The particulars related by the poets of Cupid, or Love, do not properly
agree to the same person, yet they differ only so far, that if the
confusion of persons be rejected, the correspondence may hold. They
say, that Love was the most ancient of all the gods, and existed before
every thing else, except Chaos, which is held coeval therewith. But
for Chaos, the ancients never paid divine honors, nor gave the title
of a god thereto. Love is represented absolutely without progenitor,
excepting only that he is said to have proceeded from the egg of
Nox; but that himself begot the gods, and all things else, on Chaos.
His attributes are four; viz: 1, perpetual infancy; 2, blindness; 3,
nakedness; and 4, archery.
There was also another Cupid, or Love, the youngest son of the
gods, born of Venus; and upon him the attributes of the elder are
transferred, with some degree of correspondence.
EXPLANATION.—This fable points at, and enters, the cradle of nature.
Love seems to be the appetite, or incentive, of the primitive matter;
or, to speak more distinctly, the natural motion, or moving principle,
of the original corpuscles, or atoms; this being the most ancient
and only power that made and wrought all things out of matter. It is
absolutely without parent, that is, without cause; for causes are as
parents to effects; but this power or efficacy could have no natural
cause; for, excepting God, nothing was before it; and therefore it
could have no efficient in nature. And as nothing is more inward with
nature, it can neither be a genus nor a form; and therefore, whatever
it is, it must be somewhat positive, though inexpressible. And if it
were possible to conceive its modus and process, yet it could not be
known from its cause, as being, next to God, the cause of causes, and
itself without a cause. And, perhaps, we are not to hope that the modus
of it should fall, or be comprehended, under human inquiry. Whence it
is properly feigned to be the egg of Nox, or laid in the dark.
The divine philosopher declares, that “God has made every thing
beautiful in its season; and has given over the world to our disputes
and inquiries; but that man cannot find out the work which God has
wrought, from its beginning up to its end.” Thus the summary or
collective law of nature, or the principle of love, impressed by God
upon the original particles of all things, so as to make them attack
each other and come together, by the repetition and multiplication
whereof all the variety in the universe is produced, can scarce
possibly find full admittance into the thoughts of men, though some
faint notion may be had thereof. The Greek philosophy is subtile, and
busied in discovering the material principles of things, but negligent
and languid in discovering the principles of motion, in which the
energy and efficacy of every operation consists. And here the Greek
philosophers seem perfectly blind and childish; for the opinion of the
Peripatetics, as to the stimulus of matter, by privation, is little
more than words, or rather sound than signification. And they who refer
it to God, though they do well therein, yet they do it by a start, and
not by proper degrees of assent; for doubtless there is one summary, or
capital law, in which nature meets, subordinate to God, viz: the law
mentioned in the passage above quoted from Solomon; or the work which
God has wrought from its beginning to its end.
Democritus, who further considered this subject, having first supposed
an atom, or corpuscle, of some dimension or figure, attributed thereto
an appetite, desire, or first motion simply, and another comparatively,
imagining that all things properly tended to the centre of the world;
those containing more matter falling faster to the centre, and thereby
removing, and in the shock driving away, such as held less. But this
is a slender conceit, and regards too few particulars; for neither
the revolutions of the celestial bodies, nor the contractions and
expansions of things, can be reduced to this principle. And for the
opinion of Epicurus, as to the declination and fortuitous agitation of
atoms, this only brings the matter back again to a trifle, and wraps it
up in ignorance and night.
Cupid is elegantly drawn a perpetual child; for compounds are larger
things, and have their periods of age; but the first seeds or atoms of
bodies are small, and remain in a perpetual infant state.
He is again justly represented naked; as all compounds may properly
be said to be dressed and clothed, or to assume a personage; whence
nothing remains truly naked, but the original particles of things.
The blindness of Cupid contains a deep allegory; for this same Cupid,
Love, or appetite of the world, seems to have very little foresight,
but directs his steps and motions conformably to what he finds next
him, as blind men do when they feel out their way; which renders the
divine and overruling Providence and foresight the more surprising;
as by a certain steady law, it brings such a beautiful order and
regularity of things out of what seems extremely casual, void of
design, and, as it were, really blind.
The last attribute of Cupid is archery, viz: a virtue or power
operating at a distance; for every thing that operates at a distance
may seem, as it were, to dart, or shoot with arrows. And whoever allows
of atoms and vacuity, necessarily supposes that the virtue of atoms
operates at a distance; for without this operation, no motion could be
excited, on account of the vacuum interposing, but all things would
remain sluggish and unmoved.
As to the other Cupid, he is properly said to be the youngest son
of the gods, as his power could not take place before the formation
of species, or particular bodies. The description given us of him
transfers the allegory to morality, though he still retains some
resemblance with the ancient Cupid; for as Venus universally excites
the affection of association, and the desire of procreation, her
son Cupid applies the affection to individuals; so that the general
disposition proceeds from Venus, but the more close sympathy from
Cupid. The former depends upon a near approximation of causes, but the
latter upon deeper, more necessitating and uncontrollable principles,
as if they proceeded from the ancient Cupid, on whom all exquisite
sympathies depend.