Chapter 5
True virtue to her self’s the best reward, Rich with her own and full of lively spirit, Nothing cast down for want of due regard. Or ’cause rude men acknowledge not her merit. She knows her worth and stock from whence she sprung, Spreads fair without the warmth of earthly dung,
Dew’d with the drops of Heaven shall flourish long; As long as day and night do share the skie, And though that day and night should fail yet strong And steddie, fixed on Eternitie Shall bloom for ever. So the foul shall speed That loveth virtue for no worldly meed.
Though sooth to sayn, the worldly meed is due To her more then to all the world beside. Men ought do homage with affections true And offer gifts for God doth there reside. The wise and virtuous soul is his own seat To such what’s given God himself doth get.
But earthly minds whose sight’s seal’d up with mud Discern not this flesh-clouded Deity, Ne do acknowledge any other good Then what their mole-warp hands can feel and trie By groping touch; thus (worth of them unseen) Of nothing worthy that true worth they ween.
Wherefore the prudent Law-givers of old Even in all Nations, with right sage foresight Discovering from farre how clums and cold The vulgar wight would be to yield what’s right To virtuous learning, did by law designe Great wealth and honour to that worth divine.
But nought’s by law to Poesie due said he, Ne doth the solemn Statesmans head take care Of those that such impertinent pieces be Of common-weals. Thou’d better then to spare Thy uselesse vein. Or tell else, what may move Thy busie use such fruitlesse pains to prove.
No pains but pleasure to do the dictates dear Of inward living nature. What doth move The Nightingall to sing so sweet and clear The Thrush, or Lark that mounting high above Chants her shrill notes to heedlesse ears of corn Heavily hanging in the dewy morn.
When life can speak, it can not well withhold T’ expresse its own impressions and hid life. Or joy or grief that smoothered lie untold Do vex the heart and wring with restlesse strife. Then are my labours no true pains but ease My souls unrest they gently do appease.
Besides, that is not fruitlesse that no gains Brings to my self. I others profit deem Mine own: and if at these my heavenly flames Others receiven light, right well I ween My time’s not lost. Art thou now satisfide Said I: to which the scoffing boy replide.
Great hope indeed thy rymes should men enlight, That be with clouds and darknesse all o’recast, Harsh style and harder sense void of delight The Readers wearied eye in vain do wast. And when men win thy meaning with much pain, Thy uncouth sense they coldly entertain.
For wotst thou not that all the world is dead Unto that Genius that moves in thy vein Of poetrie! But like by like is fed. Sing of my Trophees in triumphant strein, Then correspondent life, thy powerfull verse Shall strongly strike and with quick passion pierce.
The tender frie of lads and lasses young With thirstie eare thee compassing about, Thy Nectar-dropping Muse, thy sugar’d song Will swallow down with eagre hearty draught; Relishing truly what thy rymes convey, And highly praising thy soul-smiting lay.
The mincing maid her mind will then bewray, Her heart-bloud flaming up into her face, Grave matrons will wex wanton and betray Their unresolv’dnesse in their wonted grace; Young boyes and girls would feel a forward spring, And former youth to eld thou back wouldst bring.
All Sexes, Ages, Orders, Occupations Would listen to thee with attentive ear, And eas’ly moved with thy sweet perswasions, Thy pipe would follow with full merry chear. While thou thy lively voice didst loud advance Their tickled bloud for joy would inly dance.
But now, alas! poore solitarie man! In lonesome desert thou dost wander wide To seek and serve thy disappearing Pan, Whom no man living in the world hath eyde: For Pan is dead but I am still alive, And live in men who honour to me give:
They honour also those that honour me With sacred songs. But thou now singst to trees To rocks to Hills, to Caves that senselesse be And mindlesse quite of thy hid mysteries, In the void aire thy idle voice is spread, Thy Muse is musick to the deaf or dead.
Now out alas! said I, and wele-away The tale thou tellest I confesse too true. Fond man so doteth on this living clay His carcase dear, and doth its joyes pursue, That of his precious soul he takes no keep Heavens love and reasons light lie fast asleep.
This bodies life vain shadow of the soul With full desire they closely do embrace, In fleshly mud like swine they wallow and roll, The loftiest mind is proud but of the face Or outward person; if men but adore That walking sepulchre, cares for no more.
This is the measure of mans industry To wexen some body and getten grace To ’s outward presence; though true majestie Crown’d with that heavenly light and lively rayes Of holy wesdome and Seraphick love, From his deformed soul he farre remove.
Slight knowledge and lesse virtue serves his turn For this designe. If he hath trod the ring Of pedling arts; in usuall pack-horse form Keeping the rode; O! then ’t’s a learned thing. If any chanc’d to write or speak what he Conceives not ’t were a foul discourtesie.
To cleanse the soul from sinne, and still diffide Whether our reasons eye be clear enough To intromit true light, that fain would glide Into purg’d hearts, this way ’s too harsh and rough: Therefore the clearest truths may well seem dark When sloathfull men have eyes so dimme and stark.
These be our times. But if my minds presage Bear any moment, they can ne’re last long, A three branch’d Flame will soon sweep clean the stage Of this old dirty drosse and all wex young. My words into this frozen air I throw Will then grow vocall at that generall thaw.
Nay, now thou ’rt perfect mad, said he, with scorn, And full of foul derision quit the place. The skie did rattle with his wings ytorn Like to rent silk. But I in the mean space Sent after him this message by the wind Be ’t so I ’m mad, yet sure I am thou ’rt blind.
By this the out-stretch’d shadows of the trees Pointed me home-ward, and with one consent Foretold the dayes descent. So straight I rise Gathering my limbs from off the green pavement Behind me leaving then the slooping Light. _Cl._ And now let’s up, _Vesper_ brings on the Night.
_FINIS._
_A Particular Interpretation appertaining to the three last books of the Platonick Song of the Soul._
A
_Atom-lives._ The same that Centrall lives. Both the terms denotate the indivisibility of the inmost essence it self; the pure essentiall form I mean, of plant, beast or man, yea of angels themselves, good or bad.
_Apogee_, } _Autokineticall_, } _Ananke_, } See Interpret. Gen. _Acronycall_, } _Alethea-land_, }
_Animadversall. That lively inward animadversall._ It is the soul it self, for I cannot conceive the body doth animadvert; when as objects plainly exposed to the sight are not discovered till the soul takes notice of them.
B
_Body._ The ancient Philosophers have defined it, Τὸ τριχῇ διάστατον μετ’ ἀντιτυπίας. _Sext. Emperic. Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. lib. 3. cap. 5._ Near to this is that description, _Psychathan_, Cant. 2. Stanz. 12. lib. 2, _Matter extent in three dimensions._ But for that ἀντιτυπία, simple trinall distension doth not imply it, wherefore I declin’d it. But took in _matter_ according to their conceit, that phansie _à Materia prima_, I acknowledge none, and consequently no such _corpus naturale_ as our Physiologist make the subject of that science. That Τριχῇ διάστατον ἀντίτυπον is nothing but a fixt spirit, the conspissation or coagulation of the Cuspidall particles of the Cone, which are indeed the Centrall Tasis or inward essence of the sensible world. These be an infinite number of vitall Atoms that may be wakened into diverse tinctures, or energies, into fiery, watery, earthy, &c. And one divine _Fiat_ can unloose them all into an universall mist, or turn them out of that sweat into a drie and pure Etheriall temper. These be the last projections of life from the soul of the world; and are act or form though debil and indifferent, like that which they call the first matter. But they are not meerly passive but meet their information half way, as I may so speak: are radiant _ab intimo_ and awake into this or the other operation, by the powerfull appulse of some superadvenient form. That which change of Phantasmes is to the soul, that is alteration of rayes to them. For their rayes are _ab intrinseco_, as the phantasmes of the soul. These be the reall matter of which all supposed bodies are compounded, and this matter (as I said) is form and life, so that all is life and form what ever is in the world, as I have somewhere intimated in _Antipsychopan_: But however I use the terme _body_ ordinarily in the usuall and vulgar acception. And for that sense of the ancients, nearest to which I have defined it in the place first above mentioned, that I seem not to choose that same as most easie to proceed against in disproving the corporeity of the soul, the arguments do as necessarily conclude against such a naturall body as is ordinarily described in Physiologie (as you may plainly discern if you list to observe) as also against this body composed of the Cuspidall particles of the Cone. For though they be Centrall lives, yet are they neither Plasticall, Sensitive, or Rationall, so farre are they from proving to be the humane soul whose nature is there discust.
C
_Cone_: Is a solid figure made by the turning of a rectangular triangle, about; one of the sides that include the right angle resting, which will be then the Axis of the compleated Cone. But I take it sometimes for the comprehension of all things, God himself not left out, whom I tearm the _Basis_ of the _Cone_ or _Universe_. And because all from him descends, καθ’ ὑποστολῆν, with abatement or contraction, I give the name of _Cone_ to the Universe. And of Cone rather then Pyramid because of the roundnesse of the figure, which the effluxes of all things imitate.
_Chaos_, } _Chronicall_, } See interpret· Gen. _Clare_, }
_Circulation_, The terme is taken from a toyish observation, _viz._ the circling of water when a stone is cast into a standing pool. The motion drives on circularly, the first rings are thickest, but the further they go they grow the thinner, till they vanish into nothing. Such is the diffusion of the species audible in the strucken aire, as also of the visible species. In brief any thing is said to circulate that diffuseth its image or species in a round. It might have been more significantly called orbiculation; seeing this circumfusion makes not onely a circle, but fills a sphere, which may be called the sphere of activity. Yet Circulation more fitly sets out the diminution of activity, from those ringes in the water which as they grow in compasse, abate in force and thicknesse. But sometimes I use Circulate in an ordinary sense to turn round, or return in a circle.
_Centre_, _Centrall_, _Centrality_. When they are used out of their ordinary sense, they signifie the depth or inmost being of any thing, from whence its acts and energies flow forth. See _Atom-lives_.
_Cuspis_ of the _Cone_. The multiplide Cuspis of the Cone is nothing but the last projection of life from Psyche, which is שׁמים a liquid fire or fire and water, which are the corporeall or materiall principles of all things, changed or disgregated (if they be centrally distinguishable) and again mingled by the virtue of Physis or Spermaticall life of the world; of these are the Sunne and all the Planets, they being kned together, and fixt by the Centrall power of each Planet and Sunne. The volatile Ether is also of the same, and all the bodies of plants, beasts and men. These are they which we handle and touch, a sufficient number compact together. For neither is the noise of those little flies in a summer-evening audible severally: but a full Quire of them strike the ear with a pretty kind of buzzing. Strong and tumultuous pleasure and scorching pain reside in these, they being essentiall and centrall, but sight and hearing are onely of the images of these, See _Body_.
_Eternitie._ Is the steddie comprehension of all things at once. See Æon discribed in my Expos. upon Psychozoia.
_Energie._ It is a peculiar Platonicall terme. In my Interpret. Gen. I expounded it Operation, Efflux, Activity. None of those words bear the full sense of it. The examples there are fit, _viz._ the light of the Sunne, the phantasms of the soul. We may collect the genuine sense of the word by comparing severall places in the Philosopher. Ἔχει γὰρ ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων ἐνεργειαν, ἥ ἐστιν ὁμοίωμα αὐτοῦ, ὥστε αὐτοῦ ὄντος, κἀκεῖνο εἶναι, καὶ μένοντος φθάνειν εἰς τὸ πόῤῥω, τὸ μὲν ἐπὶ πλέον, τὸ δὲ εἰς ἔλαττον. Καὶ αἱ μὲν ἀσθενεῖς καὶ ἀμυδραὶ, αἱ δὲ καὶ λανθάνουσαι, τῶν δ’ εἰσὶ μείζους καὶ εἰς τὸ πόῤῥω. _For every being hath its Energie, which is the image of it self, so that it existing that Energie doth also exist, and standing still is projected forward more or lesse. And some of those energies are weak and obscure, others hid or undiscernable, othersome greater and of a larger projection._ Plotin. Ennead. 4. lib. 5. cap. 7. And again, Ennead. 3. lib. 4. Καὶ μένομεν τῷ μὲν νοητῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἄνω· τῷ δὲ ἐσχάτῳ αὐτοῦ, πεπεδήμεθα τῷ κάτω, οἷον ἀπόῤῥοιαν ἀπ’ ἐκείνου διδόντες εἰς τὸ κάτω, μᾶλλον δὲ ἐνέργειαν, ἐκείνου οὐκ ἐλαττουμένου. _And we remain above by the Intellectuall man, but by the extreme part of him we are held below, as it were yielding an efflux from him to that which is below, or rather an energie he being not at all lessened._ This curiositie Antoninus also observes, (lib. 8. Meditat.) in the nature of the sun-beams, where although he admits of χύσις, yet he doth not of ἀπόῤῥοια which is ἔκχυσις. Ὁ ἥλιος κατακεχύσθαι δοκεῖ, καὶ πάντῇ γε κέχυται οὐ μὴν ἐκκέχυται. ἡ γὰρ χύσις αὐτοῦ τάσις ἐστίν. ἀκτῖνες γοῦν αἱ αὐγαὶ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐκτείνεσθαι λέγονται. _The sunne_, saith he, _is diffused, and his fusion is every where but without effusion_, &c. I will onely adde one place more out of Plotinus. Ennead. 3. lib. 6. Ἑκάστου δὲ μορίου ἡ ἐνέργεια ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ζωὴ οὐκ ἐξιστᾶσα. _The naturall energie of each power of the soul is life not parted from the soul though gone out of the soul, =viz.= into act._
Comparing of all these places together, I cannot better explain this Platonick term, _energie_, then by calling it the rayes of an essence, or the beams of a vitall Centre. For essence is the Centre as it were of that which is truly called Energie, and Energie the beams and rayes of an essence. And as the _Radii_ of a circle leave not the centre by touching the Circumference, no more doth that which is the pure Energie of an essence, leave the essence by being called out into act, but is ἐν-έργεια a working in the essence though it flow _out_ into act. So that _Energie_ depends alwayes on essence, as _Lumen_ on _Lux_, or the creature on God; Whom therefore Synesius in his Hymnes calls the Centre of all things.
_Entelecheia._ See Interpret. Gen.
F
_Faith._ _Platonick faith in the first Good._ This faith is excellently described in Proclus, where it is set above all ratiocination, nay, Intellect it self. Πρὸς δὲ αὖ τὸ ἀγαθὸν οὐ γνώσεως ἔτι καὶ συνεργείας δεῖ τοῖς συναφθῆναι σπεύδουσιν, ἀλλ’ ἱδρύσεως καὶ μονίμου καταστάσεως καὶ ἠρεμίας. _But to them that endeavour to be joyned with the first Good, there is no need of knowledge or multifarious cooperation, but settlednesse, steddinesse, and rest._ lib. 1. cap. 24. Theolog. Platon. And in the next chapter; Δεῖ γὰρ οὐ γνωστικῶς οὐδ’ ἀτελῶς τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἐπιζητεῖν, ἀλλ’ ἐπιδόντας ἑαυτοὺς τῷ θείῳ φωτὶ καὶ μύσαντας, οὕτως ἐνιδρύεσθαι τῇ ἀγνώστῳ καὶ κρυφίῳ τῶν ὄντων ἑνάδι. _For we must not seek after that absolute or first Good cognoscitively or imperfectly, but giving our selves up to the divine light, and winking_ (that is shutting our eyes of reason and understanding) _so to place our selves steddily in that hidden Unitie of all things_. After he preferres this faith before the clear and present assent to the κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι, yea and the νοερὰ ἁπλότης, so that he will not that any intellectuall operation should come in comparison with it. Πολυειδὴς γὰρ αἵτη καὶ δι’ ἑτερότητος χωριζομένη τῶν νοουμένων, καὶ ὅλως κίνησίς ἐστι νοερὰ περὶ τὸ νοητόν. Δεῖ δὲ τὴν θείαν πίστιν ἑνοειδῆ καὶ ἤρεμον ὑπάρχειν ἐν τῷ τῆς ἀγαθότητος ὁρμῷ τελείως ἱδρυθεῖσαν. _For the operation of the Intellect is multiform and by diversitie separate from her objects, and is in a word, intellectuall motion about the object intelligible. But the divine faith must be simple and uniform, quiet and steddily resting in the haven of Goodnesse._ And at last he summarily concludes, Ἐστί οὖν οὗτος ὅρμος ἀσφαλὴς τῶν ὄντων ἁπάντων. See Procl. Theolog. Platonick. lib. 1. cap. 25.
H
_Hyle._ See Interpret. Gen.
I
_Intellect._ Sometimes it is to be interpreted _Soul_. Sometime the intellectuall facultie of the soul. Sometimes Intellect is an absolute essence shining into the soul: whose nature is this. A substance purely immateriall, impeccable, actually omniform, or comprehending all things at once, which the soul doth also being perfectly joyned with the Intellect. Ἔχομεν οὖν καὶ τὰ εἴδη διχῶς, ἐν μὲν ψυχῇ οἷον μὲν ἀνειλιγμένα καὶ οἷον κεχωρισμένα, ἐν δὲ τῷ νῷ ὁμοῦ τὰ πάντα. Plot. Ennead. 1. lib. 1. cap. 8. _Ideas_, or _Idees_. Sometimes they are forms in the Intellectuall world. _viz._ in _Æon_, or _On_, other sometimes, phantasmes or representations in the soul. _Innate Idees_ are the souls nature it self, her uniform essence, able by her _Fire_ to produce this or that phantasme into act.
_Idiopathy._ } See Interpret. Gen. _Iao_ }
L
_Logos._ See Interpret. Gen.
_Life._ The vitall operation of any soul. Sometime it is the soul it self, be it sensitive, vegetative, or rationall.
_Lower man._ The lower man is our enquickned body, into which our soul comes, it being fitly prepared for the receiving of such a guest. The manner of the production of souls, or rather their non-production is admirably well set down in Plotinus, See, _Ennead. 6. lib. 4. cap. 14, 15_.
M
_Monad._ See Interpr. Gen.
_Mundane._ _Mundane spirit_, Is that which is the spirit of the world or Universe. I mean by it not an intellectuall spirit, but a fine, unfixt, attenuate, subtill, ethereall substance, the immediate vehicle of plasticall or sensitive life.
_Memory._ _Mundane memory._ Is that memory that is seated in the _Mundane_ spirit of man, by a strong impression, or inustion of any phantasme, or outward sensible object, upon that spirit. But there is a Memory more subtill and abstract in the soul it self, without the help of this spirit, which she also carries away with her having left the body.
_Magicall._ That is, attractive, or commanding by force of sympathy with the life of this naturall world.
_Moment._ Sometimes signifies an instant, as indivisible, as κίνημα, which in motion answers to an instant in time, or a point in a line, _Aristot. Phys._ In this sense I use it, Psychathan. lib. 3. cant. 2. stanz. 16; _But in a moment sol doth ray._ But Cant. the 3. Stanz. 45. v. 2. I understand, as also doth Lansbergius, by a _moment_ one second of a minute. In Antipsych. Cant. 2. Stanz. the 20. v. 2. by a _moment_ I understand a minute, or indefinitely any small time.
O
_Orb._ _Orb Intellectuall_, is nothing else but Æon or the Intellectuall world. The Orbs generall mentioned Psycathan. lib. 1. cant. 3. stanz. 23. v. 2. I understand by them but so many universall orders of beings, if I may so terme them all; for _Hyle_ hath little or nothing of being.
_Omniformity._ The omniformity of the soul is the having in her nature all forms, latent at least, and power of awaking them into act, upon occasion.
_Out-world._ and _Out-Heaven._ The sensible world, the visible Heaven.
P
_Perigee_, } _Psychicall_, } _Pareties_, } See Interpret. Gen. _Parallax_, } _Protopathy_. }
_Parturient._ See, _Vaticinant_.
_Phantasie._ _Lower phantasie_, is that which resides in the Mundane spirit of a man, See _Memory_.
Q
_Quantitative._ Forms _quantitative_, are such sensible energies as arise from the complexion of many natures together, at whose discretion they vanish. That’s the seventh Orb of things, though broken and not filling all as the other do. But if you take it for the whole sensible world, it is entire, and is the same that _Tasis_ in Psycozoia. But the centre of _Tasis_, viz. the multiplication of the reall _Cuspis_ of the _Cone_ (for _Hyle_ that is set for the most contract point of the _Cuspis_ is scarce to be reckoned among realities) that immense diffusion of atoms, is to be referred to _Psyche_, as an internall vegetative act, and so belongs to _Physis_ the lowest order of life. For as that warmth that the sense doth afford the body, is not rationall, sensitive, or imaginative, but vegetative; So this, שׁמים _i.e._ liquid fire, which _Psyche_ sends out, and is the outmost, last, and lowest operation from her self, is also vegetative.
R
_Rhomboides._ See Interpr. general.
_Reason._ I understand by Reason, the deduction of one thing from another, which I conceive proceeds from a kind of continuitie of phantasmes: and is something like the moving of a cord at one end; the parts next it rise with it. And by this concatenation of phantasmes I conceive, that both brutes and men are moved in reasonable wayes and methods in their ordinary externall actions.
_Rayes._ The rayes of an essence is its energie. See _Energie_.
_Reduplicative._ That is reduplicative, which is not onely in this point, but also in another, having a kind of circumscribed ubiquitie, _viz._ in its own sphear. And this is either by being in that sphear omnipresent it self, as the soul is said to be in the body _tota in toto & tota in qualibet parte_, or else at least by propagation of rayes, which is the image of it self; and so are divers sensible objects _Reduplicative_, as light, colours, sounds. And I make account either of these wayes justly denominate any thing spirituall. Though the former is most properly, at least more eminently spirituall. And whether any thing be after that way spirituall saving the Divinitie, there is reason to doubt. For what is entirely omnipresent in a sphear, whose diametre is but three feet, I see not, why (that in the circumference being as fresh and entire as that in the centre) it should stop there and not proceed even _in infinitum_, if the circumference be still as fresh and entire as the centre. But I define nothing.
S
_Spermaticall._ It belongs properly to Plants, but is transferred also to the Plasticall power in Animalls, I enlarge it to all magnetick power whatsoever that doth immediately rule and actuate any body. For all magnetick power is founded in _Physis_, and in reference to her, this world is but one great Plant, (one λόγος σπερματικός giving it shape and corporeall life) as in reference to _Psyche_, one happy and holy Animall.
_Spirit._ Sometimes it signifieth the soul, othersometime, the naturall spirits in a mans body, which are _Vinculum animæ & corporis_, and the souls vehicle: Sometimes life. See _Reduplicative_.