The Appetite and Will of Man

We proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of the Appetite and Will Of Man, whereof Salomon sayth Ante omnia fili custodi cor tuum, nam inde procedunt actiones vitæ. In the handling of this science, those which have written seeme to me to have done as if a man that professed to teach to write did only exhibit faire copies of Alphabets, & letters joyned, without geving any precepts or directions, for the cariage of the hand & framing of the letters. So have they made good & fair Exemplars & coppies, carieng the draughts and pour traiturs of Good. Vertue, Duety, Felicity. propounding them well described as the true objects and scopes of mans wil and desires: But how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the will of man to become true and conformable to these pursuites, they passe it over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably For it is not the disputing. That morall vertues are in the Minde of man by habite & not by nature: or the distinguishing. That generous spirites are wonne by doctrines and perswasions, and the vulgar sort by reward & punishment, and the like scattered glances and touches that can excuse the absence of this parte.

The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden Rocke whereuppon both this and many other barques of knowledge have beene cast away, which is, that men have dispised to be conversant in ordinary and common matters, the judicious direction whereof neverthelesse is the wisest doctrine: (for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtilities) but contrariwise they have compounded Sciences chiefly of a certaine resplendent or lustrous masse of matter chosen to give glory either to the subtillity of disputacions or to the eloquence of discourses. But Seneca, giveth an excellent check to eloquence Nocet illis eloquentia, quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit sed sui, doctrines should be such as should make men in love with the Lesson, and not with the Teacher, being directed to the Auditors benefite, and not to the Authors commendation: And therefore those are of the right kinde which may be concluded as Demosthenes concludes his counsell Quæ si feceritis non Oratorem duntaxat in præsentia laudabitis sed vosmetipsos etiam non ita multo post statu rerum vestrarum meliore.

Neyther needed men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a Fortune, (which the Poet Virgill promised himselfe, and indeed obtained) who got as much glory of eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing of the observacions of husbandry, as of the heroicall acts of Æneas.

And surely if the purpose be in good earnest not to write at leasure that which men may read at leasure, but really to instruct and suborne Action and active life, these Georgickes of the mind concerning the husbandry & tillage therof, are no lesse worthy then the heroical descriptions of vertue, duty, & felicity wherfore the maine & primitive division of Morall knowledge seemeth to be into the Exemplar or Platforme of Good, and the Regiment or Culture Of The Mind; The one describing the nature of Good the other prescribing rules how to subdue, apply and accomodate the will of man thereunto.

The Doctrine touching the Platforme or NaTURE of Good considereth it either Simple or Compared. either the kindes of Good or the degrees of Good: In the later whereof those infinite disputations, which were touching the supreme degree thereof, which they terme Felicity, Beatitude, or the highest Good, the doctrines concerning which were as the heathen Divinity, are by the christian faith discharged. And as Aristotle saith, That yong men may bee happy, but not otherwise, but by Hope; So we must all acknowledge our Minority, and embrace the felicity, which is by hope of the future world.

Freed therefore, and delivered from this doctrine of the Philosophers heaven, whereby they fayned an higher elevation of Mans Nature, then was; For we see in what an height of stile Seneca writeth, Vere Magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei.) We may with more sobriety and truerh receive the rest of their Enquiries, and labors? Wherein for the Nature of Good Positive, or simple, they have set it downe excellently, in describing the fourmes of Vertue and Duty, with their situations and postures, in distributing them into their kinds, parts, Provinces, Actions, and Administrations, and the like; Nay furder, they have commended them to Mans Nature, and spirite with greate quicknesse of Argumente, and beauty of persuasions, yea, and fortified and entrenched them (as much as discourse can doe) against corrupt and popular opinions. Againe, for the degrees, and Comparative Nature of Good, they have also excellentlye handled it in their triplicity of Good; in the comparisons betweene a Contemplative and an active life, in the distinction between vertue with reluctation, and vertue secured; in their encounters between honesty and profit, in theyr ballancing of vertue with vertue, and the like; so as this parte deserveth to bee reported for excellentlye laboured.

Notwithstanding, if before they had commen to the popular and received Nocions of vertue and vice, pleasure and payne, and the rest, they had stayed a little longer upon the Enquirye, concerning the Rootes of Good and evill, and the Strings of those Rootes, they had given in my opinion, a great light to that which followed; and speciallye if they had consulted with Nature, they had made their doctrins lesse prolixe, and more profound; which beeing by them in part omitted, and in part handled with much Confusion, we will endeavour to resume, and open in a more cleare Manner.

There is fourmed in every thing a double Nature of Good; the one, as every thing is, a Totall or substantive in it selfe; the other, as it is a parte or Member of a greater Bodye; whereof the the later is in degree the greater, and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a more generall fourme. Therefore we see, the Iron in particuler simpathye mooveth to the Loadstone; But yet if it exceede a certayne quantity, it forsaketh the affection to the Loadstone and like a good patriot mooveth to the Earth which is the Region and Countrye of Massie Bodyes; so may we goe forward, and see that Water and Massie bodyes move to the Center of the earth But rather then to suffer a divulsion in the continuance of Nature they wil moove upwards from the Center of the Earth: forsaking their dutye to the Earth in regard of their duty to the World. This double nature of Good & the com-parative thereof is much more engraven upon Man, if he degenerate not: unto whom the Conservation of duty to the publique ought to be much more precious then the Conservation of life and being: according to that Memorable speache of Pompeius Magnus when being in commission of purveiance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded with great vehemency and instance by his frinds about him that he should not hazard himselfe to Sea in an extreemity of weather he sayd only to them: Necesse est ut eam, non ut vivam: But it may be truly affirmed that there was never any phylosophy, Religion or other discipline, which did so playnly and highly exalt the good which is Communicative and depresse the good which is private and particuler as the Holy faith: well declaring that it was the same God, that gave the Christian Law to men, who gave those Lawes of nature, to inaminate Creatures that we spake of before; for we reade that the elected Saints of God have wished themselves Anathemized, and razed out of the Booke of life, in an extasie of Charity, and infinite feeling of Communion.

This being set downe and strongly planted doth judge and determine most of the Controversies wherein Morall Philosophie is Conversant; For first it decideth the question touching the preferment of the Contemplative or active life, and decideth it against Aristotle; For all the reasons which he bringeth for the Contemplative, are private, and respecting the pleasure and dignity of a mans selfe, (in which respects no question the contemplative life hath the preemynence;) not much unlike to that Comparison, which Pythagoras made for the gracing and Magnifying of Philosophy, and Contemplacion who being asked what he was, answered: That if Hiero were ever at the Olimpian games, he knew the Manner, that some came to try their fortune for the prizes, and some cam as Merchants to utter their commodities, and some came to make good cheere, and meete their friends, and som came to looke on, & that he was one of them that came to look on. But men must know, that in this Theater of Mans life, it is reserved onely for God and Angels to be loo kers on, Neither could the like question ever have beene received in the Church, notwithstanding their (Pretiosa in oculis Domini mors sanctorum eius) by which place they would exalt their Civile death, and reguler professions, but upon this defence, that the Monastical life is not simple Contemplative, but performeth the duty either of incessant prayers and supplications which hath been truly esteemed as an office in the church, or els of writing or in taking instructions for writing concerning the law of God as Moses did, when he abode so long in the Mount. And so wee see Henoch the. 7. from Adam who was the first Contemplative & walked with God, yet did also endow the Church with prophesy which Sainte Jude citeth. But for contemplation which should be finished in itselfe without casting beames upon society, assuredly divinity knoweth it not.

It decideth also the controversyes betweene Zeno and Socrates, and theyr schooles and successions on the one side, who placed felicity in vertue simply or attended: the actions and exercises wherof do chiefly imbrace and concerne society; & on the other side, the Cirenaiques & Epicureans, who placed it in pleasure and made vertue, (as it is used in some comedyes of Errors, wherein the Mistres and the Maide change ha bits) to be but as a servant, without which, pleasure cannot be served and attended, and the reformed schoole of the Epicureans, which placed it in serenity of mind and freedome from perturbation: as if they woulde have deposed Jupiter againe, and restored Saturne, and the first age, when there was no summer nor winter, spring nor Autumne, but al after one ayre and season And Herillus, which placed felicity in extinguishment of the disputes of the mind, making no fixed Nature of Good and evill, esteeming things according to the cleernes of the desires, or the reluctation: which opinion was revived in the heresy of the Anabaptists, mea suring things according to the motions of the spirit, and the constancy or wavering of beleefe, all which are manifest to tend to private repose & contentment, and not to poynt of society.

It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus which presupposeth that felicity must bee placed in those things which are in our power, least we belyable to fortune & disturbance: as if it were not a thing much more happy to faile in good and vertuous ends for the publicke, then to obtayne all that wee can wish to our selves in our proper fortune: as Consalvo sayd to his souldiers, shewing them Naples and protesting, he had rather dy one foote forwards, then to have his life secured for long, by one foote of retrayt: Whereunto the wisedome of that heavenly Leader hath signed, who hath affirmed that A good Conscience is a continuall Feaste, shewing plainly that the conscience of good intencions howsoever succeeding, is a more continuall joy to nature, then all the provision which can be made for security and repose.

It censureth likewise that abuse of Philosophy, which grew generall about the time of Epictetus, in converting it into an occupation or profession: as if the purpose had bene, not to resist and extinguish perturbations, but to fly and avoide the causes of them, & to shape a particular kind and course of life to that end, introducing such an health of mind, as was that health of body, of which Aristotle speaketh of Herodicus, who did nothing nothing all kis life long, but intend his health, whereas if men refer themselves to dutyes of Society; as that health of Body is best, which is ablest to endure all alterations and extremityes, So likewise that health of Mind is most proper, which can goe through the greatest temptations and perturbations. So as Diogenes opinion is to be accepted, who Commended not them which absteyned, but them which sustayned, and could refraine their Mind in Precipitio, and could give unto the mind (as is used in horsmanship) the shortest stop or turne.

Lastly it censureth the Tendernesse and want of application in some of the most auncient and reverend Philosophers and Philosophicall men, that did retyre too easily from Civile businesse, for avoyding of Indignities & perturbations, whereas the resolution of men truly Moral, ought to be such, as the same Consalvo sayd, the honor of a souldior should be E tela Crassiore, and not so fine, as that every thing should catch in it, and endanger it.