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Credit: The works. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![PART I. trois Cms et quelques annees qu'il semhle quelle n'ait plus rim a Sect. as. craindre de dehorse, et que son empire ne puisse perir que par la corruption de dedans, et par la dissolution des parties qui composmt un corps si vaste. Mr. de Silhon en son Minist. D'Estat. I. 1. c, Pag. 4a None can more justly boast of persecutions, and glory in the number and valour of martyrs.'\ Of the fortitude of the Christians ia this particular, Minutius Felix, in the person of the Ethnique, hath these words, Per mira stultitia et incredibili audacia spernunt tormenta prcesentia, dum incerta metuunt et futura; et dum mori post mortem timent, interim mori non timent. And afterwards, when he speaks in the person of the Christian, he saith, that Christian women and children have in this surpassed SccBvola and Regulus : Viros (saith he) cum Mutio vel cum Atilio Regulo compare: pueri et muliercuke nostra cruces et Tormenta, feros et omnes suppliciorum terriculas inspirata patientia doloris illudunt. Minut. in Octav. vide Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. 1. c. 23, 24. If we shall strictly examine the circumstances and requisites which Aristotle requires to true and perfect valour, we shall find the name onely in his Master Alexander, (that is, no more than the name) and as little in that Roman worthy Julius Caesar.] AHstot. 3. Ethic, cap. 6. amongst other requisites, requires to valour, that it keep a mediocrity betwixt audacity and fear; that we thrust not our selves into danger when we need not; that we spare not to shew our valour when occasion requires: he requires for its proper object. Death; and to any death, he prefers death in War, because thereby a man profits his Country and Friends; and that he calls mors honesta, an honest or honourable death : and thereupon he defines a valiant man to be. Is qui morte honesta proposita, iisq; omnibus quce cum sint repentina mortem adfuerunt metu vacat. So that by the Author's saying, there was onely the Name in Alexander, he means only that which is rendred in the two last words, metu vacans, and not the rest that goes to make up the definition of a valiant man, which is very truly affirmed of Alexander, who exposed himself to hazzard many times when there was no cause for it: As you may read in Curtius, he did, in the siege of Tyrus, and many other ways. Cettuy-cy semhle rechercher et courir d force /es dangiers comme un impetueux torrent, qui choque et attaque sans discretion, et sans chois tout ce qu'il rencontre, saith Montaign, speaking of Alexander, 1. 2. des Ess. cap. 34. And for Ceesar, it cannot be denied, but in his Wars he was many times (though not so generally as Alexander) more adventrous than reason military could warrant to him; and therefore Lucan gives him no better Character than Acer et indomitus quo spes quoq; ira vocasset Ferre manum, etc. Lucan. lib. 1.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22650349_0001_0044.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
