The Elements of Law Natural and Politic [21]
To be weary despair. To endeavour to overtake the next, emulation. To supplant or overthrow, envy. To resolve to break through a stop foreseen courage. To break through a sudden stop anger. To break through with ease, magnanimity. To lose ground by little hindrances, pusillanimity. To fall on the sudden is disposition to weep. To see another fall, disposition to laugh. To see one out-gone whom we would not is pity. To see one out-go we would not, is indignation. To hold fast by another is to love. To carry him on that so holdeth, is charity. To hurt one's-self for haste is shame. Continually to be out-gone is misery. Continually to out-go the next before is felicity. And to forsake the course is to die.
Chapter 10
Of the Difference Between Men In These Discerning Faculty and the Cause
1. Having shewed in the precedent chapters, that the imagination of men proceedeth from the action of external objects upon the brain, or some internal substance of the head; and that the passions proceed from the alteration there made, and continued to the heart: it is consequent in the next place (seeing the diversity of degree in knowledge in divers men, to be greater than may be ascribed to the divers temper of the brain) to declare what other causes may produce such odds, and excess of capacity, as we daily observe in one man above another. And for that difference which ariseth from sickness, and such accidental distemper, I omit the same, as impertinent to this place, and consider it only in such as have their health, and organs well disposed. If the difference were in the natural temper of the brain, I can imagine no reason why the same should not appear first and most of all in the senses, which being equal both in the wise and less wise, infer an equal temper in the common organ (namely the brain) of all the senses. 2. But we see by experience, that joy and grief proceed not in all men from the same causes, and that men differ. much in constitution of body, whereby, that which helpeth and furthereth vital constitution in one, and is therefore delightful, hindereth and crosseth it in another, and causeth grief. The difference therefore of wits hath its original from the different passions, and from the ends to which their appetite leadeth them. 3. And first, those men whose ends are some sensual delight; and generally are addicted to ease, food, onerations and exonerations of the body, must of necessity thereby be the less delighted with those imaginations that conduce not to those ends, such as are imaginations of honour and glory, which, as I have said before, have respect to the future: for sensuality consisteth in the pleasure of the senses, which please only for the present, and taketh away the inclination to observe such things as conduce to honour; and consequently maketh men less curious, and less ambitious, whereby they less consider the way either to knowledge or to other power; in which two consisteth all the excellency of power cognitive. And this is it which men call DULNESS; and proceedeth from the appetite of sensual or bodily delight. And it may well be conjectured, that such passion hath its beginning from a grossness and difficulty of the motion of the spirits about the heart. 4. The contrary hereunto, is that quick ranging of mind described chap. IV, sect. 3, which is joined with curiosity of comparing the things that come into his mind one with another. In which comparison, a man delighteth himself either with finding unexpected similitude in things, otherwise much unlike, in which men place the excellency of FANCY: and from thence proceed those grateful similies, metaphors, and other tropes, by which both poets and orators have it in their power to make things please or displease, and shew well or ill to others, as they like themselves; or else in discerning suddenly dissimilitude in things that otherwise appear the same. And this virtue of the mind is that by which men attain to exact and perfect knowledge: and the pleasure thereof consisteth in continual instruction, and in distinction
Chapter 10
Of the Difference Between Men In These Discerning Faculty and the Cause
1. Having shewed in the precedent chapters, that the imagination of men proceedeth from the action of external objects upon the brain, or some internal substance of the head; and that the passions proceed from the alteration there made, and continued to the heart: it is consequent in the next place (seeing the diversity of degree in knowledge in divers men, to be greater than may be ascribed to the divers temper of the brain) to declare what other causes may produce such odds, and excess of capacity, as we daily observe in one man above another. And for that difference which ariseth from sickness, and such accidental distemper, I omit the same, as impertinent to this place, and consider it only in such as have their health, and organs well disposed. If the difference were in the natural temper of the brain, I can imagine no reason why the same should not appear first and most of all in the senses, which being equal both in the wise and less wise, infer an equal temper in the common organ (namely the brain) of all the senses. 2. But we see by experience, that joy and grief proceed not in all men from the same causes, and that men differ. much in constitution of body, whereby, that which helpeth and furthereth vital constitution in one, and is therefore delightful, hindereth and crosseth it in another, and causeth grief. The difference therefore of wits hath its original from the different passions, and from the ends to which their appetite leadeth them. 3. And first, those men whose ends are some sensual delight; and generally are addicted to ease, food, onerations and exonerations of the body, must of necessity thereby be the less delighted with those imaginations that conduce not to those ends, such as are imaginations of honour and glory, which, as I have said before, have respect to the future: for sensuality consisteth in the pleasure of the senses, which please only for the present, and taketh away the inclination to observe such things as conduce to honour; and consequently maketh men less curious, and less ambitious, whereby they less consider the way either to knowledge or to other power; in which two consisteth all the excellency of power cognitive. And this is it which men call DULNESS; and proceedeth from the appetite of sensual or bodily delight. And it may well be conjectured, that such passion hath its beginning from a grossness and difficulty of the motion of the spirits about the heart. 4. The contrary hereunto, is that quick ranging of mind described chap. IV, sect. 3, which is joined with curiosity of comparing the things that come into his mind one with another. In which comparison, a man delighteth himself either with finding unexpected similitude in things, otherwise much unlike, in which men place the excellency of FANCY: and from thence proceed those grateful similies, metaphors, and other tropes, by which both poets and orators have it in their power to make things please or displease, and shew well or ill to others, as they like themselves; or else in discerning suddenly dissimilitude in things that otherwise appear the same. And this virtue of the mind is that by which men attain to exact and perfect knowledge: and the pleasure thereof consisteth in continual instruction, and in distinction