The use of passions written in French by J.F. Senault ; and put into English by Henry, Earl of Monmouth.

The FOURTH DISCOURSE. Of the Nature, Proprieties and Effects of Grief and Sorrow.

IF Nature could not extract good out of evil, and did not her Providence turn our miseries into Felicities, we might with Reason blame her, for having made the most troublesome of our Passions, the most Common:* 1.1 For, sadness seems to be Natural to us, and Joy a Stranger: All the parts of our body may taste Sorrow and Pain; and but very few of them are Sen∣sible of pleasure; Pains come in throngs, and assail us by Troops; they agree to afflict us; and though they be at discord among themselves, they joyn in a confede∣racy, to conspire our undoing; but plea∣sures justle one another, when they meet, and, as if they were jealous of good for∣tune, the one of them destroys the other; Our Body is the Stage, whereon they fight; the miseries thereof arise from their diffe∣rences;

and man is never more unhappy, than when he is divided by his Delights: Griefs continue long; and as if nature took pleasure in prolonging our punishment, she indues us with strength, to undergo them; and makes us only so far Couragi∣ous, or so far patient, as may render us, so much the more miserable.* 1.2 Pleasures, espe∣cially those of the Body, endure but for a moment; their death is never far off; and when a man will make them of longer du∣rance, by art, they occasion either tor∣ment, or loathing. But to make good all these reasons, and to shew that Grief is more familiar to man than Pleasure, we need only consider the deplorable conditi∣on of our life; where for one vain content∣ment, we meet with a thousand real sor∣rows:* 1.3 For these come uncalled, they pre∣sent themselves of their own proper mo∣tion, they are linkt one to another; and like Hydra's heads, they either never die, or after death, spring up again: But plea∣sures are sought for with pain; and we are oft-times enforced to pay more for them, than they are worth: Sorrows are some∣times entirely pure, and touch us to the quick, as they make us incapable of conso∣lation; but pleasures are never without

some mixture of Sorrow: They are al∣ways dipt in bitterness, and, as we see no Ro••es which are not environed with Prickles;* 1.4 we taste no Delights, which are not accompanied with Torments; but that which makes the misery of our condi∣tion evidently appear, is, that we are much more sensible of Pain than of Pleasure; for a slight Malady troubleth all our most solid contentments; a Fever is able to make Conquerors forget their Victories; and to blot out of their minds all the pomp of their Triumphs. Yet is it the truest of all our Passions; and, if we believe Aristotle, it makes the greatest alterations in our Souls; the rest subsist only by our ima∣gination; and were it not for the in∣telligence we hold with this Faculty, they would make no impression upon our Senses: Desires and Hopes are but deceitful good things; and he very well knew their nature, who termed them, the Dreams of Waking men: Love and Hatred are the di∣versions of idle souls; Fear is but a shadow, and it is hard for the Effect to be true, when the Cause is imaginary; Boldness and Cho∣ler form Monsters to themselves, that they may defeat them; and we must not won∣der, if they so easily ingage themselves in the

Combat,* 1.5 since their enemies weakness as∣sures them of the victory; but grief is a real evil, which sets upon the Soul and Body both at once, and makes two wounds at one blow. I know there are some sorrows that wound only the mind, and exercise all their might upon the noblest part of man; but if they be violent, they work upon the body; and by a secret contagion, the pains of the Mistress become the diseases of the Slave; the Chains that bind them together, are so streight, that all their good and bad estate is shared between them; a contented Soul cures her body; and a sick body afflicts its soul; this noble Captive patiently en∣dures all other incommodities which befall her; and, provided that her prison be ex∣empted from pain, she finds reasons enough to chear up her self with: She despises the loss of Riches; and bounding her De∣sires, she finds contentment in Poverty; she neglects Honour, and knowing that it only depends upon Opinion, she will not ground her happiness upon so frail a good; she pas∣seth by Pleasures, and the shame which ac∣companies them, lesseneth the sorrow which their loss brings her; as she is not tied to these adventious goods, she easily forgoes them; and when Fortune hath rob∣bed

her of them, she thinks her self more at Liberty, and thinks her self not the poorer; but when the body is assaulted,* 1.6 and that it suffers either excessive heat, or the inju∣ries of the Season, or the rage of Sickness, she is constrained to sigh with it; and the Cords which fasten them together, make their miseries common; she apprehends Death, though she be Immortal; she fears wounds, though she be Invulnerable; and she resents all the evils suffer'd by the pri∣son which she gives life to, though she be Spiritual.

The Stoicks Philosophy, which valueth not a glorious enterprize, unless it be im∣possible, would have inderdicted the com∣merce between the Soul and the Body; and in a strange madness, hath endeavour'd to separate two parts, whereof one and the same whole are compounded;* 1.7 she forbad her Disciples the use of Tears; and break∣ing the holiest of all Friendships, she would have the Soul to be insensible of the Bodies sufferings; and that whilst the Body was burning in the midst of flames, the Soul should mount up to Heaven, there to con∣template the Beauty of Virtue, or the wonders of Nature. This Barbarous Philo∣sophy had some Admirers, but she never

had any true Disciples: her Counsels made them despair; all that would follow her Maxims suffer'd themselves to be miss-led by Vanity, and could not fence themselves against Grief. Since the Soul hath contra∣cted so straight a society with the Body, she must suffer with it; and since she is shed abroad into all the parts thereof, she must complain with the mouth, weep with the eyes,* 1.8 and sigh with the heart-Mercy was never forbidden but by tyrants; and this Virtue will be praised, as long as there be any that are miserable; yet the evils which afflict her are strangers to her; and those whom she assists, are, for the most part, to her unknown: wherefore then shall we blame the Soul, if she have compassion on her own body? Wherefore shall we accuse her of Abjectness, if she share in the sorrows that assail it, and which, not being able to hurt her in her own substance, set upon her in her Mansion-house, and revenge them∣selves on her, in that thing which, of all the world she loves best? For while she is in the body, she seems to renounce her Nobi∣lity; and that ceasing to be a pure spirit, she interesses her self in all the Delights, and all the Vexations of her Hoste: his health causeth contentment in her; and his sickness

is grievous to her; the most worthy part suf∣fers in the less worthy; and by a trouble∣som necessity, the Soul is unhappy in the miseries of her body.* 1.9 They say, that Ma∣gick is so powerful, that it hath found out a secret, how to torment men in their ab∣sence, and to make them feel in their own persons all the cruelties which she exerci∣seth upon their Images: these miserable men burn with fire, which toucheth nothing but their Picture; they feel blows which they do not receive; and the distance of place cannot free them from the fury of their enemies: Love which is as powerful, and not much less cruel than Magick, doth this Miracle every day; when it joyns two souls together, it finds a way to make their sufferings common; men cannot offend the one, but the other resents it, & each of them suffers as well in the body which it loves, as in that which it inanimates:* 1.10 Since Love and Magick work these wonders, we must not marvel, if Nature, having fastned the Soul to the Body, do make the miseries common; and if by one only wo, she makes two Parties miserable; the participa∣tion of each others Good and Bad, is a con∣sequence of their Marriage; and the Hea∣vens must do a miracle, to give them a

Dispensation from this necessity. The joy of Martyrs was no meer effect of Reason; when they tasted any pleasure amidst their Torments, it must needs be Grace that sweetned the rigour thereof; and he that in the fiery Furnace changed Flames into pleasing gales of Wind, must have turned their Torments into Delights; or if he did them not this favour, he did them a greater; and by making the Soul not sensible of the Bodies sufferings, he taught the whole world, that he was the Soveraign Lord of Nature. But howsoever, all Philosophers agree, that the Soul cannot be happy in a miserable body; and that she cannot endue it with life, without sharing in the miseries thereof; if her noblest part be touched with Joy, while the body languisheth with pain; that which inanimates it, must be sensible thereof; & to pay interests for the services she gets thence, she must be miserable for company: Even the Soul of Jesus Christ, thrice-happy as it was, failed not to be af∣flicted; and a miracle was done in the order of Glory, that the society might not be broken, which Nature hath put between the Soul and the Body, it is then agreed up∣on, that these two parts that compose man, cannot be separated in their suffering; and

that the torment of the one, must of necessi∣ty be the others punishment: they love too well to forsake one another in their afflicti∣ons; and unless the violence of pain break the chains wherewith they are linked to∣gether, their miseries must be common: I should moreover think, that the condition of the Soul is more deplorable, than that of the Body; for besides, that to make her subject to sufferings, be to injure her worth, and that it is a piece of Injustice to force her to feel evils, from which by Nature she is exempted; she sentenceth her self to new sufferings; and the love which she beareth to her Body,* 1.11 obligeth her to re∣sent with sorrow the pains which it endu∣reth; she together with it is sensible thereof, seeing that she is the Original of Sense; and as if this torment were not sufficient, she draws another upon her self by compassi∣on, and afflicts her self with the Thought of all that which really torments it; she makes much of its maladies after she hath shared in the suffering of them; she grows sad with the conceit of them; and of a single grief makes double Martyrdom; true it is, that this Faculty hath so much commerce with the Senses, as she cannot resent their evils, without communicating her pains unto

them; her trouble disquieteth them: and as the sufferings of the Body are cause of the like in the Soul, by a Law as just as ne∣cessary, the pain of the Soul produceth the like of the Body. This feeling is in my O∣pinion, true Sadness, which is nothing else but a dislike which is formed in the inferior part of the Soul, by the fight of Objects which are displeasing to her.

Very strange are the effects of so Melan∣cholick a Passion; for when she is but in a mean, she makes them eloquent without Rhetorick; she teacheth them Figurative speeches, to exaggerate their Discontents: and to hear them speak, the greatest pains seem to be less,* 1.12 than what they suffer: but when she is Extream, by a clean contrary effect she astonisheth the Spirit: she inter∣dicts the use of the Senses; she dries up Tears, stifles Sighes; and making men stupid, she affords Poets the liberty of feigning, that she changeth them into Rocks: when she is of long continuance, she frees us from the earth, and raiseth us up to Heaven; for it is very hard for a man in misery to covet life, when it is full of pain and Sorrow; and when the Soul hath great conflicts for a Body, which doth continualy exercise her patience. All men are not so

poorly spirited, as was that Favorite of Au∣gustus, who did so much covet life, that Torments could not make him forgo the desire thereof;* 1.13 who gloried in his Verses, that he would have loved Life amidst Tor∣tures, that he would have been a Votary for the prolonging of it upon the Rack; and that the cruellest sufferings that might be, would have seemed swift to him; so as he might therein have found Life. I well be∣lieve, that excess of pain would have made him be of another mind; and that he would have confess'd, that to die quickly, is better than to live long in pain; or had he persisted in his first Opinion, we should be bound to confess, that poorly-spirited men are more wilful, than are those that are couragious; and that the desire of Glory makes not so great impression in us, as the desire of life. But to return to my Subject, when Grief is violent, it loosneth the soul from the Body, and causeth the death of the man: for Sadness and Joy have this of resemblance in their difference, that both of them attempt upon our lives, when they are in extreams: The heart dilates it self by Joy; it opens it self to receive the good which is offer'd, & tastes it with such excess of pleasure, as it faints under the weight

thereof, and meets with death in the midst of its Happiness: It shuts it self up by Sor∣row; claps to the door upon the evil that besiegeth it; and very improvidently deli∣vers it self into the hands of a Domestick enemy, to free it self from one that is a stran∣ger: for its Violence causeth its anguish, and the care he takes to defend it self, augments its pain, and hastens its death. Oft-times also, its negligence makes it miserable; it suffers it self to be surpriz'd by Sorrow, for not having foreseen it; and being no longer in a condition to defend it self, when Sor∣row arriveth, it is forced to give way there∣unto. In fine, Sadness makes us weep, when it hath seized on our heart, it wageth war with our Eyes;* 1.14 it evaporateth by Sighes; it glides down by Tears, and weakens it self in the production thereof; for a man that weeps, easeth himself, and comforts himself whilst he complains; he finds somewhat of delight in his lamentations; and if they be signs of his sufferings, they are likewise the cure thereof: As Choler dischargeth it self by Railing, Sorrow be∣ing more innocent, drops away by Tears, and abandons the Heart, when it gets up into the Face. Having seen its effects, it re∣mains that we consider what use may be

made thereof, and in what conditions it may become Innocent or Offensive.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Homo animal querulum eu∣pido suis in∣cumbens mise∣riis. Apul.
• * 1.2

  Voluptas tune cum maxime delectat extin∣guitur, nec multum loci habet, it aque cito implet, & taedio est, & post primum impetum mar∣cet. Sen. De vita beata c 7.
• * 1.3

  Scio rem non esse in nostra potestate, nec ulium affectum servire, maxi∣me vero eum qui ex dolore nascitur. Sen. Consol. ad Helviam. c. 5.
• * 1.4

  Proba istas quae voluptates vocantur, ubi transcenderint modum, poenas esse. Sen. Ep. 8.
• * 1.5

  Corpus hoe animi pondus ac poena est ▪ premente illo urgetur, in vinculis est. Sen. Ep. 65.
• * 1.6

  Quid faciet animus ut non doleat cum corpus vulne∣ratur aut uri∣tur, cui tanto implicatur consortio ut pati possit, non dolere non possir. Aug. De Gratia Nov. Test. quaest. 2.
• * 1.7

  O Philosophia tyrannica sunt praecepta tua: amare jubes, & fi quis amiserit quod amabat, dolere prohi∣bes. Stob. Serm. 97.
• * 1.8

  Si egregium est hostem de∣jicere, non mi∣nus tamen laudabile infe∣licis scire mise∣reri. Val. Max. lib. 5.
• * 1.9

  Devovet ab∣sentes, simula∣chraque caerea fingit: Et mi∣serum tenues in jecur urget acus. Ovid. in E••ist.
• * 1.10

  Dolores qui dicuntur car∣nis, animae sunt in carne & ex carne: quid enim ca∣ro per feipsam sine anima vel dolet vel con∣cupiseit? Aug. 1.14. De Civ. Dei. c. 19.
• * 1.11

  Dolet anima cum corpore, cum co••oco dolet ubilae∣ditur corpus; dolet fola in corpore cum tristis est; do∣l••t extra cor∣pus, ut anima divitis in in∣ferno; corpus antem nee ex∣anime dolet, nee animatum sine anima do∣••. Aug. 1.21. De Civ. Dei. cap. 3.
• * 1.12

  Curae leves lo∣quuntur in••en∣tes stupent. Sen. ••••aged.
• * 1.13

  〈…〉〈…〉 ci∣〈…〉〈…〉 de∣〈…〉〈…〉 e, 〈…〉〈…〉 icos 〈…〉〈…〉res: 〈…〉〈…〉uper 〈…〉〈…〉ft, 〈…〉〈…〉, vel 〈…〉〈…〉 ••ede∣••um ••••nce, susti∣ne mater.
• * 1.14

  — Est quaeiam flere voluptas: Expletur La∣ch••ymis, ege∣riturque dolor. Ovid. 4. Trist.