CHAPTER X.. 1. Having Shewed in the Precedent Chapters, That Sense Proceedeth

1. Having shewed in the precedent chapters, that sense proceedeth from the action of external objects upon the brain, or some internal substance of the head; and that the passions proceed from the alteration there made, and continued to the heart: it is consequent in the next place, seeing the diversity of degrees in knowledge in divers men, to be greater than may be ascribed to the divers tempers of their brain, to declare what other causes may produce such odds, and excess of capacity, as we daily observe in one man above another. As for that difference which ariseth from sickness, and such accidental distempers, I omit the same, as impertinent to this place, and consider it only in such as have their health, and organs well disposed. If the difference were in the natural temper of the brain, I can imagine no reason why the same should not appear first and most of all in the senses, which being equal both in the wise and less wise, infer an equal temper in the common organ (namely the brain) of all the senses.

2. But we see by experience, that joy and grief proceed not in all men from the same causes, and that men differ very much in the constitution of the body; whereby, that which helpeth and furthereth vital constitution in one, and is therefore delightful, hindereth it and crosseth it in another, and therefore causeth grief. The difference therefore of wits hath its original from the different passions, and from the ends to which the appetite leadeth them.

3. And first, those men whose ends are sensual delight, and generally are addicted to ease, food, onerations and exonerations of the body, must needs be the less thereby delighted with those imaginations that conduce not to those ends, such as are imaginations of honour and glory, which, as I have said before, have respect to the future: for sensuality consisteth in the pleasure of the senses, which please only for the present, and take away the inclination to observe such things as conduce to honour, and consequently maketh men less curious, and less ambitious, whereby they less consider the way either to knowledge or other power; in which two consisteth all the excellency of power cognitive. And this is it which men call dulness, and proceedeth from the appetite of sensual or bodily delight. And it may well be conjectured, that such passion hath its beginning from a grossness and difficulty of the motion of the spirit about the heart.

4. The contrary hereunto, is that quick ranging of mind described,