_MADAM,_
Concerning Sympathy and Antipathy, and attractive or magnetick
Inclinations, which some do ascribe to the influence of the Stars,
others to an unknown Spirit as the Mover, others to the Instinct of
Nature, hidden Proprieties, and certain formal Vertues; but your
_Author_,[1] doth attribute to _directing Ideas, begotten by their
Mother Charity, or a desire of Good Will_, and calls it[2] a _Gift
naturally inherent in the Archeusses of either part_: If you please
to have my opinion thereof, I think they are nothing else but plain
ordinary Passions and Appetites. As for example: I take Sympathy, as
also Magnetisme or attractive Power, to be such agreeable Motions
in one part or Creature, as do cause a Fancy, love and desire to
some other part or Creature; and Antipathy, when these Motions are
disagreeable, and produce contrary effects, as dislike, hate and
aversion to some part or Creature. And as there are many sorts of such
motions, so there are many sorts of Sympathyes and Antipathyes, or
Attractions and Aversions, made several manners or ways; For in some
subjects, Sympathy requires a certain distance; as for example, in
Iron and the Loadstone; for if the Iron be too far off, the Loadstone
cannot exercise its power, when as in other subjects, there is no need
of any such certain distance, as betwixt the Needle and the North-pole,
as also the Weapon-salve; for the Needle will turn it self towards
the North, whether it be near or far off from the North-pole; and
so, be the Weapon which inflicted the wound, never so far from the
wounded Person, as they say, yet it will nevertheless do its effect:
But yet there must withal be some conjunction with the blood; for as
your _Author_ mentions,[3] the Weapon shall be in vain anointed with
the Unguent, unless it be made bloody, and the same blood be first
dried on the same Weapon. Likewise the sounding of two eights when one
is touched, must be done within a certain distance: the same may be
said of all Infectious and catching Diseases amongst Animals, where
the Infection, be it the Infected Air, or a Poysonous Vapour, or any
thing else, must needs touch the body, and enter either through the
Mouth, or Nostrils, or Ears, or Pores of the body; for though the
like Antipathies of Infectious Diseases, as of the Plague, may be in
several places far distant and remote from each other at one and the
same time, yet they cannot infect particular Creatures, or Animals,
without coming near, or without the sense of Touch: For example; the
Plague may be in the _East Indies_, and in this Kingdom, at one and
the same time, and yet be strangers to each other; for although all
Men are of Mankind, yet all have not Sympathy or Antipathy to each
other; the like of several Plagues, although they be of the same kind
of disease, yet, being in several places at one time, they may not
be a kin to each other, nor one be produced by the other, except
the Plague be brought over out of an infected Country, into a sound
Country, by some means or other. And thus some Sympathy and Antipathy
is made by a close conjunction, or corporeal uniting of parts, but not
all; neither is it required, that all Sympathy and Antipathy must be
mutual, or equally in both Parties, so that that part or party, which
has a Sympathetical affection or inclination to the other, must needs
receive the like sympathetical affection from that part again; for one
man may have a sympathetical affection to another man, when as this
man hath an antipathetical aversion to him; and the same may be, for
ought we know, betwixt Iron and the Loadstone, as also betwixt the
Needle and the North; for the Needle may have a sympathy towards the
North, but not again the North towards the Needle; and so may the Iron
have towards the Loadstone, but not again the Loadstone towards the
Iron: Neither is Sympathy or Antipathy made by the issuing out of any
invisible rayes, for then the rays betwixt the North and the Needle
would have a great way to reach: But a sympathetical inclination in
a Man towards another, is made either by sight, or hearing; either
present, or absent: the like of infectious Diseases. I grant, that
if both Parties do mutually affect each other, and their motions be
equally agreeable; then the sympathy is the stronger, and will last
the longer, and then there is a Union, Likeness, or Conformableness,
of their Actions, Appetites, and Passions; For this kind of Sympathy
works no other effects, but a conforming of the actions of one party,
to the actions of the other, as by way of Imitation, proceeding from
an internal sympathetical love and desire to please; for Sympathy
doth not produce an effect really different from it self, or else the
sympathy betwixt Iron and the Loadstone would produce a third Creature
different from themselves, and so it would do in all other Creatures.
But as I mentioned above, there are many sorts of attractions in
Nature, and many several and various attractions onely in one sort of
Creatures, nay, so many in one particular as not to be numbred; for
there are many Desires, Passions, and Appetites, which draw or intice a
man to something or other, as for example, to Beauty, Novelty, Luxury,
Covetousness, and all kinds of Vertues and Vices; and there are many
particular objects in every one of these, as for example, in Novelty.
For there are so many several desires to Novelty, as there are Senses,
and so many Novelties that satisfie those desires, as a Novelty to the
Ear, a Novelty to the Sight, to Touch, Taste, and Smell; besides in
every one of these, there are many several objects; To mention onely
one example, for the novelty of Sight; I have seen an Ape, drest like a
Cavalier, and riding on Horse-back with his sword by his side, draw a
far greater multitude of People after him, then a Loadstone of the same
bigness of the Ape would have drawn Iron; and as the Ape turn'd, so did
the People, just like as the Needle turns to the North; and this is
but one object in one kind of attraction, _viz._ Novelty: but there be
Millions of objects besides. In like manner good cheer draws abundance
of People, as is evident, and needs no Demonstration. Wherefore, as I
said in the beginning, Sympathy is nothing else but natural Passions
and Appetites, as Love, Desire, Fancy, Hunger, Thirst, &c. and its
effects are Concord, Unity, Nourishment, and the like: But Antipathy is
Dislike, Hate, Fear, Anger, Revenge, Aversion, Jealousie, &c. and its
effects are Discord, Division, and the like. And such an Antipathy is
between a Wolf and a Sheep, a Hound and a Hare, a Hawk and a Partridg,
&c. For this Antipathy is nothing else but fear in the Sheep to run
away from the Wolf, in the Hare to run from the Hound, and in the
Partridg to flie from the Hawk; for Life has an Antipathy to that
which is named Death; and the Wolf's stomack hath a sympathy to food,
which causes him to draw neer, or run after those Creatures he has a
mind to feed on. But you will say, some Creatures will fight, and kill
each other, not for Food, but onely out of an Antipathetical nature. I
answer: When as Creatures fight, and endeavour to destroy each other,
if it be not out of necessity, as to preserve and defend themselves
from hurt or danger, then it is out of revenge, or anger, or ambition,
or jealousie, or custom of quarrelling, or breeding. As for example:
Cocks of the Game, that are bred to fight with each other, and many
other Creatures, as Bucks, Staggs, and the like, as also Birds, will
fight as well as Men, and seek to destroy each other through jealousie;
when as, had they no Females amongst them, they would perhaps live
quiet enough, rather as sympathetical Friends, then antipathetical
Foes; and all such Quarrels proceed from a sympathy to their own
interest. But you may ask me, what the reason is, that some Creatures,
as for example, Mankind, some of them, will not onely like one sort
of meat better then another of equal goodness and nourishment, but
will like and prefer sometimes a worse sort of meat before the best,
to wit, such as hath neither a good taste nor nourishment? I answer:
This is nothing else, but a particular, and most commonly an inconstant
Appetite; for after much eating of that they like best, especially if
they get a surfeit, their appetite is chang'd to aversion; for then all
their feeding motions and parts have as much, if not more antipathy
to those meats, as before they had a sympathy to them. Again, you may
ask me the reason, why a Man seeing two persons together, which are
strangers to him, doth affect one better then the other; nay, if one of
these Persons be deformed or ill-favoured, and the other well-shaped
and handsom; yet it may chance, that the deformed Person shall be more
acceptable in the affections and eyes of the beholder, then he that
is handsom? I answer: There is no Creature so deformed, but hath some
agreeable and attractive parts, unless it be a Monster, which is never
loved, but for its rarity and novelty, and Nature is many times pleased
with changes, taking delight in variety: and the proof that such a
sympathetical affection proceeds from some agreeableness of Parts,
is, that if those persons were vail'd, there would not proceed such a
partial choice or judgment from any to them. You may ask me further,
whether Passion and Appetite are also the cause of the sympathy which
is in the Loadstone towards Iron, and in the Needle towards the North?
I answer, Yes: for it is either for nourishment, or refreshment, or
love and desire of association, or the like, that the Loadstone draws
Iron, and the Needle turns towards the North. The difference onely
betwixt the sympathy in the Needle towards the North, and betwixt the
sympathy in the Loadstone towards the Iron is, that the Needle doth
always turn towards the North, but the Loadstone doth not always draw
Iron: The reason is, because the sympathy of the Needle towards the
North requires no certain distance, as I said in the beginning; and the
North-pole continuing constantly in the same place, the Needle knows
whither to turn; when as the sympathy between the Loadstone and Iron
requires a certain distance, and when the Loadstone is not within this
compass or distance, it cannot perform its effect, to wit, to draw the
Iron, but the effect ceases, although the cause remains in vigour. The
same may be said of the Flower that turns towards the Sun; for though
the Sun be out of sight, yet the Flower watches for the return of the
Sun, from which it receives benefit: Like as faithful Servants watch
and wait for their Master, or hungry Beggers at a Rich man's door for
relief; and so doth the aforesaid Flower; nay, not the Flower onely,
but any thing that has freedom and liberty of motion, will turn towards
those Places or Creatures whence it expects relief. Concerning ravenous
Beasts that feed on dead Carcasses, they, having more eager appetites
then food, make long flights into far distant Countries to seek food to
live on; but surely, I think, if they had food enough at home, although
not dead Carcasses, they would not make such great Journies; or if a
battel were fought, and many slain, and they upon their journey should
meet with sufficient food, they would hardly travel further before they
had devoured that food first: But many Birds travel for the temper of
the Air, as well as for food, witness Woodcocks, Cranes, Swallows,
Fieldfares, and the like; some for cold, some for hot, and some for
temperate Air. And as for such Diseases as are produced by conceit
and at distance, the cause is, the fearfulness of the Patient, which
produces Irregularities in the Mind, and these occasion Irregularities
in the Body, which produce such a disease, as the Mind did fearfully
apprehend; when as without that Passion and Irregularity, the Patient
would, perhaps, not fall sick of that disease, But to draw towards an
end, I'le answer briefly to your _Authors_ alledged example[4] which
he gives of Wine, that it is troubled while the Vine flowreth: The
reason, in my opinion, may perhaps be, that the Wine being the effect
of the Vine, and proceeding from its stock as the producer, has not so
quite alter'd Nature, as not to be sensible at all of the alteration
of the Vine; For many effects do retain the proprieties of their
causes; for example, many Children are generated, which have the same
proprieties of their Parents, who do often propagate some or other
vertuous or vicious qualities with their off-spring; And this is rather
a proof that there are sensitive and rational motions, and sensitive
and rational knowledge in all Creatures, and so in Wine, according to
the nature or propriety of its Figure; for without motion, sense and
reason, no effect could be; nor no sympathy or antipathy. But it is
to be observed, that many do mistake the true Causes, and ascribe an
effect to some cause, which is no more the cause of that same effect,
then a particular Creature is the cause of Nature; and so they are apt
to take the Fiddle for the hot Bricks, as if the Fiddle did make the
Ass dance, when as it was the hot Bricks that did it; for several
effects may proceed from one cause, and one effect from several causes;
and so in the aforesaid example, the Wine may perhaps be disturbed by
the alteration of the weather at the same time of the flowring of the
Vines; and so may Animals, as well as Vegetables, and other Creatures,
alter alike at one and the same point of time, and yet none be the
cause of each others alteration. And thus, to shut up my discourse, I
repeat again, that sympathy and antipathy are nothing else but ordinary
Passions and Appetites amongst several Creatures, which Passions
are made by the rational animate Matter, and the Appetites by the
sensitive, both giving such or such motions, to such or such Creatures;
for cross motions in Appetites and passions make Antipathy, and
agreeable motions in Appetites and Passions make Sympathy, although the
Creatures be different, wherein these motions, Passions and Appetites
are made; and as without an object a Pattern cannot be, so without
inherent or natural Passions and Appetites there can be no Sympathy or
Antipathy: And there being also such Sympathy betwixt your Ladiship and
me, I think my self the happiest Creature for it; and shall make it my
whole study to imitate your Ladiship, and conform all my actions to the
rule and pattern of yours, as becomes,
Madam,
_Your Ladiships_
_faithful Friend, and humble Servant._
[1] _Ch._ Of Sympathetical Mediums.
[2] In the Plague-Grave.
[3] In the Magnetick care of Wounds.
[4] _Ch._ Of the Magnetick Power.