Of peace and contentment of minde. By Peter Du Moulin the sonne. D.D.

CHAP. II. Entry into the discourse of Passions.

MY end is to bring Passions under the obe∣dience of right reason, not to describe ex∣actly their nature. A task where Naturalists come short of performance; And no wonder, since they take a subject in hand where reason seeth nothing, as if one would make an Anatomie in the darke; for in nothing is our soul so blind as in the composure of herselfe: Yea the truest na∣tural contemplation of Passions is of no great use to governe them: What doth it concern him that studyeth the moderation and the right use of Passions to know that Joy comes by dilatation of the spirits, Sadnesse by contraction of the same, Love by diffusion, Hope by elevation? For my part because I seeke utility, I will be more care∣full to finde the morall counsels by which Passi∣ons

are moderated, then the natural wayes by which they are moved. And if in the fol∣lowing discourse of Passions I keepe not exactly the order and number received in the Schooles, or treate of some mixt Passion among the simple, it will not be out of singularity, but because I understand not perfectly those distinctions.

The first thing to be considered about Passion is whether we must have any, or utterly destroy it, as the Stoicians and Epicureans would do. This question, whether we may have Passion with vertue, is as if one asked whether there may be wooll with cloth, for Passion is the stuffe of Vertue, and Vertue is but a passion wisely mo∣derated: If there were no Passion there would be no vertue. If then the Passion be sick, it must be healed, not slaine, and much lesse must it be slaine when it is in health lest it fall sick.

It may be sayd for the Philosophers that would cut off or rather root out Passion, that it is an er∣rour that doth little harme: for man being na∣turally too passionate we must pull to the con∣trary extreme to bring him to a vertuous mode∣ration; for after we have rooted it out as much as may be, there will remaine still too much of it.

Beasts have also their Passions, and by them men are allyed with beasts. But the Appetite of the beast is meerly sensual, the appetite of man is partly sensual partly intellectual. Passions may be marshalled into three orders, according

to the three principall faculties of the soul; The inferiour order is of them that are onely in the sensitive Appetite, and have their motions for the body onely, as hunger and thirst; Over these reason hath lesse power, for she cannot perswade him that is hungry not to be so, but she may re∣tard the satisfaction of the appetite.

Other Passions are lodged in a higher storie, and seeme to be seated in the Imagination, as the Passion that one hath for curiosities and images of perfection increased by the desire. These are more capable to be ruled by reason.

The third and highest order is of intellectual passions, as the love of learning and contempla∣tion. These are more immediately in the power of reason. It is the part of reason to forme and moderate those passions which are meerely under her jurisdiction, and keepe a short bridle to those passions that are moved without her leave, by nature, chance, or fancy.

As in a well governed kingdome all is done by the King, the faculties of the soul must be kept in such order that within us all be done by Reason: When that Soveraine is wise and well obeyed, peace is in the inward State of man. But when the Soveraine is made subject to his natural Subjects, the sensual Passions; then the soule is like a body with the heeles upward, and the whole policy of the mind is turned upside downe.

Being to speake of the Passions as the winds

that stirre and tosse that inward sea of the soule, I must also speake of the Vertues that serve to represse them. Not to treate of each severally and prolixely, but to bring them to action, and to minister to every Passion its proper remedy.