〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hic vera felicitas THE JUDGEMENT OF Humane Actions A most Learned & Excellent Treatise of Moral Philosophy, which fights against vanity & Conduceth to the finding out of true and perfect felicity Written in French by Monsieur Leonard Marrande And Englished by john Reynolds LONDON Imprinted by A. Mathewes for Nicholas Bourne, at the Royal Exchange 1629 I Cecil sculp. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, AND truly Noble, EDWARD Earl of DORSET, Lord Lieutenant of his Majesty's Counties of Sussex, and Middlesex: Lord Chamberlain to the Queen: One of the Lords of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council, and Knight of the most Illustrious Order of the Garter. His Singular good Lord and Master. RIGHT HONOURABLE, EIther by Earthly accident, or Heavenly providence, meeting with this late imprinted French Treatise, of The judgement of Humane Actions, written by Monsieur Marande (a name that I more honour than know) and diving into the perusal thereof, I found it for matter so solid, and for phrase so curious a Masterpiece of Moral Philosophy, that I saw myself engaged; yea and in a manner bound to divest it from its French garb, and to suit it in our English attire and habit; as desirous that England, as well as France, should participate of that benefit and Felicity. But as I was entering into this task, and casting myself upon the resolution of this attempt; I was instantly met and assailed by an obstacle of no small importance; For considering that France hath now made, and declared herself England's enemy, and consequently given us no just cause or reasons to love French men, but many to hate them, I therefore (in honour to my Prince and Country, to whose prosperity and service, my best blood and life shall ever be prostrated) at first began to reject this Book, because written by a French man, and so to look on the translation thereof, rather with an eye of contempt then of affection: But at last recollecting my thoughts, and considering that Peace is the gift and blessing of God, and Charity the true mark of a Christian, I therefore from my heart and soul wishing and desiring, a safe, honourable, and perdurable peace between these two mighty neighbour Sister Kingdom●s in particular, and to all Christians, and the whole Christian world in general. And also well knowing that Learning is universally to be cherished, and virtue honoured in all persons, times, and places of the whole world, without exception or distinction; then (these premi●es considered) this my last consideration prevailed and vanquished my first, and so I re-assumed my former design and resolution to finish it; although (in regard of the deep matter, and the knotty, and elegant style thereof) I ingeniously confess, that many Gentlemen, both of England and Scotland, had been far more capable for the discharge and performance thereof then myself. Having thus made myself an English Echo to this French Author, and now in these times of War taken this Book, as a rich French prize, and landed him on our English shores; Where should this Imp of my labour look, but on your Ho: on whom my hopes & heart have ever looked, or to whom else should it fly for harbour and shelter, but only to your Lordship, who (in all the storms and tempests of these my weather beaten fortunes) have so graciously and generously served me both for shelter, and harbour, when the immerited malice of some, and the undeserved ingratitude of others have denied it me; The which yet I speak and remember, more out of sensibility to myself, ●hen any way out of passion, much less of Envy to them, as resting contented with this resolution, to keep the grief thereof to myself, to leave the shame to them, and to give the thanks and glory to your Honour. As this Book of Marande is curious, so he made his Dedication thereof, wherefore led by the fame, and lustre of his example, I could do no less then imitate him herein; for as he directed it to the Cardinal of Richelieu; So your Lordship's Merits, and my duty, enforce me to inscribe it to your Honour, who are as much the Cardinals equal in Virtues, as by many degrees his superior in blood and extraction. And although I well know, that shall rather wrong mine Author, then right myself, to erect or proffer any Pa●●gerike (to his Merits and judgement) on this his Book; because of itself i● sufficiently performs and acts that part: Yet when your Lordship's leisure and pleasure shall borrow so much time from your great and weighty ●ff●ires of the State, to give it to the perusal and contemplation of this his Book; I doubt not but you will then see and acknowledge, that Marande herein, as another Cornelius Agrippa, learnedly fights against the Vanity of Humane Sciences,; and as a second Montaigne judiciously contests against the poison of our hearts, I mean against our intemperate (and therefore our pernicious) Passions. For in this work of his (as in a rich Treasury and Sacrary of Nature) He (with a zeal and judgement every way worthy of himself) laughs at the Vanity of all Humane Arts, and Actions, as also generally at all the presumptuous, and profane professors thereof; and by reasons as clear as the Sun; passeth his judgement on them, proving GOD to be the sole Author and Giver of Wisdom; and that GOD, and none but GOD ought to be the only object of our desires and affections. Here he hath devested and stripped our passions naked, and curiously delineated and depointed them to us in their true colours, and natural deformity. here he hath taught us to believe, and our thoughts and resolutions to know, that exorbitant Ambition proves most commonly the bane of our hearts, the poison of our minds, and the Archenemie, and Traitor to our own fortunes and felicity. Here he hath curiously arraigned, and anatomised the power, and functions of the Senses, and showed us how violently and maliciously they every moment conspire to corrupt our bodies, and to betray our souls to sin, and voluptuousness. Here he hath brought home to our Understanding, and judgement, what power our souls have over our bodies, and God over our souls, and that our bodies can expect no true tranquillity, or felicity here on Earth, except our souls do first fetch it from Heaven, and derive it from God. And here he hath crowned Reason to be the Queen of our souls, and adopted Virtue to be no less than a Princess and Daughter of Heaven, and taught us how tenderly and religiously we ought to love either, and honour both of them, sith thereby, they will then infallibly prove the two spiritual guides to conduct us to true happiness in this life, and consequently to bring us to true felicity and glory in that to come. Which considered; As also that such is the universal iniquity of our times, & the general depravation and corruption of our lives and manners, that through the dark clouds of our humane Vanity, and Ambition, we many times cannot see Reason for Passion, nor permanent Felicity, for transitory Delights, and Pleasures. And therefore that the World (or rather the Courts of Kings and Princes, which is the pride and glory thereof, very often useth us not as a Lady of Honour, but as a debauched Strumpet or Courtesan; who many times strangleth us, when she makes greatest show to embrace and kiss us, and the which in that regard and consideration I may pertinently and properly parallel to the Panther, whose skin is fair, but his breath infectious. Therefore out of the zeal of my best prayers, and the candour and integrity of my best service and wishes, eternally desiring and wishing, that your Lordship's prosperities and Honours may be as infinite as your Virtues and Merits, and as immortal, as you are mortal; I hope, and implore, that your Honour will please to pardon this my presumption, for proffering up this poor Epistle to your rich consideration; and for being so ambitious to make this unworthy translation of mine sore so high as to your Honourable protection and patronage, in affixing, and placing your Noble name thereto, as a Stately Porch, or Front, to this rich and stately Temple of Virtue. Not, but that I perfectly know that your Honour is plentifully and abundantly furnished with great variety of sweet preservatives, and sound, and salubrious Antidotes, both against your own humane passions, as also against the frowns, and flatteries of the world: But yet I could give no satisfaction to myself, before I had given this Book the desired (though not deserved) honour to kiss your Lordship's hands; For the Transplantation thereof being mine, my Duty, and Service prompted me that I must needs direct and consecrate it to your Honour, as well by the right of a just propriety, as by the equity of a commanding obligation, and therefore of a necessary consequence. Again, your Honour loving Virtue, and cherishing Philosophy, so tenderly and dearly in yourself, I thought that others would be the sooner induced and drawn thereto by the powerful influence of your Example, and therefore, that the Dignity and Lustre of your name, would serve as a sure passport to make this Book pass current, with the different affections, palates, and censures of his Readers whom now it goes forth to meet with. In which regard I hold it more presumption in me toward your Honour, then neglect towards them, to make this your Epistle serve likewise for them, as being equally resolved, neither to court their favours, nor to fear their reprehensions And here before I shut up this my Epistle; I beseech your Honour to be pleased farther to understand, that in this Translation I have sometimes borrowed from the letter, to give to the sense, by adding voluptuousness to pleasure, show to appearance, and affliction to evil, or the like; A liberty which I hold tolerable in a modest Interpreter; As also I have sometimes added grief, to pain, although according to the rules and grounds of Logic, I know that the last hath reference to the body, and the first to the Soul: But I did it purposely to make it speak the more significant and fuller English; because your Honour knows so well, as no man better; that as other Languages, so English hath her peculiar Idioms, and proper phrases and Accents, which may but (yet in my poor opinion and judgement) ought not to be omitted or neglected. I will no farther usurp on your Lordship's patience, but will leave this Book, to his fortune, and myself to your wont Honourable favour; So wishing all increase of Earthly happiness, and heavenly fefelicity to your Honour, to your Honourable, and most virtuous Countess, and to those sweet and Noble young Plants your Children. I will live and dye in the resolution, ever to be found Your Honour's humblest Servant, JOHN REYNOLDS. A TABLE OF THE Discourses, and Sections which are contained in this Book. The first Discourse. Of Vanity, Section I. MAn diverteth his ey●s from his condition, not to know the deformity thereof, and abandoneth them to follow his own vain imaginations. pag. 1 Section II. The wisdom of man cannot free itself from Vanity, so natural she is to it. pag. 17 The second Discourse. Of the Senses. Section I. THe Soul and the Body are united together 〈…〉 strong ●●inke, that as the 〈…〉 by the means of the Soul: so the Soul cannot move towards external things, nor know them, but by the means of the senses. pag. 27 Section II. The different operation of the Senses concludes not that there are five, no more than the different effects of the rays of the Sun, that there are many Suns. 32 Section III. Nature being icalous of secrets, permits not the Senses to discover the Essences of things, nor that they can convey any thing to our understanding, that is not changed and corrupted by them in the Passage. 37 Section IV. Science (or Knowledge) is the mark and seal of the Divinity, but that which resides among us here in Earth, is nothing else but abuse, trumpery, and vanity. pag. 44 Section V. Man having some knowledge of himself (although it be imperfect,) as also of those whom he frequents, he contemns their Learning, and esteems none but that which is grown in foreign Countries, or which he receives from an unknown hand. 68 The third Discourse. Of Opinion. Section I. TO cut off the Liberty of judgement, is to bereave the Sun of her light, and to deprive man of his fairest ornament. pa. 79 Section II. All things wonderfully increase and fortify themselves through Opinion. 88 Section III. Opinion very ill requi●es the greatness, to hold her still in show and esteem, and to give all the world right to control her actions. 94 Section IV. The common people have no more certain, nor clear seeing guide, than Opinion. 99 Section V. Opinion (as an ingenious Painter) gives those things which environ us such face & figure as it pleaseth. 102 Section VI Opinion leaves nothing entire, but its corruption, and pardoneth not Virtue herself. 107 The fourth Discourse. Of Passions. Section I. STormes arise not so many surges on the Sea, as Passions engender tempests in the hearts of men. 114 Section II. We may say of Love, that which the Romans said of an Emperor▪ that they knew not whether they received more good, or evil of him. 122 Section III. Ambition hath no mediocrity▪ and fears not his burning, if the fire of heaven, or the thunderbolt of jupiter furnish him the first sparkles. pa. 133. Section IV. Covetousness is only just, in that it rigorously punisheth those whom it mastereth and commandeth. 141 Section V. Fortune hath not a more charming Lure, or bait, than our own hope. 199 Section VI Fear casts herself into the future time, as into a dark and obscure place, thereby with a small cause, or subject, to give us the greater wonder and astonishment. 156 Section VII. Of all Passions there is no greater Enemy of Reason, nor less capable of Council than Choler. 177 Section VIII. Passions have so deformed a countenance, that albeit they are the daughters of Nature, yet we cannot love them, and behold them at one time. 186 The fifth Discourse. Of Felicity. Section I. EVery thing naturally tends to its repose, only, man strays from his felicity, or if he approach it, he stays at the branches, instead of embracing the trunk or body of the tree. 191 Section II. It is not without reason that we complain of Fortune, because hourly she teacheth us, her mutable and variable humour. pa. 202 Section III. Wealth and Riches are too poor, to give us the felicity which we seek, and desire. 207 Section IV. Glory and Reputation hath no thing which is solid but Vanity, we must therefore elsewhere seek our Sovereign contentment. 211 Section V. Honours, and Dignities expose to the world all their splendour and glory: But chose, Felicity locks up all her best things in herself, and hath no greater Enemy than Show and Ostentation. 219 Section VI Among all the fair flowers which an extreme favour produceth, we have not yet seen this Felicity, to bud forth, and flourish. 222 Section VII. Kings, and Sovereign Princes owe us their continual care and motion, as the Stars do; and therefore they have no greater Enemy than repose and tranquillity. 228 Section VIII. As the light is inseparable from the Sun, so Felicity is an inseparable accident of Virtue. 232 The sixth Discourse. Of Moral Virtue. Section I. Sick (or distempered minds) are not capable of all sorts of remedies, but they shall find none more Sovereign than the diverting thereof. pag. 250 Section II. The life of a Wise man is a Circle whereof Temperance is the Centre, whereunto all the lines, I mean, all his actions should conduce and aim. 264 Section III. To think that Virtue can indifferently cure all sorts of evils or afflictions, is a testimony of Vanity, or else of our being Apprentices and Novices in Philosophy. 277 Section IV. As it belongs to none but to the mind to judge of true or false, so our sense ought to be the only judge either of Pleasure or Paine. 288 Section V. Although we grant that Man's felicity consists in Virtue, yet I affirm (against the Stoics) that Felicity is incompatible with Grief and Paine. 299 Section VI Man's life is a harmony composed of so many different tones, that it is very difficult for Virtue to hold, and keep them still in tune. pag. 310 THE JUDGEMENT OF HUMAN ACTIONS. The first Discourse. Of Vanity. SECTION. I. Man diverteth his eyes from his condition, not to know the deformity thereof, and abandoneth them, to follow his own vain imaginations. MY enterprise to depaint, and chalk out the vanity of Man, hath (it may be) no less vanity in his design, then in his subject, but it greatly skils not to what I intent to speak, for whatsoever I say, or do, I still advance; I say, it imports not where I strike for all my blows▪ are directed and bend to fall on Vanity; and if the Pencil be not bold, and the Colours lively enough, we will imitate the industry of that Painter, who being to represent (in a Table) the sorrows of those who assisted at the sacrifice of Iphigenia, most ingeniously overvayled the face of this Virgin's Father with a Courtaine; as well knowing that all his art and industry was incapable, and confused herein; if he should undertake to represent at life all the parts and passions which sorrow had so lively imprinted on his face. It were a happiness if only to overvaile the face of Man, were to cover all his Vanities, but when we have extended this veil or courtaine o'er all his body, I much fear there will yet remain more to be concealed and hidden, then that which we have already covered: For this imagination cannot suffer this constraint, and his desire which follows him with out-spred wings, finds no limits but in her infinity. Man is composed of body, spirits, and soul; This animated body participates most of earth, as nearest to the place of his extraction, and to say truly, is a straying and a vagabond plant; The spirits participate most of the air, and serve as the means or medium to fasten, join, and stay the soul, which falls from heaven into the body of men, as a ray or sparkle of the Divinity that comes to reside in an unknown place. Those spirits which dwell in the blood are as little chains to unite and fasten the soul to the body, which coming to dissolve, from thence follows the entire dissolution of this compound. They participate as partakers of these two contrary natures by the extremities; that which is most pure and subtle in them, is united to the superior parts, as that which is grosser is united and fastened to the affluence of blood; and these are they that so dexterously make affections to fly from one to the other subject, which they embrace so strictly and dearly, and in this marriage is sworn community of goods and wealth, or rather of misery, they have no longer but one and the same interest, and in this mixture, actions as passions distil from these different springs, by one only and the self same pipe. They wed themselves to contentions and quarrels, which are not easily appeased; but notwithstanding this discord, they maintain themselves in their perpetual war; fearing nothing but peace, which is separation. Doth it not seem to thee, O man, that thou much deservest to be lamented and pitied, sith in the composition of such different pieces, thou findest thyself engaged to calm the storms and tempests which arise in thy breast, by the contrary motion of so many different passions. If thou wilt cast thine eyes upon thy birth, thou shalt see, that after having languished nine months in prison, fed and nourished with the waters of rottenness and corruption itself, thou comest into the world with cries and tears for thy welcome, as if despite of thee, that Destiny had placed thee on Earth to sweat under the heavy yoke and burden of a miserable slavery; but grieve not at thy tears, for they cannot be employed to weep at a more miserable condition than thine own; because among other creatures thou art the most disgraced by nature; abandoned naked on earth without covering, or Arms; swathed and bound, and without knowledge of any thing which is fit or proper for thy necessities. And reason itself which befalls thee afterwards (as the only advantage whereof thou mayst vaunt and glory) doth most commonly turn to thy shame and confusion, through vices and interior diseases which it engendereth in thee. Unfortunate that thou art, those weapons which thou imployest to thy ruin, were given thee for thy conservation. Me thinks those barbarous Indians of Mexico do singular well, who at the birth of their Children exhort them to suffer and endure; as if nature gave no other prerogative to man then misery, whereunto he is linked and chained by the misfortune and duty of his condition. Let us consider a little, that his first babbling and prattling years are watered with nothing but with his tears; His infancy full of astonishment and fear, under the rod of his superior; His riper years discover him by all the parts of his body and soul, & expose him to the inevitable snares of Love; to the dangerous blows of fortune, and to the storms and fury of all sorts of Passions. In his declining age, (as broken with so many cares, calamities, and labours,) he flies but with one wing, and goes coasting along the river to land more easily, possessed and tormented (nevertheless) with many unprofitable and superfluous thoughts. He is afflicted at the time present, grieved at the past, and in extreme care and trouble for that to come, as if he now began to live; He perceives not his age but by his grey hairs, and wrinkled forehead; and most commonly hath nothing remaining to testify that he hath lived so great a number of years, but an old withered age, which inclines him to a general distaste of all fruits that his weak stomach cannot digest, which often imprints more wrinkles and furrows in his mind then in his face; His body bending and bowing, which is no longer supported but by the aid and assistance of others, like an old building ruinous and uncovered in a thousand places; which by little and little seems to end and destroy itself. Whiles his fugitive soul, (which meets nothing else in this frail Vessel but that which is either sour or vinowed,) seeks by all means to break her alliance; and in the end retires, being infinitely weary to have so long conducted and supported so decrepit and heavy a burden, laden with all miseries, as the sink and receptacle of all griefs and evils; which the influence of Heaven continually poureth down upon the face of Earth. Nothing so weak, and yet so proud; Let us hear him speak, with what boldness doth he not praise his audacious front. His heart is puff up and swelled with glory, and many great bombasted Words, as if mounted on some Throne▪ he forms himself an imaginary Sceptre, for a mark of his Sovereign greatness; He hath (saith he) the Dominion and Empire over all things created; He commands all beasts, The Sun, Heaven, and Earth are but the ministers of his power; But wretched and proud as thou art, dost thou believe thou hast power to command where thou hast no right but in thy obedience? Thy inclinations, fortune, and misfortune, which drop and distil on thy head through those celestial pipes; do they not constrain thee with blows, and stripes to stoop and acknowledge their superintendency? Bow down, bow down thine eyes, for it is far more proper and convenient for thee, If not that after the custom of the Thracians, thou wilt shoot arrows against Heaven, which will after return and fall on thine own head; And if for the advantages and privileges of the body, thou wilt prefer thyself to all beasts, vouchsafe only to enter in comparison with a few of them in particular: The courage of the Lion, the strength of the Elephant, the swiftness of the Stag, and the particular qualities which are found in others, will prove thee far inferior to them. Having thus walked thine eyes upon the garden knots of this world, now make a reflection thereof in thyself, and if thy judgement retain any air of health, I know thou wilt say with me (or rather with wise Solomon) That man is nothing else but vanity without and within, in what form and posture of vice so ever thou contemplate him: Then we shall have the assurance to say with the Philosophers, That laughter is proper to man, And proper indeed it is, according to the rules of Democritus, to laugh and mock at his folly, as at his Vanity. That other Philosopher more pitiful than this, testified by his weeping, that he had no other weapons than tears to defend the blows, and wipe the wounds of so miserable a condition as ours; That if we inquire by what right he imposed on his companions, the burden of so severe a law, and so ponderous and pressing a yoke, I find that he is no way excusable but in this, that he submitted himself to the same slavery and servitude. The equality of our evils herein doth some way extenuate and cut off the just subject of our complaints; For he which sees himself fettered to the fortune of an iron chain, although thou have inroled him among the number of thy slaves; yet he may nevertheless vaunt to see thee fight under the displayed Ensign of the same misfortune; not like himself tied to an iron chain, but to one a little more honourable▪ as it may be to a chain of gold; or peradventure to a bracelet of hair, which captivates thy heart and liberty under the tempting lures of a young beauty; or else by the links of thy Ambition, which inseparably chains thee to Fortune; sith all sorts and degrees of living is but slavery, & that the Sceptres of Princes are far heavier in their hands then the crooks of innocent Shepherds; That if no condition have power to exempt and dispense thee from this slavery, what shall we accuse? either the vice of a malicious nature, which at thy birth poured into thy breast so many miseries; or rather the defect of thy knowledge and judgement, which enwrapped thee in so obscure and thick a cloud, that this blindness makes thee every moment stumble against the good which presents itself to thy eyes, as against evil; And that in this ignorance thou art as a Ship abandoned to the fury of the waves, which the horror of the night hath surprised in the midst of a storm and tempest, wherein in the fear of shipwreck, the surest places where his good fortune throws him, gives him no less astonishment, and fear then the most dangerous places. For the favours of Nature should still put thee out of the suspicion of her malignity. What hath she not done to prevent and remedy the discontent which may arise in thy heart, through an object so full of discontent; she hath hid from thine eyes and sight, the most secret parts which give the life and motion, as the weakest and most subject to corruption; and the most vile, because they resemble the inward part of the foulest beast of all: And indeed she hath given thee eyes to see abroad only, and to admire in the world, as in a Temple, the lively images of the Divinity: But as for those things which are without us, could she do any thing better, or more advantageous to man, for the consolation of so many afflictions and griefs which incessantly assail him, than the habit or custom thereof, as a sweet potion which administereth sleep, and easeth that part whereunto it is applied to operate his effect with more facility and less contradiction: This favour (in my opinion) is not the least Present which she could give him, For a habitude of suffering afflictions dulleth the first edge and point thereof, and hardeneth the body to the performance thereof: And surely if the grief which we very often feel and endure, had so much violence in the continuation, as in the first excess thereof, the courage and strength of man would prove too weak so long to resist it: The Irons which were clapped on the hands and feet of the Philosopher, seemed not so heavy to him the second day as the first, and when they took them from him, to make him swallow down the poison which was prepared for him, that very day and time he saw his consolation to spring and arise from his grief, and in the midst of his tortures and executioners the subject of pleasure and joy. Consider then if there remain any thing to thy pride wherewith it should swell, and grow so great, but Vanity, and what weapons there are left thee to fight against thy misfortune, but only Patience, which ought to make thee acknowledge that thou art indebted for thy slavery, but only to thyself, because Nature hath assisted thee with her best power; and that for the rest she refers it he to ordain according to the rules of thy sufficiency: Or if thou wilt yet know the head spring and original, from whence arise so many discontents in our life, it is because men fear as Mortals, and desire as Immortals: They bind the living to the dead, Divine with Humane: They will engraft the head of a God upon the body of a Hog: so their desires which are derived from this superior part, gives no end to their impatiency: Their fear in this soul and inferior part, gives less truce to their true torment, and the one and the other draw for our misfortune an affliction and pain of that which is not, because they labour for the future as for the present, upon the empty as upon the full, and upon the inanity as the substance: Enterprises begun hold our minds in suspense, those which are desperate, in sorrow; as if some bias which we have to manage and turn those things which present themselves to us, could not meet but with causes of affliction and misery; and as if ambitious of our own misfortune, we devance and run before to meet it, and that it were impossible for us to gather a Rose, except by the prickle. Also grief hath more Art to make us feel it, than pleasure hath joy to make us taste it: A little affliction presseth us far more than an extreme contentment, and in revoking to mind those things which time hath stolen from our eyes, it seems that our memory is better edged by the sharpness of those things which we have felt, then by the polishing of those things, which have but as it were razed our understanding. Our remembrance cannot keep firm, his foot slides, and as soon fails him. Our thoughts fly upon things past, and stop not but at that which she finds sharp, angry and difficult to digest: so the time past which afflicts us, the present which troubleth us, and the future which denounceth war to our desires, or fears, doth hinder us from relishing any thing which is pure. Homer who put two Tons at the entry of jupiters' door, of Good and Evil; aught to have said, that the Good was reserved for the Gods, and the other remained in partage to men; or that jupiter being a lover of that which was good, as he is the cause, was too covetous in his expenses, and with one hand was too prodigal in pouring out Evils upon mankind. Good and Evil is in all things, and every where intermixed so confusedly, and are so near one to the other, that it is not in our weak power to mark the difference thereof, except by that place which doth nearest touch and concern us, which is that of grief and sorrow; Which side so ever we bend or incline, it is still towards that of misery. Consider the inconstancy and irresolution of thy desires; It is not in thine own power to stay firm and permanent in one condition and quality: That if thy sensual appetite could be the judge and Arbitrator of her own voluptuousness, and that she were left to do what she pleased: I yet doubt that she would still find some thing to crave, or desire; For this hungry and insatiable desire, which carrieth her to that which is not; and the displeasing taste which is intermixed in the enjoying thereof, makes us presently weary thereof; Which is the reason, why the Wiseman craved nothing of GOD, but the effects of his divine will, requiring that which was truly proper and necessary for him: But as our desires are waving and different, so our will is weak towards good or evil, and cannot absolutely bear itself towards the one and the other, without some bruise or hurt, derived from the crowd and confusion of our own proper desires. We can difficultly agree with ourself, and none with a firm and an assured heart can suggest any wicked act; but that his conscience repines and murmurs within him: She cannot consent unto crime, and thorough so great a mass of flesh, she discovereth and accuseth herself for want of witnesses: Or if despite her power she cannot disclose it, yet she then secretly scratcheth, and incessantly excruciateth herself: Constancy and Virtue which the Philosopher would lodge in the heart of the Wise man, as in a sacred Temple, is it so firm that it will never shake: No, it is a Vanity to think so. But as the world is but a perpetual dance or brawl; so she goes from one dance to another a little more languishing. And as in a sick body the parts less offended with pain, and the contagion of the disease, are termed sound: so among this great troop of men the least vicious are termed virtuous; and we term that firm and constant, which moves not with so much swiftness and levity as the rest. Qualities have no title but in the comparison. Those Boats which seem so great on the River of Seine, are very little at Sea, and that resplendent virtue of the ancient Philosophers, which diffuseth and darts forth so much brightness among us, doth owe this advantage to men's folly and ignorance: She will be found vicious, if she submit herself to be sounded, and to suffer the last touch and trial, because the divine wisdom hath baptised ours with Vanity, Weakness, and Folly: To give it more Firmity, she hath need of a foundation, more solid than the heart of man; For as the fixed stars in their disposition and situation, ought notwithstanding to obey the course & motion of heaven; so constancy doth always wheel and wave about, and despite herself, is obliged to the motion and inconstancy of that whereunto it is tied and fastened. The wisest doth nothing else but go astray in all his actions; and if he strike upon the point of constancy, it is most commonly by indirect means and ways: He never aims where he strikes: He resembleth those Muskatieres', who knowing their defect or fault, take their aim higher or lower: And indeed if he cannot vanquish his vices, he transformeth himself as Achelous, to steal himself away out of the hands of his Enemies, and so endeavoureth by conniving to escape them. If he cannot choke the seed in his breast, he will enforce himself to change the fruits, by the graft of some different passion, which he will engraft upon the foot and twig of this. In this manner he will find the means to lose the thought of displeasing remembrance, in the throng and crowd of some other thoughts and divertisements, where she loseth her trace and steps, and insensibly erreth and strayeth from us; To show, that Inconstancy resounds aloud the jurisdiction which she hath in our hearts; yea in the most inward and secret motions of our soul, a small matter stays us, and a matter of smaller value doth divert us: The external show and appearance of things deceives us; and doth touch us as much, or more than truth itself. The complaints of Ariadne, which we know to be a fabulous invention and fiction, doth almost draw tears from our eyes: The feigned action of a Tragedian, makes us shake and tremble: And Caesar's Robe engendered more grief, and sedition in the hearts of the Romans, than his fresh and bloody death could possibly do. SECTION II. The Wisdom of man cannot free itself from Vanity, so natural she is to it. Whosoever will busy himself to control the Vanity of popular spirits, who more cherish the ornament of their face then of their life, and who fear less to see the Commonwealth in disorder & confusion then their Periwig; do not testify much less in their own proper actions, as if he should employ his time, and study to number the waves, and sands of the Sea: But our intent and design is to seek in the condition of man, if he can find some Throne so high erected and elevated, that Vanity cannot attain to it: It must not be in the Thrones of Princes and Emperors, nor in great Offices and Dignities, for than she is lodged as in her Fort and Castle, and hath already surprised all the approaches and avenewes. We shall find it in some lower seat or station, as in the degree of Virtue termed Wisdom, which resisteth Iron, Fires, Tyrants, and other Instruments of fortune. Those noble Vestments wherewith the Ancients delighted to deck and adorn themselves, are not much less to be esteemed then themselves, she hath not much more reality in the form then in the matter. The dreams of these Philosophers have had no less Art to forge them, then to cause them to be believed. It is a fair Princess which holds under her feet Fortune chained, and the world captive: It is pity that it is not a body, as it is but a shadow, and the shadow of an imaginary fantasy: those who have given us such great advantages in paintings, it may be have never seen extreme grief & sorrow but in portrait. That Philosopher who with a severe countenance reproached to his sorrow, that it was not capable to make him complain, or to stoop his courage by his hard usage, in my opinion yielded him homage and acknowledgement enough by this refuse. The only difference of him with others, is because he complained in other terms, as those who discourse of their loves by silence. If he had been dumb, he had yet had a greater advantage, in not confessing that grief and pain was an evil. But I think we need not apply any other tortures to make his experience and feelings confess what they deem thereof. To shut our mouth to our complaints, we cannot exempt or shut our breast from grief, which as a furious fire, if it have not vent by this sighing place, will grow the more inflamed by its constraint: He will find it as sharp and irksome as a poor Country labourer: To be brave and proud in his words, will not any way diminish his sense thereof, for his virtue consisteth only in his patience, but this salubrious and wholesome remedy never wants, but to those who are in despair. O that we were happy if this virtue could be found amongst us; yea upon the walls of a besieged City all dusty, our hands full of galls, and all covered with wounds and blood, as saith Seneca▪ But we shall as soon find cowardice as generosity, and choler as valour, which in the fear of sacking a Town, or of our total ruin, o● of the infallible loss of our dignity, wealth, o● family, borowes the apparel of valour, and under that strange name and vesture, steals the name and glory of Virtue: In any other place where we will lodge him, we shall find nothing but his colours. If our particular Interes● press us of that side, which it makes v● stoop and bend, we would have it to be th● high way of Virtue; and to make it flexible to our actions, we give it so many disguises, tha● to establish it in his first Being, it will not be i● our power, nor it may be in his own. If she● will permit herself to be disposed and managed by us, it must be grossly, she must suffe● our corruption, and wholly forget what she is to clothe herself with our weakness: Th● firmest Instruments wherewith we may sta● and stop her, are our natural weapons, as Weakness, Inconstancy, and Vanity; for how true o● false is Wisdom, which gives place to frenzy, a burning Fever, and decrepit sickness? What temperance did the Philosopher observe in the embraces of his wife? Let us confess that in what degree or quality so ever he be, that he is always man, and that he cannot forbear to act and play his own part, what action so ever he will counterfeit, for his Mask and disguise, is pulled off by truth. Take away the opinion of evil from a fool, and that of good from a wise man, you will bring them both into their shirts, and then find that they are two men, which differ nothing but in their apparel; And extreme folly hath yet this affinity with much wisdom, that they are not joined, and yet not far distant, and that they are constrained to borrow one from the other, that which makes them appear in their chiefest lustre and glory. Consider if the soul (in the degree of temperancy) can produce any thing, but that which is vulgar and common; or if she will discover any greater than accustomed, she must rush forth of herself, she must violently draw us, and taking the snaffle in her, teeth, she must bear us upon herself, with as much temerity and rashness, as that young Son of the Sun did his Chariot: But the excellence of Virtue consists not in elevating ourselves high, for it matters not where we are, so we be in rule and order. The power and greatness of the mind, consists not in an extraordinary motion of running, but in a firm, constant, an● sure pace, and still equal to himself: Wha● then shall this rash sally be, but irregularity, and this irregularity but a degree of folly: Le● us seek the confirmation of my speech in th● School of the Philosophers. Plato believed no● that a solid and sound Understanding ought or should knock at the gate of Poesy, because the Poet (saith he) sitting on the chair of the Muses, furiously powers forth all which comes into his mind, without tasting or digesting it▪ It escaped from Homer's tongue; That it is goo● sometimes to be a fool: Cato affirms, that th● best wits are those which have most variety▪ But Aristotle makes it clear, that a Wit which mounts itself into the supremest degree of excellency and rarity, is indebted to his irregularity, which issueth forth from his seat of Wisdom, and is therefore of the jurisdiction of folly, as if the soul had no surer sign of her perfect health then sickness: It is a misfortune to owe his Wisdom to folly, his glory to contempt, and his reformation to Vice. To sprinkle on us Oracles and Prophecies, according to the divine Philosopher, the soul must abandon her usual custom and pace, and be surprised, and forced by some heavenly raptures and ravishment, thereby to steal (as Prometheus did fire from heaven) the secrets of the Divinity. That if he whom antiquity believed, to merit the name of Wise above all other men, hath refused it as unworthy (although Humane Nature enforced itself to produce him as a bright Sun among the shining wits of his age) by what right and jurisdiction must we attribute it to him. Shall we be judges of that whereof we are incapable, and shall our ignorance have this reputation above his knowledge, to be believed more true therein? We are prodigal of that which we have not, and think to judge more truly than he, of those colours which we have never seen, and whereof himself alone hath had some knowledge, though imperfect. Is it not true that Socrates had more knowledge of his wisdom, and of himself, than all those vulgar people, who with confused voices, and ill assured words, would be wiser than him in this Art and Science of wisdom? Socrates had too much freeness in his soul, to use any counterfeiting disguise; that if he would attribute to his modesty, the contempt which he made of himself, his wisdom, and condition, I will esteem him guilty of no less vanity, because there is no less error and vice, to conceal and cover the truth one way, then another. Let us therefore stay at his free confession, rather than to our own rash judgements; and yet notwithstanding we shall give him no less praise and glory then antiquity hath done. But let us receive this contentment, that it be done in our sight, and to our knowledge, and that he draw up Art and Science from the bottom of his ignorance, and his greatest and justest glory, (with so much reason and justice) to have despised and contemned himself; And from thence let us derive this consequence or Corollary: That the power of man goes no farther than this point, to cause to issue and stream forth some rivulets of clear water, from the bottom of a deep and dirty Well: He still savours of slime and dirt, and if he have strength enough to dissemble it to our senses, he hath not sufficient art to disguise it to the truth. He deems himself powerful through the use and frequecie of his own opinions. He resounds aloud the wealth and treasure of his imagination, and hath reason to prize and value them at so high a rate, because all his riches is but a dream, his felicities but in outward show and appearance, his prerogatives but in discourse, and he himself is nothing else but vanity and lies. Chiron who refused the immortality which was offered him by the Gods, had learned in the School of Nature, the esteem which he should make of so miserable and wretched a condition; wherein there is nothing immortal but vexation and labour, nor mortal, but contentment. We live in sorrows and afflictions, or rather they live by and in us, and for the defect of true causes, we add fantastical bodies thereunto to afflict us. And if we are reduced to this point, to have nothing without to pain us; we yet make ourselves enemies of ourselves, as if our peace and rest were but in contradiction, and our tranquillity in perpetual apprehension and fear. But let us proceed to examine the other springs and locks of his nature, thereby to discover them; to see whether we shall find more or less Vanity in him, although notwithstanding we purposely conceal the greatest part thereof: For if all were discovered, it were to be feared, that it being but Vanity, it would all prove but wind, which would carry away with it the subject whereon we are to entreat. The end of the first Discourse. The second Discourse. Of the Senses. SECTION. I. The soul and the body are united together by so strong a link, that as the body cannot move but by the means of the soul: so the soul cannot move towards external things, nor know them but by means of the senses. Rivers do not sufficiently discover the nature of their head Springs, and men's actions yield not knowledge enough of their Original; their perpetual motion, bereaves from our eyes (through its violence) the means how to know them; and from our thoughts, the means how to judge of them: It is the flight of a bird, which leaves no trace in the air behind him: we must therefore follow him as he goes, to know what he is, what is the principal mark whereby he differeth from other creatures, what are his privileges, faculties, and means, whereby he receives knowledge, the aid and assistance whereof, (besides the perpetual trouble wherein it entertains him) fills him full of vain glory and presumption: In so doing, we shall see Reason in her castle, how she establisheth herself with power and authority: what is her beginning, her progress, and her end: how she finds not in us any free, common, and natural entrance, but by the senses, which are as the Sentinels of the soul, disposed without to advertise her of all that passeth, and to furnish the principles and matter; to establish this proud building, wherein she afterwards sits as in her Throne of majesty, which I term Science, or the knowledge of things: For if all things that are known, may be known only according to the faculty of the knower; we must acknowledge that we are solely bound to them for this knowledge, because it doth necessarily begin, and likewise end in them. For by the means of the senses, Imagination, Memory, and Opinion is framed and form, and from these imaginations being once placed in quietness, and of memory and opinion, reduced in order by judgement, is derived the knowledge of things. To pass on, and proceed with more facility to this knowledge, we say that the Sense is a faculty joined in a certain proportion and harmony, with its proper object; as the Sight to colours, Hearing to sounds, Smelling to scents, Tasting to savours, and Feeling to cold, heat, and other natural qualities, whereof the subjects or causes consists and this by the means of the air, which receives, retains, and bears, as a Mediator, these sorts of the one to the other subject. These five messengers carry to the interior powers (endued with knowledge) all that we can comprehend or desire: And they all thrust forward to common sense, as to thei● centre, where they faithfully report the images of those things, according as they have gathered and collected them, which after judgeth and discerneth thereof. Their particular power is confined and limited within the bounds of the object which is prescribed them, without whose extent they never advance: For the eyes neither judge nor know any thing but colours, nor the ears but only those tones and sounds wherewith they are strucken: But common sense judgeth of the one and the other severally, never confounds them, and is industriously careful to present them to the imaginative; who as an ingenious Painter, receives and gathereth the lively forms, which being cleansed of sensible conditions, and particular qualities, become universal; and are capable to be presented to the Understanding, being thus disroabd of their gross apparel, and guided by the light of the Intellect; an agent which stands at the entry, as a Torch to hinder either the order or confusion of images or forms which may meet and assail one the other in the crowd; and then presently presents them to the still and quiet Intellect; who having opinioned upon these forms that have been presented to him, judgeth which are profitable, and which prejudicial; and then offers them afterwards to our Will, together with his judgement thereon: Who as Mistress of the Powers, ordains that they shall all embrace her party, and so to follow that which pleaseth, or else to eschew and avoid that which displeaseth him; But to the end, that in the absence of objects the Understanding may have wherewith to employ and entertain himself, he commits to the guard and custody of Memory, those forms which are showed to him by his fancy, to present them to him as often as it is needful; and although the subtlety, and quick activity of these different motions are almost insensible, we must nevertheless thus dispose and order them; although one only motion doth in one and the same instant touch all these different strings, which concur to the sweet harmony of the thoughts, and motions of a well-ordered mind, thereby to enlighten with more familiarity, the beginning, progress, and end of matters; and how, and in what manner material things are made spiritual, thereby to have more communication and commerce with our soul. And yet notwithstanding, it is not a necessary consequence that this order be so religiously observed: For I speak of free operations, which are made in a sound Understanding, and not of those who permit themselves to be guided and governed by their own opinions, and who content themselves simply to follow the great high way, as the more frequented and beaten; without enquiring where they go, nor why they follow this sort of life, because their affection and fancy, which hath received the forms which Sense presented to them, with some particular recommendation and favour, presented them likewise as soon to the sensual appetite under the form of good, or evil: who without communicating it to his superior judges, commands as a Lieutenant general over the moovable powers who are subject to him, which are dispersed in the Muscles, Arteries, and other parts of the body, that they obey him, either to approach, or retire; to fly, or follow; and to perform such other motions, as is requisite and proper to the impression that is given them by this sensual appetite. SECTION. II. The different operation of the Senses concludes not that there are five, no more than the different effects of the rays of the Sun, that there are many Suns. IT seems to me (with some probability and appearance) that the number and multitude of the Senses might be reduced to that of Feeling; for as the most delicate parts of the body feel cold or heat, good or evil, more sensibly and lively than the grosser: so Man touched with the same object, seems to be diversely touched, because his body (in her tenderest parts) receives a feeling so delicate and subtle, that it loseth the name of feeling, and then we give it another according to our fancy and opinion; although in effect, that proceeds from the disposition or delicateness of the sensible part; the which the more it is small, tender, and subtle, the more the feeling becomes delicate and subtle. And indeed the same object which toucheth us, if it be generally over all the body, that we term feeling, or if he meet with any part more lively or animated, as in the superior part of man, where nature hath lodged (as in a heaven) the Intelligences and the lively forms and images of the Divinity, the same object (I say) which in all the body could meet with none but with gross parts, could not make, that the feeling should produce the effects of all the other Senses, according to the part where he met, the which the more delicate it is, the more this feeling doth subtilise, & in the end purifies itself so, that it seems to be absolutely some other thing, and to have no resemblance with that which the vulgar and popular voice terms feeling: For if the object touch our taste, the sense and feeling is far more subtle than when it toucheth our foot, hand, or any grosser part of the body: And therefore we will term it no more feeling, but savour or relish: If it be present itself to the nose, it subtilizeth itself the more: If to the hearing again, more: If to the sight, it is with such a subtlety and purity, that it seems to be an opinion merely erroneous to call that sense feeling; because the object which strikes it, toucheth it not hard enough, or that it doth not hurt or offend so much & so lively in this part as in others. If nevertheless they will behold the Sun with open eyes, this pricking burning pain which they feel in their eye, will be enough sharp and sensible to draw this confession from their tongue: For were it so that the object touched not our eye: but that this faculty of seeing depended wholly of him, he would imagine all things of one and the same colour. If the feeling he receives by the degrees of the object, which are conveyed to him by the means and assistance of the air, made him not to observe the difference, as if he always look through a green or red glass, all that is presented to him, appears of the same colour. That if this faculty were absolutely in us, that the thing touched us not, that the object had no right, but of patience and reception, and not of action or emission. We should see all equally, without being more interested of one object then of another, because on toucheth us not more than another. But our weak sight cannot support or suffer the darts and blows of the Sun, as of some Torch or simple light: We must then acknowledge and confess, that it is the object which toucheth it more or less, sith Nature hath operated most wisely in us, in giving us senses, which by their proper power and suggestion, would bear themselves to our ruin and confusion: Which would fall out if the effect that we feel in our sight by the splendour of the Sun, proceeded only from the visible faculty, and not from the blow or the touch of the Sun. But all objects which come to strike our sight in a reasonable distance, she will be joyful in this meeting and feeling; she sees and knows this object as much as she can, according to the resemblance and conformity between her, and that which toucheth her. Hearing is nothing else but a feeling of the tune or sound in this part, the which accordingly more or less, as it strikes our ear, makes the sound grave or harsh, sweet or displeasing: and if it strike us too rudely and violently, it than not only toucheth the ear, but all the whole body, as when a great noise or thunder makes all things tremble and shake under us, and seems to strike and astonish the foundations of houses by this sudden and violent feeling. In a word, feeling is performed by the means of the air, which according to the power of the object, and as it is bend against us, or such part of our body, makes either the visible, the sound, the smell, the taste, or the feeling, which is universally over all the body, and which the common people believe, doth only merit the name of feeling. Nevertheless, because in all doubtful matters my humour is not to affirm any thing; I therefore leave to the opinion and judgement of every one, the free choice and liberty, to believe what he pleaseth. And I care not if they are one, or many, sith the diversity of their functions seems to merit, if not an essential difference, yet a different name. It sufficeth that we have the centre of their operations in the common sense, which together verifies their style, their rule, their form. If he abuse it, I appeal, He is judge and party: Nevertheless, because the multiplicity of motions of that thing which passeth in our thoughts, and which to this end is refined by the labour of the operation of understanding, seems at first aboard, to disburden itself of that which is grossest in her, and not to retain but the simplest and most perfect Essence; to make it the sweeter, and more familiar to the taste and palate of the mind; yet I doubt that she estrangeth herself the more, and that the more she is spiritualised to our fantasy and mind, the less she discovereth herself, and the more she grows great and corporal to our understanding, I mean she estrangeth herself from the truth. SECTION. III. Nature being jealous of secrets, permits not the senses to discover the essences of things, nor that they can convey any thing to our Understanding, that is not changed and corrupted by them in the passage. THe so different opinion of things, makes us plainly see, that we are not yet arrived thereunto. We cannot take hold of them in a good place: we divest them at the entrance of their proper qualities, and receive new knowledge of the mind, and such impression as she pleaseth. Of the object which presents itself to us, every one of our senses seize that which is pleasing, and proper to him, except the essence, that is to say, the true being thereof, so that all our Art is to know the object by this sort, but not that he is of this sort. Vice and the defect of our knowledge, doth not change, or alter it in any thing. The child which looks thorough a red glass, hath he not cause to laugh to see thy face of that colour, but hast thou not more cause to laugh to see how he is abused and deceived, and the soul, which in our body will intermeddle to judge all according as it is athwart so many gross and thick glasses, as are our senses, and susceptible of so many different colours. Doth she afford less cause? Again, if all that we see, we saw to be all of one sort; we might then establish a certain knowledge of our ignorance, and not of the thing, for the true Being and Essence thereof is in itself, and cannot discover itself to our knowledge. Truth cannot glide, and pass into our understanding, because our senses change and corrupt that which it brings us from without; and that of things which by them comes into our fancies, is obscured in its passage: And as much difference and distance, as there is between the thing, and the image and resemblance thereof: so much difference there is between the true reality of the thing, and that which we imagine we know: yea, there is more; for between man and his picture, there is some resemblance: but our senses being too weak to apprehend and comprehend that of truth, cannot so much as represent us the image or figure thereof; because there is no comparison or resemblance between true and false: But our senses deceive themselves, and contradict and contrary one the other: as in painting, the picture which in our eyes seems a corporal statue, is found smooth and flat when we feel it. In these contrary appearances, the one must needs be true, and the other false, if rather they are not both false. The senses therefore do not carry the image of truth to common sense, sith the image ought still to be the resemblance of the thing. If we press the corner of our eye, we shall see two Candles for one. Our hearing being somewhat stopped, receives sounds otherwise then they are. The sick Patient finds wine sour and bitter, which in health he holds to be sweet and pleasant. The Senses likewise find themselves abused by the power of the understanding. The passions of the soul change their function. Love placeth a thousand rarities of beauty in her object; and Hatred, and Disdain as many imperfections. The Vermilion and the Ceruse, which to our knowledge adorns and beautifies the face of a woman, inflames our amorous desires, and despite of all these shows, and appearances; we say they will never fade or fail, and we shall be believed to have far more reason to quarrel the truth thereof itself, then to contradict it. It is true, that if thereon we are pressed, or called in question, we cannot retire farther back: we must fight, and it hazardeth the entire loss of Arts and Sciences. In such a cause I know it is far fitter to cast away our weapons, then to use them, and not to support so unjust a quarrel, with so weak defences: I know not who shall be judge hereof, and for my part I name and institute complesancie, to be Arbitrator of this difference. And I do not wonder if the Epicuriens submit us to the mercy of the senses, with so much severity and tyranny, that they permit it to be more lawful for us to invent all sorts of lies and fictions, then to accuse them of falsehood. Those Philosophers cannot choose but establish excellent Arts and Sciences, sith they are so religious in their principles, and they well demonstrate by their Atoms, the faith and sound belief which they want in their weak beginnings. It is true that in the Spagerycall Art, the more things are discharged from the gross accidents and qualities which environ them, the more they are made perfect, and essential; but it fares not with our Understanding as with a Limbeck; because the labour of our mind doth in nothing touch the true being of the thing; and the strongest stroke which he can give to apprehend it, is this first communication of the Senses to the things which are nearest by their faculties, relation, harmony, measure, and true proportion which is betwixt them and their object by the intervention of Nature, so as then when one of the Senses hath carried to Common Sense the figure of his object, he is so far from being cleansed and purified by this Idea; or that he communcates more easily by the virtue of his being, that he is much the further off it. And as the sides of an Angle the more they are continued the more they are distant one from the other: so the more those figures or Images are borne to the common sense, and are purified to make them capable and worthy of our understanding, the more they estrange themselves from the object which they represent, and consequently from his true being. Our thoughts run af-after objects to embrace them, but in vain, for they can overtake nothing but shadows, through the aid and assistance of their weak imaginations. It is a handful of water, which she will retain and hold, and the more she grasps fast her hand, the swifter it runs out. But sith thoughts enjoy nothing else of the thing then the Idea, can we say, that it is a subject capable to contain him, to possess it; yea in a being more certain, sure, and purer than she is. If we say there is so small reason to measure a right line by a crooked one, to know the true measure thereof, and that a square cannot be measured by an Orb or circle, although these lines and figures are of the same nature, and differ not but accidentally, is it possible that we would so proudly measure and know the truth of things, by so false an instrument; and which hath so small resemblance to its true being: It is to esteem the shadow above the light, to give more belief to dreams, then watchings, and more to prize and value appearance and show, yea of not being, then of the true being of the thing itself. This faculty of sense which distils through all our body, is descended from above, and from our soul, as the light of the Sun, which exposeth to our eyes the beauty, but not the Essence of things that environ us: Sith Nature itself (according to Plato) is nothing else but abstruse and Enigmatical Poesy, as an over-vailed painting resplending, with infinite variety of false lights, thereby to give unto the appearance of our reasons, and the weakness of our conjectures more cause to admire the sacred and powerful hand of our divine Painter, God; who in all the corners of the world, and chiefly in man, hath engraven the Characters and Images of his Divinity. SECTION. IV. Science (or knowledge) is the mark and seal of the Divinity, but that which resides among us here in Earth, is nothing else but abuse, trumpery, and vanity. Our Knowledge is but a Vanity, his assurance hath no other foundation but doubt. There is nothing more weak or frail than his principles: His beginnings are tender and childish, we must lead them by the hand: They had need have aid and support from every one, of a firm and undoubted belief for want of valable reasons. If our faith did not maintain them, they could not subsist of themselves. Also none will permit that they be examined or proved, for the trial and quest will be of too dangerous a consequence: But there can be no principles, if the Divinity have not revealed them, and therefore there is no science or knowledge. All contrary presupposition hath no less authority one then the other, If reason make not the difference. That which we will establish for reason, it must needs be reason itself, and not our own opinion. If it be lawful for us to inform ourselves of the Principles of Sciences; yea, of that which is held and maintained for the most certain, and true by the common consent of all Philosophers; we shall find that by their false presuppositions, they establish a knowledge of Truth: For they will measure material things by immaterial; although nevertheless they will have the thing which measureth, of the same nature, with the thing measured: As their numbers which are not measured but by numbers, and their lines, by lines: But the point is the principle of their measure; The point is nothing, they have therefore no point of a principle in their measure. There is nothing so opposite and distant, as being from not being: How will they then by the not being of the point, pass to the infallible and sure demonstration of the true Being of the body? Can they give any other assured foundation to the point, the line and the superficies, than their imagination? Let them not therefore attempt to measure imaginary things, sith they are of the same nature, and that there is nothing more different than real Being to imaginary, from the line to the perch, and from the Angle to the Compass. Let the Surveyor of Lands make use of his perch, to measure the earth: but let not the ginger form in his head or mind any imaginary pearches to measure heaven; the distance of the planets, or the extent of the Zodiac: Let our gross sense, be the test of true and false, sith we have none more sure: It will ill become us to play the wise men above our senses and understanding: Our wit can neither form nor frame any thing beyond it, which hath any foundation. This is to undertake too much: They make us confess despite of ourselves, that they are the expert Masters therein, and that we have no right but in obedience, not in counsel. If the Mathematicians will not that the point measure the line, the line the superficies, nor the superficies the body: Why will they that this body framed in their imaginations, by the weaving and connexion of the point, the line and the superficies which is but imaginary; be capable to measure a body physical and real, which admits nor knows any point, line, or superficies: It is to establish Principles with too much tyranny, not to give leave to examine them; Sith the knowledge which results thereof, is a bird of the same nest: and that he ought to inform himself of all, before he give us demonstrations for Articles of faith, which have no other foundation, but doubt and incertainty: For we most say with Epicure, that all things are compounded of points, sith it is the beginning, middle, and end of a line. But the line is to the Superficies, that which the point is to the line, and the superficies to the body, that which the line is to the superficies, wherefore this point being in all, and through all to the line, must likewise be in all, and throw all to to the body; For withdrawing by the power of the imagination (because this is solely the work of imagination) all the points which may meet, or can be imagined in the line; there will then remain no more line, or that which remains will have no more points: But she cannot be divided but by the points, therefore either the line shall be nothing more; when the points shall be taken away, or she shall be indivisible in her length, because she is not divisible, but by the points which shall be no more. May I not then conclude of the absurdity of their Demonstrations and Principles: For the same that we have done to the line, by withdrawing of the points, we may do to the superficies by the substraction of lines, and to the body by the substraction of the superficies, and there will nothing remain to us but the point, which they themselves can neither express nor define, but by negation: But can there be found any thing in the body of Nature, which is nothing; and nevertheless is every where, and composeth all, and that from thence we may infer, that the Mathematician is nothing, nor yet his Art and Science: why then will we borrow of imagination the principle of so real and true a Being, as the body which falls under our senses, sith there is no conformity nor resemblance of the measure, to the thing measured. The Astrologers have more reason to form Epicicles to the Sun and Moon: and because they cannot attain thereto, they are constrained to lend a body, and a form to their inventions. If they cannot approach the Sun, they will approach the Sun near to them, to form him material springs and locks, to the end that they may manage him according to their own pleasures and fashion, and that he may not escape from them, and as well they shall not be believed: But what, doth it seem to them, or do they think that the divine providence, who ruleth and limiteth the motions of all things, could do nothing without them, and that Heaven, if it were not hung fast by her Poles, and the Sun and Moon linked and nailed fast to their Heaven, that they would fall on our heads: That the Planets could not move, because every moment without rule & order they met and contended, and troubled themselves in their course and revolution: As if I say, this divine providence had not established so much, but a fairer order above, among these celestial bodies, (where in outward show & appearance he is more pleased, because he delights in cleanness and purity) than he hath done below here among the elements, which take not the hand and place one of the other: but every one keeps himself in his proper place and station ordained to him. Earth mounts not up to the Region of fire, nor the air throws herself not down into that of water, but according to their usual custom & commerce, and the harmony which Nature hath contracted between them, as is seen in the mixture of compounds: which of their discordant accords and agreements, yield so sweet a Harmony and Diapazon: But sith this wise Mother of the world is so careful to conserve peace among beasts, who devour not one the other: yea, likewise among corruptible bodies, although age having destroyed them, she can easily make & propriate others of the same clay, & of the same matter which she moulds, and works continually in her hands, by a far stronger consideration she hath reason to entertain and maintain: a perfect peace, rule, order, and measure, among those celestial bodies, and that it were not in her power to establish (if they were intermixed and confused) in the order which was prescribed to them from their beginning, by him who never had, nor shall have end or beginning. They can, and are well conserved without them, and without their Epicicles, and he among them who can erect his eyes in the contemplation of this great body in comparison of the earth, of that which we possess and enjoy, will assuredly judge that Nature useth us as children, because it gives us nothing but trifles of small or no value, yea, which are not worth the losing: in regard of those which we want and enjoy no●. I believe that the Epicicle which they give to the Moon, differs not much from that of their wit, and I think I wrong them not in the comparison. A heavenly body doth at least deserve as noble a situation, as a feeble, and earthly imagination. They conduct, and govern themselves, very well without us, and I would to God we could do it so well without them: and although their influence, (whereof man cannot know the cause, and motion, if he ascend not to the head spring, and fountain,) distribute us Happiness, or Misfortune, good, or evil; yet nevertheless, we will give them but a younger Child's portion, and will make them troth, retire, and advance, according to our pleasures; but our Vanity cannot be concealed, or kept from them, they retain record thereof, so, as whosoever can break open, and discover those seals; he shall presently, and palpably behold, things past, present, and to come, and as the flood of all mortal matters runs incessantly with one, and the same impetuosity. Our designs are fair, and generous, but their execution ridiculous; our mountains of Pride, and Vanity produce, and propagate us nothing but Mice, and are more to be lamented, and pitied in the weakness of our wits, than those small Pigmees, for the weakness of their bodies, & in their enterprise upon Hercules. If those Giants, which would heretofore assault, and scale Heaven, yea, the Throne of the Gods, and pull the Thunder out of jupiters' hands, had finished ●h●ir intended enterprise, they would have 〈◊〉 us of what matter the Sun was 〈◊〉, how he is captive, bound, and tied to 〈◊〉, what is his Epicycle, Apogee, and other 〈◊〉 mysteries, & functions; if their presumption▪ and rashness were not at the very instant, 〈◊〉 under the very weight, and burden of 〈◊〉 ●●mour, and weapons; to show that the 〈◊〉, Presumption, and Vanity of our Reasons brings us nothing else but shame, and confusion. The principles of these Sciences are weak, shaking, and trembling; it is a labour to support, and affirm them, but when they are avered, and that their principles, and demands are granted, than they afterwards triumph in their demonstrations. They approve a thousand fair things, without that there proceed thereof any good effect: can the industry of m●n make a circle so round, that the right line coming to make the angle of contiguity shall not touch it, but in one point, and not imaginary, and that there can be no smaller sharp angle given but that: as if the sharp rightline angle, being a quantity, cannot be divided into so many parts, that it meet with a smaller than that, which the angle of contiguity gives. We must send them to the School of Sense, and they shall find themselves far wide, and distant from their reckoning: But how can they term demonstrations, those appearances of reason, which prove every thing contrary. For our Mathematicians, and Astrologers say, that the Earth is a fixed, and immoveable point, about which, moves, and turns this great Mass of Heaven: Cleanthes, Nicetas, and Copernicus, have proved that the Heavens were immoveable, and that the Earth wheeled about the Oblique circle of the Zodiac, turning round about his Axletree: Are they not appointed, and placed directly contrary; have they ta'en any other footing then on their principles, have they advanced any thing, but by Demonstration; and yet nevertheless, we see them contradict, and contend in the effect, and proof of their opinions: Who then shall be the true judge between these two different Sects; for if we permit ourselves to be carried away by the force, and strength of humane reason, they have both of them spoken truth: Is there any thing truer than Demonstration, there is nothing then more true, than the contrary thereof, & consequently, because one of these two opinions, is necessarily false; if they are not both false. Then there is nothing truer than falsehood and nothing more certain, than incertainty, for both of them have operated by Demonstration. But humane judgement cannot give more weight and belief to one Demonstration, then to another: sith by the chain, and dependence of precedent propositions, you are directly led to principles, the which if you have not the liberty to contradict; complain not afterwards, to see so many, and so great absurdities, and such resemblance of contraries, & likewise of so true appearances, if we call that truth, which restrains, & hinders us from passing beyond the necessary consequence of a proposition; But for my part, I am not of this opinion, I call that truth, which is immoveable, and which hath no other rest, or refuge, but in the bosom of God, it is the proper place where it reposeth, she is not of our placing▪ or disposing: She doth every where present, & proffer herself unto us; but a mortal hand is not capable to retain, or hold her. We seek her, we possess her, & yet we cannot meet her; our Wit is blind borne, which at high-noon, in the fairest Summer day, seeks the light of the Sun. We have no nobler design; but our effects, and weak reasons cannot follow, or second her; and when she falls into our hands, have we where withal to seize, and maintain her in our possession? our means, and powers are too weak to apprehend her: we perpetually run, and wheel about her, but the contrary shows, which we find in all sorts of things, and subjects, make us apparently see, that they are but the barks, and rinds of truth; and if we term the outside of our Discourse, Reason, (which every one frames in his mind,) according to his capacity, to apply it to the knowledge of the thing, shall we not then say, that there is nothing more weak, and inconstant: if this reason have truth still on her side, see how many contrary faces, and semblances we give to truth; There was never a proposition so firmly held, or mainetained, which hath not, or may not receive at least a hundred contrary reasons, if we will cast off opinion, and so sail without her, to what wind shall we expose, and abandon our sails, if not that being met, and beaten with so many winds, equally contrary, we remain fixed, and immovable in our station. This point will infallibly be both the Centre of all motion, and the rest, and tranquillity of a well governed mind: But humane knowledge doth not conduct us, she never follows, or shapes this course, if we will follow any, we must the very selfsame hour, embrace his party, and quarrels. If the Sophister, and he which controls all, knew as well how to laugh at himself, as at others, I should think his side, and party very strong: But to believe outward shows, or appearances, it is indeed too great a simplicity. The liberty of the mind ought not to engage itself, except in those things wherein we are not permitted to rest doubtful; as in our Religion, and Faith, where we ought to hold, and retain our written lesson, from that Wise, Holy, and Sacred Word of God; and not that so weak an Instrument as our humane reason, should intermeddle to inquire, or judge; for whosoever contesteth, doth not freely consent. But it is not so with Sciences, for if reason itself be not their foundation, we are not bound to pass farther in believing them▪ that which is received by the opinion, and common consent of many, must not here pass, as the form of a revokeable law, and if all men believe it, yet I would the more doubt it; their ignorance may have some reputation with themselves, but not with others. From the cradle, we say, that one and one are two: but we must acknowledge, that the greatest reason of this principle, is, because it is so held & received among us: for this Tenent holds more of custom then of reason, and of opinion than truth; as we will more amply declare hereafter. It is upon this foundation that Plato by the means of numbers, elevates and caries his thoughts even into the very bosom of God, seeming to serve himself hereof, as of a ladder to mount and unite himself to this divine knowledge. Hath he not reason to make great esteem thereof. Sith our Cabalists have so firmly believed them, as it seems that by them all things (though never so far distant) do approach, and become familiar to their minds: But they have need of a very soft and tractable wit, to subject it to the belief of their principles, as if the composition and collection of the number of two and three which make five, the resultance thereof were the marriage of the whole body of Nature, which is found conformable to the opinion of Pythagoras, that two is the matter, and three the form: That two is the female, because it may be cu● in two, and equally divided, and hereby to make itself capable to receive in itself, the motive power of the form, which is the number of three, as Male● because it cannot be equally divided, and therefore unworthy to receive, as the number of two, which opens itself to receive, and grows great by this commixture, which if it engender a Male, which is the number of three, you shall find that this three, propagates the number of five, from whom it is issued, and being again conjoined together, do compose the number of eight, which they term the full number, and the accomplishment of all things; where the Creature unites itself, to his Creator, in a perfect harmony: And this first principle, which is generally extended every where, being reunited in itself, sounds forth the most melodious Diapason, which the Musician terms Octave, and the Cabalist, the perfect, or full number. So the Musician, and the Cabalist do need, that the principles of Arithmetic be laid, and confirmed before they proceed farther to the establishing of their Science; but who can justly say, that one, and one are two, so as there is no apparent, or pregnant reason to doubt thereof; which is, that I believe not, for there cannot be found in nature two things, which are so entirely one, and the same. It must then needs be, that this one, which you join to the first, to make two, are something different; for either it is the same, or i● is 〈◊〉 from the first: if it be the same, 〈◊〉 is nothing but brings forth her like, and ●hey will make but one, and not two; as if to a sound, you add, and join the same sound, so much the more you add the same, and it will still be one, and the same sound; until you add, and conjoin another which is different, which then will make the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, or any other consort, or Diapason. So if the one, which you add to one, be the same, you will never engender but one. Or if it be different, as it is necessary to make two, according to the abovesaid example; it is not then one, and one, which make two, but only then, when one is conjoined, and added to any thing, which is different to it. Again, is not every number a quantity, and is not number composed of his other parts: but number is not composed but of Unities, which joined together make all▪ therefore unity is a quantity, because the parts thereof▪ are of the nature of all, and consequently of the whole divisible. For Unity is a number, if rather out of itself it give no number: and if it be not so, we must ask them, what then shall be the number, which they will give us from Unity, and to cut it off, sith it is not; or if they give us two, or thr●e for a number, in substracting two Unities from the one, and three from the other, there will nothing more remain to them, therefore the number must be nothing, or the Unity must be number, and if it be a number, it must be a quantity, and if a quantity, then divisible into as many parts as we please; so as instead of joining threescore and ten unities, to make up the number of seventy, we should not divide but one of these Unities into so many parts, until we had met with the number of seventy, so then there will remain sixty nine superfluous Unities: And is it not thrifty husbandry, sith the division, which I can make of one only Unity, into threescore and ten parts, hath filled up the number of seventy? But this way, and progress would be infinite, so that when you add one, to one, thinking to make two, I say, you make forty, or the number which I please, for every one of these Unities, may be divided into twenty parts; which conjoined all together, will make forty, or any such number, which I please: how then can it be proved, that one, and one, being separated; and not being then two, if they are placed one near the other, that this congression, should cause them to be two, and that if the one of these Unities, which composeth these two, come to be divided in itself, that this division should be the cause to make them two? for we meet with the cause, why those two, are made Diametrically contrary to the former, in regard, addition, and division produce the same effect here in, which is necessarily false; that one, and one are two, it must be attributed to the use, and custom of the World, thereby to facilitate commerce, and traffic betwixt Merchants, and Countrymen. But to permit, or tolerate it in Philosophy, or Astrology; which by a long chain of numbers, and calculations, will raise their insolency as high, as in the rank of the Gods; in taking away, and disjointing this piece, from his building, you see all the rest reversed, and overthrown, and my Philosopher to run after to gather up the pieces thereof, without being able to recover, or sow together any rags, or fragments thereof, so that to escape this ruin whereunder he sees himself surprised, and beaten down, he is in the end constrained to throw himself into the arms of Ignorance, as his nursing Mother, who is pleased with our defects, and faults, and with much delight entertains, and supports all our infirmities; so that all these great Chieftains of the School sects, who in the most perfect knowledge of things, which fall into the wit of men, have professed to know nothing, and have inclined, and bend themselves that way, as the sweetest pillow to repose a well tempered brain, and head on. If we demand of Physicians what is their Principle, they will never agree among themselves to tell us; how then will they do it in the rest of their Art and Science, if the more they advance, the more they estrange and retire themselves. One tells us that water is the principle of all things, another that the air is, another that fire, and others that the Atoms are their principle; and thus we find to be Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Anaximenes, Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Diagoras, and Epicurus: whose different opinions will be troublesome, and not much profitable in 〈◊〉 our Discourse. They incessantly contradict themselves, and in this sedition they undo, and out-throw themselves with their own proper weapons: And in this great disorder do they not openly expose themselves to their Enemies, and so give them infinite advantage to confute and confound them, in that they only labour to their own ruin and destruction? As those armed children on earth, which a civil war causeth to dye in their births. And indeed this Philosophical sedition, doth strangle Science in her Cradle, yea before she is borne. How then will they do, sith they hinder the growth of so fair a Science, that it cannot take deep root, and sprout forth so high and flourishing as Heaven, and make the Gods desirous to taste and relish the sweetness of its fruit. Every way a Vanity. But among so great a noise and clamour of Philosophical brains, I demand who among them shall be held the truest. Do they all want Reason, and profess as much the one as the other: I believe that the causes of their quarrels will rather fail, than the grounds and reasons to contradict them. They use Reason as an Ambidexter, who adheres as much to lies as truth, & who being orevailed with the mask of outward show, doth debosh and abandon himself to all sides: so many new subjects, so many contrary and different opinions as their Philosophers. They agree not among themselves, that fire is hot, when there should be none but the Pirrhoniens, to make them rest doubtful thereof, and despite of their knowledge, to affirm nothing certain. They suspect the senses, as if they were half corrupted by the familiarity of those things which environ them. And if we will condemn them according to the mercy of Sense, we shall find that Beasts suffer the same jurisdiction that we do, and that by the privilege of their sense we cannot refuse them, the liberty to leave or choose, to take or refuse, to absolve or condemn, according to the quality of good or evil, which presents its self to their imagination; by the particular favour, and recommendation of their senses. For they have learned in their School, that fire is hot, and they know it as well as we, who can yield no other reason, and cannot pass beyond the knowledge of this cause, above that which our experience, and Sense hath taught us. The Ape will beware, and not approach too near the fire, except the faggot be small, and vnbound, because of the discourse he holds in himself, to avoid the like disaster, wherein he was formerly fallen. But what have we to say, if they have their sense, and feeling, more subtle than ours, doth it not thence follow, they have a purer knowledge, a simpler resemblance, and a more harmonious condition than we? The Stag hath his Hearing, the Eagle her Sight, the Dog his Smelling, the Ape his Taste, and the Tortoise her Feeling, more subtle than we, although of this last only, as of the most brutal, some attribute us the preeminency, and thereby they find the objects more discovered, and naked than we do: that which a hundred ensuing propositions do but imaginarily discover to us, this beast sees it with a simple, and first innate knowledge; and who can deny, but that it is more noble, and perfect in this kind of beast, then in us? If it be true, that those things which are most approaching, and nearest to the truth, are the most worthy; Is not the Eagle to be esteemed, and held a truer observer of the light, and greatness of the Sun, than the sight of Man, which flies, and soars so low, that the least obstacle astonisheth him, and his own proper weakness, and imbecility hindereth him: That if for the conservation of our own good temper; and the knowledge of Herbs, which are proper, and necessary for the restoring of our health, we will attribute the privilege, and advantage to ourselves: Let us see of a Man, and a Beast hurted, which of the two will be soon cured: The Serpent among a thousand different Plants, and Herbs; throws himself on that which is proper to him, and returns to his Combat more courageous, and generous then before: whiles Man in his conference, and consultation of Herbs, and of their properties, and qualities, runs most incertainely after his remedy, which many times proves more prejudicial, and hurtful to him then his wound, or sickness. When reason fails us, we then employ experience, and the conference of events, which most commonly produceth a bad consequence, in regard they are still different, and variable: But this knowledge which causeth the Serpent without premeditation, to take that which is proper for him; either it is given, and infused to him by Nature, or it is done by a simple, and primary apprehension, which at first sight, discovereth him the truth of the object. But howsoever, it is far more noble, and absolute than ours; which consisteth, but only of the Taste, and comparison and conference of so many false things. So beasts do more certainly know objects than men, because they are led, and conducted there to, by the light of Nature, which is still certain, and cleere-seeing, and men by their own, which is but an obscure, and glimmering light; for the true knowledge, or truth itself, is the tranquillity of the mind; it is an infallible point, which is expressed in one word▪ as the perfectest knowledge, which is attributed to superior Intelligences, proceeds of the first ray of the mind without reflection, I mean without deuoluing, or ratiotination; for we need no discourse, but only to approach the thing, which is far distant from us, or to approach ourselves nearer to it: If we have our finger thereon, there is nothing more unprofitable, than those intricate propositions, than those lets, and stops of discourse, wherein our thoughts are frequently so intermixed, and confused, that we shall have sooner done to tear, then to untie the web, or knot thereof. SECTION V. Man having some knowledge of himself, (although it be imperfect,) as also of those whom he frequents, he contemns their Learning, and esteems none, but that which is grown in foreign Countries, or which he receives from an unknown hand. THe nimblest Wits, are accustomed to frame to themselves most conceptions, but they are so weak, as they can give no blow to truth; and if we have found it open, and uncovered, we will in such sort tie, and fix ourselves thereto, that the storms, and tempests, which continually arise in us by the trouble of our passions, give us too weak jogs, or thrusts to make us forsake the possession thereof. We should be still inseparably united, and as the heavy body, which is arrived to his Centre, is no longer weighty; so our Soul, arrived to her Centre, and united to her true object, shall have no more lightness, weakness, or inconstancy: but she is too far estranged from it: Those Arts, and Sciences, which the Poet said, were given us by the Gods, are but the shadows, and Images of that which remains in their breast; we find none but weak ones like ourselves, all things go with a trembling, and an ill assured pace, & it seems they are obliged by one, & the same law, to follow one, and the same pace, and dance as we do: It seems that our first Fathers have enjoyed it more pleasantly, and with less contradiction than we; our ancient Philosophers who succeeded them, have seized it by a thorny place, which hath sown among them so many divorces, and quarrels, that if we bear any respect, or reverence to their writings, it is as much for their antiquity, as for their merits: Our Age hath seen many great, and excellent wits, which the farther distant they are from our sight, the nearer they approach our praise, and recommendation: But because Learning is no longer prised, and esteemed among us, it seems that she is choked, and smothered between their hands; it appears to us, she hath no more fame, and lustre, but among strangers: we believe, that he in whom we have seen, and observed some faults, can produce nothing but that which is defiled, and vicious: we value men, as we do Figures, or Statues of stone, which we prize the more for their antiquity, and behold them more curiously, and attentively than we would do a Statue of Gold, or Silver, which we ourselves have seen made, although it were far more enriched by the art, and labour of an excellent workman; and this only because we have seen a deformed massy piece thereof, whereon he hath began to labour; Let him henceforth do what he can, he cannot remove this thought from our mind, where as the other hath never appeared to us but in his lustre. So those whom we have seen to play the men like ourselves, their Oracles, and Prophets have not been approved, or esteemed among us, as those ancient Philosophers, whom it seems that we cannot otherwise imagine, then with their eyes, and thoughts tied fast to the bosom of the Divinity; and in a perpetual re-search of the dependence, and uniting together of second causes, to this first sacred spring, and fountain; we have never seen them in their bed, table, or family: If one and the same Age had made them our time-fellowes, I know not if the familiarity of their life, had not distasted us of the familiarity of their wits. That Medales are not prised but for their rust, and age, and that Man (so weak, and wretched he is) deserves no honour, or praise, but of those to whom he is unknown: if his memory be too recent, and fresh, if the fame of his virtues be as yet but in his Orient, he advanceth with much difficulty. For as at the rising of the Sun, we see a great thick fog of gross, vapours, which seems to arise, but only purposely to eclipse, and darken his light, until with a bold, and resolute pace, he trample under his feet the pride of this malignant fog, who is so jealous, and envious of his brightness; But in the midst of his course, having attained the point of our Zenith, than he seems to Triumph over his Enemies, as anciently under the Image of Apollo, he quelled the arrogancy of that infamous Serpent of the Earth: So I say, the fame, and glory of all those Illustrious personages, hath commonly found its death, in its cradle, and in her very birth: is still found obscured, yea, almost defaced by the hot vapours of a thousand envious Spirits, until that after the tract of many years, it in the end remains Victorious of their life, and likewise proves so of their calumny. And then arrived to the point of the Zenith, their merits have found no farther hindrance to oreshadowe their glory; and the length of time having transported them from our sight, hath then likewise transported and secured them from the darts of envy and scandal. If Truth were borne, or resided in the tongue of our neighbour, it should be undervalved, yea, contemned; whereas we receive it as an Oracle from that of a Stranger. I admire not if those of elder times were so ambiguous in their answers: for the difficulty and intricacy thereof, brought them more admiration. We have too bad an opinion of ourselves in this only, and too good in all other things. If he who by the judgement he makes of man in general, would yet use him with more contempt (so as it were equally) we then should have nothing to gainsay, provided I say, That a Stranger which comes not to us, but by his writings, and by that which is best in him, could not hope for more particular favour, and applause than another among us. But because it seems that the glory which we give, and confer to this last, diminish our own: we will therefore give it far cheaper, and for less interest to him whom we have not seen, and having nothing to intermeddle or do with him; But for an end to all, it is always man who gives, and man who receives. As long as Art and learning is found in him, it shall still be to him a reproach of incertainty and ignorance. O that the life of man is far different from his Writings, yea from himself! Our Pen rules and governs the thoughts which we commit to paper, and inconstancy, those which we permit to run upon the waves of our imagination: but whosoever could see them in gross, and in their ordinary demarch and pace, shall find little less cause to laugh at the vanity and inanity of one than the other, and at the fantasy of a Philosopher, than we do at the May-games of a child: For despite of the order and polishing, which we use in the dependence, and connexion of our discourse, we cannot for the most part avoid or prevent, that our reasons do not contend and assail one the other, as well as their effects. In this small and short discourse, there are contradictions enough, but it matters not: Reason contradicts herself; and my opinion can turn itself no way whatsoever, that she meet not with some of her own party, and who will maintain her in the point of her reasons, so much humane knowledge hath of averse and different faces. We incessantly turn round about objects, and we can neither seize nor apprehend them, but by strange qualities, and outward appearances. But the appearance and the subject itself, are different things. If then our judgement stop only to appearances or outward shows, he judgeth of some thing which is not the subject. What certainty in this incertainty? What light amidst so much darkness? What truth (I say) can result or arrive to us, if the matter or subject, according to the opinion of Pythagoras, be in perpetual changes and revolution? If we have no participation of a true being: If all humane nature be still in the midst between birth and death, the time present betwixt the past and the future; and if it be true, that Reason receives nothing, but which is brought him from without, by the means and intervention of the senses, which cast great mists between the true and false, and between the object and the thought; She can very difficultly come to the knowledge of Truth, a-thwart so many clouds of lusts, Loves, fears, and hopes; and of an infinity of false forms, which frequently arise from our body, to overvaile and shadow our mind, and to trouble the power of our imagination: That if our soul do not estrange herself from the contagion of the body, and from his fantasies and frenzies; it is in vain that she attempt to reason or consult so certainly, without the assistance of particular grace, or special privilege which may descend to him from above. She ought to know that she is shut up, and confined in our body, as in a strange place. True it is, she bears about her this divine desire of knowledge; but it is a coin or money, which doth nothing else but unprofitably load and charge her, because it hath no currant course in that Country where she is. The senses understand not her language, so that under their pleasure and mercy, she is enforced and constrained to content herself, with what portion it pleaseth them to give her. Her morsels are cut: if she think to escape this slavery, by the flight of her thoughts, and the labour of a long meditation, she but draws her chain after her, and despite of her shrill resounding, finds herself so weak without their assistance, that for the time which she is retained here in prison, she may say, she is wholly indebted for the benefit of her faculties, and most free actions, to the favour, good disposition, and sweet usage of our senses. They are indeed our servants and our slaves; but yet they have more power and authority in the house then ourselves. We are Masters by the obedience which they voluntarily yield us, and not by the command which we have over them. Our power lasteth but whiles they please, and if any passion throw them into confusion, our soul then retireth into herself, all perplexed and fearful, until the disorder be appeased, and pacified in her Estate, and that every one of our senses be reestablished in his Kingdom. And how then, after so exact and perfect a knowledge of the weakness, vanity, and other imperfections of man; shall we yet have the courage to place him in the rank of the Gods, according to the opinion of Pythagoras, when he spoke of Dion, whom he said to be as virtuous as a God? yea, and by a higher strain and ladder; If we will enter into the school of Seneca; Then saith he, When a wise man by the degrees of Reason, hath attained so high, that he hath gotten an absolute power, and command over his passions: he hath done that thing which God cannot do; because it is beyond all passions. Is it not from man's impotency, to derive a power more sovereign than that of God: For, for man to glory in his actions, he doth a thing which God cannot do: Is not this a fair consequence of our reasons! O vanity of man, vanity of Science and Knowledge, the more we advance, the more we still have to advance. Can we then believe, that this reason which so puffs up our heart, and fills and inflames our courage, hath any thing permanent or subsistent in it, but pride and vain glorious outward appearance? She knows not how to fight, but feignedly. Our reasons impetuously follow their point; but meeting with a stronger they connive, they escape; and commonly those which are Diametrally contrary, and so affirmatively maintained, that they seem to partake and engage in their quarrel the authority of the greatest wits, are yet Diametrally false, and as much distant from the centre of the truth, one as another. We have nothing more certain than doubts: And for me, if I doubt of the reasons and principles of those Sciences, whereof we have above discoursed: it may be I doubt more of the reasons which I have alleged to the contrary. The end of the second Discourse. The third Discourse. Of Opinion. SECTION. I. To cut off the liberty of judgement, is to bereave the Sun of her light, and to deprive Man of his fairest Ornament. THe senses conduct us (as by the hand) to the knowledge of things: but our judgement stumbles at every step, and many times Shipwrecks herself against the error of Opinion: For if the eye of the body judge of the difference of colours, the eye of our reason very often horrowes a strange light to judge the qualities of her object. As if our passions and vices, did not fill us with defects and faults enough, without having need to join those of others, thereby to bring us the more anxiety and trouble, and the more to obscure us the knowledge of the truth. This abuse teacheth us, that to know well how to keep, and maintain the opinion of others, is the end of our knowledge. That Philosopher seeking in the secrets of Nature, the Being and Essence of things, (notwithstanding any lively conceptions and true apprehensions, wherewith his soul shall be possessed,) he shall be likewise fed with many false and absurd ones, the which we confusedly embrace and espouse, with an equal passion, through the reputation which they have purchased and gotten among us, upon the passport of a popular judgement. Good money should not authorize the course and passage of false; nor for bad opinions to condemn those which deserve to be approved and applauded. It is one and the same fault, absolutely to praise, or to condemn all things in a man; and I hold it cannot be performed with justice.. Those who have sought the truth before us, should be our guides, but not our Masters, in such manner, that they rather teach us how to believe, than dispute. But this advantage and profit which we receive by them, should be but as a sparkle to enkindle and inflame our courage, with a generous desire of enjoying this truth. All the world seek her; their ways are open, and free to all those who will approach her. Some one think they have given her some assault: Others stay half way, and yet there will be place found for our reasons. It is the Butt whereat all aim, but none can strike; it is too far distant from us: And I believe that as many powers as we employ to attain thereto, they are so many arrows darted up against this divine Sun, which are scattered and lost in the clouds of our weak and vain imaginations. Nevertheless, to believe the only report of others, and to content ourselves of their proofs; I hold it better to essay, and be assured of our own weakness, then to rely upon the reputation and authority of other men. Our actions are of so small importance and consequence, that if in their loss they yet enwrap that of our time, we should less grieve to employ them in this curious research, than yet to consume them unprofitably in the vanity of things, where we feel ourselves carried away by the stream and current of the water; I mean by the error of opinion. Our senses have formerly taught us, that without them reason is nothing, nor hath no place from whence to draw her forces; or from whence she may take her motions, thereby to know the truth of things, and to establish a firm foundation, to the end, that by the perquisition which she makes of things known and discovered, she may pass on to the knowledge of those, which are obscured and hidden▪ Let us for this regard content ourselves of the vice and fault which is in us, without contributing any more, through the vice of our own opinion, and the weakness of our judgement; which dares not undertake to control the opinion of others, and less to weigh or balance the the reasons, which many times are more esteemed, and considerable in the white beards of their Authors, then in a solid or lawful value; which makes, that we ought not to admire, if we find so many learned personages among us; It is, that relying, and resting ourselves upon principles, which we have never proved or essayed; we by this way, find our reason well grounded, and still assi●●ed by truth herself; if it be true that authority and opinion, aught to have this credit and reputation. Being curious to know, we do as those who go to seek fire in their neighbour's houses; and having found some, we stay there to heat ourselves, without any more thinking to bring home any to our own. We stop at the knowledge of others, and forget that which Nature hath infused in us, of the most sucsseptible of this flame; and it may be, which may produce a more shining fire, then that of whom we have borrowed the first sparks. This voluntary tyranny of the Pythagoriciens cannot please me, who for all reasons, and satisfaction of their doubts, make answer, that their Master held it so. If Pythagoras had been so Religious in the Rules, and Principles of his Master, so many excellent secrets, had remained buried in the bosom of Nature, or at least, had never been discovered to him. But because there are found so few well governed souls, that we ought to assure ourselves, by their proper comportment, and conduction; and that without the use of common opinions, can follow a firm, and solid way, it is more fit to commit them to tuition, not to lose the sight of them, and to stay them against their nature, by fear of the rod, under the privilege, and authority of their Superior. How many are there daily seen, who relying upon the only Mercury of their Wit, flying the common way, do overflow in the licentiousness of their own opinions, and afterwards find nothing firm, or stable: no more in their manners, then in their imaginations: and so of a Wit, too vain, and subtle to their own prejudice, thinking to erraise, and elevate themselves beyond the vulgar, in the research, and knowledge of the most curious things, they sink, and drown themselves in the misprision, and not knowing of themselves: and with the third of their own presumption, do weave out their own inevitable loss, and ruin: This confusion of true, and false, and the perpetual disorder, where their thoughts are engaged in a new Philosophy, without end, middle, or beginning, may suffice of itself to replace them (as by force) in the right way, or at least to rectify; and make them see, and know their erring, and straying; if they love not to be absolutely blind, yea, to pull out their own eyes, not to be obliged, to see the rays of this divine Sun of justice, no more than they do the shadows of their own gross ignorance: Let us farther believe, that in denying this divine justice, it is a reasonable way, and means to decline it. Madmen that you are; what recusation can you give to that judge, which makes you to fly from his jurisdiction. If you see that all things of Nature, under one same Law, reverence one, and the same Lord; how can you then escape him? If not, that your Soul being infected with so mortal a poison, unites, and fastens herself to the corruption of the body, and will follow the course of mortal things, rather than aspire to the place of her birth. The liberty they believe they have to penetrate, and sound the truth of Religion, by the point of their weak, and unprofitable reasons, is the head spring of so prejudicial a contagion, imagining with themselves, that it is but a piece of men's invention, requisite, and proper to link, and chain together their society. But it is not with Religion, as with Sciences, for they have very opposite, and different proofs; for Science, (or Learning) is the subject, and handmaid of Reason, and humane reason must be the handmaid of Religion, not but that she some times essayeth to set, and place us aloft on her shoulders, that we may thereby see a far off, and to make us see the truth of that sacred Word, which in his height laughs at the most proud, and astonisheth the most attentive, with his profundity; feeds great ones with truth, and descending to the capacity, and understanding of the least, entertains them with a pleasing, and affable language; Notwithstanding, i● will be more requisite for us, not to submit it to the test, or approbation of our humane Reasons, because Religion being singular of itself, and beyond comparison of any natural things; it is vain, and ridiculous, for man to fasten thereunto his weak reasons, because they are incompatible, and have no traffic, or commerce together. Humane, and Divine things conjoin together, but by a Diameter, which is not of the purchase of our Knowledge; much less, that which is presented to us by the hand of God; and yet every one among us, (notwithstanding) having right to contribute his reasons, thereby to fortify himself, gives him pretext, and colour, seeming to submit to man's reason, and judgement, that which ought absolutely to be excluded, and chiefly of the vulgar sort of men; who from the depth of their ignorance, endeavour to advance, and elevate their heads, to speak their opinion thereof; which makes, that if we condemns any thing of Superstition, and that if we give it the audacity, to contemn any opinion which it reverenceth, he presently shakes off the yoke to all others, doth lose, and confound all, one among the other, and as if freed, and disburdened of all which formerly most oppressed him, doth afterwards abandon himself to those exemptions, and liberties, which through their poison, and contagion, are capable to engender most dangerous diseases in the estate of the body; and if we contemn his judgements, and Counsels in common affairs, is it reasonable, we permit him to speak in a matter of so great importance? SECTION. II. All things wonderfully increase, and fortify themselves through opinion. Man's judgement hath elsewhere enough to employ itself, without he interest, or engage himself herein; let him look round about him, and he shall find nothing but corruption, both within, and without, if he desire to remark, or remedy it. Which comes to pass by the means of false opinions, who having usurped the Empire of our reason, have banished the pleasures, which a sweet Nature presents us, to lodge strange lusts, and desires instead thereof, which have nothing in themselves but shadows, smoke, and vain apparitions; resembling those foreign forces, who having violently possessed themselves of a City, do exclude, and banish the natural inhabitants thereof. I may say, we have done as the Companions of Ulysses, who despite the prohibition of their Master, being led by a curious desire to see what was in the bladder which they carried in their Ship; as soon as their rash curiosity had opened, and given way to the winds there enclosed, they presently disturbed the calm Empire of the Sea, with so many storms and tempests, that Ulysses himself saw himself within two fingers of Shipwreck, and of death. Right so, man retaining enclosed, and penned up in his imagination, the seed of so many vanities, cannot refrain from disclosing them; and giving way to his errors, hath risen up so furious a tempest, that the Wiseman himself, although innocent, can difficultly save his Ship from the fury of the waves, and from the dangerous Sea Monsters, which of all sides appear, and approach to swallow him up. Our passions are the winds, from whence proceed the tempests of our soul; winds penned and shut up, which can find no other issue or passage, but by false opinion, who weak and tender in his beginning, having surprised the most simple, under the authority of number and antiquity of witnesses, hath extended himself to the most judicious and capable. But he who can ascend to his head-spring, shall find but a very small brook, which being difficultly known at the place of his first birth and original, is wonderfully increased and fortified by the course and currant of his age. The birth and beginning of Estates and Empires, do fade and wither by degrees, through the very greatness and w●ight of their augmentation. By the same hands which Princes held their Sceptres, they also carried the Sheephook, and the Senate of Rome disdained not to borrow her Consuls from Agriculture; to commit the helm of the Estate into his hands, who formerly contented himself to conduct the Plough; and this new dignity filled their courages with so little vanity, that they preferred the ease and tranquillity of their Country life, to the greatest honours they could expect from their dignities. But it seems that man's Invention, would extenuate, and quell the troublesome burden of these dignities, by the lures and charms of a vain glory, which it hath sown and dispersed upon the approaches, to the end that, that which heretofore was contemned by the most worthiest, may give them some cause to affect themselves: As that adulterous Woman, who having not l●res enough to make her desired, doth (by the means of painting) borrow a thousand other foreign fashions, the more easily to seduce, and abuse those whose affection she seeks and desires. But since that deceitful painting and decoration, hath poisoned the hearts of men, they have all inconsiderately ran thereto who should be first: so as that which heretofore could difficultly be desired; is now so passionately beloved and embraced of that passion, that our wealth, our pleasures, and our life, hath nothing but bitterness out of the painful employment, and troublesome exercise of some public dignity or office, which more truly oppresseth and loads our minds, than our backs; and wholly engageth our liberty in popular affairs and disturbancie: as if our own had not enough, whereof sufficiently to employ ourselves; if it be not that too familiarly casting our sight upon our own affairs and businesses, that the favour which we confer and give to ourselves, prevents and hinders the effect of our judgement, by diverting it other where's. Which is that, that hath occasioned the Poet to complain with us, in that being too much known to the world, we yet dye only unknown to ourselves. That if we laugh at those who anciently commended themselves for weeping at Funerals, and so to purchase true profit, by their false and feigned tears; What ought we then say of those, who to wed themselves to other men's passions, and to make themselves slaves to their affections, do engage their wealth and liberty. The sorrow of those was in show, and their profit in effect: but the wealth and honour of those, is but in Opinion, and their labour and solicitude in truth. The profit and honour which succeeds thereof, doth too ill requite and pay this subjection, without needing to buy it so dear, yea at the double value thereof, by engaging our goods and persons. And yet if desert or merit could be received in payment, it were well: but it seems that Merit is one of the weakest means to arrive thereto. Gold and Silver will find place in the worse sort of people, and by their splendour, doth so eclipse and blind the eyes of the vulgar, that the very report and belief thereof sufficeth with them, to give those the title of wiser, whose gravity, fortune, and robe, gives belief to a thousand vain, and ill-beseeming discourses. Apelles was not discommendable, who seeing a Knight in his Shop very bravely and richly apparelled, and covered with many Bracelets and Chains of gold, who after a long silence, intermeddled impertinently to praise some of his courser Pictures; Apelles returned him this answer: Thou art much to be reproved and blamed, because before thou spakest, thy followers, thy countenance, and rich apparel, made my Apprentizes esteem thee to be some great and wise personage; but now by thy speeches having discovered thy ignorance, they no more prize, or regard thee: A regular silence is no small grace, and advantage to a man raised in dignity. We still presume all things of him, whereof he ought to be capable, until his discourse confirm and ratify it to be the contrary, and many times to the prejudice of his reputation. And many one will find in this man's tongue matters of admiration, which in another's, he will repute worthy of contempt and laughter: so much judgement is ore-mastred, and kerbed by opinion, which of itself produceth nothing, but feigned and disguised. SECTION. III. Opinion very ill requites the greatness to hold her still in show, and esteem, and to give all the World right to control her actions. THe privilege of Princes, and great Men sufficiently testifies it, by the false exterior show, and appearance; those sumptuous buildings, adorned with Marble, and Porphyry; those Robes enriched, and embroidered with Gold, and Pretious-stones, touch us but exteriorly, they deceive our eyes, but if our fight could as well perceive the Rust, which they engender by the use thereof in their Souls, as the sparkling splendour, which they outwardly defuse; we shall find, that Fortune delights to strew Roses about them, and that she hides the Thorns in their hearts, thereby to give all the World more cause to envy her favours, which are but in show, and appearance. It seems that to be advanced, and elevated in so high a Throne, they must renounce the common pleasures of the society of men, and that having no more commerce, and familiarity with them, by reason of so great a disparity, they must converse, and disport themselves a part; and no more intermeddle with the delights, and pleasures of life, which seems to be so inter-woven, and linked together, that they cannot please us, except others have the same interest therein with us: If their greatness give them a facile, and easy enjoyance of their desires, meeting with no difficulty, which eggs them forwards, or rather, which inflames their appetites; then this facility makes them presently the more to loathe, and distaste it; and so those delights, and pleasures which Fortune seems to present, and prostitute to them, it is only to the end, and purpose they shall not enjoy them: that which she gives them with her left hand, she snatcheth from them with her right; I mean, she gives them imaginary good things, and but too true, and assured evils: in a word, their condition hath more Dignity, then Content, or profit. A●las, on whose shoulders our Poets have placed this great Stupendious Mass of Elements, and Heavens dared not to bow, or slumber, for fear less the weight of this burden, meeting with weak, and feeble shoulders, through the vapours of a slumber, coming to be reversed, and overthrown, should return to his first Chaos, and confusion. The vigilancy of a Prince, must defend the houses, his care the rest, and his diligence the delights, and pleasures of his people; and as another Sun, he must incessantly stray among the houses of his Zodiaque, that by his continual motion, all things be preserved, and entertained in a constant, and an immovable order: Add here unto, that they are of the same mettle we are, and that their Crowns, and Diadems, do not cover them from the Sun, or Rain; what remains there, but only the bare, and naked opinion, which draws after her the true feeling of a most painful, and troublesome care? But to be too far estranged from the quality, and condition of men, they fly, and stray from themselves, and their vices, and passions, and feeling themselves flattered by all those who environ them, do so augment, and increase, that through so thick, and dark a cloud, their reason can no more judge of that which may be truth in others, and much less in themselves: all that which they see about them is vailed, and masked, and if it be true, that the knowledge of our wretched condition, and the contempt which we make of ourselves, cannot but difficultly suffocate, and strangle in our Souls, Ambition, Presumption, and the other vices of a corrupted nature. judge then, to what point, and height they ought to ascend in the persons of Princes, and if they do not infinitely, and immeasurably grow, when they are approved, and applauded of all the World. They therefore must have a wonderful care, and constancy to be able to resist them; for who is he among us, who environed with Flatterers, and of those who praise him, doth not then most flatter himself; a degree of flattery, much more dangerous than the other, because the Mind being arrived to this point, hath no more diffidence of herself: I understand it of a most dangerous flatterer, from whom he is to defend himself: There is no step more slippery than that, nor fall more dangerous, because chiefly, our will disdaineth to lend us her hand to lift us up, and seems to mock at our misfortune, without knowing it; as those Barbarians, who unaccustomed to see the Engines of War, do remissly, and carelessly see those work who besiege them, without understanding, whereunto those works, and approach tend, which they see made towards them. Our Soul surprised by the lures, and charms of a false praise, finds herself insensibly besieged of so many vices, without knowing their approaches, until she have no more means, or power to resist them. Opinion comes, and assails her, drawing after her animosity, Detraction, Lying, Inconstancy, Irresolution, Incertainetie, Sorrow, Superstition, Envy, jealousy, Covetousness, Ambition, and an infinite other irregular, mad, and undaunted appetites, and passions, which coming suddenly to fall, and rush pellmell upon her, she finds herself to be sooner vanquished, then beaten down, and quite overthrown, before she know the forces of her Enemies, against whom she is to contend, and fight. SECTION. IV. The Common-people have no more certain, nor cleere-seeing guide then Opinion. THe condition of the vulgar seems to be in a more peaceable estate, and tranquillity, and in a Station more firm, and secure to wrestle with his Enemies. Truth is more familiar with him, and the liberty which is in every one to contradict the vices, and ill manners of his friend, gives a great advantage, and way to find out the knowledge of his own imperfections, which is the first, and most necessary means to apply wholesome preparatives, and remedies: But he is so deeply plunged, and ingulphed in vice, that he hath lost all feeling thereof; the more he is spurred on, the deeper he sticks fast in dirt, and mire: He hath his interior, and exterior so infected, and corrupted, that it seems, it is the only rocks, and shelves, which we must eschew in the tempestuous sea of our life, and against which, nevertheless, the currant of the water draws us after it, with so much violence, and impetuosity, that it is almost impossible for us to secure ourselves from Shipwreck; for who is he, who being desirous to introduce himself in the way of Wisdom, hath not had more to do, to fight against Opinion, then against any other particular Vice? Those common Imaginations which we find about us, and which are infused into our Soul, by the seed of our Fathers, are so general, and natural, that they give us enough shameless Art, to condemn of Error, and Barbarism, all that grows in foreign Country's; It is not thus, that we must abandon the liberty of our judgements, to the slavery of Opinion. Wherefore serves this faculty of Reason to him, which hath not resolution enough to examine, and know the vice of things, which are in credit, and reputation with himself; and the good of those which he finds used, and practised by his neighbours. It is very far distant, to measure the bounds of his City, by those of the Sun; in a moment to behold all the habitable Earth, and to nourish in him this generous design, to produce such excellent actions, that the service, and utility which the place of our birth may receive thereby, may generally redound to all the parts, and corners of the Earth. Partiality, is an enemy to Liberty, and as long as we shall be subject to this example, it is but an abuse of our judgement. He is beloved, and privileged of the people, who esteems every thing according to its value: It is Injustice in all things, to make the Balance fall to our side, if it be not by the weights of Reason. It seems that the eye of our Understanding is so much shortened, that it ought to be confined to the knowledge of those things which environ us; we are so much, and so fast tied to our own particular interest, as we believe the Sun shines only for us, and that the Clouds which cover our Hemisphere, should over shadow all the Earth: All goes in the same Brawl, and Dance as we do; that which out-flyes, and exceeds the limits of our use, and custom, are no more birds of our Understanding; he must shut himself up in this strait; and that this Guide, and Torch which Nature had given us, to conduct us through all the parts of the World, should be strangled by the multitude of Opinions, wherein we have been bred, and are so grown up with Age, that they have ta'en the hand, and place of Reason, and after having dispossessed her of her Empire, they have interdicted us all other knowledge of truth, but that which we can perceive, and discern through the foggy thickness of so many false Clouds. SECTION V. Opinion (as an ingenious Painter,) gives those things which environ us, such face, and figure as it pleaseth. He that can take off the mask of all our fears, and apprehensions, shall find that they are vain Idols, which we have so clad, and that affrighted with the apparel we have given them, and the lineaments which we have painted in their faces, we go hide ourselves, and dare no more cast our eyes upon this ghost, who fills us with wonder, and astonishment, at the sight of his fearful posture. If we have so much resolution, and courage to affront him, to take from him that which we have given him, and to divest him of that which he hath borrowed of our Opinions, we shall find that we are true children, which formerly feared nothing, but the ma●●e, loss of Honour, Exile, Banishment; and all that afflicteth us: except grief, which is derived of Nature; have they any grounds▪ or foundations but Opinion. Honour wherewith we are so passionately surprised, and taken, that Grief, Death, and all that Nature hath depainted us so fearful, and ghastly, is nothing in comparison of this lose. What brings she with her, at her arrival but wind, and smoke? or what else doth slay draw after her? 〈◊〉 us feel every place▪ and part of our 〈◊〉, to see what mark she hath 〈◊〉 us, & what she hath ta'en, and carried from us, & we shall find all that we had before to be whole, and sound. What is this Exile which we so much fear, if we transport, and carry all our virtues with us; what loss, what damage can we be reproached of? Bias being reduced, and stripped to his shirt, and enforced, and driven from his Country by the Sacking, and burning of his City, did nevertheless vaunt to have lost nothing, because the goods which were stolen from him, were subject to Fortune. He never held them but perishable, and the which he could lose without lamenting them? and to use but one word; Fortune could never make a breach in his Virtue: Do we not see the Sun, and Stars in all parts of the World; and is not Virtue an excellent coin, and money to purchase us friends every where? Man borne to see all things, if he be linked to the place of his birth, through the duty of an Office, or Dignity, or the love of his Parents, doth he no voluntarily banish himself from all the World, to live in one place of his Country; an● he whom Fortune will drive from his home, ●he consents thereto, 〈…〉 in his will, whom find you, who deserve, to 〈◊〉 most Lamented; either he who wedding himself to a particular passion, exiles himself from all the World, to enclose, and shut himself in some smaller Island; or he who banisheth himself from this little Island, to give himself to all the other parts of the Earth? If we are taken away from our bed, we are so tender, and delicate, that we can no more repose ourselves: The Bird cannot stay contentedly in his Cage, though never so well used; as holding no greater enemy, than constraint, and man no greater friend than slavery: If you expel him his house, you put him out of content, and countenance. So cowardly, and uncouragious is he, that he wondereth at his own wit, undertakes, and triumpheth over all, whiles Cordes, and Fetters every where inseparably bind, and chain him to slavery; and he were happy, if this affliction flying from his eyes, might be insensible to him: But he hath now as little right, and power over his mind, as his body; all is a like engaged; he lives not, he thinks not, he moves, nor shakes not, but upon Credit; his Soul, bound, and constrained under other men's opinions, makes herself slave, and captive to their authority. Should not Beasts have reason, having so well known how to conserve that which Nature hath given to every one of them in particular, to mock man, who only for a piece of bread, hath either lost, or engaged the favours, whereof Nature had given him the preeminency, and predominancy above all other Creatures? but when he looks a little about him; I assure myself, that he shall yet find Tyrants, who after they have stripped him to his shirt, (as a Thief doth a Merchant in a Wood, who ties him to a Tree, for fear that he reveal him,) after I say, they have hood-winked his eyes, they have so subtly fettered him to his passions, that he every where draws after him his own chain, without knowing it: Vanity, and Opinion have reduced him to the same estate, wherein you see him: they are still at his elbows, and for fear that he do not reknow himself, they never lose sight of him. One makes him believe he is a God on Earth; the other presents him the Vows, and Prayers of the multitude; the Honour, and esteem of all the World, as we do to a Child, Castles of Gold, and Silver, or some other ridiculous thing, to make him endure more patiently a phlebotomising: And yet he is not in so bad an Estate, that he should despair of his health; but he treats, and parleys with them too much. If he receive any good, and wholesome instruction, it is as soon corrupted by their too frequent familiarity: at least, if that which he could not do by mere force, he would yet endeavour to perform by the address, and dexterity of his body. If he could not vanquish, and overthrow them by high wrestling, he would yet find means to avoid, and escape them: the joint promise, and condition which he hath passed them, may be dissolved, when he desires it, for two chief, and principal reasons; the one, the violence which he may allege to the contrary, the other, to have subjected them to a thing, which of its nature cannot be of this condition; so that any tie, or advantage, which they may have over us, we shall yet reserve means enough to save ourselves, if we have the intent, and design thereto. SECTION VI Opinion leaves nothing entire, but its corruption, and pardoneth not Virtue herself. IT is not reasonable to make our Enemy stronger than he is; let us not give unto things, any other face, nor lend them any other body, but that which Truth, and Nature have given them; we shall then find, that all that which we term Good, or Evil, will come and prostitute themselves to our feet, and yield to our mercy, to receive of us such condition, and quality as we please. We will convert to our behoof, and profit all that falls into our hands, and will order, and manage it so, that all that which is round about us, shall not touch us, but by the best place. Fortune hath no power to furnish any other thing than matter, and it resteth in our judgement, to give it what form it pleaseth. All things differ but by that, and if they borrowed not those displeasing forms of our Opinion, Wisdom would be in reputation, and Glory; and Fortune would languish, as beaten down to the feet of a triumphant Virtue; whosoever can manage it to his advantage, it will be the part of a well-refined, and polished Wit. But let us proceed to that which toucheth, and concerns us more nearly; and let us enforce ourselves to pull out this Thorn, which incessantly traverseth, and troubleth our repose, and gives us so many disturbances. It is that which we call pain, which by the inequality of her sense, and feeling, sufficiently witnesseth, that we foment, and cherish it beyond her worth, and natural being, and that at the very entrance of our Evils, and Afflictions, it remains in us to give them what composition we please. Some have been more afflicted at the fear of pain, then of pain itself, and more tormented at its absence, than presence. All things are proportioned; if the afflictions which assail us be violent, they are not lasting, nor permanent; and difficultly can we feel it, because the suddenness takes away the sense thereof: if it be moderate, it is the easier to be supported; if Poverty, Grief, Death, be such as they are figured, and depainted us, why then did Socrates laugh at Poverty, mock at Grief, and contemn Death? were the senses of his body insensible? No, but he judged otherwise thereof then we do, he lodged them in himself, according to their just esteem, and value, and not as we do, who know them not, but by the fearful marks, and countenance of those who have approved, and experienced them; and who had prepared such faint courages to withstand them, that it was easy enough for Death, and Grief to make themselves victoriously felt, and feared: The fear of some who are carried to their execution, hath it not made them in a manner, to meet with death half way; the sight of the preparatives of death, do as it were, make death fly into his breast, and deprive him of his sense, and life, before he have felt any of the torments that are prepared for him: He who on the Scaffold attended the blow of the Sword to cut off his Head, being but touched with a wet Table-napkin, his very apprehension, and fear made him to devance Death, and so died immediately. And then let us take assurance from such spies, to know whence it is; but far was that Philosopher, from this unjust, and base fear, who at the very point, and instant that the Executioner was to give him the blow of Death, being demanded by one of his friends whereon he thought, answered, that he employed all the powers of his mind, to consider how his Soul would separate herself from his body. If many like him, had been sent to know, and affront Death, it may be they would depaint him to us not so obscure, as Sleep, and Slumber. Death did not much prejudice him, he would silently treat, and reason with himself till the end, and till the very last-gaspe, and period of his life, he would manage the understanding, which Nature had given him: so we judge of all things, either by the semblances, or events of things, which of themselves have nothing sure, or certain. Our Imaginations, thoughts, and manners may well be corrupted; sith this contagion hath not excused, nor spared Virtue herself, which could not comport herself so well, passing through our hands, but that she felt our corruption. We more willingly embrace her for the glory which she draws after her, as her shadow, then for herself. The Marks, and Arms, whereby she makes herself seen, known, yea desired, do they not sufficiently declare, and testify that they are the fruits of our opinion: whosoever should see her alone by herself, all naked, and without Artifice, although indeed, this be her richest dress, and attire; I know not if he would desire, or love her. A Soul must be wonderfully powerful, not to affect, and cherish her, but because she is amiable, and makes as little esteem of contempt, as of glory: for if we perform any virtuous action, it is rather for the content which we hope for, to sow, and spread our name in many mouths, then for our own satisfaction. So we are pleasing to the World, we care not what we are within ourselves: the World is extremely obliged, and bound to us, to affect, and cherish her more than we do ourselves: some are seen in the front of a Battle, who feel themselves more animated, and egged on by their own Vanity, then by their courage in the execution of a generous exploit; so as it seems, that in these our times, there is nothing so clean, or pure, but this Vice hath thereunto added, and applied her rust: Also it is very difficult, how so ever we resolve so to unwind, and free ourselves from popular opinions, that we still remain not some where engaged. Ulysses had to defend himself, but against the charming voice of the sirens, but it was not against the voice of the People. That which we ought to fear, comes not from one Rock, but from all the corners of the World; A voice nevertheless of so small importance, and consequence, that it can neither elevate, nor deject the merits of a wise man, no more than shadows being great, or little, do diminish the true proportion, and greatness of the body: at least, because a wise man cannot wholly disengage, and exempt himself from this press, and crowd of people; let him leave his body, his goods, his legs among them, for it matters not much, provided that he retire his mind wholly to himself, and that as the Sun, (despite his daily motion,) leaves not to observe, and follow a particular way, and course, contrary to his first movable. So a wise man in the course of worldly affairs, although he be tied to the custom, and dependence of popular opinions, under the conduct of Reason, yet he finds, and follows a particular way, whereby to entertain himself, in a perpetual health, and tranquillity of mind. The end of the third Discourse. The fourth Discourse. Of Passions. SECTION. I. Stormes raise not so many surges on the Sea, as Passions engender tempests in the hearts of men. HIppocrates saith, There is no worse or more dangerous sickness, then that which disfigureth a man's face: But I say, that those which at one and the same time, disfigure the beauty both of his body and soul, are yet by many degrees far worse. There is no passion which ariseth in man, that leaves not on his face some visible sign of his agitation; but the soul within altogether confused, bears more singular and remarkable marks. She sometimes loseth the knowledge of herself, in misknowing her own proper misery; Or if she flatter herself so far as to think to know it, she holds it for a good sign, or sign of health, and so coloureth her most dangerous sickness, with the title of a recovery thereof. Choler with her passeth for valour, and cowardice for wisdom,; and th●s she palliates and covereth her proper vices with the cloak of Virtue. This defect proceeds, for that our vices touch us too nearly, and that the eye of our reason disturbed by the power of our passions, hath not the requisite and necessary distance, for the use of her functions. If the soul see any thing through so thick a cloud, it is contrary to that which it is, and chiefly when it is touched with the opinion of evil; because those sorts and degrees increase, and demonstrate him those things, which threaten him, of a fearful greatness. Among passions some are framed by a dilation of blood, and spirits which bend o●e all the body, as choler. Others by the contraction of the same spirits, which assemble and shut themselves up near to the heart, as fear; but the place where they are in action, is that which we term sensitive appetite, which Philosophers divide into irascible and concupiscible; this contents himself, simply to seek those things which are convenient to him: but that enforceth himself to vanquish the obstacles we meet withal, which impugn or oppose our inclinations; nevertheless it is very likely, that that proceeds from one and the same power. And indeed if the concupiscible find no hindrance▪ she continueth her way towards the object which she seeks. If she find any let or obstacle, she becomes Irascible, which is to say, she enforceth herself to surmount it, as the water of a fountain, which glides slowly and softly on the gravel; if it be stopped by any thing it meets, it than swells and grows great, and in the end overfloweth and vanquisheth her obstacle. All things naturally oppose themselves against their contraries, not nevertheless that she is any other, when she shields or defends herself, than she is in her usual countenance. The reason which they allege to the contrary, is, that nothing beats itself: But these two powers contradict one the other, at one and the same time; it must then needs be, that they are two different things. I say that this combat proceeds not from this party, but from a higher; that is, from imagination, who touched with a contrary object, contests and fights against this inferior party. But not that this quarrel ariseth in the sensitive appetite between these two powers; For not being able to comprehend the thing in its simplicity, we are constrained to multiply and divide it, as we do of the mind, which we divide into Imagination, Understanding, and Memory, or of the sensitive appetite in Irascible and Concupiscible. It seems that hereby we keep the thing more strictly shut up; but it is of the Essence of things, as of the definitions: We cannot cut off any member from this, without vitiating and corrupting it. We cannot divide that, without ruining the Science which we seek: She is one, and all simple, but our gross sight (which cannot perceive her so lightly apparelled) runs to his effects, and stays there as to the first cause: Like unto those Pagans, who not able to comprehend one only God, divided his powers, which our Theologians term attributes, into so many different Divinities, and stayed to consecrate rivers, and to baptise them according to their different operations. So we far easier comprehend two contrary powers, than one which produceth two different effects. We difficultly believe that the Sun hardeneth, and softeneth at one time, if experience had not taught it us. I say then, that this power which dwells in the sensitive appetite, is one; she desires, she seeks her object, thereby to content herself. If she be hindered, she is bend and incensed against the obstacle to force it: If she overcome it, she walks after her usual accustomed pace without any violence. The soul is the principle of life, one in all, and by all: In one part she seeth, in another she imagineth, in another she understands, and in another she retains, according to the disposition of the organ where she agitateth. But even as the Heavens are not subject to the alterations of sublunary things, and do not move, but to oblige the body by a perpetual liberality: So the soul, which of herself is not subject to the alteration of mortal things, aught to lend her motion as principle of life to all the body, thereby to oblige it, but not to interest and engage herself so, that she can no longer retain herself, and that forgetting herself, she suffer herself to be led and carried away by the violent stream of her passions, which after, by little and little estrangeth her from herself. False opinion gives them birth, but we must not so much consider the place from whence they part and issue, as the soul of him on whom they fall. The winds which raise small cocklings upon our rivers, and who throw furrows on the serenities of their crystalline faces, can raise whole mountains of waves, and waters on the Sea, and engender impetuous storms and tempests. The soul of the Philosopher is tranquil, and quiet in his course; and wisdom who is near him, dissipateth the waves before they have the power or leisure to lay hold of him, or to stir up others by their violence: And the soul of the ignorant man, is a Sea of inconstancy which is shaked,, and tossed with every wind, and is never surely firm, wherein because he cannot quiet and appease the storms in their first emotions, they swell and grow infinitely violent and implacable. The Philosophers are yet doubtful of the nature of the winds, and from whence they are derived, and proceed: But those who stir up in our soul, such furious storms and tempests, are but too easy to be known, we feel them borne within us. They at first embrace, but in the end strangle us. Men are not only polluted, but poisoned by their vices. That if civility and ceremony (the bastard daughters of natural wisdom) prevent that they do not commonly resplend, and appear before people, when they are retired in their family, they delight to nourish and cherish their passions. They withdraw themselves from the sight of men, to hide their defects and imperfections, as if their houses were purposely given them to act and perpetrate sins closely, and with more liberty and licentiousness then abroad. And it is not by the exterior face, that you must judge of him with whom you speak in the street, or whom you see in the midst of his ceremonies. This is nothing but false painting, and true artificial dissembling: you shall find him clean contrary in his house: It is no more him, his soul and his face have changed posture, and countenance. But if they will conceal us the manner of their life, they should at least diminish and cut off their passions. It may be it is for this reason that Ariston said: That the winds which are most to be feared, are those which discover us: they expose them to the eyes of the most ignorant, and only ours will remain darkened, and much eclipsed in this trouble. Xerxes' caused the Sea to be whipped, and sent a challenge to Mount Athos: and Caligula dared jupiter to the combat: and while these their impertinencies and fooleries exposed them to the laughter of the vulgar people, those generous spirits remained hoodwinked, and blinded by their own passions. But what; as long as we languish in our vices, we know them not. None but he that is awaked, can recount his dreams; for in sleep we perceive not their abuse and deceit. The evils of the soul are obscured in their thickness: He that is most sick, feels it least. And although (according to Marsilius Ficinus) that passions are indifferent to good and evil, to vice and virtue; nevertheless, the noblest of them accuseth us of imperfection, because they never observe rule or measure. There are other ways & passages to arrive to Virtue. It is too dangerous to walk or usurp on vice: for it is then to be feared lest we fall into it: The soul bred in the shadow, which hath not as yet tempted hazards, and repulsed the assaults of fortune, must essay all other ways but that. For one that Ambition hath cast into Virtue, it hath precipitated a million to vice. It is still safer, and better for us, courageously to quarrel with her, then to trust her, except it be in the same manner, that we would trust our Enemy. But because all passions are weak and tender in their beginning, the safest way to secure us from their corruption, is to strangle them in their cradle, and make that the first point of their birth, do in the same moment and instant, see their last ruin and destruction, and consequently the end of their Essence or Being. SECTION. II. We may say of love, that which the Romans said of an Emperor, that they knew not whether they received more good or evil of him. WE are taught, that there is never less found to speak, then when the subject whereon we will discourse, is better known of himself, than all which can be alleged, to prove and confirm it. It is the same in the cause and subject of Love, which of itself gives such clear maxims and instructions, that all the reasons which we can contribute to the clearing, doth but only serve to the obscuring thereof; and nature within us, hath given us such pertinent lessons, that all words, and discourse will find themselves confounded, when they undertake to discover the secret of this Art, and Science. His first flames strike such an excess, or fits, that they cannot be known by the motion, or beating of our pulse; and his darts fly, and slide into our heart with so much craft, and subtlety, that reason can neither observe, nor find out the way, path, or steps thereof. She nourisheth with her heat, and gives the first motion to all our interior motions, as the first principle of humane passions: because all the violent motions, which man can feel, are either for his defence, and conservation, and this is the love of himself; or for the increase of his own Content, and this is the Love of Union, without himself; and these are the two greatest wheels of Nature, who have the charge to move the rest of our passions, and who obey at the first command of Love, according to the necessity of the Law, which they have thus established among them. But we shall know her better, by her effects, then by herself. If we think to hold her any where, she escapes from us, and transforms herself into so many shapes, and fashions, that we can observe nothing in her but mutation, and change. It is reported that Mercury by the commandment of jupiter, once undertook to make a Gown for Diana, that she might be no more dishonoured in going naked among the Gods, and especially against the Laws of her shamefastness, and chastity: but seeing that incessantly she either increased, or diminished, and that she was never at one, and the same stay, he despaired of being able to effect it. The inequality of men's affections, and Inconstancy so natural to Love, may serve for the same excuse, to him that will undertake to define it, and to prescribe a Robe, o● Vestment fit for her humour; what inconvenience will there be to permit her to go naked? Sith none is of a more shameful face then this Goddess, and that she is never richer than in her poverty, nor prouder in her apparel, then in her simple nakedness, at least if we will believe the Poets. For fear therefore that the fresh, and lovely sight of so many beauties, do not dazzle our eyes, we must put our eyes before them, not behold them fixedly, divert our sight from their charms, or enforce ourselves to cover them, and to hide them from the rags of any description. Love is a desire of Beauty, (say the Philosophers,) which by reason dislodgeth the Soul from the body to live elsewhere, and to agitate in others: a passion which not only altereth man's nature, but wholly reverseth, and overthrows it; because the Soul of him that loves, is more in the subject where she loves, than where she animates, and resides. judge what order, and measure she can observe in her deportments, and carriage; sith, that bound, and constrained under the authority of others, she neither moves nor stirs, but upon credit, and by the leave of others: Man in his other passions, is not tormented, but with one at a time; but in this of Love he convokes, and assembles all the others, who at their very entrance lose their names, as small Brooks, which engross the breast, and bosom of greater Rivers: moreover, he yet adds those of others, which he loveth, and weds with as much, or more affection than his own: I esteem, that it is therefore for this reason, that some of the Ancients believed that jupiter himself could not be enamoured, and wise at one time. Agesilaus tells us that Wisdom, and Love are incompatible, because, that, by the conference of things past, judgeth of events to come, and this considereth nothing but the present, and takes no other council, but from his own fury, and blindness: His object which he termeth Beauty, consisteth in a concurrence, harmony, and decency of many parts linked, & conjoined in one, & the same subject. That point which stings, and tickleth our heart, and by his ready, and violent motion inflames our senses to seek it, is termed desire, the which if it inflame his object with the like desire, (as one Torch which lightens another,) this concurrence caused by the resemblance, is called reciprocal Love, Sympathy, or according to Astrologers, inclination, or participation of the same Planets, and Influences, as it happeneth to those, whose very first sight is so fatal, that at that same instant they lose the one, to the other, and both their hearts, and liberty, by the meeting and enterchainging of visual rays, which unite, confound, and lose themselves in one, and the same end, and concurrence: The will of the one doth dive, and plunge itself into that of the other, and no longer reserves any thing of his own particular, or proper; we can no more perceive the threades, or seams whereby they are conjoined, and sowed so close together. It is not in Love, as it is in Music, which is composed of different Airs, and Tones: Love is never engendered among different humours, which have no sympathy. I understand this reciprocal Love, and that which the Poets said, had need of a brother for the increase thereof. The subtlety, whereof he serves himself to seduce the noblest hearts, is it at first to heat, and inflame them with a virtuous desire, thereby the more easily to engage them▪ an admirable principle of this natural Art, and Science, which teacheth us not to seek Beauty, but in Virtue, and to borrow no other grace, and splendour, but from her lustre, as if there were nothing amiable, but that which were fair, and nothing fair but Virtue; because Love is not engendered, but by her resemblance. This passion inflames us to Virtue, to give us some tincture of Beauty, and thereby to make us like unto his object, and worthy of that which we Love: But as soon as it gets the hand, and advantage of us, than she throws us into Vice, and makes us descend by bypaths, and strange ways unknown to all others, but to herself: This fearful Cyclope of the Poets, who drank nothing but humane blood, did he not abandon his slaughtered preys, as soon as he felt himself touched with the first points, and darts of Love, by the eyes of his cruel Galatea; and being careful to apparel, and embellish himself, sought at first, only to please her. But in the end, the fire of his Love surmounting his patience, the excess of his passion suggested him more bloody, and furious desires, than his barbarous nature had formerly taught him. So Love disposeth our first designs, and conducts them towards Virtue, but it falls out, that he still divertes us in the midst of our course, and delivering us up to the power of Vice, he draws us after him by oblique, & uncouth ways, as the violence of an overflowing Torrent, caries us here, and there against shrubs, and thorns, which tear us to pieces, without that we have any other aid, or assistance, but that of their merciless rage, and fury. It is reported, that the youngmen of Lacedemonia, had always some melodious Instruments to flatter them in War, and to prevent and hinder, that they threw not themselves on rashness, and fury. But he who fights under the Ensign of Love, hath far more need of some gracious Lays, and Songs of Philosophy, to restrain, and hinder that he do not ensnare, & precipitate him in his own loss, and the absolute mis-knowledge of himself. The wisest counsel herein, is that of the Philosopher Panetius, not to engage himself in so violent a matter: Many have changed the heat of their divine Zeal, into unchaste flames; the wisest have lost themselves; and the Philosopher in the darkness of Paganism, seeming to have been inspired, and conducted by some ray of the Divinity, hath he not lost him in this passage; when he wished himself to be Heaven, thereby to have so many eyes, as that had sparkling Stars, to admire; not Truth, nor Wisdom, but more lasciviously, to behold and see the sweet Lures, and Charms of the object of his Love.. And the Father of the Philosophical Academy, who seems to have drawn Wisdom, from her head-spring, or fountain, and to have made whole Rivers' stream thereof, through all the corners of the World, hath he not likewise made Shipwreck of his virtue in this strait, and hath not his own Reason seen herself constrained to yield to his blindness: not only in the transports, and ecstasies of this voluptuousness, but after the violent fits of this bitter-sweet fury, when he addressed Sacrifices to his Concubine, and offered upon her Altar, his Reason, and Virtue, as victim to the feet of this triumphant passion. It is a Rock or shelue, where the justest had need apprehend, and fear, not to make Shipwreck. If we will sound the depth hereof any farther, the course, and current of the water will bear us down. If a storm threaten us, we must cast anchor by time before the arrival of the Tempest: for all emotions are difficult to calm in their violence, and impetuosity: The waves of the Sea are merciless, but those of Love far more; those afflict us with the fear of Death, but these devour, and swallow us up every moment, and yet we can neither submerge, nor drown. If the many different accidents which stay our enjoyance, sharpened not our amorous desires, than this passion would not prove so prejudicial, as it is, nor so much feared of Wisdom. His powers, and forces increase by the length of the way, and time; and its natural sweetness grows sour in seeking many undecent means, and unbeseeming ways to obtain it; the more a weight is distant from his centre, the more ponderous, and heavy it is. A Soldier's arm, which is not owner of its extent, strikes not so violent a blow: So the fury of Love increaseth by its motion, as his desire is rebated, and extenuated, in the enjoying of his object; nevertheless, to condemn it any other way, but by divine wisdom, will testify an excess in our humane, which in this irregularity, is as near a neighbour to obstinacy, as to Virtue. To banish it from civil society, is to undertake no less, then to take and cut off from the year, the fairest, and sweetest season, and days. This passion of Love, is the daughter of Nature, who cherisheth, and flattereth it, when it is entertained in respect, and modesty; but she will easily wantonise, and vitiate herself, if we show it not a severe countenance. The surest way therefore, for those who have any distrust, or diffidence of their own strength and virtue, is, not to tempt Fortune, or to run the hazard of a temptation. For he who cannot stop it, before it part from his hand, must not think to curb, or restrain it in his career; I say, he must choke the seed of this growing evil, and not permit, that it take so deep root in our hearts, that we cannot afterwards be able to expel them. All sovereign remedies are slow, when the sickness is inveterate; and unprofitable, when by the length of time, it is become stronger than the Art, and sufficiency of the Physician. If thou timely call thy reason to thy assistance, at her arrival, Love will lose all his credit and reputation; his flames will as soon vanish, his fire will be nothing but ashes, the fountains of thy tears will stop, thy groans and sighs will be but small winds, and pleasing Zephirs, which will calm their troubles, and thy sorrows, and disturbances. SECTION. III. Ambition hath no mediocrity, and fears not his burning, if the Fire of Heaven, or the Thunderbolt of jupiter, furnish him the first sparkles. Desire's issue from the same place, and flow from the same fountain; the farther they estrange themselves from their birth, the more they swell with pride, and increase their impetuous violence. The greatest rivers in their first springs are confined in a small place, but their long course, and progression makes, that the farther they advance, the larger is their extent, until being thrown and precipitated into the depth of the Sea, together with their natural freshness, and sweetness, they lose the sweetness of their former name. Desires slide away softly, and the wise man himself cannot refuse them an honest liberty; for they cannot endure to be penned, and shut up. If we keep them near us, they are small rivers, which environ their spring, not serving but to embellish it, and simply follow that which smiles, and laughs to our hopes: But those who violently carry and transport themselves beyond us, do no longer observe rule, or measure; for they swell so much that they burs● in sunder: and (as Mineral waters always savour of the quality of the soil, and places where they pass) they are full of sharpness, and bitterness, until that the covetous hunger of Vanities, and Greatness rolls them by strength of arms in the gulf of some miserable slavery, from whence they can never more get forth. This irregular motion, this insatiable thirst of Honour, is termed Ambition; abundance fam●sheth this vice; the more he finds, the more he devours, and yet the less he is satisfied, his designs are hidden, and concealed. Virtue accompanieth his enterprise, Tyranny secondeth the success, and in the end, Fortune (whom he courts, and cherisheth,) being weary of Ambition, is constrained to free herself by the ruin of the ambitions. Miserable Fortune, who holds her Empire of our wills; who of our disasters, and misfortunes, raiseth her Trophies, who builds her Temple upon the ruins of our Estates, who entertaineth her peace, by our seditions, and whose wheel (constant in afflictions, and unconstant in felicities,) hath nothing for axle, but the only prop, and support of our vain Ambitions. Why must thy Altars yet smoke with the fire of our Sacrifices? What recompense is it, which obligeth us to tear ourselves in pieces with our own proper hands; to besprinkle, and bathe them with our blood? Thou stranglest none but thy Favourites, and it seems that to serve thee, is to displease thee; and to obey thee, is to exasperate and incense thee; and that fear, and respect, is a sufficient meritorious subject of correction, and punishment. To shut up this dangerous passage to our desires, were to diminish the credit, and reputation of Fortune, and in the end to annul and ruin herself. Those who term this desire to Honour a spur to Virtue, or who take it for virtue herself, do every way deceive themselves. It is to follow the splendour of a false light, and of a strange brightness, which easily receives the shadow of all the objects that appear before her. Ambition and Virtue hath as small sympathy and alliance, as slavery and liberty. Alexander the great held the liberty of all nations in his hand, and yet miserably consumed and languished in the slavery of his own ambitions. The limits of the Universe could not bound the extent, and the enjoying of all that the earth contained, was not capable to quench this thirst: He will force the bars of the world by the point of his ambition, and his desire is enraged to find nothing equal to himself. But he who is peaceable and quiet in his house, and within the extent and limits of his goods; gives bounds to his desires and ambitions; hath he not far more tranquillity and repose? If we measure this good by content, doth he not as far surpass Alexander in his felicity, as Alexander surpassed him in the extent of his domination? Natural desires have some measure, but those which are engendered, and borne of a false opinion, are only limited by infinity. This Prince had vanquished the opinion of all men, and yet he suffered himself to be miserably vanquished by his own. He could not attract the eyes of a more infinite number of people, to be witnesses of his valour, and to admire his Trophies. Nevertheless, his blind ambition would not permit, or suffer that his eyes should participate of the rays, and light of his greatness. He burned himself in the Sun of his glory, and so consumed himself in the flames, which the wings of his desires and ambition had enkindled. I would not that our condition should tie or wed itself to the ambition of an Alexander: but it is as easy to drown himself in small Brooks, as in the midst of the waves and tempests of the Ocean. The highest Pine trees and Cedars are beaten with the greatest storms, and the Flowers which repose at the feet of the Mountains, are dried and withered with the least wind; or by the fervency of some excessive heat: small cords hold weak beasts, as an iron chain doth generous Lions. In a word, there is but one degree of slavery, and to live in that of his Ambitions, is to approve, and make trial of the most rigorous and severest: For if Fortune be at atonement and peace with thy desires, thou mayest in the end, bear and endure the yoke of a foreign slavery; but thou dost more entangle thyself in the links and fetters of this foolish passion. Thou resemblest those birds, who being cozened by the deceit of the Hunter, the more they beat themselves against the net, the faster they make themselves. Those who love Arts and Learning, and triumph in their disdain of Ambition, do most commonly resemble those who preach much of fasting, yet do not observe it: So natural is this vice to them: For upon the ruins of Ambition they will raise the Trophies of their glory; But this defect sufficiently gives the lie to their knowledge, and reproves them of an imperfect knowledge in things whereof they make profession. They take the shadow for the body, sith they content themselves with this smoke, and to pay their labours with money as light as the wind. But tell me, the honour which thou seekest, doth it not depend of the esteem which every one makes thereof? Doth not Estimation follow opinion? and is there a greater slavery, then to depend on the opinion of the Vulgar? Thou must beg his favour, and make thyself a slave to his passions, in regard thou hast an intent and desire to please him: and dost thou not know, that that which pleaseth one, displeaseth another; and that their understanding is as a sick eye, which receives not the colour of things as they are; but doth properly give and imprint his own? How can it be then effected, that the vulgar, who cannot agree with himself, should yet accord with others, to be of the same mind, to praise and esteem all one and the same thing? If thou wilt measure estimation by Vanity, it serves but only to make thee beheld and seen: and knowest thou not, that Envy, who alone hath more eyes than a multitude of people, will discover thy imperfections, and under a little fault, will hide and deface the rest of the glory? Desire and wish for nothing, and thou shalt be the happiest man of the world. Refuse not the favours of Fortune: but do not receive or take them up to Interest, they oblige nothing but our ingratitude; and it seems of good offices which she hath done us, gives her cause enough to bereave us thereof. She calls thy ambitions, but if thou give them too much liberty, hope not any longer to stay or retain them. They are daughters of the mind and imagination, who embrace more vanity in a moment, than riches or vanity herself can contain. The falseness of things which thou discoverest in enjoying them, doth but only increase the desire, and thy hope to arrive to a more assured matter, gives new fuel to this fire: So thou languishest miserably between hope and fear. Thou complainest of thy grief, and yet favourest the cause thereof. Thou art often enough incensed and angry against thy ambitions; but if thou threaten them with one hand, thou dost court and flatter them with the other. Remain and dwell then with thyself: Clip the wings of thy desires if thou wilt stop their flight. Their course is precipitated; nothing opposeth their swiftness and levity, but the insensible weight of misfortunes which they draw after them. Their promises give thee probabilities, which their disastrous success accomplish not, but in their fall they enwrap thy destruction and ruin. Sejanus (a prodigious example of an extreme insolency) served as a prey to his hungry and ambitious desires: And he whose wounds will for ever bleed in all the corners of France, testifieth, that the favours of Fortune, makes as many threatenings as promises. SECTION IV. Covetousness, is only just, in that it rigorously punisheth those whom it mastereth and commandeth. AS the Fever engendereth a heat contrary to our nature: so ambition having surprised the noblest part of our soul, commonly heats and inflames it with a desire of wealth and riches, and fasteneth and glueth this venom to him, which in the end by a contagious order, consumes the rest of his life purposely, to lodge a strange and bastardly affection, full of diffidence. The ambitious man, pricked forwards with the spur of glory and virtue, awakes as from a dream, and yet half languishing in the error of his slumbers, follows the first spendour of light, which presents itself to his eyes, until that the false apparition of this light discover, and bewray him the abuse of his election by his rash enterprise. But the Covetous man, with his head dejected, and his eyes fixed on earth, admires the shining of his metal, knows no other light; and his too weak sight cannot endure the splendour, and rays of any other Sun. He diues into the Bowels of the earth, and in the end buries himself therein with his treasures. That comforteth his loss with some generous Design; this perisheth in his own blindness, and yet sees not his prejudice and damage; briefly, that lives in the Esteem of the vulgar, and this in the contempt of all the world. To burn, and be passionate after wealth, with an irregular, and boundless desire; foolishly to change himself, and to consume himself with an enraged thirst, in the midst of waters, is the true effect of this weak, and foolish passion of Covetousness, which penetrates into Soul of man by a false opinion, and so corrupts the purity of his actions, that he doth nothing which is Just for himself, but in finishing, with his life, his hungry and almost famishing desire of covetousness. Riches have nothing in themselves of Good, or Evil. It is a seed which receives the quality of the place where it is. In well dressed, and manured Souls, she produceth fair flowers, but in rude, infertile, and unsound minds, she engendereth nothing but Thistles, and Thorns, who are sharp only to prick, and offend those who manure, and dress them: And as there is nothing which shines without the help of the light; nor obscure, but by darkness which environs it; so riches are fair and profitable, when they are enlightened with Wisdom; as they are obscure, and troublesome, being attended on, and conducted by covetousness; This gives us only Envy, and denies, and defends us pleasure; that tempers our desires, and leaves us to taste the fruits thereof, in a moderate, and honest freedom. So the acquisition, and purchase of treasures, receives such a Beauty, as he that possesseth them, is capable to give them. The Covetous man's Soul is all rusty, by the continual feeling, and familiarity of his coin, and thereby eclipseth its lustre, as the Wiseman gives it a fair, and pleasing brightness. This is a Sun, who by his rays, gives life to dead things; as that by his contagious air, gives death to those joys, and pleasures which environ him. Wealth, and Riches, do but incense, and anger him, by their proud shows; covetous hunger which presseth him by her voluntary indigence, makes it insupportable, and fights against his own satiety. In a word, his misfortune hath so strong wings, that it flies before his wealth which is coming in, and infects it, as those contagious Harpies did the meats of Phineus. We must not think that our Poverty, or the want of Wealth, by acquiring, or enjoying it after, be an absolute remedy to this disease. For it proves many times but a light exchange and alteration. The same Vice which gave distaste to Poverty, and made it of hard digesture, corrupts the pleasures of Wealth, and makes Riches seem burdensome. Vice is in the Mind, and Soul, and not in Wealth; it takes what countenance we please to give it. The opinion of the Vulgar, (although most commonly vicious in all things,) seems generally to blame, and condemn this vice: But in particular, every one dissemblingly, strives to cover it with the name of thrift, and good husbandry, thereby to avoid the reproach thereof. The Wiseman who retires himself from the World, and from Fortune, to live contentedly, and happily in his Soul, shall find more Wealth in his Poverty, than the Covetous man in the regorging of all his Treasures, if nature do but never so little agree with his indigence. For can we esteem him poor, who wants nothing? Which of the two is better, either to have much, or enough? He that hath much desires more, his greedy covetousness testifies his fault, and defect, and that he hath not yet enough; whiles he which contents himself, is arrived to the point of his desires; where the Covetous man, despite of his power can never attain: Necessity easily bounds herself; Nature fixeth her limits every where, and in all places presents wherewith to satisfy her desires: Thirst is as soon quenched with a little water in an earthen pot; as with delicious Wine in a cup of Gold. But if we will pass these bounds it is very difficult to temper our motions, and stop their course, since Riches make us stray from the good way, and if Virtue reached us not out her hand to reconduct, & support us, we are in imminent danger; It is a slippery step, and a dangerous precipice, and if there be found any one, who by other means, then that of Wisdom (in the affluence of goods, and riches) seems to go firm, and so to enjoy the rest, and tranquillity of the mind, we must not admire thereat, and so build upon this foundation. For sometimes it falls out, that the Rock which hath split our ship, serves us for refuge, and sanctuary, and serves us for shelter against storms, and tempests. Fortune is often met in the company of Reason, so many have found life in the conflicts of Death, and danger; yea, extreme folly hath produced the like effects, as perfect Wisdom. I approve not the advice of the Philosopher Crates, who to make sure work, threw his Riches into the Sea, and despoiled himself of this dangerous Robe, as believing, that they, and Virtue could never Sympathize. There is as much folly, and weakness, not to endure riches, as there is courage to support them. To corrupt ourselves by their familiarity, or to depart with them so easily, & simply, argues the likeweaknes of mind. If we contemn them, it must be yet more for their small value, then for their superfluousness. Virtue prohibits us not the enjoying; but rather commands the use thereof; otherwise, how canst thou esteem that to be in the number of thy Wealth, which thou enjoyest not; and why dost thou so reigiously oblige thy care, and labour to conserve, and increase it; Covetousness commands, a strict account every day to be given of thy actions, and most rigorously condemns thee, which grievest to take from thy purse, to give to thy expenses. Thou willingly stealest thyself from thy Riches, to commit thyself into the custody of Poverty, and Indigence. Neither Honour, nor Piety can open the locks of thy coffers, thou art not Master thereof, and therefore it sufficeth thee to be the keeper. A true Scythian Griffon, which keeps great heaps of Gold, and Silver in Caves, and yet enjoys it not: But tell me; the Porter of an Arsenal, who with his key shuts in far more treasure, than thou canst with thine, cannot he compare, and dispute of Riches with t●ee; in this he is yet more happy than thyself. For when he sees Gold, and Silver go in, and out, he joyfully opens, and shuts his door, with an equal affection. His countenance changeth no●; he neither shakes, nor looks pale; troublesome cares interrupt not his sleeps, and dreams, as perpetual flare every moment assails, and disturbs thee: Th●● thinkest that some Thievish hand steals away the one half of thy profit, that th● fortress of ●hy house is too weak, against the Eng●●s, and designs of thy enviers; Mountains, Waters, Drawbridges, which begirt, and shut up thy Citadel, cannot secure thee from this apprehension, and fear. Thou dost distrust thyself, in having thy hands too often in thy bags; for it seems, thy eyes still discover a want of some pieces; nay shall I say more, for all that which belongs to others, and which thou canst not make thine, thou placest it in the catalogue of thy losses. So that which thou hast thus purchased is not thine, because thou enjoyest it not, and that Nature will one day condemn thee to abandon them, because she condemns thee to die, if thou wilt not do as Hermocrates (in Lucian) who in dying, instituted himself, to be heir to himself, for fear to lose that which he had purchased with so great labour, and conserved with infinite care, and which his death (despite his testament,) made him leave behind him, with a world of sighs and tears. Unfortunate; yea, wretched Vice, which hast so blinded us, that we cannot perceive his imperfection, which makes us miserable in our chiefest height, and heat of purchasing, and again, more miserable in the possession of that which we have purchased. SECTION V. Fortune hath not a more charming bait or lure then our own hope. ALL the world lives now, and entertains themselves by the hope of the time future. No man at hometasts the present good, he will still be beyond it: There is not a personage, whom every one represents, and acts not worse than his own. His desire transports him in all places, and he himself is therefore never in any. It is the greatest advantage which Fortune hath of us, for she still makes use, & serves herself of our hope, as of a golden hook, the more easily to deceive us. If any disaster or misfortune befall us, whiles our hope hath transported us other where's; She takes possession of the place, and fortifieth herself with our own proper weapons, and at our return makes us suffer a thousand sorts of tyrannies in this new slavery. He who is at home, when some accident o● fire hath cast a sparkle thereof in our own● firebrands, he very easily quencheth it, and by this means saves his house from the fury of flames and burning: And if when Fortune darts a spark of some voluptuousness in our soul, that we were careful to run speedily to extinguish it, before it had burnt our hopes, which by little and little go to enkindle them with the bellowes of good success; we may then save ourselves from this fire, & so prevent the burning of our passions. The Spring time produceth not so many flowers on the wide bosom of the Earth, as hopes engender thorns in the hearts of men. The Lover who languisheth in the flames of his desire, blows the fire thereof, and so inflames himself the more by the wind of some foolish promise. The hope of Glory, animates the courage of the ambitious man; and he whom covetousness controls and commands, making him to pass so many Seas for the obtaining thereof, he finds no more favourable and pleasing winds, then that of his hope: So Ambition, Love, Covetousness, are three rivers which issue from this Spring, the which we must stop, if we resolve to dry up all the displeasures, and discontents which we receive. Hope is a motion, and passion of the soul, which very easily procures us the possession of a future good, whereof we have already received the impression. She inflames us in the difficultest actions. Impossibility hath no bars so strong, which she cannot break in sunder: all things are inferior to her, and nothing equalizeth her, but her desire. She holds our thoughts hanging in the air, and our felicity yet more in balance and suspense. She lifts us up so high, that reason itself finds no surer foundation, or reason to secure us from the ruin of our erterprises, which commonly bring us more shame by their imperfection, than glory by their event. The blind desire of the ambitious, should not be guilty of his fall, without the pernicious council of his deceitful hope. Icarus had not lost himself by his rash folly, if he had not believed, that the wings of his hope were stronger, than those which he had received from his Father. The disobedience of this Son, prefigureth the ignorance of the common people, as the Father's command is the picture of wisdom, which contents itself to have escaped slavery. We must surcease to hope, thereby more easily to obtain the place whereto we aspire. We may as soon arrive there by diverting our face, as by following it by the eyes of our hope; as well as Rowers, who by turning their backs, obtain the port of their desires. The greatest good which we can find in the goods of Fortune, is not to seek or research th●m. To fly that which is subject to deceive our hopes, is the surest means to meet with what we desire. We must stop and stay our hopes in the very beginning of their conceptions, sith the good which assembles them by the name or form of greatness, is false, and gratifies none less than those who follow the glimmering light, and brightness thereof: Yea, it is so far from true good, as it commonly falls out unto us, as to a child, who gazing at the flame of the Candle, is so taken and ravished with the sight and beauty thereof, as he thrusts his hand to it: but having cr●sh'd it in his fingers, he extinguisheth the light thereof, and so burns himself for wan● of judgement: So we follow the rays of Fortune, but being possessed of it, we eclipse the lustre thereof in our own hands, whereof we were formerly enamoured and delighted, which leaves us a very sharp and sensible burning, to the prejudice of our reputation: Because if our desire succeed, our hope presently enkindleth a new one, which nourished by this, becomes far more violent than the former, as fire (if the wood or matter fail not) enkindleth infinite more. We must therefore stop the flight and current thereof betimes, and if reason give no end to our hopes, let us not hope that Fortune is capable to do it. For it is impossible for her to give true content and tranquillity to our soul, because true tranquillity cannot be meant or expounded, but by the uniformity and resemblance of the like, or equal thin●s. But as the Circle and the Square of Geometricians, cannot comprise or contain one and the same space, and that the figure and superficies of the one, is not entirely filled by the figure and superficies of the other: So the Soul, which is the Image of God, and therefore simple, and circular (if we will use the Words of the Cabalists) agreeing in all, and by all, with itself: it is impossible that she can be equally comprised among the bounds of other figures, multiplied and composed of many parts and angels; I mean of worldly pleasures, and favours of Fortune, which cannot satisfy her, and which by this insacietie, doth sufficiently testify their insufficiency. We must therefore eclipse the wings of our hope, and if possible we can, stop her as soon as she begins to take her birth, and flight; or else temperately employ her in the research of Riches, whose vein is so deeply, and profoundly hidden within us. Nevertheless, because the wind of this passion seems to appease the fire, and ardour of our discontents, and that the most violent grief that can be, feels itself over-mastred by the very point, and consideration of hope, we must in this regard suffer, and endure it, and make use thereof, in those inconveniences where the constancy of the Soul finds herself, to be very weak, because too strongly assaulted, and assailed. Misfortunes which threaten us, do not always befall, and surprise us, but are many times diverted by other accidents, and some times by the ruin of their own authors. Such a one hath prepared poison for another, who hath been choked therewith himself: And when this Evil, or Misfortune, should be inevitable, yet, the good which we have received by the sweet flattery of our hopes, cannot yet be ta'en away, or bereaved from us. But when we are not besieged by sharp, and violent afflictions, and that our Estate, and Condition being far distant from the great blows of Fortune, makes us to respire the air of a sweet and pleasant life, what need we then to make ourselves blind in the midst of our good fortune, to forsake, and stray from ourselves, by the enraged licentiousness, which we give to our desires; to fly the good which we possess; to contemn that which we have obtained, & purchased; & it may be, which heretofore hath inflamed us with the like desire to enjoy it, as that which now torments us, through the hope of a new good, and where we may yet find less satiety, then in the former. And this is the most dangerous blow, wherewith our Enemy (I mean Fortune) can offend us; for what disturbance, and torment is it, which surpriseth our hope, when she enforceth herself to break all those lets, and obstacles which oppose our desire. She changeth our good, into evil, so that which should comfort us in our grief and sorrows, doth change the sweetness, and tranquillity of our lives, and engendereth afflictions, and crosses, in the midst of our contentments, and felicities. SECTION VI Fear casts herself into the future time, as into a dark and obscure place, thereby with a small cause, or subject to give us the greater wonder, and astonishment. HOpe, and Fear are Sister-germaines, but as that heats our desire, and inflames our courage to the most generous actions, so this quencheth and deads' it, by the Ice of her vain apprehensions. Among those things which we should apprehend, I find none more worthy of fear, then fear itself; because from an imaginary evil, she knows how to draw most sharp, and bitter sorrows, and being ingenious to work our sorrow, she runs before the good which may befall us; disguiseth them; apparelleth them with her own livery, and by this means, gives the name of Enemy, to him that comes purposely to assist us. But what suspicion can we have of him, who under the cloak, and shadow of good will, comes to counsel us to our prejudice and damage: This Chimaera beats at our breasts, and advertiseth it, that his Enemy is at the gate; which is true, but it is with so great terror, and trembling, that it makes us incapable of counsel. It is by this art, and subtlety, that she delivers us up to our Enemy, of whose approaches she had foretold us. So as if we give ear to her pernicious designs, she makes us distrust our own proper good; and by these evil courses, changeth the tranquillity and sweetness of our life. For what pleasure doth the enjoying of any good bring us; if it be still accompanied with the fear of losing it: She incessantly tells us of bad events, and teacheth us thereby, that the surest things for our content, are subject to the inconstancy of Fortune, which with one backe-blow, shakes and overthrows the strongest foundations of our tranquillity. As our Desire is not inflamed, but to seek good, so our fear aims only to fly, and eschew evil. Povertie, Death, and Grief, are the liveliest colours, wherewith we can depaint the cause of our fears. We have formerly shown that Poverty is only evil, in our opinion; whose points are not sharpened, but by the temper of our own imaginations. But it is in vain to fear that which cannot offend us despite ourselves. Nature hath caused us to be all borne equally rich, & esteems so little of the goods she gives us, which we term riches, as of our passions, and the fear to lose them. Seneca says, that the Gods were more propitious, and favourable, when they were but of earth, than since, when they were made of Gold, or Silver; meaning thereby, that the rest, and tranquillity of the mind, was more frequently found in the life of our forefathers, who sought no other riches, than the fruits of their labours, than it hath done since, when men being curious to open the bosom, and rip up the bowels of the earth, have therein found Mines of Gold, and Silver, which she hath dispersed, and sown among us; as seed of discord and division. The meanest estate and condition, and those steps which are nearest the earth, are still the firmest and surest, as the highest are the most dangerous. And if Poverty be any way harsh, or distasteful, it is only because she can throw us into the arms of Hunger, Thirst Heat, Cold, or other discommodities. So in Poverty, it is not she which is to be feared, but rather Grief, and Pain, whereof we will hereafter speak in its proper place. But some one will say, who is he that apprehends, and fears not Death. There is no poverty so poor, which finds not wherewith to live: The body is easily accustomed, and hardened to endure Heat, or Cold; but what remedy is there against Death? who with his sharp scythe, cuts and reaps away so many pleasures, yea, the very thread of our life, which can never be regained; for although old men approach Death in despite of themselves, and that their distaste of worldly pleasures (the forerunner thereof) should yet give them resolution to advance boldly; nevertheless, they retire back, they tremble at the ghastly sight, and shadow of Death, yea, they are afraid, sink down in their beds, and wrap themselves up in their coverlets; and to use but one word, they die every moment, at the only fear, and thought of Death. And I who am in the Springtime of my age cherished of the Muses, and beloved of Fortune in the very height of all pleasures, and voluptuousness, shall not I yet fear Death. So many Griefs and Sorrows, so many convulsions, and gnashing of our teeth, are they not to be apprehended, and feared; can the links of that marriage of the Body, and Soul be dissolved, and broken, but by some violent effect, and power; those who are insensible, fear their dissolution. Flowers, and Trees seem to mourn at the edge of the Knife, and shall not then our sense, and feeling be sensible thereof, yea, and remark, and see it in our fear? I answer, It is true, that of all things which Nature representeth unto us most terrible, there is nothing which she hath depainted in such fearful colours, as the figure and image of Death. Every thing tends to the conservation of its being, and generously oppose and fight against those who seek to destroy it: But the fear which we entermixe with it, is not of the match o● party; but is only of our own proper belief and invention. Pain which seems to be the justest cause to make us apprehend it, is excluded, and hath nothing to do with it, because the separation of the soul and body, is done in so sudden a moment and instan●, that our Understanding hardly perceiving it, it i● very difficult for our sense to do it. Those ghastly looks which devance it, or the rew●rd of good or evil which follows it, are no appurtenances, ●or dependencies of this instant or moment: But I will say more; For as there is no time in this instant, so likewise there is no pain; because the senses cannot operate or agitate (according to the opinion of Philosophers) but with some certain Interim of time, and which is more, that those last pangs are passed away without any sense or feeling thereof. And chose, if in this separation, the pain should be either in the body or soul, or both; First, the body feels it not, because there is nothing but the senses which can perceive it, who being in disorder and confusion, by the disturbance of the vital spirits, which they oppress and restrain, their disposition is thereby vitiated. The function of the senses being interrupted, they cease to operate; and therefore of feeling the effect of pain, but more especially when the spirits abandon them, and retire and withdraw themselves from the heart: The which we perceive, and see in those who fall in a swoone, whose eyes remain yet open, without seeing, and without operation: which happeneth and comes to pass, because the spirits which should make the wheels of the sight to move and operate, have abandoned their places and functions. The Soul of herself cannot remedy it, no more than a Fountainer can cause his water-works to play, when there is no water; the which by reason thereof, is then merely out of his power. And as the eye by the defect hereof, performs not her function; and without perceiving thereof, ceaseth to operate: so all the other senses by the same rule and reason, do fail us. When our Soul will take her last farewell of our body, she flies to the regions of the Liver and Heart, as to her public places, all the spirits being dispersed, and bending here and there in the body, to take her last farewell of them, which retire, without that the parts or members farther off, do feel any pain of this separation: but because henceforth they can no more feel it, for that they carry away with them the heat and strength of feeling. If therefore there be any pain, it must be in the noble parts, who proffer their last farewell, and thanks to the Soul for the care, labour, and pain; which she hath had to give them life and motion. The Husband cannot l●aue or go from his Wife, without a great sense and feeling of sorrow: for his sighs, griefs, and tears, testify how bitter and displeasing this separation is to him: Can therefore this separation of the soul from the body, be performed with less grief and pain? Some will say, that the most remote parts and members shall be insensible thereof, and endure and suffer nothing in this reluctation and conflict, which is only because they have given this charge, and conferred this commission to the noble parts to perform it. As in the separation of one whom we dearly affect and love, all the whole body which suffereth in this farewell, (to make his grief and sorrows the more apparent) commits the charge thereof to the eyes by their tears, and to his breast by her sighs, to express his sense and feeling thereof: I answer, that there is no pain, because the spirits who withdraw themselves, by the defects and failing of others in these interior parts, are either in good and perfect order, and their function is common, and therefore without pain; or else in confusion, and then the function, and organs of the spirits are changed, and consequently their effect, which is the sense and feeling thereof: Which is seen by those who fall into a trance or swooning, They feel nothing less than pain in those parts, which with far more reason should betide them; because the force and power of the spirits dispersed throw all the body, is in one instant assembled, and gathered together in this place: whereas chose Death happeneth, and comes to us, by the extinguishing of the spirits, who by their extreme weakness, cannot furnish power enough, to move the wheels and organs of our feeling; and as without pain they have abandoned the remotest parts and members, they fail in them without any perceiving thereof. The body deprived of Knowledge, and therefore ignorant of his losses, supports it without any pain or grief: So that if there be any pain or bitterness in this separation; it should be in the soul, who touched with the remembrance of forepast pleasures, which she hath enjoyed, and tasted in her commerce and traffic with the body, she cannot depart or estrange herself without pain, and lamentation. But I affirm, and say, that pain hath no power, but o'er the Body, and that the Soul, being wholly simple, pure, and spiritual, is exempt of its jurisdiction, and it hath no hold, or power over her. That if the knowledge which she hath be capable to give him any sense, or feeling of pain, it should be for his good. But there is nothing which the Soul embraceth with more passion, nor desireth so eagerly, than her rest, and tranquillity; I mean the enjoyance, and possession of her object; for then chiefly when she is detained in the prison of the body, she finds nothing pleasing in this strange Country, which can content her appetite. judge then if she grieve to depart and dislodge from the body, and whether a Prisoner detained by the Turks, when we take off the chains from his hands, and feet, pay his Ransom to reconduct him into his native country, & so restore him to the free possession of his goods, and liberty, have any great cause to afflict himself for this separation: I confess you will answer me; that I no more fear Death for its pain, sith there is none so sharp, which we will not willingly endure and suffer; and which is not intermixed with some sweetness; if we fla●ter ourselves with the hope of a remedy. But who is he, who ought not to apprehend the loss of goods, which are common to the one, and the other, to the mind, and the body, which being divided, and separated, their sweet enjoyance can no more be recovered; I say, that if this loss be a grief, or evil: this evil aught to concur, and meet, either in the enjoying thereof, or then when you possess, and enjoy it, no longer. As for the present, should you not injustly complain, because you enjoy it quietly, and that you attribute the good which they bring us, to the possessing of them: But it is no evil, no more than when you enjoy them not, because the evil is the feeling which we have of a thing that afflicts us; but Death deprives us of all sense and feeling, and therefore of this pain and affliction; that if you afflict yourself, because death deprives you of the remembrance thereof, by the same reason, every night before you sleep, you ought to bewail and lament it, and to take your farewell, because you go to lose the memory thereof. Those who have judged most solidly, and pertinently of Death, and who have most curiously depainted it at Nature, and Life, have compared it to sleep. But, if we will ask the opinion of Trophonius, and Agamedes, they will teach us, what is the most Sovereign of our Riches and contents; because after they had built, and consecrated a stately Temple to the honour of Apollo, they besought him in requital, that he would eternally grant them the best thing, and it was answered them by the Oracle; that their demand should be satisfied within three days; but before the expiration thereof, they both died. He who is in the worst estate and condition, begins to hope when he hath no more to fear, whereof he is not presently afflicted: Man being then so miserable in his life, hath he not reason to aim, and aspire to some better thing. To fear Death, (saith Socrates,) is the part of a Wise man, because all the World ignores it; in not knowing whether it be our good, or our evil: But what should we not fear; if we fear that which cowardice herself hath sought for her retreat, and shelter, and for the speediest and most sovereign remedy of all afflictions and miseries: The Egyptians had still in their Banquets, the Image of Death; nevertheless, it was not fear who had the charge to represent them this picture, but it was Constancy, and Virtue, who had that commission, and who would not permit that in the midst of their Delights and joys; they should be interrupted by any unexpected accident: But if Death then befell them, that he should be of their company, that the ceremony might not be troubled, in regard they kept him his place, and dish; and briefly, that the joy of the company might not be disturbed; for because they neither knew the certain place, or time where they should attend Death, they therefore attended him in all times, and places. Aristotle tells us, that there is no fear, but of doubtful things; it is then in vain for us to apprehend it, or that our fear prepares him such base, and cowardly courages, in regard there is nothing more centaine than Death. How many are there found, who survive their glory, and whose languishing life hath not served, but for a Tomb to bury their reputation. It was said by a Philosopher, that the sweet pleasures of life, was but a slavery, if the liberty to die, were to be said so, why then should we fear that, which the wisest of the World, held the surest harbour, and sanctuary of our tranquillity. It now rests, that we fight, against the fear of pain, which serves but to afflict us, with a present grief of that which it may be, will n●uer befall us, or at least, far otherwise then we fear. The Painter Parhasius exposed his Slaves to the Rack, thereby, the more naturally to represent the feigned tortures of Prometheus. We are Slaves to fear, who of an imaginary evil, delights to cast on us the gall, and bitterness of a thousand true vexations, and afflictions. For how often have we shaked, and trembled with fear, at those things which have produced us no greater damage than the bare apprehension thereof. Have we ever feared, or expected any thing with extreme impatiency, but that we have still found it altered, and changed with the belief and hope thereof? Hath not pain many sharp points, and throes of itself, without it be any way needful, for our fear to edge, or sharpen them; As far distant as they may be, they still approach us; opens them our breast and heart, and casts them into our very blood. He who cannot defend the blow which threatens him; at least, let him defend the fear thereof, whereby he shall diminish, at least the one half of his grief and pain: Our fears are as easily deceived, as our hopes. If our grief and pain be violent, it will be short; if we cannot carry it, it will carry us; but if it be moderate, and supportable, than our constancy can agree, and sympathize with it; howsoever, it will be high-time to think thereof when we come to resent and feel it: But above all things we must remember, that there can nothing befall us, which is not incident, and common to all the World, and that we entertain, and receive the conditions of this our life, only at our own perils, and fortunes. There is good, and evil, ease, and pain, and therefore there will be no particular rule, or law made for us. Destiny doth not unwind for one man the thread of the adventures, and fortunes of all the World; and that very pain which we endure, depends of a part of divine power, which must finish its course; hath the rising of this Star been a malign aspect unto us, why, his setting will give us a benign, and gracious influence: Nothing remains long fixed, or immovable; in Tortures, and Torments, there is yet some relaxation, and ease; all Pains, and Griefs have their Interims, which gives other Forms, and Faces to voluptuousness, than a dumb, or obscure felicity. Briefly, it is an inevitable Decree, which hath no appeal; it is therefore far better for us to advance, and follow, then to permit ourselves to be dragged, and constrained, and so by our reluctation, and contradiction to incur the anger of our great Captain. SECTION. VII. Of all Passions, there is no greater Enemy to Reason, nor less capable of council than Choler. IT is reported that Minerva (on a time) playing on a Flute in the lookingglass of a fountain, was so extremely angry with herself, to see the deformity of her Face counterfeited, by reason of the swelling of her cheeks, that she threw her Flute to the ground and broke it: If Man were so curious to consider the deformity of his manners, and the indecency which Choler imprints on his face, I believe, that he would spend all his anger on this passion; and that Reason would again counsel him once again to be Choleric, thereby to cut off the root of so pernicious a vice; I know not if our Soul could be seen of our eyes, in the furious fumes of this passion, who could endure the sight thereof; for judge what she may be interiorly, sith her exterior Image, is so foul and deformed. The liveliest traces, and the most delicate Lineaments, which make her most commendable, are those which Reason, and Virtue portray in her. But what can we more see fair in her, as soon as they are defaced by the dark, and obscure colours of this passion; the madness thereof, engendereth such a combustion, and disorder, that Reason is constrained to retire, as wholly confused, and to abandon the conduction of the Soul, to the rage and insolency of this fury. She makes us believe that we are offended, and that there is nothing but revenge, which can diminish our injury; as if Vice could be corrected by herself, and nevertheless, not being able to wreak it on others, as soon as she would, she than performs it on herself, and tears herself in pieces, conditionally, that she may sprinkle some of her own blood, on the face of her Enemy. Oh Passion! what an Enemy art thou to man; knowest thou nothing else, but how to offend him? Thou puttest weapons into our hands, to repulse injuries; and then thou makest us Enemies to ourselves, to the end that we may have occasion to offend ourselves, and thereby, from one & the same wound, to cause to proceed the injury, and the revenge; But herein she is the more dangerous in that she advanceth not little, and little by degrees, and solicits not the Soul as other passions do, but contrariwise she draws, and precipitates her at one blow: After we are fallen into this frenzy, it matters no more, what hath occasioned it, for we still advance, and pass on to the bottom of this precipice, which the Poets have well represented to us, who for o●e Apple, reduced Greece, and Asia to fire, and sword. The same cause which makes a Master of a family to murmur in his house, animates a Prince against his Subjects; and an injury which puts weapons into our hands against a particular person, doth some time's occasion, & enkindle a war in a whole Kingdom, at least if Fortune have given us reputation, and power enough to effect it; Choler is easy enough to be kerbed in her beginning, but very difficult to be restrained, when she is escaped our hands; she takes the snaffle in her teeth, violently carrieth us away, and takes no other counsel, but from her own licentious madness. In this passion we may observe three several motions; The first proceeds from the power of Nature, as a certain unwilling disposition, and changing of affection, which we cannot remedy, but by a prescription of long time, and custom, and yet very difficulty, because Nature hath this power in men, to move them despite of themselves; yea, and to make them remember the very strongest of their imperfections: The second is voluntary, to wit, then when this passion consults, and taketh council of Reason, and submits to it, but he who flattereth his Choler, and doth not stop it in this point, and behalf, let him never hope to restrain it in the third, and last motion, because Reason having once stooped under the command of this passion, she tramples on her throat; takes the possession of our judgement, and being shut up, and fortified in our house, sets fire both without and within it, and then by little and little, consumes herself in the flames thereof; I am of opinion, that it was for this cause, and reason, that Seneca said, that it were better to exclude Virtue from our Souls, then to receive, or admit Choler, because the end thereof, proves most commonly the beginning of repentance. For Reason elevating herself by degrees, and disingaging herself from the tyranny of this domestical Enemy, she than comes to know the disorder, occasioned by her own blindness; whereof she is taken as surety, and pledge, because she must answer, for the force and power which she hath committed unto him. Or if our Reason think to justify herself, for that she seems at his arrival, to prescribe, and give him Laws, let her know, that Choler forgets them, and that she never remembers them, except it be then, when they offend her. Those who are intemperate in their sickness, prohibit, and defend to be obeyed when they are sick: & sith man cannot be temperate in this sickness of the Soul, I mean Choler, I am of opinion, that by times he defend Reason to obey him. Or if we believe, that it is some times necessary, because (as a Philosopher said,) it gives weapons to Valour; I answer, that Vice produceth nothing which is Virtuous, although it seem to shoot forth some false buds, or twigs, which bears I know not what deceitful image, or representation thereof. It is no good fat, when through sickness we become puffed up, and corpulent. It is neither courage, nor valour, when through Choler we rush upon our Enemies: Virtue never makes use of so weak a Champion as Choler; It is a weapon which commands us, and which we manage but at his pleasure, and as dangerous towards ourselves, as towards those whom it will offend. It is true, Choler hath power and predominancy over all men; that there are many people who have not yet approved the stings of ambition, who know not the name of Covetousness, and yet there are none who have not felt the effect of Choler. All the World is naturally subject to Love, yea, none can justly deny the truth hereof, and yet we have not seen a World of people mad wi●h the Love of one Woman, as we have seen possessed with this passion of Choler; But it follows not that we cannot avoid it, we go more often, and more swiftly towards Choler, than she doth towards us. We seek the occasions thereof instead of eschewing, and flying them; in imitation of Caesar, who having recovered all the writings, letters, and memories of his Enemies, he caused them to be thrown into the fire without seeing them, thereby to prevent, and shorten the way of Choler, and Revenge; and it is also reported of him, That he never forgot any thing but injuries received, a defect and imperfection of memory, worthy of so great a Prince. It appertains to none, but to those great courages to contemn injuries. In the highest Region of the air, there is no thunder, Saturn (the greatest of the Gods) walks so frest, and the more the quality and condition of men are elevated, the more slow they should be to follow this passion, because they have more means to offend, and to add, and give to the nourishing of this enraged fury, the blood, and ruin of those whom they threaten. If a Child, or a Fool offend thee in the Street with injurious words, thou wilt avoid him with disdain; they are too much below thee, to be able to offend thee; So, know that if the Virtue, and greatness of thy Courage, could as much lift thee above common people, as above these innocent persons; that thou shouldest find as little injury from the one, as from the other; the revenge which thou seekest, is a confession of grief for a wrong. If he had not offended thee, thou hadst not needed this remedy, a remedy worse than the wrong itself, because it befalls us; for not being able to endure another's folly, we very often make it our own: None can offend us despite of ourselves; an injury offered us, is either true, or false. If true, why should we be offended to hear, or understand a thing as it is. If it be false, are we not satisfied, because the injury than returns, and retortes upon our Enemy, through the vice of his life? His design is to offend thee; so, he hath then need of thee to execute his resolution, and for what art thou indebted to him, to obey his will; If the injury offend, and anger thee, it is that which he desireth, and then thou makest no more difference of thine Enemy, then of thy Friend: because thy will is that of either of them. As words are but wind, so know that the lie, or injury which offends thee in point of Honour, is but vanity, Courage is to be esteemed and prised, but it is either God, thy Prince, or Country, which must dispose thereof upon good occasions; injuries receive no sharper answers than contempt. A Philosopher demanding of an old Courtier how so rare a thing as age could ripen, and subsist in Court; made answer, in receiving injuries, and thanking those who proffer them. The best revenge which we c●n ta●e of our Enemy, is to reap profit by his injuries. We have some times need of Enemies, because, discovering our imperfections by their injuries, we afterwards reform and remedy them. Reprehension also, is some times necessary to prevent, & hinder, that this Vice augment not, but (as one affirms) he who practiseth it, must neither be Hungry, nor Thirsty; let him beware that he add not Revenge to Choler, for than he shall do nothing, worth any thing, no more than doth that Physician, who being angry with his sick patient, never administereth him physic, but in Choler. But me thinks, the best way to fly and abandon it, is to consider, that it doth more endamage us, than those whom we would offend. It sucks the greatest part of our own proper gall, and so poisoneth us, for we cannot expel our breath, but after the proportion we attract, and draw it in, for we draw it in, before we first breathe, and pour it forth on others; and our Choler vomiteth out nothing on our Enemy, before it have first corrupted our own stomach, by its too great indigestion. SECTION VIII. Passions have so deformed a Countenance, that albeit, they are the Daughters of Nature, yet we cannot love them, and behold them at on● time. Passion's are to the mind, as diseases to the body; and as the body is reputed sick, if any part or member thereof be afflicted, or pained, so the soul cannot be said to be healthful and sound, as long as she feels the distemper of any passions; whereof some are suddenly inflamed, and have no mediocrity, as Choler, and others by little, and little, are nourished in our veins, and bowels, until the poison thereof being spread, and fortified, is become strong enough, to engender a universal emotion; as the very thought that we shall be pained, or afflicted by small degrees, appalls▪ and daunts our courage, and comes to surprise our Soul, with languishing, grief, and sorrow. A vice more dangerous than the first, because Choler is a clap of Thunder, yea, a Thunderbolt, which with one blow, breaks the branches of a Tree, whereas Sorrow as a Worm sticks to the root thereof, by little and little consumes its natural heat, and quite withers, and dries it up: that in an instant disturbs the tranquillity of our Soul, but is soon appeased; this pierceth to the bottom, removes the very dregges, and dirt thereof, and having lifted it up above itself, is not quieted but by a long tract of time. A base, weak, and effeminate passion, which condemns itself, and forbids the pleasing familiarity of his dearest friends, who fearing to be surprised, as an adulterate woman in her vicious Countenance, she constrains herself to fly, and steal away from herself, as well as from other men's eyes, but yet in what place soever she thinks to save herself, she still goes augmenting of her pain, and flattering of her misfortune; and the fairest fruits which she is capable to produce, are Sighs, Tears, and Groans; the irreproachfull witnesses of the small courage of those who foment, and cherish them. But if it violently proceed, from the good which we see others possess, than we term it Envy. A most infamous passion, which being not able to offend others, seeks to annoy, and destroy himself; and busking every where, seeks only his own tortures in other men's contentments. Those who are eminent and sublime in Virtue, seem to have their reputation exempt from the assaults, and blows of Envy; because commonly it engendereth not but among equals, and those which by the same competition, and concurrence, aim at the same ends. Injust in their designs, and only just in that they are sufficient for their own proper vexation, and to tie themselves to their own torments. Or if it happen that we are melancholy to see another participate of our goods; then it is no more Sorrow, but jealousy which proceeds from the diffidence of himself, and of his own merits, or from the defect of that which he loves, as Inconstancy, or Levity, whereof our heart secretly accuseth him, or from the virtue, or excellent parts which we see, and observe in our rival. Among all other passions, it is she alone to whom most things serve for physic, but least for remedy; She screws, and insinuates herself under the title of good will and affection, and yet on the foundation thereof, she builds her chiefest hatred. And if any one chose pretend that it is a sign of Love; I say, that like as a f●auer in the body is a sign of life, but yet of distempered, & corrupted life, that so jealousy may be a testimony of Love, but yet it is of an imperfect & defective Love; for that which we suspect, either is, or is not; If it be not▪ we offend that which we love; if it be, is it not properly to ruin affection: But is there a greater folly then to be eager in the knowledge of our own shame, and misery, when there is no physic, which doth not augment, and inflame it? B●t he who is curious in his own damage, informs himself thereof, and having discovered it, finds no remedy, but which is a thousand times worse than his grief and vexation; me thinks the sight of his passions, is sufficient to make him detest them; they have deformity enough in them, to exasperate our anger and hatred against them: They are the seditious, and factious persons of our Soul, and the professed Enemies of our p●ace, and tranquillity. It is true that we may throw them to the ground, and trample on them, by the assistance, address, and subtlety of Virtue, but do what we can, they will seem anew to revive, and reinforce themselves as Antaeus the son of the Earth, the blow of their fall, makes them glance, and rebound against us, and if they cannot wholly support and raise themselves, they will yet enforce themselves to fight with us on their knees. The end of the fourth Discourse. The fifth Discourse. Of Felicity. SECTION. I. Every thing naturally tends to its repose, only Man strays from his Felicity, or if he approach it, he stays at the branches, instead of embracing the trunk, or body of the tree. IN interior diseases there is not much less art to know them, then to cure them; but especially then, when their poison having surprised the most secret and hidden parts, is stolen from our sight, yea, and from the sense and feeling of him who harboureth it in his breast; the most apparent, and truest sign of curing such diseases, is to expel the pain, and to awaken in the patient, his sleepy, or benumbed parts, to the end that the feeling which he finds thereof, make him assume the strength, and courage to practise the remedies, the which we have already formerly done. It remains now, that thou lend a strong hand to the remedies, thereby to pull, and root up these virulent humours. Think not that these diseases are of the number, and quality of those who are enchanted, and which are cured with bare words,: The Physician, and sick patient, do neither advance, nor perform any good by discourse or words, if they add not effects thereto. If occasion require, we must use Irons, and fire to extirp this plant; there is such a distance from the Estate, wherein this contagion hath reduced us, to that point which we seek and desire, that the changing of one to the other cannot be performed with less violence. To approve any other way, is to attempt an impossibility; and herein to want courage, is to despair of the cure, and remedy of his disease. Nevertheless, we will attempt the most pleasing remedies, and make use of Irons, and fire but in the greatest extremities. I conceive and apprehend, that some one will say to me, thou wilt make me forsake my hold, and so abandon a good in effect, although it be some what sharp, and bitter, to follow this felicity which thou proposest, which it may be is a good in show, which in its self hath no other body but contempt, nor soul, but untruth and lies. Hath any one discovered it out of the Empire of Fortune, and what else is it but the fullness, and the loadstone of his favours (which attracts the eyes of all the World, as the white, and level of our desires, and the centre of our affections.) But that which we term felicity, without which there is nothing found but is false and imaginary. No, no, I will not snatch out of your hands, that which you affect, and cherish so dearly, nor bereave your eyes of these objects, whose lustre unites, and ties them to it. I will not cut off your pensions, nor revenues▪ and lest of all diminish your credit, and authority. But by the increase, and surplus of a 〈◊〉 good, I will add to that heap, this sovereign contentment, which is not of their nature and growth, if we will believe 〈◊〉 disturbance which we meet with in the 〈◊〉 of their affluence. This fair Goddess Virtue, whose 〈…〉 is beloved, and honoured of all the World, yea, of her proper Enemies, aught to lead, and conduct us by the hand in this passage, and to put us in possession of that felicity, whereof we affect and cherish but the shadows: It is she which bears the key of the Treasury, which having unshut and opened, we may all thrust in our hands, for it is inexhaustible. Our affections shall find the injoyance of their desires, and our insatiable thirst of love, shall find wherewithal to quench this violent fire, who in enjoying the goods of Fortune, did but the more inflame it. We shall have so much the more access and familiarity, as our Nature doth sweetly incline us. Do I say that she constrains us with some degree of violence; The desire which we feel in our heart, is it any other thing but a spark of felicity, which would join as to his element, and the place of his Origine? For where the defect is found united, and linked to power, there necessarily is form desire: But Man is known to want many things, chiefly Virtue, which is a perfect habitude. He than desires it; but this desire tends to something, which may be truly purchased and obtained, and where being arrived, he finds his tranquillity, or otherwise this his desire were in vain. So not finding it in the goods of Fortune, but in Virtue, it follows, that there is another felicity, besides that which is proposed us by Fortune. Imperfection supposeth the diminution of any perfect thing, because the nature of things hath not derived its power and vigour from a defective and imperfect Nature, but from a most complete and full one. It follows then that there is a point of Nobility, from whence they have degenerated, and especially in the act of our sovereign good, from whence through error and opinion, man hath been diverted as from his object, to follow a stranger; the which because he of himself cannot wholly appease our desire, sufficiently demonstates and testifies by this imperfect beatitude, that he is either the part, the shadow, or the Image of some accomplished thing, which is felicity: But the part presupposeth the whole, and the shadow or image must necessarily have relation to the body. Wherefore, of this imperfect happiness, we may draw a necessary consequence of the sovereign good, and indeed the wit of man, in whatsoever ecstasy he can be, retains in itself I know not what seed thereof. But as the reeling Drunkard, although he cannot find the way home, doth not for all lose his desire to return to his own house: So man being drunk with the delights and pleasures of the world, doth not yet omit to desire this felicity, which is proposed him by nature, although by their enchantments he no more knows what way to observe and follow. men's actions, although they are derived of the virtues, vices, troubles of the soul, and of other affections, do yet all tend to felicity, but all m●n are not so happy to obtain it. This felicity is either active or contemplative. This last ha●h some thing more noble, and yet more imperfect than the other: His design is more generous and noble, but his execution is more imperfect; yea, it is more noble in that it seems that by her, man is made like unto the Divine nature. In the active we shall find some thing, as strength and wisdom, wherein we have some common resemblance to beasts, more imperfect in his execution. First, she depends of the active, and according to the saying of Plato, hath need that all the troubles of the soul be appeased, and dissipated, because they very much disturb contemplation, and yet she cannot pass without the goods of the body and of fortune, which ought to be prepared to her by this; when she wants nothing whereof she ought to be furnished and assisted, to advance her with more ease and facility. To what degree can she ascend. Perfection cannot be bought or purchased in this world, because of the obstacles which befall us by the means of the body and the senses, who by throwing too dark and thick clouds between the true and false, hinder the soul that she cannot enjoy a perfect felicity in the contemplation of truth. chose, the active who employs not herself, but to correct those troubles which fall into the Soul, by animating some when they withdraw us from our duty, and in stopping others when they make us pass the bounds of reason, arrives at last to the end of his enterprise, and makes us enjoy in effect that good▪ which she proposeth herself. She may easily leave and omit contemplation, which is somewhat less necessary than the goods of the body. Sciences (or learning) have their vices and defects, as Pride, Vanity, and Presumption, which cannot be corrected but by the aid of this. Many have been happy without learning: and Socrates for the regard thereof, was not by the Oracle reputed the wisest man of the world, but for the conduction and ordering of his manners. Nevertheless, as one good added to another, makes it the greater, so the contemplative brings some profit & advantage to the active felicity, although nevertheless she seem rather to offend then serve her: For she bears with her a (I know not what) trouble to inquire and know; which sells us many light and trivial shows of contentments, in regard of continual sweat and labour; and in the end discovereth us the vanity of her pretences. For all Learning, which we can purchase, is not perfect, but by reason of his object, which is God, or the Essence of things wherein he is, if rather they be not in him, as in their Sovereign Head spring and fountain. But by those ways and means which we possess it, she cannot be but extremely weak and imperfect, being ore-vayled and obscured with an infinite number of shadows and clouds, because it is not things and their Essences which conjoin themselves to our soul, no more than bodies are seen in the Crystal of Looking-glasses; but only their forms and representations. So in steed of truth she receives nothing but the resemblances and shadows thereof; as we have formerly observed in the Tract of the senses: And nevertheless, she wheels and runs round about objects, and proffereth us her hands, to stop and arrest the shadows of our visions, in steed of the body, and the thing itself. So that we must not wonder if Learning cannot content or satisfy our desires, and therefore serves but to disturb us, because her forms and resemblances give us no essential nor solid thing, but only fill us with I know not what airy, empty, and superficial, which doth rather anger then appease us: Which absolutely contradicts our active felicity, which is nothing else but a perfect tranquillity of the mind, in the moderate use of goods which she enjoyeth. The vulgar and common sort of men, assign this felicity to be in pleasures and voluptuousness, imagining that the greatest part of those who are constituted in authority, live after that manner, believing that all evil is in grief and affliction: and they are not far wide of the truth herein, because all our actions still aim at delight and pleasure; which commonly accompanieth felicity as her shadow: But this approaching end is not the last, so that this imperfection sufficiently gives the lie to their belief and opinion. The errors of others grow according to the proportion of their greatness; for it seems that the more Man is elevated in fortune, that thereby he either augments his faults, or else makes them appear the greater. The Economical, or Domestical Man, proposeth himself nothing but wealth and riches: but it is a life too full of trouble and agitation; the Enemy of re●●, and tranquillity, and therefore of felicity. Those who are dignified above the people, hold that they are risen to that honour which the politic life seems to propose for her end; but there is small likelihood or reason, that our good consists more in others then in ourselves, whereby it were to permit that Fortune should take part, which delights in nothing more, then in crossing and afflicting us. It is not with felicity, as it is wit● fortune. Such have honours which they merit and deserve not; but none can buy this felicity, but with the price of merit. Princes think of nothing so much, as how to extend the bounds of their Empires, to the confines of the world; and to see their selues only absolute in this Sovereign power. Alexander nevertheless agrees not hereunto, as whether his design was yet more generous; or that he hath acknowledged his abuse and vanity in this point: But the one and the other deceive themselves in their opinions, and take a part for the whole. One Swallow or fair day, makes not a Summer: So the assistance of one of these contentments being separated, and untied from the huge number thereof, they are not sufficient to make a man be justly termed happy, no more than a man for having performed one act of Virtue, aught to be termed virtuous; because it is an exercise which consists of many actions, and which so often repeated, composeth a custom or habit. A Captain cannot be styled victorious, who having defeated a squadron of the contrary side, in the end sees his Army overthrown by the rest of his Enemies. So repute not him happy, who surmounts and vanquisheth his Choler, and other ways leaves the better part of his mind and affections in prey, to Covetousness, Ambition, or some other vice, which captivates and torments him. SECTION II. It is without reason that we complain of Fortune, because hourly she teacheth us, her mutable and variable humour. AS there is but Fortune and Virtue, who share and divide our passions, it is they also who communicate us, all that we term goods or riches, yea our felicity itself: Let us judge of that who hath given us the better part; and let us equally weigh and balance the favours which we receive. It seems to me, that Fortune advanceth, and comes forth first to meet us; Decked, and embellished in her richest attire, and Ornaments to heat and inflame our affections, and to make us feel the obligations, wherewith she enchains and captivates our wills. It is true, I cannot consent or adhaere with those, who do not sufficiently feel and acknowledge it, and testify by iniurying her the vice of their own understanding. I too much esteem, and prife equity not to confess ingeniously, as well the good as the evil, which we find in our Enemy. Nothing engageth me but justice; nothing enforceth me but reason. But what reason is there, that thou who hast opened her, all thy doors, and who hast issued forth to meet, and salute Fortune, to receive her into thy house, that thou wilt quarrel with her when she is there▪ or because she gives thee that too late, which pleaseth thy ambition, or that she too sparingly bestows her favours and treasures on thee, to satisfy the taste and palate of thy distempered and irregular appetites: Or because she is weary to reside and dwell so long under one roof, she retires other where's. That which she hath lent thee, she hath departed with out of her pure liberality; and therefore what reason is there, that thou contest and quarrel with her, because she withdraws it. It may be thou hast not understood the clauses and conditions of her bargain: For, for a time she gives us, the use and profit of her goods; but she never dispossesseth herself of their propriety. And in retiring hath she carried away any thing that was not her own: What shall become of thy obligation and debt to her for her presents? Shall their absence have the credit wholly to wipe off and deface it. If any one had reached thee out his hand to withdraw thee out of a mire, were it reasonable that thou shouldst quarrel with him, because he would not carry thee home to his house on his shoulders? Liberality hath his limits in his intents, and not in the will of others, who never say, it is enough. Otherwise, what Monarch by his gifts could content and satiate the will of the meanest Shepherd, which increasing by the enjoyance of those things which his desire proposeth him, raiseth himself by little and little to so excessive a degree of pride and arrogancy, that the possession of the whole world, and of all which it contains▪ will yet be found to be inferior to his ambitions. He who lends or gives, doth still oblige when he performs more than he owes. When one lends thee any thing, hath he no more right to ask and demand it of thee? Whereof dost thou then complain? Doth it not remain that thou shouldst thank him for the time which thou has enjoyed it? If she take leave of thee, go and conduct her home to her door. It is true▪ she is so good and pleasing a companion that we cannot suffer her separation without grief; but there is no reason that we should enforce her against her will and nature, to remain so long time in one place, because she delights in nothing more than in mutability and change. The law of civility permits us not to quarrel with him who comes to oblige us by visiting us, if his visit seem too short to us. Where then is the wrong which Fortune hath done thee; what is the grief whereof thou complainest? Dost thou not know her Artifice, who to make her favours more pleasing and desirable, withdraws them for a time. Her absence makes our love more violent, and thereby makes it do homage, which her presence could never draw from our tongue: the estimation which we make of things being of this nature, that it never ties itself, but to those things which we have not; and contempt chose to that which we possess and enjoy. But the same inconstancy which dislodged her, will it may be cause her return. There is nothing constant in her, but only her inconstancy, nor so durable as her mutability. Polycrates knowing very well her humour, to content her vicissitude and changeableness, without giving her the pain to come home to him, believed that he had sufficiently satisfied her due and interest, in throwing into the Sea a jewel of an inestimable value. But to show that she will not that any one shall act and play her part; but that she will take and choose at her pleasure, she caused this jewel again to return to him, found in the belly of a fish, which was served in to him on his Table. Nothing displeaseth her but our resolution, nothing contents her but our weakness and pusillanimity. To contemn that which she gives us, is the means to enjoy it long, because she difficultly resolves to withdraw the good which she hath done us; if at least she have not formerly endomaged our virtue, or corrupted us by her familiarity: In the mean time I perceive not that her weapons fight against herself; and that the only way to excuse her herein, is to accuse her for the ruin of our repose and tranquillity, because her inconstant Nature cannot look or bend to the surest side, and that fear and hope wherewith she perpetually ballanceth the course and actions of our life, promiseth us nothing less than perfect felicity. SECTION. III. Wealth and Riches are too poor to give us the felicity which we seek and desire. But there is no reason so soon to stop her mouth and condemn her; Let us a little see and observe the great preparatives, which with so much noise she draws after her. The Master doth not always carry the purse. It may be that this Felicity may consist and meet in the one or the other of her goods and benefits of Fortune, that follow her as her chiefest Officers. Let us cursorily consider, he who defuseth so much pomp and lustre, that it seems the eyes and hearts of all the World should follow this splendent brightness. It is that which we term Wealth, or Riches. What is your design, promise nothing which you cannot perform, if it be not that you are constrained thereunto by the command of your Mistress; Obedience is blind, and it is only that which excuseth you. Do you believe that in curing our Poverty, you cure us of the rest of our diseases? Do you think because of your abundance, that you want nothing to add to your content? You do nothing less for all that; you only a little rub your itch, but presently after it afflicts you far the more; for then the heat or fire takes it; and the more you continue it, the more it increaseth. But what good do you Riches bring us; If we cast up our accounts together, I believe you remain our debtor; What is there in you which is worthy to be esteemed by your price and value, but only your exterior lustre and show; and if there be but only that, what is there which we find not far more admirable, in Stars and Flowers, and which is not common to a thousand other natural Bodies: You must then confess, that you are in our debt, by virtue whereof, you must covenant and condition with us, to satisfy our desires, and so to exempt us of Poverty. And yet notwithstanding you neither perform the one, or the other. Is it in your power to quench our thirst when we are extremely pressed and afflicted therewith; You make us believe that we yet want something, and yet the possession thereof doth but increase its violence. If there be any thing in you that be capable to enrich us, it must be your presence; and yet notwithstanding you bring us more profit upon the Exchange then in your Coffers. It is not therefore your presence which is to be desired, sith your absence enricheth us far more: By this we see, that poverty is found richer than abundance. Whereof then are we healed and cured? But you will say, that your want doth impoverish us! O poor Riches, sith you still carry with and about you some degree of beggary. He who wants many things, is he not justly held and reputed poor: But when you are arrived any where, how many servants and guards do you want to secure you from your Enviers. How exceedingly you want the aid and assistance of judges, to punish those who offend and wrong you. And if he who receives and enjoys you, have need of all these things, and which is more, hath need of himself, because he is no more himself, (the last and most extreme point of beggary) is not he then more to be contemned, or rather pitied, than he whom you term poor, who weighs not his goods by the Goldsmith's Balance, but by the yard of necessity: and who wants not all these things! O Riches, for what then serve you: but only to enrich us in wanting far more things than we enjoy. Why then do you constrain us to carry on our backs your gold and silver, which oppresseth and afflicts us far more in your company, than it did when you were alone, or absent. A double burden is not the way to ease a Porter! O Riches, where then is this good which hath deceived our hopes? It is not for you to purchase it; it hath cost us too many cares and labours: It is not for you to conserve it; it hath too many fears and apprehensions. Is it in your loss, I doubt so, if we will believe the Wise man, who rejoiced to study Philosophy more at his ease, after the Shipwreck and loss of all his goods. Avaunt than Riches, for you are professed Enemies of repose and tranquillity, and therefore of felicity. SECTION. IV. Glory and Reputation hath nothing which is solid but Vanity, we must therefore elsewhere seek our Sovereign contentment. THere is more likelihood and semblance, that this Lady clad so slightly and slenderly, who promiseth to carry our name on her wings to all parts and corners of the world, termed Glory, Honour, or Reputation, doth carry in her bosom this precious pearl which we seek, I mean felicity. It is impossible having travailed, and ran over so many Countries, but that she hath met it either in the East Indies, or some other transmarine part. And indeed, if we will believe those who have made profession of Learning and Philosophy, we shall find that they were partly of that opinion, which they sufficiently testified, by the desire and immortality of their writings, and that our felicity depended of the favours of this Goddess, who hath power, besides the fruit which we receive thereby in our life, to prolong the enjoyance thereof after our death. She opens Graves and Tombs: She forceth Times and Ages; She snatcheth out of the bowels of Death, and the hands of Oblivion, the life and name of him, who by the merit of his love, and the assiduity of his services, hath won her heart and affection: But fair Goddess, I am much deceived, if you are not extremely debased and fallen from your pristine beauty, and from what you have been. I know not, if it be not the love of some Narcissus, which hath so much blemished, and withered you, and reduced you to the Estate wherein you now are. What hope remains there for us, to cherish and comfort our love, by the sweet pressure of your embracings? What is become of this former health and beauty, of this delicate skin, this ravishing countenance, and vermilion cheeks? What do you retain nothing thereof, but only your voice, no more then miserable Echo doth: A voice so weak and imperfect, that she can pronounce nothing but our name. What say I? If as to an Echo we make her speak what we please, and pronounce with one tone, yea and no. This trivial Lady hath been taught to praise Vice as Virtue, and to use the same Language for the one as for the other. He who flatters a Tyrant, hath no other terms to praise a good Prince, and those who know them not but by this relation: what shall he do to hazard nothing of the esteem, which his judgement gives him. Among men's inventions, I approve the Artifice which they have had, to forge this feigned Divinity, to stir up, and incite men's hearts by the alluring sight thereof, to surmount all difficult things, thereby to make his way and passage to virtue. But we ought not to expose and abandon it to all men, nor permit that it should be so cheap and common among us as it is. We ought not with the same pencil to paint white and black, nor with one and the same cloak to cover Vice and Virtue. Those who built the Temple of Virtue and Honour together, so that none could enter into this, before they had first past that, did yet retain some form and image of this first Institution. But what law so ever we can make, it degenerates in the end through the use thereof, either into abuse, or tyranny, which seems to proceed not so much by the fault of man, as of the nature of the thing it self, which being engaged in the course, and Vicissitude of mortal things, runs to the end, and cannot long subsist or remain in one constant and immutable being. And indeed, in her first years and time, this Lady Glory followed nothing but Virtue and Merit, but some stupid man (desirous to content the eyes of his body, as well as those of his mind) would give her some solid thing, whereunto she might fasten and fix herself, as to him who is the best timbered, the strongest, and the most courageous, the dignity to march first in Wars, and to command and conduct others: As the Infidels do at this day (a thing which savours not of Barbarism) to him which excels in Wit, judgement, and justice, the Office to appease differences, which arise among the people, as Moses likewise did. These Offices give the first rank and pre-eminence to those who were established, and by degrees erected in dignities. Nevertheless, those who were formerly provided, were not yet so much honoured for the charge and office which they possessed; but only by merit, which made them worthy and capable above all other. But aftertimes have not proceeded by election, but have believeth that the virtue of predecessors, aught to be infused with the seed, in the person of successors. The which being since maintained, than Virtue began to withdraw, and retire herself apart, and hath not since been found united to these dignities; but that by hazard and accident some persons of merit have been found of that number. In the mean time, Honour which was inseparably united to those dignities, for Virtue's sake (which was the soul thereof) hath not ceased to follow this body, although she have been divided and separated; also the glory, and the estimation, and opinion of people, is far more capable to unite itself to I know not what gross object, thing, or person, then to any thing which is more refined and sublime. He cannot perceive, yea nor conceive Virtue otherwise then painted, blown up, and swelled by Artifice. Those who slide into Offices and Dignities, by their natural honesty and simplicity, do easily escape from so gross a sight, which hath need of a greater and stronger body, although they can take no holdfast thereof. We are in a time, where the good opinion and estimation of People is injurious; why then shall we so much esteem it? He who hath a hundred thousand crowns to bestow on an Office or Dignity, he hath very much shortened the way, which another must make by his virtuous actions, to make himself so well esteemed and accepted: It matters not much whether he enter in by some false door, or that it comes not to him by fair play: Howsoever he hath performed more in an hour, than all the virtue of this other can do during his whole life. Yea, to speak properly, he hath herein resembled the Trojan Horse, who effected that in one night, which a great Army could not do in ten years. If all the Virtue and Wisdom of the World were assembled in the other, it cannot exempt, or privilege him from being pushed and abused in the streets, by ever Porter or Cobbler, in the throng and crowd of those who retire to give way & place to this great new Merchant: And if Honour and Praise be so impertinently and undeservedly given, what shall he profit who will buy it at the price of his own virtue and integrity. Glory should be followed, not desired; it is not purchased but by the greatness and goodness of our courage, which measureth all things by conscience. We must do for Virtue, that which we do for Glory; But me thinks there is yet more honour not to be, then to be praised for a thing which deserves it not. But the vulgar people, who is the distributer of this praise, and who keeps the record and register thereof, marks down the payments and receipts: If he offer it to thee, canst thou safely receive this present from so corrupted a hand? If he deny it thee; for what dost thou complain? If none could worthily praise the Athenians but before the Athenians themselves; shouldst thou care for any other praise then for that of Wise men? Or if because thou art a good Musician, that some should praise thee for a good Pilot, or for an excellent Physician, canst thou endure this false praise without true shame? The Estimation of the vulgar measures all things according to the outward show and lustre, and judgeth not of a man's sufficiency, but by the number & livery of his footmen. That Philosopher who discoursing publicly in the Streets, was interrupted by the applause of the people; he presently turned to one of his friends, to know if there had any thing impertinently escaped his tongue which had thus given the people occasion to praise him, as if he were not capable to esteem any thing, but that which is worthy of contempt. And yet when these defects do not meet and happen, can a man receive honour, but from at least his equal; to wit, or on the like terms and condition. If there were not the like interest, he should but slight him, and say, It's a man that spoke it: There are reproaches enough in this very word to blemish the lustre of his best actions; they issue from sense as from virtue out of their original Spring, the which we must reobtain, thereby to make a worthy judgement thereof. None can observe or remark the difference: The approbation of a virtuous man, is better than that of a multitude: but the only approbation of a good conscience, is yet far more to be prized and esteemed. He is happy who lives peaceable and quiet, and who without design contemplates the course of worldly actions and accidents: As the Shepherd, who during the heat of the day, reposing himself at the foot of a tree, looks sloathfully and carelessly upon the stream of a small river, thereby to employ and recreate his thoughts, until the setting of the Sun, which then drives him and his little Flock home to his Master's house. SECTION V. Honours and Dignities, expose to the world, all their splendour and glory: But chose, Felicity locks up all her best things in herself, and hath no greater enemy than show and ostentation. Nevertheless, if we yet give any thing to the obstinacy of Fortune, she will enforce us to proceed, and to seek in dignities the felicity which she hath promised us, although by the precedent reasons, we have partly engaged their interest in the Combat of glory and honour; and that by the same weapons we may as easily vanquish as assail them. Their show, their lustre and pomp, seems to be small rays of the Divinity, dispersed here and there among us: but they do as the rays of the Sun, who if they meet any shining or polished body, as at the meeting of a lookingglass, then by their repercussion & reflection they represent the image: So if Honours and Dignities befall virtuous men, we see there shines in them I know not what image of the Divinity, which strikes our eyes with admiration and astonishment, and our hearts with respect and fear. But Dignities and Honours, be not proud, nor vaunt you of this lustre, for it is of Virtue that you borrow it. Is there any thing more easy to corrupt than you, by the contagion of that which you receive in your bosom? What serve you for else, but as Torches to discover and bring to light our defects & imperfections, at least if therewith you could burn our vices, in steed of enlightening them. But they live in this flame as the Salamander, and from this fire attract a powerful nutriment: Is there any thing more dangerous, then to commit power and authority to offend us, into the hands of our Enemy. But those who are vicious and wicked, are enemies of all men: or at least of all good men, because the virtues of the one have still some thing to contest with the vices of the other; and for this effect doth estrange them as much as they may, from public Offices and Dignities, for fear that virtue, as the true Diamond, do not by her conference demonstrate the vice of the false one. If it be not, that Virtue which is commonly in mild and humble courages, be found in the person of him who hath not the assurance, to assail or assault him. Not that it be therefore the the less; but as a good sword, cuts not so well in the hands of a man of small courage, as it doth in those of a brave and resolute Captain: so Virtue in a weak & feeble soul, (who fears the assault and brunt) produceth not so many acts and effects of generosity, as that which is vigorous, who opposeth all that contradict him, and so overthrows and dissipateth the forces of his enemy: So that Dignities deserve not to be termed good things, because they confer us not this quality and condition. The white or black colour imprints their own in the wall, and the Candour of these dignities doth the more obscure and blemish the Soul of the vicious. They resemble those fair and rich vestments, which adorn and clothe a foul woman, which only serve to make her deformities the more manifest and apparent: They are still followed with some respect and observance, where they are authorized, but not of honour. This takes his Spring and Original, from a pure and free disposition; as led thereto by the estimation we make of a virtuous man: but that of constraint, chiefly then when obedience is due with subjection. Add hereunto, that it is a money which is not current, but in our own Country. I say not, that those Scarlet Robes, instead of curing our interior diseases, do make them worse. Ambition, Envy, Revenge, Love, Fear, and Passions do traverse and thwart them; and without respect or dignity, tear their own breasts in a thousand pieces. SECTION VI Among all the fair flowers which an extreme favour produceth, we have not yet seen this Felicity to bud forth and flourish. WHat likelihood, what shadow of Felicity; Fortune, the more thou advancest, the more thou dost enchain and fetter thyself: Retire thou upon thy loss, rather than to lose all; but thou dost yet expect some things in the persons of Prince's Favourites. It is true, the name of Favourite makes us believe, that thou hast honoured it with some singular present, which cannot be found in any other: But whatsoever it may be, I do not hold that it is felicity. Tell me, can thy Favourite defend himself, from all the blows and assaults of Envy. (Fort.) Why not? Is there any stronger Rampire, than the favour of a Royal Majesty. At least, he cannot defend himself from suspicions, fears, distrusts, because there is no Scottish Guard, how faithful or vigilant so ever they can be, which can defend him from the blows of his Enemies. The same qualities which are in him, and which have gained and obtained the favour of the Prince, can they not meet and concur in another, yea in a far greater number: (Fort.) It's true: But this Favourite will be careful to prevent, that he approach not the presence of the Prince. For sith the way is so straight to him, that there is no place but for one; he which possesseth it, will easily hinder others for having access. But Fortune thou knowest, that there is nothing sought after with so much passion. He must night and day stand upon his guard. The favour he hath gained of his Prince, gives him the jealousy of great men, the envy of his equals, and the hatred of the common people. If he be far absent from his Prince, his place will be gotten: If he sleep, he will be surprised: He must watch the erterprises of one, and the other to oppose them. Thou wilt say, that he may fortunately compass his desires, because humane reason is capable of so many different & contrary forms, that the justest erterprises and actions may be interpreted as evil. O Fortune, thy Favourite must have a wonderful care to conserve himself! What rest is there in this life, sith at every accident he must be armed to defend the blows of Envy, and to prevent that the very report of ill speeches and calumny (which pardoneth not that which is not) come not to his Princes hearing, because it may engender and stir up some diffidence in him, which distilling and sliding into his affections, may shortly after make them become tart and sour: But if the wisest, and happiest in this Art, have been constrained to forsake it, what then is there more to be hoped for? Should not their fall infinitely astonish those who follow their steps and traces? How many times hath the image, and remembrance of such a spectacle, yet freshly bleeding, leapt into their dreams, and troubled their rest by night. Can there be found any one who hath better understood it then Scianus: In whose favour resided the whole power of the Roman Empire: and for what hath his Greatness served for, but only to make his fall the more fearful and greater. The true fear of such an event, was it not the fury of the Poet, and which burned and consumed his bowels with his black and fatal Torch, and hindered him from tasting any pure content, in the enjoying of this his favour. It was gall and wormwood intermixed in his eating and drinking, which his Cook could not take off, nor banish from the delicacy of his Viands. There are not many found of the like flight, and fortune, who have not signed and confirmed this passage with their blood. King's can do nothing worthy of themselves, which is not as great as themselves: But as their favour proceeding from a Royal power, cannot admit of mediocrity: so their disgrace issuing from one and the same cause, can be no less, and is difficultly quenched but in their blood. They are armed men, who mount and fight at a breach, who have nothing to conserve their life, but their armour and weapons, and yet fear nothing more; for if they are thrown down, they are killed with the weight thereof. Favour resists against all things, but against itself. It is a fire which defuseth a shining brightness, he which moderately approacheth it, feels with much content and pleasure, the sweet heat of this flame: But it is a heavenly fire which is extinguished in a moment, and burns the mortal that will embrace it. True it is, that Fortune marks them with some degrees, and lends them her hand to bring them more sure to the point of this favour: But be it that her inconstancy is accessary to their loss; or that with a premeditated design, she particularly prepares their ruin: She abandons them as soon as they are elevated on this stage, and breaks and tears down the steps thereof, to make them despair to be able to descend by any other, but by that of a precipice, or of an inevitable shipwreck. And yet in this point and event, there must be some more powerful Genius then that of Fortune; because he who could triumph o'er Fortune, could not triumph o'er favour. For was there ever near great Princes, (and in the heart of abundance) any Favourite more moderate than wise Seneca; He, who never beheld the favour of his Prince, with an ambitious eye, who induced and led, by the very contempt of riches, sought poverty, in the bottom of fourscore thousand pounds (English) of yearly revenues which he possessed. He who neither thought nor dreamt any thing else, then of his retiring to a private life, was nevertheless beaten down, under the ruins of his favour. He who had taught Nero, how he ought to reign with justice, and unto what point he should mount and establish the royal power: But notwithstanding all this, the obligation of this cruel Tyrant, and the virtue of this brave Philosopher, could not long subsist and dwell together: So dangerous it is to approach this Colossus, whose anger being kindled and exasperated, without making distinction of Innocents', falls on the heads of those who environ him. It is a clap of Thunder, whose bolt devanceth the lightning, and whose blow precedes the threatening: Who then can hold himself firmer than the●e Favourites, in a place so steep and slippery, which bears far more thorns than Roses, and is only fertile in afflictions; and infertile in repose and tranquillity, and therefore in felicity. SECTION VII. Kings and Sovereign Princes, owe us their continual care and motion as the Stars do, and therefore they have no greater enemy than repose and tranquillity. IT will be then in this last point of Royal power, where this felicity may be found; because being the highest and sublimest, it must necessarily follow, that herein she takes up her residence and lodging. Indeed she cannot ascend higher; and we must affirm, that the contentment which may be observed in her Favourites, is found far more powerful in the person of the Sovereign, being exempted▪ and far distant from all likelihood of fear: He who is the lively Image of God on Earth; why should he not be so of felicity? It is ●●en Sovereignty which possesseth this Sovereign contentment. But how many shall we find in Histories, who either by foreign or intestine Wars, have been violently pulled away from this high Throne, as if Fortune had not advanced and elevated them, but to make their fall the greater. O Power, how thou art weak and impuissant, in not being able to conserve thyself, and to have no stronger hinges and axle for thy authority, than the hearts & affections of those whom Lot and Destiny have cast into 〈◊〉 hands and government. But some one will tell me, that that hinders not that Empire be not the true point of felicity, for in any other place where she may be assigned, that prevents not that we may lose her: Or if that be so as thou wilt, it is then the power that he hath to command over many Nations, which makes him happy: therefore weakness or impotency should diminish his defective authority herein; and as his happiness consists to command, so his misfortune should be not to command. But how far greater a number of Nations are there found without, then within the compass of his Empire, th● which he commands not. It remaineth then, that his weakness far exceeds his power; and therefore his unfortunacie surpasseth his happiness, as much as the rest of the world exceeds the extent of his domination: so the good which this Felicity preposed unto us, remains suppressed, and choked by its contrary. True it is, that from the low stages where we are, the sight of man cannot look higher than their Thrones: but he who is there seated and enthronized, seeth very much farther off. His neighbours to his Dominions, are his companions. He is not alone as we thought he had been: His ambition caries his eyes through every place of Sea and land; and if I dare say it, she again transports his desires much farther. But is he powerful, who would perform that which he cannot: what then shall be this power and image of Sovereignty, but the figure of an imperfect Divinity; and again, of a more imperfect felicity. It is not then there, that she can be met and found, for (as well) she cannot be enjoyed, but by one. In that which Nature hath not judged reasonable, she useth us more justly. Fortune, what resteth there now to you to make us see▪ that the sudden change of the goods, and contentments of those, who abused by the shadow of a vain felicity, buy it by the engaging of their liberty, the ruin of their goods, and the loss of themselves. If your head-band hinder you to see the misfortunes, whereof you are the cause, at least let it not hinder you from hearing, and understanding the complaints: If it be not that as deaf as blind, the pity of our griefs and afflictions be equally forbidden, and prohibited from your breasts; sith it cannot enter but by the one or the other of those passages, which are locked and shut to him. SECTION. VIII. As the light is inseparable from the Sun, so felicity is an inseparable accident of virtue. LEt us then seek our felicity else where, because she is not to be found in those things which environ us: It is not that they enforce not themselves to contribute all which possible they ca●; but we divest them of their best things, to clothe them with our own vice and corruption, thinking hereby to adorn them more richly. Poor abused Creatures, we think to enrich them more, than he who hath crea●ed them, and given them as much beauty and perfection, as they were capable to receive. As a greater Master than he, we will seek to deface their natural beauty, by the strange lustre of our own false colours. The first man had the right & privilege to impose names to things, but not their just price and value. The Essence hath no community with the Accident: Let us not foolishly vaunt to be able to enrich his works; for their lineaments are so delicate, that they are inimitable, and our hand so dull and heavy, that there is no thing more ridiculous, than our actions and enterprises. If any Apprentice Boy, beholding and considering Apelles his rich picture of Venus, should blame the defects thereof, and undertake to correct and mend it; had we not then reason to mock at the folly of this poor Ignorant: But if he would yet proceed further, to change the face, and alter the beauty thereof, to paint his own faults and imperfections, of what reprehension and crime should he not make himself guilty. Man being an Apprentice●▪ in the knowledge of the rich pictures and ●●bles of Nature, having received of God t●e pencil, (which was not given him, but to paint out his name and praises in all places of the world, as we do in Images the name of the Sculpture: But O insupportable Arrogancy, Man instead of Writing, God hath made this: he hath most impudently attributed himself the glory, and engraven in great Characters, Man hath made this▪ At least paint it no● but upon the frontispiece of thine own works, which are, Vice, Sin, and Corruption: But contrariwise, he hath proceeded farther, and made himself more guilty, by employing himself to deface and destroy the rich pictures, and liveliest colours which were in every work, to paint down the Chymereous dreams & lies of his own vanities, thinking hereby to perform some complete thing. Fear no more now to glorify thy works, and to say with a loud voice, Man hath done this: for indeed it sufficiently appears of itself. The abuse of those who were buried in the darkness of Paganism, following no other light, but that of their own weak reason was ascended so high as to believe; That nothing was capable to appease the wrath and anger of God, and to wash off their impurities, but only the blood and sacrifice of innocent souls: They believed that the Gods delighted to 〈◊〉 their own works destroyed, and when they were satiated and distasted with Nectar and Ambrosia, that they found nothing so sweet, as the blood of those victim an● Oblations: and with this their bloody pencil they defaced the Art and Masterpiece, the most curious and liveliest which was in this picture, I would say, the life which we cannot receive, but from this Sacred and Sovereign hand, as if we obliged the Architector, who showing us the rarities of his building; we thought to do him honour, by destroying the fairest pieces thereof, and those which he loved & esteemed most. A strange stupidity and blindness: Our abuse is not so gross, we do not destroy it, but instead of valuing and prising it, by their lively beauty, and particular lineaments which resplend and shine in every thing, we cannot estimate them, but according to the reason of our own defects and imperfections; or else for those things which are not in them. As he who hath his eyes troubled and perplexed, beholding the painted face of any picture or Statue, will accuse it to be pale or white, or if another liked it to praise the excellency of his work, because he was very wise, and temperate, and could not be perplexed or troubled, or what offence or injury soever was done to him, he was never angry thereat. Hath he not then reason to be contented and satisfied of this praise. Man's estimation and opinion, commonly bears the one or the other of these defects with it. To esteem a Diamond more for his price then for his beauty; is it not more to prise the Art of man, than the excellency of his Maker? To praise or cherish virtue, more for renown and glory, then for the satisfaction of a good conscience, is it not an effect of this corruption? To esteem a man more for his wealth and dignities, then for his merits and reason, which is the only jewel which enricheth the beauty of his picture, above all other works of Nature, is it not a blind and rash judgement? So we shall find that the estimation whereof we have spoken, proceeding from an imperfect man, cannot give us a perfect contentment. But his Art being as weak, as his invention is malicious, cannot hinder the eyes of the clearer sighted; to pierce and penetrate those shadows, although they are smoky, and obscured round about the objects by reason of their old age, and to discover the liveliest colours thereof. It is but a little dust which the wind, or rather folly hath thrown thereon, which hides the dellcates: lineaments of their faces, the which we may wipe off with our handkerchief, I mean with the use of perfect Reason. Let us permit that virtue chalk us out the way, tha● she may now take her turn to entertain us, and that she unfold and show the treasures which ●he will give us, with so liberal and bountiful a hand that to possess them, is only but to desire them. We must not issue forth of ourselves to embrace this felicity: If it be not hot and inflamed in our breast, let us not imagine that any other heat can give it life and motion: for what other thing is this, but the accomplishing and sufficiency of all other goods and goodness. But it is in our power by the cutting off of these desires to purchase this sufficiency: Who then shall we accuse of this defect but ourselves? Who being friends to all the world, remain only enemies to our own selves, because to our own good and tranquillity. The knowledge of Fortune, and of her gifts and presents, makes us contemn them; and this contempt makes that the favour and estimation which we have of them, redounds & falls on those good things that this virtue produceth, which carrying this contempt with one hand, bears his own contentment with the other; and therefore this sufficiency which we term felicity. He who runs and barks after the goods of Fortune, the greatest profit and advantage which he can hope thereof, is repose and tranquillity in enjoying them; & he who enjoyeth this tranquillity, it is a vanity for him to seek it; and this is the effect of our virtue, which yields our desires to our power, and gives and ordains then this felicity, that then is not wanting to our felicity, sith all our defects and wants proceed from an irregular desire, and which is no longer, when once it submits itself to the obedience of virtue. The goods of Fortune are by their Nature such, as they cannot fill the vessels of our desires; but that there will still remain the greatest part thereof empty and hungry; because it seems that we always see something beyond it, which we more desire, then that which she hath already given us to enjoy. But Virtue, because by constraint she still reserves her sights in herself, she sees nothing beyond it, and contemplates all this great extent, sufficiently filled with her own proper goods, without that there remain in her any empty or defectuous place. Our Soul must be contained, to be contented; that which it enjoyeth, she easily lets go to embrace another. She doth as the first matter of Philosophers, who being extremely in love with all particular forms seeks them, and having found them, destroyeth them, until she meets with some universal form. Our soul (this first matter of our desires) is hungry of all the goods of Fortune, which she meets as particular forms; she takes much pain to enjoy any good thing; but as soon as she doth enjoy it, she presently ruins the contentment which she had in hoping for it, to run to the seeking and embracing of another; which nevertheless she useth with no more favour, because they cannot satisfy his universal appetite, until she meet with Virtue. This universal form which in degrees of excellency and perfection, comprehends all other good things, as inferior forms do presently fill all the hungry and famished vessels; and all the universality of the power of his inclination and desire. So Virtue prepareth us a perfect abundance of all things, and establisheth no felicity out of herself: And by the Sceptre of reason, which she puts into our hands, she frees us from the tyranny of our appetites, and in this new Region and Empire, where she establisheth us, she makes us easily to vanquish the revolt and rebellion of our senses; and there is the point of felicity which Nature hath established, which provokes and courts our desire, and which man would in the end embrace, if he were not diverted by the persuasions and blandices of Fortune. It is the Butt the which he cannot miss, if he aim and level right. But as to arrive to a certain place, we turn our back to it without knowing it, or else take a contrary way: so it is not the fault, neither of him who hath caused it to be buil●▪ nor yet of our design. So if any one of us fail to meet with this felicity, let him not say, that it is because there is none in the world. Let him neither accuse Nature, no● likewise his desire; but only the contempt which he makes of the rules and instructions▪ which are given him for this regard. We are gone astray; we must be replaced in the right way; we must carefully inquire after it, avoid the advice and the way of those who are formerly gone astray like ourselves. If it be not that Virtue toucheth them with the same sense and feeling. Thorns will stand in ou● way; we shall have hedges to leap and pass over: yea, we must put our hands to the work and labour, and although they are all bloody with their prickings, yet either too much fear or too little courage, must not hinder us from passing forwards; for else we must not wonder if our desire (although it advance) find no rest and tranquillity. Two right and equal line; drawn among infinite others upon the same table, or paper, never meet. Our desire, and our felicity meet yet less, although they are both on the same table: if not, that the same plant which produceth desire, as his follower, is not obliged by the same law, to give us felicity as his fruit: we must then boldly search the graft of the one and the other, and water it with the sweatings of a painful labour, thereby to reap repose and felicity. It is there where Socrates hath exhausted this sufficiency of all things, I mean this tranquillity of life. It is there where Cato hath found this invincible courage. It is there where Seneca hath made poverty to issue from the bottom of his treasures, to enjoy a permanent felicity. It appertains to none but to Reason, to point and remark unto us all the rarities, as it hath made us know the abuse and error wherein they are enwrapped and enveloped; and to hide them from the eyes of our understanding. This abuse will testify how it is dangerous to want the principles of things; because after the same rate as we advance, our error doth unmeasurably grow great and increase. We must ascend to the head fountain, to judge more truly and safely what it is. The which we cannot do, but in taking the thread of wise Ariadne, I mean of Reason: who after the combat, reserves the Laurels of Victory for us in her hands. If thou wilt essay to pass the bars which separates this small number of wise men, from the profane multitude of the vulgar; do a little elevate the eyes of thy thoughts, and consider here as from a high Land, wherein dwells Virtue, all that she will show and point thee with her finger in this plain and raze field, as the Sceptres and Crowns, broken by the Thunderbolts of War, which cannot cover the ambition of their Masters. Behold this River of gold, which cannot quench the insatiable thirst of these poor Tantales; they will rather drown themselves, then appease this burning fire▪ which they nourish in their entrailes and liver. Consider a little all this great multitude of people upon the banks of this River, and what seems to thee of those which retain the first place. To see them so far off, wilt thou not say, that (by the way of a fair comparison) they resemble Aesop's Frogs: Is there any thing in all that which will not give thee more pity than envy. Thou wilt tell me it is true: but more narrowly to consider their looks, gestures, and countenances, there is nothing so glorious and majestical. Poor abused Creature, dost thou not know, that by seeing a thing too near thee, it appears greater to us than it is, and indeed otherwise than it is. There must be a certain distance and proportion between the eye and the object, to make its operation complete and sound, such as from the place where thou ar●, there is in comparison of earthly things. Hast thou never heard spoken of those Mountebanks, who undertake to show a Fly drawing a little beam, or some great piece of wood: and there is none present, but wonders at it, as at a prodigy. And yet that only proceeds from the fascination of the eyes, which is abused and deceived, and thinks to see a biller, for a straw: So opinion makes use of the same Artifice, and whiles the eye of reason is deceived and betrayed, he cannot not discover the abuse. Now consider then with a sound and perfect sight, all those things as they are, to the end, that if thou fall once again into the relapse of this same error, that the remembrance of that which thou now ●eest, may diminish the opinion and estimation of that which thou mayest make hereafter, which will be no small profit and advantage ●or thee. The less thou esteemest them, the less passionate thou shalt be for them. For the worth and merit which we believe is in a thing, is that which engendereth our desire and love. What dost thou think hereof now at present? Dost thou not feel a tranquillity in thyself, through 〈◊〉 contempt, and disdain of those thin●s▪ And although thou art voluntarily display led of all thy delights as thy vain glory, ambition, and foolish love of riches, yet thou shalt nevertheless feel a perfect co●●nt●●ment. Thou must then confess that 〈…〉 true, sith the possession of all these things▪ hath not given thee this perfect content 〈…〉 tranquillity, that thou must accuse 〈◊〉 weakness, and that it proceeds 〈◊〉 some other thing which is in us, which is called reason, and which must be dressed and pruned by a long exercise and custom, which we term Virtue, which watering this plant, makes it to produce desire and felicity. As our good issueth from interior man, so also doth our evil: For that which afflicts thee, is the design to possess those things which thou hast not. But those things are within thee, sith they touch thee not, and they do thee no good nor harm. Thou complainest nevertheless to feel so sharp and burning a grief, that it troubleth thy rest by night, and almost dries thee up with languishing. But herein there is but two things to consider; to wit, desire, and the thing desired: and because this last is neither criminal, nor guilty of thy grief, as being far distant from thee; it must therefore needs follow, that it is desire, sith it is lodged in the same place, where thou feelest this burning, this affliction in being removed with too much violence. He hath exceedingly scratched and fetched blood of thee within: he is then the cause of thy grief and evil; thou must therefore cut it off; and retain it peaceably, within the compass of those things which are easy and near. If Fortune diminish any thing, it is but to restrain it the more; and when all that we have shall vanish, and be ta'en away, there will yet remain enough in our breast and mind to rejoice us. The voice being restrained and shut up, makes more noise; strength being collected and assembled, produceth more effects; and the more our desire is restrained, the more it puffs up, and swells our contentment, as being nearest to his tranquillity, and next neighbour of our own felicity. Cease therefore to desire any thing, but that which thou enjoyest. All these things which Fortune gives thee, is but borrowed apparel from common Brokers, the which because it is common to all men, belongs not properly to any one who wears them. I counsel thee to clad thy body with them, but not thy affections, and to load thy back with them, but not thy mind: Reserve this for Virtue, it is by her which we ought to weigh and balance all the privileges and good fortunes of man. Reason makes him very different from beasts: but reason, or perfect reason, makes him to differ much from other men who are like him in shape, but as than not in quality and virtue. To measure a man by his exterior goods of Fortune, is to comprehend in measuring a Statue, the height of his basis or foundation; but to measure him by his interior virtues, we must then do it by his natural greatness, whereof neither fetters nor fire can diminish or take away the very lest part. Fortune subiecteth us to all things; but chose, Virtue elevates us above all: She dissolves Ice, she enforceth and gives a law to grief and pain: She breaks Irons; yea, she passeth through fire and flames, to put us in possession of this felicity. We say therefore that felicity is the use of a perfect reason. It is this Philosopher's stone which converts to gold all that we touch. She supports all adverse accidents, and misfortunes that befall her, with a requisite moderation and decency, and performs the best actions, which can be desired or discovered upon all causes and accidents which betid her. If we are assieged by many disasters and afflictions, she than makes use of Constancy, as of some sharp and Physical potion, to cure us in this extremity; or at least to flatter and sweeten the sense and feeling of our pain and grief. If they come not to us by whole troops, but by one and one at a time; then she teacheth us how to fight with them, and which is more, how to vanquish them. And because the goods of Fortune, by their arrival or departure, do still engender some interior disease in us; therefore she purifieth and preserves our mind from this contagion. Or if it seem to thee, that Virtue gives thee not so many sweet and ticklish pleasures in this felicity, as unchaste and impudent Fortune doth in the hug of her embraces; The pleasure nevertheless is more firm, solid, and permanent. Men dally and kill their Mistresses, otherwise than they do their children; and yet notwithstanding in these embraces and kisses their affection is sufficiently bewrayed and demonstrated to those who see it. Time in the end cuts off the web of those foolish affections: but what griefs so ever this natural love meets in the breeding and bringing up of his children; it is yet more tender and dear, as if their watchings, their care, sweat and labour therein, were as so many materials, to cement more firmly and sound this their affection to their children. So any difficulties which oppose the design of a virtuous man, cannot interrupt the course of affection, which he conceives and bears to his lawful children, I mean to those fair and glorious actions, who as to make show and demonstration of their beauties, they seek not an ampler Theatre, then that of a good conscience: So they need no other light or day to accompany their glory, then that which they cast and dispierce in the company of wise men, by the lustre of their own proper brightness. The end of the fifth Discourse. The sixth Discourse. Of Moral Virtue. SECTION I. Sick (or distempered minds) are not capable of all sorts of remedies, but they shall find none more sovereign, than the diverting thereof. WE have long enough played the Philosopher, and now in its turn, we must represent and act that of man: That heroical Virtue, whereof we precedently discoursed, appertains to none, but to those of the first Class or School, and who with Socrates can tame Death so well, that they will seek for no consolation out of it. Life and death seemed to this wise Philosopher, as natural one as the other. He considered the first point of his birth, as the first grain of sand which begins the hour, and the last motion of his life, as the last grain which ended it: and yet both the one and the other with a regard and look, equally fixed, and constant. If we rush out of ourselves, and that sometimes our Virtue draw and enforce us to this last point: we are more indebted for this sally to irregularity, then to the power, constancy, or vigour of our mind, the which likewise cannot long remain in this high seat, because it as soon feels itself depressed and beaten down by the weight of the body, to re-integrate it in this obscure prison, from whence he was, but as it were escaped; and then coming again to himself, he knows no more the trace or way, whereby he hath performed so fair a Career: So that trembling with astonishment, he may say, that there is nothing more different, or dis-semblable to man, than himself. If we will give an exact and sound judgement of Virtue, we must as much consider her defects, in whom it meets and resides, as her proper force and power. To see her stark naked, it is a ray or spark of the Divinity; but our weak nature having married and espoused her, doth stifle her in the crowd of her vices and corruptions. Pythagoras affirms, that men assume new souls, when they approach the Statues of the Gods to receive their Oracles: and I say, that we do the like, when we resolve to see and consult with Virtue: For it seems, that then our soul doth cleanse and purify herself from the filthiness which she hath gathered among the crowd and throng of people, and who discharging herself of this troublesome burden, she richly dressed and clad, runs to sit down on the sacred seat of this Goddess. But again, after that we reassume our old custom and vices, which we have forsaken at our first entrance; as he whom we see in a fool's habit, after he hath represented the personage of a King in a Comedy. If Vanities, if the dreams of lies did not take up and preoccupate our thoughts instead of these Philosophical reasons, there could be nothing more commendable, noble, or generous, than he who consulting, and conversing with reason, passeth his time in observing the familiar conferences which they have together: So that if Fortune apparelled in all her bravest and richest ornaments, should arrive at the very instant to offer him all her most precious treasure, to embrace her side and party, I am sure she should receive nothing from him, but a short refusal and shame; but if she chance to come to him eight days after, I believe that if she do not wholly vanquish him, that she will at least make a great breach in his heart & affections. The mind of man cannot be still extended and prepared. He must continually have his weapons in his hand, and put himself on his guard to defend himself from those blows which Fortune still gives us: She but feignedly fights with us, for she levels at our head, but strikes us at our heart. We defend and avoid ourselves from Ambition and Covetousness, but yet we inconsiderately permit ourselves to be transported and overthrown by choler. So the blow is not dangerous or violent, because it struck us with the butt end; and although it neither reversed nor overthrew us, yet it made us recoil at least a pace backward. What good countenance so ever our Virtue shows, she is still subject to many imperfections. If she had but our mind to govern and conduct, than nothing were impossible to her: But when she must take up, and load on her shoulders the body wherein this mind is enchained and imprisoned, she than stoops and faints under this burden; and all shaking and trembling she hath much a do to support herself by her own proper strength and vigour: For she is constrained to seek aid and help to prop herself up, yea and to beg assistance to keep and stay her from reeling and falling. Where the Lion's skin cannot suffice, we must sow on that of the Fox; and where courage hath not power enough to support and defend itself from the injuries of Fortune, we must in her behalf substitute subtlety to oppose and divert it. The virtue of Socrates foresaw his affliction; he enured, & tamed himself to it, yea laughed and played with it; and ours makes us to look a thwart and squinteyed: yea, to turn and divert our eyes from the remotest objects thereof, to steal away unseen from the very thought of it; which otherwise by little and little grows sharp and contentious in our mind, and so by its gall, corrupts all which seems most sweet and pleasing to our palates. We have named that heroical; and this we will term moral Virtue, or Temperance, which as Plato said, is a mutual consent of the parts and faculties of the Soul, which makes reason to follow as a rule, and curb to all licentious and unbridled desires: the which Pythagoras calls, the light, which chaseth from her all the darkness and obscurity of passions. This Virtue seems to me to be wonderfully bold and audacious under one, or the other of these descriptions, and differs nothing from the precedent: For she caries the Axe to the roots, whereas ours is contented to lop and prune off the twigs and smaller branches. That takes away, and cuts off evil humours, and this diverts and turns them upon some part or member less dangerous. The remedies are not so sharp, and bitter, and so they serve not but to palliate and sweeten the Evil, or Disease: But the other in the mean time without flattering it, doth at first tear it off, and cuts upon the quick, the grief of a sensible loss by the very edge of his reasons. That is to say; That complaint according to his precepts, is not an action, either just or commendable. That a wise man should foresee the blow which threatens him at the very point of the birth of his affection. That succeeding years, and the sweetness of the favours of Fortune, should not so bewitch or make him drunk, as to cast him into a swoone or lethargy, and be able wholly to shut his eyes to these infallible accidents. There is none but an ignorant person, who finds any thing new. In a word, that this accident was still present with him, and that having so often re-chewed this bad meat, he may in the end accustom himself to it, and so resolve to swallow it down, without any distaste or bitterness. But as it appertains to none but to the birds of Diomedes, to separate the Athenians from the greeks: so it belongs to none but to Socrates, or spirits which have raised themselves to the height and sublimity of the same flight, to select and make choice of vigorous and masculine reasons, in comparison of those which we commonly use and employ for our consolation, which are as weak, lame, and feeble, as our courage. It some times falls out, that the same reasons issuing▪ from our mouth or pen, as from theirs, but not from our hearts, and from the very bottom of our breasts. We present them all raw, and as the boiling or bubbling of a Fountain, renders his water without tasting or digesting it, so we only prefer these words without knowing their price or value. Our too raw and indigested stomach cannot consume this meat, and draw its nutriment thence. We discourse in the same manner, language, and terms as they do, but yet we think differently: Our words are but as the rinds and barks of our conceptions; it is not enough that the report thereof come to our ears, but the sense must also pass to our understanding: we must cleave them in sunder to gather the juice and Sugar of them, and to discover that which they have in them of secret and hidden. But our Moral virtue diminisheth that which is of the honour of her dignity: she hath sooner done to stoop and descend down to us, then to lift ourselves up to her. And then familiarising, and accommodating herself with our imperfections, she per●mits us to shed some tears: She weeps with us, and favoureth our plaints and mournings, in their first and most furious violence, until by little and little, she can divert the eyes of our thoughts, upon some other remote object, and so exhale and dissipate in the contemplation of contrary things, the power of the spirits of our blood, which were assembled & conspired together about our heart, to surmount and vanquish all sorts of consolations, and so to permit only the entrance of griefs, torments, bitter thoughts, sharp and cruel remembrings, and other Officers of comfortless sorrow and affliction. So this power being divided, is thereby so weakened, that the first object being capable to inflame, & touch our thoughts to the quick; he easily takes possession of the place, and banisheth this importunate Tyrant from the seat and Empire which he had violently usurped. This remedy as the most sweet and pleasing, is the most general and universal physic which she employs in the cure of violentest passions. All diseases of the mind are not cured, but either by diversion, or by the equal sharing and division of our imagination, in whose power resides all that they participate of, sharp, or bitter; because she assembles, and links together all the spirits of the soul, which are perfectly purified and refined, in the admirable nets which lie under the ventricle or posteriour part of the brain, to mark him out the greatness of his evil or disease, which it augments, and increaseth by this labour and pain; as fire doth by the abundance and affluence of wood: And if this imagination can be divided by the force and strength of a contrary object, she thereby makes herself weak and feeble in her functions, and chose in the ease or pain, the good or evil which we may feel. The mind is a power which communicates herself wholly to the subject to which she is fixed & tied: From whence it comes, that we many times see her equally tormented at objects of small value, as at those things of far greater consequence. The good which environeth us, is not considerable to him, in comparison of a little evil, which at present presseth and afflicteth him. And not being able to surprise this sorrowful matter, before he have let gone all the others, he than unites and fastens, yea glewes himself thereunto, until he become drunk with this grief: And as the Horseleech still sucks out all the bad blood until he burst: So the mind sucks and draws hence all that is bitter, until this poison having engendered a kind of an Impostume in our heart, doth in the end burst therewith, and frees herself thereof by our tears, which distil and descend from our eyes. If the rays of the Sun are fully received in the bottom of a burning Looking-glass, they there unite in their centre, and their power straying and defusing before they are recollected, and assembled in this point, do so link and fortify themselves, that they burn and destroy that which so sweetly they had formerly cherished and nourished: Right so, if the mind assemble all her powers, and her intellectual rays in the force and strength of imagination, as in the Crystal of a Looking-glass, it destroyeth the tranquillity, which it revived before by her benign and gracious influences, the which she generally owes to all the members of the body, and whereof she cannot wholly dispose to the service of the one without the damage and prejudice of the others. As it visibly befalls those who newly feel some grief or anxiety, or to those who dispose and addict themselves to things which require a strong imagination, as Poesy, Painting, or Perspective. We must then without giving time or leisure to our mind, to taste the poison of this passion, dispierce the rays of this imagination, by the alluring Charms of a contrary object. He who dies in the heat of a Combat with his weapons in his hands, hath apprehended & feared nothing less than death, for glory is the point of honour; choler, and revenge, do equally preoccupate his thoughts, and surpass his imaginations, so as there remains in him no place to fear death. And those who have attempted to plant the Cross among Infidels, and cement and water it with their blood, thereby to make Christianity to increase and fructify, they being possessed of this holy zeal, hath not the force and power of their love surmounted in them the fear of death? Shall I say, that the power of so lively and so ardent an imagination, by his extreme violence can likewise destroy the common function of the senses, and hereby pull away the weapons out of the hands of grief and pain, because the senses make not their operations, but by the help of the spirits; which are dispersed in the muscles and arteries, and generally throughout all the body, which may be attracted by a sudden motion, to this superior part and place of imagination, so that the members remain without this interior operation, and therefore without grief or pain: the which Celsus reports of a Priest (but how truly I know not) whose soul being ravished in an ecstasy, left his body for a certain time without respiration, or any sense or feeling. But as our letting blood and phlebotomizing, is the only remedy in these, and the like sudden accidents, because hereby they attract the spirits to their region and duty: So in strong imaginations, be it that they proceed from extreme grief or pain, which takes up all our senses in the contemplation of his misery; or the deformity of his object, which makes us shake and tremble, and stupifies, and dulls our feeling thereof; as the Poet's fiction made miserable Niobe to approve and feel; who afflicted herself with the murder of her children, although they departed out of most extreme sorrow and melancholy. We must divert and attract the spirits to Hearing, as the most subtle and industrious sense for this cure and remedy; especially those who are prevalent, and delicate in this sense. So David by the sweet melody of his Harp, charmed and expelled the devil out of Saul: So Orpheus, having enchanted his sorrow, and lulled a sleep his grief, for the remembrance of his loss, by the sweet tunes and harmony of his Lute: He thought he had again drawn his dear Eurydice from her Tomb, having for a small time calmed the storms and tempests in his soul, of his violent griefs and sorrows: And if we may believe the Masters of this Art and Mystery of Love, they have practised no more assured remedy, to cut off, and appease the violence of their passion, then by the diverting and dividing of their hearts and thoughts, as it were into two rivers, which they leave to stream and slide away, to the discretion and service of their Mistresses: Or if they yet feel themselves too much oppressed and afflicted, with this half divided Empire; they can then enlarge themselves, and breathe more at their ease under the government of many, by changing (if they can so please) the Monarchy of Love into an aristocraty, or Democraty: And time which we see, proves the sweetest Physician of afflicted hearts and souls; what herbs doth it not employ in their cure, which the use and practise of diverse jests, and replies that manage, and surprise our imagination, do in their turns thereby cast into a slumbering Lethargy, or oblivion, the remembrance of these our afflictions, as some sweet, and sense-pleasing Nepenthe, or drink of oblivion: Yea, the change of air contributes something to the cure of our spiritual afflictions and diseases, And briefly, as poisons are profitably used and employed in our Physic: So passions (the true poisons of the soul) serve to the cure of her troubles and perturbations, which cannot be so speedily or easily appeased, as by applying the power of some different and contrary passion. And these are the weapons and armour wherewith our Virtue covereth herself, having not any other sufficient force and courage, to appear in the face of her Enemy unarmed, and uncovered. SECTION. II. The life of a Wise man is a circle, whereof Temperance is the centre, whereunto all the lines, I mean, all his actions should conduce and aim. Storms do not much hurt, or endamage Ships which are in harbours; and the tempest of humane actions, doth not much disturb the tranquillity of that mind, which rides at an anchor in the harbour of Temperance; If man in his infirmities, will yet prevail over any perdurable felicity, he mu●t with full sails, and top and top gallant strive to arrive there, although the rocks and shelves are so frequent in his way, that he can difficultly secure himself from shipwreck. And yet he is likewise happy, who saving himself upon the broken ribs or planks of his Ship, can yet steer and conduct the rest of his life to this place of secu●rity and safety. Some wise men have approved the excess of intemperancy, and the distaste of an extreme satiety, before they could resolve to contain themselves within the bounds, and limits of this Virtue: imagining that her gravity contained some hard and anxious thing, until experience had taught them, that Temperance is the seasoning and ordering of pleasure, as intemperancy is the only plague and scourge thereof. Or if you will term intemperancy to be the daughter of pleasure and voluptuousness: say then withal that she is cruel, and a Parricide, because by her life she gives us death, and doth hug and embrace us so fast, that she strangles us: chose, Temperance sharpens her desire, and caries us into the very bosom of true pleasure, yet not to engage our soul there, but to please her, and not to lose her, but to find her. Considering this virtue, me thinks it may be said of her, as of Bacchus, that she is twice borne. Her first birth she derives from Vice, as he doth his from a simple woman; because to arrive to this point, and this mid way where she is situated, she must necessarily proceed from the one or other of these vicious extremes, which are neighbours to this Virtue: For he which is not yet liberal, or bountiful, before he be, he must either be a niggard or a prodigal; But afterwards, she ripeneth and perfecteth his being in the power and vigour of the Wise man's mind and opinion, as the Son of Semele in the thighs of jupiter. Strange effects of a corrupted nature, which from the infected womb of Vice snatcheth Virtue, and from that of Virtue likewise draws Vice. Choler gives weapons to valour, valour lends them to rashness, and yet all three nevertheless hold themselves so close together, and are united with so natural a cement; that it is extremely difficult to observe their bounds; so much they are intermixed and confounded on their confines. We must have wonderful strong reynes to keep our temperance firm in this passage; for if she pass or slide never so little beyond these fixed and appointed limits, she shall presently find herself to be in the way and track of vice. Two enemies are still at her sides and elbows, who watch for her ruin and destruction. If she recoil or advance never so little, she is instantly endomaged either by the one or the other, either by excess or defectuosity: But as to strike the white, there is but one way; but many, yea, an infinite number to miss it: So for us to walk to this perfect felicity, there is but this only way; whereas to miss it, and to fall into the one or the other of these vicious extremes, we may do it by infinite ways and courses. This tranquillity of the Soul which Philosophy represents unto us, is it any other thing then the obedience of the inferior part, (which we call sensual appetite) to the superior, which we term reasonable. But how can they remain of one mind and accord, if we grant and pass not some thing to the desire and will of the law which we feel in our members, wholly opposite and contrary to that of our reason. This perpetual War, and ascending tyranny, which we will maintain between them: Doth it not approve and testify unto us, how far distant we are from this tranquillity. There is no peace, but is to be preferred to War, provided that it can maintain itself. Man's life on earth, is nothing but a perpetual war, and it sufficeth that it be a foreign one, without that we should again foment a civil and intestine one. A Soldier holds himself unfortunate, who in time of peace, cannot safely enjoy the spoils and pillage which he hath won in war: and yet far more, he who having fought with, and vanquished the vice of a corrupt Nature: doth not manage his profit so, that the remainder of his life, be to him as the Theatre of his triumph, in the quiet and delicious enjoyance of this his victory. I say, that the Law of honour permits us to fight with our enemy, in giving him place by our retiring; and that the Scythians ever fought bes● in flying: But I esteem and prize not these stolen victories, no more than did brave Alexander; at least, those which owe their chiefest advantage, to subtlety and flight, in comparison of him, who with Ensign displayed, and Drum beating, having by his generous carriage awakened and stirred up courage in the hearts of his enemies, knows courageously and generously, both how to animate and vanquish them. If the name and virtue of the vanquisher, do somewhat rejoice and comfort the loss of the vanquished; and afford him some degree and thought of glory, by a far stronger reason, the power and courage of the vanquished should augment the renown and glory of the victorious. As many Combats as continency fighteth, they are to her so many stolen victories, which she gains by her grief and flight: As this Atalanta more cruel yet to herself then to her followers and lovers. But chose, Temperance fights with a bold and firm foot, and with a cheerful and joyful countenance in the heat of the Combat; and having vanquished her Enemy, takes pleasure to vanquish and surmount herself. She is masculine and vigorous, and cannot lodge but in the heart of a Philosopher: where as the other is cowardly weak and effeminate in comparison of her: As also, she is not in the throne of her state and honour, but when she is in the breast and bosom of a woman, where beauty, desire, and chastity, do every moment send her a thousand temptations and challenges. Honour, fear, and respect, who with weapons in her hand, establisheth this virtue in the hearts of a Virgin, & opposing and bending her courage against all assaults, are commonly the most faithful guards and surest guardians: But were the eyes of their care and vigilancy, more in number then those of Argus, or more subtle and piercing then those of Lynceus: yet they cannot conserve their virginity from the assaults of vice, if the purity of the soul, and of a free will, advanced not forth to repel and defend their injuries. A place of hard and difficult keeping, because it is in the power of the least desire to think to betray it, and to deliver it up into the hands of her enemy. Desire, if I dare say it, equally innocent and guilty at one and the same time, which deriving its birth from so fair a flower, doth at that very instant fade and wither it, by the excess of an untimely and abortive heat, and so dries up her roots, that it is never more in her power again, to grow green and flourish, nor to produce any other flowers, but such as shame and modesty chalks out, and depainteth on her face. If Montaigne (that excellent judge of humane actions) had approved and tried the nature of either sex, as Tiresias did, he would decide this difference to their disadvantage, when he said, that it is not in the power of a Woman, no, nor of Chastity herself, to prevent and hinder her from desires. But desires notwithstanding may very well violate their chastity without infringing, or making a breach in their continency, which hardeneth and fortifies itself the more, at their aboard and meeting. It is true, that this virtue of chastity, besides the delicacy of their diet, the sweetness of their sex, the charms of idleness, the liberty and freedom wherein they are bred and brought up; as also their beauty, and the affections, services, vows, and prayers of those Lovers who research and solicit them, should make the base insatiableness, and courage of men, to blush for shame, who abandon themselves to all sorts of beastly voluptuousness and sensuality, and only attend and expect, that snowwhite age; give them a lesson of coldness and temperancy. Not that it needs that this bridle so much curb and restrain them; that the shadows of voluptuousness strike terror to his heart and mind. Of a Philosopher I intent not to become a woman, to prescribe him such severe and rigorous Laws: For so far forth as he forget not himself, and fall a sleep in the breast and lap of voluptuousness; he as a generous Ulysses, may gather the palms of Victory in the same field, where the intemperancy of his companions have buried their glory and reputation. I have less labour to consider the virtue of Xenocrates, in his refuse and flight, from the embraces of that fair Courtesan, then in the bosom of the enjoyance of this pleasure and voluptuousness: and I much doubt, if with an indifferent eye, he could behold the rich Cabinet of beauty and voluptuousness: in no other manner than he did the fair front of his house. We cannot easily stay ourselves, when we are alured or moved. The force of a Horse is best known, when he makes a round and neat stop, or stay. To avoid passion, there needs but a little constraint: but after we are embarked therein, than every cord draws. Continency hath nothing to revenge herself, but of the eyes, and of some weak desires: but temperance finds our thoughts, heart, and all the sinews of the mind, bend to serve Voluptuousness, and by the show of this majestical power, separates the two Chieftains which were in contestation and difference, sending the one and the other peaceably to their homes, without any other obstinate desire of revenge or quarrel. Continency performs nothing but despite herself, she draws concupiscence after her with grief and vexation, and advanceth not, but with blows and bastinadoes: all her beauty is but in show and exterior appearance; for within she is only a painted and a feigned beauty: Let us see her interiorly; She entertains and nourisheth a thousand contrarieties: There is in her, hatred, love, and repentance. She tears herself in pieces and morsels, and makes herself bloody with her own hands. It is a Saturn, who eats and devours his own children; for she nourisheth herself of her own blood, and feeds only on her own proper bowels and entrailes. The continent man is forsaken of Virtue, and possessed of Vice: I mean, of the troubles & passions of the soul, which he cannot appease. The temperate man chose being assaulted by Voluptuousness and Concupiscence, is possessed of Virtue, which opens all the gates to her enemies without, thereby to triumph more gloriously o'er her spoils. It seems that continency is the most usual and common punishment, which Love rigorously ordains, for those who disdain her flames, who outrage and offend her; and never requite or repay her services, but with ingratitude. Witness the prodigious change of Scylla, whose severity found yet more cruel torments; then those whom she made her Lover to feel. Her inferior members were changed into Monsters, and barking dogs who seemed desirous to devour her, and which indeed are no other but desires, proceeding from the sensual appetite (which Plato saith, is one of the Horses that draws the Chariot of the soul) which fights against this reason; whose obstinate insensibility so hardened and obdurated itself, that she exchanged her heart into a rock, which could not be mollified by the tears of her infortunate Servant and Lover. It is for none but for Temperance, to enter into the Temple of pleasure and voluptuousness: Ulysses upon the assurance of this flower which he had received from heaven; and which he carried not in his hand, but in his heart, entered into the Palace of Circe, awakened his sleeping Companions, and being drunk with those enchantments, passed on to the most secret Cabinets of Voluptuousness and Pleasure; contented his amorous desires, received those sweet dalliances, court, and embraces; and without forgetting himself, he considered the charming snares of her eyes; which seemed to lull him a sleep in the ravishing ecstasies of an amorous passion; and invited him to repose and rest himself in the lap of so many sweet delights and pleasures. But his courage having loosed and slacked the reins to his affection, upon the prostitution of so many delicious and amorous dainties, he then made a short stay and stand; returned to his former mind and resolution, takes his leave of her without reluctation or sorrow, and by his pleasing, and yet generous carriage constrains the courtesy of this fair Princess, to accompany him forth to the gate of her own Palace. But how much easier is it not to enter, then to come forth, and depart in this manner: The Vice is not to enter, but not to be able to come forth, said Aristippus, going into a Courtesan. With a very small force and constraint, we may at first stop the motions of these emotions; but when they are once begun, we are but too too naturally subject to follow them. Most commonly it are they which draw us, and there is but this virtue of Temperance, which can again take up the reins, and stop them in the very mids of their course and career. We must cut off the head and tail thereof; whereof the first withereth our heart; and the second incessantly scratcheth and woundeth it. Intemperancie gives death to voluptuousness: Continency denies and refuseth it life; and Temperance gives and conserves it to her, and by a certain grief which she intermixeth in all her actions, she agrees so well in all things, and every where with herself, that she much obligeth us, and makes us her debtors, for the felicity which we may pretend and hope for from her. SECTION. III. To think that Virtue can indifferently cure all sorts of evils or afflictions, is a testimony of Vanity, or else of our being Apprentices and Novices in Philosophy. FElicitie, how comes it to pass that we can surprise and hold thee, but with one hand; If it be true that thou reposest thyself in the bosom of Philosophy, as he made us believe who first caused it to descend from heaven, to live among us here in earth. But why should there be so many Philosophers, and yet so few wisemnn? If these promises be true: if these remedies are certain and infallible, where is the effect? And yet there is no reason, so much to tax our condition, as to think to make it guilty of that, whereof it may be innocent. It is good sometimes to avoid, and leave off anger and violence, where fair means may suffice, and prevail of itself: I much doubt, if Philosophy, who puts weapons into our hands, to correct and chastise Vice, could defend the blows, if we turned them against herself. For wherein doth she employ herself, but to afflict us in thinking to heal and cure us. When we are in perfect health, she doth so often again assail and touch us, that in the end she changeth our good disposition and welfare. Her false Counsels turns into true afflictions, which she afterwards fights not against, but only feignedly. If she raise us up a degree above others; we thereby see evils and afflictions farther off than they do: and at the very instant and moment, that we foresee them; we have need to remedy them, because th●y wound us as much by their sight, as by their assaults. And when with the same lance she can cure this wound, is the Physician to be commended, who wounds and offends the health of his sick Patient, thereby to make show of his skill and sufficiency? But yet so far is he from curing us, that our mind is easily shaken, and can afterwards very difficultly resolve, with firm footing to support this fantastical enemy, and imaginary evil and affliction. But if any simple, or earthly man (who hath no other object in his thoughts, then that which he hath before his eyes) runs the same fortune which we do to the disasters, which we have foreseen and predicted, than this his stupidity hath no need of remedy, but at the very blow and occasion. He lives as joyful and contented, as the Philosopher Pyrrhons' Hog, without any fear of storms or tempests, whiles Philosophy environeth us purposely to rectify and comfort us with her sweetest consolations. She tells us, That it is but a cloud; That the least wind can beat off this storm and tempest, before it fall on our heads: That the inconstancy of Fortune, as often deceives our fears as our hopes. But who is he, who in the expectation of an evil or affliction, can purely relish and taste the sweetness of comfort and joy which environ him. This sharp remembrance, hath it not bitterness enough in it, to make it seem sour and distasteful. This affliction holds us fast by the collar of our doublets, and he therewith stoops the Philosopher as well as the Clown. The Gout, and Stone do equally afflict and offend them: All our reasons are left behind the door, and there is but only our sense and feeling, which is of this scot and company. But yet I will pay the Philosopher more sound and severely then the Clown: For that considereth nothing else, but that which he feels. His appetite is colder, and therewithal more subject to grief and pain. And this, having the spirits of his blood more refined, and subtilised, by the labour of his meditation, as also his sense and feeling more tender and delicate, the lively image of pain works as much, yea a greater power and effect in him by his imaginary impression, as by his point and reality. So this foresight serves for nothing, but to draw those miseries near us, which are farthest from us; and then very difficultly can she cure, our other present and natural discommodities, because she cannot well ease and comfort her own. If she undertake to appease the burning fire of the pain which afflicts her, she than employs, and applies no other Physic, but only the remembrance of forepast pleasures. A weak and feeble Remedy, which by this disjointed and lame comparison, instead of diminishing; doth exceedingly increase and augment our pain: As a great fire increaseth, by throwing a little water in it; so our pain is the more incensed and exasperated, by the image and remembrance of pleasure, which presents itself to oppose it. This gross and stupid Ignorance, which gives I know not what manner of patience to present evils and afflictions, and carelessness to future sinister accidents, is far more advantageous to humane Nature. What need is there, that under the show and colour of good, she should come to discover us so tyrannical a countenance, and waited and attended on by so many true evils and vexations; and by her vain and rash enterprise, exposing to our sight the miserable estate of our condition. We can never truly know our just weight, but in lifting ourselves up above the ground. He who is well, removes not (says the Italian proverb.) Nature had placed us in a very firm and sure degree, where we ought to have stayed. We could not have fallen from thence, because it was the lowest step. Man thinking to raise and elevate himself higher, hath prepared the danger of his own fall: She hath more lively imprinted in our fancies their weight and greatness; then the reasons and means to vanquish them. I grant that this Knowledge is the sweetest food of the mind, and that man's chiefest felicity, proceeds from meditation. But was it not far better to have exhausted and dried up the head spring: sith from thence is flown the torrent of our miseries and afflictions. The wisest and subtlest Philosophy is but folly to God, and because we are upon reprehensions and reproaches, we may also accuse it to be guilty, for the defect of those who have separated and withdrawn themselves from the bosom of the Church: It had been better to have failed to do well, for fear of some small evil which might arrive; because we far more sensibly feel grief then pleasure. To man there is nothing more visible than good, nor more sensible than evil. We shall as little feel a long health, as the sweetness of a quiet and profound sleep, without dreams or interruption. If we are troubled and tormented with an Ague, that day which it arrived to us, shall of all the year be marked, either with capital or rubric letters. Our thoughts fix and tie themselves thereunto, and they disdainfully steal over all the rest without seeing them, and stop at nothing, but at this displeasing remembrance. In his health and possession, he is peaceable of all other good things, as those great rivers, who in their beds and course, commonly make small noise; and of his grief, it is as of those impetuous torrents and inundations, which commonly by their precipitated motions, astonish with their noise and violence, all those who dwell near them. Man knows not his own good, but by the absence and want thereof. He cannot sound judge, or esteem of health, but in his sickness: chose, the point of grief and pain, by reason of the fear we have thereof, which is as the shadow (yea the true shadow, which follows and devanceth our body) doth by her presence and his absence still afflict us. Our senses fall into a swoon and slumber of joy, and are never awakened, but by afflictions and sorrow. Also she is more movable and inconstant than pleasure. And if any extreme pleasure or voluptuousness will awaken us, and pinch us with the sense and feeling thereof, it must borrow I know not what point of grief and pain, which by a pleasing constraint, will draw from our tongue some tone of weeping and bewailing. A peaceable life, full of security and assurance, and exempt, and free from the storms and tempests of Fortune, resembleth a dead Sea, without trouble or agitation, as Demetrius affirmed. But because in the estate whereunto the world is reduced, As one said well, It is easier to make a new, then to reform it. Let us leave the Physician to be calumniated, and scandalised by him that is in health: Bu● for we who languish in the assaults of evil and misery, let us shut our eyes to his imperfections. If instead of lancing our Impostume, he hath pricked us near it, or hurted us in any other delicate and sensible part of our body: let us not quarrel with him, for fear lest he forsake and abandon us, and that thereby we be doubly grieved and offended. It may be that he will cure one, or the other of our wounds: but to believe that these remedies are so sovereign, that all sorts of griefs and afflictions should, and may hope for their entire cure thereof, it is that which we cannot, and therefore must not promise ourselves. Truth still gives the lie to flattery. Great Alexander feeling himself wounded of an Arrow, all the world (said he) swore that I was the son of jupiter: but yet the blood which streams from this my wound, cries out wi●h a loud voice, that I am a man. Let us not think that Minerva's son, and his dearest Favourites, have any more dignified privilege. The blows of Fortune make them well remember, that they are dull and stupid men, because our body, and the one half of ourselves, is a thing which we possess not, but at his courtesy and mercy, and whereof she hath far more right and propriety than we. The best Philosophy doth not indifferently cure all sorts of diseases and afflictions; but without cherishing or diminishing the favour which we receive thereof: let us endeavour not to esteem it by its just price and value. Me thinks, that in this pilgrimage of our life, she resembleth the tree which the Traveller met in his way, who if the weather be fair and clear, in beholding and considering it; he admires the beauty thereof, and the sweetness and pleasantness of its fruit. But if there happen any storm and shower of rain, than he flies under the branches thereof, thereby to defend and shelter him from the injury of the weather, although he can difficultly so well save and cover himself; that he do not yet feel many discommodities thereby: But yet far less (by comparison) than him, who disdaining and contemning this shelter, still continueth on his way, and without any fence or defence whatsoever, exposeth himself to the merciless mercy of the tempest. When we are at peace with Fortune, there is no thing so sweet and pleasing as this Philosophy. Doth Fortune regard us with a bad eye? Will she dart upon us the Arrows of her choler? then we run and arrange ourselves under this tree, which as soon extendeth his branches over us: yea, he weds our quarrel, and strives to defend the blows, or to quell and dead the violence thereof: And yet we cannot so well avoid it, but yet there remains many parts and places above us, whereby we are exposed to the mercy of our enemy, and to the point and fury of his choler. The branches and shel●er of this tree, may defend the Traveller from rain, hail, wind, and lightning: but if the thunder come to fall thereon, it then tears its branches, and thunderclaps our travelling Pilgrim. So Philosophy arms us against contempt, poverty, banishment, and the other defects and vices of opinion, and defends, and sheltereth us from the violent winds of passions: But if sickness and pain, (which is the thunder of Fortune) fall upon us; it tears all that it meets withal, breaks down our weak baricadoes and defences, and makes us feel the points and edges of his indignation. And yet the Thunder of heaven spared the sacred tree of Apollo: but that of fortune without any respect to virtue (that ever sacred and sovereign tree of th● Gods) insolently breaks and tears it in pieces, as triumphing in the loss and ruin thereof. So that if the virtue of man could divert and turn away this thunder from his head, as she doth other injuries of fortune: I believe with reason, that she might pretend the name and title of perfect and complete felicity. But likewise we must not indifferently term all that to be grief and pain which afflicts us: Let us therefore endeavour, yea enforce ourselves to restrain and keep it within the surest bounds and limits that we can. Let us see what it is, and if man's felicity, may agree and sympathise with it, according to the opinion of the Stoics, which for my part, I believe not. SECTION. IV. As it belongs to none but to the mind, to judge of true or false: so our sense ought to be the only judge either of pleasure, or pain. ALL things should be considered absolutely, and simply in their proper Essence and Being; or relatively as regarding ourselves. Absolutely in their Being, as the Earth, the Sea, the Sun, and the Stars: which Essence or Being is equally spread and diffused every where. It is this truth which is not known in his Essence, but only of God: and therefore where the point of humane wisdom in vain strives to assail it: Or relatively in regard of ourselves, and then this reflection engageth either our body or our mind. If the body, it is termed good or evil; and there is none but our senses, which have right to judge of a Knowledge which is infused to them: and so much, and so long conjoined, that the harmony of the temperaments, is not molested or troubled by any false agreement. If the mind, than it is termed true or false, whereof the one caries the figure of good, and the other of evil, which is that which we term ratiocination, which from universal propositions, infers and draws particular consequences, and composeth of this collection, reduced in order by judgement, the Science or Knowledge of things. But the mind and the body joining together in a community, in those things which they had of each other in particular, The mind secures the body, and promiseth to provide him a Sentinel, to conserve and watch against the surprises of his Enemy, which is pain, or affliction, by the mean of her care and foresight, conditionally that she may participate of the enjoyance of those profits and pleasures, which proceed from her. But this agreement and harmony lasteth not long; for the mind abuseth herself; and this abuse is converted into tyranny: for of a companion that formerly she was, she now becomes Master, and violating the laws of society, she usurps upon the jurisdiction of the senses, believing, that this usurpation, gives her an absolute right, and full power to judge of the quality of good or bad, without consulting, or taking counsel of the senses; and then as she will judge that to be either good or bad which is not: so will she do of grief or pleasure, which was not of the same nature: and in the end disposing sovereignly of all, she is arrived to this height and point, to believe that those pleasures which were fallen to the lot and share of the senses, were obliged to content and satisfy her insatiable appetite, without informing herself, if they had worthily acquitted themselves of their charge and functions, which was to appease the hunger and desire of our senses. The which desire, because it is limited within the extent of its object, is easily exchanged, and converted into tranquillity, and a peaceable enjoying thereof. In the mean time, the mind plays the averse and difficult; still murmurs and repines against it, and entertains man in this perturbation and perplexity which you see. He is become more amorous and affectionate to other men's children then to his own: and this bastard affection of his, serves him as a pair of stairs, whereby by little and little he descends to the misunderstanding of himself, and then being buried in the darkness of oblivion, he leaves in prey the inheritance which he had promised to give to this community, and renounced his own which was lawful, which is the meditation or knowledge of true or false, for as much as in the body of man, the soul may be capable to foment and cherish the goods or pleasures of her companion. And farther, if their profits or pleasures were of the same quality and nature, when by any misfortune the portion of the one or other were ruined, there would yet in the other lot and portion, remain enough, to nourish and content them both; As the Philosopher, who living by the sweat and labour of his own hands, vaunted that thereby he was yet able to maintain and nourish another like himself. But the food and nutriment of the one, is not that of the other, for all that which they have truly in Commons betwixt them, is the harmony which should make this music to be composed of spiritual and corporal things, wherein if either the one, or the other mutiny or rebel, then expect no farther harmony or agreement, for it is nothing else but confusion. But the senses being conducted by the infused and clear-sighted light of nature, are better governed in their Commonwealth. The one hath enterprised nothing against the other. It never happens, that the eye undertakes to hear, or the ear to see, if it be not abusively spoken: But since they have elected this inconstant mind, to govern them as their head or Chieftain: they have reaped and received nothing but shame and confusion. The eye finds nothing to be absolutely fair, but that which rarity or opinion, pleaseth to recommend to us to be so. So the Rose and Gillyflower, are nothing in comparison of a flower which grows in the Indies, or foreign Countries. But this Tyrant advanceth yet farther, for he puts them to the rack, and makes them pay dearly for the error of this their foolish indiscretion: For the senses dare not embrace that which they prize and affect dearest, without her free consent and permission. If any ticklish desire give them a contrary motion to that of reason, than the mind lifts up her hand and staff, and useth them so unkindly and unworthily, that there is no servitude or slavery so rigorous. They may well pass without her, and without the fruit of this meditation, which makes it so commendable. A precious jewel indeed it is, but far more necessary to this little Commonweal for ornament and decency, then for absolute necessity. For that which is in this manner necessary, is universal and equal, as the heart is necessary to the life of man; Reason is a faculty, which although it have her root in the soul: yet she cannot perfect herself without the assistance and concurrence of well disposed organs; for the most accomplished is but error: judge therefore what the most imperfect are, it is but an accident, whose defect changeth nothing the substance of Man. Plato was no more a man, than a common Porter was. An inequality which sufficiently testifies, that of absolute necessity it is not necessary to man. But at last, The Senses grow rebellious and mutinous, and will proclaim their triumphs, or Holiday in that which concerns their charge or duty of the mind, because the mind so powerfully and sovereignly, usurps upon their jurisdiction; and from this sedition, as from the head spring or fountain of all evils, flows the disorder and confusion, which we find in all things. Arts and Learning are endomaged and damnified by the corruption of the senses, which having no more right to judge of good or evil, will yet intermeddle to know true, or false; as is seen in those who deny Infinity, because their gross senses, who would intrude themselves to be parties in this difference, can never agree with that which they cannot comprehend: Or as those who deny the life or immortality of the Soul, because they have demanded counsel of the senses, which cannot approve of things so difficult and hard of digestion, and so seldom controverted or proposed: For the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard spoken of these discourses: neither can Taste, Smelling, or Feeling, give any testimonies thereof. To make them therefore know this Soul, it must be (as Cicero speaks of the Gods to the Epicurians) not a body, but as a body that it had not veins, Arteries or blood; but as it were veins, arteries, and blood, that she was, and that she was not, that it had not a humane figure, but as a humane figure, not being able to represent the soul unto us; no more than Painters, who represent Angels under humane shapes and figures. If Beasts could figure themselves out a God, they would make him of their own form and shape, not believing (as an ancient Philosopher affirmed) that there is any fairer, or better shaped then their own: And these men do the same of the Soul●, which they cannot otherwise comprehend or conceive then under that of a body, whose members possess some place, having her dimensions, length, breadth, and depth, under the very image and figure of man, than which they believe there is no nobler: or else they otherwise believe there is none at all▪ or at least, that it must be corporal: So if it be corporal, it must needs be corruptible, as indeed they themselves are wholly composed both of body and corruption: And this is the prejudice which the Senses bring to those who have caused it to be believed in the judgement, which they should make of true or false: But as the mind being far more busy in motion, and of a larger latitude and extent than the Senses, hath caused a more apparent, sensible, and universal disorder: so she will not allow for good, but only that which is pleasing and delightful to her. She hath put new guards over all the goods of Nature, and will not without her permission and consent, that it should be lawful for us to enjoy any of them: And yet nevertheless, among those things which we hold and term good, we may easily observe and remark those that she hath charged & corrupted. Those goods which carry the mark and seal of Nature imprinted on their foreheads, do content us, and satisfy and appease by their enjoyance, the burning desire which hath so violently caused us to re-search and seek them. And chose, the others do but increase this fervent desire or thirst, which the opinion and vice of our mind hath enkindled in us: The goods which are of his own invention, do neither appertain to the mind, or the body; For they are neuters and indifferent. The mind (as it were) committing adultery with the body, hath engendered them as so many Monsters, which participate some thing both of the one and the other. Of the mind, the estimation, price, and value: Of the body, that which they contain in them of material and terrestrial. That which they have in them of more natural, or of special and individual difference, doth not properly belong either to the one or the other. It is reported, That Mules (who are a third different sort of beasts, which two former have propagated) are incapable to engender. So those goods or privileges of Nature, which derive their Being from such different Natures, do never of themselves engender any good either to the mind, or the body. They are instruments, whereof we indifferently make use either to good or evil: and which for the most part serve only to foment our vices and passions. But as these good things are neuters and indifferent; so the evil which likewise proceeds of his Artifice, ought not to have greater privileges, and therefore the effect which they produce in us, which we term grief or pain, cannot be termed so, but very wrongfully and abusively: As imprisonment, banishment, loss of honours: Poverty offends neither the body, nor the mind, but is the chain which only presseth either the one or the other. If the mind complain, it is too blame, for it belongs to him only to know true or false: If he say that riches are good, and poverty evil, the senses will give him the lie thereto, for they complain not, at least if they do, they do it unjustly. If our mind had made this proposition, to wit; That the oar, or matter of gold, resembles that of earth; or that the difference proceeds not from the mixture of qualities and accidents, we must not appeal therein to our senses. Or if the Eye would contradict this proposition, because the colour of earth differs from that of gold, he should not be received or believed as judge. If our feeling would add in his own behalf, that he finds the one hard, the other soft; the one smooth, and the other harsh and impollished, yet it were false, and it may be showed them, that it belongs only to them, to judge of good or evil, and not of true or false. We must not then by the same reason term that good or evil, but which only the Senses will so please to do, or as true or false, that which it shall please the mind to ordain: So then there is nothing which will bear the name and quality of pain, but the contrary object to the inclination of our feeling thereof, as long as it is present with him, and doth still sensibly and extremely afflict him therewith: So that which is mediocrity, can be supported and endured by the constancy of our virtue, without astonishing or moving her, and yet nevertheless not without offering some outrage and violence to our felicity. But sith she exceeds the powers of patience, there is no courage so ambitious, but will be strucken and beaten down to the ground by the thunder of Fortune; whereof I no way fear the threatenings, but the blows, and happy is he that can prevent and hinder, that his fear devance not the effect thereof. SECTION. V. Although we grant that Man's felicity consists in Virtue, (which is not absolutely true) yet I affirm against the Stoics, that felicity is incompatible with grief and pain. THe noise of weapons (as one reporteth) hindereth the voice of Laws; but I believe with Zenos Scholar, that the noise of weapons, and assaults of pain, should more justly hinder us from understanding the precepts of Philosophy. This Philosopher being besieged by the sharp points of grief and pain, seeing that it was more persuasive to make him confess, that it was evil, than the power of all his Stoical reasons were to the contrary. He ingeniously confessed, that it was an evil, because all his long study, and time which he had employed in Philosophy, could not secure him from the torment, and less again, from the trouble and impatiency which grief and pain brought him. A Sect so rigorous, that as one of them said▪ It will neither rebate nor diminish any thing of the felicity of a Wise man, although he were in Phalaris his Bull: For felicity consists in virtue, and this virtue is the use of perfect reason, which we carry to goodness. This reason conserves itself whole and found in the mids of racks, torments, and afflictions, and consequently this felicity. I chose say, that so perfect a felicity is imaginary; and although it were true and real, that necessarily it is changed by grief and pain; For the first head hereof, I say, That nature hath imprinted in all creatures a desire to compass their own ends, whereunto being arrived, they seem to feel the true perfection of their being, from which being estranged and separated, they suffer (if we may say so) some pain in their insensibility. The simple bodies arrive more easily hereunto, having nothing in them which contradicts this desire. The compounded, as they enclose and shut up many contrary qualities, they cannot attain to this perfection, because their desires and objects being different and contrary, one cannot enjoy his tranquillity, but with the prejudice of the others: but if it fall out that they are dissolved, and divided by the fire, than every one retires to that part, where his desire calls him. But among the compounded, there is none more multiplied than man, because it seems that nature would assemble in him, as in a small compendium or Epitome: all that which is generally defused in all sublunary bodies; and far●e the more, because the soul being conjoined with it, she hath brought her desire with her, which tending to an infinite object, gives herself but small rest, and yet less to him of whom she hath the government and conduction. Therefore man being composed of so many contrary things, he nourisheth a discord, and perpetual civil war within him: and it is (as it were) impossible for him to appease it, because the remedy of the one, is the poison of the other. Heaven is the centre of light things, and Earth of those which are ponderous and heavy; that as the compound of these two still obeys the predominate quality, in such sort, that he cannot arrive to his centre, without offering violence to the least: So besides the contrary inclination of all the compounds, which slide into the structure and fabric of man; we must chiefly observe and remark these two. Of the party Inferior and Superior; Sensitive, and Reasonable, who incessantly oppose and contradict each other; and whereof the one cannot be in hi● perfect peace and tranquillity, except the other be far remote and distant from his; because their objects being contrary, and distant one from the other, at one time they cannot be in diverse places, nor much less in one and the same place, without quarrels and dissension; for which cause and reason, man cannot hope for perfect felicity in his life, sith it ought to be termed of an universal repose and tranquillity. If an Enemy set fire to all the four corners of a City, and batter it with an intent to ruin and take it: can we believe it is in peace, because the Governor thereof is in a place of assurance and security: So the mind being far distant from the assaults and blows of Fortune, is not a good consequence of tranquillity and perfect felicity; it will remain then imperfect, as man himself remains imperfect▪ and he should not be man, if he had but one of these parties and privileges: wherefore we may affirm, that the use of this perfect reason, should not be this perfect felicity, if it join not with her the repose and tranquillity of her companion the body, which should have the better part in felicity, because it is he true touchstone of good and evil, as we have formerly showed. In the second place I say, That put the cause that felicity consists in the use of perfect reason; and that she cannot long sympathise and agree with pain, because all the faculties of the Soul in general, suffer according to the motions and alterations of the body: So Reason is a material and corporal effect, which hath her root in the soul, and which cannot perfect herself: but by the benefit of the organs, and the temperate concurrence of the refined spirits of the blood, which if they are of too great a number or quantity, than they subvert, embroil, yea confound themselves, and become brutish and beastly, as you see they do by excess of wine or sleep. And if there be any defect, they degenerate into capriciousnes, or weakness of brain and ratiocination: But above all, she depends of the good disposition of the organs, the mind being more lively and active in health then sickness. A sweet and clear air, and a fair day doth clear and consolidate the judgement, sharpens our wit, dispelleth melancholy, makes our reason more masculine and vigorous, and in a word, makes us civiller and honester men. Reason is engendered, and grows with our body, their powers are brought up together, and we know that its infancy, vigour, maturity, age, and decrepitude, do commonly follow the age and temper of the body: And what then if this body be afflicted with grief or pain, shall she not feel it? What shall we say of those whose excess and violence of pain, caries them to swooning and convulsions, which proceeds and happens, because the spirits of blood being changed by this violence, do divert themselves from their ordinary course, and put themselves into disorder and confusion in the organ; so that they hinder their regular function. There is no point of wisdom so pure, which can hinder this trouble, or secure itself from it, because it cannot resist the power of sleep. But perfect reason subsisteth nor but by this well-governed function of the spirits, for that ceasing she also ceaseth. But O ye Stoics, what will be your felicity in torments! If your reason forsake you, and play false company with you; what will then become of this Virtue, which no longer knows herself: is this it which she had promised you? Whiles the Enemy sacks you, and Fortune tears and drags you by the hair, she will abandon you at need, and dares not show herself, but when your Enemies are retired and vanished. And yet then she returns so weak and trembling, that it seems she hath felt the very same blows which our body hath. What shall we say of those from whom she having been but once absent, she never had the assurance to return again? Lucretius a great Poet and Philosopher, by a love potion, too sharp for the palate of Virtue, gave him occasion to dislodge, and to abandon the place to folly. Fair Felicity, how your favours are difficult to purchase, and easy to lose. Will you so permit, that levity command, and dispose you to the prejudice of that fortitude and constancy, whereof you make profession: you say that you are a daughter of Heaven; and can you therefore suffer the affront and disgrace of this daughter of Earth, I mean Fortune, that she drag you Captive, and proudly triumph of your spoils: At least, if this Stoical Virtue could engender a degree of leprosy in our sense and feeling: she hereby might make head, and oppose against Fortune: but she is so far from it, as she sharpens it, and makes it more sensible to the Arrows that she shoots at us: And to show more clearly and apparently how this poison of pain and grief runs into the superior party, which we term reasonable, and so infects it with its contagion: we must know that the contrary qualities, which concur and meet in the compound, would never subsist together, if they were not attoned and agreed by a third party; who participating both of the one and the other, doth thereby entertain them, and appease their enmity and contention. And Nature could never have sowed or tied to man, two such contrary pieces, without the aid and assistance of a third, which are the purest and most subtlest spirits of the blood; which hold fast, and tie themselves to the abundance and affluence thereof, by the grossest part which is in them, and to the soul by that which is purest in it, and which holds fast, and stays in this prison of the body: So that provided that this third be not offended; Man still maintains himself. He can live without reason, as the Sun can do towards us, and in our Hemisphere, without enlightening us with his rays and beams, whiles he is eclipsed with so black, and thick a cloud, that it cannot pierce forth to our eyes; because reason is as the eye of the soul, which shines not forth openly and brightly to us, if it meet with any obstacle or interposition. If the legs or arms of a man be wounded, or cut off, he may yet support himself, and live: But when this third is excessively endomaged, and that he hath forsaken the match; then the body being too corpulent and massive, having no more holdfast of the soul, is constrained to forsake and abandon her. This third therefore serves as an Interpreter both to the one and the other. He gives the body to understand the will of the soul, and to the Soul, the appetites and desires of the senses. All that generally befalls man, is divided by this third, which sends to the one and the other their part and portion. If pain afflict the body, it spreads and runs through all the spirits to the very soul; as by a sulphurous match, lighted at both ends; and at the same instant sets fire every where, as well in the superior as the inferior part, where she offends and outrageth both the senses, and reason. Thus pain having then past and entered into reason, it there troubleth the repose, and changeth the felicity of the Stoic. So that the voice of that Philosopher, who cried out, O Pain, I will not say that thou art sharp or evil: is not a sufficient testimony of his victory over it. It is a Soldier which he hath taken in the midst of the conflict and combat: but yet he drags our Philosopher as his prisoner after him. A Captive who spits injuries in her Master's face, is yet no less his Slave: He who willingly obeys not, is more rigorously handled, and the Wise man who arms himself against a violent pain or grief, hath not so cheap a bargain as ourselves, because it is still ill done of us to incense an enemy, who hath in his hands the power and means to offend us. To put this Constancy as she is depainted by them into a man's hands, to oppose and fight against this strong Enemy, it is to put Hercules his Club into the hands of a Pigmy. The Weapons and Armour wherewith they load our weak shoulders, do beat us down, and kill us with their weight. It belongs to none but to Socrates, to wear this Corslet; or to manage or play with the weapons of Achilles, and to accustom ourselves to it, we must vigorously assail and assault Fortune, never to make truce with her; to provoke and dare her to the Combat, with a firm footing and resolution, with the sweat on our front, to sup dust into our mouth, to make us drunk with her wounds; by little and little to fortify our stomach, as another Pill of Mithridate, against the poison of unlooked for accidents, which may corrupt our health. I mean the peace and tranquillity of our felicity. SECTION VI. Man's life is a harmony, composed of so many different tones, that it is very difficult for Virtue to hold, and keep them still in tune. I Find that the Poets do exceedingly sing, and paint forth the praises and beauty of Venus: That commonly they lend Arrows to this young Cupid, which are sharper than those he caries about him in his quiver; and that their true natural beauty is nothing in comparison of those they borrow from this strange painting and false decoration: But it seems to me, that Philosophers do no less by their wisdom, for she ha●h not so much beauty or excellency naked, as by those ornaments and attires wherewith the Stoikes embellish and adorn her: and I know not if the Gods envy not the condition of men, for the price of the like recompense. This Virtue, as it is painted out by Seneca, ha●h such enchanted lures and graces, that if this Image could heat itself in our breast, and receive life in our arms by the favour of Minerva, as heretofore the Statue of Pygmalion, did by the 〈◊〉 of Venus: I believe that the felicity and sweetness thereof, would tyre our hopes and desires. The b●yers and thorns which they place on the approaches and advenewes thereof, and those extreme difficulties which they put before it; to arrive to this last point, is the only means which they use to cover their secrets, and consequently to conceal the vanity of their Art. Let us not be so ambitious to advance and elevate ourselves so high, for those who see and perceive it, will easily judge, that their wings are by far too weak to second and make good so audacious a flight. To promise more than we can perform, is the part of an Ignorant; and to hope for less than we ought, is that of a Novice or Apprentice. But to hope, and not to promise ourselves, but that which we can, is the act of an experienced and wise man. Let us not therefore think that the point of felicity, whereunto this moral Virtue can raise us, is above the storms and tempests of Fortune. All which she can do, is to cast anchor in the midst of the tempest: in the mean time, the vessel notwithstanding will still be tossed with the waves and billows thereof. If affliction, of pain assault us not, we shall then remain invincible and victorious: but if Fortune assail and board us there, she than beats down, and ruineth all our defences. For reason is wonderfully tender and courteous to pain: She knows not how to fight with her, but with words: She is a woman who hath no other offensive weapons, but injuries and obstinacy. And yet if we enforced ourselves to arrive to the degree of this Virtue as she is, we should then very often be in repose and tranquillity, and might enjoy felicity, whereof we are capable. At least, knowing her imperfection, we should do as the Painter, who hides his grossest and obscurest colours under his fairest, and most liveliest. We should compel ourselves to cover the misery of our misfortunes, by the happiness of those which second our desires: For to promise ourselves so perfect and complete a contentment, that the approaches and advenewes thereof, be not crossed by some affliction or displeasure▪ we should therein counterfeit a true Mountebank, who pretends and affirms, that he can draw a tooth from us without feeling or pain. Voluptuousness hath some thing in her, I know not how bitter and inevitable, both in her beginning and end. I commend and highly praise that Philosopher, who proceeds in the purity of his soul, and not he who purposely shows his conceptions: but who strikes home, arangeth his reasons orderly, and speaks freely what he thinks. Let his life be conformable to his writings, and if it be possible, let his effects teach his own rules and instructions; for he cannot easily cure others, who is not able or capable to comfort himself, except he pass for a hired Sophister, Orator, or Philosopher: For wisdom must exhaust from the profundity of our soul, (as from the Well of Democritus,) all that which is truth, or at lest which seems so to us. For if abuse or flattery prevail, or penetrate so far with us, there will nothing then remain either sound or entire in us. To promise a complete and perfect felicity without the favour of Fortune, is tha● which I cannot do; and to think, or pretend to do it any other way then by virtue, is a design too defective and ridiculous To receive the favours of Fortune, by the door of Virtue, and not to let them depart from you, but by the same passage, is in my opinion the only means to give entrance to repose and tranquillity: but here our courage must not fail us at need. Let us follow the point of this natural desire, which we feel in us, as a small and weak spark, which may be enkindled and inflamed, till it grow to a greater and purer light, and then serve us as a guide in so generous an enterprise. There is none but in some sort feels; and cherisheth Virtue; with a hope to obtain and enjoy her: But we may say of her as Isocrates of the City of Athens, that she was pleasant and delightful in the same nature and manner, as fair Strumpets or Courtesans, with whom men only love to pass their time with, but not to wed them, or reside with them: Right so, Virtue is beloved and courted of all the world, to pass our time with, and only for show and ostentation. But no man takes her to his wife, and espouseth her. We b●are her on our lips, but not in our hearts, and in our speeches and writings, but not in our actions: For we must water and colour our soul therewith. If we think, or hope to feel the effects of true felicity, which must not be as we suppose, a joy conceived through the opinion of a false good, governed without rule or discretion; but a constant and settled pleasure, agreeing in all things, and in all places with herself. And this is the most sublimest and eminent'st place; where the wisdom of man endeavoureth and strives to arrive: Wisdom which yet can never elevate him so high, but that he shall still feel and know himself to be man. He cannot take himself from himself, nor escape those his natural defects and qualities, but that he shall still receive some mortal, or at least some sensible blows and assaults thereof. The winds beat and assail the highest Towers and Turrets, Vanity pardoneth not the highest, bravest, or most solid wits and judgements: but chose, as she meets with a barren and empty wit, discharged of passions; which seemed formerly to provoke and animate her, she thereby then thinks, she hath the more right to possess and enjoy its place: As a Pipe or Butt is emptied, so the wind and air succeeds in place of the wine: And by the same measure that we make the greatest and grossest imperfections to distil and stream away from the nature of man: Vanity arrives in the place thereof, where she ex●ends herself every way at large, and resides and dwells with far more ease. And to conclude, what privilege or advantage so ever we can give to man, who is like ourselves, or what Honours we can render or yield either to him, or to ourselves. Man is nothing but a dream, Who feeds, and gnaws on lies extreme: In his best state constant never: A shadow which the morn dispelleth, A lightning that a cloud refelleth, Whose being, and not being, a moment sever. FINIS.