entertainment of a well-tempered mind is to converse familiarly with the naked and bewitching beauties of those mistresses, those verities and sciences, which, by fair courting of them, they gain and enjoy; and every day bring new fresh ones to their seraglio, where the ancientest never grow old or stale. Is there any thing so pleasing or so profitable as this? -Nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere But now, if we consider the advantage we shall have in the other life by our affection to sciences, and conversation with them in this, it is wonderful great. Indeed that affection is so necessary, as without it we shall enjoy little contentment in all the knowledge we shall then be replenished with: for every one's pleasure in the possession of a good is to be measured by his precedent desire of that good, and by the equality of the taste and relish of him that feedeth upon it. We should therefore prepare and make our taste before-hand by assuefaction unto, and by often relishing what we shall then be nourished with. That Englishman that can drink nothing but beer or ale, would be ill bestead, were he to go into Spain or Italy, where nothing but wine groweth: whereas a well experienced goinfre, that can criticise upon the several tastes of liquors, would think his palate in Paradise, among those delicious nectars, (to use Aretine's phrase upon his eating of a lamprey.) Who was ever delighted with tobacco the first time he took it? and who could willingly be without it, after he was awhile habituated to the use of it? How many examples are there daily of young men that marrying upon their father's command, not through precedent affections of their own, have little comfort in worthy and handsome wives, that others would passionately affect. Archimedes lost his life, for being so ravished with the delight of a mathematical demonstration, that he could not of a sudden recall his ecstasied spirits to attend the rude soldier's summons: but instead of him, whose mind had been always fed with such subtile diet, how many plain country-gentlemen doth your Lordship and I know, that rate the knowledge of their hus bandry at a much higher pitch; and are extremely delighted by conversing with that; whereas the other would be most tedious and importune to them? We may then safely conclude, that if we will joy in the knowledge we shall have after death, we must in our life-time raise within ourselves earnest affections to it, and desires of it, which cannot be barren ones; but will press upon us to gain some knowledge by way of advance here; and the more we attain unto, the more we shall be in love with what remaineth behind. To this reason then adding the other, how knowledge is the surest prop and guide of our present life; and how it perfecteth a man in that which constituteth him a man, his reason; and how it enableth him to tread boldly, steadily, constantly, and knowingly, in all his ways and I am confident, all men that shall hear the case thus debated, will join with me in making it a suit to our physician, that he will keep his books open, and continue that progress he hath so happily begun. But I believe your Lordship will scarcely join with him in his wish, that we might procreate and beget children without the help of women, or without any conjunction or commerce with that sweet and bewitching sex. Plato taxeth his fellow philosopher (though otherwise a learned and brave man) for not sacrificing to the Graces, those gentle female goddesses. What thinketh your Lordship of our physician's bitter censure of that action, which Mahomet maketh the essence of his paradise? Indeed, besides those his unkindnesses, or rather frowardnesses, at that tender-hearted sex, (which must needs take it ill at his hands,) methinketh he setteth marriage at too low a rate, which is assuredly the highest and divinest link of humane society. And where he speaketh of Cupid, and of beauty, it is in such a praise, as putteth me in mind of the learned Greek reader in Cambridge, his courting of his mistress out of Stephens his Thesaurus. My next observation upon his discourse draweth me to a logical consideration of the nature of an exact syllogism: which kind of reflection, though it use to open the door in the course of learning and study; yet it will near shut it in my discourse, which my following the thread that my author spinneth, assigneth to this place. If he had well and thoroughly considered all that is required to that strict way of managing our reason, he would not have censured Aristotle for condemning the fourth figure, out of no other motive, but because it was not consonant to his own principles; that it would not fit with the foundations himself had laid; though it do with reason (saith he) and be consonant to that, which indeed it doth not, at all times, and in all circumstances. In a perfect syllogism, the predicate must be identified with the subject, and each extreme with the middle term, and so, consequently, all three with one another. But in Galen's fourth figure, the case may so fall out, as these rules will not be current there. As for the good and excellency that he considereth in the worst things, and how far from solitude any man is in a wilderness;10 these are (in his discourse) but equivocal considerations of good, and of loneliness. Nor are they any ways pertinent to the morality of that part, where he treateth of them. I have much ado to believe, what he speaketh confidently," that he is more beholding to Morpheus, for learned and rational, as well as pleasing, dreams, than to Mercury for smart and facetious conceptions; whom Saturn (it seemeth by his relation) hath looked asquint upon in his geniture. 14 In his concluding prayer, wherein he summeth up all he wisheth, methinketh his arrow is not winged with that fire, which I should have expected from him upon this occasion: for it is not the peace of conscience, nor the bridling up of one's affections, that expresseth the highest delightfulness and happiest state of a perfect christian. It is love only that can give us heaven upon earth, as well as in heaven; and bringeth us thither too: so that the Tuscan Virgil had reason to say, -In alte dolcézze Non si puo gioir, se non amando. And this love must be employed upon the noblest and highest object, not terminated in our friends. But of this transcendent and divine part of charity, that looketh directly and immediately upon God himself; and that is the intrinsical form, the utmost perfection, the scope and final period of true religion, (this gentleman's intended theme, as I con ceive,) I have no occasion to speak any thing, since my author doth but transiently mention it; and that too, in such a phrase as ordinary catechisms speak of it to vulgar capacities. Thus, my Lord, having run through the book (God knows how slightly, upon so great a sudden) which your Lordship commanded me to give you an account of, there remaineth yet a weightier task upon me to perform; which is, to excuse myself of presumption for daring to consider any moles in that face, which you had marked for a beauty. But who shall well consider my manner of proceeding in these remarks, will free me from that censure. I offer not at judging the prudence and wisdom of this discourse: those are fit inquiries for your Lordship's court of highest appeal: in my inferiour one, I meddle only with little knotty pieces of particular sciences, (Matinæ apis instar, operosa parvus carmina fingo,) in which it were peradventure a fault for your Lordship to be too well versed; your employments are of a higher and nobler strain, and that concerns the welfare of millions of men: Tu regere imperio populos (Sackville) memento Such little studies as these belong only to those persons that are low in the rank they hold in the commonwealth, low in their conceptions, and low in a languishing and rusting leisure, such an one as Virgil calleth ignobile otium, and such an one as I am now dulled withal. If Alexander or Cæsar should have commended a tract of land, as fit to fight a battle in for the empire of the world, or to build a city upon, to be the magazine and staple of all the adjacent countries; no body could justly condemn that husbandman, who, according to his own narrow art and rules, should censure the plains of Arbela, or Pharsalia, for being in some places sterile; or the meadows about Alexandria, for being sometimes subject to be overflown; or could tax aught he should say in that kind for a contradiction unto the other's commendations of those places, which are built upon higher and larger principles. So, my Lord, I am confident I shall not be reproached of unmannerliness for putting in a demurrer unto a few little particularities in that noble discourse, which your Lordship gave a general applause unto; and by doing so, I have given your Lordship the best account I can of myself, as well as of your commands. You hereby see what my entertainments are, and how I play away my time, DORSET dum magnus ad altum Fulminat Oxonium bello, victorque volentes Per populos dat jura; viamque affectat Olympo. May your counsels there be happy and successful ones, to bring about that peace, which if we be not quickly blessed withal, a general ruin threateneth the whole kingdom. From Winchester-House, the 22nd (I think I may say the 23rd, for I am sure it is morning, and I think it is day) of December, 1642. Your Lordship's most humble And obedient servant, KENELM DIGBY. MY LORD, POSTSCRIPT. LOOKING over these loose papers to point them, I perceive I have forgotten what I promised in the eighth sheet, to touch in a word concerning grace: I do not conceive it to be a quality infused by God Almighty into a soul. Such kind of discoursing satisfieth me no more in divinity, than in philosophy. I take it to be the whole complex of such real motives (as a solid account may be given of them) that incline a man to virtue and piety; and are set on foot by God's particular grace and favour, to bring that work to pass. As for example: to a man plunged in sensuality, some great misfortune happeneth, that mouldeth his heart to a tenderness, and inclineth him to much thoughtfulness: in this tem |