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The Second Part.Section I.
Section I.
[Footnote 1: Region of the earth`s surface, used like our degrees of
latitude.]
Now for that other Virtue of Charity, without which Faith is a meer
notion, and of no existence, I have ever endeavoured to nourish the
merciful disposition and humane inclination I borrowed from my Parents,
and regulate it to the written and prescribed Laws of Charity. And if I hold
the true Anatomy of my self, I am delineated and naturally framed to such a
piece of virtue; for I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and
symphathiseth with all things. I have no antipathy, or rather Idiosyncrasie,
in dyet, humour, air, any thing. I wonder not at the French for their dishes
of Frogs, Snails and Toadstools, nor at the Jews for Locusts and
Grasshoppers; but being amongst them, make them my common Viands, and I find
they agree with my Stomach as well as theirs. I could digest a Salad gathered
in a Church-yard, as well as in a Garden. I cannot start at the presence of a
Serpent, Scorpion, Lizard, or Salamander: at the sight of a Toad or Viper, I
find in me no desire to take up a stone to destroy them. I feel not in my
self those common Antipathies that I can discover in others: those National
repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice the French,
Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch: but where I find their actions in balance with
my Country-men`s, I honour, love, and embrace them in the same degree. I was
born in the eighth Climate,^1 but seem for to be framed and constellated unto
all. I am no Plant that will not prosper out of a Garden. All places, all
airs, make unto me one Countrey; I am in England every where, and under any
Meridian. I have been shipwrackt, yet am not enemy with the Sea or Winds;
I can study, play, or sleep in a Tempest. In brief, I am averse from
nothing: my Conscience would give me the lye if I should say I absolutely
detest or hate any essence but the Devil; or so at least abhor any thing, but
that we might come to composition. If there be any among those common objects
of hatred I do contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of Reason, Virtue
and Religion, the Multitude: that numerous piece of monstrosity, which, taken
asunder, seem men, and the reasonable creatures of God; but, confused
together, make but one great beast, and a monstrosity more prodigious than
Hydra. It is no breach of Charity to call these Fools; it is the style all
holy Writers have afforded them, set down by Solomon in Canonical Scripture,
and a point of our Faith to believe so. Neither in the name of Multitude do
I onely include the base and minor sort of people; there is a rabble even
amongst the Gentry, a sort of Plebeian heads, whose fancy moves with the same
wheel as these; men in the same Level with Mechanicks, though their fortunes
do somewhat guild their infirmities, and their purses compound for their
follies. But as, in casting account, three or four men together come short
in account of one man placed by himself below them; so neither are a troop
of these ignorant Doradoes^2 of that true esteem and value, as many a forlorn
person, whose condition doth place him below their feet. Let us speak like
Politicians:^3 there is a Nobility without Heraldry, a natural dignity,
whereby one man is ranked with another, another filed before him, according
to the quality of his Desert, and preheminence of his good parts. Though the
corruption of these times and the byas of present practice wheel another way,
thus it was in the first and primitive Commonwealths, and is yet in the
integrity and Cradle of well-order`d Polities, till corruption getteth ground;
ruder desires labouring after that which wiser considerations contemn, every
one having a liberty to amass and heap up riches, and they a licence or
faculty to do or purchase any thing.
[Footnote 2: Spanish, the name of a fish: here=fools.]
[Footnote 3: Statesmen.]
II. This general and indifferent temper of mine doth more neerly dispose
me to this noble virtue. It is a happiness to be born and framed unto virtue,
and to grow up from the seeds of nature, rather than the inoculation and
forced graffs of education: yet if we are directed only by our particular
Natures, and regulate our inclinations by no higher rule than that of our
reasons, we are but Moralists; Divinity will still call us Heathens. Therefore
this great work of charity must have other motives, ends, and impulsions. I
give no alms only to satisfy the hunger of my Brother, but to fulfil and
accomplish the Will and Command of my God: I draw not my purse for his sake
that demands it, but His That enjoyned it: I relieve no man upon the
Rhetorick of his miseries, nor to content mine own commiserating disposition;
for this is still but moral charity, and an act that oweth more to passion
than reason. He that relieves another upon the bare suggestion and bowels of
pity, doth not this, so much for his sake as for his own; for by compassion we
make others misery our own, and so, by relieving them, we relieve our selves
also. It is as erroneous a conceit to redress other Mens misfortunes upon the
common considerations of merciful natures, that it may be one day our own
case; for this is a sinister and politick kind of charity, whereby we seem to
bespeak the pities of men in the like occasions. And truly I have observed
that those professed Eleemosynaries, though in a croud or multitude, do yet
direct and place their petitions on a few and selected persons: there is
surely a Physiognomy, which those experienced and Master Mendicants observe,
whereby they instantly discover a merciful aspect, and will single out a face
wherein they spy the signatures and marks of Mercy. For there are mystically
in our faces certain Characters which carry in them the motto of our Souls,
wherein he that cannot read A. B. C. may read our natures. I hold moreover
that there is a Phytognomy, or Physiognomy, not only of Men, but of Plants and
Vegetables; and in every one of them some outward figures which hang as signs
or bushes^4 of their inward forms. The Finger of God hath left an Inscription
upon all His works, not graphical or composed of Letters, but of their
several forms, constitutions, parts, and operations, which, aptly joyned
together, do make one word that doth express their natures. By these Letters
God calls the Stars by their names; and by this Alphabet Adam assigned to
every creature a name peculiar to its Nature. Now there are, besides these
Characters in our Faces, certain mystical figures in our Hands, which I dare
not call meer dashes, strokes a la volee, or at random, because delineated by
a Pencil that never works in vain; and hereof I take more particular notice,
because I carry that in mine own hand which I could never read of nor discover
in another. Aristotle, I confess, in his acute and singular Book of
Physiognomy, hath made no mention of Chiromancy; yet I believe the
Egyptians, who were neerer addicted to those abstruse and mystical sciences,
had a knowledge therein, to which those vagabond and counterfeit Egyptians^5
did after pretend, and perhaps retained a few corrupted principles, which
sometimes might verifie their prognosticks.
[Footnote 4: Bushes were hung out as signs before tavern doors.]
It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many millions of faces,
there should be none alike: now contrary, I wonder as much how there should be
any. He that shall consider how many thousand several words have been
carelessly and without study composed out of twenty-four Letters; withal, how
many hundred lines there are to be drawn in the Fabrick of one Man, shall
easily find that this variety is necessary; and it will be very hard that they
shall so concur as to make one portract like another. Let a Painter carelesly
limb out a million of Faces, and you shall find them all different; yea, let
him have his Copy before him, yet after all his art there will remain a
sensible distinction; for the pattern or example of every thing is the
perfectest in that kind, whereof we still come short, though we transcend or
go beyond it, because herein it is wide, and agrees not in all points unto the
copy. Nor doth the similitude of Creatures disparage the variety of Nature,
nor any way confound the Works of God. For even in things alike there is
diversity; and those that do seem to accord do manifestly disagree. And thus
is man like God; for in the same things that we resemble Him, we are utterly
different from Him. There was never anything so like another as in all points
to concur: there will ever some reserved difference slip in, to prevent the
identity; without which, two several things would not be alike, but the same,
which is impossible.
[Footnote 5: Gipsies.]
III. But to return from Philosophy to Charity: I hold not so narrow a
conceit of this virtue, as to conceive that to give Alms is onely to be
Charitable, or think a piece of Liberality can comprehend the Total of
Charity. Divinity hath wisely divided the act thereof into many branches, and
hath taught us in this narrow way many paths unto goodness; as many ways as we
may do good, so many ways we may be charitable. There are infirmities not
onely of Body, but of Soul, and Fortunes, which do require the merciful hand
of our abilities. I cannot contemn a man for ignorance, but behold him with
as much pity as I do Lazarus. It is no greater Charity to cloath his body,
than apparel the nakedness of his Soul. It is an honourable object to see the
reasons of other men wear our Liveries, and their borrowed understandings do
homage to the bounty of ours: it is the cheapest way of beneficence, and, like
the natural charity of the Sun, illuminates another without obscuring itself.
To be reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness, is the sordidest piece of
covetousness, and more contemptible than pecuniary Avarice. To this (as
calling my self a Scholar,) I am obliged by the duty of my condition: I make
not therefore my head a grave, but a treasure, of knowledge; I intend no
Monopoly, but a community, in learning; I study not for my own sake only, but
for theirs that study not for themselves. I envy no man that knows more than
my self, but pity them that know less. I instruct no man as an exercise of my
knowledge, or with intent rather to nourish and keep it alive in mine own head
then beget and propagate it in his: and in the midst of all my endeavours
there is but one thought that dejects me, that my acquired parts must perish
with my self, nor can be Legacied among my honoured Friends. I cannot fall out
or contemn a man for an errour, or conceive why a difference in Opinion should
divide an affection; for Controversies, Disputes, and Argumentations, both in
Philosophy and in Divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures,
do not infringe the Laws of Charity. In all disputes, so much as there is of
passion, so much there is of nothing to the purpose; for then Reason, like a
bad Hound, spends upon a false Scent, and forsakes the question first started.
And this is one reason why Controversies are never determined; for, though
they be amply proposed, they are scarce at all handled, they do so swell with
unnecessary Digressions; and the Parenthesis on the party is often as large as
the main discourse upon the subject. The Foundations of Religion are already
established, and the Principles of Salvation subscribed unto by all: there
remains not many controversies worth a Passion; and yet never any disputed
without, not only in Divinity, but inferiour Arts. What a Barpaxomuomaxia^6
and hot skirmish is betwixt S. and T. in Lucian.!^7 How do Grammarians hack
and slash for the Genitive case in Jupiter!^8 How do they break their own
pates to salve that of Priscian!
[Footnote 6: Battle of the Frogs and Mice.]
Si foret in terris, rideret Democritus.
[If he were on earth, Democritus would laugh.]
Yea, even amongst wiser militants, how many wounds have been given, and
credits slain, for the poor victory of an opinion or beggerly conquest of a
distinction! Scholars are men of Peace, they bear no Arms, but their tongues
are sharper than Actius his razor;^9 their Pens carry farther, and give a
louder report than Thunder: I had rather stand the shock of a Basilisco,^10
than the fury of a merciless Pen. It is not meer Zeal to Learning, or Devotion
to the Muses, that wiser Princes Patron the Arts, and carry an indulgent
aspect unto Scholars; but a desire to have their names eternized by the memory
of their writings, and a fear of the revengeful Pen of succeeding ages; for
these are the men, that, when they have played their parts, and had their
exits, must step out and give the moral of their Scenes, and deliver unto
Posterity an Inventory of their Virtues and Vices. And surely there goes a
great deal of Conscience to the compiling of an History: there is no
reproach^11 to the scandal of a Story; it is such an authentick kind of
falshood that with authority belies our good names to all Nations and
Posterity.
IV. There is another offence unto Charity, which no Author hath ever
written of, and few take notice of; and that`s the reproach, not of whole
professions, mysteries, and conditions, but of whole Nations, wherein by
opprobrious Epithets we miscall each other, and by an uncharitable Logick,
from a disposition in a few, conclude a habit in all.
[Footnote 7: In Lucian`s "Judicium Vocalium," where the letter S accuses T of
interference with the other consonants.]
[Footnote 8: Whether Jupiteris or Jovis.]
[Footnote 9: Which cut through a whetstone.]
[Footnote 10: A kind of cannon.]
[Footnote 11: Because it is believed.]
Le mutin Anglois, et le bravache Escossois,
Et le fol Francois,
Le poultron Romain, le larron de Gascongne,
L`Espagnol superbe, et l`Aleman yurongne.
[The stubborn Englishman, the swaggering Scot, the foolish Frenchman, the
coward Roman, the Gascon thief, the proud Spaniard, and the drunken German.]
St. Paul, that calls the Cretians lyars,^12 doth it but indirectly, and
upon quotation of their own Poet.^13 It is as bloody a thought in one way, as
Nero`s^14 was in another; for by a word we wound a thousand, and at one blow
assassine the honour of a Nation. It is as compleat a piece of madness to
miscal and rave against the times, or think to recal men to reason by a fit of
passion. Democritus, that thought to laugh the times into goodness, seems to
me as deeply Hypochondriack as Heraclitus, that bewailed them. It moves not
my spleen to behold the multitude in their proper humours, that is, in their
fits of folly and madness; as well understanding that wisdom is not prophan`d
unto the World, and `tis the priviledge of a few to be Vertuous. They that
endeavour to abolish Vice, destroy also Virtue; for contraries, though they
destroy one another, are yet the life of one another. Thus Virtue (abolish
vice,) is an Idea. Again, the community^15 of sin doth not disparage goodness;
for when Vice gains upon the major part, Virtue, in whom it remains, becomes
more excellent; and being lost in some, multiplies its goodness in others
which remain untouched and persist intire in the general inundation. I can
therefore behold Vice without a Satyr, content only with an admonition, or
instructive reprehension; for Noble Natures, and such as are capable of
goodness, are railed into vice, that might as easily be admonished into
virtue; and we should be all so far the Orators of goodness, as to protect her
from the power of Vice, and maintain the cause of injured truth. No man can
justly censure or condemn another, because indeed no man truly knows another.
This I perceive in my self; for I am in the dark to all the world, and my
nearest friends beheld me but in a cloud. Those that know me but
superficially, think less of me than I do of my self; those of my neer
acquaintance think more; God, Who truly knows me, knows that I am nothing; for
He only beholds me and all the world, Who looks not on us through a derived
ray, or a trajection^16 of a sensible species, but beholds the substance
without the helps of accidents, and the forms of things as we their
operations. Further, no man can judge another, because no man knows himself:
for we censure others but as they disagree from that humour which we fancy
laudable in our selves, and commend others but for that wherein they seem to
quadrate^17 and consent with us. So that, in conclusion, all is but that we
all condemn, Self-love. `Tis the general complaint of these times, and perhaps
of those past, that charity grows cold; which I perceive most verified in
those which most do manifest the fires and flames of zeal; for it is a virtue
that best agrees with coldest natures, and such as are complexioned for
humility. But how shall we expect Charity towards others, when we are
uncharitable to our selves? Charity begins at home, is the voice of the World;
yet is every man his greatest enemy, and, as it were, his own Executioner. Non
occides, [Thou shalt not kill] is the Commandment of God, yet scarce observed
by any man; for I perceive every man is his own Atropos,^18 and lends a hand
to cut the thred of his own days. Cain was not therefore the first Murtherer,
but Adam, who brought in death; whereof he beheld the practice and example in
his own son Abel, and saw that verified in the experience of another, which
faith could not perswade him in the Theory of himself.
[Footnote 12: "Titus" i. 12.]
[Footnote 13: Epimenides.]
[Footnote 14: Perhaps a confusion with Caligula, who wished that the whole
Roman people had one neck.]
[Footnote 15: Prevalence.]
[Footnote 16: Emission.]
[Footnote 17: Square.]
[Footnote 18: The Fate who cuts the thread of life.]
V. There is, I think, no man that apprehends his own miseries less than
my self, and no man that so neerly apprehends anothers. I could lose an arm
without a tear, and with few groans, methinks; be quartered into pieces; yet
can I weep most seriously at a Play, and receive with true passion the
counterfeit grief of those known and professed Impostures. It is a barbarous
part of inhumanity to add unto any afflicted parties misery, or indeavour to
multiply in any man a passion whose single nature is already above his
patience. This was the greatest affliction of Job, and those oblique
expostulations of his Friends a deeper injury than the down-right blows of the
Devil. It is not the tears of our own eyes only, but of our friends also, that
do exhaust the current of our sorrows; which, falling into many streams, runs
more peaceably, and is contented with a narrower channel. It is an act within
the power of charity, to translate a passion out of one breast into another,
and to divide a sorrow almost out of it self; for an affliction, like a
dimension, may be so divided, as, if not indivisible, at least to become
insensible. Now with my friend I desire not to share or participate, but to
engross, his sorrows; that, by making them mine own, I may more easily discuss
them; for in mine own reason, and within my self, I can command that which I
cannot intreat without my self, and within the circle of another. I have often
thought those noble pairs and examples of friendship not so truly Histories of
what had been, as fictions of what should be; but I now perceive nothing in
them but possibilities, nor anything in the Heroick examples of Damon and
Pythias, Achilles and Patroclus, which methinks upon some grounds I could not
perform within the narrow compass of my self. That a man should lay down his
life for his Friend, seems strange to vulgar affections, and such as confine
themselves within that Worldly principle, Charity begins at home. For mine own
part I could never remember the relations that I held unto my self, nor the
respect that I owe unto my own nature, in the cause of God, my Country, and my
Friends. Next to these three, I do embrace my self. I confess I do not observe
that order that the Schools ordain our affections, to love our Parents, Wives,
Children, and then our Friends; for, excepting the injunctions of Religion, I
do not find in my self such a necessary and indissoluble Sympathy to all those
of my blood. I hope I do not break the fifth Commandment, if I conceive I may
love my friend before the nearest of my blood, even those to whom I owe the
principles of life. I never yet cast a true affection on a woman; but I have
loved my friend as I do virtue, my soul, my God. From hence me thinks I do
conceive how God loves man, what happiness there is in the love of God.
Omitting all other, there are three most mystical unions: 1. two natures in
one person; 2. three persons in one nature; 3. one soul in two bodies; for
though indeed they be really divided, yet are they so united, as they seem
but one, and make rather a duality than two distinct souls.
VI. There are wonders in true affection: it is a body of Enigma`s,
mysteries, and riddles; wherein two so become one, as they both become two.
I love my friend before my self, and yet methinks I do not love him enough:
some few months hence my multiplied affection will make me believe I have not
loved him at all. When I am from him, I am dead till I be with him; when I am
with him, I am not satisfied, but would still be nearer him. United souls are
not satisfied with imbraces, but desire to be truly each other; which being
impossible, their desires are infinite, and must proceed without a possibility
of satisfaction. Another misery there is in affection, that whom we truly love
like our own selves, we forget their looks, nor can our memory retain the Idea
of their faces; and it is no wonder, for they are our selves, and our
affection makes their looks our own. This noble affection falls not on vulgar
and common constitutions, but on such as are mark`d for virtue: he that can
love his friend with this noble ardour, will in a competent degree affect all.
Now, if we can bring our affections to look beyond the body, and cast an eye
upon the soul, we have found out the true object, not only of friendship, but
Charity; and the greatest happiness that we can bequeath the soul, is that
wherein we all do place our last felicity, Salvation; which though it be not
in our power to bestow, it is in our charity and pious invocations to desire,
if not procure and further. I cannot contentedly frame a prayer for my self in
particular, without a catalogue for my friends; nor request a happiness,
wherein my sociable disposition doth not desire the fellowship of my
neighbour. I never hear the Toll of a passing Bell, though in my mirth, with
out my prayers and best wishes for the departing spirit; I cannot go to cure
the body of my patient, but I forget my profession, and call unto God for his
soul; I cannot see one say his prayers, but, in stead of imitating him, I fall
into a supplication for him, who perhaps is no more to me than a common
nature: and if God hath vouchsafed an ear to my supplications, there are
surely many happy that never saw me, and enjoy the blessing of mine unknown
devotions. To pray for Enemies, that is, for their salvation, is no harsh
precept, but the practice of our daily and ordinary devotions. I cannot
believe the story of the Italian:^19 our bad wishes and uncharitable desires
proceed no further than this life; it is the Devil, and the uncharitable votes
of Hell, that desire our misery in the world to come.
[Footnote 19: Who killed his enemy after inducing him to blaspheme, that he
might go to hell.]
VII. To do no injury, nor take none, was a principle, which to my former
years and impatient affections seemed to contain enough of Morality; but my
more setled years and Christian constitution have fallen upon severer
resolutions. I can hold there is no such thing as injury; that, if there be,
there is no such injury as revenge, and no such revenge as the contempt of an
injury; that to hate another, is to malign himself; that the truest way to
love another, is to despise our selves. I were unjust unto mine own
Conscience, if I should say I am at variance with any thing like my self. I
find there are many pieces in this one fabrick of man; this frame is raised
upon a mass of Antipathies. I am one methinks, but as the World; wherein
notwithstanding there are a swarm of distinct essences, and in them another
World of contrarieties; we carry private and domestic enemies within, publick
and more hostile adversaries without. The Devil, that did but buffet St. Paul,
plays methinks at sharp^20 with me. Let me be nothing, if within the compass
of my self I do not find the battail of Lepanto,^21 Passion against Reason,
Reason against Faith, Faith against the Devil, and my Conscience against all.
There is another man within me, that`s angry with me, rebukes, commands, and
dastards me. I have no Conscience of Marble to resist the hammer of more heavy
offences; nor yet so soft and waxen, as to take the impression of each single
peccadillo or scape of infirmity. I am of a strange belief, that it is as
easie to be forgiven some sins, as to commit some others. For my Original sin,
I hold it to be washed away in my Baptism: for my actual transgressions, I
compute and reckon with God but from my last repentance, Sacrament, or general
absolution; and therefore am not terrified with the sins or madness of my
youth. I thank the goodness of God, I have no sins that want a name; I am not
singular in offences; my transgressions are Epidemical, and from the common
breath of our corruption. For there are certain tempers of body, which, matcht
with an humorous depravity of mind, do hatch and produce vitiosities, whose
newness and monstrosity of nature admits no name: this was the temper of that
Lecher that fell in love with a Statua, and the constitution of Nero in his
Spintrian^22 recreations. For the Heavens are not only fruitful in new and
unheard-of stars, the Earth in plants and animals, but mens minds also in
villany and vices. Now the dulness of my reason, and the vulgarity^23 of my
disposition, never prompted my invention, nor solicited my affection unto any
of these; yet even those common and quotidian infirmities that so necessarily
attend me, and do seem to be my very nature, have so dejected me, so broken
the estimation that I should have otherwise of my self, that I repute my self
the most abjectest piece of mortality. Divines prescribe a fit of sorrow to
repentance: there goes indignation, anger, sorrow, hatred, into mine; passions
of a contrary nature, which neither seem to sute with this action, nor my
proper constitution. It is no breach of charity to our selves, to be at
variance with our Vices, nor to abhor that part of us which is an enemy to the
ground of charity, our God; wherein we do but imitate our great selves, the
world, whose divided Antipathies and contrary faces do yet carry a charitable
regard unto the whole, by their particular discords preserving the common
harmony, and keeping in fetters those powers, whose rebellions, once Masters,
might be the ruine of all.
[Footnote 20: Fights in earnest.]
[Footnote 21: "Used for a deadly contest."]
[Footnote 22: Obscene.]
[Footnote 23: Commonplaceness.]
[Footnote 24: Description.]
VIII. I thank God, amongst those millions of Vices I do inherit and hold
from Adam, I have escaped one, and that a mortal enemy to Charity, the first
and father-sin, not onely of man, but of the devil, Pride: a vice whose name
is comprehended in a Monosyllable, but in its nature not circumscribed with a
World. I have escaped it in a condition that can hardly avoid it. Those petty
acquisitions and reputed perfections that advance and elevate the conceits of
other men, add no feathers unto mine. I have seen a Grammarian tower and plume
himself over a single line in Horace, and shew more pride in the construction
of one Ode, than the Author in the composure of the whole book. For my own
part, besides the Jargon and Patois of several Provinces, I understand no less
than six Languages; yet I protest I have no higher conceit of my self, than
had our Fathers before the confusion of Babel, when there was but one Language
in the World, and none to boast himself either Linguist or Critick. I have not
onely seen several Countries, beheld the nature of their Climes, the
Chorography^24 of their Provinces, Topography of their Cities, but understood
their several Laws, Customs, and Policies; yet cannot all this perswade the
dulness of my spirit unto such an opinion of my self, as I behold in nimbler
and conceited heads, that never looked a degree beyond their Nests. I know the
names, and somewhat more, of all the constellations in my Horizon; yet I have
seen a prating Mariner, that could onely name the pointers and the North Star,
out-talk me, and conceit himself a whole Sphere above me. I know most of the
Plants of my Countrey, and of those about me; yet methinks I do not know so
many as when I did but know a hundred, and had scarcely ever Simpled^25
further than Cheap-side^26. For, indeed heads of capacity, and such as are not
full with a handful or easie measure of knowledge, think they know nothing
till they know all; which being impossible, they fall upon the opinion of
Socrates, and only know they know not anything. I cannot think that Homer
pin`d away upon the riddle of the fishermen; or that Aristotle, who understood
the uncertainty of knowledge, and confessed so often the reason of man too
weak for the works of nature, did ever drown himself upon the flux and reflux
of Euripus. We do but learn to-day what our better advanced judgements will
unteach to morrow; and Aristotle doth but instruct us, as Plato did him; that
is, to confute himself. I have run through all sorts, yet find no rest in any:
though our first studies and junior endeavours may style us Peripateticks,
Stoicks, or Academicks; yet I perceive the wisest heads prove, at last, almost
all Scepticks, and stand like Janus^27 in the field of knowledge. I have
therefore one common and authentick Philosophy I learned in the Schools,
whereby I discourse and satisfy the reason of other men; another more
reserved, and drawn from experience, whereby I content mine own. Solomon, that
complained of ignorance in the height of knowledge, hath not only humbled my
conceits, but discouraged my endeavours. There is yet another conceit^28 that
hath sometimes made me shut my books, which tells me it is a vanity to waste
our days in the blind pursuit of knowledge; it is but attending a little
longer, and we shall enjoy that by instinct and infusion, which we endeavour
at here by labour and inquisition. It is better to sit down in a modest
ignorance, and rest contented with the natural blessing of our own reasons,
than buy the uncertain knowledge of this life with sweet and vexation, which
Death gives every fool gratis, and is an accessary of our glorification.
[Footnote 25: Botanized.]
[Footnote 26: A great herb market in the 17th century.]
[Footnote 27: A Roman deity whose statues had two faces looking in opposite
directions.]
[Footnote 28: Idea.]
[Footnote 29: Tables showing the daily state of the heavens.]
[Footnote 30: Astronomical conditions supposed to presage disaster.]
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