SUBSECT. 2. Loves Beginning, Object, Definition, Division.

Loves limits are ample and great, and a spatious walk it hath, beset with thorns, and for that cause, which Scaliger reprehends in Cardan, not lightly to be passed over. Least I incur the same censure, I will examine all the kinds of love, his nature, beginning, difference, objects, how it is honest or dishonest, a vertue or vice, a naturall passion or a disease, his power and effects, how far it extends:

of which, although something hath been said in the first Partition, in those Sections of Perturbations (for love and hatred are the first and most common passions, from which all the rest arise, and are attendant, as Picolomineus holds, or as Nich. Caussinus, the primum mobile of all other affections, which carry them all about them) I will now more copiously dilate, through all his parts and severall branches, that so it may better appear what Love is, and how it varies with the objects, how in defect, or (which is most ordinary and common) immoderate, and in excess, causeth melancholy.

Love universally taken, is defined to be a Desire, as a word of more ample signification: and though Leon Hebreus the most copious writer of this subject, in his third Dialogue make no difference, yet in his first he distinguisheth them again, and defines love by desire. Love is a voluntary affection, and desire to enjoy that which is good. Desire wisheth, Love enjoyes; the end of the one is the beginning of the other: that which we love is present; that which we desire is absent.

It is worth the labour, saith Plotinus, to consider well of Love, whether it be a God or a Divell, or passion of the minde, or partly God, partly Divell, partly passion. He concludes Love to participate of all three, to arise from desire of that which is beautifull and fair, and defines it to be an action of the mind desiring that which is good.

Plato calls it the great Divell, for its vehemency, and soveraignty over all other passions, and defines it an appetite, by which we desire some good to be present. Ficinus in his Comment addes the word Fair to this definition, Love is a desire of enjoying that which is good and fair.

Austin dilates this common definition, and will have love to be a delectation of the heart, for something which we seek to win, or joy to have, coveting by desire, resting in joy. Scaliger Exerc. 301. taxeth these former definitions, and will not have love to be defined by Desire or Appetite: for when we enjoy the things we desire, there remaines no more appetite: as he defines it, Love is an affection by which we are either united to the thing we love, or perpetuate our union; which agrees in part with Leon Hebreus.

Now this love varies as its object varies, which is alwayes Good, Amiable, Fair, Gracious, and Pleasant: All things desire that which is good, as we are taught in the Ethicks, or at least that which to them seems to be good; quid enim vis mali (as Austin well inferres) dic mihi? puto nihil in omnibus actionibus, thou wilt wish no harm I suppose, no ill in all thine actions, thoughts or desires, nihil mali vis;

thou wilt not have bad corn, bad soil, a naughty tree, but all good; a good servant, a good horse, a good son, a good friend, a good neighbour, a good wife. From this goodness comes Beauty: from Beauty, Grace, and comeliness, which result as so many rayes from their good parts, make us to love, and so to covet it: for were it not pleasing and gracious in our eyes, we should not seek.

No man loves (saith Aristotle 9. mor. cap. 5.) but he that was first delighted with comliness and beauty. As this fair object varies, so doth our love; for as Proclus holds, Omne pulchrum amabile, every fair thing is amiable, and what we love is fair and gratious in our eyes, or at least we do so apprehend and still esteem of it.

Amiableness is the object of love, the scope and end is to obtain it, for whose sake we love, and which our minde covets to enjoy. And it seems to us especially fair and good, for good, fair, and unity, cannot be separated. Beauty shines, Plato saith, and by reason of its splendor and shining causeth admiration: and the fairer the object is, the more eagerly it is sought.

For as the same Plato defines it, Beauty is a lively shining or glittering brightness, resulting from effused good, by ideas, seeds, reasons, shadowes, stirring up our minds, that by this good they may be united and made one.

Others will have beauty to be the perfection of the whole composition, caused out of the congruous symmetry, measure, order and manner of parts, and that comeliness which proceeds from this beauty is called grace, and from thence all fair things are gratious. For grace and beauty are so wonderfully annexed, so sweetly and gently win our souls, and strongly allure, that they confound our judgement and cannot be distinguished. Beauty and Grace are like those beams and shinings that come from the glorious and divine Sun, which are diverse, as they proceed from the diverse objects, to please and affect our severall senses;

As the species of beauty are taken at our eyes, ears, or conceived in our inner soul, as Plato disputes at large in his Dialogue de pulchro, Phædro, Hyppias, and after many sophisticall errours confuted, concludes that beauty is a grace in all things, delighting the eyes, ears, and soul it self; so that as Valesius infers hence, whatsoever pleaseth our ears, eys, and soul, must needs be beautifull, fair, and delightfome to us.