A10663:559
A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soul of man With the…A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man With the…
A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soul of man With the several dignities and corruptions thereunto belonging. By Edward Reynolds, late preacher to the honourable society of Lincoln's Inn: and now rector of the Church of Braunston in Northamptonshire.A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man With the severall dignities and corruptions thereunto belonging. By Edvvard Reynoldes, late preacher to the honorable society of Lincoln's Inne: and now rector of the Church of Braunston in Northamptonshire.
London: printed by R. Hearne and John Norton for Robert Bostock, 1640
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The next cause of Hope is Experience and knowledge, both in the nature of the thing hoped for, and of the means conducing to the attain meant thereof. For notwithstanding it may often fall out, that ignorance of things, and the not trial of our strength or others opposition, or of the difficulties of the Object, may with hot and eager minds, work presumptions of success, and an empty and ungrounded Hope (which is the reason why young men and drunken men are both observed by Aristotle to be [Greek or Hebrew], men of strong1 Hopes) being naturally or by distemper bold and opinionative: even as on the other side, strength and acuteness of understanding; because it sees so far into the Object, works often diffidence,2 slowness and irresolution in our Hopes: as Pliny out of Thucydides observes; and the Philosopher ⟨p. 242⟩likewise of old m•n, that they are [Greek or Hebrew] men slow in their Hopes; because of great experience;) yet for all this, if we do observe it, both the former of these proceeds from some opinion of knowledge, as the later doth from some opinion of ignorance: For of drunken men, and those whom in the same place he compares unto them, Aristotle saith, they are therefore confident▪ quia seputant superiores, because they believe much in their own strength. And of young men he faith in the same place of his Rhetorics, [Greek or Hebrew] they are peremptory in the opinion of their own knowledge; whereas, on the other side, as a •ame man placed upon some high Tower, can overview with his eye more ground, than he hath hope to overrun with his feet in a whole day▪ so men that have attained unto some good pitch of knowledge, & are withal not insensible of their own weakness, out of the vastness of distance which they discover between themselves and their end, do easily frame unto themselves as narrow Hopes, as they do large desires; but then thi• proceeds not from that knowledge which we have properly▪ but only as it serves to discover unto us, how much knowledge we want.