Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, or, A fabrick of science natural, upon the hypothesis of atoms founded by Epicurus repaired [by] Petrus Gassendus ; augmented [by] Walter Charleton ...

SECT. II.

TO explore the Cheif Grounds, or Reasons of this great Varietie of Sects in Philosophy; we need search no further, then the exceed∣ing Obscurity of Nature, the Dimness and imperfection of our Understanding, the Irregularity of our Curiosity.

Of the First, they only can doubt, who are too stupid to enquire.* 1.1 For, Nature is an immense Ocean, wherein are no Shallows, but all Depths: and those ingenious Persons, who have but once attempted her with the sounding line of Reason, will soon confess their despair of pro∣founding her, and with the judicious Sanchez sadly exclaim; Una Scien∣tia sufficit toti orbi: nec tamen totus hic ei sufficit. Mihi vel minima mun∣di res totius vitae contemplationi sat est superque: nec tamen tandem eam spero me nosse posse: nor can they dislike the opinion of the Academicks and Pyrrhonicks, that all things are Incomprehensible.

And (as for the second) if Nature were not invelloped in so dense a Cloud of Abstrusity, but should unveil her self,* 1.2 and expose all her beuteous parts naked to our speculation: yet are not the Opticks of our Mind either clear or strong enough to discern them. Men in∣deed fancy themselves to be Eagles; but really are grovelling Moles, uncessantly labouring for light: which at ••irst glimpse perstringeth their eyes, and all they discover thereby, is their own native Blindness. Naturae mysteria etiamsi ••ille facibus revelentur, arbitrantium oculis numquam tota excipientur: restabit semper quod quaeras; & quo plus scies, eo plura à te ignorari miraberis. This meditation, we confess, hath frequently stooped our ambitious thoughts, dejected us even to a contempt of our own na∣ture, and put us to a stand in the midst of our most eager pursuit of Sci∣ence: insomuch that had not the inhaerent Curiosity of our Genius sharply spurred us on again, we had totally desisted, and sate down in this resolution; for the future to admire, and perhaps envy the happy serenity of their Condition, who never disquiet and perplex their minds with fruitless scrutiny, but think themselves wise enough, while they acquiesce in the single satisfaction of their Senses. Nor do we look ever to have our Studies wholly free from this Damp: but expect to be surprised with many a cold fit, even then when our Cogitations shall be most ardent and pleasing. And to acknowledge our pensive sense of this Discouragement, is it that we have chosen this for our Motto:

Quo magis quaerimus▪ magis dubitamus.

But lest this our despair prove contagious, and infect our Reader, and He either shut up our Book, or smilingly demand of us, to what

purpose we wrote it; if (as we confess) Insatisfaction be the End of study, and (as we intimate) our Phisiology at most but ingenious Con∣jecture: we must divert him with the novelty of a Paradox, viz. that the Irregularity of our Curiosity is one Cause of the Dissent of Philoso∣phers.

* 1.3That our desire of Truth should be a grand Occasion of our Error; and that our First Parents were deluded more by the instigation of their own essential CURIOSITY, than by either the allurement of their Sen∣sual Appetite or the subtle Fallacies of the Serpent: is a conceit not alto∣gether destitute of thesupport and warrantry of Reason. For, the Human Soul (the only Creature, that understands the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or transcendent Dig∣nity of its Original, by reflecting upon the superlative Idea, which it holds of its Creator) from the moment of its immersion into the cloud or opa∣city, of flesh labours with an insatiable Appetence of Knowledge; as the only means, that seems to conduce to the satisfaction of its congenial Ambition of still aspiring to Greater and Better things: and therefore hath no Affection either so Essential, or Violent, as the Desire of Science; and consequently, lyeth not so open to the deception of any Objects, as of those which seem to promise a satisfaction to that desire. And obvious it is from the words of the Text; that the Argument which turned the s••ales, i. e. determined the Intellect, and successively the Will of our Grandmother Eve, from its indifferencie, or aequilibration, to an Appe∣tition, and so to the actual Degustation of the Forbidden Fruit, was this: Desiderabilis est arboris fructu•• ad habendam scientiam. Besides, though we shall not exclude the Beauty of the fruit, transmitted by the sight to the judicatory Faculty, and so allecting the Sensual Appetite, from having a finger in the Delusion: yet can we allow it to have had no more then a finger; and are perswaded, that in the syndrome or conspiracy of Causes, the most ponderous and praevalent was the Hope of an accession or augmen∣tation of Knowledge. Since ••t cannot but highly disparage the primitive or innocent state of man, to admit, that his Intellect was so imperfect, as not to discern a very great Evil, through the thin Apparence of Good, when the utmost that Apparence could promise, was no more, than the momentany pleasure of his Palate or Gust: Or, that the express and poenal Interdiction of God, yet sounding in his ears, could be over-balan∣ced by the light species of an object, which must be lost in the Frui∣tion.

Nor is this Curiositie to be accused only of the First Defection from Truth, but being an inseparable Annex to our Nature, and so derived by traduction to all Adams posteritie, hath proved the procatarctick Cause of many (some contemplative Clerks would have adventured to say of All) the Errors of our judgments. And, though we have long cast about, yet can we not particular any one Vicious inclination, or action, whose Scope or End may not, either directly or obliquely, proximly or remotely, seem to promise an encrease of Knowledge in some kind or other. To instance in one, which appears to be determined in the Body, to have no interest be∣yond the Sense, and so to exclude all probabilitie of extending to the Mind, as to the augmentation of its Science. Whoever loves a beutiful Woman, whom the right of Marriage hath appropriated to another, ar∣dently desires to enjoy her bed; why, not only for the satisfaction of his sensual App••tite, because that might be acquired by the act of carnali••y

with some other less beutiful, and Beuty is properly the object of the Mind: but because that Image of Beuty, which his eye hath transmitted to his mind, being praesented in the species or apparition of Good and A∣miab••e, seems to contain some Excellence, or comparitively more Good, then what He hath, formerly understood. If it be objected, that if so, one enjoyment must satisfie that Desire; and consequently, no man could love what He hath once enjoyed, since Fruition determineth Desire: We An∣swer, that there is no such necessitie justly inferrible, when Experience assures, that many times Love is so far from languishing, that it grows more strong and violent by the possession of its Object. The Reason is, because the passionate Lover, apprehending no fruition total▪ or possession entire, supposeth some more Good still in the object, then what his former enjoyment made him acquainted withall. And if it be replyed, that the Lover doth, in the perseverance of his Affection, propose to himself meerly the Continuation of that Good, which He hath formerly enjoy∣ed: we are provided of a sufficient Rejoynder, viz. that whoso wisheth the Continuation of a Good, considers it not as a thing praesent, but to come; and consequently as a thing which yet He doth not know: for, no man can know what is not.

Other Instances the Reader may be pleased to select from among the Passions; tracing them up to their first Exciting Cause, in order to his more ample satisfaction: it being digressive and only collateral to our Scope. Good thus being the only proper Object of our Affections (for Evil exhibited naked, i. e. as Evil, never Attracts, but ever Averts our Will, or Rational Appetite: as we have clearly proved in our Dis∣course of the Liberty Elective of mans Will.) if we mistake a real evil prae∣sented under the disguise of a Good: this mistake is to be charged upon the account of our Rational or judicatory Faculty, which not suffici∣ently examining the Reality of the species, judgeth it to be good, accor∣ding to the external Apparence only; and so misguideth the Will in its Election. Now, a••ong the Causes of the Intellects erroneous judica∣ture (we have formerly touched upon its own Native Imperfection, or Coecity, and Praejudice,) the chiefest and most general is the Impatience, Praecipitancy, or Inconsiderateness of the Mind; when, not enduring the serious, profound, and strict examen of the species, nor pondering all the moments of Reason, whi••h are on the Averting part of the Object, with that impartiali••y requisite to a right judgment; but suffering it self, at the first occursion or praesentation thereof, to be determined, by the mo∣ments of Reason apparent on the Attracting part, to an Approbation thereof: it misinformeth the Will, and ingageth it in an Election and pro∣secution of a Falsity, or Evil, couched under the specious semblance of a positive Truth, or Good.

Now, to accommodate all this to the interest of our Paradox; if Good, real or apparent, be the proper and adaequate object of the Intel∣lect; and the chief reason of Good doth consist in that of Science, as the principal end of all our Affections: then, most certainly, must our praecedent assertion stand firm, viz. that our understanding lyeth most open to the delusion of such objects, which by their Apparence promise the most of satis∣faction to our Desire of Science; and, upon consequence, by how much the more we are spurred on by our Curiosity, or Appe••ence of Knowledge, by so much the more is our mind impatient of their strict examen, and aequitable perpension. All which we dayly observe experimented in our

selves. For, when our thoughts are violent and eager in the pursuit of some reason for such or such an operation in Nature; if either the discourse, or writings of some Person, in great esteem for Learning or Sagacity, or our own meditations furnish us with one, plausible and verisimilous, such as seems to solve our Doubt: how greedily do we embrace it, and with∣out further perpension of its solidity and verity, immediately judge it to be true, and so set up our rest therein? Now, it being incontroverti∣ble, that Truth consists in a Point, or Unity; it remains as incontroverti∣ble, that all those judgements, which concur not in that Point, must be erroneous: and consequently that we ought ever to suspect a multiplicity of dissenting j••dgments, and to suppose that Phaenomenon in Nature to be yet in the dark, i. e. uncomprehended, or not understood, con∣cerning whose solution the most various opinions have been e∣rected.

And thus have we made it out; that our Curiosity is the most frequent Cause of our Minds Impatience or Praecipitancy: that Praecipitancy the most frequent Cause of our Erroneous jdugments, concerning the Verity or Falsity of Objects: those Erroneous judgments alwayes the Cause of the Diversity of Opinions: and the Diversity of Opinions alwayes the Cause of the Variety of Sects among Philosophers.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Art. 1. The principal causes of the Diversity of Philosophical Sects; and the chiefest among them, the Ob∣scurity of Nature
• * 1.2

  Art. 2. The Imperfe∣ction of our Vn∣derstanding.
• * 1.3

  Art. 3. The Irregulari∣ty of our Curi••∣s••t••. A paradox.