Thomas Vaughan Quotes

Look on this life as the Progress of an Essence Royale. The Soul but quits her court to see the country. Heaven hath in it a scene of earth; and had she had bin contented with ideas, she had not travelled beyond the map.

I would have thee know that every day is a year contracted, that every year is a day extended. Anticipate the year in the day and lose not a day in the year. Make use of indeterminate agents till thou canst find a determinate one. The many may wish well but one only loves. Circumferences spread but centres contract: so superiors dissolve and inferiors coagulate. Stand not long in the sun nor long in the shade. Where extremes meet, there look for complexions.

When I found out this truth, that man in his original was a branch planted in God and that there was a continual influx from the stock to the Sion, I was much troubled at his corruptions, and wondered his fruits were not correspondent to his root. But when I was told he had tasted of an other tree, my admiration was quickly off, it being my chief care to reduce him to his first simplicity, and separate his mixtures of good & evil. But his fall had so bruised him in his best part, that his soul had no knowledge left to study him a cure. His punishment presently followed his trespass: "all things were hidden and oblivion, the mother of ignorance, entered in." (Veleta funt omnia, intravitq oblivio mater ignorantie) P. 1

Thus, Reader, have I published that knowledge which God gave me "to the fruit of a good conscience." I have not bushelled my light nor buried my talent in the ground. I will now withdraw and leave the stage to the next actor some Peripatetic perhaps, whose sic probo shall serve me for a comedy. I have seen scolds laughed at but never admired: so he that multiplies discourses makes a serious cause ridiculous.

It is the fortune of deep writers to miscarry because of obscurity... inferior wits, when they reflect on higher intellects, leave a mist in their beams. Had he lived in ignorance, as most do, he might have passed hence like the last year's clouds, without any more remembrance. But as I believe the truth a main branch of that end to which I was born, so I hold it my duty to vindicate him from whom I have received it.

Aristotle thrives by scuffles and the world cries him up, when truth cries him down.

The long confusion of Eugenius Philalethes — otherwise Thomas Vaughan — with the anonymous cosmopolite adept, Eirenaeus Philalethes, who is said to have accomplished the Magnum Opus at the age of twenty-two, and to have subsequently wandered over a large portion of the habitable globe, performing astounding transmutations under various names and disguises, has cast so much doubt upon the history and identity of the Welsh initiate, that it will be best to present the reader with certain verbatim citations from the chief authority concerning him, which is the Athena of Anthony k Wood.

I had in my hand a very long cane, and at last wee came to a churchyard, and it was the Brightest Day-light, that ever I beheld: when wee were about the middle of the churchyard, I struck upon the ground with my cane at the full length, and it gave a most shrill reverberating eccho. I turned back to look upon my wife, and shee appeared to mee in green silk downe to the ground, and much taller, and slenderer then shee was in her life-time, but in her face there was so much glorie, and beautie, that noe Angell in Heaven can have more. xiv

The peripateticks when they define the soul or some inferior principle describe it only by outward circumstances, which every child can do, but they state nothing essentially.

The peripatetics look on God as they do on carpenters, who build with stone and timber, without any infusion of life. But the world which is God's building is full of spirit, quick and living.

I would not have thee look on my endeavors as a design of captivity. I intend not the conquest but the exercise of thy reason, not that, thou should swear allegiance to my dictates but compare my conclusions with Nature and examine their correspondence.

It is better then a fight in Quixote, to observe what duels and digladiations they have about him, One will make him speak sense another non-sense and a third both, Aquinas palps him gently, Scotus makes him winch and he is taught like an ape to shew several tricks. If we look on his adversaries the least amongst them hath foyld him, but Telesius knocked him in the head, and Campanella hath quite discomposed him.

Besides, their Aristotle is a poet in text, his principles are but fancies, and they stand more on our concessions, then his bottom.

They dwell altogether in the face, their endeavors are meer titillations, & their acquaintance with Nature is not at the heart.

This is the way I would have thee walk in if thou dost intend to be a solid Christian philosopher. Thou must --- as Agrippa saith --- "live to God and the angels," reject all things which are "contrary to Heaven": otherwise thou canst have no communion with superiors. Lastly, "be single, not solitary." Avoid the multitude --- as well of passions as persons. p.55