those bitter and salt waters of the sea namely because they come by distillation to the spring head For they say that the sea water being distilled that is resolved first into vapours then into drops in an Alembick looseth its saltnesse by the same reason then the deep under ground evaporating salt waters sendeth them fresh out of fountains neverthelesse And what need words For clouds gathered of the vapours of the sea send down fresh showers Sâ— how excellently the truth of things agree with it selfe still LIV Medicinall waters are made of the various tinctures of the metals and juices of the earth from which they receive the virtue 〈◊〉 healing and savour For example hot waters or baths aâ— made of bitumen burning within Therefore they exhale sulphur manifestly bâ—â— sharpish waters relish of iron coper vitrioâ—allom c. of which earthly concretes it wilâ— be now time to speak Of earthly concretes which are called Minerals LV Minerals are earthly concretes begotten of subterrane vapours as clods concret juicesî metals and stones These are called minerals from the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if you shonld say from the earth They call them also Fossiles because they are digged that all these are begotten of subterrane vapours and subterrane fire appears by the example of our body wherein bloud choler flegme melanlancholy urine spittle fat flesh veins nerves membranes gristles bone c. yea the stone and gravell are made of the vapours of food concocted and digested as shal be seen hereafter Now as these parts of ours are formed within the body by the heat included so minerals are generated in the bowels of the earth not elsewhere For the earth with its most deep passages and veins winding every way where infinite vapours are generated and perpetually distilled in a thousand fashions is that great work-house of God wherein for the space of so many ages such things are wrought as neither art can imitate nor wit well find out LVI Clods are digged earths infected only with fatnesse or some colour and apt to be soaked as 1 Clay 2 Marle 3 Chalk 4 Red earth 5 Paintings or painters colours as lake vermilion oker azure or blew verdigrease 6 Fullers earth in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7 Medicinall earth as sealed earth Lemnian Armenian Samian c. These colours seem to be nothing else but the soot of the subterrane fumes variously distilled and those earths nothing else but a various mixture of liquors distilled also variously and brought to such or such a quality LVII Concrete juices are fossiles indued with a savour or some sharp virtue apt to be dissolved or kindled as sulphur niter salt allome vitriol arsenick which painters call orpiment antimonie or stibium such like N. Those juices seem to be nothing else but the cream of subterrane liquors variously distilled LVIII Metals are watery fossiles apt to be melted cast and hammered as gold silver brasse or copper iron tin lead quick-silver N. 1. That they are progenerated of fire this is enough to testifie that they are oft times taken hot out of the veines so that the touch will not endure them For in winter when all herbs are white with frost those which grow over the veins admit of no frost because of the hot exhalation within hindering concretion so also trees by the blewnesse of their leaves shew the veines of metals 2 Now that metals are made of vapours this is an argument that they are wont also to be procreated in the very clouds For examples are not unknown even in our age of bodies of brasse or iron of no small weight falling from heaven 3 That metals are made of watery vapours their liquabilitie shews now they are coagulated by virtue of salt Therefore the drosse of iron is salt and bitter 4 Quicksilver alone is alwayes liquid never consistent as a perpetuall witnesse of the watery nature of metals Other metals swim upon it because it hath the most compacted substance of all gold only excepted which therefore it receives only into it selfe 5 Whether metals differ in their species or only in degree of purity and hardnesse and in heat we leave now in suspense LIX Stones are earthly fossiles hardly compacted apt only to be broken in pieces That stones are earth coagulated with water and fire bricks and pots teach us for here art imitates nature Yet the severall formes of stones shew that they are not earth simply concrete but a masse concrete of divers most grosse earthly vapours with a various temperature of humours LX Stones are either vulgar or precious LXI A vulgar stone is earth most hardly compacted the principall kinds of which are seven The gravell stone the milstone the pumice-stone the flint to which I refer the Smiris wherewith glasse is cut and iron polished the whetstone and the touch stone or Lapis lydius the marble and the loadstone N. Every kind have their differences again 2 A great stone is called saxum or a rock a little one gravell and sand 3 Most mountains are stony and yield metals because the subterrane fire on the third day of the creation swelling the earth here made it self many channels and passages breathing through which it doth variously exhale melt mix and boile the matter which is not done so copiously under plains LXII Pretious stones are are called gems because they are the gums of stones sweating in the bowels of the earth Hence comes their clearnesse and brightnesse that is to say from their most thinâ— and accurate straining even more then in the gums of trees for wood hath looseâ— pores then stones LXIII All gems are transparent and pellucid but some onely transparant as these three the Diamond the Chrystall the Beryllâ— Others coloured with all and thoseâ— according to the diversity of their colours of sveâ—â— sorts 1 Bright and burning the Carbuncle the Chalcedon the Chrysolite 2 Yellow the Jacinth and Topaze 3 Green the Emerald and the Turquois 4 Red or purple the Rubie and the Granate but the Carnelous and the Onyx are more pale 5 Skie-coloured the Saphir and the Amethyst 6 Black the Morion 7 Changeable as the Jasper the Agat the Chrysoprase N. 1. That Chrystall is never found unlesse it be Hexagonall which is the miracle of nature And that it is growes in arched cels under ground dry and closed where the wind enters not for some years hath been experienced at Kings Itradeck in Bohemia Anno 1618. For elegant chrystals were found hanging from the stones of the arches like Isicles of an exact Hexagonall forme but in the silver mines of Catteberge there are found far more Of other gems we have nothing to say in particular N. 2. Stones that are wont to grow in some living creatures are usually reckoned amongst precious stones as the pearl in sea shell fishes the Bezoar the Chelidonius the Alectorius the Bufonites c. also Corall and Amber But these two are to be
things are by a speciall name called insects as flies wormes c. They are called insects from the incisions whereby their bodies are cut off round as it were These may be divided after the same manner For wormes are Reptile Lice Fleas Punies Spiders c. Gressile the water-spider and the horse-leech c. Natatile Flies and Gnats c. Volatile and all those with infinite differences so that here also there is not wanting a most clear glasse of the admirable wisdome of the Creatour and a schoole to man to learn virtues and forget vices of both which there are an expresse image in living creatures which the Scripture oft inculcates An Apendix Of the tenacious inherencie of the animall spirits in its matter WE shewed toward the end of the ninth Chap how fast the naturall and vitall spirit inhereth in its matter we are now to give notice of the like in the animall spirit how firmly it also abideth in its matter that is the bloud the understanding of which thing will also adde much light to those places of Scripture where it is said that the soule of every living creature is in the bloud thereof yea that the bloud of all flesh is the life thereof as Gen. 9. v. 4. Levit. 17. v. 11. and 14. Deut. 12. v. 23. And to certain secrets of nature which they are astonished at who are ignorant of the manner and reason of them I First then it is certain that the animall as well as the vitall spirit may be bound into its seed with the cold so as that for a time it cannot exercise its operation For as grains of corn kept all winter either in a garner or in the earth do bud neverthelesse so the eggs of fishes frogs pismires beetles scattered either upon the earth or waters do bring forth young the year following II In bodies already formed the same spirit compelled sometimes by some force forsakes the members and ceaseth from all operation yet conglobates it selfe to the center of the body and coucheth so close that for many dayes moneths years it lies as it were asleep yet at length it awakens again and diffuseth it self through the members and proceeds to execute vitall operations as it did before We find it so to be in Flies Spiders Frogs Swallowes c. which in winter lie as though they were dead in the chinks of wals or chaps of the earth or under the water yet when the Spring comes in they are alive again So flies choaked in water come to life again in warm cinders like as it is certain that men strangled have been brought to life again after some hours And besides there is an example commonly known of a boy killed with cold and found four dayes after and raised again with foments Trances continued for some dayes are ordinarily known hence some ready to be buried as though they had been dead indeed yea and buried too yet have lived again Some Geographers have written how that in the farthest parts of Moscovia men are frozen every year with extream cold and yet live again like swallows which notwithstanding as a thing uncertain we leave to its place III The third and the most strange is this that the spirit flowes out with the bloud that is shed and yet gives not over to maintain its consent with the spirit remaining within the body whither the greater part thereof remain or only the relicks which is most evidently gathered from divers sympathies and antipathies I will illustrate it with five examples 1 Whence is it I pray you that an oxe quakes and is madded and runs away at the presence of the butcher is it not because he smels the garments the hand the very breath of the butcher stained with the bloud and spirit of cattle of his own kind which is also most clear from the irreconcilable antipathy which is found to be betwixt dogs and dog-killers 2 Whence is it that the body of a slain man bleeds at the presence of the murderer and that after some dayes or months yea and years For it is manifest by a thousand trialls that it is so and at Itzenhow in Denmark Simeon Gulartius relates that the hand of a dead man cut off and hung up and dried in prison discovered the murderer full ten years after by bleeding as a thing confirmed by great witnesses and those of the Kings Counsell and certainly we are not to flie to miracles where nature it selfe by constant observation shewes her lawes It is very likely that the spirit of the man ready to be slain provoked with the injury when it is shed forth with the bloud pouring out it selfe as it were in revenge leaps upon the murderer and that after the same sort as we see a dog a wild beast or oxe when he is killed run furiously upon him that striketh him For if the spirit do so yet abiding in the body why not parted from it Therefore it is to be supposed that it leaps upon the murderer and seises on him Whence it comes to passe that when he comes near the body especially if he be commanded to touch it or look upon it look how much spirit is left in the body it hasteth to meet with its spirit with its chariot the bloud namely by sympathie Hence that Antipathie which more subtle natures find in themselves against murderers though unknown For they tremble at the very presence of murderers and nauseat if they do but eat or drink with them c. 3. The cunning of a most excellent Chirurgeon in Italy is well known who helpt one that had lost his nose carving him another out of his arme cut and bound to his face for the space of a moneth and the ridiculous chance that happened thereupon a little after is also known A certain Noble man having also had his nose cut off in a duell desired his help but being delicate and not willing to have his arme cut hired a poor countrey fellow who suffered himselfe to be bound to him and his arme to be made use of to repair his nose The cure succeeded but when as about some six years after or thereabouts the country man died the Noble mans nose rotted too and fell off What could be the cause of it I pray you but that the spirit and that locally separated doth maintain its spirituall unity Therefore when the spirit went out of the countrey mans carcasse as it rotted part of it also went out that the Noble mans nose and his nose by reason of the Noble mans spirit succeeded not into the place of it as being into the lump of anothers flesh rotted also and fell off 4 It is accounted amongst the secrets of nature that if friends about to part drink part one of anothers bloud and so addes a part of his spirit to his own it will come to passe that when one is sick or ill at ease though very far asunder the other also will find himselfe sad which
of a cat oâ— a wolfe given him to eat he partakes the phantasies of those living creatures c. X Nutriment must needs be assimilated that it may turn into the substance of a living creature For a thing is neither applied well no cohereth commodiously with that which is unlike to it much lesse that one should turn it into the other Therefore flesh 〈◊〉 bone is not immediately made of meat 〈◊〉 drink but by many gradations as it shaâ— appear XI Assimulation is made by the transmitation of the nourishment taken so oft iteratâ— till it come to the liknesse of the substance noâ—â—rished It is well known out of the Metaphysickâ— that all action tends to this that the Paâ—â—â—ent may become like to the Agent whicâ— is every where evident in naturall thingâ— but especially in the nourishment of bodies For whatsoever is taken in of whatsoever colour or quality is wrought soâ—â— length that it becomes like to that which is nourished and is applyed to its substance which should be diligently marked in that which follows XII The principall transmutation of the nourishment is by progeneration of the four vitall humours bloud flegme yellow choler and black For the nourishment received being that it is tempered together as all the bodies of the world are of the four elements is resolved in the body of a living creature into four again the fattest part of it is turned into bloud a part into spittle or flegme a part into yellow choler or choler a part into black choler or melancholy melancholy by its grossenesse represents the earth flegme water bloud air choler fire But they differ in colour and in savour for melancholy is black and bitter flegme white and without taste bloud red and sweet choler yellow and bitter Now it is to be noted that amongst these four bloud is most copiously generated because it conteins the very substance of the nourishment to which yellow choler addes onely a more easie penetrating through all but black choler fixeth it again and applieth it to the members Lastly flegme tempers the acrimony of them both lest they should corrode with penetrating and fixing and gently agglutinates the bloud to the members And hence it is that Physicians also with the vulgar speak oft of the blood as if it were the only food of life XIII The progeneration of vitall humours is done by concoction For concoction doth alter the matter by the force of heat XIV Concoction in a living creature is done after the same manner as distillation in Alembicks namely by heating of the matter and resolution of it into vapours and mixing the said vapours together and by a new coagulation of them again For every living body is a very alembick full of perpetuall heat and vapours For life is heat and heat cannot but boile the matter that is put in and by attenuation turn it into vapours XV Now in every concoction there is a separation of the profitable parts from the unprofitable the first are digested and assimilated the other are voided and streined forth So in Alembicks the more subtle and profitable parts that is the more fat and spirituous being resolved into vapour are gathered again into drops and into a thick substance but the more grosse and impure parts called the dregs and excrements sink down and are afterwards cast out XVI Every concoction leaves behind it unprofitable dregs which are called excrements and drosse Thus we see it come to passe in the decoction of metals Now we must note that plants make little or no excrement because they are nourished with a simple and uniform juice which goes all of it into their nature or if any thing remain it sweats forth in gum But living creatures because they consist of very dissimular parts have need of a compound nutriment that is solid and soft dry and moist hot and cold c. that so the more solid parts may have nutriment also whence by assimulation evey part draws that which will profit its selfe the rest must of necessity be streined out Another reason is because plants are susteined with a little spirit and that which doth not evaporate but living creatures are full of spirit for otherwise so grosse a frame could not be susteined and weilded and that is continually attenuated and spent Therefore they have need of more spirit then matter for their nutriment and when that is extracted out of the spirituous parts they void forth the rest XVII The principall concoction in a living creature is threefold Chylification Sanguification and Membrification The first is made in the stomack the second in the liver and the last in all the members XVIII Every one of these concoctions hath three sorts of vessels 1 of ingestion 2 of digestion 3 of egestion XIX The vessels of Chylification were 1 the mouth and the throat 2 the stomack or ventricle 3 the guts and the arse-hole For the food being received at the mouth is chewed with the teeth or jawes and passed through the throat It is boiled in the stomack as it were in a close Alembick for some houres And from thence by evaporation it passeth into the entrals for the mouth of the ventricle towards the throat is shut up and becometh Chylus that is a certain ferment like pap or white broth For it takes a white colour from the stomack by assimilation The more subtle parts of this Chyle are attracted to the liver as a matter fit for bloud but the excrements of this first concoction are thick dregs which are driven out by the guts and the back part not by the simple motion of Cession but by the motion of Antipathy for the naturall spirits placed in the fibres of the guts sucking forth that which is profitable but turning themselves away from that which is unprofitable and hatefull to them contract the nerves of the guts and thrust forward those burdens towards the passage XX The vessels of Sanguification are 1 the Mesenterie 2 the Liver 3 the Vreteres the spleen and the gall For the Mesenterie encompassing the entrals vvith its strings which they call the Mesaraicall veins sucks the best part of the Chylus out of the entrals and carries them to the liver by the Vena Porta Now the liver concocts and separates that liquour again for it assimilates the sweeter parts in colour to it selfe and turns them to bloud swelling with naturall spirit with which neverthelesse there is flegme and yellow choler and black mixt The excrement of this second concoction is urine namely a wheaie and salt humour which floweth from the liver by the ureteres to the bladder whence by the channell of the genitall member it is sent forth But because the 2 d. concoction ought to be far more subtile then the first it is not sufficient that the bloud is purged from its serosity But both kinds of choler and flegme must of necessity also be purged from redundancy the spleen therefore by sympathie attracts to
it selfe vvhatsoever it perceiveth that is too grosse and earthy in the bloud and by little veins sends it again into the entrals and by that means disburdens it selfe of that dreggy humour and last of all the gall attracteth those parts of the bloud that are too sharp and fiery vvhose little bag hangs at the liver and by strings sends them again mixt into the entrals whence the bitternesse and ill sent of dung XXI The vessels of membrification are 1 veins 2 every particular member 3 pores For the veins proceeding from the liver spread themselves over all the parts of the body like boughs and sending forth little branches every way end in strings that are most tenacious from which every member apart sucketh and by a slow agglutination assimilates it to it selfe so that the bloud flowing into the flesh becomes flesh that in the bones turns into bone in a gristle to a gristle in the brain to brains just after the same manner as the juice of a tree is changed into wood bark pith leaves fruits by meer assimilation The excrements of this third most subtle concoction are subtle also namely sweat and vapour which alwayes breaths out through the pores If any more grosse humour remains especially after the first and second concoction not well made it breeds scabs or ulcers or the dropsie XXII For the furthering of nourishment there is a spur added that is appetite or hunger and thirst which are nothing but a vellication of the fibres of the stomack arising from the sharp sucking of the Chylus For the members being destitute of the juice wherewith they are watered solicite the veins of bloud and the veins by the motion of continuity sollicite the liver the liver the Mesenterie that the entrals the entrals the stomack which if it have nothing to afford contracts and wrinkles it selfe and the strings of it are sucked dry from whence proceeds first a certain titillation and that we call appetite simply and afterward pain and this we call hunger and if solid meat be taken but dry because coction or vaporation cannot be made by reason of drinesse there is a desire that moisture should be poured on and this vve call thirst It appears then why motion provokes appetite and why the idle have but little appetite c. XXIII The whole body is nourished at once together by the motion of libration To vvit after the same manner as the root in a plant doth equally nourish both it selfe and the stock and all the boughes Therefore no member nourisheth it selfe alone but others vvith it selfe and so all preserved Otherwise if any member rob the rest of their nourishment or again refuseth it there follows a distemperature of the vvhole body and by and by corruption at length death XXIV A living creature being 〈◊〉 nourished is not onely vegetuted but also as long as his members are soft and extensive augmented the superficies of the members yielding by little and little and extending it selfe but as soon as the members are hardened after youth the living creature ceaseth to grow yet goes forward in solidity and strength so long as the three concoctions are rightly made But when the vessels of the concoctions begin to dry up also the living creatures begins to wither away and life grows feeble till it fail and be extinguished Of the vitall faculty XXV Life in a living creature is such a mixture of the spirits with the bloud and members that they are all warme have sense and move themselves Therefore the life of living creatures consists in heat sense and motion and it is plain for if any creature hath neither motion nor sense nor heat it lives not XXVI Therefore every living creature is full of heat sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker For every living creature is nourished How it appears out of that which went before the nourishment is not made but by concoction but reason teacheth that concoction is not made but by heat and fire It comes therefore to be explained whence a living creature hath heat and fire and by what means it is kindled kept alive and extinguished which the two following Aphorismes shall teach XXVII The heart is the forge of heat in a living creature burning with a perpetuall fire and begetting a little flame called the spirit of life which it communicates also to the whole body Hence the heart is said commonly to be the first that lives the last that dies XXVIII The vitall spirit in the heart hath for its matter bloud for bellowes the lungs for channels by which it communicates it selfe to the whole body the arteries Our hearth fire hath need of three things 1 matter or fuell and that fat 2 of blowing or fanning whereby the force of it is stirred up 3 free transpiration whereby it may diffuse it selfe the same three the maker of all things hath ordeined to be in every living creature For the heart seated a little above the liver drinketh in a most pure portion of bloud by a branch of the veins which being that it is spirituous and oily conceives a most soft flame and left this should be extinguished there lies near to the heart the lungs which like bellowes dilating and contracting it selfe blowes upon and fans that fire of the heart perpetually to prevent suffocation Now being that that inflammation of the heart is not without fume or vapour though very thin the said lungs by the same continuall inspiration exhaleth those vapours through the throat and drawing in cooler air instead thereof doth so temperate the flame of the heat whence the necessity of breathing appears and why a living creature is presently suffocated if respiration be denied it And that flame or attenuated and most hot bloud is called the spirit of life which diffusing it self through the arteries that accompany the veins every way cherisheth the heat both of the bloud that is in the veins and all the members throughout the whole body Now because it were dangerous to have this vitall spirit destroyed the arteries are hid below the veins only in two or three places they stand forth a little that so the beating of that spirit as well as of the heart it selfe when the hand is laid upon the breast may be noted and thence the state of the heart may be known Of the sensitive faculty XXIX Sense in a living creature is the perception of those things that are done within and without the living creature XXX That perception is done by virtue of a living spirit which being that it is most subtle in a living creature is called the Animall spirit XXXI That perceptive virtue consists in the tendernesse of the animall spirit for because it is presently affected with whatsoever thing it be wherewith it is touched For all sensation is by passion as shall appear hereafter XXXII The seat and shop of the animall spirits is the brain For in the brain there is not only greatest store of that spirit residing but
motion bodies were to be framed which might performe a free motion and these are called Animalia or Animantia living creatures from the soul which powerfully evidences life in them 2 Therefore mobility is in all living creatures but after divers manners For some move only by opening and shutting not stirring out of their place as oisters and cockles Others creep by little and little as snailes earth-wormes and other wormes some have a long body which creeps with winding it selfe about as snakes some have feet given them as lizards beasts birds but these last have wings also to flie through the air Which fishes do imitate in the water performing their motion by swimming III The moving principle in a living creature is the vitall soul which is nothing else but the spirit of life thick and strong mightily filling and powerfully governing the bodies which it inhabiteth IV Now because a voluntary and a light motion cannot be performed but in a subtle matter living creatures have bodies given them far more tender then plants but far more compound For they consist of spirit flesh blood membranes veins nerves gristles and lastly bones as it were props and pillars lest the frame should fall Understand this in perfect living creatures For more imperfect living creatures in which we contemplate onely the rudiments of nature have neither bones nor flesh nor bloud nor veins but onely a white humour covered with a skin or crust as it were with a sheath which the spirit included doth stir or move as it appears in worms snails oisters c. But to perfect living creatures 1 That they might have a more subtle spirit bloud and brains were given 2 And that these might not be dissipated they had vessels and channels given them veines arteries nerves 3 That a living creature might be erected bones were given him 4 And left the bones as also the veins arteries nerves should easily be hurt all was covered either with fat or flesh 5 And that the members might move tendons and muscles were interwoven throughout 6 And least in moving the bone the bones should wear one against another cause pain in the living creature a gristle which is a softer substance being as it were halfe flesh was put between the joints 7 And lastly that the frame might hang firmly together in its composure it was compassed with a hide or skin as also all the members with their membranes Therefore a living creature consists of more similar parts then a plant but of far more dissimular parts or members of which it followes V The bodies of living creatures were furnished with many members as with diverse organs for diverse actions The head indeed is the principall member of a living creature wherein the whole spirit hath its residence and shews all its force but because a living creature was intended for divers actions it had need of besides 1 Vivifying organs supplying the living creature with heat life and motion that is brains and heart 2 Moving organs that is feet wings feathers c. 3 And left one thing should run against another or fall into precipices it was necessary to furnish them with sight also with a quick hearing and touch Lastly because the earth was not to supply nutriment immediately to a living creature as to a plant fixed in the earth but it was left them to seek there was need of smelling and tasting that they might know what was convenient to their nature Hence eyes ears nostrils c. 4 Now because a living creature was not to be fixed in the ground with a root because of his free motion more perfect organs of nutrition were requisite for that cause there was given him a mouth teeth a stomack a liver a heart veins c. 5 And because they were not to spring out of the earth as plants by reason of the same motion to and fro Divers Sexes were given them to multiply themselves and distinct genitall members 6 And because living creatures were to be alwayes conversant with others of their own or of a divers kind they had need of some mutuall token even in the dark they had a tongue given them to form sounds 7 Lastly because it could not be but that a living creature should sometimes meet with contraries they had as it were shields and armes given them Hares bristles scales shels feathers likewise horns clawes teeth hoofs c. VI Therefore the whole treatise concerning a living creature is finished in the explication I Of the nutritive faculty II Of the vitall III Of the sensitive IV Of the loco-motive V Of the enuntiative VI Of the defensive VII And lastly of the generative For he that knoweth these seven knowes the whole mysterie of nature in living creatnres For whatsoever is in the body of a living creature serveth those faculties if it do not serve them it is in vain and maketh a monster It is to be observed also that the first three faculties are governed by so many spirits The nutritive faculty by the naturall spirit the vitall by the spirit of life the sensitive by the animall spirit the other four by those three spirits joyntly Of the nutritive Faculty VII Every living creature standeth in need of daily food to repair that which perisheth of the substance every day For life consists in heat And heat being that it is fire wants fuell which is moist spirituous and fat matter Heat in a living creature being destitute of this sets upon the solid parts and feeds on them And hence it is that a living creature as well as a plant without nourishment pines away and dies But if it be sparingly fed it therefore falls away because the heat feeds upon the very substance of the flesh VIII That nourishment is convenient for a living creature which supplies it with a spirit like its own spirit For seeing that life is from the spirit the matter of it selfe doth not nourish life but a spirituous matter And indeed the spirit of the nourishment must needs be like the spirit of the living creature Therefore we are not nourished with the elements as plants are for as much as they have only a naturall not a vitall spirit but we are nourished with plants or with the flesh of other â—iving creatures because those afford a vitall spirit Nay further there is a particular proportion of spirits by reason of which a â—orse chuseth oates a swine barley a wolfe flesh c. Nay an hog hath an appetite to mans excrements also because it yet findeth parts convenient for it IX Nourishment turneth into the substance â—f that which is nourished That appears 1 because he that feeds on dry meats is dry of complexion he that feeds on moist is flegmatick c. 2 because for the most part a man reteins the qualities of those living creatures on whose flesh he feeds as he that feeds on beefe is strong he that feeds on venison is nimble c. If any one have the brains
also the whole animall spirit is there progenerated XXXIII The animall spirits are begotten in the brain that is in bloud and vitall spirit 2 purified with the fanning of respiration 3 communicated to the whole body by Nerves The excrements of the brain are cast forth by the nostrils eares and eyes that is by flegme and â—ears For the strings of the veins and arteries running forth into the brains instill bloud and vitall spirit into them And the bloud that turns into the substance of the brains by assimilation but the vitall spirit being condensed by the coldnesse of the brain is turned into the Animall spirit which the air drawn in by inspiration and getting into the brain through the hollownesse of the nostrils and of the palate doth so purifie with fanning every moment that though it be something cold yet it is most moveable and runs through the nerves with inexplicable celerity Now the Nerves are branches or channels descending from the brain through the body For the marrow of the back bone is extended from the brain all along the back of every living creature and from thence divers little branches run forth conveying the animall spirit the architect of sense and motion to all the members in the whole body XXXIV To know the nature of the senses three things are pertinent 1 the things requisite 2 the manner 3 the effect XXXV The things requisite are 1 an object 2 an organ 3 a medium to conjoyn them Or Sensile Sensorium and the Copula XXXVI Objects are sensible qualities inhering in bodies Colour Sound Savour Tangor For nothing is seen touched c. of it selfe but by accidents wherewith it is clothed And if we would be accurate Philosophers N. W. of the three principles of things only light or fire is preceptible For matter and spirit are of themselves insensible the light then tempered with darknesse makes the matter visible Motion which is from light makes a sound but heat which is from motion stirs up and temperates the rest of the qualities odours savours tangors XXXVII The organs of the senses are parts of the body in which the animall spirit receives the objects that present themselves namely the eye the eare the nostrils the tongue and all that is nervie Nothing in all nature acts without organs therefore the animall spirit cannot do it neither XXXVIII The medium of conjoyning them is that which brings the object into the organ in sight the light in hearing the air moved with breaking in smels the air vapouring in taste the water melting in touch the quality it selfe inhering in the matter XXXIX The manner of sensation is the contact of the Organ with the object passion and action There is but one sense to speak generally and that 's the Touch. For nothing can be perceived but what toucheth us either at hand or at a distance There is no sense at all of things absent XL Therefore in every sensation the Animall spirit suffers by the thing sensible That there is no sensation but by passion is too evident For we do not perceive heat or cold unlesse we be hot or cold nor sweet and bitter unlesse we become sweet or bitter nor colour unlesse we be coloured therewith Our spirit I say residing in the organs is touched and affected Therefore those things which are like us are not perceived as heat like our heat doth not affect us But we must observe that the Organs that they may perceive any qualities of the objects want qualities of themselves as the apple of the eye colour the tongue savour c. XLI Yet in every sensation the animall spirit doth reach upon the thing sensible namely in receiving speculating laying up its species For the Animall spirit resident in the brain what ever sensorie it perceives to be affected conveys it selfe thither in a moment to know what it is and having perceived it returns forth with and carries back the image of that thing with it to the center of its work-house and there contemplates it what it is and of what sort and afterward layes it up for future uses hence the Ancients made three inward senses 1 The common sense or attention 2 The Phantasie or imagination 3 The memory or recordation But these are not really distinct but onely three distinct internall operations of the same spirit Now that those inward senses are in brutes it appears 1 Because if they do not give heed many things may and do usually slip by their ears eyes and nostrils 2 Because they are endued with the faculty of imagining or judging For doth not a dog barking at a stranger distinguish betwixt those whom he knowes and strangers yea sometimes a dog or a horse c. starts also out of his sleep which cannot be but by reason of some dream And what is a dream but an imagination 3 Because they remember also for a dog that hath been once beaten with a cudgell fears the like at the sight of every staffe or gesture c. And therefore it is certain that every living creature even flies and worms do imagine But of the inward senses more at large and more distinctly in the Chapter following XLII The effect of sensation is pleasure or grief Pleasure if the sense be affected gently and easily with a thing agreeable thereto with titillation griefe if with a thing that is contrary to it or suddenly with hurt to the Organ XLIII And that the Animall spirit alwayes occupied in the actions of sense may somtimes rest and be refresbed sleep was given to a living creature which is a gathering together of the animall spirits to the center of the brain and a stopping of the Organs in the mean time with the vapours ascending out of the ventricle Hence it appears 1 Why sleep most usually comes upon a man after meat or else after wearinesse when the members being chafed do exhale vapours 2 Why carefull thoughts disturb sleep that is because that when the spirit is stirred to and fro it cannot be gathered together and sit still 3 What it is to watch and how it is done namely when the spirit being strengthened in it selfe scatters the little cloud of vapours already attenuated and betakes it selfe to its Organs 4 Why too much watching is hurtfull because the sprits are too much wearied weakened consumed c. Thus much of the Senses in general somthing is to be said also of every one in particular XLIV The touch hath for its instrument the nervous skin as also all the nervous and membr anaceous parts of the body Therefore haires nailes bones do not feel c. though you cut or burn them because they have no nerves running through them Yet they feel in that part where they adjoyn to the flesh because they have a nervie substance for their gluten Hence the pain under the nailes and membranes of the bones is most acute Now being that the skin of the body is most glutinous and altogether nervie
if it be true as it is most likely the reason is easie to be known 5 The Magneticall Medicine is very famous amongst Authours with which they do not cure the wound it selfe but the instrument wherewith he wound was given or the garment wood or earth besprinkled with the bloud of the wound is onely anointed and the wound closes and heals kindly Some deny that this is done naturally who do not sufficiently consider the secret strength of nature Yet examples shew that this kind of cure with an ointment made with most naturall things yea with nothing but the grease of the axeltree scraped off from a cart hath certain successe without using any superstition Wherefore it is credible that the spirit poured out of the body with the bloud that is shed adheres partly in the bloud partly to the instrument it self for it cannot abide without matter being forced thence with the fat that is applied returnes to its whole and supplies that and hereto perhaps that observation appertains concerning the venom of a snake viper or scorpion conveyed into a man with a bite For if the same beast or but the bloud or fat thereof be forthwith applied to the wound it sucks out the venom again because it returns to its own connaturall More of this kind might be observed by approved experiments 6 Last of all it is not unworthy of our observation that the animall spirit doth form living creatures of another kind rather then quite forsake the putrifying matter namely wormes and such like Now it is certain by experience that of living creatures that are dead and putrified those living creatures are especially bred on which they were wont to feed when they were alive For example of the flesh of storks serpents are bred of hens spiders of ducks frogs c. which that it will so come to passe if they be buried in dung John Poppus a distiller of Coburg hath taught after others It appears then that the animall spirit is every where and that very diligently busied about the animating of bodies CHAP. XI Of Man I A Man is a living creature endued with an immortall soule For the Creatour inspired a soul into him out of himselfe Gen. â— v. 7. which soul is called also the mind and reason in vvhich the image of God shineth II Therefore he is compounded of three things a body a spirit and a soule So the Apostle testifies 1 Thes. 5. 13. Let your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blamelesse And so 1 Cor 14. vers 14. He distinguisheth betwixt the spirit and the minde And indeed so it is vve have a body compounded of the Elements as vvell as bruits vve have a spirit from the spirit of the world as vvell as they but the soule or minde is from God The first vve bear about us mortall the second dissipable but the last enduring ever without the body as we are assured by faith Therefore when thou seest a man think that thou seest a King royally cloathed and sitting in his royall throne For the minde is a King his robe is the spirit his throne the body III The body is the Organ and habitation of the spirit but the spirit is the habitation and mansion of the soul. For as the spirit dwels in the body and guides it as the Pilot doth the ship so the soul dwels in the spirit and rules it And as body without a spirit neither moves it â—f nor hath any sense of any thing as it to be seen in a dead carcasse so the spirit vvithout the minde hath no reason nor understands any thing as we see in bruit beasts Therefore the soul useth the spirit for its chariot and instrument the spirit the body and the body the foresaid instruments IV As the spirit is affected by the body so is the minde by the spirit For as vvhen the body is diseased the spirit is presently sad or hindred from its action so vvhen the spirit is ill disposed the minde cannot performe its functions dextrously as vve may see in drunken melancholie mad-men c. Hence it is that the gifts of the minde follow the temperature of the body that one is more ingenious courteous chast courageous c then another Hence that fight within us which the Scripture so oft mentions and we our selves feel For the body and the soul being that they are extreams the one earthly the other heavenly the one bruit the other rational the one mortall the other immortall are alway contrary to one another in their inclinations Now the spirit which is placed betwixt them ought indeed to obey the superiour part and keep the lower part in order as its beck Yet neverthelesse it comes oft so to passe that is carried away of the flesh and becomes brutish V. Such a body was given to man as might fitly serve all the uses of his reasonable soule And therefore 1 Furnished with many Organs 2 Erect 3 Naked and unarmed that it might be free of it self and yet might be cloathed and armed any way as occasion required For the hand the instrument of instruments the most painful doer of all works vvas given to man only He only hath obteined an erect stature least he should live unmindful of his countrey Heaven Again he only was made naked and unarmed but both by the singular favours of God For living creatures whilest they always bear about them their garment haires feathers shels and their armes sharp prickles horns what do they bear about them but burdens and hindrances of divers actions The liberty granted to man and industry in providing fitting and laying up all things for his use and pleasure is something more divine VI. A more copious and pure spirit was given to man and therefore his inward operations are more excellent namely a quicker attention a stronger imagination a surer memory more vehement affections The first appears from the braine which is given in greater plenty to man then to any living creature considering the proportion of every ones body For all that round head and of so great capacity is filled up vvith brain to what end but that the spirit might have a more spacious vvorkhouse and palace The rest are known by experience as followeth VII Attention is a considerate receiving of the objects brought into the sensorie instruments We said in the former Chapter that it is commonly called the common sense This vvas given to man so much the quicker as it is destinated to more objects and more distinctly to be perceived VIII Imagination is the moving of things perceived by the sense within and an efformation of the like For the image of the thing seen heard or touched with attention presently gets into the brain which the spirit by contemplation judges of what it is and how it differs from this or that thing therefore it may well be called in this sense the judgment This imagination is stronger in a man then in any living creature
Wil◠and Conscience For by diligent attention it begets understanding of things by imagination or judging choise that is to will or nill by remembrance conscience XIII The understanding is a faculty of the reasonable soule gathering things unknown out of things known and out of things uncertain compared together drawing things certain by reasoning XIV To reason is to enquire the reasons and causes why any thing is or is not by thinking thereon For the mind or reason doth from the experiments of the senses gathered together first form to it selfe certain generall notions as when it seeth that the fire scorcheth all things it formes to it selfe this rule as it were All fire burneth c. Such kind of experimentall notions they call principles from which the understanding as occasion is offered frames discourse For example if gold melt with fire then it is hot also and burns when it is melted Whence follows this conclusion therefore if the Workman pour gold into his hand he is burnt therewith See here is understanding and that of a thing never seen to which a bruite cannot attain For they do not reason but stay simply upon experiments As if a dog be beaten with a staffe he runs away afterward at the sight of a staffe because his late suffering comes into his memory but that he should reason for example a staffe is hard and pain was caused me with a staffe therefore every hard thing struck against the body causeth pain this he cannot do therefore intelligere to understand is inter legere that is amongst many things to chuse and determine what is truly and what is not XV When ratiocination doth cohere with it selfe every way it begets verity if it gape any where errour XVI Promptnesse of reasoning is called Ingenuity solidity Judgement defect Dulnesse For he is Ingenious who perceives and discourseth readily he Judicious that with a certain naturall celerity giveth heed whether the reasoning cohere sufficiently every way He is dull that hath neither of them The two first are from the temperature of bloud and melancholy the last comes from abundance of flegme For melancholy understand not grosse and full of dregs but pure tempered with much bloud giveth a nimble wit but moistned with lesse a piercing and constant judgement which is made plaine by this similitude A glasse receiving and rendring shapes excellently is compounded of three exceedings exceeding hardnesse exceeding smoothnesse exceeding blacknesse for the smoothnesse receives shapes hardnesse reteins them the blacknesse underneath clears them Hence the best sort of glasses are of steel those of silver worse and of glasse better by reason of their greater smoothnesse and hardnesse under which some black thing is put or cast that it may adhere immediately For instance lead If it could be iron or steel it is certain that the images would be the brighter for blackness So the animall spirits receiving agility from pure bloud strength and constancy from Melancholy make men ingenious and when the prevailing melancholy clarifies the imagination Judicious too much flegme overflowing both makes men stupid Yellow choler conferreth nothing but mobility to the affections whence it is not without cause called the whetstone of wits XVII The understanding begins with universals but ends in singulars We have observed the same touching the senses upon the eighth Aphorisme For there is a like reason for both in as much as the intellect considering any object first knows that it is something and afterwards enquires by discoursing what it is and how it differs from other things and that alwayes more and more subtilely For universals are confused singulars distinct Therefore the understanding of God is most perfect because he knowes all singularities by most speciall differences Therefore he alone truly knoweth all things But a man by how many the more particulars he knows and sees how they depend upon their generals by so much the wiser he is Therefore Aristotle said not rightly That sense is of singulars but understanding of universals XVIII The will is a faculty of the reasonable soul inclining it to good fore-known and turning it away from evill fore-seen For the soule works that whereunto the will enclines and the will enclines whither the understanding leads it It follows this for its guides every where and erres not unlesse it erre As when a Christian chuseth drunkennesse rather then sobriety though he be taught otherwise he doth it because the intellect deceived by the sense judgeth it better to please the palate then to be tormented with thirst though perverse Therefore we must have a speciall care least the intellect should erre or be carried away with the inferiour appetite It appears also from thence that if all men understood alike they would also will and nill alike but the diversity of wils argues a diversity of understanding XIX If the will prudently follow things that are truly good and prudently avoid things that are truly bad it begets virtue if it do the contrary vice For virtue is nothing else but a prudent and constant and ardent shunning of evill and embracing of good vice on the contrary is nothing but a neglecting of good and embracing of evill XX The conscience of man is an intellectuall memory of those things which reason dictates either to be done or avoided and what the will hath done or not done according to this rule and what God hath denounced to those that doe them or doe them not Therefore the function of it in the soule is three-fold to warn testifie and judge of all things that are done or to be done See by the Wisdome of God an inward Monitor Witnesse and Judge and always standing by given to man woe be to him that neglects this Monitor contemnes this Witnesse throwes off the reverence of this Judge XXI It appears out of that which hath been said that man is well termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a little world Because 1 He is compounded of the same that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the great World is matter spirit light 2 He resembles the universe in the site of his members for as that is divided into three parts the Elementary the Coelestiall and the Supercoelestiall so a man hath three ventres or bellies the lowest which serves for nutrition the middle-most or the breast wherein is the work-house of life and the fountain of heat the highest or the head in which the animall spirits and in them reason the image of God inhabits 3 There is an analogy betwixt the parts of the world and the parts of the body For example Flesh represents the Earth Bones the Stones Bloud and other humours Waters Vapours of which the body is full the air the vitall spirit the Heaven and Stars the Haires Plants but the seven Planets are the seven vitall Members in our body for the Heart is in the place of the Sun the Brain of the Moon the Spleen of Saturn the Liver of Jupiter the Bag of Gall Mars
a septenary gradation For we have understood that whatsoever there is besides God it is either an Element or a Vapour or a Concrete or a Plant or an Anâ—â—all or a Man or an Angell and that the whole multitude of creatures is ranked into these seven Classes or great Tribes In every of which there is some eminent virtue flowing from the essence of the Creatour yet every latter including the former For In Elements Being is eminent Vapours Motion Concretes Figure or Quality Plants Life Living creatures Sense Men Reason Angels Understanding See the house which Wisdome hath built her having hewn out her seven pillars Prov. 9. 1. See the seven Stairs which the King of Heaven hath placed in the entry of his inner house Ezek. 40. 22. The six first degrees are of visible creatures the seventh of invisible Angels After the same manner as there were nine dayes wherein God wrought and rested the seventh six Planets in heaven of inferiour light the seventh of extraordinary brightnesse the Sun six baser metals on earth The seventh exceeding all in perfection gold c. And as Salomons Throne had six inferiour steps to every of which there were six inferiour Leoncels adjoyned after all in the seventh place stood the Throne and by it two Lions 1 King 10. 19 20. So the King of eternity when he built him a visible throne of glory erected six visible degrees of corporeous creatures to every of which he added their Leoncels that is their virtues and their powers and last of all about the throne on high he placed the strongest of the creatures the Angels mighty in power Psal. 103. 19 20. But now what mean the seven planets in heaven what mean the seven continents on earth the seven kinds of meteors seven kinds of metalls seven kinds of stones c the seven combinations of tangible qualities the seven differences of taste the seven vitall members in man the seven tones in musick and other things which we meet with throughout all nature yea and in the Scripture the number of seven is every where very much celebrated and sacred For what do the seven dayes of the week point at what are the seven weeks betwixt the Passeover and Pentecost what the seventh year of rest what the seven times seventh of Jubilee what do all these portend I say but that it is the expresse Image of that God whose seven eyes passe through the whole earth Zach. 4. 10. and whose seven spirits are before his Throne Apoc. 1. 4. yea who doth himselfe make a mysticall eighth with every degree of his creatures For in him all things live aud move and have their being which live and move and have a being Acts 17. 28. and he worketh all in all 1 Cor. 12. 6. and all these are as it were him himselfe Eccles. 43. 27. and yet none of them is he himselfe Job 12. 9. 10. but because all these have some effigies of the divine essence and operate that which they operate by virtue thereof hence it is that he being above all without all and beneath all is the true mysticall eighth of all Of whom that Syracides may conclude our meditation though we say much we shall not yet attain thereto The sum of the doctrine is that he is all For what ability have we to praise him For he is greater then all his works The Lord is terrible and very great marvellous is his power Extol the Lord in praise as much as you can For yet he wil be greater then all praise Eecl 43. 30. c. Therefore let every spirit praise the Lord Hallelujah Psal. 150. And thou my soul praise the Lord Psal. 103. 1. Holy holy holy Lord of Hosts Heaven and earth are full of his glory Isai. 6. 3 Hallelujah A Short APPENDIX TO PHYSICKS Touching the Diseases of the Body Mind and Soul and their generall Remedies I. A Disease is the corruption of an Entity in some part thereof and a disposition of it to totall perishing that is death Therefore both the Body Mind and Soul hath its diseases II The diseases of the body are various scarce to be numbred and oft-times mâ—â—t A disease added to a disease is called a ymptome of a disease III A disease of the body is either by solution of that which is continued or by distemper of humours IV Solution of that which is continued is either by a rupture or a wound A rupture is prevented by bewaring falls and violent motion A wound is avoided by shunning of those things which can cleave cut prick rent tear or bruise or hurt anyway and both are to be cured by the Chirurgion N. W. The cure of a Wound is desperate if any vitall member be hurt as the heart the brain the liver the entrals c. For then the vitall actions are hindred and soon after cease 2 If any member be quite lost it cannot be set on again because the spirit hath not wherewithall to passe into the part that is severed V The distempers of the humours and the diseases that come from thence always proceed from some of these 6 causes namely either from 1 Crudity 2 Inflation 3 Distillation 4 Obstruction 5 Putrefaction 6 Inflammation VI Crudity in the body is nutriment not sufficiently concocted namely either Chyle or bloud which comes I from the quality of meat and drink when they are taken too raw flegmatick unwholesome which the concoctive faculty cannot well subdue 2 from the quantity when more meat and drink is put in then it is able to alter and assimilate unto the body For hence undigested and not assimilated humours burthen the body like strangers and not pertaining thereunto 3 For want of exercise when the naturall heat is not stirred up nor strengthened to perform its office lustily in the concoction of meats From such like crudities diverse inconveniences follow For 1 if the crudity be in the stomack it causes loathing of food for so long as the first food is not digested there can be no appetite to any other Again children have an appetite to eat earth chalk coales c. according as the crudities are turned into the likenesse of any matter For like desireth like 2 If there be a viscous crudity adhering in the ventricle or in the guts being warmed it takes spirit and is turned into wormes which gnawing the bowels stir up evill vapours by their motion whence also come phartasies very hurtfull to the head Lastly ctudity under the skin in the bloud and flesh begets palenesse and when it is collected and putrified scabs ulcers c. Crudity is prevented by a temperate diet as to Food Sleep and daily exercises and cured 1 by violent expurgation 2 by strong exercises 3 by the use of tart meats and drinks 4 by comforting the stomack with such things as heat both within and without VII Inflation is much and grosse vapour exhaling from the crudities that are gathered together and stretching the members And