Ball of contention to the most learned ages : And yet after all the bandying attempts of resolution it is as much a question as ever , and it may be will be so till it be concluded by immortality . Some ingenious ones think the difficulties , which are urged by each side against the other , to be pregnant proofs of the falshood of both ; and substitute an hypothesis , which for probability is supposed to have the advantage of either . But I shall not stir in the waters , which have been already mudded by so many contentious enquiries . The great St. Austin , and others of the gray heads of reverend Antiquity have been content to sit down here in a profest neutrality : And I 'le not industiously endeavour to urge men to a confession of what they freely acknowledge ; but shall note difficulties which are not so usually observ'd , but as insoluble as these . § 3. It is the saying of divine Plato , that Man is natures Horizon ; dividing betwixt the upper Hemisphere of immateriall intellects , and this lower of Corporeity : And that we are a Compound of beings distant in extreams , is as clear as Noon . But how the purer Spirit is united to this clod , is a knot too hard for fallen Humanity to unty . What cement should unite heaven and earth , light and darkness , natures of so divers a make , of such disagreeing attributes , which have almost nothing , but Being , in common ; This is a riddle , which must be left to the coming of Elias . How should a thought be united to a marble-statue , or a sun-beam to a lump of clay ! The freezing of the words in the air in the northern climes , is as conceivable , as this strange union . That this active spark , this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 [ as the Stoicks call it ] should be confined to a Prison it can so easily pervade , is of less facill apprehension , then that the light should be pent up in a box of Crystall , and kept from accompanying its source to the lower world : And to hang weights on the wings of the winde seems far more intelligible . In the unions , which we understand , the extreams are reconciled by interceding participations of natures , which have somewhat of either . But Body and Spirit stand at such a distance in their essentiall compositions , that to suppose an uniter of a middle constitution , that should partake of some of the qualities of both , is unwarranted by any of our faculties , yea most absonous to our reasons ; since there is not any the least affinity betwixt length , breadth and thickness , and apprehension , judgement and discourse : The former of which are the most immediate results [ if not essentials ] of Matter , the latter of Spirit . § 4. Secondly , We can as little give an account , how the Soul moves the Body . That , that should give motion to an unwieldy bulk , which it self hath neither bulk nor motion ; is of as difficil an apprehension , as any mystery in nature . For though conceiving it under some phancied appearance , and pinning on it materiall affections , the doubt doth not so sensibly touch us ; since under such conceptions we have the advantage of our senses to befriend us with parallels , and gross appre●henders may not think it any more strange , then that a Bullet should be moved by the rarified fire , or the clouds carryed before the invisible winds : yet if we defaecate the notion from materiality , and abstract quantity , locality and all kind of corporeity from it , and represent it to our thoughts either under the notion of the ingenious Sir K. Digby as a pure Mind and Knowledge , or as the admir'd Des-Cartes expresses it , une chose qui pense , as a thinking substance ; it will be as hard to apprehend , as that an empty wish should remove Mountains : a supposition which if realized , would relieve Sisyphus . Nor yet doth the ingenious hypothesis of the most excellent Cantabrigian Philosopher , of the souls being an extended penetrable substance , relieve us ; since , how that which penetrates all bodies without the least jog or obstruction , should impress a motion on any , is by his own confession alike inconceivable . Neither will its moving the Body by a vehicle of Spirits , avail us ; since they are Bodies too , though of a purer mould . And to credit the unintelligibility both of this union and motion , we need no more then to consider , that when we would conceiue any thing which is not obvious to our senses , we have recourse to our memories the store-house of past observations : and turning over the treasure that is there , seek for something of like kind , which hath formerly come within the notice of our outward or inward senses . So that we cannot conceive any thing , which comes not within the verge of our senses ; but either by like experiments which we have made , or at least by some remoter hints which we receive from them . And where such are wanting , I cannot apprehend how the thing can be conceived . If any think otherwise , let them carefully examine their thoughts : and , if they finde a determinate intellection of any Modes of Being , which were never in the least hinted to them by their externall or internall senses ; I 'le beleeve that such can realize Chimaera's . But now in the cases before us there are not the least footsteps , either of such an Union , or Motion , in the whole circumference of sensible nature : And we cannot apprehend any thing beyond the evidence of our faculties . § 5. Thirdly , How the soul directs the Spirits for the motion of the Body according to the several animal exigents ; is as perplex in the theory , as either of the former . For the meatus , or passages , through which those subtill emissaries are conveyed to the respective members , being so almost infinite , and each of them drawn through so many meanders , cross turnings , and divers roades , wherein other spirits are continually a journeying ; it is wonderfull , that they should exactly perform their regular destinations without losing their way in such a wilderness : neither can the wit of man tell how they are directed . For that they are carried by the manuduction of a Rule , is evident from the constant steddyness and regularity of their motion into the parts , where their supplies are expected : But , what that regulating efficiency should be , and how managed ; is not easily determin'd . That it is performed by meer Mechanisme , constant experience confutes ; which assureth us , that our sponta●●eous motions are under the Imperium of our will. At least the first determination of the Spirits into such or such passages , is from the soul , what ever we hold of the after conveyances ; of which likewise I think , that all the philosophy in the world cannot make it out to be purely Mechanicall . But yet though we gain this , that the soule is the principle of direction , the difficulty is as formidable as ever . For unless we allow it a kinde of inward sight of the Anatomicall frame of its owne body of every vein , muscle , and artery ; of the exact site , and position of them , with their severall windings , and secret chanels : it is as unconceivable how it should be the Directrix of such intricate motions , as that a blind man should manage a game at Chess . But this is a kinde of knowledge , that we are not in the least aware of : yea many times we are so far from an attention to the inward direction of the spirits , that our employ'd mindes observe not any method in the outward performance ; even when 't is manag'd by variety of interchangeable motions , in which a steady direction is difficult , and a miscariage easy . Thus an Artist will play a Lesson on an instrument without minding a stroke ; and our tongues will run divisions in a tune not missing a note , even when our thoughts are totally engaged elsewhere : which effects are to be attributed to some secret Art of the Soul , which to us is utterly occult , and without the ken of our Intellects . CHAP. IV. ( 4 ) We can give no account of the manner of Sensation : nor ( 5 ) of the nature of the Memory . It is consider'd according to the philosophy of Des-Cartes , Sir K. Digby , Aristotle and Mr. Hobbs , and all ineffectuall . Some other unexplicables mention'd . § 6. BUt besides those abstrusities , that lie more deep , and are of a more mysterious alloy ; we are at a loss for a scientificall account even of our Senses , the most knowable of our facultyes . Our eyes , that see other things , see not themselves : And those princip●●●● foundations of knowledge are themselvs unknown . That the soul is the sole Percipient , which alone hath animadversion and sense properly so called , and that the Body is only the receiver and conveyer of corporeall impressions , is as certain , as Philosophy can make it . Aristotle himself teacheth so much in that Maxime of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . And Plato credits this position with his suffrage ; affirming , that 't is the soul that hath life and sense , but the body neither . But this is so largly prosecuted by that wonder of men , the Great Des-Cartes , and is a Truth that shines so clear in the Eyes of all considering men ; that to goe about industriously to prove it , were to light a candle to seek the Sun : we 'll therefore suppose it , as that which needs not amuse us ; but yet , what are the instruments of sensible perceptions and particular conveyers of outward motions to the seat of sense , is difficult : and how the pure mind can receive information from that , which is not in the least like it self , and but little resembling what it represents ; I think inexplicable . Whether Sensation be made by corporall emissions and materiall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , or by motions imprest on the Aethereall matter , and carryed by the continuity thereof to the Common sense ; I 'le not revive into a Dispute : The ingenuity of the latter hath already given it almost an absolute victory over its Rivall . But suppose which we will , there are doubts not to be solv'd by either . For how the soule by mutation made in matter a substance of another kind , should be excited to action ; and how bodily alterations and motions should concern it , which is subject to neither ; is a difficulty which confidence may triumph over sooner , then conquer . For body connot act on any thing but by motion ; motion cannot be received but by quantative dimension ; the soul is astranger to such gross substantiality , and hath nothing of quantity , but what it is cloathed with by our deceived phancies ; and therefore how can we conceive under a passsive subjection to material impressions ? and yet the importunity of pain , and unavoydableness of sensations strongly perswade , that we are so . Some say , that the soul indeed is not passive under the materiall phantasms ; but doth only intuitively view them by the necessity of her Nature , and so observes other things in these there representatives . But how is it , and by what Art doth the soul read that such an image or stroke in matter [ whether that of her vehicle , or of the Brain , the case is the same ] signifies such an object ? Did we learn such an Alphabet in our Embryo-state ? And how comes it to pass , that we are not aware of any such congenite apprehensions ? We know what we know ; but do we know any more ? That by diversity of motions we should spell out figures , distances , magnitudes , colours , things not resembled by them ; we must attribute to some secret deduction . But what this deduction should be , or by what mediums this Knowledge is advanc'd ; is as dark , as Ignorance it self . One , that hath not the knowledge of Letters , may see the Figures ; but comprehends not the meaning included in them : An infant may hear the sounds , and see the motion of the lips ; but hath no conception conveyed by them , not knowing what they are intended to signify . So our souls , though they might have perceived the motions and images themselves by simple sense ; yet without some implicit inference it seems inconceivable , how by that means they should apprehend their Archetypes . Moreover images and motions are in the Brain in a very inconsiderable latitude of space ; and yet they represent the greatest magnitudes . The image of an Hemisphere of the upper Globe cannot be of a wider circumference , then a Wall-nut : And how can such petty impressions notifie such vastly expanded objects , but through some kind of Scientifical method , and Geometry in the Principle ? without this it is not conceivable how distances should be perceiv'd , but all objects would appear in a cluster , and lie in as narrow a room as their images take up in our scanter Craniums . Nor will the Philosophy of the most ingenious Des-Cartes help us out : For that striking upon divers filaments of the brain cannot well be supposed to represent their respective distances , except some such kind of Inference be allotted us in our faculties ; the concession of which will only steed us as a Refuge for Ignorance , where we shall meet , what we would seem to shun . § . 7. The Memory is a faculty whose nature is as obscure , and hath as much of Riddle in it as any of the former ; It seems to be an Organical Power , because bodily distempers often marr its Idea's , and cause a total oblivion : But what instruments the Soul useth in her review of past impressions , is a question which may drive Enquiry to despair . There are four principal Hypotheses by which a Resolution hath been attempted . The first that I 'le mention , is that of the incomparable Des-Cartes , who gives this account : The Glandula pinealis , by him made the seat of Common Sense , doth by its motion impel the Spirits into divers parts of the Brain ; till it find those wherein are some tracks of the object we would remember ; which consists in this , viz. That the Pores of the Brain , through the which the Spirits before took their course , are more easily opened to the Spirits which demand re-entrance ; so that finding those pores , they make their way through them sooner then through others : whence there ariseth a special motion in the Glandula , which signifies this to be the object we would remember . A second is , that of the ingenious Sir K. Digby , a summary of which is , That things are reserved in the memory by some corporeal exuviae and material Images ; which having impinged on the Common sense , rebound thence into some vacant cells of the Brain , where they keep their ranks and postures in the same order that they entred , till they are again stirr'd up ; and then they slide through the Fancy , as when they were first presented . These are the endeavours of those two Grand Sages , then whom it may be the Sun never saw a more learned pair . And yet as a sad evidence of the infirmities of laps'd humanity : these great Sophi fail here of their wonted success in unridling Nature . And I think Favour it self can say no more of either Hypothesis , then that they are ingenious attempts . Nor do I speak this to derogate from the Grandeur of their Wits us'd to Victory : I should rather confer what I could to the erecting of such Trophies to them , as might eternize their Memories . And their coming short here , I think not to be from defect of their personal abilities , but specifick constitution ; and the doubt they leave us in , proceeds from hence , that they were no more then men . I shall consider what is mentioned from them apart , before I come to the other two : And what I am here about to produce , is not to argue either of these Positions of Falseness ; but of Unconceiveableness . In the general , what hath been urg'd under the former head , stands in full force against both these , and them that follow . But to the first ; If Memory be made by the easie motion of the Spirits through the opened passages , according to what hath been noted from Des-Cartes ; whence have we a distinct Remembrance of such diversity of Objects , whose Images without doubt pass through the same apertures ? And how should we recall the distances of Bodies which lye in a line ? Or , is it not likely , that the impell'd Spirits might light upon other Pores accommodated to their purpose through the Motion of other Bodies through them ? Yea , in such a pervious substance as the Brain , they might finde an easie either entrance , or exit , almost every where ; and therefore to shake every grain of corn through the same holes of a Sieve in repeated winnowings , is as easie to be performed as this to be conckived . Besides , it 's difficult to apprehend , but that these avennues should in a very short time be stopped up by the pressure of other parts of the matter , through its natural gravity , or other alterations made in the Brain : And the opening of other vicine passages might quickly obliterate any tracks of these : as the making of one hole in the yeelding mud , defaces the print of another near it ; at least the accession of enlargement , which was derived from such transitions , would be as soon lost , as made . But for the second , How is it imaginable , that those active particles , which have no cement to unite them , nothing to keep them in the order they were set , yea , which are ever and anon justled by the occursion of other bodies , whereof there is an infinite store in this Repository , should so orderly keep their Cells without any alteration of their site or posture , which at first was allotted them ? And how is it conceivable , but that carelesly turning over the Idea's of our mind to recover something we would remember , we should put all the other Images into a disorderly floating , and so raise a little Chaos of confusion , where Nature requires the exactest order . According to this account , I cannot see , but that our Memories would be more confused then our Mid-night compositions : For is it likely , that the divided Atomes which presented themselves together , should keep the same ranks in such a variety of tumultuary agitations , as happen in that liquid Medium ? An heap of Ants on an Hillock will more easily be kept to an uniformity in motion ; and the little bodies which are incessantly playing up and down the Air in their careless postures , are as capable of Regularity as these . Much more m●ght be added , but I intend only a touch . But a Third way , that hath been attempted , is that of Aristotle , which says , that Objects are conserved in the Memory by certain intentional Species , Beings , which have nothing of Matter in their Essential Constitution , but yet have a necessary subjective dependence on it , whence they are called Material . To this briefly . Besides that these Species are made a Medium between Body and Spirit , and therefore partake of no more of Being , then what the charity of our Imaginations affords them ; and that the supposition infers a creative energie in the object their producent , which Philosophy allows not to Creature-Efficients : I say , beside these , it is quite against their nature to subsist , but in the presence and under the actual influence of their cause ; as being produc'd by an Emanative Causality , the Effects whereof dye in the removal of their Origine . But this superannuated conceit deserves no more of our remembrance , then it contributes to the apprehension of it . And therefore I pass on to the last . Which is that of Mr. Hobbs , that Memory is nothing else but the knowledge of decaying Sense , which is made by the reaction of one body against another ; or , as he expresses it in his Humane Nature , a Missing of Parts in an Object . The foundation of this Principle [ as of many of its fellows ] is totally evers't by the most ingenious Commentator upon Immaterial Beings , Dr. H. More in his book Of Immortality . I shall therefore leave that cause in the hands of that most learned undertaker , and only observe two things to my present purpose . ( 1 ) . Neither the Brain , nor Spirits , nor any other material substance within the Head can for any considerable space of time conserve motion . The former is of such a clammy consistence , that it can no more retain it then a Quagmire : And the spirits for their liquidity are more uncapable then the fluid Medium , which is the conveyer of Sounds , to persevere in the continued repetition of vocal Airs . And if there were any other substance within us , as fitly temper'd to preserve motion , as the Author of the opinion could desire : Yet ( 2. ) which will equally press against either of the former , this motion would be quickly deadned even to an utter cessation , by counter-motions ; and we should not remember any thing , but till the next impression . Much less can this Principle give an account , how such an abundance of motions should orderly succeed one another , as things do in our memories : And to remember a soug or tune , it will be required , that our Souls be an Harmony more then in a Metaphor● continually running over in a silent whisper those Musical accents which our retentive faculty is preserver of . Which could we suppose in a single Instance ; yet a multitude of Musical Consonancies would be as impossible , as to play a thousand tunes on a Lute at once . One motion would cross and destroy another ; all would be clashing and discord : And the Musicians Soul would be the most disharmonious : For according to the tenour of this opinion , our memories will be stored with infinite variety of divers , yea contrary motions , which must needs interfere , thwart , and obstruct on another : and there would be nothing within us , but Ataxy and disorder . § . 8. Much more might be added of the difficulties , which occurr touching the Understanding , Phancy , Will , and Affections . But the Controversies hereabout , are so hotly manag'd by the divided Schools , and so voluminously every where handled ; that it will be thought better to say nothing of them , then a little . The sole difficulties about the Will , its nature , and sequency to the Understanding , &c. have almost quite baffled inquiry , and shewn us little else , but that our Understandings are as blind as it is . And the grand question depending hereon , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ; I think will not be ended , but by the final abolition of its object . They , that would lose their Knowledge here , let them diligently inquire after it . Search will discover that Ignorance , which is as invincible , as its Cause . These Controversies , like some Rivers , the further they run , the more they are hid . And I think a less account is given of them now , then some Centuries past ; when they were a subject of debate to the pious Fathers . CHAP. V. How our Bodies are form'd unexplicable . The Plastick signifies nothing ; the Formation of Plants , and Animals unknown , in their Principle . Mechanisme solves it not . A new way propounded , which also fails of satisfaction . ( 2. ) No account is yet given how the parts of Matter are united . Some Considerations on Des-Cartes his Hypothesis , it fails of Solution . ( 3. ) The Question is unanswerable , whether Matter be compounded of Divisibles , or Indivisibles . THerefore we 'l pass on to the next , the consideration of our Bodies , which though we see , and feel , and continually converse with ; yet its constitution , and inward frame is an America , a yet undiscovered Region . The saying of the Kingly Prophet , I am wonderfully made , may well be understood of that admiration , which is the Daughter of Ignorance . And with reverence it may be applyed , that in seeing we see , and understand not . Three things I 'le subjoyn concerning this Sensible matter , the other part of our compositoin . § . 1. That our bodies are made according to the most curious Artifice , and orderly contrivance , cannot be denyed even by them , who are least beholden to Nature . The elegance of this composure , sav'd the great Aesculapius , Galen , from a profest Atheism . And I cannot think that the branded Epicurus , Lucretius , and their fellows were in earnest , when they resolv'd this composition into a fortuitous range of Atoms . To suppose a Watch , or any other the most curious Automaton by the blind hits of Chance , to perform diversity of orderly motions , to indicate the hour , day of the Moneth , Tides , age of the Moon , and the like , with an unparallel'd exactness , and all without the regulation of Art , this were the more pardonable absurdity . And that this admirable Engine of our Bodies , whose functions are carryed on by such a multitude of parts , and motions , which neither interfere , nor impede one another in their operations ; but by an harmonious Sympathy promote the perfection and good of the whole : That this should be an undesign'd effect , is an assertion , that is more then Melancholies Hyperbole . I say therefore , that if we do but consider this Fabrick with minds unpossest of an affected madness ; we will easily grant , that it was some skilful Archeus who delineated those comely proportions , and hath exprest such exactly Geometrical elegancies in its compositions . But what this hidden Architect should be , and by what instruments and art this frame is erected ; is as unknown to us , as our Embryo-thoughts . The Plastick faculty is a fine word : But what it is , how it works , and whose it is , we cannot learn ; no , not by a return into the Womb ; neither will the Platonick Principles unriddle the doubt : For though the Soul be supposed to be the Bodies Maker , and the builder of its own house ; yet by what kind of Knowledge , Method , or Means , is as unknown : and that we should have a knowledge which we know not of , is an assertion , which some say , hath no commission from our Faculties . The Great Des-Cartes will allow it to be no better , then a downright absurdity . But yet should we suppose it , it would be evidence enough of what we aim at . Nor is the composition of our Bodies the only wonder : we are as much non-plust by the most contemptible Worm , and Plant , we tread on . How is a drop of Dew organiz'd into an Insect , or a lump of Clay into animal Perfections ? How are the Glories of the Field spun , and by what Pencil are they limn'd in their unaffected bravery ? By whose direction is the nutriment so regularly distributed unto the respective parts , and how are they kept to their specifick uniformities ? If we attempt Mechanical solutions , we shall never give an account , why the Wood-cock doth not sometimes borrow colours of the Mag-pye , why the Lilly doth not exchange with the Daysie , or why it is not sometime painted with a blush of the Rose ? Can unguided matter keep it self to such exact conformities , as not in the least spot to vary from the species ? That divers Limners at a distance without either copy , or designe , should draw the same Picture to an undistinguishable exactness , both in form , colour , and features ; this is more conceivable , then that matter , which is so diversified both in quantity , quality , motion , site , and infinite other circumstances , should frame it self so absolutely according to the Idea of its kind . And though the fury of that Apelles , who threw his Pencil in a desperate rage upon the Picture he had essayed to draw , once casually effected those lively representations , which his Art could not describe ; yet 't is not likely , that one of a thousand such praecipitancies should be crowned with so an unexpected an issue . For though blind matter might reach some elegancies in individual effects ; yet specifick conformities can be no unadvised productions , but in greatest likelyhood , are regulated by the immediate efficiency of some knowing agent : which whether it be seminal Forms , according to the Platonical Principles , or what ever else we please to suppose ; the manner of its working is to us unknown ▪ or if these effects are meerly Mechanical ; yet to learn the method of such operations may be , and hath indeed been ingeniously attempted ; but I think cannot be performed to the satisfaction of severer examination . That all bodies both Animal , Vegetable , and Inanimate , are form'd out of such particles of matter , which by reason of their figures , will not cohaere or lie together , but in such an order as is necessary to such a specifical formation , and that therein they naturally of themselves concurre , and reside , is a pretty conceit , and there are experiments that credit it . If after a decoction of hearbs in a Winter-night , we expose the liquor to the frigid air ; we may observe in the morning under a crust of Ice , the perfect appearance both in figure , and colour , of the Plants that were taken from it . But if we break the aqueous Crystal , those pretty images dis-appear and are presently dissolved . Now these airy Vegetables are presumed to have been made , by the reliques of these plantal emissions whose avolation was prevented by the condensed inclosure . And therefore playing up and down for a while within their liquid prison , they at last settle together in their natural order , and the Atomes of each part finding out their proper place , at length rest in their methodical Situation , till by breaking the Ice they are disturbed , and those counterfeit compositions are scatter'd into their first Indivisibles . This Hypothesis may yet seem to receive further confirmation , from the artificial resurrection of Plants from their ashes , which Chymists are so well acquainted with : And besides , that Salt dissolved upon fixation returns to its affected cubes , the regular figures of Minerals , as the Hexagonal of Crystal , the Hemi-sphaerical of the Fairy-stone , the stellar figure of the stone Asteria , and such like , seem to look with probability upon this way of formation . And I must needs say 't is handsomly conjectur'd . But yet what those figures are , that should be thus mechanically adapted , to fall so unerringly into regular compositions , is beyond our faculties to conceive , or determine . And how those heterogeneous atomes ( for such their figures are supposed ) should by themselves hit so exactly into their proper residence in the midst of such tumultuary motions , cross thwartings , and arietations of other particles , especially when for one way of hitting right , there are thousands of missing ; there 's no Hypothesis yet extant can resolve us . And yet had heaven afforded that miracle of men , the Illustrious Des-Cartes a longer day on earth , we might have expected the utmost of what ingenuity could perform herein : but his immature Fate hath unhappily disappointed us ; and prevented the most desirable Complement of his not to be equall'd Philosophy . § . 2. ( 2. ) It 's no less difficult to give an account , how the Parts of the Matter of our Bodies are united : For though superficial Enquirers may easily satisfie themselves by answering , that it is done by muscles , nerves , and other like strings and ligaments , which Nature hath destin'd to that office ; yet , if we seek for an account how the parts of these do cohere , we shall find the cause to be as latent , as the effect of easie discovery . Nothing with any shew of success hath yet appeared on the Philosophick Stage , but the opinion of Des-Cartes ; that the Parts of Matter are united by Rest. Neither can I conceive , how any thing can be substituted in its room , more congruous to reason ; since Rest is most opposite to Motion , the immediate cause of disunion . But yet I cannot see , how this can satisfie , touching the almost indissolvible coherence of some bodies , and the fragility and solubility of others : For if the Union of the Parts consist only in Rest ; it would seem that a bagg of dust would be of as firm a consistence as that of Marble or Adamant : a Bar of Iron will be as easily broken as a Tobacco-pipe ; and Bajazets Cage had been but a sorry Prison . The Aegyptian Pyramids would have been sooner lost , then the Names of them that built them ; and as easily blown away , as those inverst ones of smoke . If it be pretended for a difference , that the parts of solid bodies are held together by hooks , and angulous involutions ; I say , this comes not home : For the coherence of the parts of these hooks [ as hath been noted ] will be of as difficult a conception , as the former : And we must either suppose an infinite of them holding together on one another ; or at last come to parts , that are united by a meer juxta-position : Yea , could we suppose the former , yet the coherence of these , would be like the hanging together of an infinite such of Dust : which Hypothesis would spoil the Proverb , and a rope of sand , should be no more a phrase for Labour in vain : For unless there be something , upon which all the rest may depend for their cohesion ; the hanging of one by another , will signifie no more then the mutual dependence of causes and effects in an infinite Series , without a First : the admission of which , Atheism would applaud . But yet to do the Master of Mechanicks right ; somewhat of more validity in the behalf of this Hypothesis may be assign'd : Which is , that the closeness and compactness of the Parts resting together , doth much confer to the strength of the union : For every thing continues in the condition , wherein it is , except something more powerful alter it : And therefore the parts , that rest close together , must continue in the same relation to each other , till some other body by motion disjoyn them . Now then , the more parts there are pen't together , the more able they will be for resistence ; and what hath less compactness , and by consequence fewer parts , according to the laws of motion will not be able to effect any alteration in it . According to what is here presented , what is most dense , and least porous , will be most coherent , and least discerpible . And if this help not , I cannot apprehend what can give an account of the former instances . And yet even this is confuted by experience ; since the most porous , spongy bodies are oft-times the most tough in consistence . 'T is easier to break a tube of Glass or Crystal , then of Elm or Ash : And yet as the parts of the former are more , so they are more at rest ; since the liquid juyce , which is diffused through the parts of the Wood , is in a continual agitation , which in Des-Cartes his Philosophy is the cause of fluidity ; and a proportion'd humidity conferr's much to union [ Sir K. Digby makes it the Cement it self ] ; a dry stick will be easily broken , when a green one will maintain a strong resistence : and yet in the moist substance there is less rest , then in what is , dryer and more fragill . Much more might be added : But I 'le content my self with what 's mentioned ; and , notwithstanding what hath been said , I judge this account of that most miraculous wit to be the most ingenuous and rational , that hath or [ it may be ] can be given . I shall not therefore conclude it false ; though I think the emergent difficulties , which are its attendants , unanswerable : which is proof enough of the weakness of our now Reasons , which are driven to such straights and puzzles even in things which are most obvious , and have so much the advantage of our faculties . § . 3. The composition of bodies , whether it be of Divisibles or Indivisibles , is a question which must be rank'd with the Indissolvibles : For though it hath been attempted by the most illustrious Wits of all Philosophick Ages ; yet they have done little else , but shewn their own divisions to be almost as infinite , as some suppose those of their Subject . And notwithstanding all their shifts , subtilties , newly invented Words and Modes , sly subterfuges , and studyed evasions ; yet the product of all their endeavours , is but as the Birth of the labouring Mountains , Wind and Emptiness . Do what they can ; Actual Infinite extension every where , Equality of all bodies , Impossibility of Motion , and a world more of the most palpable absurdities will press the assertors of infinite divisibility . Neither can it be avoided , but that all motions would be equal in velocity , the lines drawn from side to side in a Pyramid , may have more parts then the Basis , all bodies would be swallow'd up in a point , and endless more inconsistences , will be as necessarily consequential to the opinion of Indivisibles . But intending only to instance in difficulties , which are not so much taken notice of ; I shall refer the Reader , that would see more of this , to Oviedo , Pontius , Ariaga , Carelton , and other Iesuites : whose management of this subject with equal force on either side , is a strong presumption of what we drive at . CHAP. VI. Difficulties about the Motion of a Wheel , which admit of no Solution . BEsides the already mention'd difficulties , even the most ordinary trivial occurrents , if we contemplate them in the Theory , will as much puzzle us , as any of the former . Under this head I 'le add three rhings touching the Motion of a wheel , and conclude this . § . 1. And first , if we abstractly consider it , it seems impossible that a wheel should move : I mean not the progressive , but that Motion which is meerly on its own Centre . And were it not for the information of Experience , it 's most likely that Philosophy had long ago concluded it impossible : For let 's suppose the wheel to be divided according to the Alphabet . Now in motion there is a change of place , and in the motion of a wheel there is a succession of one part to another in the same place ; so that it seems unconceivable that A. should move until B. hath left its place : For A. cannot move , but it must acquire some place or other . It can acquire none but what was B's , which we suppose to be most immediate to it . The same space cannot contain them both . And therefore B. must leave its place , before A. can have it ; Yea , and the nature of succession requires it . But now B. cannot move , but into the place of C ; and C. must be out , before B. can come in : so that the motion of C. will be pre-required likewise to the motion of A ; & so onward till it comes to Z. Upon the same accounts Z. will not be able to move , till A. moves , being the part next to it : neither will A. be able to move [ as hath been shown ] till Z. hath . And so the motion of every part will be pre-requir'd to it self . Neither can one evade , by saying , that all the parts move at once . For ( 1. ) we cannot conceive in a succession but that something should be first , and that motion should begin somewhere . ( 2. ) If the parts may all change places with one another at the same time without any respect of priority , and posteriority to each others motion : why then may not a company of Bullets closely crowded together in a Box , as well move together by a like mutual and simultaneous exchange ? Doubtless the reason of this ineptitude to motion in this position is , that they cannot give way one to another , and motion can no where begin because of the plenitude . The case is just the same in the instance before us ; and therefore we need go no further for an evidence of its inconceivableness . But yet to give it one touch more according to the Peripatetick niceness , which says , that one part enters in the same instant that the other goes out : I 'le add this in brief : In the instant that B. leaves its place , it 's in it , or not : If so ; then A. cannot be in it in the same instant without quantative penetration . If not ; then it cannot be said to leave it in that instant , but to have left it before . These difficulties , which pinch so in this obvious experiment , stand in their full force against all Motion on the Hypothesis of absolute plenitude . Nor yet have the Defenders hereof need to take notice of them , because they equally press a most sensible Truth . Neither is it fair , that the opposite opinion of interspers'd vacuities should be rejected as absurd upon the account of some inextricable perplexities which attend it . Therefore let them both have fair play ; and which soever doth with most ease and congruity solve the Phaenomena , that shall have my vote for the most Philosophick Hypothesis . § . 2. It 's a difficulty no less desperate then the former , that the parts vicine to the centre , which it may be pass not over the hundredth part of space which those do of the extreme circumference , should describe their narrower circle but in equal time with those other , that trace so great a round . If they move but in the same degree of Velocity ; here is then an equality in time and motion , and yet a vast inequality in the acquired space . A thing which seems flatly impossible : For is it conceivable , that of two bodies setting forth together , and continuing their motion in the same swiftness , the one should so far out-go its fellow , as to move ten mile an hour , while the other moves but a furlong ? If so , 't will be no wonder , that the race is not to the swift , and the furthest way about may well be the nearest way home . There is but one way that can be attempted to untie this knot ; which is , by saying , that the remoter and more out-side parts move more swiftly then the central ones . But this likewise is as unconceivable as what it would avoid : For suppose a right line drawn from the centre to the circumference , and it cannot be apprehended , but that the line should be inflected , if some parts of it move faster then others . I say if we do abstractedly from experience contemplate it in the theory , it is hard to conceive , but that one part moving , while the other rests , or at least moves slower ( which is as rest to a swifter motion ) should change its distance from it , and the respect , which it had to it ; which one would think should cause an incurvation in the line . § . 3. I 'le add only this one , which is an experiment that may for ever silence the most daring confidence . Let there be two wheels fixt on the same Axel in Diameter ten inches a piece . Between them let there be a little wheel , of two inches Diameter , fixed on the same Axel . Let them be moved together on a plane , the great ones on the ground suppose , and the little one on a Table [ for because of its parvitude it cannot reach to the same floor with them ] And you 'l find that the little wheel will move over the same space in equal time with equal circulations , with the great ones , and describe as long a line . Now this seems bigg of repugnancies , though Sense it self suffragate to its truth : For since every part of the greater wheels makes a proportionable part of the line , as do the parts of the little one , and the parts of those so much exceeding in multitude the parts of this : It will seem necessary that the line made by the greater wheels should have as many parts more then the line made by the less , as the wheels themselves have in circumference , and so the line would be as much longer as the wheels are bigger : so that one of these absurdities is unavoidable , either that more parts of the greater wheels go to the making one part of their lines , which will inferr a quantitative penetration ; or that the little wheel hath as many parts as the great ones , though five times in Diameter exceeded by them , since the lines they describe are of equal length ; or the less wheel's line will have fewer parts then the others , though of equal extent with them , since it can have no more parts then the less circle , nor they fewer then the greater . But these are all such repugnancies , as that Melancholy it self would scarse own them . And therefore we may well enter this among the unconceivables . Should I have enlarged on this Subject to the taking in of all things that claim a share in 't , it may be few things would have been left unspoken to , but the Creed . Philosophy would not have engross'd our Pen , but we must have been forced to anger the Intelligences of higher Orbs. But intending only a glance at this rugged Theam , I shall forbear to insist more on it , though the consideration of the Mysteries of Motion , Gravity , Light , Colours , Vision , Sound , and infinite such like [ things obvious , yet unknown ] might have been plentiful subject . I come now to trace some of the causes of our Ignorance and Intellectual weakness : and among so many it 's almost as great a wonder as any of the former ; that we can say , we know . CHAP. VII . Mens backwardness to acknowledge their own Ignorance and Error , though ready to find them in others . The ( i ) cause of the Shortness of our Knowledge , viz. the depth of Verity discours't of , as of its admixtion in mens Opinions with falsehood , and the connexion of truths , and their mutual dependence : A second Reason of the shortness of our Knowledge , viz. because we can perceive nothing but by proportion to our Senses . THe Disease of our Intellectuals is too great , not to be its own Diagnostick : And they that feel it not , are not less sick , but stupidly so . The weakness of humane understanding , all will confess : yet the confidence of most in their own reasonings , practically disowns it : And 't is easier to perswade them it from others lapses then their own ; so that while all complain of our Ignorance and Error , every one exempts himself . It is acknowledged by all , while every one denies it . If the foregoing part of this Discourse , have not universally concluded our weakness : I have one Item more of my own . If Knowledge can be found in the Particulars mention'd ; I must lose that , which I thought I had , That there is none . But however , though some should pick a quarrel with the instances I alleadged ; yet the conclusion must be owned in others . And therefore beside the general reason I gave of our intellectual disabilities , The Fall ; it will be worth our labour to descend to a more particular account : since it is a good degree of Knowledge to be acquainted with the causes of our Ignorance . And what we have to say under this head , will be comprehensive both of the causes of that , and ( which are the effects thereof ) of our misapprehensions and Errours . § . 1. And first , one cause of the little we know may be , that Knowledge lies deep , and is therefore difficult ; and so not the acquist of every careless Inquirer . Democritus his Well hath a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , and Truth floats not . The useless froth swims on the surface ; but the Pearl lies cover'd with a mass of Waters . Verisimilitude and Opinion are an easie purchase ; and these counterfeits are all the Vulgars treasure : But true Knowledge is as dear in acquisition , as rare in possession . Truth , like a point or line , requires an acuteness and intention to its discovery ; while verisimility , like the expanded superficies , is an obvious sensible on either hand , and affords a large and easie field for loose enquiry . And 't is the more difficult to find out Verity , because it is in such inconsiderable proportions scattered in a mass of opinionative uncertainty ; like the Silver in Hiero's Crown of Gold : And it is no easie piece of Chymistry to reduce them to their unmixed selves . The Elements are no where pure in these lower Regions ; and if there is any free from the admixtion of another , sure 't is above the concave of the Moon : Neither can any boast of a knowledge , which is depurate from the defilement of a contrary , within this Atmosphear of flesh ; it dwels no where in unblended proportions , on this side the Empyreum . All Opinions have their Truth , and all have what is not so ; and to say all are true and none , is no absurdity . So that to crown our selfs with sparks , which are almost lost in such a world of heterogeneous natures , is as difficult as desirable . Besides , Truth is never alone ; to know one will require the knowledge of many . They hang together in a chain of mutual dependence ; you cannot draw one link without many others . Such an Harmony cannot commence from a single string ; diversity of strokes makes it . The beauty of a Face is not known by the Eye , or Nose ; it consists in a symmetry , and 't is the comparative faculty which votes it : Thus is Truth relative , and little considerable can be attain'd by catches . The Painter cannot transcribe a face upon a Transient view ; it requires the information of a fixt and observant Eye : And before we can reach an exact sight of Truth 's uniform perfections , this fleeting Transitory our Life , is gone . Thus we see the face of Truth , but as we do one anothers , when we walk the streets , in a careless Pass-by : And the most diligent observers , view but the back-side o' th' Hangings ; the right one is o' th' other side the Grave : so that our Knowledge is but like those broken ends , at best a most confused adumbration . Nature , that was veil'd to Aristotle , hath not yet uncover'd , in almost two thousand years . What he sought on the other side of Euripus , we must not look for on this side Immortality . In easie disquisitions we are often left to the uncertainty of a guess : yea after we have triumph'd in a supposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ; a new-sprung difficulty marrs our Ovations , and exposeth us to the Torment of a disappointment : so that even the great Master of Dogmatists himself concludes the Scene with an Anxius vixi , Dubius morior . § . 2. Another reason of our ignorance and the narrowness of our apprehensions may arise hence ; That we cannot perceive the manner of any of Natures operations , but by proportion to our senses , and a return to material phantasms . A blind man cannot conceive colours , but either as some audible , gustable , odoriferous , or tactile qualities ; and when he would imagine them , he hath questionless recourse to some of these , in an account of which his other senses befriend him . Thus more perfect apprehenders misconceive Immaterials : Our imaginations paint Souls and Angels in as dissimilar a resemblance . Thus had there not been any night , shadow , or opacity ; we should never have had any determinate conceit of Darkness ; That would have been as inconceiveable to us , as its contrary is to him that never saw it . But now our senses being scant and limited , and Natures operations subtil and various ; they must needs transcend , and out-run our faculties . They are only Natures grosser wayes of working , which are sensible ; Her finer threads are out of the reach of our feeble Percipient , yea questionless she hath many hidden Energies , no wayes imitated in her obvious peices : and therefore it is no wonder that we are so often at a loss ; an infirmity beyond prevention , except we could step by step follow the tracks and methods of Infinite Wisdom , which cannot be done but by him that owns it . CHAP. VIII . A third reason of our Ignorance and Error , viz. the impostures and deceits of our Senses . The way to rectifie these mis-informations propounded . Des-Cartes his method the only way to Science . The difficulty of exact performance . § . 3. ANother reason is the Imposture and fallacy of our Senses , which impose not only on common Heads , who scarce at all live to the higher Principle ; But even more refined Mercuries , who have the advantages of an improved reason to disabuse them , are yet frequently captivated to these deceiving Prepossessions : appealing to a Judicature both uncommissioned and unjust ; and when the clearest Truth is to be tryed by such Judges , its innocence will not secure it from the condemning award of that unintelligent Tribunal : For since we live the life of Brutes , before we grow into Man ; and our Understandings in this their Non-age , being almost meerly Passive to sensible Impressions , receiving all things in an uncontroverted and promiscuous admission : It cannot be , that our Knowledge should be other , then an heap of Mis-conception and Error , and conceits as impertinent as the toys we delight in . All this while , we have no more ●o reason , then the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 [ as Plotinus cals it ] amounts to . And besides this our easie submission to the sophistications of sense , and inability to prevent the miscarriages of our Iunior Reasons ; that which strikes the great stroke toward our after-deceptions , is the pertinacious adherence of many of these first Impressions to our Graduate Understandings . That which is early received , if in any considerable strength of Impress , as it were grows into our tender natures , and is therefore of difficult remove . Thus a fright in Minority , or an Antipathy then contracted , is not worn out but with its subject . And it may be more then a Story , that Nero derived much of his cruelty from the Nurse that suckled him . Now though our coming Judgments do in part undeceive us , and rectifie the grosser Errors which our unwary Sensitive hath engaged us in ; yet others are so flesht in us , that they maintain their interest upon the deceptibility of our decayed Natures , and are cherish't there , as the legitimate issues of our reasonable faculties . Indeed Sense it self detects its more palpable deceits , by a counter-evidence ; and the more ordinary Impostures seldom out-live the first Experiments . If our sight represent a Staff as crooked in the water ; the same faculty rectifies both it , and us , in the thinner Element . And if a square Tower seem round at a distance ; the eye , which mistook in the circumstance of its figure , at that remove , corrects the mistake in a due approach : Yea , and befriends those who have learn'd to make the advantage of its informations , in more remote and difficil discoveries . And though his Sense occasion the careless Rustick to judge the Sun no bigger then a Cheese-fat ; yet sense too by a frugal improvement of its evidence , grounds the Astronomers knowledge , that it 's bigger then this Globe of Earth and Water . Which it doth not only by the advantageous assistance of a Tube , but by less industrious experiments , shewing in what degrees Distance minorates the Object . But yet in inifinite other cases , wherein sense can afford none , or but very little help to dis-intangle us ; our first deceptions lose no ground , but rather improve in our riper years : so that we are not weaned from our child-hood , till we return to our second Infancy ; and even our Gray heads out-grow not those Errors , which we have learn't before the Alphabet . Thus our Reasons being inoculated on Sense , will retain a rellish of the stock they grow upon : And if we would endeavour after an unmixed Knowledge ; we must unlive our former lives , and ( inverting the practise of Penelope ) undo in the day of our more advanc'd understandings , what we had spun in the night of our Infant-ignorance . He that would rebuild a decayed structure , must first pluck down the former ruines . A fabrick , though high and beautiful , if founded on rubbish , is easily made the triumph of the winds : And the most pompous seeming Knowledge , that 's built on the unexamin'd prejudices of Sense , stands not , but till the storm arise ; the next strong encounter discovers its weakness , in a shameful overthrow . And now since a great part of our scientifical Treasure is most likely to be adulterate , though all bears the image and superscription of Verity ; the only way to know what is sophisticate , and what is not so , is to bring all to the Examen of the Touchstone : For the prepossessions of sense having ( as is shewen ) so mingled themselves with our Genuine Truths , and being as plausible to appearance as they ; we cannot gain a true assurance of any , but by suspending our assent from all , till the deserts of each , discover'd by a strict enquiry , claim it . Upon this account I think the method of the most excellent Des-Cartes not unworthy its Author ; and ( since Dogmatical Ignorance will call it so ) a Scepticism , that 's the only way to Science . But yet this is so difficult in the impartial and exact performance , that it may be well reckon'd among the bare Possibilities , which never commence into a Futurity : It requiring such a free , sedate , and intent minde , as it may be is no where found but among the Platonical Idea's . Do what we can , Prejudices will creep in , and hinder our Intellectual Perfection : And though by this means we may get some comfortable allay to our distempers ; yet can it not perfectly cure us of a disease , that sticks as close to us as our natures . CHAP. IX . Two Instances of Sensitive deception . ( 1 ) Of the Quiescence of the Earth . Sense is the great inducement to its belief ; its testimony deserves no credit in this case , though it do move , Sense would present it as immoveable . The Sun to Sense is as much devoid of motion as the Earth . Four Cases in which motion is insensible , viz. ( 1 ) If it be very swift . ( 2 ) If it be steddy and regular . ( 3 ) If very slow . ( 4 ) If the Sentient partake of it . Applyed to the Earths motion . The unweildiness of its bulk is no argument of its immobility . NOw before I leave this , I shall take the opportunity , which this head offers , to endeavour the detection of some grand prejudices of sense , in two instances ; the free debate of which I conceive to be of great importance , though hitherto for the most part obstructed , by the peremptory conclusion of sense , which yet I shall declare to have no suffrage in the case of either : And the pleasantness and concernment of the Theories , if it be one , I hope will attone the Digression . § . 2. First , it is generally opinion'd , that the Earth rests as the Worlds centre , while the Heavens are the subject of the Universal Motions ; And , as immoveable as the Earth , is grown into the credit of being Proverbial . So that for a man to go about to counter-argue this common belief , is as fruitless as to whistle against the windes . I shall not undertake to maintain the Paradox , that stands diameter to this almost Catholick Opinion . It s assertion would be entertained with the hoot of the Rabble : the very mention of it as possible , is among the most ridiculous ; and they are likely most severely to judge it , who least understand the Cause . But yet the Patronage of as great Wits , as it may be e're saw the Sun , such as Pythagoras , Des-Cartes , Copernicus , Galilaeo , More , Kepler , &c. hath gain'd it a more favourable censure with the learned World ; and advanc'd it far above either vain , or contemptible . And if it be a mistake , it 's only so : There 's no Heresie in such an harmless aberration ; at the worst , with the ingenuous ; the probability of it will render it a lapse of easie Pardon . Now whether the Earth move or rest , I undertake not to determine . My work is to prove , that the common inducement to the belief of its quiescence , the testimony of sense , is weak and frivolous : to the end , that if upon an unprejudiced tryal , it be found more consonant to the Astronomical Phaenomena ; its Motion may be admitted , notwithstanding the seeming contrary evidence of unconcerned Senses . And I think what follows will evince , that this is no so absurd an Hypothesis , as Vulgar Philosophers account it ; but that , though it move , its motion must needs be as insensible , as if it were quiescent : and the assertion of it would then be as uncouth and harsh to the sons of Sense , that is , to the generality of Mankind , as now it is . That there is a motion , which makes the vicissitudes of day and night , and constitutes the successive Seasons of the Annual Circle ; Sense may assure us , or at least the comparative Judgement of an higher faculty , made upon its immediate evidence : But whether the Sun , or Earth , be the common Movent , cannot be determin'd but by a farther appeal . If we will take the literal evidence of our Eyes ; the Aethereal Coal moves no more then this Inferior clod doth : For where ever in the Firmament we see it , it 's represented to us , as fixt in that part of the enlightened Hemisphear . And though an after-account discover , that it hath changed its Site and respect to this our Globe ; yet whether that were caused by its translation from us , or ours from it , Sense leaves us in an Ignoramus : So that if we are resolved to stand to its Verdict , it must be by as great a Miracle if the Sun ever move , as it was that it once rested , or what ever else was the subject of that supernal change . And if upon a meer sensible account we will deny Motion to the Earth ; upon the same inducement we must deny it the Sun ; and the Heavens will lose their First Moveable . But to draw up closer to our main design , We may the better conceive that , though the Earth move , yet its Motion must needs be insensible ; if we consider that in four cases Motion strikes not the Sense . 1. The Velocity of Motion prevents the sense of 't . Thus a Bullet passeth by us , and out-runs the nimblest Opticks ; and the Fly of a Jack in its swiftest rounds , gives the Eye no notice of its circulations . The reason is , for that there is no sense without some stay of the Object on the faculty : For in Sense there are two considerables : The Motion made on the Brain ; and the Souls act consequent thereupon , which we call Animadversion : and in this latter consists the formality of Sensitive Perception . Now though possibly the Aethereal Matter might convey the stroke and motion made on it quite to the Brain , before the pass of the Object ; yet the soul being taken up with other attendances , perceives not , till engaged to it by iterated impressions , except the first impulse be very strong and violent . Thus in the clearest night we cannot see some of the smaller Stars , upon the first cast of the Eye to their Celestial Residence : yet a more intent view discovers them ; though very likely their Motion reach't the Brain , assoon as the more noted impress of their Fellows . Thus upon a slight turn of our sight , we omit many particularities in nearer objects , which a more fixed look presents us with . And thus the swiftest motions , though they knock at the dore ; yet they are gone before the soul can come , to take an account of their Errand . 2. If Regularity and steddiness accompany Velocity ; the motion then leaves not the least track in the sensitive . Thus a French Top , the common recreation of School-boys , thrown from a cord which was wound about it , will stand as it were fixt on the floor it lighted ; and yet continue in its repeated Gyrations , while the sense discovers not the least footsteps of that praecipitate Rotation . The reason is much what the same with the former : For that meeting no joggs , or counter-motions to interrupt it , the return of the parts is so quick , that the mind cannot take notice of their succession to each other : For before it can fix to the observation of any one , its object is gone : whereas , were there any considerable thwart in the Motion ; it would be a kind of stop or arrest , by the benefit of which the Soul might have a glance of the fugitive Transient . But I pass these ; they concern not our present enquiry . 3. If the Motion be very slow , we perceive it not . Thus Vegetables spring up from their Mother Earth ; and we can no more discern their accretive Motion , then we can their most hidden cause . Thus the sly shadow steals away on Times Account-Book the Dyal ; and the quickest Eye can tell no more , but that it 's gone . If a reason of this be demanded ; I conceive it may be to some satisfaction return'd , That 't is because Motion cannot be perceived without the perception of its Terms , viz. The parts of space which it immediately left , and those which it next acquires . Now the space left and acquir'd in every sensible moment in such slow progressions , is so inconsiderable , that it cannot possibly move the sense ; ( which by reason either of its constitutional dulness , or the importunity of stronger impressions , cannot take notice of such parvitudes ) and therefore neither can the Motion depending thereon , be a●y more observable , then it is . 4. If the sentient be carryed passibus aequis with the body , whose motion it would observe ; [ supposing the former condition , that it be regular and steddy ] In this case especially the remove is insensible , at least in its proper subject . Thus , while in a Ship , we perceive it not to move : but our sense transfers its motion to the neighbouring shores , as the Poet , Littus campique recedunt . And I question not , but if any were born and bred under Deck , and had no other information but what his sense affords ; he would without the least doubt or scruple , opinion , that the house he dwelt in , was as stable and fixt as ours . To express the reason according to the Philosophy of Des-Cartes , I suppose it thus : Motion is not perceived , but by the successive strikings of the object upon divers filaments of the Brain ; which diversifie the representation of its site and distance . But now when the motion of the object is common with it , to our selves ; it retains the same relation to our sense , as if we both rested : For striking still on the same strings of the Brain , it varies not its site or distance from us ; and therefore we cannot possibly sense its motion : nor yet upon the same account our own ; least of all , when we are carryed without any conamen and endeavour of ours , which in our particular progressions betrayes them to our notice . Now then the Earths motion ( if we suppose it to have any ) having the joynt concurrence of the two last , to render it insensible ; I think we shall need no more proof to conclude the necessity of its being so . For though the Third seems not to belong to the present case , since the supposed motion will be near a thousand miles an hour under the Equinoctial line ; yet it will seem to have no Velocity to the sense any more then the received motion of the Sun , and for the same reason . Because the distant points in the Celestial expanse [ from a various and successive respect to which the length , and consequently the swiftness of this motion must be calculated ] appear to the Eye in so small a degree of elongation from one another , as bears no proportion to what is real . For since the Margin of the Visible Horizon in the Heavenly Globe is Parallel with that in the Earthly , accounted but 120 miles diameter ; Sense must needs measure the Azimuths , or Vertical Circles , by triplication of the same diameter of 120. So that there will be no more proportion betwixt the sensible and real celerity of the Terrestrial Motion , then there is between the visible and rational dimension of the celestial Hemisphear ; which is none at all . But if sensitive prejudice will yet confidently maintain the Impossibility of the Hypothesis , from the supposed unwieldiness of its massy bulk , grounded on our experience of the ineptitude of great and heavy bodies to Motion : I say this is a meer Imposture of our Senses , the fallacy of which we may avoid , by considering ; that the Earth may as easily move , notwithstanding this pretended indisposition of its magnitude , as those much vaster Orbs of Sun and Stars . He that made it , could as well give motion to the whole , as to the parts ; the constant agitation of which is discover'd in natural productions : and to both as well as Rest to either : Neither will it need the assistance of an Intelligence to perpetuate the begun Rotation : Since according to the Indispensable Law of Nature [ That every thing should continue in the state wherein it is , except something more powerful hinder it ] it must persevere in Motion , unless obstructed by a Miracle . Neither can Gravity , which makes great bodies hard of Remove , be any hinderance to the Earths motion : since even the Peripatetick Maxime , Nihil gravitat in suo loco , will exempt it from this indisposing quality ; which is nothing but the tendency of its parts , which are ravish't from it , to their desired Centre . And the French Philosophy will inform us , that the Earth as well as other bodies is indifferent in it self to Rest , or its contrary . I have done with this instance , and my Brevity in the following shall make some amends for my prolixity in this . He that would be inform'd in this subject of the Earths Mobility , may find it largely and ingeniously discuss'd , in Galilaeo's systema Cosmicum . CHAP. X. Another instance of the deceptions of our Senses : which is of translating the Idea of our Passions to things without us . Properly and formally heat is not in the fire , but is an expression of our sentiment . Yet in propriety of speech the Senses themselves are never deceived , but only administer an occasion of deceit to the understanding : prov'd by reason , and the Authority of St. Austin . SEcondly the best Philosophy [ the deserved Title of the Cartesian ] derives all sensitive perception from Motion , and corporal impress ; some account of which we have above given . Not that the Formality of it consists in material Reaction , as Master Hobbs affirms , totally excluding any immaterial concurrence : But that the representations of Objects to the Soul , the only animadversive principle , are conveyed by motions made upon the immediate Instruments of Sense . So that the diversity of our Sensations ariseth from the diversity of the motion or figure of the object ; which in a different manner affect the Brain , whence the Soul hath its immediate intelligence of the quality of what is presented . Thus the different effects , which fire and water have on us , which we call heat and cold , result from the so differing configuration and agitation of their Particles : and not from , I know not what Chimerical beings , supposed to inhere in the objects , their cause , and thence to be propagated by many petty imaginary productions to the seat of Sense . So that what we term heat and cold , and other qualities , are not properly according to Philosophical rigour in the Bodies , their Efficients : but are rather Names expressing our passions ; and therefore not strictly attributable to any thing without us , but by extrinsick denomination , as Vision to the Wall. This I conceive to be an Hypothesis , well worthy a rational belief : and yet is it so abhorrent from the Vulgar , that they would assoon believe Anaxagoras , that snow is black , as him that should affirm , it is not white ; and if any should in earnest assert , that the fire is not formally hot , it would be thought that the heat of his brain had fitted him for Anticyra , and that his head were so to madness : For it is conceiv'd to be as certain , as our faculties can make it , that the same qualities , which we resent within us , are in the object , their Source . And yet this confidence is grounded on no better foundation , then a delusory prejudice , and the vote of misapplyed sensations , which have no warrant to determine either one or other . I may indeed conclude , that I am formally hot or cold ; I feel it . But whether these qualities are formally , or only eminently in their producent ; is beyond the knowledge of the sensitive . Even the Peripatetick Philosophy will teach us , that heat is not in the Body of the Sun , but only vertually , and as in its cause ; though it be the Fountain and great Distributour of warmth to the neather Creation : and yet none urge the evidence of sense to disprove it : Neither can it with any more Justice be alledged against this Hypothesis . For if it be so as Des-Cartes would have it ; yet sense would constantly present it to us , as Now. We should finde heat as infallible an attendant upon fire , and the increase thereof by the same degrees in our approach to the Fountain calefacient , and the same excess within the Visible substance , as Now ; which yet I think to be the chief inducements to the adverse belief : For Fire ( I retain the instance , which yet may be applyed to other cases ) being constant in its specifical motions in those smaller derivations of it , which are its instruments of action , and therefore in the same manner striking the sentient , though gradually varying according to the proportions of more or less quantity or agitation , &c. will not fail to produce the same effect in us , which we call heat , when ever we are within the Orb of its activity . And the heat must needs be augmented by proximity , and most of all within the Flame , because of the more violent motion of the particles there , which therefore begets in us a stronger sense . Now if this motive Energie , the Instrument of this active Element , must be called Heat ; let it be so , I contend not . I know not how otherwise to call it : To impose names is part of the Peoples Charter , and I fight not with Words . Only I would not that the Idea of our Passions should be apply'd to any thing without us , when it hath its subject no where but in our selves . This is the grand deceit , which my design is to detect , and if possible , to rectifie . Thus we have seen two notorious instances of sensitive deception , which justifie the charge of Petron. Arbiter . Fallunt nos oculi , vagique sensus Oppressâ ratione mentiuntur . And yet to speak properly , and to do our senses right , simply they are not deceived , but only administer an occasion to our forward understandings to deceive themselves : and so though they are some way accessory to our delusion ; yet the more principal faculties are the Capital offenders . Thus if the Senses represent the Earth as fixt and immoveable ; they give us the truth of their Sentiments : To sense it is so , and it would be deceit to present it otherwise . For [ as we have shewn ] though it do move in it self ; it rests to us , who are carry'd with it . And it must needs be to sense unalterably quiescent , in that our Rotation with it , prevents the variety of successive Impress ; which only renders motion sensible . And so if we erroneously attribute our particular incommunicable sensations to things , which do no more resemble them then the effect doth its aequivocal cause ; our senses are not in fault , but our precipitate judgements . We feel such , or such a sentiment within us , and herein is no cheat or misprison : 't is truly so , and our sense concludes nothing of its Rise or Origine . But if hence our Understandings falsly deduct , that there is the same quality in the external Impressor ; 't is , it is criminal , our sense is innocent . When the Ear tingles , we really hear a sound : If we judge it without us , it 's the fallacy of our Iudgments . The apparitions of our frighted Phancies are real sensibles : But if we translate them without the compass of our Brains , and apprehend them as external objects ; it 's the unwary rashness of our Understanding deludes us . And if our disaffected Palates resent nought but bitterness from our choicest viands , we truly tast the unpleasing quality , though falsly conceive it in that , which is no more then the occasion of its production . If any find fault with the novelty of the notion ; the learned St. Austin stands ready to confute the charge : and they , who revere Antiquity , will derive satisfaction from so venerable a suffrage . He tells us , Si quis remum frangi in aquâ opinatur , & , cùm aufertur , integrari ; non malum habet internuncium , sed malus est Iudex . And onward to this purpose , The sense could not otherwise perceive it in the water , neither ought it : For since the Water is one thing , and the Air another ; 't is requisite and necessary , that the sense should be as different as the medium : Wherefore the Eye sees aright ; if there be a mistake , 't is the Judgement 's the Deceiver . Elsewhere he saith , that our Eyes mis-inform us not , but faithfully transmit their resentment to the mind . And against the Scepticks , That it 's a piece of injustice to complain of our senses , and to exact from them an account , which is beyond the sphear of their notice : and resolutely determines , Quicquid possuut videre oculi , verum vident . So that what we have said of the senses deceptions , is rigidly to be charg'd only on our careless Understandings , misleading us through the ill management of sensible informations . But because such are commonly known by the name of the Senses deceipts ( somewhat the more justifiably in that they administer the occasion ) I have thought good to retain the usual way of speaking , though somewhat varying from the manner of apprehending . CHAP. XI . A fourth reason of our Ignorance and Error , viz. the fallacy of our Imaginations ; an account of the nature of that faculty ; Instances of its deceptions ; Spirits are not in a place ; Intellection , Volition , Decrees , &c. cannot properly be ascrib'd to God. It is not Reason that opposeth Faith , but Phancy : the interest which Imagination hath in many of our Opinions , in that it impresses a perswasion wiihout evidence . FOurthly , we erre and come short of Science , because we are so frequently mislead by the evil conduct of our Imaginations ; whose irregular strength and importunity doth almost perpetually abuse us . Now to make a full and clear discovery of our Phancies deceptions ; 't will be requisite to look into the nature of that mysterious faculty . In which survey we must trace the Soul in the wayes of her intellectual actions ; whereby we may come to the distinct knowledge of what is meant by Imagination , in contradistinction to some other Powers . But first premising , that the Souls nature ( at least as far as concerns our inquiry ) consists in intelligibility : And secondly , that when we speak of Powers and Faculties of the Soul , we intend not to assert with the Schools , their real distinction from it , or each other , but only a modal diversity . Therefore I shall distribute Intellectual operations according to the known triple division , though with some difference of representation . The first is simple apprehension , which denotes no more , then the souls naked Intellection of an object , without either composition or deduction . The foundation of this act , as to materials , is sensitive perception . Now our simple apprehension of corporal objects , if present , we call Sense ; if absent , we properly name it Imagination . Thus when we would conceive a Triangle , Man , Horse , or any other sensible ; we figure it in our Phancies , and stir up there its sensible Idea . But in our notion of spirituals , we , as much as we can , denudate them of all material Phantasmes ; and thus they become the object of our Intellects , properly so called . Now all this while the soul is , as it were , silent ; and in a more passive way of reception . But the second act advanceth propositions from simple intellections : and hereby we have the knowledge of the distinctions or identities of objective representations . Now here , as in the former , where the objects are purely material ; the Judgment is made by the Imagination : if otherwise , we refer it to the Understanding . There is yet a third Act , which is a connecting of Propositions and deducing of Conclusions from them : and this the Schools call Discourse ; and we shall not miscall it , if we name it , Reason . Now this , as it supposeth the two former , so is it grounded on certain congenite propositions ; which I conceive to be the very Essentials of Rationality . Such are , Quodlibet est , vel non est ; Impossibile est idem esse , & non esse ; Non entis nulla sunt praedicata , & c. Not that every one hath naturally a formal and explicit notion of these Principles : For the Vulgar use them , without knowledge of them , under any such express consideration ; But yet there was never any born to Reason without them . If any ask , how the Soul came by those foundation - Propositions : I return , as Quantity did by longum , latum , & profundum ; they being the Essential annexes , or rather constitutives of it , as Reasonable . Now then , when the conclusion is deduc'd from the unerring dictates of our faculties ; we say the Inference is Rational : But when from mis-apprehended , or ill-compounded phantasmes ; we ascribe it to the Imagination . So we see , there is a triple operation of the Phancy as well as Intellect ; and these powers are only circumstantially different . In this method we intend a distinct , though short account , how the Imagination deceives us . First then , the Imagination , which is of simple perception , doth never of it self and directly mislead us ; as is at large declared in our former discourse of Sense . Yet is it the almost fatal means of our deception , through the unwarrantable compositions , divisions , and applications , which it occasions the second Act to make of the simple Images . Hence we may derive the Visions , Voyces , Revelations of the Enthusiast : the strong Idea's of which , being conjur'd up into the Imagination by the heat of the melancholized brain , are judged exterior Realties ; when as they are but motions within the Cranium . Hence Story is full of the wonders , it works upon Hypochondriacal Imaginants ; to whom the grossest absurdities are infallible certainties , and free reason an Impostour . That Groom , that conceited himself an Emperour , thought all as irrational as disloyal , that did not acknowledge him : And he , that supposed himself made of Glass ; thought them all mad , that dis-believed him . But we pity , or laugh at those fatuous extravagants ; while yet our selves have a considerable dose of what makes them so : and more sober heads have a set of misconceits , which are as absurd to an unpassionated reason , as those to our unabused senses . And , as the greatest counter-evidence to those distemper'd phancies is none : so in the more ordinary deceits , in which our Imaginations insensibly engage us , we give but little credit to the uncorrupted suggestions of the faculty , that should disabuse us . That the Soul and Angels are devoid of quantitative dimensions , hath the suffrage of the most ; and that they have nothing to do with grosser locality , is as generally opinion'd : But who is it , that retains not a great part of the imposture , by allowing them a definitive Ubi , which is still but Imagination ? He that said , a thousand might dance on the point of a Needle , spake but grossly ; and we may as well suppose them to have wings , as a proper Ubi . We say , Spirits are where they operate : But strictly to be in a place , or ubi , is a material Attribute , and incompatible with so depurate a Nature . We ask not , in what place a thought is , nor are we solicitous for the Ubi of Vertue , or any other Immaterial accident . Relations , Ubications , Duration , the vulgar Philosophy admits into the list of something ; and yet to enquire in what place they are , were a soloecism . So that , if to be and to be in a place be not reciprocal ; I know not why spirits may not be exempted , having as much to plead from the purity of their nature , as any thing but one , within the circle of being . And yet Imagination stands so strongly against the notion , that it cannot look for the favour of a very diffusive entertainment . But we are more dangerously deceiv'd , when judging the Infinite Essence by our narrow selves ; we ascribe Intellections , Volitions , Decrees , Purposes , and such like Immanent actions to that nature , which hath nothing in common with us , as being infinitely above us . Now to use these as Hypotheseis , as himself in his Word , is pleas'd to low himself to our capacities , is allowable : But a strict and rigorous imputation is derogatory to him , and arrogant in us . To say , that God doth eminently contain all those effects in his glorious simple Essence , that the creature can produce or act by such a faculty , power , or affection ; is to affirm him to be ● what he is , Infinite . Thus , to conceive that he can do all those things in the most perfect manner , which we do upon understanding , willing , and decreeing ; is an apprehension suteable to his Idea : But to fix on him the formality of faculties , or affections ; is the Imposture of our Phancies , and contradictory to his Divinity . 'T is this deception misleads the contending world ; and is the Author of most of that darkness and confusion , that is upon the face of the Quinquarticular debates . Now then , we being thus obnoxious to fallacy in our apprehensions and judgements , and so often imposed upon by these deceptions ; our Inferences and Deductions must needs be as unwarrantable , as our simple and compound thoughts are deceitful . Thus the reason of the far greatest part of mankind , is but an aggregate of mistaken phantasms ; and in things not sensible a constant delusion . Yea the highest and most improved parts of Rationality , are frequently caught in the entanglements of a tenacious Imagination ; and submit to its obstinate , but delusory Dictamens . Thus we are involv'd in inextricable perplexities about the Divine Nature , and Attributes ; and in our reasonings about those sublimities are puzled with contradictions , which are but the toyings of our Phancies , no absurdities to our more defaecate faculties . What work do our Imaginations make with Eternity and Immensity ? and how are we gravell'd by their cutting Dilemma's ? I 'm confident many have thus imagin'd themselves out of their Religion ; and run a ground on that more desperate absurdity , Atheism . To say , Reason opposeth Faith , is to scandalize both : 'T is Imagination is the Rebel ; Reason contradicts its impious suggestions . Nor is our Reason any more accountable for the Errours of our Opinions ; then our holiness for the vitiosity of our Lives : And we may as well say , that the Sun is the cause of the shadow , which is the effect of the intercepting opacity , as either . Reason and Faith are at perfect Unisons : The disharmony is in the Phancy . 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , is a saying of Plato's ; and well worthy a Christian subscription , Reason being the Image of the Creators Wisdom copyed out in the Creature . Though indeed , as 't is now in the subject , 't is but an amassment of imaginary conceptions , praejudices , ungrounded opinions , and infinite Impostures ; and 't is no wonder , if these are at odds with the Principles of our belief : But all this is but apish Sophistry ; and to give it a Name so Divine and excellent , is abusive and unjust . There is yet another as deplorable a deceit of our Imaginations , as any : which is , its impressing a strong perswasion of the Truth of an Opinion , where there is no evidence to support it . And if it be such , as we never heard question'd or contradicted ; 't is then held as indubitate , as first principles . Thus the most of mankind is led by opinionative impulse ; and Imagination is praedominant . Hence we have an ungrounded credulity cry'd up for faith ; and the more vigorous impressions of Phancy , for the Spirits motions . These are the grand delusions of our Age , and the highest evidence of the Imaginations deceptions . This is the spirit , that works in the children of Phancy ; and we need not seek to remoter resolutions . But the excellent Dr. H. More hath follow'd Enthusiastick effects to their proper Origine , and prevented our endeavours of attempting it . His Discourse of Enthusiasm compleatly makes good the Title ; and 't is as well a Victory , as a Triumph . CHAP. XII . A fifth Reason , the praecipitancy of our Understandings ; the reason of it . The most close ingagement of our minds requisite to the finding of truth ; the difficulties of the performance of it . Two instances of our praecipitating ; as the concluding thing impossible , which to Nature are not so ; and the joyning Causes with irrelative Effects . § . 5. AGain another account of the shortness of our Reasons and easiness of deception , is , the forwardness of our Understandings assent , to slightly examin'd conclusions , contracting many times a firm and obstinate belief from weak inducements ; and that not only in such things , as immediately concern the sense , but in almost every thing that falls within the scope of our enquiry . For the declarement of this , we are to observe , That every being uncessantly aspires to its own perfection , and is restless till it obtain it ; as is the trembling Needle , till it find it s beloved North. Now the perfection of a Faculty is Union with its Object , to which its respective actions are directed , as the scope and term of its endeavours . Thus our Understanding being perfected by Truth , with all the impatience , which accompanies strong desire , breaths after its enjoyment . But now the good and perfection of being , which every thing reacheth at , must be known , and that in the particular instances thereof ; or else 't is not attain'd : and if it be mistaken , that being courts deceit and its own delusion . Now this Knowledge of their Good , was at first as natural to all things , as the desire on 't : otherwise this innate propension would have been as much a torment and misery to those things that are capable of it , as a needless impertinency to all others . But Nature shoots not at Rovers . Even inanimates , though they know not their perfection themselves , yet are they not carryed on by a blind unguided impetus : But that which directs them , knows it . The next orders of being have some sight of it themselves : And man most perfectly had it , before the touch of the Apple . So then beside this general propensity to Truth , the Understanding must know what is so , before it can entertain it with assent . The former we possess ( it may be ) as entirely as when Nature gave it us : but of the latter little , but the capacity : And herein have we made our selves of all creatures the most miserable . And now such a multitude , such an Infinite of uncertain opinions , bare probabilities , specious falshoods , spreading themselves before us , and solliciting our belief ; and we being thus greedy of Truth , and yet so unable to discern it : It cannot be , that we should reach it any otherwise , then by the most close meditation and engagement of our minds ; by which we must endeavour to estrange our assent from every thing , which is not clearly , and distinctly evidenc't to our faculties . But now , this is so difficult ; and as hath been intimated , so almost infeasable ; that it may well drive modesty to despair of Science . For though possibly Assiduity in the most fixed cogitation be no trouble or pain to immaterializ'd spirits ; yet is it more , then our embodyed souls can bear without lassitude or distemper . For in this terrestrial state there are few things transacted , even in our Intellectual part , but through the help and furtherance of corporal Instruments ; which by more then ordinary usage lose their edge and fitness for action , and so grow inept for their respective destinations . Upon this account our senses are dull'd and spent by any extraordinary intention ; and our very Eyes will ake , if long fixt upon any difficultly discerned object . Now though Meditation be to be reckoned among the most abstracted operations of our minds ; yet can it not be performed without a considerable proportion of Spirits to assist in the Action , though indeed such as are furnish't out of the bodies purer store . This I think to be hence evidenc't ; in that fixed seriousness herein , heats the brain in some to distraction , causeth an aking and diziness in founder heads , hinders the works of Nature in its lower and animal functions , takes away or lessens pain in distemper'd parts , and seldom leaves any but under a weary some dullness , and inactivity ; which I think to be arguments of sufficient validity to justifie our assent to this , that the spirits are imploy'd in our most intense cogitations , yea in such , whose objects are most elevated above material . Now the managing and carrying on of this work by the Spirits instrumental co-efficiency requires , that they be kept together without distraction or dissipation ; that so they may be ready to receive and execute the orders and commissions of the commanding faculty . If either of these happen , all miscarries : as do the works of Nature , when they want that heat , which is requisite for their intended perfection . And therefore , for the prevention of such inconveniences in meditation , we choose recess and solitude . But now if we consider the volatile nature of those officious Assistants , and the several causes which occur continually , even from the meer Mechanism of our Bodies to scatter and disorder them , besides the excursions of our roving phancies ( which cannot be kept to a close attendance ) ; it will be found very hard to retain them in any long service , but do what we can , they 'l get loose from the Minds Regimen . So that it 's no easie matter to bring the body to be what it was intended for , the Souls servant ; and to confine the imagination , of as facil a performance , as the Goteham's design of hedging in the Cuckow . And though some constitutions are genially disposited to this mental seriousness ; yet they can scarce say , Nos numeri sumus : yea in the most advantag'd tempers , this disposition is but comparative ; when as the most of men labour under disadvantages , which nothing can rid them of , but that which loosens them from this mass of flesh . Thus the boyling bloud of youth , fiercely agitating the fluid Air , hinders that serenity and fixed stayedness , which is necessary to so severe an intentness : And the frigidity of decrepite age is as much its enemy , not only through penury of spirits , but by reason of its clogging them with its dulling moisture . And even in the temperate zone of our life , there are few bodies at such an aequipoiz of humours ; but that the prevalency of some one indisposeth the spirits for a work so difficult and serious : For temperamentum ad pondus , may well be reckon'd among the three Philosophical unattainables . Besides , the bustle of business , the avocations of our senses , and external pleasures , and the noyse and din of a clamorous world are impediments not to be master'd by feeble endeavours . And to speak the full of my Sentiments , I think never Man could boast it , without the Precincts of Paradise ; but He , that came to gain us a better Eden then we lost . So then , to direct all this to our end , the mind of man being thus naturally amorous of , and impatient for Truth , and yet averse to , and almost incapacitated for , that diligent and painful search , which is necessary to its discovery ; it must needs take up short , of what is really so , and please it self in the possession of imaginary appearances , which offering themselves to its embraces in the borrowed attire of that , which the enamour'd Intellect is in pursuit of , our impatient minds entertain these counterfeits , without the least suspicion of their cousenage . For as the Will , having lost its true and substantial Good , now courts the shadow , and greedily catches at the vain shews of superficial bliss : so our no less degenerate understandings having suffered as sad a divorce from their dearest object , are as forward to defile themselves with every meretricious semblance , that the variety of opinion presents them with . Thus we see the inconsiderate vulgar , prostrating their assent to every shallow appearance : and those , who are beholden to Prometheus for a finer mould , are not furnisht with so much truth as otherwise they might be owners of , did not this precipitancy of concluding prevent them : As 't is said of the industrious Chymist , that by catching at it too soon , he lost the long expected treasure of the Philosophical Elixir . I 'le illustrate this Head by a double instance , and close it . 1. Hence it is , that we conclude many things within the list of Impossibilities , which yet are easie Feasables . For by an unadvised transiliency leaping from the effect to its remotest cause , we observe not the connexion through the interposal of more immediate causalities ; which yet at last bring the extreams together without a Miracle . And hereupon we hastily conclude that impossible , which we see not in the proximate capacity of its Efficient . Hence , that a single Hair should root up an Oak ( which the Mathematicks teach us to be possible ) will be thought fit to be number'd with the story of the Brazen-head , or that other of the wishing Hat. The relation of Archimedes's lifting up the ships of Marcellus , among many finds but little more credit , then that of the Gyants shouldering Mountains : And his other exploits sound no better to common Ears , then those of Amadis de Gaule , and the Knight of the Sun. And yet Mathematicians know , that by multiplying of Mechanical advantages , any power may conquer any resistance , and the great Syracusian wit wanted but Tools , and a place to stand on , to remove the Earth . So the brag of the Ottoman , that he would throw Malta into the Sea , might be performed at an easier rate , then by the shovels of his Ianizaries . And from this last noted head , ariseth that other of joyning causes with irrelative effects , which either refer not at all unto them , or in a remoter capacity . Hence the Indian conceiv'd so grossly of the Letter , that discover'd his Theft ; and that other , who thought the Watch an Animal . From hence grew the impostures of charms , and amulets , and other insignificant ceremonies ; which to this day impose upon common belief , as they did of old upon the Barbarism of the incultivate Heathen . Thus effects unusual , whose causes run under ground , and are more remote from ordinary discernment , are noted in the Book of Vulgar Opinion , with Digitus Dei , or Daemonis ; though they owe no other dependence to the first , then what is common to the whole Syntax of beings , nor yet any more to the second , then what is given it by the imagination of those unqualifi'd Judges . Thus every unwonted Meteor is portentous ; and the appearance of any unobserved Star , some divine Prognostick . Antiquity thought Thunder the immediate voyce of Iupiter , and impleaded them of impiety , that referr'd it to natural causalities . Neither can there happen a storm , at this remove from Antique ignorance , but the multitude will have the Devil in 't . CHAP. XIII . The sixth Reason discours't of , viz. the interest which our Affections have in our Dijudications . The cause why our Affections mislead us ; several branches of this mention'd ; and the first , viz Constitutional Inclination largely insisted on . AGain we owe much of our Errour and Intellectual scarcity to the Interest in , and power which our affections have over , our so easily seducible Understandings . And 't is a truth well worthy the Pen , from which it dropt ; Periit Iudicium , ubi res transiit in Affectum . That Iove himself cannot be wise and in Love ; may be understood in a larger sense , then Antiquity meant it . Affection bribes the Judgement to the most notorious inequality ; and we cannot expect an equitable award , where the Judge is made a Party : So that , that Understanding only is capable of giving a just decision , which is , as Aristotle saith of the Law , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 : But where the Will , or Passion hath the casting voyce , the case of Truth is desperate . And yet this is the miserable disorder , into which we are laps'd : The lower Powers are gotten uppermost ; and we see like men on our heads , as Plato observ'd of old , that on the right hand , which indeed is on the left . The Woman in us , still prosecutes a deceit , like that begun in the Garden : and our Understandings are wedded to an Eve , as fatal as the Mother of our miseries . And while all things are judg'd according to their suitableness , or disagreement to the Gusto of the fond Feminine ; we shall be as far from the Tree of Knowledge , as from that , which is guarded by the Cherubin . The deceiver soon found this soft place of Adam's ; and Innocency it self did not secure him from this way of seduction . The first deception enter'd in at this Postern , and hath ever since kept it open for the entry of Legion : so that we scarse see any thing now but through our Passions , the most blind , and sophisticate things about us . Thus the Monsters which story relates to have their Eyes in their breasts , are pictures of us in our invisible selves . Our Love of one Opinion induceth us to embrace it ; and our Hate of another , doth more then fit us , for its rejection : And , that Love is blind , is extensible beyond the object of Poetry . When once the affections are engag'd , there 's but a short step to the Understanding : and , Facilè credimus quod volumus , is a truth , that needs not plead Authority to credit it . The reason , I conceive , is this : Love as it were uniting the Object to the Soul , gives it a kind of Identity with us ; so that the beloved Idea is but our selves in another Name : and when self is at the bar , the sentence is not like to be impartial : For every man is naturally a Narcissus , and each passion in us , no other but self-love sweetned by milder Epithets . We can love nothing , but what is agreeable to us ; and our desire of what is so , hath its first inducement from within us : Yea , we love nothing but what hath some resemblance within our selves ; and whatever we applaud as good or excellent , is but self in a transcript , and è contrà . Thus , to reach the highest of our Amours , and to speak all at once : We love our friends , because they are our Image ; and we love our God , because we are his . So then , the beloved Opinion being thus wedded to the Intellect ; the case of our espoused self becomes our own : And when we weigh our selves , Iustice doth not use to hold the ballance . Besides , all things being double-handed , and having the appearances both of Truth , and Falshood ; where our affections have engaged us , we attend only to the former , which we see through a magnifying Medium : while looking on the latter , through the wrong end of the Perspective , which scants their dimensions , we neglect and contemn them . Yea , and as in corrupt judicial proceedings , the fore-stalled Understanding passes a peremptory sentence upon the single hearing of one Party ; and so comes under the Poets censure of him , Qui statuit aliquid parte inauditâ alterâ . But to give a more particular account of this Gullery ; Our affections engage us as by our Love to our selves , so by our Love to others . Of the former we have the observable instances of natural disposition , Custom and Education , Interest , and our proper Invention : Of the latter in that Homage , which is payd to Antiquity , and Authority . I take them up in order . 1. Congruity of Opinions , whether true or false , to our natural constitution , is one great incentive to their belief , and reception : and in a sense too the complexion of the mind , as well as manners , follows the Temperament of the Body . Thus some men are genially disposited to some Opinions , and naturally as averse to others . Some things we are inclined to love , and we know not why : Others we disesteem , and upon no better account then the Poet did Sabidius , Hoc tantùm possum dicere , Non amo te . Some faces at first sight we admire and dote on : others , in our impartial apprehensions no less deserving our esteem , we can behold without resentment ; and it may be with an invincible disregard . I question not , but intellectual representations are received by us , with as an unequal a Fate upon a bare Temperamental Relish or Disgust : And I believe the Understanding hath its Idiosyncrasies , as well as other faculties . Some men are made to superstition , others to frantick Enthusiasm ; the former by the cold of a timorous heart , the latter by the heat of a temerarious brain : And there are natures , as fatally averse to either . And the opinions , which are suited to their respective tempers , will be sure to find their welcome , and to grow without manure . Your dull phlegmatick Souls are taken with the dulness of sensible doctrines : and the more Mercurial Geniuses calculated to what is more refined , and Intellectual . Thus opinions have their Climes and National diversities : And as some Regions have their proper Vices , not so generally found in others ; so have they their mental depravities , which are drawn in with the common air of the Countrey . And I take this for one of the most considerable causes of the diversity of Laws , Customes , Religions , natural and moral doctrines , which is to be found in the divided Regions of the inhabited Earth . And therefore I wonder not at the Idolatry of the Iews of old , or of the several parts of the world to this day , nor at the sensual expectations of the Mussel-men , nor at the fopperies of the superstitious Romanists , nor the ridiculous devotions of the deluded Indians : since that the most senseless conceits and fooleries cannot miss of Harbor , where affection , grown upon the stock of a depraved constitution , hath endeared them . And if we do but more nearly look into our faculties , beginning our survey from the lowest dregs of sense , even those which have a nearer commerce with matter , and so by steps ascend to our more spiritualiz'd selves : we shall throughout discover how constitutional partiality sways us . Thus to one Palate that is sweet , desirable , and delicious , which to another is odious and distastful ; or more compendiously in the Proverb , One mans meat is anothers poyson . Thus what to one is a most grateful odour , to another is noxious and displeasant ; 't were a misery to some to lye stretch't on a bed of Roses : And in the sense of life ; that 's a welcome touch to one , which is disagreeing to another . And yet to rise a little higher to the nobler pair ; the musical Airs , which one entertains with most delightful transports , to another are importune : and the objects , which one can't see without an Extasie , another is no more mov'd at , than a Statue . If we pass further , the phancies of men are so immediately diversify'd by the individual Crasis , that every man is in this a Phoenix ; and owns something , wherein none are like him : and these are as many , as humane nature hath singulars . Now the phancies of the most , like the Index of a Clock , are moved but by the inward Springs and wheels of the corporal Machine ; which even on the most sublimate Intellectuals is dangerously influential . And yet this sits at the Helm of the Worlds belief ; and Vulgar Reason is no better then a more refined Imagination . So then the Senses , Phancy , and what we call Reason it self , being thus influenc'd by the Bodies temperament , and little better then indications of it ; it cannot be otherwise , but that this love of our selves should strongly incline us in our most abstracted dijudications . CHAP. XIV . A second thing whereby our Affections ingage us in Error , is the prejudice of Custom and Education . A third , Interest . The fourth , Love to our own Productions . 2. ANother genuine derivation of this selfish fondness , by reason of which we miscarry of Science , is the almost insuperable prejudice of Custom , and Education : by which our minds are encumber'd , and the most are held in a Fatal Ignorance . Now could a man be composed to such an advantage of constitution , that it should not at all adulterate the images of his mind ; yet this second nature would alter the crasis of the Uuderstanding , and render it as obnoxious to aberrances , as now . And though in the former regard , the Soul were a pure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ; yet custom and education will so blot and scrible on 't , as almost to incapacitate it for after-impressions . Thus we judge all things by our anticipations ; and condemn or applaud them , as they agree or differ from our education-prepossessions . One Countrey laughs at the Laws , Customs , and Opinions of another , as absurd and ridiculous ; and the other is as charitable to them , in its conceit of theirs . This confirms the most sottish Idolaters in their accustomed adorations , beyond the conviction of any thing , but Dooms-day . The impressions of a barbarous education are stronger in them , then nature ; when in their cruel worships they launce themselves with knifes , and expose their harmless Infants to the flames as a Sacrifice to their Idols . And 't is on this account , that there 's no Religion so irrational , but can boast its Martyrs . This is it , which befriends the Talmud and Alcoran ; and did they not owe their credit more to it , then to any rational inducement , we might expect their ashes : whereas Education hath so rooted these mis-believers in their ungrounded faith , that they may assoon be pluck't from themselves , as from their obstinate adherencies ; and to convert a Turk , or Iew , may be well a phrase for an attempt impossible . We look for it only from him , to whom our Impossibles are none . And 't is to be feared , that Christianity it self by most , that have espoused it , is not held by any better tenure . The best account that many can give of their belief , is , that they were bred in it ; which indeed is no better , then that which we call , the Womans Reason . And thousands of them , whom their profession , and our charity styles Christians , are driven to their Religion by custom and education , as the Indians are to Baptism ; that is , like a drove of Cattle to the water . And had our Stars determin'd our nativities among the Enemies of the Cross , and theirs under a Christian horoscope ; in all likelyhood Antichristianism had not been the object of our aversion , nor Christianity of theirs : But we should have exchang'd the Scene of our belief with that of our abode and breeding . There is nothing so monstrous , to which education cannot form our ductile minority ; it can lick us into shapes beyond the monstrosities of those of Affrica . And as King Iames would say of Parliaments ; it can do any thing , but make a man a woman . For our initial age is like the melted wax to the prepared Seal , capable of any impression from the documents of our Teachers . The half-moon or Cross , are indifferent to its reception ; and we may with equal facility write on this rasa Tabula , Turk , or Christian. We came into the world like the unformed Cub ; 't is education is our Plastick : we are baptized into our opinions by our Juvenile nurture , and our growing years confirm those unexamined Principles . For our first task is to learn the Creed of our Countrey ; and our next to maintain it . We seldom examine our Receptions , more then children their Catechisms ; For Implicit faith is a vertue , where Orthodoxie is the object . Some will not be at the trouble of a Tryal : others are scar'd from attempting it . If we do , 't is not by a Sun-beam or ray of universal light ; but by a flame that 's kindled by our affections , and fed by the fewel of our anticipations . And thus like the Hermite , we think the Sun shines no where , but in our Cell ; and all the world to be in darkness but our selves . We judge truth to be circumscrib'd by the confines of our belief , and the doctrines we were brought up in : and with as ill manners , as those of China , repute all the rest of world , Monoculous . So that what some Astrologers say of our Fortunes and the passages of our lives ; may by the allowance of a Metaphor be said of our Opinions : That they are written in our stars , being to the most as fatal as those involuntary occurrences , and as little in their Power as the placits of destiny . We are bound to our Countreys opinions , as to its laws : and an accustomed assent is tantamount to an infallible conclusion . He that offers to dissent , shall be out-law'd in his reputation : and the fear of guilty Cain , shall be fulfilled on him , who ever meets him shall slay him . Thus Custom and Education hath seal'd the Canon ; and he that adds or takes away from the Book of Orthodox belief , shall be more then in danger of an Anathema : And the Inquisition is not confined to the jurisdiction of the Triple-Crown . So we preposterously invert the Precept ; holding fast what hath the Vote of our antedating apprehensions , we try all things by these our partial Prolepses . He that dares do otherwise , is a Rebel to Orthodoxy ; and exposeth his credit to Sequestration . Thus Custom conciliates our esteem to things , no otherwise deserving it : what is in fashion , is handsom and pleasant ; though never so uncouth to an unconcern'd beholder . Their antick deckings with feathers is as comely in the account of those barbarous Nations , which use them ; as the Ornaments of Lace , and Ribband , are in ours . And the plucking off the shooe is to the Iapanners as decent a salutation ; as the uncovering of the head is to us , and their abhorred neighbours . On the other hand we start and boggle at what is unusual : and like the Fox in the fable at his first view of the Lyon , we cannot endure the sight of the Bug-bear , Novelty . Hence some innocent truths have been affix'd with the reproach of Heresie : into which , because contrary to the inur'd belief , the violent rejecters would not endure a patient inspection : But as children frighted in the dark , who run away with an out-cry from the Monsters of their own imaginations framing ; and will not stay for the information of a better discovery : so they looking on them through their unadvised fears , and uncharitable suspicions ; command their Understandings to a praecipitate flight , figuring their phancies to shapes monstrous and horrible , through which they make them the objects of their aversion . Hence there is no truth , but its adversaries have made it an ugly Vizard ; by which it 's exposed to the hate and disesteem of superficial examiners : And an opprobrious title with vulgar believers is as good as an Argument . 'T is but writing the name , that customary receptions have discredited , under the opinions we dislike ; and all other refutation is superfluous . Thus shallow apprehenders are frighted from many sober Verities ; like the King of Arabs , who ran away from the smoaking Mince-Py , apprehending some dangerous plot in the harmless steam . So then , while we thus mistake the infusions of education , for the principles of universal nature ; we must needs fail of a scientifical Theory . And therefore the two Nations differing about the antiquity of their Language , made appeal to an undecisive experiment ; when they agreed upon the tryal of a child brought up among the wild Inhabitants of the Desert . The Language it spake , had no reason to be accounted the most ancient and natural : And the lucky determination for the Phrygians by its pronouncing the word Beck , which signified bread in the dialect of that Countrey , they owed not to Nature , but the Goat-herd ; from which the exposed Infant , by accompanying that sort of animals , had learnt it . 3. Again , Interest , is another thing , by the magnetisme of which our affections are almost irresistibly attracted . It is the Pole , to which we turn , and our sympathizing Judgements seldom decline from the direction of this Impregnant . Where Interest hath engaged us ; like Hannibal , we 'l find a way to veritie , or make it . Any thing is a Truth , to one whose Interest it is , to have it so . And therefore Self-designers are seldom disappointed , for want of the speciousness of a cause to warrrant them ; in the belief of which , they do oft as really impose upon themselves , as industriously endeavour it upon others . With what an infinite of Law-suits , controversies , and litigious cases doth the world abound ? and yet every man is confident of the truth and goodness of his own . And as Mr. Hobbs observes , the reason that Mathematical demonstrations are uncontroverted , is ; because Interest hath no place in those unquestionable verities : when as , did the advantage , of any stand against them , Euclids Elements would not pass with a Nemine contradicente . Sir H. Blunt tells us , that temporal expectations bring in droves to the Mahumetan Faith ; and we know the same holds thousands in the Romish . The Eagles will be , where the carcase is ; and that shall have the faith of most , which is best able to pay them for 't . An advantageous cause never wanted Proselytes . I confess , I cannot believe that all the learned Romanists profess against their conscience ; but rather , that their Interest brings their consciences to their Profession : and self-advantage can as easily incline some , to believe a falshood , as profess it . A good will , help'd by a good wit can find truth any where : and , what the Chymists brag of their Elixir , it can transmute any metal into gold ; In the hand of a skilful Artificer , in spight of the Adage , Ex quolibet ligno Mercurius . Though yet I think , that every Religion hath its bare Nominals : and that Pope was one with a witness , whose saying it was , Quantum nobis lucri peperit illa fabula de Christo ! 4. Besides , fourthly , Self-love engageth us for any thing , that is a Minerva of our own . We love the issues of our Brains , no less then those of our bodies : and fondness of our own begotten notions , though illegitimate , obligeth us to maintain them . We hugge intellectual deformities , if they bear our Names ; and will hardly by perswaded they are so , when our selves are their Authors . If their Dam may be judge , the young Apes are the most beautiful things in Nature ; and if we might determine it , our proper conceptions would be all voted Axioms . Thus then the Affections wear the breeches : and the Female rules , while our Understanding governs us , as the story saith Themistocles did Athens . So that to give the sum of all , most of the contests of the litigious world pretending for Truth , are but the bandyings of one mans affections against anothers : in which , though their reasons may be foil'd , yet their Passions lose no ground , but rather improve by the Antiperistasis of an opposition . CHAP. XV. 5. Our Affections are engaged by our Reverence to Antiquity and Authority . This hath been a great hinderer of Theorical improvements ; and it hath been an advantage to the Mathematicks , and Mechanicks Arts , that it hath no place in them . Our mistake of Antiquity . The unreasonableness of that kind of Pedantick Adoration . Hence the vanity of affecting impertinent quotations . The Pedantry on 't is derided ; the little improvement of Science through its successive derivations , and whence that hath hapned . ANother thing , that engageth our affections to unwarrantable conclusions , and is therefore fatal to Science ; is our doting on Antiquity , and the opinions of our Fathers . We look with a superstitious reverence upon the accounts of praeterlapsed ages : and with a supercilious severity , on the more deserving products of our own . A vanity , which hath possess'd all times as well as ours ; and the Golden Age was never present . For as in Statick experiment , an inconsiderable weight by vertue of its distance from the Centre of the Ballance , will preponderate much greater magnitudes ; so the most slight and chaffy opinion , if at a great remove from the present age , contracts such an esteem and veneration , that it out-weighs what is infinitly more ponderous and rational , of a modern date . And thus , in another sense , we realize what Archimedes had only in Hypothesis ; weighing a single grain against the Globe of Earth . We reverence gray-headed Doctrines ; though feeble , decrepit , and within a step of dust : and on this account maintain opinions , which have nothing but our charity to uphold them . While the beauty of a Truth , as of a picture , is not acknowledg'd but at a distance ; and that wisdom is nothing worth , which is not fetcht from afar : wherein yet we oft deceive our selves , as did that Mariner , who mistaking them for precious stones , brought home his ship fraught with common Pebbles from the remotest Indies . Thus our Eyes , like the preposterous Animal's , are behind us ; and our Intellectual motions retrograde . We adhere to the determinations of our fathers , as if their opinions were entail'd on us as their lands ; or ( as some conceive ) part of the Parents soul were portion'd out to his off-spring , and the conceptions of our minds were ex traduce . The Sages of old live again in us ; and in opinions there is a Metempsychosis . We are our re-animated Ancestours , and antedate their Resurrection . And thus , while every age is but another shew of the former ; 't is no wonder , that Science hath not out-grown the dwarfishness of its pristine stature , and that the Intellectual world is such a Microcosm . For while we account of some admired Authours , as the Seths Pillars , on which all knowledge is engraven ; and spend that time and study in defence of their Placits , which with more advantage to Science might have been employ'd upon the Books of the more ancient , and universal Author : 'T is not to be admired , that Knowledge hath receiv'd so little improvement from the endeavours of many pretending promoters , through the continued series of so many successive ages . For while we are slaves to the Dictates of our Progenitours ; our discoveries , like water , will not run higher then the Fountains , from which they own their derivation . And while we think it so piaculous , to go beyond the Ancients ; we must necessarily come short of genuine Antiquity , Truth ; unless we suppose them to have reach'd perfection of Knowledge in spight of their aknowledgements of ignorance . Now if we enquire the reason , why the Mathematicks , and Mechanick Arts , have so much got the start in growth of other Sciences : We shall find it probably resolv'd into this , as one considerable cause : that their progress hath not been retarded by that reverential aw of former discoveries , which hath been so great an hinderance to Theorical improvements . 'T was never an heresie to out-limn Apelles ; nor criminal to out-work the Obelisks . Galilaeus without a crime out-saw all Antiquity ; and was not afraid to believe his eyes , in spight of the Opticks of Ptolomy and Aristotle . 'T is no discredit to that ingenious Perspicill , that Antiquity ne're saw in 't : Nor are we shy of assent to those celestial informations , because they were hid from ages . We believe the verticity of the Needle , without a Certificate from the dayes of old : And confine not our selves to the sole conduct of the Stars , for fear of being wiser then our Fathers . Had Authority prevail'd here , the Earths fourth part had to us been none , and Hercules his Pillars had still been the worlds Seneca's Prophesie had yet been an unfulfill'd Prediction , and one moiety of our Globes , an empty Hemisphear . In a sense , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , is wholesom instruction ; and becoming the Vote of a Synod : But yet , in common acceptation , it 's an Enemy to Verity , which can plead the antiquity of above six thousand ; and bears date from before the Chaos . For , as the Noble Lord Verulam hath noted , we have a mistaken apprehension of Antiquity ; calling that so , which in truth is the worlds Nonage . Antiquitas seculi est juventus Mundi . So that in such appeals , we fetch our knowledge from the Cradle ; which though it be nearest to Innocence , it is so too to the fatal ruines which follow'd it . Upon a true account , the present age is the worlds Grandaevity ; and if we must to Antiquity , let multitude of days speak . Now for us to supersede further disquisition , upon the infant acquirements of those Juvenile endeavours , is foolishly to neglect the nobler advantages we are owners of , and in a sense to disappoint the expectations of him that gave them . Yet thus we prevent our selves of Science ; and our knowledge , though its Age write thousands , is still in its swadlings . For like School-boys , we give over assoon as we have learn't as far as our Masters can teach us : And had not the undertakings of some glorious Heroes prevented ; Plato's year might have found us , where the days of Aristotle left us . For my part , I think it no such arrogance , as our Pedants account it ; that almost two thousand years elapsed since , should weigh with the sixty three of the Stagirite . If we owe it to him , that we know so much ; 't is long of his Pedantick adorers that we know so little more . I can see no ground , why his Reason should be textuary to ours ; or that God , or Nature , ever intended him an Universal Headship . It was another , in whom were hid all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge : His reason only is the Yea and Amen ; who is the Alpha and Omega , the Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . 'T was this vain Idolizing of Authors , which gave birth to that silly vanity of impertinent citations ; and inducing Authority in things neither requiring , nor deserving it . That saying was much more observable , That men have beards , and women none ; because quoted from Beza : and that other , Pax res bona est ; because brought in with a , said St. Austin . But these ridiculous fooleries , to your more generous discerners , signifie nothing but the Pedantry of the affected Sciolist . 'T is an inglorious acquist to have our heads or Volumes laden , as were Cardinal Campeius his Mules , with old and useless luggage : And yet the magnificence of many high pretenders to Science , if laid open by a true discovery , would amount to no more then the old Boots and Shooes , of that proud , and exposed Embassadour . Methinks 't is a pitiful piece of Knowledge , that can be learnt from an Index ; and a poor Ambition to be rich in the Inventory of anothers Treasure . To boast a memory ( the most that these Pedants can aim at ) is but an humble ostentation . And of all the faculties , in which some Brutes out-vie us , I least envy them an excellence in that ; desiring rather to be a Fountain , then a Hogs-head . 'T is better to own a Judgment , though but with a Curta supellex of coherent notions ; then a memory , like a Sepulchre , furnished with a load of broken and discarnate bones . Authorities alone with me make no number , unless Evidence of Reason stand before them : For all the Cyphers of Arithmetick , are no better then a single nothing . And yet this rank folly of affecting such impertinencies , hath overgrown our Times ; and those that are Candidates for the repute of Scholars , take this way to compass it . When as multiplicity of reading , the best it can signifie , doth but speak them to have taken pains for it : And this alone is but the dry , and barren part of learning , and hath little reason to denominate . A number of Receits at the best can but make an Emperick . But again , to what is more perpendicular to our discourse , if we impartially look into the remains of Antique Ages ; we shall finde but little to justifie so groundless a Tyranny , as Antiquity hath impos'd on the enslaved world . For if we drive the Current of Science as high , as History can lead us ; we shall finde , that through its several successive derivations it hath still lain under such disadvantages , as have rendred any considerable accession unfeasable . And though it hath oft chang'd its Channel , by its remove from one Nation to another ; yet hath it been little more alter'd , then a River in its passage through differing Regions , viz. in Name and Method . For the succeeding times still subscribing to , and copying out those , who went before them , with little more then verbal diversity ; Science hath still been the same pityful thing , though in a various Livery . Now if we look upon it , either in the hand of the superstitious Egyptian , fabulous and disputing Graecian , or as garrulous Roman : what hath it been , but only a pretty toy in an Hieroglyphick ; a very slender something in a Fable ; or an old nothing in a disputation ? And though those former days have not wanted brave Wits , that have gallantly attempted , and made Essays worthy Immortality ; yet by reason either of the unqualified capacities of the multitude , ( who dote on things slight and trivial , neglecting what is more rare and excellent ) or the clamorous assaults of envious and more popular opposers , they have submitted to Fate , and are almost lost in Oblivion . And therefore , as that great man , the Lord Bacon hath observ'd , Time as a River , hath brought down to us what is more light and superficial ; while things more solid and substantial have been immersed . Thus the Aristotelian Philosophy hath prevailed ; while the more excellent Hypotheses of Democritus and Epicurus have long lain buryed under neglect aud obloquy : and for ought I know might have slept for ever , had not the ingenuity of this age recall'd them from their Urne . But it is somewhat collateral to my scope , as well as disproportion'd to my abilities , to fall upon particular Instances of the defects and Errours of the Philosophy of the Ancients . The foremention'd noble Advancer of Learning , whose name and parts might give credit to any undertaking ; hath handsomly perform'd it , in his ingenious Novum Organum . And yet , because it may conferr towards the discovery of how little our adherence to Antiquity befriends Truth , and the encrease of Knowledge ; as also how groundless are the Dogmatists high pretensions to Science : I shall adventure some considerations on the Peripatetick Philosophy ; which hath had the luck to survive all others , and to build a fame on their Ruines . CHAP. XVI . Reflexions on the Peripatetick Philosophy . The Generality of its Reception , no Argument of its deserts ; the first charge against that Philosophy ; that it is meerly verbal . A Censure of the Peripatetick Iesuites . Materia prima in that Philosophy signifies nothing . A Parallel drawn between it and Imaginary Space : this latter pleads more for its reality . Their Form also is a meer word , and potentia Materia insignificant . An essay to detect Peripatetick Verbosity , by translating some definitions . THat Aristotles Philosophy hath been entertain'd by the most ; hath deceiv'd the credulous into a conceit , that it 's best : And its intrinsick worth hath been concluded from the Grandure of its Retinue . But Seneca's determination , Argumentum pessimi Turba est , is more deserving our credit : and the fewest , that is the wisest , have always stood contradictory to that ground of belief ; Vulgar applause by severer Wisdom being held a scandal . If the numerousness of a Train must carry it ; Vertue may go follow Astraea , and Vice only will be worth the courting . The Philosopher deservedly suspected himself of vanity , when cryed up by the multitude : And discreet apprehenders will not think the better of that Philosophy , which hath the common cry to vouch it . He that writ counter to the Astrologer in his Almanack , did with more truth foretell the weather : and he that shall write , Foul , in the place of the Vulgars , Fair ; passes the juster censure . Those in the Fable , who were wet with the showre of folly , hooted at the wise men that escap'd it , and pointed at their actions as ridiculous ; because unlike their own , that were truly so . If the major Vote may cast it , Wisdom and Folly must exchange names ; and the way to the one will be by the other . Nor is it the Rabble only , which are such perverse discerners ; we are now a sphear above them : I mean the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of pretended Philosophers , who judge as odly in their way , as the Rascality in theirs : and many a profest Retainer to Philosophy , is but an Ignoramus a in suit of second Notions . 'T is such , that most revere the Reliques of the Adored Sophy ; and , as Artemesia did those of Mausolus , passionately drink his ashes . Whether the Remains of the Stagirite deserve such Veneration , we 'll make a brief enquiry . 1. That the Aristotelian Philosophy is an huddle of words and terms insignificant , hath been the censure of the wisest : And that both its Basis and Superstructure are Chimaerical ; cannot be unobserv'd by them , that know it , and are free to judge it . 'T is a Philosophy , that makes most accurate Inspections into the Creatures of the Brain ; and gives the exactest Topography of the Extramundane spaces . Like our late Politicians , it makes discoveries , and their objects too ; and deals in beings , that are nothing beholden to the Primitive Fiat . Thus the same undivided Essence , from the several circumstances of its being and operations , is here multiplied into Legion , and emprov'd to a number of smaller Entities ; and these again into as many Modes and insignificant formalities . What a number of words here have nothing answering them ? and as many are imposed at random . To wrest names from their known meaning to Senses most alien , and to darken speech by words without knowledge ; are none of the most inconsiderable faults of this Philosophy : To reckon them in their particular instances , would puzzle Archimedes . Now hence the genuine Idea's of the Mind are adulterate ; and the Things themselves lost in a crowd of Names , and Intentional nothings . Thus these Verbosities do emasculate the Understanding ; and render it slight and frivolous , as its objects . Me thinks , the late Voluminous Iesuites , those Laplanders of Peripateticism , do but subtilly trifle : and their Philosophick undertakings are much like his , who spent his time in darting Cumming-seeds through the Eye of a Needle . One would think they were impregnated , as are the Mares in Cappadocia ; they are big of words : their tedious Volumes have the Tympany , and bring forth the wind . To me , a cursus Philosophicus , is but an Impertinency in Folio ; and the studying of them a laborious idleness . 'T is here , that things are crumbled into notional Atomes ; and the substance evaporated into an imaginary Aether . The Intellect , that can feed on this air , is a Chamaelion ; and a meer inflated skin . From this stock grew School-divinity , which is but Peripateticism in a Theological Livery . A School-man is the Ghost of the Stagirite , in a Body of condensed Air : and Thomas but Aristotle sainted . But to make good our charge against the Philosophy of the Schools , by a more close surveying it . That its Principles are steril , unsatisfying Verbosities ; cannot escape the notice of the most shallow Inquirer . To begin at the bottom ; their Materia prima is a meer chimaera . If we can fix a determinate conceit of nothing ; that 's the Idea on 't : And , Nec quid , nec quale , nec quantum , is as as apposite a definition of nothing , as can be . If we would conceive this Imaginary Matter : we must deny all things of it , that we can conceive , and what remains is the thing we look for . And should we allow it all , which its Assertors assign it , viz. Quantity interminate ; 't is still but an empty extended capacity , and therefore at the best , but like that Space , which we imagine was before the beginning of Time , and will be after the Universal Flames . 'T is easie to draw a Parallelism between that Ancient , and this more Modern Nothing ; and in all things to make good its resemblance to that Commentitious Inanity . The Peripatetick matter is a pure unactuated Power : and this conceited Vacuum a meer Receptibility . Matter is suppos'd indeterminate : and Space is so . The pretended first matter is capable of all forms : And the imaginary space is receptive of any body . The matter can be actuated at once but by a single Informant : and Space is replenisht by one Corporal Inexistence . Matter cannot naturally subsist uninform'd : And Nature avoids vacuity in space . The matter is ingenerate , and beyond corruption : And the space was before , and will be after either . The matter in all things is but one : and the space most uniform . Thus the Foundation-Principle of Peripateticism runs but parallel to an acknowledg'd nothing : and their agreement in essential characters makes rather an Identity , then a Parity ; but that Imaginary space hath more to plead for its reality , then the matter hath , and herein only are they dissimilar . For that hath no dependence on the bodies which possess it ; but was before them , and will survive them : whereas this essentially relies on the form , and cannot subsist without it . Which yet , me thinks , is little better then an absurdity : that the cause should be an Eleemosynary for its subsistence to its effect , and a nature posterior to , and dependent on it self . This dependentia a posteriori , though in a diverse way of causality , my reason could never away with : Yea , one of their own , Oviedo a Spanish Jesuite , hath effectually impugn'd it . So then there 's nothing real , answering this Imaginary Proteus ; and Materia prima hath as much of being , as Mons aureus . But to take a step further , their Form is as obnoxious ; and as dry a word , as the formention'd Nominal . I 'le not spend time in an industrious confutation : The subject is dry , and I long to be out on 't ; with a note on its imaginary Origine , I 'le leave it . It 's source is as obscure , as Nile's ; and Potentia materiae is a pitiful figment . Did it suppose any thing of the form to pre-exist in the matter , as the seminal of its being ; 't were tolerable sense to say it were educed from it . But by educing the affirmers only mean a producing in it , with a subjective dependence on its Recipient : a very fine signification of Eduction ; which answers not the question whence 't is derived , but into what it is received . The question is of the terminus à quo , and the answer of the subject . So that all that can be made of this power of the matter , is meerly a receptive capacity : and we may as well affirm , that the world was educ'd out of the power of the imaginary space ; and give that as a sufficient account of its Original . And in this language , to grow rich were to educe money out of the power of the Pocket . To make a full discovery of the jejune emptiness of these Philosophick Principles , were a task as easie for an ordinary undertaker ; as it would be tedious to an Ingenious Reader . Gassendus hath excellently perform'd it , and , I am confident , to the conviction of those , whom nobler Principles have not yet emancipated from that degenerous slavery . I shall not attempt a work that hath been finished by such an Apelles . Only to give an hint more of this verbal emptiness ; a short view of a definition or two will be current evidence : which , though in Greek or Latine they amuse us , yet a vernacular translation unmasks them ; and if we make them speak English , the cheat is transparent . Light is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith that Philosophy : In English , the Act of a perspicuous body . Sure Aristotle here transgrest his Topicks : and if this definition be clearer , and more known then the thing defin'd ; midnight may vye for conspicuity with noon . Is not light more known then this insignificant Energie ? And what 's a diaphanous body , but the Lights medium , the Air ? so that light is the act of the Air : which definition spoils the Riddle ; and makes it no wonder , a man should see by night as well as by day . Thus is light darkned by an illustration ; and the Sun it self is wrap'd up in obscuring clouds : As if light were best seen by darkness , as light inaccessible is known by Ignorance . If Lux be Umbra Dei ; this definition is Umbra lucis . The Infant , that was last enlarged from its maternal cels ; knows more what light is , then this definition teacheth . Again , that motion is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , &c. is as insignificant as the former . By the most favourable interpretation of that unintelligible Entelechy ; It is but an act of a being in power , as it is in power : The construing of which to any real meaning , is beyond the criticisms of a Mother Tongue ; except it describes our modern Acts of Parliaments . Sure that definition is not very conspicuous , whose Genus pos'd the Devil . The Philosopher , that prov'd motion by walking , did in that action better define it : And that puzled Candidate , who being ask'd what a circle was , decrib'd it by the rotation of his hand ; gave an account more satisfying . In some things we must indeed give an allowance for words of Art : But in defining obvious appearances , we are to use what is most plain and easie ; that the mind be not misled by Amphibologies , or ill conceived notions , into fallacious deductions . To give an account of all the insignificancies of this Philosophy , would be almost to transcribe it ; a task that I should never engage in , though I ow'd no account for my idle hours . 'T will need a pardon from the Ingenious for the minutes already spent , though in a confutation . CHAP. XVII . 2. Peripatetick Philosophy is litigious ; it hath no setled constant signification of words ; the inconveniences hereof . Aristotle intended the cherishing Controversies : prov'd by his own double testimony . Some of his impertinent arguings derided . Disputes retard , and are injurious to knowledge . Peripateticks are most exercised in the Controversal parts of Philosophy , and know little of the practical and experimental . A touch at School-Divinity . THat this Philosophy is litigious , the very spawn of disputations and controversies as undecisive as needless ; is the natural result of the former : Storms are the products of vapours . For where words are imposed arbitrariously , having no stated real meaning ; or else distorted from their common use , and known significations : the mind must needs be led into confusion and misprision ; and so things plain and easie in their naked natures , made full of intricacy and disputable uncertainty . For we cannot conclude with assurance , but from clearly apprehended premises ; and these cannot be so conceiv'd , but by a distinct comprehension of the words out of which they are elemented . So that , where they are unfixt or ambiguous ; our propositions must be so , and our deductions can be no better . One reason therefore of the uncontroverted certainty of Mathematical Science is ; because 't is built upon clear and settled significations of names , which admit of no ambiguity or insignificant obscurity . But in the Aristotelian Philosophy it's quite otherwise : Words being here carelesly and abusively admitted , and as inconstantly retained ; it must needs come to pass , that they will be diversly apprehended by contenders , and so made the subject of controversies , there are endless both for use and number . And thus being at their first step out of the way to Science , by mistaking in simple terms ; in the progress of their enquiries they must needs lose both themselves , and the Truth , in a Verbal Labyrinth . And now the entangled disputants , as Master Hobs ingeniously observeth , like Birds that came down the Chimney ; betake them to the false light , seldom suspecting the way they enter'd : But attempting by vain , impertinent , and coincident distinctions , to escape the absurdity that pursues them : do but weary themselves with as little success , as the silly Bird attempts the window . The mis-stated words are the original mistake ; and every other essay is a new one . Now these canting contests , the usual entertainment of the Peripatum , are not only the accidental vitiosities of the Philosophers ; but the genuine issues of the Philosophy it self . And Aristotle seems purposely to intend the cherishing of controversal digladiations , by his own affectation of an intricate obscurity . Himself acknowledg'd it , when he said ; his Physicks were publish'd , and not so : And by that double advice in his Topicks 't is as clear as light . In one place , he adviseth his Sectatours in disputations to be ambiguous : and in another , to bring forth any thing that occurs , rather then give way to their Adversary ; Counsel very well becoming an Enquirer after Verity ! Nor did he here advise them to any thing , but what he followeth himself , and exactly copies out in his practise . The multitudes of his lame , abrupt , equivocal , self-conttadicting expressions , will evidence it as to the first part : which who considers , may be satisfied in this ; that if Aristotle found Nature's face under covert of a veil , he hath not removed the old , but made her a new one . And for the latter , his frequent slightness in arguing doth abundantly make it good . To instance , he proves the world to be perfect , because it consists of bodies ; and that bodies are so , because they consist of a triple dimension ; and that a triple dimension is perfect , because three are all ; and that three are all , because when 't is but one or two , we can't say all , but when 't is three , we may : Is not this an absolute demonstration ? We can say All at the number three : Therefore the world is perfect . Tobit went forth and his Dog follow'd him ; therefore there 's a world in the Moon , were an argument as Apodictical . In another place he proves the world to be but one : For were there another , our Earth would fall unto it . This is a pitiful deduction , from the meer prejudice of Sense ; and not unlike theirs , who thought , if there were Antipodes , they must needs [ as it 's said of Erasmus ] in Coelum descendere . As if , were there more worlds , each of them would not have its proper Centre . Elsewhere shewing , why the Heavens move this way rather then another , he gives this for a reason : because they move to the more honourable ; and before is more honourable then after . This is like the Gallant , who sent his man to buy an Hat , that would turn up behind . As if , had the Heavens moved the other way ; that term had not been then before , which is now the contrary . This Inference is founded upon a very weak supposition , viz. That those alterable respects are realities in Nature ; which will never be admitted by a considerate discerner . Thus Aristotle acted his own instructions ; and his obsequious Sectators have super-erogated in observance . They have so disguised his Philosophy by obscuring Comments , that his revived self would not own it : And were he to act another part with mortals ; he 'd be but pitiful Peripatetick , every Sophister would out-talk him . Now this disputing way of Enquiry is so far from advancing Science ; that 't is no inconsiderable retarder : For in Scientifical discoveries many things must be consider'd , which the hurrey of a dispute indisposeth for ; and there is no way to truth , but by the most clear comprehension of simple notions , and as wary an accuracy in deductions . If the Fountain be disturb'd , there 's no seeing to the bottom ; and here 's an exception to the Proverb , 'T is no good fishing for Verity in troubled waters . One mistake of either simple apprehension , or connexion , makes an erroneous conclusion . So that the precipitancy of disputation , and the stir and noise of Passions , that usually attend it ; must needs be prejudicial to Verity : its calm insinuations can no more be heard in such a bustle , then a whisper among a croud of Saylors in a storm . Nor do the eager clamors of contending Disputants , yeeld any more relief to eclipsed Truth ; then did the sounding Brass of old to the labouring Moon . When it 's under question , 't were as good flip cross and pile , as to dispute for 't : and to play a game at Chess for an opinion in Philosophy [ as my self and an ingenious Friend have sometime sported ] is as likely a way to determine . Thus the Peripatetick procedure is inept for Philosophical solutions : The Lot were as equitable a decision , as their empty Loquacities . 'T is these nugacious Disputations , that have been the great hinderance to the more improveable parts of Learning : and the modern Retainers to the Stagirite have spent their sweat and pains upon the most litigious parts of his Philosophy ; while those , that find less play for the contending Genius , are incultivate . Thus Logick , Physicks , Metaphysicks , are the burden of Volumes , and the dayly entertainment of the Disputing Schools : while the more profitable doctrines of the Heavens , Meteors , Minerals , Animals ; as also the more practical ones of Politicks , and Oeconomicks , are scarce so much as glanc'd at . And the indisputable Mathematicks , the only Science Heaven hath yet vouchsaf't Humanity ; have but few Votaries among the slaves of the Stagirite . What , the late promoters of the Aristotelian Philosophy , have writ on all these so fertile subjects ; can scarce compare with the single disputes about Materia prima . Nor hath Humane Science monopoliz'd the damage , that hath sprung from this Root of Evils : Theology hath been as deep a sharer . The Volumes of the Schoolmen , are deplorable evidence of Peripatetick depravations : And Luther's censure of that Divinity , Quam primum apparuit Theologia Scholastica , evanuit Theologia Crucis , is neither uncharitable , nor unjust . This hath mudded the Fountain of Certainty with notional and Ethnick admixtions ; and platted the head of Evangelical truth , as the Iews did its Author's , with a Crown of thorns : Here , the most obvious Verity is subtiliz'd into niceties , and spun into a thread indiscernible by common Opticks , but through the spectacles of the adored Heathen . This hath robb'd the Christian world of its unity and peace ; and made the Church , the Stage of everlasting contentions : And while Aristotle is made the Centre of Truth , and Unity , what hope of reconciling ? And yet most of these Scholastick controversies are ultimately resolv'd into the subtilties of his Philosophy : And me thinks an Athenian should not be the best guide to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ; Nor an Idolater to that God he neither knew nor owned . When I read the eager contests of these Notional Theologues , about things that are not ; I cannot but think of the pair of wise ones , that fought for the middle : And me thinks many of their Controversies are such , as if we and our Antipodes , should strive who were uppermost ; their title to Truth is equal . He that divided his Text into one part ; did but imitate the Schoolmen in their coincident distinctions : And the best of their curiosities are but like paint on Glass , which intercepts and dyes the light the more desirable splendor . I cannot look upon their elaborate trifles , but with a sad reflexion on the degenerate state of our lapsed Intellects ; and as deep a resentment , of the mischiefs of this School-Philosophy . CHAP. XVIII . 3. It gives no account of the Phaenomena ; those that are remoter , it attempts not . It speaks nothing pertinent in the most ordinary : It s circular , and general way of Solution . It resolves all things into occult qualities . The absurdity of the Aristotelian Hypothesis of the Heavens . The Gallaxy is no meteor : the Heavens are corruptible . Comets are above the Moon . The Sphear of fire derided . Aristotle convicted of several other false assertions . 3. THe Aristotelian Hypotheses give a very dry and jejune account of Nature's Phaenomena . For as to its more mysterious reserves , Peripatetick enquiry hath left them unattempted ; and the most forward notional Dictators sit down here in a contented ignorance : and as if nothing more were knowable then is already discover'd , they put stop to all endeavours of their Solution . Qualities , that were Occult to Aristotle , must be so to us ; and we must not Philosophize beyond Sympathy and Antipathy : whereas indeed the Rarities of Nature are in these Recesses , and its most excellent operations Cryptick to common discernment . Modern Ingenuity expects Wonders from Magnetick discoveries : And while we know but its more sensible ways of working ; we are but vulgar Philosophers , and not likely to help the World to any considerable Theories . Till the Fountains of the great deeps are broken up ; Knowledge is not likely to cover the Earth as the waters the Sea. Nor is the Aristotelian Philosophy guilty of this sloth and Philosophick penury , only in remoter abstrusities : but in solving the most ordinary causalities , it is as defective and unsatisfying . Even the most common productions are here resolv'd into Celestial influences , Elemental combinations , active and passive principles , and such generalities ; while the particular manner of them is as hidden as sympathies . And if we follow manifest qualities beyond the empty signification of their Names ; we shall find them as occult , as those which are professedly so . That heavy Bodies descend by gravity , is no better an account then we might expect from a Rustick : and again , that Gravity is a quality whereby an heavy body descends , is an impertinent Circle , and teacheth nothing . The feigned Central alliciency is but a word , and the manner of it still occult . That the fire burns by a quality called heat ; is an empty dry return to the Question , and leaves us still ignorant of the immediate way of igneous solutions . The accounts that this Philosophy gives by other Qualities , are of the same Gender with these : So that to say the Loadstone draws Iron by magnetick attraction , and that the Sea moves by flux and reflux ; were as satisfying as these Hypotheses , and the solution were as pertinent . In the Qualities , this Philosophy calls manifest , nothing is so but the effects . For the heat , we feel , is but the effect of the fire ; and the pressure , we are sensible of , but the effect of the descending body . And effects , whose causes are confessedly occult , are as much within the sphear of our Senses ; and our Eyes will inform us of the motion of the Steel to its attrahent . Thus Peripatetick Philosophy resolves all things into Occult qualities ; and the Dogmatists are the only Scepticks . Even to them , that pretend so much to Science , the world is circumscrib'd with a Gyges his Ring ; and is intellectually invisible : And , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , will best become the mouth of a Peripatetick . For by their way of disquisition there can no more be truly comprehended , then what 's known by every common Ignorant : But ingenious inquiry will not be contented with such vulgar frigidities . But further , if we look into the Aristotelian Comments on the largest Volumes of the Universe : The works of the fourth day are there as confused and disorderly , as the Chaos of the first : and more like that , which was before the light , then the compleatly finish'd , and gloriously disposed frame . What a Romance is the story of those impossible concamerations , Intersections , Involutions , and feign'd Rotations of solid Orbs ? All substituted to salve the credit of a broken ill-contrived Systeme . The belief of such disorders above , were an advantage to the oblique Atheism of Epicurus : And such Irregularities in the Celestial motions , would lend an Argument to the Apotheiosis of Fortune . Had the world been coagmented from that supposed fortuitous Jumble ; this Hypothesis had been tolerable . But could the doctrine of solid Orbs , be accommodated to Astronomical Phaenomena ; yet to ascribe each Sphear an Intelligence to circumvolve it , were an unphilosophical desperate refuge : And to confine the blessed Genii to a Province , which was the Hell of Ixion , were to rob them of their Felicities . That the Galaxy is a Meteor , was the account of Aristotle : But the Telescope hath autoptically confuted it : And he , who is not Pyrrhonian to the disbelief of his Senses , may see ; that it 's no exhalation from the Earth , but an heap of smaller Luminaries . That the Heavens are void of corruption , is Aristotles supposal : But the Tube hath betray'd their impurity ; and Neoterick Astronomy hath found spots in the Sun. The discoveries made in Venus , and the Moon , disprove the Antique Quintessence ; and evidence them of as course materials , as the Globe we belong to . The Perspicil , as well as the Needle , hath enlarged the habitable World ; and that the Moon is an Earth , is no improbable conjecture . The inequality of its surface , Mountanous protuberance , the nature of its Maculae , and infinite other circumstances [ for which the world 's beholding to Galilaeo ] are Items not contemptible : Hevelius hath graphically describ'd it : That Comets are of nature Terrestrial , is allowable : But that they are materiall'd of vapours , and never flamed beyond the Moon ; were a concession unpardonable . That in Cassiopaea was in the Firmament , and another in our age above the Sun. Nor was there ever any as low as the highest point of the circumference , the Stagyrite allows them . So that we need not be appal'd at Blazing Stars , and a Comet is no more ground for Astrological presages then a flaming Chimney . The unparallel'd Des-Cartes hath unridled their dark Physiology , and to wonder solv'd their Motions . His Philosophy gives them transcursions beyond the Vortex we breath in ; and leads them through others , which are only known in an Hypothesis . Aristotle would have fainted before he had flown half so far , as that Eagle-wit ; and have lighted on a hard name , or occult quality , to rest him . That there is a sphear of fire under the concave of the Moon , is a dream : And this , may be , was the reason some imagin'd Hell there , thinking those flames the Ignis Rotae . According to this Hypothesis , the whole Lunar world is a Torrid Zone ; and on a better account , then Aristotle thought ours was , may be supposed inhabitable , except they are Salamanders which dwell in those fiery Regions . That the Reflexion of the Solar Rays , is terminated in the Clouds ; was the opinion of the Graecian Sage : But Lunar observations have convicted it of falshood ; and that planet receives the dusky light , we discern in its Sextile Aspect , from the Earth's benignity . That the Rainbow never describes more then a semicircle , is no creditable assertion ; since experimental observations have confuted it . Gassendus saw one at Sun-setting , whose Supreme Arch almost reached our Zenith ; while the Horns stood in the Oriental Tropicks . And that Noble wit reprehends the School-Idol , for assigning fifty years at least between every Lunar Iris. That Caucasus enjoys the Sun-beams three parts of the Nights Vigils ; that Danubius ariseth from the Pyrenaean Hills : That the Earth is higher towards the North : are opinions truly charged on Aristotle by the Restorer of Epicurus ; and all easily confutable falsities . To reckon all the Aristotelian aberrances , and to give a full account of the lameness of his Hypotheses , would swell this digression into a Volume . The mention'd shall suffice us . CHAP. XIX . Aristotle's Philosophy inept for new discoveries ; it hath been the Author of no one invention : It 's founded on vulgarities , and therefore makes nothing known beyond them . The knowledge of Natures out-side confers not to practical improvements . Better hopes from the New Philosophy . A fifth charge against Aristotle's Philosophy , it is in many things impious , and self-contradicting : Instances of both propounded . The directing all this to the design of the discourse . A Caution , viz. that nothing is here intended in favour of novelty in Divinity ; the reason why we may imbrace what is new in Philosophy , while we reject them in Theologie . 4. THe Aristotelian Philosophy is inept for New discoveries ; and therefore of no accommodation to the use of life . That all Arts , and Professions are capable of maturer improvements ; cannot be doubted by those , who know the least of any . And that there is an America of secrets , and unknown Peru of Nature , whose discovery would richly advance them , is more then conjecture . Now while we either sayl by the Land of gross aud vulgar Doctrines , or direct our Enquiries , by the Cynosure of meer abstract notions ; we are not likely to reach the Treasures on the other side the Atlantick : The directing of the World the way to which , is the noble end of true Philosohpy . That the Aristotelian Physiology cannot boast it self the proper Author of any one Invention ; is praegnant evidence of its infecundous deficiency : And 't would puzzle the Schools to point at any considerable discovery , made by the direct , sole manuduction of Peripatetick Principles . Most of our Rarities have been found out by casual emergency ; and have been the works of Time , and Chance , rather then of Philosophy . What Aristotle hath of Experimental Knowledge in his Books of Animals , or elsewhere ; is not much transcending vulgar observation : And yet what he hath of this , was never learnt from his Hypotheses ; but forcibly fetch'd in to suffrage to them . And 't is the observation of the Noble St. Alban ; that that Philosophy is built on a few Vulgar Experiments : and if upon further enquiry , any were found to refragate , they were to be discharg'd by a distinction . Now what is founded on , and made up but of Vulgarities , cannot make known any thing beyond them . For Nature is is set a going by the most subtil and hidden Instruments ; which it may be have nothing obvious which resembles them . Hence judging by visible appearances , we are discouraged by supposed Impossibilities which to Nature are none , but within her Sphear of Action . And therefore what shews only the outside , and sensible structure of Nature ; is not likely to help us in finding out the Magnalia . 'T were next to impossible for one , who never saw the inward wheels and motions , to make a watch upon the bare view of the Circle of hours , and Index : And 't is as difficult to trace natural operations to any practical advantage , by the sight of the Cortex of sensible Appearances . He were a poor Physitian , that had no more Anatomy , then were to be gather'd from the Physnomy . Yea , the most common Phaenomena can be neither known , nor improved , without insight into the more hidden frame . For Nature works by an Invisible Hand in all things : And till Peripateticism can shew us further , then those gross solutions of Qualities and Elements ; 't will never make us Benefactors to the World , nor considerable Discoverers . But its experienc'd sterility through so many hundred years , drives Hope to desperation . We expect greater things from Neoterick endeavours . The Cartesian Philosophy in this regard hath shewn the World the way to be happy . Me thinks this Age seems resolved to bequeath posterity somewhat to remember it : And the glorious Undertakers , wherewith Heaven hath blest our Days , will leave the world better provided then they found it . And whereas in former times such generous free-spirited Worthies were , as the Rare newly observed Stars , a single one the wonder of an Age : In ours they are like the lights of the greater size that twinkle in the Starry Firmament : And this last Century can glory in numerous constellations . Should those Heroes go on , as they have happily begun ; they 'll fill the world with wonders . And I doubt not but posterity will find many things , that are now but Rumors , verified into practical Realities . It may be some Ages hence , a voyage to the Southern unknown Tracts , yea possibly the Moon , will not be more strange then one to America . To them , that come after us , it may be as ordinary to buy a pair of wings to fly into remotest Regions ; as now a pair of Boots to ride a Iourney . And to conferr at the distance of the Indies by Sympathetick conveyances , may be as usual to future times , as to us in a litterary correspondence . The restauration of gray hairs to Iuvenility , and renewing the exhausted marrow , may at length be effected without a miracle : And the turning of the now comparatively desert world into a Paradise , may not improbably be expected from late Agriculture . Now those , that judge by the narrowness of former Principles , will smile at these Paradoxical expectations : But questionless those great Inventions , that have in these later Ages altered the face of all things ; in their naked proposals , and meer suppositions , were to former times as ridiculous . To have talk'd of a new Earth to have been discovered , had been a Romance to Antiquity : And to sayl without sight of Stars or shoars by the guidance of a Mineral , a story more absurd , then the flight of Daedalus . That men should speak after their tongues were ashes , or communicate with each other in differing Hemisphears , before the Invention of Letters ; could not but have been thought a fiction . Antiquity would not have believed the almost incredible force of our Canons ; and would as coldly have entertain'd the wonders of the Telescope . In these we all condemn antique incredulity ; and 't is likely Posterity will have as much cause to pity ours . But yet notwithstanding this straightness of shallow observers , there are a set of enlarged souls that are more judiciously credulous : and those , who are acquainted with the fecundity of Cartesian Principles , and the diligent and ingenuous endeavours of so many true Philosophers ; will despair of nothing . 5. But again , the Aristotelian Philosophy is in some things impious , and inconsistent with Divinity ; and in many more inconsistent with it self . That the Resurrection is impossible ; That God understands not all things ; That the world was from Eternity ; That there 's no substantial form , but moves some Orb ; That the first Mover moves by an Eternal , Immutable Necessity ; That , if the world and motion were not from Eternity , then God was Idle ; were all the Assertions of Aristotle , which Theology pronounceth impieties . Which yet we need not strange at from one , of whom a Father saith , Nec Deum coluit nec curavit : Especially , if it be as Philoponus affirms , that he philosophiz'd by command from the Oracle . Of the Aristotelian contradictions , Gassendus hath presented us with a Catalogue : We 'll instance in a few of them . In one place he saith , The Planets scintillation is not seen , because of their propinquity ; but that of the rising and setting Sun is , because of its distance : and yet in another place he makes the Sun nearer us , then they are . He saith , that the Elements are not Eternal , and seeks to prove it ; and yet he makes the world so , and the Elements its parts . In his Meteors he saith , no Dew is produced in the Wind ; and yet afterwards admits it under the South , and none under the North. In one place he defines a vapour humid and cold ; and in another humid and hot . He saith , the faculty of speaking is a sense ; and yet before he allow'd but five . In one place , that Nature doth all things best ; and in another , that it makes more evil then good . And somewhere he contradicts himself within a line ; saying , that an Immoveable Mover hath no principle of Motion . 'T would be tedious to mention more ; and the qualiiy of a digression will not allow it . Thus we have , as briefly as the subject would bear , animadverted on the so much admired Philosophy of Aristotle . The nobler Spirits of the Age , are disengaged from those detected vanities : And the now Adorers of that Philosophy are few , but such narrow souls , that know no other ; Or if any of them look beyond the leaves of their Master , yet they try other Principles by a Jury of his , and scan Cartes with Genus and Species . From the former sort I may hope , they 'l pardon this attempt ; and for the latter , I value not their censure . Thus then we may conclude upon the whole , that the stamp of Authority can make Leather as current as Gold ; and that there 's nothing so contemptible , but Antiquity can render it august , and excellent . But , because the Fooleries of some affected Novelists have discredited new discoveries , and render'd the very mention suspected of Vanity at least ; and in points Divine , of Heresie : It will be necessary to add , that I intend not the former discourse , in favour of any new-broach'd conceit in Divinity ; For I own no Opinion there , which cannot plead the prescription of above sixteen hundred . There 's nothing I have more sadly resented , then the phrenetick whimsies with which our Age abounds , and therefore am not likely to Patron them . In Theology , I put as great a difference between our New Lights , and Ancient Truths ; as between the Sun , and an unconcocted evanid Meteor . Though I confess , that in Philosophy I 'm a Seeker ; yet cannot believe , that a Sceptick in Philosophy must be one in Divinity . Gospel-Light began in it Zenith ; and , as some say the Sun , was created in its Meridian strength and lustre . But the beginnings of Philosophy were in a Crepusculous obscurity ; and it 's yet scarse past the Dawn . Divine Truths were most pure in their source ; and Time could not perfect what Eternity began : our Divinity , like the Grand-father of Humanity , was born in the fulness of time , and in the strength of its manly vigour : But Philosophy and Arts commenced Embryo's , and are compleated by Times gradual accomplishments . And therefore , what I cannot find in the leaves of former Inquisitours : I seek in the Modern attempts of nearer Authors . I cannot receive Aristotle's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , in so extensive an interpretation , as some would enlarge it to : And that discouraging Maxime , Nil dictum quod non dictum prius , hath little room in my estimation . Nor can I tye up my belief to the Letter of Solomon : Except Copernicus be in the right , there hath been something New under the Sun ; I 'm sure , later times have seen Novelties in the Heavens above it . I do not think , that all Science is Tautology : The last Ages have shewn us , what Antiquity never saw ; no , not in a Dream . CHAP. XX. It 's queried whether there be any Science in the sense of the Dogmatists : ( 1 ) We cannot know any thing to be the cause of another , but from its attending it ; and this way is not infallible ; declared by instances , especially from the Philosophy of Des-Cartes . All things are mixt , and 't is difficult to assign each Cause its distinct Effect . ( 2 ) There 's no demonstration but where the contrary is impossible . We can scarce conclude so of any thing : Instances of supposed impossibles which are none . A story of a Scholar that turn'd Gipsy ; and of the power of Imagination . Of one mans binding anothers thoughts ; and a conjecture at the maner of its performance . COnfidence of Science is one great reason , we miss it : whereby presuming we have it every where , we seek it not where it is ; and therefore fall short of the object of our Enquiry . Now to give further check to Dogmatical pretensions , and to discover the vanity of assuming Ignorance ; we 'll make a short enquiry , whether there be any such thing as Science in the sense of its Assertours . In their notion then , it is the knowledge of things in their true , immediate , necessary causes : Upon which I 'le advance the following Observations . 1. All Knowledge of Causes is deductive : for we know none by simple intuition ; but through the mediation of its effects . Now we cannot conclude , any thing to be the cause of another ; but from its continual accompanying it : for the causality it self is insensible . Thus we gather fire to be the cause of heat , and the Sun of day-light : because where ever fire is , we find there 's heat ; and where ever the Sun is , Light attends it , and è contrà . But now to argue from a concomitancy to a causality , is not infallibly conclusive : Yea in this way lies notorious delusion . Is 't not possible , and how know we the contrary , but , that something , which alway attends the grosser flame , may be the cause of heat ? and may not it , and its supposed cause , be only parallel effects ? Suppose the fire had ne're appear'd , but had been still hid in smoke ; and that heat did alway proportionably encrease and diminish , with the greater or less quantity of that fuliginous exhalation : should we ever have doubted , that smoke was the cause on 't ? Suppose we had never seen more Sun , then in a cloudy day , and that the lesser lights had ne're shewn us their lucid substance ; Let us suppose the day had alway broke with a wind , and had proportionably varyed , as that did : Had not he been a notorious Sceptick , that should question the causality ? But we need not be beholding to such remote suppositions : The French Philosophy furnishes us with a better instance . For , according to the Principles of the illustrious Des-Cartes , there would be light , though the Sun and Stars gave none ; and a great part of what we now enjoy , is independent on their beams . Now if this seemingly prodigious Paradox , can be reconcil'd to the least probability of conjecture , or may it be made but a tolerable supposal ; I presume , it may then win those that are of most difficil belief , readily to yeeld ; that causes in our account the most palpable , may possibly be but uninfluential attendants ; since that there is not an instance can be given , wherein we opinion a more certain efficiency . So then , according to the tenour of that concinnous Hypothesis , light being caused by the Conamen of the Matter of the Vortex , to recede from the Centre of its Motion : it is easily deducible , that were there none of that fluid Aether , which makes the body of the Sun in the Centre of our world , or should it cease from action ; yet the conatus of the circling matter would not be considerably less , but according to the indispensable Laws of Motion , must press the Organs of Sense as now , though it may be not with so smart an impulse . Thus we see , how there might be Light before the Luminaries ; and Evening and Morning before there was a Sun. So then we cannot infallibly assure our selves of the truth of the causes , that most obviously occur ; and therefore the foundation of scientifical procedure , is too weak for so magnificent a superstructure . Besides , That the World 's a mass of heterogeneous subsistencies , and every part thereof a coalition of distinguishable varieties ; we need not go far for evidence : And that all things are mixed , and Causes blended by mutual involutions ; I presume , to the Intelligent will be no difficult concession . Now to profound to the bottom of these diversities , to assign each cause its distinct effects , and to limit them by their just and true proportions ; are necessary requisites of Science : and he that hath compast them , may boast he hath out-done humanity . But for us to talk of Knowledge , from those few indistinct representations , which are made to our grosser faculties , is a flatulent vanity . 2. We hold no demonstration in the notion of the Dogmatist , but where the contrary is impossible : For necessary is that , which cannot be otherwise . Now , whether the acquisitions of any on this side perfection , can make good the pretensions to so high strain'd an infallibility , will be worth a reflexion . And , me thinks , did we but compare the miserable scantness of our capacities , with the vast profundity of things ; both truth and modesty would teach us a dialect , more becoming short-sighted mortality . Can nothing be otherwise , which we conceive impossible , to be so ? Is our knowledge , and things , so adequately commensurate , as to justifie the affirming , that that cannot be , which we comprehend not ? Our demonstrations are levyed upon Principles of our own , not universal Nature : And , as my Lord Bacon notes , we judge from the Analogy of our selves , not the Universe . Now are not many things certain by the Principles of one , which are impossible to the apprehensions of another ? Thus some things our Juvenile reasons tenaciously adhere to ; which yet our maturer Judgements disallow of : many things to meer sensible discerners are impossible , which to the enlarged principles of more advanced Intellects are easie verities : Yea , that 's absurd in one Philosophy , which is a worthy Truth in another ; and that 's a demonstration to Aristotle , which is none to Des-Cartes . That every fixt star is a Sun ; and that they are as distant from each other , as we from some of them ; That the Sun , which lights us , is in the Centre of our World , and our Earth a Planet that wheels about it ; That this Globe is a Star , only crusted over with the grosser Element , and that its Centre is of the same nature with the Sun ; That it may recover its light again , and shine amids the other Luminaries ; That our Sun may be swallow'd up of another , and become a Planet : All these , if we judge by common Principles or the Rules of Vulgar Philosophy , are prodigious Impossibilities , and their contradictories , as good as demonstrable : But yet to a reason inform'd by Cartesianism ; these have their probability . Thus , it may be , the grossest absurdities to the Philosophies of Europe , may be justifiable assertions to that of China : And 't is not unlikely , but what 's impossible to all Humanity , may be possible in the Metaphysicks , and Physiologie of Angels . Now the best Principles , excepting Divine , and Mathematical , are but Hypotheses ; within the Circle of which we may indeed conclude many things , with security from Error : But yet the greatest certainty , advanc'd from supposal , is still but Hypothetical . So that we may affirm , things are thus and thus , according to the Principles we have espoused : But we strangely forget our selves , when we plead a necessity of their being so in Nature , and an Impossibility of their being otherwise . That one man should be able to bind the thoughts of another , and determine them to their particular objects ; will be reckon'd in the first rank of Impossibles : Yet by the power of advanc'd Imagination it may very probably be effected ; and story abounds with Instances . I 'le trouble the Reader but with one ; and the hands from which I had it , make me secure of the truth on 't . There was very lately a Lad in the University of Oxford , who being of very pregnant and ready parts , and yet wanting the encouragement of preferment ; was by his poverty forc'd to leave his studies there , and to cast himself upon the wide world for a livelyhood . Now , his necessities growing dayly on him , and wanting the help of friends to relieve him ; he was at last forced to joyn himself to a company of Vagabond Gypsies , whom occasionly he met with , and to follow their Trade for a maintenance . Among these extravagant people , by the insinuating subtilty of his carriage , he quickly got so much of their love , and esteem ; as that they discover'd to him their Mystery : in the practice of which , by the pregnancy of his wit and parts he soon grew so good a proficient , as to be able to out-do his Instructours . After he had been a pretty while well exercis'd in the Trade ; there chanc'd to ride by a couple of Scholars who had formerly bin of his acquaintance . The Scholars had quickly spyed out their old friend , among the Gypsies ; and their amazement to see him among such society , had well-nigh discover'd him : but by a sign he prevented their owning him before that Crew : and taking one of them aside privately , desired him with his friend to go to an Inn , not far distant thence , promising there to come to them . They accordingly went thither , and he follows : after their first salutations , his friends enquire how he came to lead so odd a life as that was , and to joyn himself with such a cheating beggerly company . The Scholar-Gypsy having given them an account of the necessity , which drove him to that kind of life ; told them , that the people he went with were not such Impostours as they were taken for , but that they had a traditional kind of learning among them , and could do wonders by the power of Imagination , and that himself had learnt much of their Art , and improved it further then themselves could . And to evince the truth of what he told them , he said , he 'd remove into another room , leaving them to discourse together ; and upon his return tell them the sum of what they had talked of : which accordingly he perform'd , giving them a full account of what had pass'd between them in his absence . The Scholars being amaz'd at so unexpected a discovery , earnestly desir'd him to unriddle the mystery . In which he gave them satisfaction , by telling them , that what he did was by the power of Imagination , his Phancy binding theirs ; and that himself had dictated to them the discourse , they held together , while he was from them : That there were warrantable wayes of heightening the Imagination to that pitch , as to bind anothers ; and that when he had compass'd the whole secret , some parts of which he said he was yet ignorant of , he intended to leave their company , and give the world an account of what he had learned . Now that this strange power of the Imagination is no Impossibility ; the wonderful signatures in the Foetus caus'd by the Imagination of the Mother , is no contemptible Item . The sympathies of laughing & gaping together , are resolv'd into this Principle : and I see not why the phancy of one man may not determine the cogitation of another rightly qualified , as easily as his bodily motion . This influence seems to be no more unreasonable , then that of one string of a Lute upon another ; when a stroak on it causeth a proportionable motion in the sympathizing consort , which is distant from it and not sensibly touched . Now if this notion be strictly verifiable ; 't will yeeld us a good account how Angels inject thoughts into our minds , and know our cogitations : and here we may see the source of some kinds of fascination . If we are prejudic'd against the speculation , because we cannot conceive the manner of so strange an operation ; we shall indeed receive no help from the common Philosophy : But yet the Hypothesis of a Mundane soul , lately reviv'd by that incomparable Platonist and Cartesian , Dr. H. More , will handsomly relieve us . Or if any would rather have a Mechanical account ; I think it may probably be made out some such way as follows . Imagination is inward Sense . To Sense is required a motion of certain Filaments of the Brain ; and consequently in Imagination there 's the like : they only differing in this , that the motion of the one proceeds immediately from external objects ; but that of the other hath its immediate rise within us . Now then , when any part of the Brain is strongly agitated ; that , which is next and most capable to receive the motive Impress , must in like manner be moved . Now we cannot conceive any thing more capable of motion , then the fluid matter , that 's interspers'd among all bodies , and contiguous to them . So then , the agitated parts of the Brain begetting a motion in the proxime Aether ; it is propagated through the liquid medium , as we see the motion is which is caus'd by a stone thrown into the water . Now , when the thus moved matter meets with any thing like that , from which it received its primary impress ; it will proportionably move it , as it is in Musical strings tuned Unisons . And thus the motion being convey'd , from the Brain of one man to the Phancy of another ; it is there receiv'd from the instrument of conveyance , the subtil matter ; and the same kind of strings being moved , and much what after the same manner as in the first Imaginant ; the Soul is awaken'd to the same apprehensions , as were they that caus'd them . I pretend not to any exactness or infallibility in this account , fore-seeing many scruples that must be removed to make it perfect : 'T is only an hint of the possibility of mechanically solving the Phaenomenon ; though very likely it may require many other circumstances compleatly to make it out . But 't is not my business here to follow it : I leave it therefore to receive accomplishment from maturer Inventions . CHAP. XXI . Another instance of a supposed Impossibility which may not be so . Of conference at distance by impregnated Needles . A way of secret conveyance by sympathized hands ; a relation to this purpose . Of the magnetick cure of wounds . This discourse weakens not the certainty of truths Mathematical or Divine . Mathematical Science need not elate us , since by it we know but our own creatures , and are still ignorant of our Makers . ( 3 ) We cannot know any thing in Nature , without the knowledge of the first springs of natural motions , and these we are ignorant of . Des-Cartes his Philosophy commended . BUt yet to advance another instance . That men should confer at very distant removes by an extemporary intercourse is a reputed impossibility , but yet there are some hints in natural operations that give us probability that 't is feasible , and may be compast without unwarrantable assistance from Daemoniack correspondence . That a couple of Needles equally toucht by the same magnet , being set in two Dyals exactly proportion'd to each other , and circumscribed by the Letters of the Alphabet , may effect this magnale , hath considerable authorities to avouch it . The manner of it is thus represented . Let the friends that would communicate take each a Dyal : and having appointed a time for their Sympathetick conference ; let one move his impregnate Needle to any letter in the Alphabet , and its affected fellow will precisely respect the same . So that would I know what my friend would acquaint me with ; 't is but observing the letters that are pointed at by my Needle , and in their order transcribing them from their sympathized Index , as its motion direct's : and I maybe assured that my friend described the same with his : and that the words on my paper , are of his inditing . Now though there will be some ill contrivance in a circumstance of this invention , in that the thus impregnate Needles will not move to , but avert from each other ( as ingenious Dr. Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica hath observed : ) yet this cannot prejudice the main design of this way of secret conveyance : Since 't is but reading counter to the magnetick informer ; and noting the letter which is most distant in the Abecedarian circle from that which the needle turns to , and the case is not alter'd . Now though this desirable effect possibly may not yet answer the expectation of inquisitive experiment ; yet 't is no despicable item , that by some other such way of magnetick efficiency , it may hereafter with success be attempted , when Magical History shall be enlarged by riper inspections : and 't is not unlikely , but that present discoveries might be improved to the performance . There is besides this another way , which is said to have advanced the secret beyond speculation , and compleated it in practice . That some have conferr'd at distance by sympathized hands , and in a moment have thus transmitted their thoughts to each other , there are late specious relations do attest it : which say , that the hands of two friends being sympathized by a transferring of flesh from one into the other , and the place of the letters mutually agreed on ; the least prick in the hand of one , the other will be sensible of , and that in the same part of his own . And thus the distant friend by a new kind of Chiromancy may read in his own hand what his correspondent had set down in his . For instance , would I in London acquaint my intimate in Paris , that I am well : I would then prick that part where I had appointed the letter [ I : ] and doing so in another place to signifie that word was done , proceed to [ A , ] thence to [ M ] and so on , till I had finisht what I intended to make known . Now that there have been some such practices , I have had a considerable relation , which I hold not impertinent to insert . A Gentleman comes to a Chirurgeon to have his arm cut off : The Surgeon perceiving nothing that it ailed , was much startled at the motion ; thinking him either in jest , or besides himself . But by a more deliberate recollection , perceiving that he was both sober , and in earnest ; entreats him to know the reason of so strange a desire , since his arm to him seem'd perfectly sound : to which the Gentleman replyes , that his hand was sympathiz'd , and his friend was dead , so that if not prevented by amputation , he said , it would rot away , as did that of his deceased Correspondent . Nor was this an unreasonable surmise ; but , if there be any such way of manual Sympathizing , a very probable conjecture . For , that which was so sensibly affected with so inconsiderable a touch , in all likelyhood would be more immuted , by those greater alterations which are in Cadaverous Solutions . And no doubt , but that by the same reason it would have been corrupted , as some times Warts are by the decay of buryed lard that was rubb'd upon them . Now if these wayes of secret conveyance may be made out to be really practicable ; yea , if it be evincible , that they are as much as possibly so , it will be a warrantable presumption of the verity of the former instance : since t is as easily conceivable , that there should be communications between the phancies of men , as either the impregnate needles , or sympathized hands . And there is an instance yet behinde , which is more creditable than either , and gives probability to them all . That there is a Magnetick way of curing wounds by anointing the weapon , and that the wound is affected in like manner as is the extravenate bloud by the Sympathetick medicine , is for matter of fact put out of doubt by the Noble Sir K. Digby , and the proof he gives in his ingenious discourse on the subject , is unexceptionable . For the reason of this wonder , he attempts it by Mechanism , and endeavours to make it out by atomical aporrheas , which passing from the cruentate cloth or weapon to the wound , and being incorporated with the particles of the salve carry them in their embraces to the affected part : where the medicinal atomes entering together with the effluviums of the bloud , do by their subtle insinuation better effect the cure , then can be done by any grosser Application . The particular way of their conveyance , and their regular direction is handsomly explicated by that learned Knight , and recommended to the Ingenious by most witty and becoming illustrations . It is out of my way here to enquire whether the Anima Mundi be not a better account , then any Mechanical Solutions . The former is more desperate , the later hath more of ingenuity , then solid satisfaction . It is enough for me that de facto there is such an entercourse between the Magnetick unguent and the vulnerated body , and I need not be solicitous of the Cause . These theories I presume will not be importunate to the ingenious : and therefore I have taken the liberty ( which the quality of an Essay will well enough allow of ) to touch upon them , though seemingly collateral to my scope . And yet I think , they are but seemingly so , since they do pertinently illustrate my design , viz. That what seems impossible to us , may not be so in Nature ; and therefore the Dogmatist wants this to compleat his demonstration , that 't is impossible to be otherwise . Now I intend not by any thing here to invalidate the certainty of truths either Mathematical or Divine . These are superstructed on principles that cannot fail us , except our faculties do constantly abuse us . Our religious foundations are fastned at the pillars of the intellectual world , and the grand Articles of our Belief as demonstrable as Geometry . Nor will ever either the subtile attempts of the resolved Atheist ; or the passionate Hurricanoes of the phrentick Enthusiast , any more be able to prevail against the reason our Faith is built on , than the blustring windes to blow out the Sun. And for Mathematical Sciences , he that doubts their certainty , hath need of a dose of Hellebore . Nor yet can the Dogmatist make much of these concessions in favour of his pretended Science ; for our discourse comes not within the circle of the former : and for the later , the knowledge we have of the Mathematicks , hath no reason to elate us ; since by them we know but numbers , and figures , creatures of our own , and are yet ignorant of our Maker's . ( 3. ) We cannot know any thing of Nature but by an Analysis of it to its true initial causes : and till we know the first springs of natural motions , we are still but ignorants . These are the Alphabet of Science , and Nature cannot be read without them . Now who dares pretend to have seen the prime motive causes , or to have had a view of Nature , while she lay in her simple Originals ? we know nothing but effects , and those but by our Senses . Nor can we judge of their Causes , but by proportion to palpable causalities conceiving them like those within the sensible Horizon . Now 't is no doubt with the considerate , but that the rudiments of Nature are very unlike the grosser appearances . Thus in things obvious , there 's but little resemblance between the Mucous sperm , and the compleated Animal . The Egge is not like the oviparous production : nor the corrupted muck like the creature that creeps from it . There 's but little similitude betwixt a terreous humidity , and plantal germinations ; nor do vegetable derivations ordinarily resemble their simple scminalities . So then , since there 's so much dissimilitude between Cause and Effect in the more palpable Phaenomena , we can expect no less between them , and their invisible efficients . Now had our Senses never presented us with those obvious seminal principles of apparent generations , we should never have suspected that a plant or animal could have proceeded from such unlikely materials : much less , can we conceive or determine the uncompounded initials of natural productions , in the total silence of our Senses . And though the Grand Secretary of Nature , the miraculous Des-Cartes have here infinitely out-done all the Philosophers went before him , in giving a particular and Analytical account of the Universal Fabrick : yet he intends his Principles but for Hypotheses , and never pretends that things are really or necessarily , as he hath supposed them : but that they may be admitted pertinently to solve the Phaenomena , and are convenient supposals for the use of life . Nor can any further account be expected from humanity , but how things possibly may have been made consonantly to sensible nature : but infallibly to determine , how they truly were effected , is proper to him only that saw them in the Chaos , and fashion'd them out of that confused mass . For to say , the principles of Nature must needs be such as our Philosophy makes them , is to set bounds to Omnipotence , and to confine infinite power and wisdom to our shallow models . CHAP. XXII . ( 4 ) Because of the mutual dependence and concatenation of Causes , we cannot know any one without knowing all . Particularly declared by instances . ( 5 ) All our Science comes in at our Senses ; their infallibility inquir'd into . The Authors design in this last particular . ( 4 ) . ACcording to the notion of the Dogmatist , we know nothing , except we knew all things , and he that pretends to Science affects an Omniscience . For all things being linkt together by an uninterrupted chain of Causes ; and every single motion owning a dependence on such a Syndrome of prae-required motors : we can have no true knowledge of any , except we comprehended all , and could distinctly pry into the whole method of Causal Concatenations . Thus we cannot know the cause of any one motion in a watch , unless we were acquainted with all its motive dependences , and had a distinctive comprehension of the whole Mechanical frame . And would we know but the most contemptible plant that grows , almost all things that have a being must contribute to our knowledge : for , that to the perfect Science of any thing it 's necessary to know all its causes ; is both reasonable in its self , and the sense of the Dogmatist . So that , to the knowledge of the poorest simple , we must first know its efficient , the manner , and method of its efformation , and the nature of the Plastick . To the comprehending of which , we must have a full prospect into the whole Archidoxis of Nature's secrets , and the immense profundities of occult Philosophy : in which we know nothing till we compleatly ken all Magnetick , and Sympathetick energies , and their most hidden causes . And ( 2 ) if we contemplate a vegetable in its material principle , and look on it as made of earth ; we must have the true Theory of the nature of that Element , or we miserably fail of our Scientifical aspirings , and while we can only say , 't is cold and dry , we are pitiful knowers . But now , to profound into the Physicks of this heterogeneous masse , to discern the principles of its constitution , and to discover the reason of its diversities , are absolute requisites of the Science we aim at . Nor can we tolerably pretend to have those without the knowledge of Minerals , the causes and manner of their Concretions , and among the rest , the Magnet , with its amazing properties . This directs us to the pole , and thence our disquisition is led to the whole systeme of the Heavens : to the knowledge of which , we must know their motions , and the causes , and manner of their rotations , as also the reasons of all the Planetary Phaenomena , and of the Comets , their nature , and the causes of all their irregular appearings . To these , the knowledge of the intricate doctrine of motion , the powers , proportions , and laws thereof , is requisite . And thus we are engaged in the objects of Geometry and Arithmetick , yea the whole Mathematicks , must be contributary , and to them all Nature payes a subsidy . Besides , plants are partly material'd of water , with which they are furnisht either from subterranean Fountains , or the Clouds . Now to have the true Theory of the former , we must trace the nature of the Sea , its origen ; and hereto its remarkable motions of flux and reflux . This again directs us to the Moon , and the rest of the Celestial faces . The moisture that comes from the Clouds is drawn up in vapours : To the Scientifical discernment of which , we must know the nature and manner of that action , their suspense in the middle region , the qualities of that place , and the causes and manner of their precipitating thence again : and so the reason of the Sphaerical figure of the drops ; the causes of Windes , Hail , Snow , Thunder , Lightning , with all other igneous appearances , with the whole Physiology of Meteors must be enquired into . And again ( 3 ) in our disquisition into the formal Causes , the knowledge of the nature of colours , is necessary to compleat the Science . To be inform'd of this , we must know what light is ; and light being effected by a motion on the Organs of sense , 't will be a necessary requisite , to understand the nature of our sensitive faculties , and to them the essence of the soul , and other spiritual subsistences . The manner how it is materially united , and how it is aware of corporeal motion . The seat of sense , and the place where 't is principally affected : which cannot be known but by the Anatomy of our parts , and the knowledge of their Mechanical structure . And if further ( 4 ) we contemplate the end of this minute effect , its principal final Cause , being the glory of its Maker , leads us into Divinity ; and for its subordinate , as 't is design'd for alimental sustenance to living creatures , and medicinal uses to man , we are conducted into Zoography , and the whole body of Physick . Thus then , to the knowledge of the most contemptible effect in nature , 't is necessary to know the whole Syntax of Causes , and their particular circumstances , and modes of action . Nay , we know nothing , till we know our selves , which are the summary of all the world without us , and the Index of the Creation . Nor can we know our selves without the Physiology of corporeal Nature , and the Metaphysicks of Souls and Angels . So then , every Science borrows from all the rest ; and we cannot attain any single one , without the Encyclopaedy . ( 5 ) The knowledge we have comes from our Senses , and the Dogmatist can go no higher for the original of his certainty . Now let the Sciolist tell me , why things must needs be so , as his individual senses represent them ? Is he sure , that objects are not otherwise sensed by others , then they are by him ? and why must his sense be the infallible Criterion ? It may be , what is white to us , is black to Negroes , and our Angels to them are Fiends . Diversity of constitution , or other circumstances varies the sensation , and to them of Iava Pepper is cold . And though we agree in a common name , yet it may be , I have the same representation from yellow , that another hath from green . Thus two look upon an Alabaster Statue ; he call's it white , and I assent to the appellation : but how can I discover , that his inward sense on 't is the same that mine is ? It may be , Alabaster is represented to him , as jet is to me , and yet it is white to us both . We accord in the name : but it 's beyond our knowledge , whether we do so in the conception answering it . Yea , the contrary is not without its probability . For though the Images , Motions , or whatever else is the cause of sense , may be alike as from the object ; yet may the representations be varyed according to the nature and quality of the Recipient . That 's one thing to us looking through a tube , which is another to our naked eyes . The same things seem otherwise through a green glass , then they do through a red . Thus objects have a different appearance , when the eye is violently any way distorted , from that they have , when our Organs are in their proper site and figure , and some extraordinary alterations in the Brain duplicate that which is but a single object to our undistemper'd Sentient . Thus , that 's of one colour to us standing in one place , which hath a contrary aspect in another : as in those versatile representations in the neck of a Dove , and folds of Scarlet . And as great diversity might have been exemplified in the other senses , but for brevity I omit them . Now then , since so many various circumstances concurre to every individual constitution , and every mans senses , differing as much from others in its figure , colour , site , and infinite other particularities in the Organization , as any one mans can from it self , through diverse accidental variations : it cannot well be suppos'd otherwise , but that the conceptions convey'd by them must be as diverse . Thus , one mans eyes are more protuberant , and swelling out ; anothers more sunk and depressed . One mans bright , and sparkling , and as it were swimming in a subtile , lucid moisture ; anothers more dull and heavy , and destitute of that spirituous humidity . The colour of mens eyes is various , nor is there less diversity in their quantitative proportions . And if we look further into the more inward constitution , there 's more variety in the internal configurations , than in the visible out-side . For let us consider the different qualities of the Optick nerves , humors , tunicles , and spirits ; the divers figurings of the brain ; the strings , or filaments thereof ; their difference in tenuity and aptness for motion : and as many other circumstances , as there are individuals in humane nature ; all these are diversified according to the difference of each Crasis , and are as unlike , as our faces . From these diversities in all likelyhood will arise as much difference in the manner of the reception of the Images , and consequently as various sensations . So then , how objects are represented to my self ; I cannot be ignorant , being conscious to mine own cogitations ; but in what manner they are received , and what impresses they make upon the so differing organs of another , he only knows , that feels them . There is an obvious an easie objection , which I have sufficiently caveated against ; and with the considerate it will signifie no more then the inadvertency of the Objectors . 'T will be thought by slight discerners a ridiculous Paradox , that all men should not conceive of the objects of sense alike ; since their agreement in the appellation seems so strong an argument of the identity of the sentiment . All , for instance , say , that Snow is white , and that Jet is black , is doubted by none . But yet 't is more then any man can determine , whether his conceit of what he cals white , be the same with anothers ; or whether , the notion he hath of one colour be not the same another hath of a very diverse one . So then , to direct all against the knowing Ignorant , what he hath of sensible evidence , the very ground-work of his demonstration , is but the knowledge of his own resentment : but how the same things appear to others , they only know , that are conscious to them ; and how they are in themselves , only he that made them . Thus have I in this last particular play'd with the Dogmatist in a personated Scepticism : and would not have the design of the whole discourse measur'd by the seeming tendency of this part on 't . The Sciolist may here see , that what he counts of all things most absurd and irrational , hath yet considerable shew of probability to plead its cause , and it may be more then some of his presumed demonstrations . 'T is irreprehensible in Physitians to cure their Patient of one disease , by casting him into another , less desperate . And I hope , I shall not deserve the frown of the Ingenuous for my innocent intentions ; having in this only imitated the practice of bending a crooked stick as much the other way , to straighten it . And if by this verge to the other extream , I can bring the opinionative Confident but half the way , viz. that discreet modest aequipoize of Judgement , that becomes the sons of Adam ; I have compast what I aim at . CHAP. XXIII . Considerations against Dogmatizing . ( 1 ) 'T is the effect of Ignorance . ( 2 ) It inhabits with untamed passions , and an ungovern'd Spirit . ( 3 ) It is the great Disturber of the world . ( 4 ) It is ill manners , and immodesty . ( 5 ) It holds men captive in Error . ( 6 ) It betrayes a narrowness of spirit . I Expect but little success of all this upon the Dogmatist , his opinion'd assurance is paramont to Argument , and 't is almost as easie to reason him out of a Feaver , as out of this disease of the mind , I hope for better fruit from the more generous vertuoso's , to such I appeal against Dogmatizing , in the following considerations ; that 's well spent upon impartial ingenuity , which is lost upon resolved prejudice . 1. Opinionative confidence is the effect of Ignorance , and were the Sciolist perswaded so , I might spare my further reasons against it : 't is affectation of knowledge , that makes him confident he hath it , and his confidence is counter evidence to his pretensions to knowledge . He is the greatest ignorant , that knows not that he is so : for 't is a good degree of Science , to be sensible that we want it . He that knows most of himself , knows least of his knowledge , and the exercised understanding is conscious of its disability . Now he that is so , will not lean too assuredly on that , which hath so frequently deceived him , nor build the Castle of his intellectual security , in the Air of Opinions . But for the shallow passive intellects , that were never ingag'd in a through search of verity , 't is such are the confidents that ingage their irrepealable assents to every slight appearance . Thus meer sensible conceivers , make every thing they hold a Sacrament , and the silly vulgar are sure of all things . There was no Theoreme in the Mathematicks more certain to Archimedes , then the Earth's immoveable quiescence seems to the multitude : nor then did the impossibility of Antipodes , to antique ages . And if great Philosophers doubt of many things , which popular dijudicants hold as certain as their Creeds , I suppose Ignorance it self will not say , it is because they are more ignorant . Superficial pedants will swear their controversal uncertainties , while wiser heads stand in bivio . Opinions are the Rattles of immature intellects , but the advanced Reasons have out-grown them . True knowledge is modest and wary , 't is ignorance that is so bold , and presuming . Thus those that never travail'd without the Horizon , that first terminated their Infant aspects , will not be perswaded that the world hath any Countrey better then their own : while they that have had a view of other Regions , are not so confidently perswaded of the precedency of that , they were bred in , but speak more indifferently of the laws , manners , commodities , and customs of their native soil : So they that never peep 't beyond the common belief in which their easie understandings were at first indoctrinated , are indubitately assur'd of the Truth , and comparative excellency of their receptions , while the larger Souls , that have travail'd the divers Climates of Opinions , are more cautious in their resolves , and more sparing to determine . And let the most confirm'd Dogmatist profound far into his indeared opinions , and I 'le warrant him 't will be an effectual cure of confidence . ( 2 ) Confidence in Opinions evermore dwells with untamed passions , and is maintain'd upon the depraved obstinacy of an ungovern'd spirit . He 's but a novice in the Art of Autocrasy , that cannot castigate his passions in reference to those presumptions , and will come as far short of wisdom as science : for the Judgement being the Hegemonical power , and director of action , if it be led by the over-bearings of passion , and stor'd with lubricous opinions in stead of clearly conceived truths , and be peremptorily resolved in them , the practice will be as irregular , as the conceptions erroneous . Opinions hold the stirrup , while vice mounts into the saddle . ( 3 ) Dogmatizing is the great disturber both of our selves and the world without us : for while we wed an opinion , we resolvedly ingage against every one , that opposeth it . Thus every man , being in some of his opinionative apprehensions singular , must be at variance with all men . Now every opposition of our espous'd opinions furrows the sea within us , and discomposeth the minds serenity . And what happiness is there in a storm of passions ? On this account the Scepticks affected an indifferent aequipondious neutrality as the only means to their Ataraxia , and freedom from passionate disturbances . Nor were they altogether mistaken in the way , to their design'd felicity , but came short on 't , by going beyond it : for if there be a repose naturally attainable this side the Stars , there is no way we can more hopefully seek it in . We can never be at rest , while our quiet can be taken from us by every thwarting our opinions : nor is that content an happiness , which every one can rob us of . There is no felicity , but in a fixed stability . Nor can genuine constancy be built upon rowling foundations . 'T is true staidness of mind , to look with an equal regard on all things , and this unmoved apathy in opinionative uncertainties , is a warrantable piece of Stoicism . Besides , this immodest obstinacy in opinions , hath made the world a Babel ; and given birth to disorders , like those of the Chaos . The primitive fight of Elements doth fitly embleme that of Opinions , and those proverbial contrarieties may be reconcil'd , as soon as peremptory contenders . That hence grow Schisms , Heresies , and anomalies beyond Arithmetick , I could wish were of more difficult probation . 'T were happy for a distemper'd Church , if evidence were not so near us . 'T is zeal for opinions that hath fill'd our Hemisphear with smoke and darkness , and by a dear experience we know the fury of those flames it hath kindled . Had not Heaven prevented , they had turn'd our Paradise into a Desert , and made us the habitation of Iim , and Ohim . 'T is lamentable that Homo homini Daemon , should be a Proverb among the Professors of the Cross , and yet I fear it is as verifiable among them , as of those without the pale of visible Christianity . I doubt we have lost S. Iohn's sign of regeneration . By this we know that we are past from death , to life , that we love one another , is I fear , to few a sign of their spiritual resurrection . If our Returning Lord , shall scarse find faith on earth , where will he look for charity ? It is a stranger this side the Region of love , and blessedness ; bitter zeal for opinions hath consum'd it . Mutual agreement and indearments was the badge of Primitive Believers , but we may be known by the contrary criterion . The union of a Sect within it self , is a pitiful charity : it 's no concord of Christians , but a conspiracy against Christ ; and they that love one another , for their opinionative concurrences , love for their own sakes , not their Lords : not because they have his image , but because they bear one anothers . What a stir is there for Mint , Anise , and Cummin controversies , while the great practical fundamentals are unstudyed , unobserved ? What eagerness in the prosecution of disciplinarian uncertainties , when the love of God and our neighbour , those Evangelical unquestionables , want that fervent ardor ? 'T is this hath consum'd the nutriment of the great and more necessary Verities , and bred differences that are past any accommodation , but that of the last dayes decisions . The sight of that day will resolve us , and make us asham'd of our pety quarrels . Thus Opinions have rent the world asunder , and divided it almost into indivisibles . Had Heraclitus liv'd now , he had wept himself into marble , and Democritus would have broke his spleen . Who can speak of such fooleries without a Satyr , to see aged Infants so quarrel at put-pin , and the doating world grown child again ? How fond are men of a bundle of opinions , which are no better then a bagge of Cherry-stones ? How do they scramble for their Nuts , and Apples , and how zealous for their pety Victories ? Methinks those grave contenders about opinionative trifles , look like aged Socrates upon his boys Hobby-horse , or like something more ludricous : since they make things their feria , which are scarse tolerable in their sportful intervals . ( 4 ) To be confident in Opinions is ill manners , and immodesty ; and while we are peremptory in our perswasions , we accuse them all of ignorance and Error that subscribe not our assertions . The Dogmatist gives the lye to all dissenting apprehenders , and proclaims his judgement fittest , to be the Intellectual Standard . This is that spirit of immorality , that saith unto dissenters , Stand off , I am more Orthodox then thou art : a vanity more capital then Error . He that affirms that things must needs be as he apprehends them , implies that none can be right till they submit to his opinions , and take him for their director . This is to invert the Rule , and to account a mans self better then all men . ( 5 ) Obstinacy in Opinions holds the Dogmatist in the chains of Error , without hope of emancipation . While we are confident of all things , we are fatally deceiv'd in most . He that assures himself he never erres , will alwayes erre ; and his presumptions will render all attempts to inform him , ineffectual . We use not to seek further for what we think we are possest of ; and when falshood is without suspicion imbrac't in the stead of truth , and with confidence retained : Verity will be rejected as a supposed Error , and irreconcileably be hated , because it opposeth what is indeed so . ( 6 ) It betrays a poverty and narrowness of spirit , in the Dogmatical assertors . There are a set of Pedants that are born to slavery . But the generous soul preserves the liberty of his judgement , and will not pen it up in an Opinionative Dungeon ; with an equal respect he examins all things , and judgeth as impartially as Rhadamanth : When as the Pedant can hear nothing but in favour of the conceits he is amorous of ; and cannot see , but out of the grates of his prison . The determinations of the nobler spirit , are but temporary , and he holds them , but till better evidence repeal his former apprehensions . He won't defile his assent by prostituting it to every conjecture , or stuff his belief , with the luggage of uncertainties . The modesty of his expression renders him infallible ; and while he only saith he Thinks so , he cannot be deceiv'd , or ever assert a falshood . But the wise Monseur Charron hath fully discourst of this Universal liberty , and sav'd me the labour of inlarging . Upon the Review of my former considerations , I cannot quarrel with his Motto : in a sense Ie ne scay , is a justifiable Scepticism , and not mis-becoming a Candidate of wisdom . Socrates in the judgement of the Oracle knew more then All men , who in his own knew the least of any . CHAP. XXIV . AN APOLOGY FOR PHILOSOPHY . IT is the glory of Philosophy , that Ignorance and Phrensie are her Enemies . Now to vindicate this abused excellence from the mis-reports of stupid and Enthusiastick Ignorants , I 'le subjoyn this brief Apology : Lest those unintelligent maligners take an advantage from our discourse , to depretiate and detract from what hath been alway the object of their hate , because never of their knowledge , and capacities ; Or , which is the greater mischief , lest this should discourage those enlarged souls , who aspire to the knowledge of God , and Nature , which is the most venial ambition . If Philosophy be uncertain , the former will confidently conclude it vain ; and the later may be in danger of pronouncing the same on their pains , who seek it ; if after all their labour they must reap the wind , meer opinion and conjecture . But there 's a part of Philosophy , that owes no answer to the charge . The Scepticks , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , must have the qualification of an exception ; and at least the Mathematicks must be priviledg'd from the endictment . Neither yet are we at so deplorable a loss , in the other parts of what we call Science ; but that we may meet with what will content ingenuity , at this distance from perfection , though all things will not compleatly satisfie strict and rigid enquiry . Philosophy indeed cannot immortalize us , or free us from the inseparable attendants on this state , Ignorance , and Error . But shall we malign it , because it entitles us not to an Omniscience ? Is it just to condemn the Physitian , because Hephestion dyed ? Compleat knowledge is reserv'd to gratifie our glorified faculties . We are ignorant of some things from our specifical incapacity , as men ; of more from our contracted , as sinners : and 't is no fault in the spectacles , that the blind man sees not . Shall we , like sullen children , because we have not what we would ; contemn what the benignity of Heaven offers us ? Do what we can , we shall be imperfect in all our attainments ; and shall we scornfully neglect what we may reach , because some things to mortality are denyed ? 'T is madness to refuse the Largesses of divine bounty on Earth , because there is not an Heaven in them . Shall we not rejoyce at the gladsome approach of day , because it 's over-cast with a cloud , and follow'd by the obscurity of night ? All sublunary vouchsafements have their allay of a contrary ; and uncertainty , in another kind , is the annex of all things this side the Sun. Even Crowns and Diadems , the most splendid parts of terrene attains ; are akin to that , which to day is in the field , and to morrow is cut down , and wither'd : He that enjoy'd them , and knew their worth , excepted them not out of the charge of Universal Vanity . And yet the Politician thinks they deserve his pains ; and is not discourag'd at the inconstancy of humane affairs , and the lubricity of his subject . He that looks perfection , must seek it above the Empyreum ; it is reserv'd for Glory . It 's that alone , which needs not the advantage of a foyl : Defects seem as necessary to our now-happiness , as their Opposites . The most refulgent colours are the result of light and shadows . Venus was never the less beautiful for her Mole . And 't is for the Majesty of Nature , like the Persian Kings , sometimes to cover , and not alway to prostrate her beauties to the naked view : yea , they contract a kind of splendour from the seemingly obscuring veil ; which adds to the enravishments of her transported admirers . He alone sees all things with an unshadowed comprehensive Vision , who eminently is All : Only the God of Nature perfectly knows her ; and light without darkness is the incommunicable claim of him , that dwells in Light inaccessible . 'T is no disparagement to Philosophy , that it cannot Deifie us , or make good the impossible promise of the Primitive Deceiver . It is that , which she owns above her , that must perfectly remake us after the Image of our Maker . And yet those raised contemplations of God and Nature , wherewith Philosophy doth acquaint us ; enlarge and ennoble the spirit , and infinitely advance it above an ordinary level . The soul is alway like the objects of its delight and converse . A Prince is as much above a Peasant in spirit , as condition : And man as far transcends the Beasts in largeness of desire , as dignity of Nature and employment . While we only converse with Earth , we are like it ; that is , unlike our selves : But when engag'd in more refin'd and intellectual entertainments ; we are somewhat more , then this narrow circumference of flesh speaks us . And , me thinks , those generous Vertuoso's , who dwell in an higher Region then other Mortals ; should make a middle species between the Platonical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , and common Humanity . Even our Age in variety of glorious examples , can confute the conceit , that souls are equal : And the sole Instances of those illustrious Heroes , Cartes , Gassendus , Galilaeo , Tycho , Harvey , More , Digby ; will strike dead the opinion of the worlds decay , and conclude it , in its Prime . And upon the review of these great Sages , me-thinks , I could easily opinion ; that men may differ from men , as much as Angels from unbodyed Souls : And , it may be , more can be pleaded for such a Metaphysical innovation , then can for a specifical diversity among our Predicamental Opposites . Such as these , being in a great part freed from the entanglements of a drossie Vehicle , are imploy'd like the Spirits above ; in taking a survey of Natures Riches , and beginning those Anthems to their Maker , which Eternity must consummate . This is one part of the life of Souls . While we indulge to the Sensitive or Plantal Life , our delights are common to us with the creatures below us : and 't is likely , they exceed us as much as in them , as in the senses their subjects ; and that 's a poor happiness for man to aim at , in which Beasts are his Superiours . But those Mercurial souls , which were only lent the Earth to shew the world their folly in admiring it ; possess delights , which as it were antedate Immortality , and [ though at an humble distance ] resemble the joys above . The Sun and Stars , are not the worlds Eyes , but these : The Celestial Argus cannot glory in such an universal view . These out-travel theirs , and their Monarchs beams : skipping into Vortexes beyond their Light and Influence ; and with an easie twinkle of an Intellectual Eye look into the Centre , which is obscur'd from the upper Luminaries . This is somewhat like the Image of Omnipresence : And what the Hermetical Philosophy saith of God , is in a sense verifiable of the thus ennobled soul , That its Centre is every where , but it 's circumference no where . This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ; and what Plotinus calls so , the divine life , is somewhat more . Those that live but to the lower concupiscible , and relish no delights but sensual ; it 's by the favour of a Metaphor , that we call them Men. As Aristotle saith of Brutes , they have but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , only some shews and Apish imitations of Humane ; and have little more to justifie their Title to Rationality , then those Mimick Animals , the supposed Posterity of Cham : who , had they retain'd the priviledge of Speech , which some of the Fathers say they they own'd before the Fall ; it may be they would plead their cause with them , and have laid strong claim to a Parity . Such , as these , are Philosophies Maligners , who computing the usefulness of all things , by what they bring to their Barns , and Treasures ; stick not to pronounce the most generous contemplations , needless unprofitable subtilties : and they might with as good reason say , that the light of their Eyes was a superfluous provision of Nature , because it fills not their Bellies . Thus the greatest part of miserable Humanity is lost in Earth : and , if Man be an inversed Plant ; these are inversed Men , who forgetting that Sursum , which Nature writ in their Foreheads , take their Roots in this sordid Element . But the Philosophical soul is an inverted Pyramid ; Earth hath but a point of this Aethereal Cone . Aquila non captat muscas , The Royal Eagle flyes not but at noble Game ; and a young Alexander will not play but with Monarchs . He that hath been cradled in Majesty , and used to Crowns and Scepters ; will not leave the Throne to play with Beggars at Put-pin , or be fond of Tops and Cherry-stones : neither will a Soul , that dwells with Stars , dabble in this impurer Mud ; or stoop to be a Play-fellow and Copartner in delights with the Creatures , that have nought but Animal . And though it be necessitated by its relation to flesh to a Terrestrial converse ; yet 't is , like the Sun , without contaminating its Beams . For , though the body by a kind of Magnetism be drawn down to this sediment of universal dreggs ; yet the thus impregnate spirit contracts a Verticity to objects above the Pole : And , like as in a falling Torch , though the grosser Materials hasten to their Element ; yet the flame aspires , and , could it master the dulness of its load would carry it beyond the central activity of the Terraqueous Magnet . Such souls justifie Aristotles , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ; and in allayed sense that title , which the Stoicks give it , of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . If we say , they are not in their bodies , but their bodies in them ; we have the Authority of the divine Plato to vouch us : And by the favour of an easie simile we may affirm them to be to the body , as the light of a Candle to the gross , and faeculent snuff ; which , as it is not pent up in it , so neither doth it partake of its stench and and impurity . Thus , as the Roman Oratour elegantly descants , Erigimur , & latiores fieri videmur ; humana despicimus , contemplantesque supera & coelestia , haec nostra , ut exigua & minima , contemnimus . And yet there 's an higher degree , to which Philosophy sublimes us . For , as it teacheth a generous contempt of what the grovelling desires of creeping Mortals Idolize and dote on ; so it raiseth us to love and admire an Object , that is as much above terrestrial , as Infinity can make it . If Plutarch may have credit , the observation of Natures Harmony in the celestial motions was one of the first inducements to the belief of a God : And a greater then he affirms , that the visible things of the Creation declare him , that made them . What knowledge we have of them , we have in a sense of their Authour . His face cannot be beheld by Creature-Opticks , without the allay of a reflexion ; and Nature is one of those mirrours , that represents him to us . And now the more we know of him , the more we love him , the more we are like him , the more we admire him . 'T is here , that knowledge wonders ; and there 's an Admiration , that 's not the Daughter of Ignorance . This indeed stupidly gazeth at the unwonted effect : But the Philosophick passion truly admires and adores the supreme Efficient . The wonders of the Almighty are not seen , but by those that go down into the deep . The Heavens declare their Makers Glory ; and Philosophy theirs , which by a grateful rebound returns to its Original source . The twinkling spangles , the Ornaments of the upper world ; lose their beauty and magnificence ; while they are but the objects of our narrow'd senses : By them the half is not told us ; and Vulgar spectators see them , but as a confused huddle of pety Illuminants . But Philosophy doth right to those immense sphears ; and advantagiously represents their Glories , both in the vastness of their proportions , and regularity of their motions . If we would see the wonders of the Globe we dwell in ; Philosophy must reare us above it . The works of God speak forth his mighty praise : A speech not understood , but by those that know them . The most Artful melody receives but little tribute of Honour from the gazing beasts ; it requires skill to relish it . The most delicate musical accents of the Indians , to us are but inarticulate hummings ; as questionless are ours to their otherwise tuned Organs . Ignorance of the Notes and Proportions , renders all Harmony unaffecting . A gay Puppet pleaseth children more , then the exactest piece of unaffected Art : it requires some degrees of Perfection , to admire what is truly perfect ; as it 's said to be an advance in Oratory to relish Cicero . Indeed the unobservant Multitude , may have some general confus'd apprehensions of a kind of beauty , that guilds the outside frame of the Universe : But they are Natures courser wares , that lye on the stall , expos'd to the transient view of every common Eye ; her choicer Riches are lock't up only for the sight of them , that will buy at the expence of sweat and Oyl . Yea , and the visible Creation is far otherwise apprehended by the Philosophical Inquirer , then the unintelligent Vulgar . Thus the Physitian looks with another Eye on the Medicinal hearb , then the grazing Oxe , which swoops it in with the common grass : and the Swine may see the Pearl , which yet he values but with the ordinary muck ; it 's otherwise pris'd by the skilful Ieweller . And from this last Article , I think , I may conclude the charge , which hot-brain'd folly lays in against Philosophy ; that it leads to Irreligion , frivolous and vain . I dare say , next after the divine Word , it 's one of the best friends to Piety . Neither is it any more justly accountable for the impious irregularities of some , that have payd an homage to its shrine ; then Religion it self for the sinful extravagances both opinionative and practical of high pretenders to it . It is a vulgar conceit , that Philosophy holds a confederacy with Atheism it self ; but most injurious : for nothing can better antidote us against it ; and they may as well say , that Physitians are the only murtherers . A Philosophick Atheist , is as good sense as a Divine one : and I dare say the Proverb , Ubi tres Medici , duo Athei , is a scandal . I think the Original of this conceit might be ; That the Students of Nature , conscious to her more cryptick ways of working , resolve many strange effects into the nearer efficiency of second causes ; which common Ignorance and Superstition attribute to the Immediate causality of the first : thinking it to derogate from the Divine Power , that any thing which is above their apprehensions , should not be reckon'd above Natures activity ; though it be but his Instrument , and works nothing but as impower'd from him . Hence they violently declaim against all , that will not acknowledge a Miracle in every extraordinary effect , as setting Nature in the Throne of God ; and so it 's an easie step to say , they deny him . When as indeed , Nature is but the chain of second causes ; and to suppose second causes without a first , is beneath the Logick of Gotham . Neither can they [ who , to make their reproach of Philosophy more authentick , alledge the Authority of an Apostle to conclude it vain ] upon any whit more reasonable terms make good their charge ; since this allegation stands in force but against its abuse , corrupt sophistry , or traditionary impositions , which lurk'd under the mask of so serious a name : At the worst , the Text will never warrant an universal conclusion any more ; then that other , where the Apostle speaks of silly women , ( who yet are the most rigid urgers of this ) can justly blot the sex with an unexceptionable note of infamy . Now , what I have said here in this short Apology for Philosophy , is not so strictly verifiable of any that I know , as the Cartesian . The entertainment of which among truly ingenuous unpossest Spirits , renders an after-commendation superfluous and impertinent . It would require a wit like its Authors , to do it right in an Encomium . The strict Rationality of the Hypothesis in the main , and the critical coherence of its parts , I doubt not but will bear it down to Posterity with a Glory , that shall know no term , but the Universal ruines . Neither can the Pedantry , or prejudice of the present Age , any more obstruct its motion in that supreme sphear , wherein its desert hath plac'd it ; then can the howling Wolves pluck Cynthia from her Orb ; who regardless of their noise , securely glides through the undisturbed Aether . Censure here will disparage it self , not it . He that accuseth the Sun of darkness , shames his own blind eyes ; not its light . The barking of Cynicks at that Hero 's Chariot-wheels , will not sully the glory of his Triumphs . But I shall supersede this endless attempt : Sun-beams best commend themselves . FINIS . The Contents . CHAP. I. A Display of the Perfections of Innocence ; with a conjecture at the manner of Adams Knowledge . page 1. CHAP. II. Our decay , and ruines by the fall , descanted on : of the now scantness of our knowledge . 10. CHAP. III. Instances of our Ignorance ( 1 ) of things within our selves . The nature of the Soul , and its origine glanc't at , and past by . ( 1 ) It 's union with the body is unconceiveable : So ( 2 ) is its moving the body consider'd either in the way of Sir K. Digby , Des-Cartes , or Dr. H. More , and the Platonists . ( 3 ) The manner of direction of the Spirits as unexplicable . 17. CHAP. IV. ( 4 ) We can give no account of the manner of Sensation : Nor ( 5 ) of the Nature of the Memory . It is consider'd according to the Philosophy of Des-Cartes , Sir K. Digby , Aristotle , and Mr. Hobbs , and all in-effectual . Some other unexplicables mention'd . 27. CHAP. V. ( 6 ) How our bodies are form'd , unexplicable . The plastick signifies nothing . The formation of Plants , and Animals unknown , in their principle . Mechanism solves it not . A new way propounded , which also fails of satisfaction . ( 2 ) No account is yet given how the parts of matter are united . Some considerations on Des-Cartes his Hypothesis ; it fails of solution . ( 3 ) The question is unanswerable , whether matter be compounded of divisibles , or indivisibles . 41. CHAP. VI. Difficulties about the motion of a wheel , which admit of no Solution . 54. CHAP. VII . Mens backwardness to acknowledge their own Ignorance and Errour , though ready to find them in others . The first cause of the shortness of our knowledge , viz. the depth of Verity discourst of : as of its admixtion in mens opinions with falshood ; the connexion of truths . And their mutual dependence . A second reason of the shortness of our knowledge , viz. because we can perceive nothing but by proportion to our senses . 62. CHAP. VIII . A third reason of our Ignorance and Errour , viz. the impostures and deceits of our Senses . The way to rectifie these mis-informations propounded . Des-Cartes his method the only way to Science . The difficulty of the exact performance . 69. CHAP. IX . Two Instances of Sensitive deception . ( 1 ) Of the Quiescence of the Earth . Four cases in which motion is insensible , applyed to the Earth's motion . 75. CHAP. X. Another instance of the deceptions of our Senses : which is of translating the Idea of our passions to things without us . In propriety of speech our Senses themselves are never deceived ; prov'd by reason , and the authority of St. Austin . 87. CHAP. XI . A fourth reason of our Ignorance and Errour , viz. the fallacy of our Imaginations . An account of the nature of that faculty ; instances of its deceptions . Spirits are not in a place . Intellection , Volition , Decrees , &c. cannot properly be ascrib'd to God. It is not Reason that opposeth Faith , but Phancy . The Interest which Imagination hath in many of our Opinions , in that it impresses a perswasion without Evidence . 95. CHAP. XII . A fifth reason , the precipitancy of our understandings , the reason of it . The most close ingagements of our minds requisite to the finding of truth ; the difficulties of the performance of it . Two instances of our precipitating . 106. CHAP. XIII . The sixth reason discourst of , viz. the interest which our affections have in our Dijudications . The cause why our affections mislead us . Several branches of this mention'd ; and the first , viz. constitutional Inclination , largely insisted on . 113. CHAP. XIV . A second thing whereby our affections ingage us in Errour , is the prejudice of Custom and Education . A third interest . ( 4 ) Love to our own productions . 125. CHAP. XV. 5. Our affections are ingag'd by our reverence to Antiquity and Authority ; our mistake of Antiquity ; the unreasonableness of that kind of Pedantick Adoration . Hence the vanity of affecting impertinent quotations : the Pedantry on 't is derided . The little improvement of Science through its successive derivations , and whence it hath hapned . 136. CHAP. XVI . Reflexions on the Peripatetick Philosophy . The Generality of its reception , no argument of its deserts ; the first charge against that Philosophy . 148. CHAP. XVII . 2. Peripatetick Philosophy is litigious , it hath no setled constant signification of words ; the inconveniences hereof . Aristotle intended the cherishing controversies , prov'd by his own double testimony . Some of his impertinent arguings derided . Disputes retard , and are injurious to knowledge . Peripateticks are most exercised in the controversal parts of Philosophy , and know little of the practical and experimental . A touch at School-Divinity . 159. CHAP. XVIII . 3. It gives no account of the Phaenomena . Those that are remoter it attempts not ; it speaks nothing pertinent in the most ordinary ; its circular , and general way of solution ; it resolves all things into occult qualities . The absurdity of Aristotelian Hypothesis of the Heavens . The Galaxy is no meteor . The Heavens are corruptible . Comets are above the Moon . The sphear of fire derided . Aristotle convicted of several other false assertions . 169. Aristotle's Philosophy inept for new discoveries . It hath been the Author of no one invention : It 's founded on vulgarities , and therefore makes nothing known beyond them . The knowledge of Natures out-side , conferrs not to practical improvements : better hopes from the New Philosophy . A fifth charge against Aristotle's Philosophy , it is in many things impious , and self-contradicting ; instances of both propounded . The directing all this to the design of the discourse . A caution , viz. that nothing is here intended in favour of novelty in Divinity . The reason why we may imbrace what is new in Philosophy , while we reject Novelties in Theologie . 177 , 178. CHAP. XX. It 's quaeried whether there be any Science in the sense of the Dogmatist : ( 1 ) We cannot know any thing to be the cause of another , but from its attending it ; and this way is not infallible , declared by instances , especially from the Philosophy of Des-Cartes . ( 2 ) There 's no demonstration but where the contrary is impossible . We can scarce conclude so of any thing . Instances of supposed impossibles , which are none . A story of a Scholar that turn'd Gipsy ; and of the power of Imagination : Of one mans binding anothers thought , and a conjecture at the manner of its performance . 188 , 189. CHAP. XXI . Another instance of a supposed impossibility which may not be so . Of conference at distance by impregnated Needles . Away of secret conveyance by sympathized hands ; a relation to this purpose . Of the magnetick cure of wounds . ( 3 ) We cannot know any thing in Nature , without the knowledge of the first springs of natural motion , and these we are ignorant of . Des-Cartes his Philosophy commend●d . 202 CHAP. XXII . ( 4 ) Because of the mutual dependence and concatenation of Causes , we cannot know any one without knowing all . Particularly declared by instances . ( 5 ) All our Science c●mes in at our senses , their infallibility inquired into . 213 CHAP. XXIII . Considerations against Dogmatizing , ( 1 ) 'T is the effect of Ignorance . ( 2 ) . It argues untamed passions . ( 3 ) It disturbs the world . ( 4 ) It is ill manners , and immodesty . ( 5 ) It holds men captive in Errour . ( 6 ) It betrayes a narrowness of Spirit . 224. CHAP. XXIV . An Apology for Philosophy . 235. FINIS .