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Synteresis, or the purer part of the conscience, is an innate habit, and doth signifie "a conversation of the knowledge of the law of God and Nature, to know good or evil: And (as our Divines hold) it is rather in the understanding, then in the will. This makes the major proposition in a practicke Syllogisme. The Dictamen rationis is that which doth admonish us to doe good or evil, and is the minor in the Syllogisme. The Conscience is that which approves good or evill, justifying or condemning our actions, and is the conclusion of the Syllogisme : as in that familiar example of Regulus the Roman, taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, and suffered to goe to Rome, on that condition he should returne againe, or pay so much for his ransome. The Synteresis proposeth the question; his word, oath, promise, is to be religiously kept, although to his enemy, and that by the law of nature. n "Doe not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thy self." Dictamen applies it to him, and dictates this or the like: Regulus, thou wouldst not another man should falsifie his oath, or break promise with thee: Conscience concludes, therefore Regulus, thou dost well to performe thy promise, and oughtest to keep thine oath. More of this in Religious Melancholy.

WILL

SUBSEC. XI.

Of the Will.

VILL, is the other power of the rationall soule, "which covets or avoids such things as have been before judged, and apprehended by the understanding." If good, it approves; if evill, it abhorres it: so that his object is either good or evill. Aristotle cals this our rationall Appetite; for as in the Sensitive we are moved to good or bad by our Appetite, ruled and directed by Sense; so in this we are carried by reason. Besides, the Sensitive Appetite hath a particular object, good or bad: this an universall, immateriall; That respects onely things delectable and pleasant, this honest. Againe, they differ in liberty. The Sensuall appetite seeing an object, if it be a convenient good, cannot but desire it; if evill, avoid it: but this is free in his essence, P" much now depraved, obscured, and falne from his first perfection; yet in some of his operations still free," as to goe, walke, move at his pleasure, and to choose whether it will do or not do, steale or not steale. Other

"Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris. Res ab intellectu monstratas recipit, vel rejicit; approbat, vel improbat, Philip. Ignoti nulla cupido. Melanethon. Operationes plerumq; feræ, etsi libera sit illa in essentia sua.

wise in vaine were Laws, Deliberations, Exhortations, Councels, Precepts, Rewards, Promises, Threats and Punishments: and God should be the author of sin. But in spiritual things we will no good, prone to evil (except we be regenerate, and led by the Spirit) we are egged on by our natural concupiscence, and there is arakia, a confusion in our powers, """ our whole will is averse from God and his law," not in natural things only, as to eat and drink, lust, to which we are led headlong by our temperature and inordinate appetite,

"Nec nos obniti contra, nec tendere tantùm Sufficimus,

we cannot resist, our concupiscence is originally bad, our heart evil, the seat of our affections captivates and enforceth our will. So that in voluntary things we are averse from God and goodness, bad by nature, by ignorance worse, by Art, Discipline, Custom, we get many bad habits suffering them to domineer and tyrannize over us; and the devil is still ready at hand with his evil suggestions, to tempt our depraved will to some ill disposed action, to precipitate us to destruction, except our Will be swayed and counterpoised again with some divine precepts, and good motions of the spirit, which many times restrain, hinder and check us, when we are in the full career of our dissolute courses. So David corrected himself, when he had Saul at a vantage. Revenge and Malice were as two violent oppugners on the one side; but Honesty, Religion, Fear of God, with-held him on the other.

The actions of the Will are Velle and Nolle, to well and nill: which two words comprehend all, and they are good or bad, accordingly as they are directed: and some of them freely performed by himself, although the Stoicks absolutely deny it, and will have all things inevitably done by Destiny, imposing a fatal necessity upon us, which we may not resist; yet we say that our will is free in respect of us, and things contingent, howsoever in respect of God's determinate counsel, they are inevitable and necessary. Some other actions of the will are performed by the inferiour powers, which obey him, as the Sensitive and Moving Appetite; as to open our eyes, to go hither and thither, not to touch a book, to speak fair or foule : but this Appetite is many times rebellious in us, and will not be contained within the lists of sobriety and temperance. It was (as I said) once well agreeing with reason, and there was

Virg.

Tota volun

Vel propter

In civilibus libera, sed non in spiritualibus Osiander. tas aversa à Deo. Omnis homo mendax. ignorantiam, quod bonis studiis non sit instructa mens ut debuit, aut divinis præceptis exculta.

an excellent consent and harmony betwixt them, but that is now dissolved, they often jar, Reason is overborne by Passion :

"Fertur equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas,"

as so many wilde horses run away with a chariot, and will not be curbed. We know many times what is good, but will not do it, as she said,

Trahit invitum nova vis, aliudque cupido,

Mens aliud suadet,

دو

Lust counsels one thing, reason another, there is a new reluctancy in men.

"Odi, nec possum, cupiens non esse, quod odi."

We cannot resist, but as Phædra confessed to her Nurse, * quæ loqueris, vera sunt, sed furor suggerit sequi pejora : she said well and true, she did acknowledge it, but headstrong passion and fury made her to do that which was opposite. So David knew the filthiness of his fact, what a loathsome, foule, crying sin adultery was, yet notwithstanding he would commit murther, and take away another man's wife, enforced against Reason, Religion, to follow his Appetite.

Those natural and vegetal powers are not commanded by Will at all; for "who can adde one cubit to his stature ?" These other may, but are not and thence come all those headstrong passions, violent perturbations of the Minde; and many times vitious habits, customs, feral diseases; because we give so much way to our Appetite, and follow our inclination, like so many beasts. The principal Habits are two in number, Vertue and Vice, whose peculiar definitions, descriptions, differences, and kinds, are handled at large in the Ethicks, and are indeed the subject of Moral Philosophy.

MEMB. III.

SUBSEC. I.

Definition of Melancholy, Name, Difference.

AVING thus briefly anatomized the body and soul of man, as a preparative to the rest; I may now freely proceed to treat of my intended object, to most men's capacity; and after many ambages, perspiciously define what this Melancholy is, shew his Name, and Differences. The Name is imposed from the matter, and Disease denominated from the materiall cause: as * Seneca. Hipp.

u Medea Ovid.

* Ovid.

Bruel

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Bruel observes, Μελανχολία quasi Μελαιναχόλη, from black Choler. And whether it be a cause or an effect, a Disease, or symptome, let Donatus Altomarus and Salvianus decide; I will not contend about it. It hath severall Descriptions, Notations, and Definitions. y Fracastorius, in his second book of intellect, calls those Melancholy, "whom abundance of that same depraved humor of black Choler hath so misaffected, that they become mad thence, and dote in most things, or in all, belonging to election, will, or other manifest operations of the understanding. Melanelius out of Galen, Ruffus, Etius, describe it to be "a bad and peevish disease, which makes men degenerate into beasts:" Galen, "a privation or infection of the middle cell of the Head, &c." defining it from the part affected, which Hercules de Saxoniâ approves, lib. 1. cap. 16. calling it "a depravation of the principal function:" Fuschius, lib. 1. cap. 23. Arnoldus Breviar. lib. 1. cap. 18. Guianerius, and others: " By reason of black Choler," Paulus addes. Halyabbas simply calls it a " commorion of the minde." Aretæus, a perpetuall anguish of the soul, fastned on one thing, without an ague; which definition of his, Mercurialis de affect. cap. lib. 1. cap. 10. taxeth: but Ælianus Montaltus defends, lib. de morb. cap. 1. de Melan. for sufficient and good. The common sort define it to be "a kinde of dotage without a fever, having for his ordinary companions, fear, and sadness, without any apparent occasion. So doth Laurentius, cap. 4. Piso, lib. 1. cap. 43. Donatus Altomarus, cap. 7. art. medic. Jacchinus in com. in lib. 9. Rhasis ad Almansor cap. 15. Valesius exerc. 17. Fuschius institut. 3. sec. 1. c. 11. &c. which common definition, howsoever approved by most, Hercules de Saxonia will not allow of, nor David Crucius, Theat. morb. Herm. lib. 2. cap. 6. he holds it unsufficient: "as rather shewing what it is not, then what it is:" as omitting the specifical difference, the Phantasie and Brain: but I descend to particulars. The summum genus is "Dotage, or Anguish of the minde,” saith Aretæus," of the principall parts;" Hercules de Saxonia addes, to distinguish it from Cramp and Palsie, and such diseases as belong to the outward sense and motions [depraved ]* to distinguish it from Folly and Madness (which Montaltus makes angor animi, to separate) in which those functions are not depraved, but rather abolished; [without an ague] is added by

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y Melancholicos vocamus, quos exuperantia vel pravitas Melancholia ita male habet, ut inde insaniant vel in omnibus, vel in pluribus iisq; manitestis sive ad rectam rationem, voluntaté pertinent, vel electionem, vel ntellectus operationes, * Pessimum & pertinacissimü morbum qui homines in bruta degenerare cogit. a Panth. Med. Agnor animi in una contentione defixus. absq; iebre. 16. 1. 1.

• Сар. 4 Eorum de fini.io morbus quid non sit potius quam quid sit, explicat. * Animæ functiones imminuitur in fatuitate, tolluntur in mania, depravantur solum in melancholia. Herc. de Sax. cap. 1. tract. de Melanch.

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all, to sever it from Phrensie, and that Melancholy which is in a pestilent Fever. (Fear and Sorrow) make it differ from Madness: [without a cause] is lastly inserted, to specifie it from all other ordinary passions of [Fear and Sorrow.] We properly call that Dotage, as Laurentius interprets it, "when some one principal facultie of the minde, as imagination, or reason, is corrupted, as all melancholy persons have." It is without a fever, because the humor is most part cold and dry, contrary to putrefaction. Fear and Sorrow are the true Characters and inseparable companions of most Melancholy, not all, as Her. de Saxonia, Tract. posthumo de Melancholia, cap. 2. well excepts; for to some it is most pleasant, s to such as laugh most part; some are bold again, and free from all manner of fear and grief, as hereafter shall be declared.

SUBSEC. II.

Of the part affected. Affection. Parties affected.

SOME

ME difference I finde amongst Writers, about the prin cipal part affected in this disease, whether it be the brain, or Heart, or some other Member. Most are of opinion that it is the Brain: for being a kinde of Dotage, it cannot otherwise be, but that the Brain must be affected, as a similar part, be it by * consent or essence, not in his ventricles, or any obstructions in them, for then it would be an Apoplexie, or Epilepsie, as Laurentius well observes, but in a cold dry distemperature of it in his substance, which is corrupt and become too cold, or too dry, or else too hot, as in mad-men, and such as are inclined to it and this Hippocrates confirmes. Galen, the Arabians, and most of our new Writers. Marcus de Oddis (in a consultation of his, quoted by Hildesheim) and five others there cited are of the contrary part, because fear and sorrow, which are passions, be seated in the Heart. But this objection is sufficiently answered by Montaltus, who doth not deny that the heart is affected (as Melanelius proves out of Galen) by reason of his vicinity, and so is the midriffe and many other parts. They do compati, and have a fellow-feeling by the Law of nature: but for as much as this malady is caused by precedent Imagination, with the Appetite, to whom spirits

e Cap. 4. de mel. de mel.

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* Per consensum sive per essentiam. Sec. 7. de mor. vulgar. lib. 6. f Cap. 4. Cap. 3. de mel. pars affecta cerebrum sive per consensum, sive per cerebrum Spicel. de melancholia. contingat, et procerum auctoritate & ratione stabilitur. * Lib. de Mel. Cor

vero vicinitatis ratione unà afficitur, acceptum transversum ac stomachus cum dorsali spina, &c.

obey,

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