Chapter 9: Of the Affection of Love — Natural, Rational, and Its Object and Cause

Now the two first and fundamental Passions of all the rest, are Love and Hatred. Concerning the Passion of Love, we will therein consider first its object, and its causes; both which being of a like nature, (for every moral object is a cause, though not every cause an object) will fall into one.

Love then consists in a kind of expansion or egress of the heat and spirits to the object loved, or to that whereby it is drawn and attracted; whatever therefore has such an attractive power, is in that respect the object and general cause of Love. Now, as in Nature, so in the Affections likewise, we may observe from their objects a double attraction: The first, is that natural or impressed sympathy of things, whereby one does inwardly incline to union with the other, by reason of some secret virtues and occult qualities disposing either subject to that mutual friendship, as between Iron and the Lodestone. The other, is that common and more discernible attraction which every thing receives from those natures, or places, whereon they are ordained and directed by the Wisdom and Providence of the first Cause, to depend both in respect of the perfection and conservation of their being. For, as God in his Temple, the Church, so is He in his Palace, (if I may so call it) the World, a God of Order, disposing every thing in Number, Weight, and Measure, so sweetly, as that all is harmonious, (from which harmony, the Philosophers have concluded a Divine Providence) and so powerfully, as that all things depend on his Government, without violence, breach, or variation.

And this Order and Wisdom is seen chiefly in that sweet subordination of things each to other, and happy inclination of all to their particular ends, till all be reduced finally to Him who is the Fountain, from where issue all their streams of their limited being, and the fullness of which, all his creatures have received. Which the Poet, though something too Poetically, seems to have expressed:

Principio Coelum ac Terras camposque liquentes Lucentemque globum Lunae Titaniaque Astra Spiritus intus [reconstructed: alit], totamque infusa per Artus Mens agitat molem, & magno se corpore miscet. Heaven, Earth, and Seas, with all those glorious Lights, Which beautify the Day, and rule the Nights, A Divine inward Vigor, like a Soul, Diffused through every joint of this great Whole, Does vegetate, and with a constant force Guides each Nature through its fixed course.

And such is the natural motion of each thing to its own Sphere and Center; where is both the most proper place of its consisting, and as well, the greatest freedom from foreign injury or violence.

But we must here as well, take notice of the general care of the Creator; whereby he has fastened on all creatures, not only his private desire to satisfy the demands of their own nature, but has also stamped upon them a general charity and feeling of Communion, as they are sociable parts of the Universe or common Body; wherein cannot possibly be admitted (by reason of that necessary mutual connection between the parts thereof) any confusion or divulsion, without immediate danger to all the members. And therefore God has inclined the nature of these necessary agents, so to work of their discords the perfect harmony of the whole, that if by any casualty it fall out, that the Body of Nature be like to suffer any rupture, deformity, or any other contumely, though perhaps occasioned by the uniform and natural motions of the particulars; they then must prevent such damage and reproach, by a relinquishing and forgetting of their own natures, and by acquainting themselves with motions, whereunto considered in their own determinate qualities, they have an essential reluctance. Which property and sense of Nature in common, the Apostle has excellently set down in 1 Corinthians 12, where he renders this reason of all, that there might be no Schism in the Body: which likewise he divinely applies in the mystical sense, that all the several gifts of the Spirit to the Church, should drive to one common end, as they were all derived from one common Fountain; and should never be used, without that knitting quality of Love, to which he elsewhere properly ascribes the building, continuation, and perfecting of the Saints.

Now, as it has pleased the infinite Wisdom of God to guide and moderate, by his own immediate direction, the motions of necessary agents, after the manner declared to their particular, or to the general end, (which motion may therefore, as I before observed, be called the natural Passion of things) so has it given to Man a reasonable Soul, to be as it were his Vice-regent in all the motions of Man's little World.

To apply then these proportions in Nature to the affection of Love in Man, we shall find first a Secret, which I will call Natural; and next, a Manifest, which I call a Moral and more discursive attraction. The first of these, is that natural sympathy wrought between the affection and the object, in the first meeting of them, without any suspension of the person, or all further inquiry after the disposition of the object; which comes immediately from the outward, natural, and sensitive Virtues thereof, whether in shape, feature, beauty, motion, [illegible], behavior; all which coming under the sphere of Sense, I include under the name of Judiciary Physiognomy. Which is not a bare delight in the outward qualities, but a further presumption of the Judgment; concluding from there, a lovely disposition of that Soul, which animates and quickens those outward Graces.

And indeed, if it be true which Aristotle in his Ethics tells us, That similitude is the ground of Love; and if there be no natural Love stronger than that which is between the Body and the Soul, we may well ground some good presumption of similitude in the qualities of the Soul with those lovely impressions of Nature which we find in the Body, and may by the same reason collect a mutual discovery, by which we acknowledge a mutual sympathy between them. And therefore it was no ill counsel (though not always to be heeded) Cave tibi ab iis quos natura signavit, to take heed of such, who like Cain have any mark of notorious deformity set upon them by Nature. And therefore Homer speaking of the garrulous, impudent, envious, and reviling qualities of Thersites, fits him with a Body answerable to such a Mind.

[illegible] The most ill-shaped man that to Troy came, With eye distorted, and in each foot lame, His shoulders crooked, to his breast shrunk down, A sharp wry head, here and there patched with down.

But yet herein, though it be injurious for a man out of too much austerity of mind, to reject the judgment of sense, and to quarrel with this natural instinct; yet it is fit, that in this case, considering the deceitfulness of things, and what a diverse habit, education or hypocrisy has wrought in many, between the out and inside of their natures; that we should, I say, bring a fearful judgment, like love of [reconstructed: Bias] the Philosopher, which may easily, upon good warrant and assurance, alter itself: otherwise, when a thing is thoroughly known to be lovely, our hearts may boldly quiet and repose themselves in it.

But here likewise we must observe that proportion of nature, that if our affection cannot stand in private towards one particular, without damage and inconvenience to the public body, politic or ecclesiastical, of which we are members, the general must ever be esteemed more dear and precious. A scandal to the body, and a schism from the whole, is more dangerous and unnatural, than any private divisions: for, if there be a wound or swelling in one part of the body, the parts adjoining will be content to submit themselves to pain, for the recovery of that; and rather than it shall perish, [reconstructed: endure] any [reconstructed: trouble] which may conduce to the [reconstructed: recovery of it]. And this is the love of fellow-members, among themselves. But then, if any part be so far corrupted, as that it does more easily derive its contagion upon others, than admit of any succor from them, so that by the continuance thereof in the body, the whole is endangered; or, if the whole body be ready to perish by famine; then does the sense of community so swallow up that other more private respect, as that the members will be even cruel among themselves, to the cutting and devouring each of other, that thereby the safety of the whole may be procured. And therefore, the fable of the faction between the belly and the members, was wisely applied by Menenius Agrippa, in a rebellion among the people of Rome; to show how unnatural a thing it is, and how pernicious to the parts themselves, to nourish their own private discontents, when the public welfare is together therewith endangered.