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TREATISE

OF THE

PASSIONS AND FACULTIES

OF THE

SOUL OF MAN.

CHAP. I.

Of the dependence of the soul, in her operations upon the body.

IT hath been a just complaint of learned men, that usually we are more curious in our enquiries after things new than excellent; and that the very nearness of worthy objects, hath at once made them both despised and unknown. Thus, like children, with an idle diligence, and fruitless curiosity, we turn over this great book of Nature, without perusing those ordinary characters, wherein is expressed the greatest power of the worker, and excellency of the work; fixing our admiration only on those pictures, and unusual novelties, which though, for their rareness, they are more strange, yet, for their nature, are less worthy. Every comet or burning meteor strikes more wonder into the beholder, than those glorious lamps of Nature, with their admirable motions and order, in which the heathen have acknowledged a divineness. Let a child be born but with six fingers, or have a part more than usual, we rather wonder at one superfluous, than at all natural. Sol spectatorem, nisi cum deficit, non habet: nemo observat lunam nisi laborantem: adeò naturale est magis nova, quàm magna mirari: None looketh with wonder on the sun, but in an eclipse; no eye gazeth on the moon, but in

* Cic. de Div. 1. 2. Plin. 1. 1. ep. 20. Qu. Nat. 1. 7. c. 1.

b Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1. 2.

e Sen.

her travail : so natural it is with men to admire rather things new than common. Whereas indeed things are fit for study and observation, though never so common, in regard of the perfection of their nature, and usefulness of their knowledge. In which respect, the plain counsel of the Oracle was one of the wisest which was ever given to man, to study and to know himself;' because, by reason of his own nearness to himself, he is usually of himself most unknown and neglected. And yet if we consider how, in him, it hath pleased God to stamp a more notable character of his own image, and to make him, amongst all his works, one of the most perfect models of created excellency; we cannot but acknowledge him to be one, though of the least, yet of the fittest volumes, in this great variety of Nature to be acquainted withal. Intending therefore, according to my weakness, to take some view of the inside and more noble characters of this book, it will not be needful for me to gaze upon the cover, to insist on the materials or sensitive conditions of the human nature, or to commend him in his anatomy; though even, in that respect, the Psalmist tells us, that he is "fearfully and wonderfully made :" for we commonly see, that as most kinds of plants or trees exceed us in vegetation and fertility, so many sorts of beasts have a greater activity and exquisiteness in their senses than we. And the reason thereof is, because Nature, aiming at a superior and more excellent end, is, in those lower faculties, less intent and elaborate. It shall suffice, therefore, only to lay a ground-work in these lower faculties, for the better notice of man's greater perfections, which have ever some connexion and dependence on them. For whereas the principal acts of man's soul, are either of reason and discourse, proceeding from his understanding,-or of action and morality, from his will; both these, in the present condition of man's estate, have their dependence on the organs and faculties of the body, which, in the one, precede,-in the other, follow: to the one, they are as porters, to let in and convey; to the other, as messengers, to perform and execute: to the one, the whole body is as an eye, through which it seeth; to the other, a hand, by which it worketh.

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Concerning the ministry, therefore, of the body unto the soul, we shall thus resolve, that the reasonable part of man, in that condition of subsistence which now it hath, depends, in all its ordinary and natural operations, upon the happy or disordered temperature of those vital qualities, out of whose apt and regular commixion the good estate of the body is framed and composed for though these ministerial parts have not any over-ruling, yet they have a disturbing power, to hurt and hinder the operations of the soul. Whence we find, that sundry diseases of the body do oftentimes weaken, yea, sometimes quite extirpate, the deepest impression and most fixed habits of the mind. For as wheresoever there is a locomotive faculty, though there be the principal cause of all motion and activity, yet, if the subordinate instruments, the bones and sinews be disjointed, shrunk, or any other ways indisposed for the exercise of that power, there can be no actual motion;-or as in the body politick, the prince (whom Seneca calleth the Soul of the Commonwealth) receiveth either true or false intelligence from abroad, according as is the fidelity or negligence of those instruments, whom Xenophon termeth the "eyes and ears of Kings;"-in like manner, the soul of man being not an absolute independent worker, but receiving all her objects by conveyance from these bodily instruments, which Cicero calleth "the Messengers to the Soul,"-if they, out of any indisposition, shall be weakened, the soul must continue like a 'rasa tabula,' without any acquired or introduced habits. The soul hath not immediately from itself that strange weakness, which is observed in many men, but only as it is disabled by earthly and sluggish organs; which being out of order, are more burdensome than serviceable thereunto.

There are observable in the souls of men, considered in themselves, and in reference one to another, two defects: an imperfection, and an inequality, of operation. The former of these, I do not so ascribe to that bodily weakness, whereby the soul is any way oppressed, as if I conceived no internal darkness in the faculties themselves; since the fall of man,

e Solinus de quodam refert, quod, accepto vulnere in occipitio, ad tantam devenit ignorantiam, ut nesciret se habuisse nomen.-Honorius Augustodunens, de Philosoph. Mundi, lib. 4. c. 24. Sen. de Clem. lib. 1. cap 4. * Xenoph.

Cyrop. lib. 8. et Arist. Polit. lib. 3. cap. 12.

working in him a general corruption, did, amongst the rest, infatuate the mind, and, as it were, smother the soul with ignorance; so that the outward ineptitude of bodily instruments, is only a furtherance and improvement of that native imperfection. But for the inequality and difference of men's understandings in their several operations, notwithstanding it be questioned in the schools, whether the souls of men have not originally, in their natures, degrees of perfection and weakness, whence these several degrees of operation may proceed; yet nevertheless that being granted, I suppose, that it likewise, in great part, proceeds from the variety, tempers, and dispositions in the instrumental faculties of the body;-by the help whereof, the soul in this estate worketh. For I cannot perceive it possible, that there should have been, if man had continued in his innocency, (wherein our bodies should have had an exact constitution, free from those distempers to which now, by sin, they are liable) such remarkable differences between men's apprehensions, as we now see there are: for there should have been, in all men, a great facility to apprehend the mysteries of nature, and to acquire knowledge (as we see in Adam) which now we find, in a large measure, granted to some, and to others, quite denied. And yet, in that perfect estate (according to the opinion of those who now maintain it) there would have been found a substantial and internal inequality amongst the souls of men. And therefore principally this variety comes from the sundry constitutions of men's bodies: in some, yielding enablement for quickness of apprehension; in others pressing down and entangling the understanding; in some, disposing the mind unto one object; in some, unto another, according as the impetus and force of their natural affections carrieth them. And therefore Aristotle, in his Politicks, ascribeth the inequality, which he observes between the Asiatic and European wits, unto the several climates and temperature of the regions in which they lived: according whereunto, the complexions and constitutions of their bodies only could be altered; the soul being, in itself, according to the same philosopher, impassible from any corporeal agent. And to the same purpose again he saith, "That if an old

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man had a young man's eye, his sight would be as sharp and as distinct as a young man's is;" implying the diversity of perception to be grounded only on the diversity of bodily instruments, by which it is exercised. And therefore he elsewhere observes (I shall not trouble myself to examine upon what ground) that "men of soft and tender skins have greatest quickness of wit;" and on the contrary, "Duri carne, inepti mente;" thereby intimating, that there is no more significant and lively expression of a vigorous or heavy soul, than a happy or ill-ordered body; wherein we may, sundry times, read the abilities of the mind, and the inclinations of the will. So then it is manifest, that this weakness of apprehension in the souls of men, doth not only come from an immediate and proper darkness belonging unto them, but from the co-existence which they have with a body, ill-disposed for assistance and information. For he who is carried in a coach (as the body is vehiculum animæ'), though he be of himself more nimble and active, must yet receive such motion as that affords and water which is conveyed through pipes and aqueducts, though its motion by itself would have been otherwise, must yet then be limited. by the posture and proportion of the vessels through which it passeth.

CHAP. II.

In what cases the dependence of the soul on the body is lessened by faith, custom, education, occasion.

BUT yet this dependence on the body is not so necessary and immutable, but that it may admit of variation, and the soul be, in some cases, vindicated from the impression of the body and this, first, in extraordinary; and next, in more common actions. In actions extraordinary, as those pious and religious operations of the soul, assent, faith, invocation, and many others; wherein the soul is carried beyond the sphere of sense, and transported unto more raised operations. For to believe and know, that there are laid up for pious and holy endeavours "those joys, which eye hath not

* De Anima, 1.2.

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