I Doubt not but you have too good an Opinion of your Friend, not to think that you may alledge in his favour, that the chief thing which makes him prefer Physiology to all other kind of knowledge, is, That it enables those who are Proficients in it to do a great deal of good, both by improving of Trades, and by promoting of Physick it self. And I am too mindful of what I writ to Pyrophilus, to deny, either that it can assist a man to advance Physick and Trades, or that, by so doing, he may highly advantage Mankind. And this, I, (who would not lessen your Friends Esteem for Physicks, but onely his Partiality) willingly acknowledge to be so allowable an Endearment of Experimental Philosophy, that I do not know any thing, that to men of a Humane, as well as Ingenious Disposition, ought more to recommend the study of Nature; except the opportunity it affords men to be Just and Grateful to the Author both of Nature and of Man. I do not then deny, that the true Naturalist may very much benefit Mankind; but I affirm, that, if men be not wanting to themselves, the Divine may benefit them much more. It were not perchance either unseasonable, or impertinent to tell you on this occasion, that he who effectually teaches men to subdue their Lusts and Passions, does as much as the Physician contribute to the preservation of their Bodies, by exempting them from those Vices, whose no less usual than destructive Effects are Wars, and Duels, and Rapines, and Desolations, and the Pox, and Surfets, and all the train of other Diseases that attend Gluttony and Drunkenness, Idleness and Lust; which are not Enemies to Mans Life and Health barely upon a Physical account, but upon a Moral one, as they provoke God to punish them with Temporal as well as Spiritual Judgments; such as Plagues, Wars, Famines, and other publick Calamities, that sweep away a great part of Mankind; besides those personal afflictions of Bodily Sickness, and disquiets of Conscience, that do both Shorten mens Lives, and Imbitter them. Whereas Piety having (as the Scripture assures us) Promises both of this Life, and of that which is to come, those Teachers that make men Virtuous and Religious, by making them Temperate, and Chaste, and Inoffensive, and Calm, and Contented, do not onely procure them great and excellent Dispositions to those Blessings, both of the Right hand and of the Left, which God’s Goodness makes him forward to bestow on those, who by Grace and Virtue are made fit to receive them; but do help them to those Qualifications, that by preserving the Mind in a calm and cheerful temper, as well as by affording the Body all that Temperance can confer, do both Lengthen their Lives, and Sweeten them. These things, I say, ‘twere not impertinent to insist on, but I will rather chuse to represent to you, That the Benefits which men may receive from the Divine, surpass those which they receive from the Naturalist, both in the Nobleness of the Advantages, and in the Duration of them.
Be it granted then, that the Naturalist may much improve both Physick and Trades; yet since these themselves were devised for the service of the Body, (the one to preserve or restore his Health, and the other to furnish it with Accommodations or Delights;) the boasted use of Natural Philosophy, by its advancing Trades and Physick, will still be to serve the Body; which is but the Lodging and Instrument of the Soul, and which, I presume, your Friend, and which I am sure your self, will be far from thinking the noblest part of Man. I know it may be said, nor do I deny it, that divers Mechanical Arts are highly Beneficial, not onely to the Inventors, but to those Places, and perhaps those States, where such Improvements are found out and cherish’d. But though I most willingly grant, that this Consideration ought to recommend Experimental Philosophy, as well to States as to private Persons; yet, besides that many of these Improvements do rather Transfer than Increase Mankind’s goods, and prejudice one sort of Men as much as they Advantage another, (as in the case of the Eastern Spices, of whose Trade the Portugals and Dutch by their later Navigations, did, by appropriating it to themselves, deprive the Venetians) or else does but increase that, which, though very Beneficial to the Producers, is not really so to Mankind in general: Of which we have an Example in the Invention of Extracting Gold and Silver out of the Oar, with Mercury. For though it have vastly enrich’d the Spaniards in the West Indies, yet ‘tis not of any solid advantage to the World; no more than the Discovery of the Peruvian and other American Mines; by which, (especially reckoning the multitudes of unhappy men that are made miserable, and destroyed in working them,) Mankind is not put into a better condition than it was before. And if the Philosopher’s Stone it self, (supposing there be such a thing) were not an Incomparable Medicine, but were onely capable of transmuting other Metalls into Gold, I should perhaps doubt, whether the Discoverer of it would much advantage Mankind; there being already Gold and Silver enough to maintain Trade and Commerce among men; and for all other purposes, I know not, why a plenty of Iron, and Brass, and Quick-silver, which are far more useful Metalls, should not be more desirable. But not to urge this; we may consider, that these Advancements of inriching Trades do still bring Advantages but to the outward man, and those many Arts and Inventions that aim at the heightning the pleasures of the Senses,1 belong but to the Body; and even in point of gratifying That, are not so requisite and important, as many suppose: Education, Custome, &c. having a greater Interest than most imagine in the rellish men have even of Sensitive pleasures. And as for Physick, not to mind you, that it has been Lowdly (how Justly, I here examine not,) complain’d of, that the new Philosophy has made it far greater promises than have yet been perform’d; I shall onely take notice, that since all that Physick is wont to pretend to, is, to preserve health, or restore it, there are multitudes in the world that have no need of the assistance the Naturalist would give the Physician; and a healthy man, as such, is already in a better condition, than the Philosopher can hope to place him in, and is no more advantag’d by the Naturalist’s contribution to Physick, than a sound man that sleeps in a whole skin, is by all the fine Tools of a Chirurgeons Case of Instruments, and the various Compositions of his Chest.
And as the Benefits that may be derived from Theology, much surpass those that accrue from Physicks, in the Nobleness of the Subject they relate to; so have they a great advantage in point of Duration. For all the service that Medicines, and Engines, and Improvements can do a man, as they relate but to this Life, so they determine with it. Physick indeed and Chymistry do, the one more faintly, and the other more boldly, pretend sometimes not onely to the Cure of Diseases, but the Prolongation of Life: But since none will suspect, but that the Masters of those parts of knowledge would employ their utmost skill to protract their own Lives, those that remember, that Solomon and Helmont liv’d no longer, than millions that were strangers to Philosophy; and that even Paracelsus himself, for all his boasted Arcana, is by Helmont and other Chymists confessed to have died some years short of 50; we may very justly fear, that Nature will not be so kind to her greatest Votaries, as to give them much more time than other men, for the payment of the last Debt all men owe her. And if a few years respite could by a scrupulous and troublesome use of Diet and Remedies be obtain’d; yet that, in comparison of the Eternity that is to follow, is not at all considerable. But, whereas within no great number of years, (a little sooner, or a little later) all the Remedies, and Reliefs, and Pleasures, and Accommodations, that Philosophical Improvements can afford a man, will not keep him from the Grave, (which within very few days will make the body of the greatest Virtuoso as hideous and as loathsome a Carcase as that of any ordinary man;) the Benefits that may accrue to us by Divinity, as they relate Chiefly, though not Onely, to the other World; so they will follow us out of this, and prove then incomparably greater than ever, when they alone shall be capable of being enjoy’d. So that Philosophy, in the capacity we here consider it, does but as it were provide us some little Conveniences for our passage (like some Accommodations for a Cabbin, which out-lasts not the Voyage,) but Religion provides us a vast and durable Estate, or, as the Scripture styles it, an unshaken Kingdom, when we are arriv’d at our Journeys end. And therefore the Benefits accruing from Religion, may well be concluded preferible to their Competitors, since they not onely reach to the Mind of Man, but reach beyond the End of Time it self; whereas all the variety of Inventions that Philosophy so much boasts of, as whilst they were in season they were devis’d for the service of the Body, so they make us busie, and pride our selves about things, that within a short time will not (so much as upon Its score) at all concern us.
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Footnotes
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See Examples of this in my Notes about Sensation and Sensible Qualities. ↩