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amufed himself to take and lofe towns; beat armies, and be beaten; drive princes out of their dominions; fright children from their bread and butter; burn, lay wafte, plunder, dragoon, masfacre fubject and ftranger, friend and foe, male and female. It is recorded, that the philofophers of each country were in grave difpute upon caufes natural, moral, and political, to find out where they should affign an original folution of this phænomenon. At laft the vapour or Spirit which animated the hero's brain, being in perpetual circulation, feized upon that region of the human body, fo renowned for furnishing the zibeta occidentalis *, and gathering there into a tumour, left the reft of the world for that time in peace. Of fuch mighty confequence it is, where thofe exhalations fix; and of fo little, from whence they proceed. The same spirits, which, in their fuperior progrefs, would conquer a kingdom, defcending upon the anus, conclude in a fifiula.

Let us next examine the great introducers of new schemes in philofophy, and fearch till we can find from what faculty of the foul the difpofition arifes in mortal man, of taking it into his head to advance new fyftems, with fuch an eager

zeal,

* Paracelfus, who was fo famous for chymistry, tried an experiment upon human excrement, to make a perfume of it; which when he had brought to perfection, he called zibeta occidentalis, or western civet, the back parts of man (according to his divifion mentioned by the author, p. 331.) being the west.

zeal, in things agreed on all hands impoffible to be known; from what feeds this difpofition fprings, and to what quality of human nature thefe grand innovators have been indebted for their number of difciples: Because it is plain, that feveral of the chief among them, both ancient and modern, were ufually mistaken by their adverfaries, and indeed by all, except their own followers, to have been perfons crazed, or out of their wits; having generally proceeded, in the common courfe of their words and actions, by a method very different from the vulgar dictates of unrefined reafon; agreeing, for the most part, in their feveral models, with their prefent undoubted fucceffors in the academy of modern Bedlam ; (whofe merits and principles I fhall farther examine in due place.) Of this kind were Epicurus, Diogenes, Apollonius, Lucretius, Paracelfus, Des Cartes, and others; who, if they were now in the world, tied fast, and separate from their followers, would, in this our undiftinguishing age, incur manifeft danger of phlebotomy, and whips, and chains, and dark chambers, and ftraw. For what man, in the natural state or courfe of thinking, did ever conceive it in his power to reduce the notions of all mankind exactly to the fame length, and breadth, and height of his own? Yet this is the first humble and civil defign of all innovatorsin the empire of reafon. Epicurus modeftly hoped, that, one time or other, a certain fortuitous concourfe of all men's opinions, after

perpetual

perpetual justlings, the sharp with the smooth, he light and the heavy, the round and the square, would, by certain clinamina, unite in the notions of atoms and void, as these did in the originals of all things. Cartefius reckoned to fee, before he died, the fentiments of all philofophers, like fo many leffer ftars in his romantic fyftem, wrapped and drawn within his own vortex. Now, I would gladly be informed, how it is poffible to account for fuch imaginations as these in particucular men, without recourse to my phænomenon of vapours, afcending from the lower faculties to overshadow the brain, and there diftilling into conceptions, for which the narrowness of our mother-tongue has not yet affigned any other name befides that of madness, or phrenzy. Let us therefore now conjecture, how it comes to pass, that none of these great prescribers do ever fail providing themselves and their notions with a number of implicit difciples. And, I think, the reafon is eafy to be affigned; for there is a peculiar ftring in the harmony of human understanding, which in feveral individuals is exactly of the fame tuning. This if you can dextrously screw up to its right key, and then strike gently upon it; whenever you have the good fortune to light among those of the fame pitch, they will, by a fecret neceflary fympathy, ftrike exactly at the fame time. And in this one circumstance lies all the fkill or luck of the matter: For if you chance to jar the ftring among those who are

water.

either above or below your own height; instead of fubfcribing to your doctrine, they will tie you faft, call you mad, and feed you with bread and It is therefore a point of the nicest conduct, to diftinguifh and adapt this noble talent with respect to the differences of perfons and of times. Cicero understood this very well, when writing to a friend in England, with a caution, among other matters, to beware of being cheated by our hackney-coachmen, (who, it seems, in those days were as arrant rafcals as they are now), has these remarkable words: Eft quod gaudeas te in ifta loca veniffe, ubi aliquid fapere viderere*. For, to speak a bold truth, it is a fatal mifcarriage, fo ill to order affairs, as to pafs for a fool in one company, when in another you might be treated as a philofopher. Which I defire fome certain gentlemen of my acquaintance to lay up in their hearts, as a very feafonable innuendo.

you

This, indeed, was the fatal mistake of that worthy gentleman, my moft ingenious friend, Mr Wotton; a perfon, in appearance, ordained for great defigns, as well as performances. Whether will confider his notions or his looks, furely no man ever advanced into the public with fitter qualifications of body and mind, for the propagation of a new religion. Oh, had thofe happy talents, mifapplied to vain philofophy, been turned into their proper channels of dreams and vifions, where diftortion of mind and countenance are

Epift. ad Fam. Trebat.

of

of fuch fovereign use; the base detracting world would not then have dared to report, that fomething is amifs, that his brain hath undergone an unlucky fhake; which even his brethren modernifts themselves, like ungrates, do whisper fo loud, that it reaches up to the very garret I am now writing in.

Lastly, Whofoever pleases to look into the fountains of enthufiafm, from whence, in all ages, have eternally proceeded fuch fattening streams, will find the spring-head to have been as troubled and muddy as the current. Of fuch great emolument is a tincture of this vapour, which the world calls madness, that, without its help, the world would not only be deprived of thofe two great bleffings, conquefts and fyftems, but even all mankind would unhappily be reduced to the fame belief in things invifible. Now, the former poftulatum being held, that it is of no import from what originals this vapour proceeds, but either in what angles it ftrikes, and spreads over the understanding, or upon what fpecies of brain it afcends; it will be a very delicate point, to cut the feather, and divide the feveral reasons to a nice and curious reader, how this numerical difference in the brain can produce effects of fo vast a difference from the fame vapour, as to be the fole point of individuation between Alexander the Great, Jack of Leyden, and Monfieur Des Cartes. The prefent argument is the most abftracted that ever I engaged in; it ftrains my faculties to their highest

ftretch:

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