the Beasts Seed not being of that Strength served only for Nourishment and no more And that the Seed of these Irrational Creatures might yield Nourishment to Human Seed is a matter easy to be conceived for if each of these Women had eat a piece of the Bears Flesh or Dogs boiled or rosted she would thereby have been Nourished though not so well as if she had eaten Lamb or Partridge The like happens to Human Seed whose real Nutriment in the formation of the Child is a Man's Seed though that failing the Seed of Brute Beasts might well supply its Place But one thing these Histories specify is that the young ones born from such Copulation gave proof by their Manners and Conditions that they were not begot in the ordinary course of Nature From what has been said though we have digress'd a little too far we may now draw an Answer to the principal Problem which is that wise Mens Children are in a manner always form'd of the Mothers Seed because that of the Fathers for reasons already alledged is not fruitful for Generation serving only in Generation for the Aliment And the Child that is formed of the Womans Seed cannot be Witty or Ingenious by reason of the great coldness and moisture of the Sex whence it is certain that a Child proving wise and discreet by an infallible indication was form'd of the Fathers Seed But if he be a Blockhead or Fool it may be concluded that he was made of the Mothers Seed To which the Wiseman alluded saying A wise Son maketh a glad Father but a foolish Son is the heaviness of his Mother It may also happen by some Accident that the Wise Man's Seed may be the Agent and Form-giver and that of the Mother serve for Aliment But the Child thus begot will prove of slender Capacity for though cold and dry are two Qualities requisite to the Understanding yet they ought to keep a certain Measure and Quantity which once exceeded they do rather harm than good As appears in very old Men who through the abundance of Coldness and Dryness doat and fall into many Follies Put case then that there yet remain ten years for a Wise Man to live with a Coldness and Dryness capable of Reasoning yet that being expired he will doat If of such a ones Seed a Child be got he will be till ten years old of great Ability having drawn a conveninet coldness and dryness from the Father but at eleven years he will presently begin to fail having past the Pitch those two Qualities hold Which we see by daily Experience in Children got in old Age who when Young are very Witty but grown Men are Fools and short liv'd The Reason is they were formed of the cold and dry Seed of a Man that had liv'd about half his Race Likewise if the Father skill in the works of the Imagination through much Heat and Dryness and be married to a Woman cold and moist in the third Degree the Child born from such a Conjunction will be an errant Blockhead if he be form'd of the Father's Seed having layn in so cold and moist a Womb and having been fed with such Distemper'd Blood The contrary happens the Father being a Fool whose Seed ordinarily is hot and exceeding moist The Child then begot will be dull till fifteen years so long as he partakes of the superfluous moisture of the Father but that being spent by the Course of Age it comes to a Consistence when the Fool 's Seed becomes more Temperate and less Moist It also helps the Wit to have been nine Months in a Womb so little cold and moist as is that of a Woman cold and moist in the first Degree whence proceeds such scarcity and want of Nourishment All this ordinarily happens for the Reasons we have specified but there is a certain Race of Men whose Genitals are of such force and vigor as they utterly spoil their Aliments of their good Qualities converting them into their evil and gross Substance Whence all the Children that are begot though they have eat delicate Meats are dull and rude There are others on the contrary feeding on Meats of gross and evil Temperament are so Strong to overcome them that though they eat Brawn or Bacon they get very Witty Children And so it is certain that there is a Race of Fools and another of Wise Men and others that ordinarily are born Blunt and void of Judgment Some Doubts offer themselves to those that endeavour to pierce to the Root of this matter To which an Answer may be given from what has been already said The first is whence it comes that Bastards for the most part resemble their Fathers And of a hundred Legitimate ninety bear the Figure and Conditions of their Mothers The second Why Bastards are generally Personable Couragious and very Discreet The third What is the Cause that if a light Woman prove with Child though she swallow poyson'd Doses to make her Miscarry and often let Blood yet she never slips her Child But if a Married Woman be with Child by her Husband upon every slight Accident she lightly Miscarries To the first doubt Plato answers affirming that no Man of his own Accord is Evil till first he be incited by his vitious Temperament And alledges for instance Leachers who by abounding in fruitful Seed suffer many Illusions and great Pains And being molested with that Passion to drive it away Marry Of such Galen says that they have very hot and dry Instruments of Generation and for this Cause breed Seed very pricking and apt for Procreation A Man then goes to seek a Woman none of his own and replenished with this fruitful digested and well seasoned Seed Whence it follows of force the Generation must be made because where both are equal the Man's Seed is of greater Efficacy and if a Boy be got of the Seed of such a Father he will resemble him of course The contrary happens in Legitimate-Children for Married Men having their Wives always by their Sides never regard to ripen their Seed or make it Prolific but rather upon the least Motion discharge it with great Commotion and Violence Whereas Women lying quiet in the Act of Love their Seminal Vessels never emit any Seed but what is duly concocted and well seasoned and affords much in quantity Therefore Married Women always make the engendring and their Husbands Seed serves for Nourishment But sometimes it comes to pass that both Seeds are matched in equal Perfection and dispute in such a manner as neither one nor the other give the Formation so as a Child is got that Resembes neither Father nor Mother At other times they concur and part the Resemblance between them the Fathers Seed makes the Nose and Eyes and that of the Mother the Mouth and Forehead Though if the Fathers Seed wholly predominate the Child will be like him in Person and Manners and when the Mothers Seed prevails the same
That they had strong Stomachs that were inured to Garlic Leaks and Onions and when they fed upon Meat of so slight Resistance it turned all into Choler Therefore Galen forbid those that abound in Natural Heat to eat Honey or any other such slight Food lest it should corrupt and instead of Digesting broil in the Stomach like Fat. Even so it befel the Israelites with the Manna for it converted all into Choler Adust So that they became wholly Dry and Withered because this Meat was not substantial enough to stuff them Our Soul is dried away and there is nothing at all besides this Manna before our Eyes The Water they drank after this Meat was such as they desired and if they had not found it as they wished God shewed Moses a piece of Wood which had so Divine a Virtue that being cast into Gross and Salt Water it made them become delicate and savory and when they had no Water Moses took the Rod with which he opened a dozen Ways in the Red-Sea and striking therewith the Rock there issued Springs of Water as delicate and savory as their Taste could wish Which gave Occasion to St. Paul to say That the Rock followed them That is to say that the Water streamed out of the Rock according to their Wishes delicate sweet and savory And they had their Stomachs suited to the drinking of Gross and Briny Waters for in Egypt says Galen they boiled them to prepare them for Drink being putrid and corrupt so that drinking such delicate Waters they could not avoid their turning to Choler because of their small resistance The same Qualities says Galen Water requires to digest well in our Stomach and not Corrupt as the solid Meats we eat If the Stomach be strong it ought to have strong Aliments to correspond with it in proportion but if the same be weak and delicate such the Meat ought also to be The same is to be observed in Water for we see by Experience if a Man be accustomed to drink Gross Waters he never quenches his Thirst with the Purer nor feels them hardly in his Stomach nay he shall be more Thirsty after them inasmuch as the Extream Heat of the Stomach burns and resolves them as soon as they are down because they can make no Resistance The Air they breathed in the Desart was as we may say subtil and delicate for travelling over Mountains and through vast Solitudes it Fanned them every moment fresh and clear and without the least Corruption because they made no long stay in any Place It was also ever very Temperate for by Day a Cloud was drawn before the Sun that restrained it from scorching and by Night arose a Pillar of Fire that moderated it and qualified it for such an Air as Aristotle affirms much sharpens the Wit Let us now consider how delicate and well digested the Seed of the Males of this Hebrew People might be being nourished by such Food as Manna drinking the Waters we have spoke of and breathing an Air so pure and delicate and withal how delicate and fine the Flowers of their Women might be and let us call to mind what Aristotle said That the Flowers being subtile and delicate the Child bred of them shall be a Man of great Capacity How much it imports that the Father should eat delicate Meats to beget very able Children we shall prove at large in the last Chapter of this Book And whereas all the Jews eat of the same delicate and spirituous Meat and drank of the same Water all their Children and Posterity proved sharp and of great Wit for the Matters of this World From the Time the Children of Israel were arrived at and setled in the Land of Promise with a sharp Wit as we have said they had so many Travels Dearths Sieges of Enemies Subjections and Bondages and other ill Usages that if they had not brought from Egypt and the Wilderness the Hot Dry and Adust Temperament before mentioned they would have Contracted the same from their uncomfortable Course of Life For continual Sadness and Toil unite the Vital Spirits and Arterial Blood in the Brain Liver and Heart where sticking one about the other they come to heat and burn And so very often they raise a Fever but ordinarily produce Choler adust of which most of that Nation partake even to this day as Hippocrates said That Fear and Sorrow which hold long are signs of Melancholy We have already affirmed That this Burnt Choler was the Instrument of Craft Cunning Intriguing and Malice and that Humour is accommodated to the Conjectures in Physic and by the same the Notice of the Cause and Cure of Diseases is attained So King Francis admirably hit upon it and what he said was not a Delirium much less a Suggestion of the Devil but it ought rather to be thought that by the means of a high Fever of so long Continuance and through the Indignation he was in to see himself Sick without Relief his Brain was fired and his Imagination raised to that degree of which we have proved before that if it reaches the Temperament it ought forthwith it makes a Man speak what he never learn'd But against all that we have said a very great Difficulty arises which is that if the Sons or Grandchildren of those that were in Egypt and had tasted Manna the Waters and delicate Air of the Desart had been designed for Physicians it might seem that the Opinion of King Francis was somewhat probable for the Reasons recounted But that their Posterity should retain even to this day the Dispositions of the Manna the Water the Air the Afflictions and the Toils their Ancestors endured in the Egyptian Captivity is a thing not easy to conceive For if in Four Hundred and thirty Years which the Children of Israel spent in Egypt and the Fourty in the Desart their Seed could acquire those Dispositions of Ability they might better and with more probability lose it again in the Two thousand Years since they came out of the Desart more especially for those that setled in Spain a Country so contrary to Egypt and where they have fed on such contrary Meats and drank Waters not of so good a Temperament nor Substance as in that Land For such is the Nature of Man and so of any Plant or Animal whatever that he partakes of the Conditions of the Country he is transplanted into and loses those he brought from other Places And in any Instance to be alledged the like will befal it in a few days without Contradiction A certain Race of Men as Hippocrates notes to distinguish themselves from the Vulgar chose as a Mark of their Nobility to have their Heads like a Sugar-Loaf and to Shape this Figure by Art the Midwives had a Charge to roll up their Heads with certain Bands and Fillets till they took that Shape This Artifice really gained such Power
from Woman as Galen says but only in having the Genitals outward For if a Woman be dissected we shall find that she has within her two Testicles two Spermatic Vessels and one Matrix together with the figure of the Masculine Member without missing the least Representation Which is so true that if Nature making a perfect Man had a mind to turn him into a Woman she has no more to do than to turn the Parts of Generation inward And if after she has made a Woman she had a mind to convert her into Man she need no more than turn out her Genitals This has chanced many times in Nature as well to the Foetus in the Womb as to the Child after the Birth Of which Histories are full though some have held them only for Fables as coming from the Hands of Poets yet the thing carries much of Truth For divers times has Nature made a Female that has continued such in the Mothers Womb a Month or two afterwards and abundance of Heat upon Occasion falling on the Genitals they have struck out and she steps forth a Male. To whom this change of Sex has happened in the Mothers Womb is afterwards made known by certain Motions unbecoming a Man being altogether Womanish and Effeminate their Voice Shrill and Squeaking Such persons are addicted to Woman's works and fall ordinarily into awkard Offences On the contrary Nature has often made a Boy with his Genitals outwards and some Cold supervening she has inverted them and the Boy has turned into a Girl This appears after she is Born in that she has a Masculine Air as well in her Speech as in all her Motions and Gestures This seems difficult to prove but easy to believe if we reflect on what we are assured by many Authentic Histories And that Women have been turned into Men after they were Born the Vulgar are not surprised to hear of for besides what many Antient Authors have delivered for truth 't is a thing that happened in Spain but few Years since and what Experience teaches admits no Dispute or Argument What the Cause or Reason may be that the Genitals are engendred within or without and they come forth Male or Female is a plain Case if we recollect that Heat dilates and extends all things and Cold contracts and closes them And therefore it is the Conclusion of all the Philosophers and Physitians that if the Seed be Cold and Moist a Girle is produced and not a Boy and if it be Hot and Dry a Boy is produced and not a Girle Whence may be clearly inferr'd that there is no Man can be call'd cold in respect of a Woman nor any Woman hot in respect of a Man Aristotle said that the Woman should be cold and moist to be fruitful and if she were not so it were impossible she should have her Terms or Milk to preserve the Foetus nine whole Months in her Womb and two Years after the Birth but the same would be dissipated and wasted All the Philosophers and Physitians assert that the Womb bears the same Proportion to humane Seed as the Earth does to Wheat or any other Grain But we see if the Earth be not cold and moist the Husbandman dares not Sow it and though he should it comes to nothing Also among Lands those are most fertile and fructify most that have most Cold and Moisture as appears by experience considering the Northern Regions England Flanders and Germany where the abundance of all Fruits surprises those that know not the reason of it and in such Countries a Married Woman rarely fails of Children neither do they know what 't is to be Barren all the Women there are fruitful and prolific because of the great Cold and Moisture But though it be true that a Woman should be cold and moist for Conception nevertheless that may be in such an Excess that the Seed may be choaked as we see the Grain is opprest with too-much Rain and cannot thrive when it is over-cold Which shews us that these two qualities require a certain Mediocrity which if they exceed or come short of Fertility is in danger to be lost Hippocrates held that Woman fruitful whose Matrix was temperate in such sort as the Heat exceeded not the Cold nor the Moisture the Dryness therefore he said that Women who have a cold Womb could not conceive no more than those that have a very moist or a very hot and dry one so for the same reason that a Woman and her parts of Generation should be Temperate it were impossible for her to conceive or be a Woman For if the Seed of which she first was formed had been Temperate the Genitals had issued forth and she had been a Man So would a Beard grow on her Chin and her Courses have stopt and she become as perfect a Male as Nature could produce Likewise the Womb in a Woman should not have a predominant Heat for if the Seed whereof she was formed had had this Temperament she had been born a Man and not a Woman 'T is a thing then absolutely certain that the two Qualities which render a Woman fruitful are Cold and Moisture inasmuch as the Nature of a Man requires much Nourishment for his Production and Conservation Accordingly we see that of all the Females of Brute-Animals none have their Courses as Women Therefore it was no less than necessary to make her altogether cold and moist and to such a degree that she might breed abundance of Flegmatic Blood and be able neither to dissipate nor consume it I said Flegmatic Blood because the same is proper to breed Milk With which as Hippocrates and Galen are of Opinion the Foetús is nourished all the time it is in the Womb but if the same should be Temperate it would make much Blood which would be very unfit to breed Milk and which would wholly resolve as it does in a Temperate Man and so nothing be left to nourish the Foetus Therefore I hold for certain that it is impossible any Woman be either Temperate or Hot they are all both cold and moist If this be not so let Physitians and Philosophers tell me why all Women are Beardless and yet have their Terms if in Health Or for what cause if the Seed of which she is form'd was Temperate or Hot she was born a Female and not a Male But though it be true that all Women are cold and moist yet they are not so in the same Degree some are in the First others in the Second and the rest in the Third And in each degree they may conceive if the Man answer them in the proportion of Heat which we shall hereafter explain By what Marks these three Degrees of Cold and Moisture in Women may be known and how we may discern which is in the First which in the Second and which in the Third no Philosophy or Physic has yet declar'd But considering the
by the Woman else her Seed being ill tempered impedes Generation Therefore it is convenient that they should both wait that both their Seeds may meet and mingle Which is of great importance for the first Effort because the right Testicle and it's Spermatic Vessel in the Opinion of Galen is that which first provokes and emits it's Seed sooner than the Left and if the Generation be not the first Time it is odds the second may give a Girl and not a Boy These two Seeds are known First by the Heat and Cold Secondly by the great or little Quantity Thirdly in this that one issues readier than to'ther The Seed of the right Testicle passes very tickling and is so Hot that it burns the Woman's Matrix is not much in Quantity and passes in hast On the contrary the Seed of the left Testicle is more temperate in greater Quantity and longer in Issuing being Cold and Thick The last Condition was to procure that the Seed of both should fall on the right side of the Matrix because in that place says Hippocrates the Males are form'd as the Females on the left Galen assigns the Reason hereof saying that the right side of the Matrix is very hot because of its neighbourhood to the Liver Reigns and spermatic Vessels that are on the right side which parts we have affirmed and prov'd to be very hot And since all the reason to order that a Boy may be begot consists in this that it have a great deal of heat in the time of its conception it is certain it much imports that the Seed fall in this place Which the Woman can easily do lying upon her right side after her Husbands embraces with her Head low and her Feet raised But she must keep her Bed a day or two because the Matrix embraces not the Seed but after some time The Signs of knowing whether a Woman be with Child or no are clear and manifest to all for if when she stands up the Seed fall presently down Galen says she has not conceived Therefore in this there is one thing to be considered that all the Seed is not fruitful and prolific for part thereof is waterish whose office is to dilute the principal Seed that it may pierce the narrow Passages And this is that which Nature emits and it remains after conception with the prolific part It is known when it is like Water and in little quantity To stand upon her Legs immediately after Coupling is very dangerous And therefore Aristotle advises that she beforehand evacuate her Excrements and Urine that she may have no need to Rise The second Mark to discover if a Woman be with Child is if the day after she feels her Belly empty and especially about the Navel And the Reason of it is that when the Matrix will conceive it stretches and extends extremely because in a manner it is apt to swell and stiffen upon this Occasion after the same fashion as a Mans Yard and stretching out after this manner it takes up more room but at the instant it conceives Hippocrates says that it closes and draws into the form of a little Egg to draw the Seed to it and let nothing out by which means it leaves a great Vacuity Which the Women explain saying that they have no slack Guts left soon after they grow big Besides which they forthwith nauseate their Husbands Caresses the Womb having what it wanted But the most certain Sign as Hippocrates says is when the Menses cease their Brests swell and they loath their Meat Article IV. What is to be observed that the Children may prove Witty and Wise IF the Reason and Cause be not known beforehand whence it proceeds that a Man of great Wit and Capacity is begotten it is impossible to reduce the same to an Art since we attain the End by no other Means but by connecting and ordering the Principles and Causes The Astrologers hold that the Child being born under such an Influence of the Stars will be Wise Witty Well or Ill-condition'd happy or unhappy with a thousand other qualities and properties which we see and observe every day among Men. But if this were true we could not here prescribe any Rules for all would depend upon Chance and not be in our Choice The natural Philosophers as Hippocrates Plato Aristotle and Galen were of Opinon that a Man receives the conditions of his Soul at the time of his Formation and not of his Birth The Stars only causing a superficial Alteration in the Babe communicating to to him Heat Cold Moisture Dryness and not his Substance whereon his Life depends as do the four Elements Fire Earth Air Water which not only add to the Composition heat cold moisture dryness but also a substance that unites and preserves these Qualities during the course of Life So that what is of greatest Importance in begetting Children is to endeavour that the Elements from which they are formed should have the Qualities requisite to Wit because that in the same Weight and Measure the Elements enter into the Composition in the same they remain for ever in the Mixture which is not so in the Mutations and Influences of Heaven What these Elements are and after what manner they enter the Woman's Womb to form the Child Galen tells when he teaches us that they are the same which compound all other natural things but that the Earth is concealed in the solid Meats we Eat such as Bread Flesh Fish and Fruits the Water under the Liquors we Drink and for the Air and Fire he says that they are mingled by order of Nature and enter into the Body by way of the Pulse and Respiration Of these four Elements mingled and digested by our Natural Heat are made the two necessary Principles of the Infants Generation which are the Seed and the Menstruous Blood But that whereof we make the greatest Account for the Mark we aim at are the solid Meats that are Eaten For they include within themselves all the four Elements and from them the Seed draws more Corpulence and Quality than from the Water which we drink or the Fire and Air which we breath Wherefore Galen says that the Parents who would beget wise Children should read the three Books he writ Of the Properties of Aliments for there they should find the Meats by which they should effect the same He makes no mention at all of Water nor of the other Elements as matters of small Consequence But he had no Reason for this for Water alters the Body much more than the Air and no less than the solid Meats we use and as to what regards the Generation of the Seed the Water alone is of as great Importance as all the other Elements together The reason of it is as the same Galen says that the Testicles draw from the Veins for their Nourishment the serous portion of Blood and the greatest part of this
Conjectures at random Men of Harmonious Constitutions as we shall hereafter prove have in a degree of Mediocrity a Capacity for all Sciences though they will never excell in any but those that are otherwise are fit but for one only which if they happen to hit upon and Study with Care and Application they may be assured to succeed wonderfully in it but if they fail in their Choice and Application they will make but small Advancements in the other Sciences History confirms to us that each Science was discover'd by Men of ill Constitutions If Adam and all his Children had continued in the Terrestrial Paradice they would have had no occasion for Mechanic Arts nor any of the Sciences now taught in the Schools nor would they as yet have been found out or Practised for inasmuch as they went bare-footed and naked they wanted neither Shooe-makers nor Taylors nor Weavers no more than Carpenters or Masons because there was no Rain in this Earthly Garden of Pleasure nor was the Weather too hot or too cold that they needed any Cover or Retreat Nor was there any Scholastic or Positive Divinity much less was it branched out as it is now because Adam not having Sin'd Jesus Christ was not Born of whose Incarnation Life and Death as also of Original Sin and the Remedy thereby obtained this Science consists There had been less of the Knowledge of the Law because the Just have no occasion for Law and Right all things had been in Common there had been no Mine nor Thine which are the cause of Law Suits and Quarrels Physic had likewise been superfluous Man had then been Immortal and free from the Corruptions and Changes attending Diseases all had eat of the Fruit of the Tree of Life which had that Property daily to repair our Radical Moisture Adam no sooner Sin'd but he began to fall upon the Exercising of all the Arts and Sciences as necessary to support his Misery The first Science that appeared in the Earthly Paradice was Skill of the Law by means of which was form'd a Process with the same Order of Justice as at this day observ'd citing the Party and declaring the Crime he was accused of the Accused answering and the Judge pronouncing Arrest of Judgment or Condemnation The second was Divinity for when God said to the Serpent And she shall bruise thy Head Adam understood as he was a Man whose Understanding was full of infus'd Sciences that to repair his Fault the Divine Word was to take Flesh in the Virgin 's Womb who by her happy Delivery should trample under her Feet the Devil and all his Powers by which Faith and Belief he was Saved After Theology soon came the Military-Art because in the way Adam went to eat the Fruit of Life God had placed a Garison and Fort into which he had put an Armed Cherubim to dispute the Passage Next the Art-Military came also Physic because Adam by Sin became Mortal and Corruptible subject to an infinite number of Dolours and Infirmities All these Arts and Sciences were first exercised there receiving afterwards their due Improvement and Perfection each in the temperate Region best adapted to it by means of Men of Wit and Ability every way qualified to invent them Whereupon I conclude Curious Reader frankly confessing my self to be of evil Constitution and Distemper'd and that you may well be so being Born as I was in an intemperate Region and that the same Thing may happen to us as to those Four Men who seeing a Piece of Blue Cloath swore one that it was Scarlet the other White the third Yellow and the fourth Black not one of them speaking true because each had a particular Vitiation in the Organ of Sight A Table of the CHAPTERS and ARTICLES CHAP. I. WHat Wit is and what Differences of it are ordinarily observed among Men. Page 1 Chap. II. The Differences amongst Men unqualified for Sciences Page 22 Chap. III. The Child who has neither Wit nor Ability requisite to the intended Science cannot prove a great Proficient though he have the best Masters many Books and should labour at it all the Days of his Life Page 31 Chap. IV. Nature only qualifies a Man for Learning Page 47 Chap. V. What Power the Temperament has to make a Man Wise and good Natur'd Page 62 Chap. VI. What Part of the Body ought to be well Temper'd that the Child may be Witty Page 91 Chap. VII That the Vegetative Sensitive and Rational Soul are knowing without being directed by Teachers when they meet with a Temperament agreeable to their Operations Page 101 Chap. VIII From these three Qualities alone Heat Moisture and Driness proceed all the Differences of Wit observ'd among Men. Page 129 Chap. IX Some Doubts and Arguments against the Doctrin of the last Chapter with their Answers Page 155 Chap. X. Each Difference of Wit is appropriated to the Science with which it most particularly agrees removing what is Repugnant or Contrary to it Page 112 Chap. XI That Eloquence and Politeness of Speech are not to be found in Men of great Vnderstanding Page 206 Chap. XII That the Theory of Divinity belongs to the Vnderstanding and Preaching which is the Practic to the Imagination Page 214 Chap. XIII That the Theory of the Laws pertains to the Memory Pleading Causes and Judging them which is the Practic to the Vnderstanding and Governing of a Commonwealth to the Imagination Page 244 Chap. XIV That the Theory of Physic belongs part to the Memory and part to the Vnderstanding and the Practic to the Imagination Page 279 Chap. XV. To what Difference of Wit the Art-Military belongs and by what Marks the Man may be known that has it Page 314 Chap. XVI To what Difference of Ability the Office of a King belongs and what Marks he ought to have that has this kind of Wit Page 367 Chap. XVII In what manner Parents may beget Wise Children and of a Wit fit for Learning Page 397 Article I. By what Marks the Degrees of Heat and Driness are to be discover'd in each Man Page 416 Art II. What Women ought to Marry with what Men to have Children Page 422 Art III. What Considerations to be used to get Boys and not Girls Page 426 Art IV. What is to be observ'd that the Children may prove Witty and Wise Page 443 Art V. Rules to be observ'd to preserve Wit in Chidren after they are Born Page 487 Authors made use of in this WORK ABulensis Alex. Aproh Aquinas Aristotle St. Austin Cajetan Celsus Cicero Democritus Demosthenes Donatus Galen Hippocrates Homer Horace Josephus Juvenal Lyra. Nemesius Persius Pindar Plato Pliny Salust Suetonius Tacitus Vegetius Xenocrates ERRATA PAge 14. line 20. read the being p. 26. l. 10. r. Fetters p. 42. l. 17. r. Master p. 93. l. 19. dele is p. 117. l. 4. r. Delirous p. 152. Margin r. Arts p. 158. l. 5. r. Peripatetics p. 174. l. 5. r. which is p. 179. Margin r. XVth p.
Skill of the Law is another Figure representing the Form of Justice which preserves Human-Society making Man live in Peace and Tranquility Whence 't is easy to perceive that if a Scholar under the Conduct of an able Master cannot form in his memory such another Image and as exact as that laid before his Eyes when he is discoursing to him of it there is no doubt to be made but he has a barren Invention and such as will never be able to conceive or bring forth any thing but Extravagancies and Monsters And so much for the Word Ingenio deriv'd from the Verb Ingenero as much as to say to Engender within himself an entire and true Figure representing to the Life the nature of the Subject intended to be studied Cicero defines Wit after this manner Docility and Memory ordinarily call'd by the same name of Wit wherein he has followed the Opinion of the common People who rest themselves contented if their Children are but Docible to be the easier instructed by another and endu'd with a competent memory to retain and preserve the Figures conceived in the Understanding For which reason Aristotle said That the Ear and the Memory must be join'd to reap any Advantage from the Sciences But to speak truth that Definition is too short not comprehending all the differences of Wit whereas this word Docility only imports Wits that want a Master leaving out a great many others whose Felicity is such that assisted by the subject only without the help of any Body produce a thousand Conceits they never heard spoke of such were those who first found out the Arts. Elsewhere Tully adds Memory to the Definition of Wit of which however Galen says That it has no kind of Invention as much as to say that it is unable of it self to Engender any thing for so much Aristotle teaches us that when 't is in Excellence it impedes the Copiousness of the Understanding as not being prompt to conceive or bring forth but seeming only to keep and preserve the Figures and Species of what the other Powers have conceived as is observ'd of the Learn'd who have excellent Memories that they speak and write nothing but what others have been the Authors of 'T is true if we consider well the term Docility we shall find that Cicero has happily hit on 't for Aristotle says that Prudence Wisdom and the Truth of Sciences are stow'd among natural Things there to be sought after as in their proper Fountain The Natural Philosophers that believe a Proposition because Aristotle spoke it without enquiring any further want Wit because Truth is not in his Mouth that affirms it but in the thing in question crying out with a loud Voice and teaching Man the Being Nature has given him and to what end she was created according to that Does not Wisdom cry out and Prudence does not she make her Voice to be heard He that has sharpness of Understanding and a good Ear to distinguish what Nature teaches and divulges in her Works shall wonderfully improve by the Contemplation of natural things and has no need of a Master to shew him what he may learn well enough from the Brute Beasts and the Plants Go Drone take thy Lesson from the Ant consider her toyl and become wise by her Example see how she without Teacher or Learning lays up Provision in the Summer for the Winter Plato took little notice of this Docility imagining perhaps there were no other Masters to instruct Men than those mounted in Chairs which made him say The Field and the Trees can teach me nothing but the Conversation of Men only in the City Solomon spoke better when not in the least doubting but that the second kind of Docility might really be found he begg'd of God the Ability to Govern his People Give if thou pleasest O God to thy Servant Judgment that he may Rule thy People and distinguish between Good and Evil. By which he ask'd only a clear and refin'd Understanding insomuch that what he obtain'd was more than he demanded to the end that when Doubts occurr'd to him in his Government he might derive from the Nature of the thing the true Judgment he ought to make of it without going to seek it in Books as is evidently seen in the Sentence he pronounced upon the first Difference that arose between the two Women for no doubt it was the Nature of the thing that inform'd him which was the Child's true Mother namely she who could not bear the dividing of it The same kind of Docility and clearness of Understanding was given by Jesus Christ to his Disciples for their understanding the Holy Scriptures after their natural Dullness and Indisposition of mind was withdrawn as it is said He opened their Vnderstandings that they might understand the Scriptures For which reason the Catholick Church as being sensible of what high Importance it is to have all due Qualifications to comprehend the Divine Book forbids all Novices as well as Superannuated Persons to study Theology For we must inviolately observe a Law to exercise in all sorts of Sciences young Men only and not all those without distinction but chiefly those that are Witty banishing thence all the Dotards and those whose Intellects are dull and depraved Plato speaking of Wits that were to learn the Divine Sciences has said the same thing because Spiritual Substances are so remote from Sense and of so pure Matter in themselves that most elevated and nice Wits were to be chosen 't was therefore he declared That they ought not only to make choice of Bold Men that should strike a Terror into their Enemies but also more of those to whom Nature had been liberal in the Gifts requisite to Divinity that is to say those of a sharp and ready Wit By the way reprehending Solon for saying this sort of Science was to be Studied in Old Age. Those that are Masters of such Qualifications proceed in the Studies they are engaged in with very little Labour because their Understanding has nothing to do but to preserve in their memory the Figures and Species that enable them upon occasion to Dispute those natural things at all times suggesting to us such Ideas as we would frame to our selves in Speculation and when they are Supernatural they need only to understand the Species and Figures that have past through their Senses Which occasioned Plato to say That we need not divest Sublime things of their Matter to make them sensible to us for being in their nature most excellent and elevated they are not such as naked Reason is so well able to comprehend So said he that the greatest Wits were required for Divine Studies rather than any other seeing they were above our Reason Whence 't is certain that that so fam'd Maxim of Aristotle That there is nothing in the Vnderstanding but what has past through the Sense has no place in the second sort of Docility but only in the first in
very just and proper because Sleep and Stupidity proceed alike from the same Principles that is to say the great Coldness and exceeding Moisture of the Brain There is another kind of Incapacity in Wit not quite so Stupid as the former because at least they conceive the first Principles and draw Conclusions thence tho' few and not without much pains but the Impression of them remains in their Memories no longer than their Masters are talking to them and making them understand the same by Examples and Methods of Teaching agreeable to their rude and gross Understandings They resemble some Women who being big with Child are delivered but the Child dies as soon as it is born These Mens Brains are full of a Flegmatic Moisture for which cause the Ideas finding nothing Oily or Viscous neither stick nor are pliant so to teach them would be to draw Water with a Sieve A Fool 's Heart and Mind are like a bottomless Vessel pour what Precepts of Wisdom you please in none will remain there There is a third sort of Disability very common among Men of Letters who have some smattering of Wit for they take the first Notions and draw thence their Conclusions with which they overcharge and load their Memory but when they should range every thing in Order commit a Thousand Blunders These may be compar'd to a Woman deliver'd of a Child with the Head in the place of the Feet and the Eyes seated behind the Head There is found so great a Confusion of the Figures in the Memory of this third sort of Insipids that when they would be understood they have no less than an Hundred ways of speaking to Express themselves because they have conceiv'd an Infinity of things altogether undigested and without Order or Connexion of Parts These in the Schools are call'd Confus'd whose Brains are unequal as well in Substance as Temperament in some places compos'd of delicate Parts and in others of gross and ill temper'd and because it is also Various and Ununiform sometimes they speak Witty and Notable things and immediately after fall into a Thousand Impertinences Of these it is said A Fool 's Wisdom in his Brains is like a House in Ruins his Knowledge wants Words to express its self Nay I have observ'd a fourth Defect amongst Men of Letters which is not altogether Incapacity and yet they have not Wit enough for I find they that possess it take Learning retain it firmly in their Memory fix the Forms with the Correspondence they ought to have speaking and acting very well when there is occasion for it but if one sounds them and should ask the Essential Causes of what they know and understand they are easily found they have no bottom and that all their Sufficience was but a Facility to comprehend the Terms and Axioms of the Doctrin they were taught without penetrating why or how it was so Aristotle said of these That there are some Men who Brute-beast-like speak by Natural Instinct and say more than they know or consider after the manner of inanimate Beings who fail not to act very well although they are as insensible of the Effects they produce as the Fire of what it burns and the Cause of this is Nature leads them so that they cannot fail of attaining their End Aristotle might well have compar'd them to some Animals who seem to perform all their Actions with a show of Reason and Design but he supposing these Animals had at least some kind of knowledge of what they did past to Inanimate Agents because in his Opinion these though not wise and wanting Wit yet operated and very well too without being able to distinguish the Effect from the ultimate Cause This difference of Incapacity or if you please of Wit might be fully made out if without offence to any I were permitted to point to them with my Finger for I have both seen and known many such CHAP. III. The Child who has neither Wit nor Ability requisite to the intended Science cannot prove a great Proficient though he have the best Masters many Books and should labour at it all the Days of his Life 'T WAS a happy thought in Cicero in order to accomplish his Son Marcus in that sort of Learning he had made choice of for him that it would be sufficient to send him to an Academy so famous throughout the World as that of Athens to place him under so great a Master as Cratippus one of the most celebrated Philosophers of the Age and in a City which by the vast Concourse of People of all Nations met together must unavoidably furnish him with a multitude of great Examples and novel Accidents that would experimentally instruct him in his designed Studies Yet notwithstanding all the best Methods an indulgent Father could take buying some and Writing other Books for him History informs us that he prov'd a meer Blockhead equally destitute of Eloquence and Philosophy Nature being often even with the Son for her Prodigality to the Father and indeed the great Orator was mistaken in imagining that the Industry of such a Master the best Books the most refin'd Conversation of that famous Town and an unwearied application of Mind together with time sufficient to build his Hopes upon could supply the Defects of a Soul naturally incapable both of Eloquence and Philosophy At length we find he was disappointed which is the less to be wonder'd at being misled by innumerable Instances of the like Rencounters that flatter'd him with the same change in the disposition of his Son Nay he himself acquaints us That Xenocrates had no Genius for the study of Natural and Moral Philosophy for Plato used to call him his Hopeless Scholar yet the indefatigable Diligence of the Tutor and continued Endeavours of the Pupil produc'd an Excellent Philosopher He says also of Cleanthes that he was so dull and stupid that no Master would admit him to his School which shamed and confounded the Youth to such a degree that by an assiduous Application he acquired the Name of a Second Hercules in knowledge Nor were there the least hopes that Demosthenes should ever succeed in Eloquence who as Authors affirm was almost a Man before he could speak yet through his own unwearied Labours and the assistance of good Masters he became the greatest Orator in the World And Tully amongst other things recounts that he had such an Impediment in his Speech that he could not pronounce the Letter R yet by his Address he so happily overcame it that it was impossible to discern his former Defect which gave Birth to the Saying That Humane Capacity for Studies resembles a Game at Tables where if the Dice run cross the Gamester must supply the want of Fortune with his better Play But according to my Principles the Answer is ready to all Cicero's Examples For as I shall prove hereafter a slow Wit in Children promises a happier Progress in their riper Age more than an early
acute Wit as a pregnant Infancy presages a declining Manhood Had Cicero been acquainted with the genuine Signs which discover a Genius in the first Age he would have found that Demosthenes's Stammering and Xenocrates's Dulness were happy Indications of a future Ability For not to rob good Masters of the Reward of their Industry and Fatigue in cultivating rude as well as docile Tempers yet if the Youth has not a pregnant Intellect susceptible of proper Rules and Precepts appropriated to the Art he Studies even the Roman Orator's diligent care of his Son as also all the Prudence of the best of Fathers prove Vain and Fruitless Those that have read Plato will soon be satisfied of the Truth of this Doctrin who tells us That Socrates was the Son as he himself recounts of a Midwife yet that his Mother though of great Experience in her Profession could not deliver a Woman that came to her except she were first with Child so likewise he in imitation of his Mother could not inculcate Learning into his Scholars if their Genius was not adapted to it he knew full well Sciences were in a manner natural to those only that had proper Wits and so it happens as we find by Experience to those that have forgot what they knew formerly who upon receiving the least Hints recollect the whole matter Nor have Masters any more to do with their Scholars as I take it than to open the way to Learning for if they have good Inventions by these alone they may attain great Perfection otherwise they do but plague themselves and their Teachers and will never arrive at what they pretend to For were I my self a Master before I received any Scholar to my School I would sift him narrowly to find out if I could what kind of Genius he had and if I discover'd in him a propensity for Learning I profess I should chearfully receive him for it is a great satisfaction to the Teacher to instruct a Man of Parts otherwise I should advise him to apply himself to some Study fitter for him but if I found he was not in the least capable of any Learning I should address to him in such tender and endearing Words as these Brother there being no likelihood of your ever succeeding in what you have undertaken for God's sake waste no more Time nor lose no more Pains but seek out some other way to live that requires not such Abilities as Learning Experience exactly agrees with this for we see a great many Scholars enter upon the Study of each Science let the Master be good or bad and in the conclusion some attain to great Learning others to indifferent and the rest have done nothing throughout their whole course but lost their Time spent their Money and beat their Brains to no purpose I cannot imagin how this should happen they all having the same Master and using equal care and diligence of their own the Dull too it may be taking more pains than the Sharp Witted The Difficulty yet seems greater when we observe that those who are unapt for one are fit for another Science and the most Ingenious in one sort of Learning proceeding to another make nothing of it Nay I my self can attest the Truth of this for there were three School-fellows of us that were set at the same time to learn Latin one took it very readily the other two could never so much as make a tolerable Oration However all three fell upon Logic and one that could make no hand of Grammar Eagle-like penetrated into that Art whereas the other two could not advance the least step therein during the whole Course But then again all three passing to the Study of Astronomy a thing very observable he that could neither learn Latin nor Logic in a few days space understood Astronomy better than the Master that taught him of which the other two could understand nothing Whereat being a little surpriz'd I forthwith began to Reason and play the Philosopher and at length found that each Science required a particular and proper Genius which being diverted from that was insignificant in any other Admitting this to be true as it is of which we shall by and by give Proof whoever should at this time of day go into any of our Colleges to found and examin their Abilities how many would he move from one Science to another and how many would he turn out of Doors for Dunces and Blockheads and how many would he put in their places whose narrow Fortunes have condemn'd them to some Mechanic Trade that nevertheless are by Nature better qualified for Learning But seeing this is not to be done nor remedied we shall even leave it as we found it 'T is not to be denied but that as I have said some Wits that are dispos'd for one are not so fit for another Science And for that very reason it is convenient before the Child be sent to School to discover his Inclination and the tendency of his Parts to find out what Study is most agreeable to his Capacity so to order Matters that he wholly apply himself to that But it is requisite also to recollect that what I have said upon this occasion is not sufficient to produce a Learned Man but we must consider other Qualifications no less necessary than a natural Disposition Therefore Hippocrates said That Wit in Man may hold some proportion with the Earth and the Seed sown in it for though the Soil of it self prove fertile and fat nevertheless it must be manured and care taken what sort of Seed is most natural to it for all Land is not alike fit for all Grain without distinction some bearing better Wheat than Barley other better Barley than Wheat and of that very Grain some is observ'd to bring forth brighter and plumper not in the least admitting any other Nor is this all that a good Husband-man is to do for after he has till'd the Ground in due Season he waits the proper Seed-time which is not to be expected at all Parts of the Year and the Corn being grown he clears it of the Weeds that it may multiply and thrive to produce the expected Fruit. So likewise it is requisite the Science most natural to the Man being known that he should be set to the Study of it in his Childhood because Aristotle says that is the fittest time to learn Besides that the Life of Man is short but Arts tedious and toilsom wherefore it is necessary there be time enough allotted to learn them and to exercise them by that means to bring advantage to the Commonwealth The Memory of Children says Aristotle resembles a blank Paper without an Image which being but young and tender is capable of any Impression not like that of grown Men which being stuffed with a multitude of Objects they have seen in the long course of their Life is not so capable of receiving new ones For this very
we see all that have Excelled whether it be in the Study of Philosophy or Government or the Poets or in any other Art whatsoever have been Melancholy Never to see Women but to fly wholly their Company how much that over-cools the Body and what new Changes are incident to Persons becoming Chast Galen makes appear by abundance of Observations he had made He recounts amongst others what happened to a Friend of his a Widdower who immediately lost his Stomach to that degree as he could only digest the Yolk of an Egg and if by constraint he Eat as formerly he strait Vomited and was withal Lumpish and Dull upon which Galen's advice to him was to Marry again if he 'd recover his Health and thereupon said he He was immediately freed from all his Complaints as soon as he returned to his old way of Living The same Physician tells of some Choristers who finding by Experience the near Correspondence between the Testicles and the Throat and that to sport with Women endangers the spoiling of the Voice they were Chast by constraint that they might not lose the good Cheer and the Pay which were the returns of their Musick And Galen says further That their Privy Parts were so small so cold and so lank as they look'd like Old Men. But on the contrary the Wanton had large Genitals because they kept them often in use the Seminal Vessels being large and distended from which issued abundance of Spirits and Natural Heat for as Plato observ'd long since It is Exercise makes the Parts of the Body more able as they are Impaired by not Exerting them as they are directed As it is certain that in each Act of Venery the Parts of Generation are more and more provoked remaining more able and disposed to repeat the Act again but as often as a Man checks his Inclination he becomes colder and less able for Generation Whence I collect that a Man who by this means is become Continent and Chast soon obtains an habitual Frigidity by which he Performs with the same Aversion and Reluctance as an Old Man or one that is born Impotent or an Eunuch Those then that desire to be Chast and not to be provoked by the Flesh being conscious of their Infirmity may serve themselves of cold Medicines and of such things as by Impairing and Consuming the Seed render them frigid and in this Sense this Passage is to be understood Happy are they that are made Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven All that ever we have said and confirmed in relation to Chastity and Incontinence is no less true of other Virtues and Vices respectively for each has his particular Temperament of Heat and Cold and is to be understood more or less of the Constitution of each Part of the Body and of the greater or lesser degrees of these two Qualities I have declared for Heat and Cold because there is neither Virtue nor Vice rooted in Moisture nor in Driness for according to Aristotle's Opinion these two Qualities are purely Passive as Heat and Cold are Active Whereupon he asserted That our Natural Inclinations are more from Heat and Cold than from any thing else in our Bodies and in this he conspires with the Holy Scripture which says I would rather thou wert Cold or Hot c. The reason of which is because there is no Man found of so exact a Constitution as is required to be the Foundation of Virtue Whereupon Sacred Writ and Philosophy chose Heat and Cold because there are no other Qualities wherein to place the Virtues although this be not without something in Counterballance to them for suppose there are abundance of Virtues correspondent to Cold and Heat these Qualities fail no less at all times to be the source of abundance of Vices by which means it is a great Miracle if there be a Man found so Lewd who has not some Virtues natural to him or so Virtuous that has not some Vices But the Quality observed to be best for the Rational Soul is the cold Constitution of Body This is easily prov'd if we run through the several Stages of Man's Life Infancy Youth Manhood Middle-Age and Old-Age for we find that because each Age respectively has its particular Temperament accordingly at one time a Man is Vitious at another Virtuous in one he is Indiscreet or Perverse and in the other Wise and better Advis'd Infancy is nothing else but a hot and moist Temperament in which Plato said the Rational Soul was as it were plunged and stifled not being able freely to employ the Understanding Will or Affections till in length of Time it passes to another Age and has gain'd a new Temperament The Virtues of Infancy are very many and the Vices but very few Children says Plato admire from what Principles the Sciences arise In the next Place they are Docile Tractable Gentle and Easy to receive the Impression of all Kinds of Virtues In the third Place they are Bashful and full of Fear which according to Plato is the Foundation of Temperance In the fourth place they are Credulous and Easy to be led they are Charitable Frank Chast Humble Innocent and Undesigning To which Virtues Jesus Christ had regard when he said to his Disciples Except you become as little Children you shall not Enter into the Kingdom of Heaven We know not of what Age the Child was whom God proposed for our Imitation but you must know Hippocrates divided Infancy into three or four Stations and because Children from the First to the Fourteenth Year always admit abundance of Humours and a variety of Temperament so likewise they are subject to divers Diseases and their Souls at the same time not without a great many different Virtues and Vices In consideration of which Plato began to Instruct a Child from the very First Year although he could not then Speak directing his Nurse how to distinguish by his Laughing his Tears and even his Silence his Virtues and Vices and how she should Correct them Holy Writ declared that Saul had the Virtues of this Age when he was chosen King He was a Child of a Year Old when he began to Reign Whence it appears that God made the same Division as Hippocrates observing the Virtues of Infancy by the Years Youth which is the Second Age of Man is reckon'd from the Fourteenth to the Five and Twentieth Year this Age according to the Opinion of Physicians is neither Hot nor Cold nor Moist nor Dry but Temperate and in a Mediocrity of all the Qualities the Parts of the Body in this Temperament are such as the Soul requires for all sorts of Virtues and especially for Wisdom For after this manner speaks Hippocrates if the great Moisture of the Water and the extream Driness of the Fire happen to be equally Temper'd in the Body the Man will be very Wise and endued with an Excellent Memory The Virtues we have allotted to Infancy seem to be acts proceeding from meer
certain Plato willing to teach us how it came to pass that one man had a great Memory and another but a little one and how one remembred what was past clearly and distinctly and the other confusedly found two Examples very pertinent by supposing a thing that is not Let us feign said he to serve us for an Instance that Nature had put into mens Souls a piece of Wax in one greater in the other less in one purer and finer Wax and in the other more course and drossy in one harder and difficulter to penetrate and the other plianter softer and more ductile and that the Sight Hearing and other Senses were imprinted with a Seal being no other than the Figure of what they had receiv'd and reported After this rate those who had a great deal of Wax would have a large Memory because they had a great Field to sow it in Those who had but a little Wax would have a small Memory for the same Reason Those who had the Wax foul unpurged and drossy would form confused and ill-mark'd Ideas Those who had the hard would have trouble to learn by Heart because that kind of Wax difficultly receives the Figures They who have soft and tender will have a great Memory will easily learn and retain by Heart all they know After all this it is certain that Plato did not in good earnest believe that when Nature formed us she put in our Souls any such pieces of Wax nor that man's Memory was made of any such matter but it was only an Instance of a thing feigned and accommodated to the rudeness of our Capacity And not content with this Example he sought out another affording no less means to understand what he meant which is of the Writer and the Paper for as the Writer sets down in Paper those things he would not forget and revises them after he has put them in Writing in the same manner it must be understood that the Imagination imprints in the Memory the Figures of things which the Senses and the Understanding have been acquainted with as well as those others which she her self invents and when it would recollect them Aristotle has said it returns to review and revolve Plato made use of this Comparison when he declared that in Apprehension of the failing of his Memory in his Old Age he was diligent in substituting another of Paper which was his Books that he might not lose his Labour but upon each Review it might a-new be represented to him the Imagination does no more as often as it imprints in the Memory and reads it over again whenever it is to recollect it self Aristotle was the first that broach'd this Opinion and Galen the next who spoke after this manner For the Part of the Soul that Imagins which ever it is it seems to be the very same that Remembers And this appears plainly in that the things which we Imagin with much intention of mind sink deeper into the Memory and those of which we think but slightly are soon forgot And as the Writer when he has writ a fair Letter reads it easily and without mistake even so it fairs with the Imagination for if it stamp them with force the Figures remain well imprinted and mark'd in the Brain otherwise they are hard to be distinguished The same also befalls old Writings of which part remains sound and fresh and part worn out by Time which cannot well be read unless the Defects are supplied by Guess The Imagination precisely takes the same Course when some Figures are effaced in the Memory and others retain'd Whence sprang Aristotle's Error who for no other reason believ'd that Remembrance was a different Power from Memory Besides which he said that those who have a great Remembrance have a good Understanding which is equally false because the Imagination whence the Remembrance proceeds is contrary to the Understanding For to fix things in the Memory and to remember them after they are known is an Act of the Imagination even as Writing any thing and reading it afterwards is an Act of the Writer and not of the Paper According to which the Memory is a Passive and not an Active Power as the Blank-Paper is no more than a Capacity for one to Write on The fourth Doubt may be thus solv'd That it imports nothing to a Man's Wit whether the Flesh be hard or delicate and soft if the Brain enjoy not also the same quality for that we observe very often possesses a Temperament distinct from that of all other Parts of the Body Nay even when the Flesh and the Brain accord in being both alike tender and soft it is a bad Indication for the Understanding and no less for the Imagination Be it as it will if we consider the Flesh of Women and Children we shall find that it is softer and more tender than Men's yet nevertheless Men are for the most part of a better Wit than Women The Natural Reason of which is That the Humours that make the Flesh soft are Phlegm and Blood because both the one and the other are moist as we have already noted and of these Humours Galen has pronounced that they make Men silly and blockish On the contrary the Humours which harden the Flesh are Choler and Melancholy whence proceed the Wisdom and Knowledge of Men. So that to have soft and delicate Flesh is a worse sign than to have dry and hard And accordingly among Men that are of an equal Temperament throughout the whole Body it is very easie to guess at the Difference of their Wit from the softness or hardness of the Flesh for if it be hard and rough it presages a good Understanding or a good Invention but if soft and delicate it denotes the contrary which is a good Memory with little Understanding and less Invention To discover then if the Brain correspond with the Flesh the Hair ought to be consider'd for if that be thick black harsh and curled it is a sign of a good Invention or a good Understanding but if lank and soft it is an Indication of a good Memory and nothing more But he that would know and distinguish whether it be Understanding or Imagination which is betoken'd when the Hair is such as we mentioned must consider how the Youth behaves himself in Laughing for that Passion strongly discovers if the Imagination be good or bad What the cause of Laughter is many Philosophers have pretended to know but not one has made it Intelligible they only all agree in this that the Blood is the Humour that provokes a Man to Laugh though none of them have told us what are the particular Qualities of this Humour that make a Man subject to Laughter In a Phrensy the Laughing Fits are securer and the crying Fits more desperate for the first is made by means of the Blood which a very benign Humour but the other is no less than an effect of deep Melancholy
it in three or four Sciences and the same Reasons may serve as well for the rest In the List of Sciences which we have affirm'd belong to the Memory we have mentioned the Latin-Togue and the rest spoke by all Nations in the World which no considering Man can deny because the Tongues were only an Invention of Men to be able to communicate together and make known their Meaning to one another without any other great Mystery in it or other Natural Principles save those I have mentioned when the first Inventers assembling together framed Words according to their Phancy as Aristotle observed and jointly agreed about the Signification of each From thence came so great a number of Words and so many different Modes of Speech with so few Rules and as little Reason that without a good Memory it would not be possible either to comprehend or retain them by any other Faculty How improper the Imagination and the Understanding are to learn the Languages and the different Modes of Speech Infancy plainly proves in which though it be an Age wherein the Child is least provided with these two Faculties nevertheless as Aristotle says he learns any Language what-ever better than Adult Men though these be much more Rational and without being taught by him Experience shews us it For we see if a Biscayner of Thirty or Forty Years of Age comes to live at Castile he will never learn the Language of the Country but if he be very Young in Two or Three Years he passes for a Native of Toledo The same happens in the Latin and all other Tongues because they are all of the same Nature If then it be true that in the Age wherein the Memory flourishes and the Understanding and Imagination are low the Tongues are sooner learned than when the Memory is in the Decline and the Understanding in its full Vigor it is certain they are acquired by means of the Memory and not at all by any other Faculty Aristotle said that the Tongues were not to be learn'd by Reason as not depending upon Discourse and that therefore it was necessary to hear from another the Words and their Meaning and to bear them in mind In pursuance of which he proves That if a Man be born Deaf he would infallibly be Dumb because he can't hear from another the sound of the Words nor the meaning given them by their first Inventers That the Tongues are no other than an effect of the Humor and Caprice of Men may be clearly inferred from this that the Sciences may be equally taught in all Languages and that in each may be spoke and made known what any one of them would say Accordingly there are no grave Authors to be found who have sought for a Foreign Tongue to make their Thoughts understood but the Grecians have Writ in Greek the Romans in Latin the Jews in Hebrew the Moors in Arabic and so do I in Spanish because I understand that Language better than any other The Romans as being Lords of the World finding it was expedient to have a common Language by means of which all Nations might Communicate together and themselves enabled to understand such as came to sue for Justice of them and to treat of Matters relating to the Public Affairs of every Province appointed Schools to be Erected in all Parts of their Empire for teaching the Latin-Tongue which by these means has flourished as the Universal Tongue even to this Day As for School Divinity it is certain that it refers to the Understanding because the Operations of this Faculty are to Distinguish to Infer to Reason to Judge and to Chuse and that nothing is done in this Science but to raise Doubts from Inconveniences to Answer with Distinction to infer against the Answer what may be collected from good Consequences and so to reply again till the Understanding be at ease and rest satisfied But the best Proof that can be made of this Subject is to let you understand how difficultly the Latin Tongue and School Divinity meet in one Person and how it rarely happens that a Man be at the same time a good Latinist and profound School-Divine At which Effect some more Curious being surprized in taking notice of it have searched whence it might proceed and have been of Opinion that School-Divinity being Writ in a harsh and barbarous Language and the Ears of good Latinists being inured to the pure and elegant Stile of Cicero they could not settle to nor take pleasure in that Science It would be well for these Gentlemen that understand Latin so well that this were the true cause for then by constraint and otherwise accustoming their Ears they might at length find out a Remedy for this Inconvenience but to be plain with them the Defect is not so much in their Ears as in their Capacities They that are good Latinists have most assuredly an Excellent Memory for without that they could never prove so expert in a Language which is none of their own and because a great and happy Memory is as it were contrary to a great and elevated Understanding in the same Subject one debases and depresses the other From whence it comes that he who has not so exquisite and lofty an Understanding the Faculty to which belongs to Distinguish to Conclude to Discourse to Judge and to Chuse gains no great ground nor makes any considerable Progress in School Divinity Whoever is not satisfied with this Reason let him read St. Thomas Scotus Durandus and Cajetan who are the Leading Men in that Faculty and Profession and he will find great Subtilties in their Works but writ and deliver'd in very course Church Latin For which there appears no other reason but that these great Authors having in their Youth very mean Memories prov'd not more Excellent in the Latin Tongue but applying themselves to Logic Metaphysics and School-Divinity they mounted up to the highest Degree of the Sciences we admire because they were endued with a great Understanding At least I can testify this of a School-Divine well known to many more that were acquainted and conversed with him who was a Miracle in that Science and yet not only could not reach the Elegances nor the round Periods of Cicero but when he read in the Chair his Scholars took notice that his Latin was but very base and mean insomuch that they advised him as those that were unacquainted with our Doctrin that he should secretly borrow a few hours from the Study of School-Divinity and employ them in reading Cicero And taking this as the Advice of good Friends he not only endeavoured in private but publickly to remedy it for after having treated of the Matter of the Trinity and how the Divine Word was made Flesh he entred the Form amongst the rest to improve his Latin and what was very remarkable that during the long time he did thus he not only learn'd not any thing new but had almost forgot all
for Curing as that I look for and which disposes a Man to be a Wizard Superstitious a Magician Enchanter Chiromancer addicted to Judiciary Astrology and to Divine because in effect the Diseases of Men are so occult and have their Motions so secret that there is almost daily Occasion to Divine what is in them This Difference of Imagination is hard to be found in Spain for as we have already proved the Inhabitants of that Country want Memory and Imagination but are provided with a good Understanding Neither is the Imagination of those that live in the Northern Parts more available in Physic because it is very slow and remiss it is good only to make Clocks Paintings Bodkins and other Toys impertinent to the use of Man Egypt alone is the Country that produces in its Inhabitants this Difference of Imagination and of this all the Historians are full how the Egyptians are great Wizards and how ready to supply all Wants and to find out and minister Remedies for all Necessities Josephus therefore to exaggerate the Wisdom of Solomon hath these Words The Skill and Cunning which Solomon received from God was so great that he surpass'd all his Predecessors and even the Egyptians who were esteemed the Wisest of all Plato said also That the Egyptians excelled all Men in the World in the Skill how to get their Living which is a Craft that belongs to the Imagination And that this is true appears plainly in that all the Sciences which pertain to the Imagination were found out in Egypt such as are the Mathematics Judicial-Astrology Arithmetic Perspective and the like But the most powerful Argument in my Opinion to this Purpose is that when Francis de Valois King of France was seized with a very tedious Sickness and that the Physicians of his House and Court could give him no Ease he said every time the Fever returned that it was not possible for any Christian Physician to Cure him and that he expected from them no Relief Insomuch that one time being Impatient to find himself every day worse with his Fever he ordered a Courrier to be dispatch'd to Spain to desire the Emperor Charles the Fifth to send him a Jew Doctor the best of all his Court from whom he hoped to receive a Remedy for his Distemper if there were any in the Art There was no little Laughing in Spain at this Request and all concluded that it was no other than the Conceit of a Man in a Fever But for all this the Emperor was not wanting to give Order that such a Physician as was required should be sought after if he were to be found though he were out of the Kingdom and when none could be met withal they sent him a Physician newly turned Christian hoping thereby to comply with the King's Curiosity But the Physician being arrived in France and brought to the King's Presence there past between them a most agreeable Dialogue wherein was discover'd that the Physician was a Christian and therefore the King would take no Physic at his Hands The King from the Opinion he had conceived of the Physician 's being a Jew asked him by way of passing the time if he was not as yet weary of expecting the Messiah promised in the Law The Physician answered Sir I expect not the Messiah promised in the Judaic-Law You are the wiser for that replied the King for the Signs set down in the Scripture to know his Coming are already accomplished a great while ago The number of days rejoined the Physician we Christians keep well the Account of for there are now a Thousand five hundred fourty and two Years determined since he came he abode in the World Thirty three Years at the end of which he died on the Cross and rose again the third Day after which he ascended into Heaven where he now Reigns Why saith the King you are a Christian Yes Sir by the Grace of God answered the Physician Then said the King be gone to your own Country in good time for I have Christian Physicians enough in my own Court and House I took you to be a Jew who in my Opinion are those that have a Natural Ability for Cures And so he took leave of him without allowing him to feel his Pulse or examine his Urine or mingle the least word concerning his Distemper And forthwith sent to Constantinople for a Jew who recovered him only with Asses-Milk This Conceit of King Francis as I take it was most reasonable and I conceive it so to be because I have already proved that in the great distempered Heats of the Brain the Imagination makes such Discoveries as no Man knows any thing of in Health And because it may not seem that I have spoken in Jest and without any ground in Nature you are to know that the Variety of Men as well in Make of Body as in Wit and other Conditions of the Soul arise from their inhabiting Countries of different Temperaments from drinking divers Waters and not making use of one kind of Diet. And therefore Plato said That Men differ from others in Make and Manners from the Changes of Winds and Heats or the Diversity of Waters or Fruits of the Earth all which tend to produce great difference as well in the Dispositions as Bodies of Men. If I prove then that the People of Israel after living many Years in Egypt at their going from thence eat and drank such Fruits and Waters as are proper to make this difference of Imagination I shall confirm and justify the Conceit of the King of France and by the by discover what Wits we are to chuse in Spain to make Physicians of As to the first point you are to know that Abraham demanding some Signs to know whether he or his Children should possess the Land of Promise the Text says that as he slept God answered him in this manner Of a surety know that thy Seed shall be a Stranger in the Land that is not theirs and shall serve them and they shall afflict them Four hundred Years and also that Nation whom they serve I will Judge and afterwards shall they come out with great Substance Which Prophecy was fulfilled though God for certain respects added Thirty Years more as Sacred Writ declares Now the sojourning of the Children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was Four hundred and thirty Years and it came to pass at the end of the Four hundred and thirty Years even the same day it came to pass that all the Host of the Lord went out from the Land of Egypt But though the Text says manifestly that the Children of Israel were in Egypt Four hundred and thirty Years there is a Gloss which makes it appear that this number of Years was the whole time that the Children of Israel were in Pilgrimage till they came to their own Country but in Egypt their stay was but Two hundred and ten Years which Gloss agrees not well with
St. Stephen the Proto-Martyr in the Discourse he had with the Jews that the Children of Israel abode Four hundred and thirty Years in the Egyptian Bondage And though the Abode of Two hundred and ten Years were sufficient to tincture the Children of Israel with the Qualities of Egypt yet the time they lived Abroad was not lost in what related to their Wit inasmuch as those that live under the Yoke of Servitude in Pressures in Afflictions and in a strange Land contract a great deal of Adust Choler in being barred Liberty of Speech and of Revenging their Injuries and the same Humour being Adust is the Instrument of Craft of Cunning and of Malice As we see by Experience that there are no Manners or Conditions worse than those of Slaves whose Imagination is ever busied in contriving to do some Damage to their Master and free themselves from Slavery Moreover the Country through which the Israelites marched was not not much alienated nor far remote from Egypt no more than from its Qualities for with regard to its Misery and Barrenness God promised Abraham that he would give him another more Rich and Fruitful Now it is a thing verified as well in good Natural Philosophy as Experience that barren and poor Countries which bear neither Grain nor Fruit in abundance produce Men of very sharp Wit and on the contrary Fat and Fertile Lands produce Men that are big Limb'd Stout and Robust of Body but slow of Wit Touching Greece Historians never make an end of telling us That it is a Country proper to produce Men of great Abilities and Galen particularly says That it was a Wonder to see a Blockhead born at Athens and note that this was the poorest and barrennest Land of all Greece So that from thence may be gathered that at least some Qualities of Egypt and the other Provinces through which the Children of Israel past gave them a very sharp Wit But you are to know how the Temperament of Egypt produced this Difference of Imagination Which is very clear considering that in this Country the Sun is very burning for which Reason the Inhabitants Brains are boiling and have much Adust Choler which is the Instrument of Craft and Cunning This made Aristotle enquire Whence comes it that the Negroes of Aethiopia and the Native Egyptians are splay Footed curl Pated and flat Nosed To which Problem he Answers That the extream Heat of the Country burns the Substance of these Parts and shrievels them like Leather before the Fire from the same Reason their Hair curls in Rings and frizels Now that such as inhabit hot Countries are Wiser than those that dwell in cold we have already proved from the Opinion of Aristotle who ask'd Why Men born in Hot Countries are Wiser than those Born in Cold But neither did he know well how to Answer this Problem nor to distinguish of Wisdom for as we have elsewhere proved there are two kinds of Wisdom in Man one of which Plato speaks That Knowledge which is Void of Honesty ought rather to be called Craft than Wisdom another that is attended with Honesty and Simplicity without Double-dealing or Tricks and this more properly is to be called Wisdom because it goes always on the side of Justice and Honesty Those that inhabit very hot Countries are Wise in the first kind of Wisdom and such are the Egyptians Now let us see when the Children of Israel came out of Egypt and were in the Desart what kind of Water they drank and of what Temperament the Air was where they Travelled that we may know whether on this Occasion the Wit that issued with them out of Bondage was impaired or more confirmed in them Fourty Years says the Text God sustained his People with Manna a Meat as delicate and savory as ever Men eat in the World to such a degree as Moses seeing the delicacy and goodness thereof charged his Brother Aaron to fill a Pot with it and lay it up in the Ark of the Covenant to the end the Children of this People being setled in the Land of Promise should see the Bread with which God had fed their Fathers in their passing through the Desart and how ill Returns they made for such a Regale And that we who never saw this Meat may know what it was it will not be amiss to give a Description of the Natural Manna that by making allowance for the greater Delicacy we may entirely comprehend what was the goodness of the Miraculous Manna The material Cause then of which Manna is made is a very delicate Vapor raised by the force of the Sun's Heat from the Earth which being in the height of the Region of the Air is digested and brought to Perfection and by the Cold of the approaching Night condenses and being congealed falls upon Trees and Stones from whence it is gathered and preserved in certain Vessels to eat 'T is called Dewy and Airy Honey because of the semblance it has with Dew and its being formed of Air its Colour is white its Taste sweet as Honey and its Form like that of Coriander which are the Marks which Sacred Writ gave also of the Manna eat by the Children of Israel so that there wants not Reason to suspect that they both held the same Nature And if that which God made was of a more delicate Substance so much the better we shall confirm our Opinion But I was ever of Opinion that God accommodated himself to Natural Means when he would work with them what he meant and where Nature was wanting his Omnipotence supplied This I say because in giving the People Manna to eat in the Desart besides what God would signifie by it to my thinking was founded in the Disposition of the Earth which to this very day produces the best Manna in the World therefore Galen said That in Mount-Libanus which is not far distant from this Place it is produced in a great quantity and of the greatest Excellence even to that degree that the Country Labourers are wont to sing in their Pastimes that Jupiter rained down Honey upon their Land And though it be true that God miraculously created that Manna in the Wilderness in such a Quantity at such an Hour and such set Days it might nevertheless partake of the same Nature with our Manna in like manner as the Water which Moses made spring out of the Rock and the Fire that Eliah made come down from Heaven at his Word were natural Things though Miraculously derived The Manna described to us in Scripture was like a Dew It was like Coriander-seed white and the Taste of it like Wafers made with Honey all which Properties meet in Natural Manna The Temperament thereof as Physicians say is Hot and consisting of subtile and very delicate Parts as also was the Manna eat by the Israelites Accordingly they murmured at its Deliciousness Our Soul said they loaths this light Food and the Philosophy of this was
that it grew into Nature for in tract of time all the Noble Children that were Born were Born with Pointed Heads so that the Art and Diligence of the Midwives was at an end But when they left Nature at liberty without restraint any longer by Art by little and little she received the same Figure she had before The same might have befallen the Children of Israel for say that the Land of Egypt the Manna the delicate Waters and their Affliction stamped in their Seed those Dispositions of Wit yet these Reasons once ceasing and others quite contrary taking Place it is certain that the Qualities of the Manna would wear out by degrees and would acquire others very different and more conformable to the Country they inhabited to the Meats they fed on to the Waters they drank and to the Air they breathed This Doubt in Natural Philosophy holds little difficulty for there are some Accidents to be found that are introduced in a moment and afterward indure for ever in the subject without possibility of Corrupting Others there are that are as long wearing out as they take in Engendring sometimes more sometimes less in proportion to the Activity of the Agent and the Disposition of the Patient For Instance of the First you are to know that from a great Fear a certain Man was possessed with he remained so disfigured and pale that he had all the Appearances of one Dead nor was this all his Paleness did not only stick to him all his Life long but was transmitted also to the Children he had without any Means found to remove it Conformably to this it might well be that in the Four hundred and thirty Years the Israelites were in Egypt and the Fourty in the Desart and the Sixty in the Babylonish Captity there needed more than Three thousand Years for the Seed of Abraham to lose utterly the Dispositions for Wit which the Manna had imprinted since that to remove an evil Colour which a Fright raised in a moment more than a Hundred Years were requisite But to pierce to the Root of the Truth of this Doctrin I must resolve two Doubts incident to the purpose and as yet not cleared The first is Whence it comes that Meats how much the more delicate and savory they are as Hens and Partridges so much the sooner the Stomach does Nauseate and Abhor them And that on the contrary we see a Man eat Beef all the Year round without the least Distast whereas if he eat Hens three or four days together on the fifth he can hardly endure the Smell of them without his Stomach rising against them The second Doubt is Why Wheaten Bread and Mutton not being of Substance so good nor savory as Hen or Partridge yet the Stomach never loaths them though we eat them all our Life long But wanting Bread we cannot eat other Meats or if we do they lose their Relish He that Skills how to resolve these two Doubts will easily comprehend why the Descendents of the Israelites have not yet lost the Dispositions nor the Qualities introduced by the Manna into their Seed and why the Subtilty and Sharpness of Wit of which they were possessed cannot be so soon Extinguished Two very certain and true Principles there are in Natural Philosophy on which the Answer and Resolution of these Doubts depends The first is That all the governing Powers in Man are naked divested of the Conditions and Qualities that are vested in their Objects to the end they may know and judge of all their Differences The Eyes hold this Property which being to receive all Figures and Colours have need to be totally divested thereof for if they were Yellow as in such as have the Jaundice all things they see would appear to them of that Colour So the Tongue which is the Instrument of Taste ought to be void of all Savour and if the same be Sweet or Bitter we see by Experience that all we Eat or Drink has the same Taste It is the very same in Hearing Smelling and Touching The other Principle is that all Created Beings in the World are naturally Adapted to their own Preservation labouring to Endure for ever and that that Being which they have received from God and Nature may never have end though afterwards they are to possess a better Nature By this Principle all Natural Things which are provided with Knowledge and Sense abhor whatever changes and corrupts their Natural Composition The Stomach is naked and divested of the Substance and Qualities of all the Meats in the World as the Eye of Colours and Figures and when we Eat oft though the Stomach overcome it yet the Meat turns against the Stomach because the same is of a contrary Principle and alters and corrupts its Temperament and Substance for there is no Agent so powerful that suffers not in Acting Meats very delicate and savory exceedingly alter the Stomach First because it receives and dissolves them with so great Greediness and Relish Secondly as being of so subtile Parts and without Excrements they pierce into the Substance of the Stomach from which they cannot part again The Stomach feeling that this Meat alters its Nature and takes away that Correspondence it has with other Meats begins to loath it and if it be forced to feed on it several Sawses and Seasonings are prepared to Cheat it All this the Manna had from the beginning for though it was a Meat so delicate and savory in the end the Children of Israel nauseated it wherefore they said Our Soul loaths that slight Meat A Complaint unworthy a People so highly favoured by God who had provided a Remedy for this in making the Manna have those Tastes and Relishes which best agreed with them that it might go down the better Thou gavest them Bread from Heaven which had in it all sorts of Pleasantness For which cause many among them fed thereon with a good Appetite for they had Bones Nerves and Flesh so Assimilated with the Manna and its Qualities that by reason of the great Resemblance they longed for nothing else 'T is the same in Wheaten Bread and Mutton of which we ordinarily eat Gross Meats and of good Substance as Beef are full of Excrements and the Stomach receives them not with such desire as those that are delicate and savory and so they take more time to be Assimilated Hence it follows That to Corrupt the Alteration which the Manna made in a day there will be need of a whole month of contrary Meats and after this Account to extinguish the Qualities that Manna had introduced in the Seed in the space of Fourty Years there needs Four thousand Years and more But if you think not let us suppose that as God call'd out of Egypt the Twelve Tribes of Israel he had drawn Twelve Blacks and as many She-Negroes from the farthest part of Ethiopia and had brought them into Spain how many Years would it have taken to have made
Substance and to renew another in its place seeing he said to them Behold I have given unto you every Herb bearing Seed which is upon the Face of the Earth and every Tree in which is the Fruit of a Tree yielding Seed to you it shall be for Meat For if God had given them a Liver and Stomach Cold and of little Heat it is certain they would not have been able to digest Meats nor to preserve themselves nine hundred and thirty years alive in the World He fortified also his Heart and gave him an Irascible Faculty becoming such a King and a Master as was to govern all the World And said Subdue the Earth and have Dominion over the Fish of the Sea and over the Foul of the Air and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth But if he had not given him abundance of heat he would neither have had Spirit nor Authority to take upon him Empire Command Glory Majesty and Honour What disadvantage it is to a Prince to have the Irascible Power weak cannot enough be express'd seeing through this alone he comes to be neither feared nor obeyed nor respected by his Subjects Having thus fortified the Irascible and Concupiscible Powers in giving to the Members we have mentioned so great a Heat he proceeded to the Rational Faculty and made a Brain Cold and Moist to such a Point and of so delicate a Substance by which means the Soul might Reason and Discourse and make use of its infused Knowledge For we have said and prov'd before when God had a design to give Men any supernatural Knowledge he first prepar'd the Wit and made them Capable with the Natural Dispositions which he planted with his own Hand to receive this Knowledge And therefore Holy Writ says That he gave them a Heart to Conceive and replenished them with the Discipline of Vnderstanding The Irascible and Concupiscible Faculty being so very powerful because of the great Heat and the Rational so weak and of such small resistance God armed them with a supernatural Faculty which the Divines call Original Righteousness to repress the Motions of the Inferiour Part that the rational Part might remain Superiour and the Man inclined to Virtue But when our first Parents sinned they lost this quality and the Irascible and Concupiscible Faculty held their own and were Superiour to Reason through the Prevalence of the three Members we spoke of and the Man Prone to Evil even from his Youth Adam was Created in the Age of Manhood which according to Physitians is the most Temperate of all and from that Age was inclined to Evil except the small time he stay'd in Innocence by means of Original Righteousness From this Doctrin we may gather in good Natural Philosophy that if a Man is to do an Act of Virtue with Reluctance of the Flesh it is impossible for him to practise the same without the Assistance of Grace because the qualities by which the Inferiour Faculty operates are of greater Efficacy I said with Reluctance of the Flesh in as much as there are found many Virtues in Man which proceed from the Irascible and Concupiscible Faculties being low as is Chastity in a Man that is Cold but this is an Impotence in Working rather than a Virtue For which reason had the Catholic Church never taught us that we are not able to overcome our Inclinations but by the special Assistance of God Natural Philosophy would teach us no less this Truth That Grace fortifies our Will What Galen would have said was that the Temperate Man excels in Virtue others who have not this good Temperament because the same is less solicited by the Inferiour Part. The fifth Property of those who enjoy this good Temperament is to be very Long-liv'd as being very powerful to resist the Causes and Occasions of Diseases And this is what the Royal Prophet meant when he said The days of our years are threescore and ten and if by reason of Strength they be fourscore years yet is their Strength Labour and Sorrow He calls those Strong who are of this Temperament because they resist better than others the Occasions of diminishing Life The last Mark is given by Galen saying That they are very Wise of great Memory for the past of great Imagination to guess at the future and of great Understanding to discover the truth in all things They are neither malicious crafty nor Cavillers for these spring from a Vicious Temperament Such a Wit as this is assuredly was not framed by Nature to learn the Latin Tongue Logic Philosophy Physic Divinity or the Laws for put the case he might easily attain these Sciences yet not one of them can fill all his Capacity Only the Office of a King answers in proportion to it and in Ruling and Governing the same is only to be employed This is easily understood in running thro' all the Marks and Properties we have recounted of Temperate Men and considering how each of them agrees with the Royal Scepter and ill corresponds with other Arts and Sciences That a King be Beautiful and Agreeable is one of the things that best engages Subjects to Love and Honour him because as Plato says the object of Love is Beauty and good Proportion and if the King be hard-favoured and mis-shapen it is impossible to gain the People's Affection in so much that they will highly resent it that an unfinished Man who has not so much as good Natural Endowments should come to Rule and Govern them To be Virtuous and of good Conditions is soon understood how much it imports for he who is to Order the Lives of his Subjects and give them Laws and Rules to live according to Reason it is convenient that he do the same in Person for such as the King is such are the Grandees the Middle and the Lower Sort. Moreover by this means he will make his Commands more Authentic and with a better right proceed to Punish those that fail to observe them To hold a Perfection in all the Ruling Faculties of a Man the Generative Nutritive Irascible and Rational is more becoming a King than any Artist whatever For as Plato says in a well-ordered-State there ought to be Over-seers of Families who may with Skill discover the qualities of Persons that are to Marry in order to give to each Man the Woman best proportion'd to him and to each Woman the Man destin'd for her Were this duly observed they would never be frustrated of the principal end of Marriage For we see by Experience that a Woman who could have no Children by her first Husband as soon as she is married to another has and many Men that could have no Children by their first Wives have had them as soon as ever they married to another More especially says Plato this Art is of use in the Marriages of Kings For as it is a thing of the greatest Importance to the Peace and Security of a
Effects these Qualities produce in Women we may distinguish them more or less and thus it will be easy to understand the same First by the Wit and Ability of the Woman Secondly by her Manners and Conditions Thirdly by the Shrillness or Harshness of her Voice In the fourth place by her being Fat or Lean. In the fifth place by her Colour In the sixth by her Hair And lastly by her Fairness or Foulness As to the first you are to know that though it be true as we have elsewhere prov'd that Woman's Wit and Ability follows the Temperament of the Brain and no other part nevertheless the Matrix and the Testicles are of that force and vigor to alter the Body that if they are hot and dry or cold and moist or any other Temperament whatever Galen affirms all the other Parts will observe the same Temper But the Part that depends most upon the alterations of the Womb according the Opinion of all Physitians is the Brain though they discover not the reason upon which they ground so great a Correspondence True it is that Galen proves by experience that if a Sow be Splay'd she immediately becomes sweet and fat her Flesh tender and savoury But if she be not Splay'd her Flesh is like that of a Dog Whence may be known that the Matrix and Testicles are of great efficacy to communicate their Temperament to all other parts of the Body especially to the Brain which is cold and moist as they are Between which because of the Resemblance the Communication is the easier Now if we agree that Cold and Moist are the Qualities that impair the Rational Soul as their Contraries Hot and Dry render it more perfect and improve it we shall find that a Woman that shews much Wit and Ability will be cold and moist in the first Degree and if she be very silly she is in the third Degree but if she participates equally of the two Extreams it shews she is in the second Degree For to imagin that a Woman may be hot and dry and not have the Wit and Ability attending these two Qualities is a gross Mistake For if the Seed of which she is formed had been hot and dry in predominance she would have been born a Man and not a Woman but because the Seed was cold and moist she was born a Woman and not a Man The Truth of this Doctrin will clearly appear if we consider the Wit of the first Woman that lived in the World for though God made her with his own Hands and the most perfect and accomplished of her Sex yet it is concluded for certain that she was much less knowing than Adam Of which the Devil being sensible set himself to tempt her not daring to attempt the Man being apprehensive of his great Wit and Knowledge for to say that for her Offence that was taken from Eve what she wanted in Knowledge to equal Adam cannot be affirmed because as yet she had not offended The reason then why the first Woman had not so much Wit is because she was created by God cold and moist which is the necessary Temperament to be fruitful and to have Children and that which is opposite to Knowledge For if she had been Temperate as Adam she had been very Wise but could not have had Children nor her Terms but by some preternatural way Upon this Constitution of the Woman St. Paul grounded when he orders Let the Woman learn in silence with all subjection But I suffer not a Woman to teach nor to usurp Authority over the Man but to be in Silence This is to be understood when a Woman has not the Spirit or greater Grace than her Natural Disposition But if it comes to her from Heaven she may boldly Speak and Teach For we know that the Israelites being oppressed and besieged by the Assyrians Judith a very wise Woman sent for the Priests of Chabry and Charmy and blamed them in these words How can it be endured that Ozias should say if Succour comes not within five days he will deliver the People of Israel into the Hands of the Assyrians See you not that such words provoke God to Anger and not to Mercy How dare Men be so bold to set a Term to the Goodness of God and to assign according to their Fancy the Day in which he is to Succour and Deliver them And in the close of her Reproof she shewed them after what manner they should appease God and Obtain from him what they Desired Debora a Woman no less wise taught the Israelites how they should give Thanks to God for the great Victories gained over their Enemies But when a Woman stays within the limits of her Natural Disposition all sort of Sciences and Letters are repugnant to her Wit Therefore the Catholic Church with great reason has forbid any Woman to Preach Confess or Teach inasmuch as their Sex admits not Wisdom or Discipline By the Manners of a Woman and her Conditions we may discover in what degrees of Cold and Moist her Temperament consists for if with a sharp Wit she appears Touchy Pettish and Disagreeable 't is a sign she is Cold and Moist in the first Degree it being true that we have before proved that a bad Humour is always attended with a good Imagination She that obtains this Degree of cold and moist will let nothing pass finds fault with every thing and so becomes insupportable Such are good Company and are not shy to be among Men nor do they account him an ill-lover that talks to them of Gallantries On the contrary when a Woman is of a good Humour and takes nothing to Heart but Laughs at a Feather lets things pass as they come and sleeps soundly it shews she is cold and moist in the third Degree inasmuch as an easy Humour is usually attended with little Wit She who participates of the two Extreams is in the second Degree A Voice strong gross and harsh in the Opinion of Galen is a Mark of great Heat and Dryness which we have also prov'd before from the Opinion of Aristotle From whence we conclude that if a Woman has a Masculine Voice she is cold and moist in the first Degree and if it be very shrill in the third Degree And if she partakes of the two Extreams she will have an Effeminate Voice and be in the second Degree How much the Voice depends on the Temperament of the Testicles shall hereafter be prov'd where we treat of the Marks of a Man Much Flesh also in Women is an indication of much Cold and Moisture inasmuch as the Physitians hold that 't is from thence that other Creatures are Fat and Fleshy On the contrary to be Lean and Meager is a mark of little Cold and Moisture and to be in moderate plight not over-fat nor over-lean is an evident Sign that the Woman is cold and moist in the second Degree The hardness and softness of the
Flesh shew also the Degrees of these two Qualities Great Moisture makes the Flesh soft and smooth and little renders it harsh and hard and the Mean gives the true Temper The Colour of the Face and of the other parts of the Body betoken also more or less the degrees of these two Qualities When a Woman is very White Galen says it is a Sign of much Cold and Moisture and on the contrary she that is Tawny and Swarthy is cold and moist in the first Degree of which two Extreams arises the second Degree and is known by an Union of White and Red. To have much Hair and little of a Beard is an evident Sign to discover the first DeDegree of Cold and Moisture for to know whence the Hair and Beard proceed all the Physitians affirm them to come from Heat and Dryness and if they are Black that denotes abundance of Heat and Dryness The contrary Temperament is betokened when a Woman is very smooth without Down or Hair She that is cold and moist in the se cond Degree has some Hair but the same is Red or Flaxen Fairness and Foulness serve also to distinguish the Degrees of Cold and Moist in a Woman In the first Degree it is a Marvel if a Woman prove fair for the Seed whereof she was form'd being Dry hindred her from being fair The Clay must be moist for the Potter to frame well Vessels for use for if it be Hard and Dry the Vessels will be foul and ill figured Aristotle affirms further that overmuch Cold and Moist makes Women by Nature foul for if the Seed be Cold and very Waterish it takes no good Figure because it wants consistence as we see of Clay over-soft ugly and ill-shaped Vessels are fashioned In the second Degree of Cold and Moist the Woman is very fair because the matter is well-seasoned and pliant to Nature which Sign alone is a clear proof of a Woman's Fruitfulness it being a certainty that Nature has hit well and done her Part. It is then to be received that she has given her the Temperament and necessary Composition to have Children so that she 'l be fit for any Man and desireable to all There is no Faculty in Man that carries not some signs or tokens to discover the Goodness or Malignity of its Object The Stomach is led to discern the quality of the Food by the Tast the Smell and the Sight Whereupon the Holy Text said that Eve saw that the forbidden Fruit was good for Food and that it was pleasant to the Eye The generative Faculty holds for a Sign of fruitfulness a Womans Beauty and if she be ugly abhors her conceiving by this Sign that Nature made a false step and gave her not a fit Temperament for bearing Children Article I. By what Marks the Degrees of Heat and Dryness are to be discovered in each Man MAN hath not his Temperament so limited as Woman For he may be hot and dry which Temperament Aristotle and Galen are of Opinion is that which best agrees with his Sex as also hot and moist and temperate but cold and moist and cold and dry will not be admitted so long as the Man is in Health and not some way amiss so that for the same reason as there is no Woman hot and dry nor hot and moist nor temperate even so there is no Man cold and moist nor cold and dry in comparison of Women unless in a Case as I shall presently shew A Man hot and dry or hot and moist or temperate has as many Degrees in his Temperament as a Woman has of Cold and Moist insomuch that we have need of Tokens to discern what Man is in what Degree to assign him a Wife answerable to him in Proportion You are to know then that from the Principles from which we have collected the Woman's Temperament and her Degrees of Cold and Moist the same we shall make use of to know which Man is Hot and Dry and in what Degree And because we said that from the Wit and Manners of a Man the Temperament of the Testicles may be conjectured we must take notice of an observable Point mentioned by Galen namely to make us understand the great Virtue in the Testicles of Man to give Solidity and Temperament to all the Parts of the Body he affirms that they are of more Importance than the Heart for which he renders this Reason that the Heart is the Principle of Life and no more but the Genitals are the Principles of living well and without Infirmities What damage it is to Man to be deprived of those Parts though small there need not many Reasons to prove seeing we see by Experience that forthwith the Hair and the Beard fall off that his gross and strong Voice grows shril and with these he loses his Vigor and Natural Heat and remains in a far worse and more miserable Condition than if he had been a Woman But what is most observable is that if a Man before castrating had much Wit and Ability from the time he loses his Testicles he loses it all even as if he had received in the Brain some considerable Hurt Which evidently shews that the Genitals both give and take away Temperament from all parts of the Body If it be otherwise let us consider as I have often done that of a thousand Eunuchs that apply themselves to Learning not one succeeds in it and even in Music which is their ordinary Profession we see plainly how blockish they are and the reason of it is that Music is a work of the Imagination which power requires much Heat whereas they are cold and moist It is certain then that from the Wit and Ability we may conjecture the Temperament of the Testicles For which cause the Man that appears towardly in the works of the Imagination will be hot and dry in the third Degree And if a Man be not very Deep it is a Sign that Heat is joyned with much Moisture which ever destroys the Rational part and this is the more confirmed if the Man have a great Memory The ordinary Conditions of Men Hot and Dry in the third Degree are Courage Pride Liberality Audacity Chearfulness and Pleasantness and in what relates to Women they observe no rule or moderation The Men who are hot and moist are Pleasant Merry fond of Diversions fair Conditioned Affable Modest and not much given to Women The Voice and Speech discovers much the Temperament of the Testicles That which is strong and somewhat harsh shews the Man hot and dry in the third Degree but that which is soft amorous and very delicate is a Sign of little Heat and much Moisture as appears in Eunuchs The Man in whom Heat is joyned with Moisture will have a strong Voice yet tunable and loud He that is hot and dry in the third Degree has little Flesh and the same is hard and rough full of Sinews and Arteries and
has big Veins on the contrary to abound with Flesh very soft and smooth is an Indication of much Moisture by means whereof the Natural Heat is dilated and extended throughout The Colour of the Skin likewise if it be Brown Tawny Olive-coloured and Dark is a Mark that the Man is hot and dry in the third Degree and if the Flesh be clear and well-coloured it is a Sign of little Heat and more Moisture The Hair and Beard are Signs to be regarded for these two approach very near to the Temperament of the Testicles If the Hair be much very black and large especially from the Hanches to the Navel 't is an infallible Token that the Genitals partake much of Hot and Dry. Which is yet more confirmed if there grow Hair upon the Shoulders But when the Hair the Beard and the Down are Chesnut coloured soft delicate and thin 't is a sign the Testicles are not so hot nor dry Men very hot and dry are rarely very Handsom but rather hard-favoured and ill shaped because Heat and Dryness as Aristotle said of the Ethiophians wryth the proportions of the Face and so they become disfigured Quite contrary to be well shaped and comely shews a moderate Heat and Humidity which renders the Matter supple and pliant to what Nature designed whence it is manifest that great Beauty in a Man is no Sign of much Heat Touching the Signs of a Temperate Man we have discoursed at large in the foregoing Chapter so that there is no need of Repetition It suffices only to note that as the Physitians place in each Degree of Heat three Degrees of Intention so also in a Temperate Man are to be allowed the extent and latitude of three others For he that stands in the third Degree next to cold and moist is to be reputed cold and moist For when a Degree has exceeded the Mean it resembles the Degree it approaches And that this is true appears clearly in that the Signs given by Galen to know a Man cold and moist are the same with those of a Temperate Man only a little more remiss so he is Wise good-Conditioned and Virtuous has his Voice clear and sweet is fair and of good Flesh smooth and without Hair and if he have any the same is little and yellow Such are ruddy and of beautiful Faces but their Seed as Galen says is waterish and unfit for Generation These are no great Friends to Women nor Women to them Article II. What Women ought to Marry with what Men to have Children TO a Woman who bears no Children when she is Married Hippocrates orders two Applications to be made use of to discover if the Fault be hers or her Husbands The first is to fume her with Frankinsence or Storax her Garments close wrapt and trailing on the Ground that no Fume or Vapour issue out and if after some time she feels in her Mouth the savour of the Incence it is a sure Sign that the Fault lies not at her Door since the Fume found the Passages of the Womb open from which it pierced even to the Nose and Mouth The other is to take a Head of Garlic clean pill'd and put it into the Womb when the Woman goes to Bed and if the next day she have the scent of the Garlic in her Mouth she is of her self assuredly fruitful without any Defect But though these two Experiments produce the Effects Hippocrates speaks of namely that the Vapour pierces from the lower Parts up to the Mouth yet the same concludes not that the Husband is absolutely impotent nor the Wife entirely fruitful but only an ill Correspondence between both so that in this case she proves as barren for him as he for her Which we see by daily Experience for the same Man taking another Wife begets Children and which encreases the Wonder in such as are ignorant of this point of natural Philosophy is that these two separating upon pretence of Impotence and he taking an other Wife and she another Husband they both come to have Children and the reason of it is there are some Men whose Generative faculty is not fit for nor active on one Woman yet for an other is potent and prolific As we see by Experience in the Stomach that a Man has a better Appetite to one Dish and to another though better it is as dead What Correspondence there should be between Man and Wife to have Issue Hippocrates notes thus Vnless the hot with the cold and the dry with the moist answer in measure and equality nothing will come on it For such a wonderful Work as is the Formation of Man requires a Temperament where the Heat exceeds not the Cold nor the Moist the Dry. Therefore if the Man's Seed be hot and the Woman 's so likewise there will be no Issue This being suppos'd let us consider by way of Example a Woman cold and moist in the first Degree of whom we have asserted the Signs to be that she is witty Ill-humoured strong Voiced spare of Flesh swarthy in Complection Hairy and Ill-favoured She will soon conceive by a Fool that is good-natured of Voice sweet and well-sounding very Fleshy Fair and Plump little Hair well Coloured and fair Faced The same may also be Married to a temperate Man whose Seed we said after the Opinion of Galen is most fruitful and answerable to whatever Woman provided she be sound and of Age convenient But yet withal it is very difficult for her to conceive and if she conceives Hippocrates says that within two Months she will Miscarry not having Blood sufficient to nourish her self and the Foetus in her Womb nine Months Yet this may find an easy Remedy by often repeating the Bath before she keep company with her Husband and the Bath ought to be of sweet and hot Water which the same Hippocrates says gives the true Temperament the Woman ought to have relaxing and moistening her Flesh which is also the disposition the Earth ought to have that the Grain may take root and spread It produces yet a greater effect it encreases the Appetite abates the Resolution and causes a greater quantity of natural Heat by which means abundance of flegmatic Blood is bred wherewith to nourish the Foetus during the nine Months The Marks of a Woman cold and moist in the third Degree are these To be Dull Good-natured to have a very delicate Voice much Flesh and the same White and Soft to want Hair and Down and not to be over-handsom Such a one should Marry with a Man hot and dry in the third Degree because this Man's Seed is of such fury and fervence that it ought of necessity to fall into a place very cold and moist that it may hold and take root like Watercresses that wont grow but in Water But if it were less not and dry it would fall into a Womb so cold and moist with the like effect as Wheat
sowed in a Lake Hippocrates advises such a Woman to lessen her self and take down her Fat and her Flesh before she Marry but then she need not take a Husband hot and dry for such a Temperament would not do nor can she conceive A Woman cold and moist in the second Degree retains a Mean in all the Marks we have mentioned Beauty excepted which she has in excess which is an evident Sign that she will be fruitful and bear Children and prove gay and of a good Grace Such a Woman answers in proportion well near to all Men first to the hot and dry in the second Degree next to the Temperate and then to those that are hot and moist Of all these Combinations and Matches of Men and Women which we have noted wise Children may proceed but more ordinarily from the first for put case that the Man's Seed incline to cold and moist yet the continual Dryness of the Mother and giving her little nourishment corrects and amends the defect of the Father Because this kind of Philosophy has not yet come to light all the natural Philosophers have not been able to answer the Problem that demands Why many Fools have got wise Children To which they Answer That those unthinking Fellows apply themselves passionately to the Venereal Act without engaging in any other consideration but that wise Men on the contrary in the very Embraces are musing upon Matters impertinent to the present Point Whereby they enfeeble their Seed and beget defective Children as well in what respects the rational Powers as in those that are purely Natural But this Answer proceeds from People little skill'd in natural Philosophy In the other Unions care should be taken that the Woman lose her Fat and grow sparer by a ripe Age and Marry not too young for thence arise half Witted and Foolish Children The Seed of young Parents is very moist for it is but a while since they were Born and if a Man be formed of Matter moist in Excess he will of course be a Blockhead Article III. What Considerations to be used to get Boys and not Girls THE Parents that are in quest of the Joy of Wise Children and towardly for Learning should endeavour to have Boys for Girls in respect of the Coldness and Moisture of their Sex can never arrive at a profound Judgment Ony we see they speak with a show of Ability in slight and easy Matters with ordinary Terms though studied But being set to Learning they learn no farther than a little Latin and that because it is a work of the Memory Which Incapacity is not to be charged on them but on the Cold and Moist that made them Women being the Qualities as we have already proved absolutely contrary to Wit and Ability Solomon in Consideration of the great Scarcity of wise Men and that there was not so much as one Woman furnished with Wit and Knowledge speaks thus One Man says he among a Thousand have I found but a Woman among all those have I not found Therefore we are to shun them and apply our Endeavours to get Males since in these alone appears a Wit capable of Learning In which we are first of all to consider what Instruments are ordained by Nature in Man's Body to this End and what Order of Causes is to be observ'd to attain the End we propose You are to know then that amongst many Excrements and Humours that are in a Man's Body Galen says that Nature makes use but of One to prevent the Species of Men being lost Which is a certain Excrement called Serum or Serous Blood generated in the Liver and Veins at the Instant the four Humours Blood Flegm Choler and Melancholy receive what Form and Substance they ought to have Of such a Juice as this Nature makes use for a Vehicle of Food and to transmit it thro' the Veins and narrow Passages to carry Nourishment to all Parts of the Body which Work being done the same Nature has given to us two Reins which have no other Office than to attract to themselves this Serous Humour and make it descend thro' their Passages down into the Bladder and thence out of the Body and this to free Man from the Anoyance that Excrements give him But in Consideration of certain Qualities he has convenient for Generation she has provided us with two Veins to carry part to the Testicles and Spermatic Vessels with a little Blood whence she frames the Seed such as is convenient for our Species accordingly she has planted one Vein on the Right Rein side which terminates in the Rim of the right Testicle and of that same the right Spermatic Vessel is framed The other Vein issues out of the left Rein and terminates in the left Testicle and of that is framed the left Spermatic Vein What Qualities this Excrement has to make convenient Matter for generating of Seed the same Galen has noted that they are certain Acrids and Acids that spring from a Salt which irritates the Spermatic Vessels and strongly moves the Animal without delay to the Work of Generation and therefore lascivious Men are termed in Latin Salaces as much as to say Men that have much Salt in their Seed Besides this Nature has done another thing worthy of Consideration namely that to the right Vein and Testicle she has given much Heat and Dryness and to the left Rein and Testicle much Cold and Moisture so that the Seed prepared by the right Testicle is very hot and dry and that by the left cold and moist What Nature pretends to in this Diversity of Temperaments as well in the Reins as Testicles and Spermatic Vessels is very clear since we are informed by very credible Histories that at the beginning of the World and many Years after the Women were brought to Bed of two Children at a Birth one a Boy and the other a Girl to the end that each Man might have a Wife and each Woman a Husband for the speedier Encrease of Mankind For this Reason then has Nature provided that the right Rein should furnish matter hot and dry to the right Testicle and that the same with its great Heat and Dryness might produce hot and dry Seed for the generating a Male. And the contrary she has ordered for the Formation of the Female that the left Rein should send forth cold and moist Seed to the left Testicle that the same with its Coldness and Moisture might make cold and moist Seed from which a Girl would necessarily be got and not a Boy But after the World was once well Peopled it seems as if Nature had broke off this Order of this double Child-bearing and what is worse for one Boy there are no less than six or seven Girls ordinarily Born from which it may be understood either that Nature is tired out or that some Errour hinders her from acting as she would What the same is we may hereafter declare when we
lay down the Conditions to be observed that a Boy without failing may begot I say then that Fathers in order to attain this End must carefully observe six Things The first is to eat Meats hot and dry The second to procure good Digestion in the Stomach The third to use much Exercise The fourth not to apply to the Act of Venery till the Seed be well ripened and seasoned The fifth to Company with the Wife four or five Days before her Menses The sixth to procure that the Seed may fall on the right side of the Womb. Which Points being observed as we have directed 't is impossible to get a Girl For the First Condition you are to know that tho' a good Stomach digests and alters the Meat divesting it of the Qualities it had before yet it does not entirely destroy them For if we eat Lettuce whose Nature is cold and moist the Blood it produces will be cold and moist and the Serum cold and moist and the Seed also cold and moist and if we eat Honey which is hot and dry the Blood it breeds will be hot and dry the Serum hot and dry and the Blood likewise hot and dry because 't is impossible as Galen says that the Humours should not partake of the Substance and Qualities which the Food had before it was eaten If it be true then that the producing of Males depends on the Seed's being hot and dry in the time of the Formation it is certain that Fathers ought to eat Meats hot and dry to get a Boy However it must be confess'd that there is a very dangerous thing in this Procedure and it is from the Seed's being very Hot and Dry as we have often already said of Course there will proceed a malicious crafty deceitful Man and inclined to all kind of Vices and Ills. And such Men as these if they are not curbed are very dangerous to the State therefore it were better that they should not be Born But for all this there will not be wanting some that will say with the Proverb Nasca me hijo varon y sea Ladron Let me have a Boy and let him be a Thief because Eccles c. 20. The Iniquity of a Man is more allowable than the well-doing of a Woman Tho' this may be easily remedied by the use of temperate Meats and which partake a little of Hot and Dry or by the Preparation as adding Spice thereto Such Meats says Galen are Pullets Partridge Turtles Woodcocks Pidgeons Threshes Blackbirds and Kid which in the Opinion of Hippocrates should be eat rosted to heat and dry up the Seed The Bread they eat should be White of the finest Flower kneeded with Salt and Aniseeds because the Brown is cold and moist as we shall prove hereafter and very prejudicial to Wit Let their Drink be Whitewine mixt with Water in such quantity as the Stomach can bear and the Water that is mixt should be fresh and pure The second Care we have proposed to be observed is to eat these Meats in a moderate quantity that the Stomach may digest them for tho' by Nature they are hot and dry yet they become cold and moist whenever the natural Heat cannot digest them therefore tho' Fathers do eat Honey and drink White-wine they 'l make their Seed cold by these Meats and so get Girls and not Boys 'T is for this Reason the greatest part of the Nobility and Gentry undergo this misfortune and discontent to have more Girls than poor People because they Eat and Drink more than their Stomach can bear or digest and tho' their Meats be hot and dry Sauced with Sugar Spice and Honey through being eaten on too great a quantity they become crude and not to be digested But the Crudity more prejudicial to Generation is that of Wine because this Liquor being so vaporous and fumous causes the other Aliments with it self to pass wholly undigested to the Spermatic Vessels and so the Seed falsely provokes a Man e're yet it be digested and seasoned Which made Plato commend so highly a Law he observed in the Commonwealth of Carthage by which it was provided that the New-Married-Couple should drink no Wine on the Day they designed to lie together importing that this Liquor much incommoded the Child's Health and that it was Cause sufficient to make it Vitious and of ill Inclinatitions but if the same be moderately taken there is no Sustenance affords so good Seed to the end we propos'd as White-wine especially to give Wit and Ability which is that to which we most pretend The third Caution we prescribed was to use more than moderate Exercise for this wasts and consumes the superfluous Moisture of the Seed and heats and dries the same by which a Man is rendered prolific and more able for Generation and on the contrary to give our selves to Ease and not to Exercise of the Body is one of the ways most to cool and moisten the Seed Therefore the Rich and Riotous abound in Girls more than the Poor that work hard To this purpose Hippocrates recounts that the Principal among the Scythians were very soft and effeminate and addicted to Women's Works to Sweep to Scower and to Bake and by this means were impotent in Generation and if they ever begot a Male Child it proved an Eunuch or Hermaphrodite at which being ashamed and disgusted they resolved to offer Sacrifices and Gifts to their God with Prayers not to treat them so or to afford them a Remedy for this Defect since it lay in his Power Hippocrates jeered them saying that no Effect befalls us but what is Wonderful and Divine if it be rightly considered for resolving them all into their Natural Causes the last terminates in God by whose Power all worldly Agents operate but that there are some Effects that refer immediately to God as those out of the Order of Nature and others that mediately refer to him running through all the intermediate Causes leading to the End The Country inhabited by the Scythians is as Hipporcates said Northerly extraordinarily Cold and Moist where through the abundance of Clouds the Sun is rarely seen Rich Men sit there always on Horse-back never exercising eating and drinking more than their Natural Heat is able to digest all which occasions the Seed to be cold and moist For which cause they get abundance of Girls and if they happen to have a Boy 't is such a one as we have described Know said Hippocrates to them that the Remedy for this is not to offer Sacrifices to God and no more but to walk on Foot Eat little and Drink less and not sit always at your Ease and the better to discern this cast your Eyes on the Poor of your Country and on your Slaves who not only make no Sacrifices nor offer Gifts to God not having wherewith but even Blaspheme his Blessed Name and speak injuriously of him for placing them in so mean a
State and yet tho' so Lewd and Blasphemous are nevertheless most potent in Generation and the greatest part of their Children Males and sturdy ones not effeminate Eunuchs or Hermaphrodites like yours The Reason of which is they Eat little Exercise much stroll not always on Horse-back as you do for which Reason they make their Seed hot and dry and so they get Boys and not Girls This Point of Philosophy neither Pharaoh nor his Council understood when they spoke after this Manner Come on let us deal wisely with them lest they Multiply and it come to pass that when there falleth out any War they join also unto our Enemies For the Method he took to prevent the Israelites Multiplying or at least that they should not have so many Males which was what they feared most was to oppress them with Bodily Labours and give them nothing to eat but Leaks Garlic and Onyons which had the contrary Effect for as the sacred Text declares The more they afflicted them the more they Multiplied and Grew Yet he making account that there was no better way than this to follow doubled their Tasks and their Burdens but to no more purpose than if to quench a great Fire he had cast in store of Oyl and Butter But had he or any of his Council understood Natural Philosophy they would have ordered them Barly-bread Lettuce Melons Pompions and Cucumbers and permitted them to live at Ease giving them their fill of Meat and Drink without forcing them to Work For by these means they would have had moist and cold Seed whence would have proceeded more Girls than Boys and in a little time their Lives have been shortened if they had desired it Instead of which in giving them boyl'd Flesh to eat with abundance of Garlic Leeks and Onyons and obliging them to Labour hard as they did it produced hot and dry Seed by which Qualities they were more incited to Generation and got always Male Children In Confirmation of this Truth Aristotle asks in one of his Problems Whence it comes that those who Labour hard or those that are Hectic commit nocturnal Pollutions To which in earnest he knew not what to say for tho' he alledges many Reasons yet none of them reach the Mark. The right Reason is that Bodily Labour and the Hectic Fever heat and dry the Seed and these two Qualities render it sharp and pricking and because all the Natural Powers are fortified in Sleep this happens which the Problem speaks of How fruitful and pricking hot and dry Seed is Galen notes in these Words It is the most fruitful and briskly excites the Animal from the beginning even to coition it is Lascivious and prone to Lust The fourth Condition is not to engage in the Act of Generation till the Seed be setled digested and well seasoned for tho' the three preceeding Cautions be duly observed we cannot know thereby if it have acquired all the Perfection it ought to have Especially it is convenient to use this Caution for seven or eight Days before the Meats we have prescribed to give time to the Testicles to convert into their Nourishment the Seed which at that time was made from the other Aliments and that this which we are describing may Succeed The same Care is to be taken to render human Seed fruitful and prolific as Gardiners take with the Seed they would preserve they wait till they ripen cleanse and dry for if they gather them before the proper Season and point of Maturity tho' they lie in the Ground a whole Year they will not grow at all For this reason I have observed that in places where Venus is much used fewer Children are got than where there is more Continence And light Women prove rarely with Child because they stay not till their Seed be digested and ripe It is convenient then to wait some Days that the Seed may settle concoct and ripen and be duly seasoned For by this means it will duly gain Heat and Dryness and the good Substance it has lost But how shall we know the Seed to be such as it ought to be since the Matter is of so great Importance This may be easily known if there be an Interval of a few Days from the Man's denying to Company with his Wife by the continual irritation and great Desire he will have All which arises from the Seed's being fruitful and prolific The fifth Condition we have directed was that the Man should engage with his Wife six or seven Days before her Courses because a Boy has soon occasion for much Aliment to Nourish him And the Reason of it is that the Heat and Dryness of his Temperament spends and consumes not only the good Blood of his Mother but her very Excrements Wherefore Hippocrates said that the Woman that conceives a Boy is well Coloured and Fair which comes from this that the Child through his great Heat spends for his Nourishment all the Excrements that were wont to make her Thin and Wan And being so greedy it is but fit he should be supplied with Blood for his Nourishment And this Experience clearly proves for seldom is a Boy begot but towards the last Days of the Month It fares quite contrary when she conceives a Girl for through the great coldness and moisture of her Sex she Eats little and makes abundance of Excrements Accordingly a Woman with Child of a Girl looks Yellow and Green and long 's for a Thousand nasty Things and in her lying in must have longer time to cleanse than if she brought forth a Boy On which Natural Reason God grounded when he ordered Moses that the Woman that brought forth a Male being unclean seven Days should not come into the Sanctuary till after thirty three Days but if she bear a maid-Maid-Child she should be Unclean two Weeks and should not come into the Sanctuary till she had accomplish'd threescore and six Days So that the time of her Purification was doubled for the Birth of a Female and the cause of it is that during her Nine Months stay in her Mothers Womb through the much cold and moist of her Temperament she doubled the Excrements of a Boy besides that the same were of a much worse Substance and Quality Whereupon Hippocrates observed that 't is extream Dangerous to stop the Purgation of a Woman delivered of a Girl All this is spoke to the Purpose that it is convenient to stay to the end of the Month to the end the Seed may be supplied with Nourishment sufficient If they couple immediately after the Purgation is over that Seed will not take thro' defect of Blood But I must advise Parents that if their Seed meet not together Galen said it would come to nothing tho' the Man's Seed were never so apt for Procreation The Reason of this we will give hereafter on another Subject It is alike certain that all we have offered must also be observed
that the Forbiden-Fruit made his Imagination more lively after the manner we have mention'd and then it represented to him the Nature and Use of the shameful Parts But yet that this Exposition may be veritable enough as we see the common Opinion is that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil received not this Name from it's Nature but only by occasion of the Consequence that attended it Which seems to me most Probable Hens Capons Veal and Spanish Weathers are Meats of a moderate Substance for these are neither Delicate nor Gross I said Spanish Weathers because Galen without making Distinction said That their Flesh is of evil and gross Substance for which there is no Reason For tho' in Italy where he writ this is the worst Flesh of all yet in our Country because of the Goodness of the Pastures it may be reckoned amongst the Meats of moderate Substance The Children engendred from these Aliments shall have a reasonable Understanding Memory and Imagination But they will not penetrate deep into the Sciences or Invent any thing New Of these we have spoke before that they readily receive the Impression of all the Rules and Observations of any Art clear obscure easy and difficult But the Doctrin the Argument the Answer the Doubt the Distinction all these will give them Pains and Trouble Cow-flesh Bacon Bread of Red-wheat Cheese Olives Red-Wine and Water will breed a gross Seed and of an evil Temperament The Boy begot of these will be strong as a Bull but withall fierce and of a Brutish Wit From whence it comes that amongst the Country People it is a marvel to find one of a quick Capacity and towardly for Learning They are all born Dull and Rude being begot of Meats of gross and evil Substance The Contrary befalls amongst Citizens whose Children we find endued with more Wit and Ability But if Parents desired in earnest to beget a Son personable wise and of good Conditions let them for six or seven Days before their Companying eat much Goats Milk that being in the Opinion of all the Physicians the best and most delicate Food that can be used This is to be understood when they are sound and it agrees with us But Galen saith it should be taken with Honey without which it is dangerous and easy to Curdle The Reason of which is that Milk is composed but of three Elements Cheese Whey and Butter Cheese answers to the Earth Whey to Water and Butter to Air. The Fire which tempers the other Elements and preserves them in the Mixture issuing out of the Teats is exhaled because it is very subtile but adding to it a little Honey which is hot and dry in lieu of the Fire the Milk will partake of the four Elements which being mingled and concocted by the Operation of our Natural Heat makes a Seed very delicate and of good Temperament The Boy begot of this will at least be of a great Understanding and want neither Memory or Imagination Aristotle not being of this Opinion came short in answering a Problem he made when he asked For what Cause the young of Brute Beasts draw for the most part the properties and qualities of their Sires and the Children of a Man not And we find this by Experience to be true for of wise Parents are born very foolish Children and of foolish Parents wise Children and of virtuous Parents lewd Children and of lewd Parents virtuous Children of hard favored Parents fair Children and of fair Parents foul Children and of white Fathers swarthy Children and of swarty Fathers clear and well-complexion'd Children And amongst Children of the same Father and Mother one shall be a Fool and the other Witty one Ugly the other Handsom one Good and the other Ill-humor'd one Virtuous and the other Vitious Whereas if a Mare of a generous Race be cover'd with a Horse of the same kind the Colt which is foaled resembles them in Shape and Colour as well as in their Properties Aristotle answer'd very ill to this Problem saying That a Man is carried away with many Imaginations in the Carnal Act and hence the Children prove so unlike but Brute Beasts in the time of Generation being not so distracted nor having so strong Imaginations as Man produce their Young Ones after the same Sort and like to themselves This Answer has hitherto passed for Currant with the Vulgar Philosophers and for Confirmation hereof they alledge the History of Jacob which delivers that he having laid Streaked Rods at the Watering Places of the Flocks caused all the Lambs that were yeaned to be Spotted But it avails little to have recourse to Holy Writ for this Story is reckoned a Miracle wrought by God to hide some Sacrament And Aristotle's Answer is far fetched If not let the Shepherds now attempt the same and they will see if it be a Natural Thing They tell us also in this Country of a certain Lady that was deliver'd of a Son blacker than ordinary by fixing her Imagination upon a Blackmoor painted in the Hangings which I look upon as a Jest and if by chance it were true that she was brought to Bed of such a Son I say that the Father was of the same Colour with the Face represented in the Hangings And to the end it may be plainly known how false the Philosophy of Aristotle and his Followers in this Particular is it must be suppos'd as a thing certain that the Work of Generation belongs to the Vegetative Soul and not to the Sensitive and if we consider a Tree loaden with Fruit we shall find there a greater Variety than in the Children of any Man one Apple will be Green another Red one Little another Great one Round another Ill-figur'd one Sound another Rotten one Sweet another Sower if we compare this years Fruit with the Last we shall see them very Different and Contrary to one another Which cannot be attributed to the Variety of the Imagination because Plants want that Power Aristotle's Error is most manifest by his own Doctrin for he says that it is the Man's Seed not the Womans which makes the Generation and in the Carnal Act the Man has no more to do than to scatter the Seed without Form or Figure as the Husband-man sows the Grain in the Earth And like as a Grain of Corn takes not Root immediately nor forms the Blade or Ear until some Days are past In the same manner says Galen the Child is not formed as soon as the Man's Seed falls into the Womb it must according to his Account have between thirty and fourty Days to accomplish it And if this be so what matter is it if the Father have never so many Imaginations during the Act if the Formation of the Foetus be not till after some Days Especially when the Formation is not effected either by the Father's Soul or the Mother's but by a third thing found in the Seed which being
Coat And the Reason is because those Works belong to the Imagination which encreases and rises to a pitch through the great heat raised from the passion of Love And that Love is a hot Passion is plainly seen in the Courage and Hardiness Lovers are inspir'd with to bear the loss of Appetite and even of Sleep it self If the State had an Eye to these Marks they would expel from the Universities lusty Scholars and great Fighters the Amorous the Poets and the Beaux because these have neither Wit nor Capacity for any kind of Study Aristotle excepts from this Rule the Melancholick by Adustion whose Seed though fruitful hurts not their Wit Finally all the ruling Faculties in Man if they be very potent disturb the Rational Faculty Hence it proceeds that if a Man be very Wise he proves a Coward of small Strength of Body a spare Eater and not very able for Procreation And the cause is the qualities that render him Wise which are Coldness and Dryness are the same that debilitate the other Powers As appears in Old Men who besides their Council and Wisdom have neither Strength nor Courage This Doctrin being suppos'd Galen's opinion is that to have the Generation of any Animal whatever perfectly take effect both Seeds are necessary one of which is to be the Agent and the Form-giver and another which serves for Nourishment for a matter so delicate as Generation cannot strait overcome what is so gross as Blood till the work be accomplished But that the Seed is the right Aliment of the Spermatic Vessels is a point duly received by Hippocrates Plato and Galen For by their Opinion if the Blood be not converted into Seed it is impossible that the Nerves Veins and Arteries can be maintain'd And so says Galen that the difference between the Veins and Testicles is that the Testicles make abundance of Seed immediately and the Veins little in longer time So that Nature has provided for the same an Aliment so similar that with a slight Alteration and without making Excrements may maintain another Seed Which could not be effected if the Nourishment thereof had been made of the Blood The same Provision says Galen is made by Nature in the Generation of Man as in the Production of a Chicken and such other Birds as come of Eggs in which we observe two Substances one of the White and another of the Yolk of one of which the Chicken is form'd and by the other nourished all the time of its formation For the same reason are two Seeds no less necessary in the Generation of Man of one of which the Child may be Made and the other for it's Nourishment during the time of it's formation But Hippocrates mentions a thing worthy of great Consideration which is that it is not resolved by Nature which of the two Seeds is to be the Agent and the Form-giver nor which is to serve for Nourishment For many times the Woman's Seed is of more efficacy than the Man's and when it so happens Hers makes the Generation and the Husband 's serves for the Aliment At other times the Man's is more powerful and prolific and the Woman's serves only for Nourishment This was a Doctrin not understood by Aristotle who could not comprehend what the Woman's Seed served for which made him vent a thousand Impertinencies as that the same was but a little Water without any Generative Virtue or Power If this were so the Woman would never covet the Conversation of the Man or consent thereto but would shun the Carnal Act as being her self naturally Honest and the Sport Unclean and Filthy And so in a short time Mankind would be extinguished and the World remain depriv'd of the most beautiful Creature that ever Nature form'd And therefore Aristotle demands what is the reason that Copulation is the most agreeable Pleasure of all those Nature has invented for the Procreation of Animals To which Problem he answers that Nature having so great a desire to procure the Perpetuating of Mankind placed so much Pleasure in this Work to the end that they being moved by such an Interest might gladly apply themselves to the Business of Generation for if these Incentives were wanting no Man or Woman would Marry the Woman reaping little other Advantage than that of bearing a Burden nine Months in her Belly with so much Pain and Trouble and at the time of her Delivery of running the hazard of her Life so that it would oblige the State to force Women to Marry to prevent the Extirpation of Mankind But as Nature makes every thing with Sweetness she gave to the Woman all the necessary Instruments to make her Seed pricking and prolific that she might take Pleasure in Man and covet his Company Though were it of that quality Aristotle pretends she would rather shun and abhor him than ever love him This Galen proves by an instance drawn from Brute Beasts affirming that after a Sow is Splay'd she never desires the Boar nor will she yield to his Approaches It is the same thing in a Woman that is of a colder Constitution than she ought nothing sounds more disagreeable to her Ear than the name of Marriage to her The same thing attends a Man of a cold Constitution and all for want of fruitful Seed Moreover if a Woman's Seed were such as Aristotle affirms it would not serve for Aliment since to obtain the last Qualities of actual Nutriment it ought to be entirely Similar to what it is to Nourish And if the Seed be not well wrought and assimilated it would not afterwards attain it For if the Seed of Man wanted Instruments and Receptacles such as the Stomach the Liver and Testicles how or where should it concoct or assimilate For which reason Nature has ordered it so that there should be two Seeds in the Generation of the Creature which being incorporated the most Potent should make the Formation and the other serve for Nourishment And that this is true appears plain in this that if a Negro get a White Woman with Child and a White-Man a negro-Negro-Woman from both will be born a Mulatta Child From this Doctrin I gather that to be true which many Authentic Histories affirm that a Dog companying with a Woman she conceived and the like did a Bear with another Maid he found alone in the Fields and an Ape likewise had two young ones by another We read of another who walking by a River side was impregnated by a Fish that leaped out of the Water what is most Difficult in this for the Vulgar to conceive is how it may be that these Women should be delivered of perfect Children and with the use of Reason seeing they were engendred by Brute-Beasts To which is Answered that the Seed of every of these Women was the Agent and Form-giver of the Child as being the more Powerful and therefore it figured them with the Lineaments of Human kind And
Reason holds alike Wherefore the Father that desires the Child should be made of his own Seed must for some days forbear his Wife giving it time to concoct and ripen and then it is certain that it will take and his Wives Seed serve for Nourishment The second doubt from what has been said bears little Difficulty for Bastard-Children are ordinarily made of Seed hot and dry and of this Temperament as we have often prov'd before proceeds Bravery and Courage and a good Imagination to which belongs Worldly Wisdom And by the Seeds being duly concocted and well seasoned Nature acts as she pleases drawing them as it were with a Pencel To the third Doubt may be answer'd that the conceiving of light Women is almost always wrought from the Man's Seed which being drier and more prolific sticks closer and takes firmer Root in the Womb. Whereas in the Conception of Married Women which is wrought by their own Seed the Child is easily loosen'd the Seed being moist and waterish or as Hippocrates affirms Full of Nastiness Article V. Rules to be observ'd to preserve Wit in Children after they are Born THe Matter whereof Man is made is so Alterable and subject to Corruption that at the Instant he begins to be he likewise begins to Corrupt and Change without being able to help it Whereupon it is said That we are no sooner Born but we Ebb every Day And therefore has Nature provided there should be in Human Bodies four Natural Faculties the Attractive Retentive Concoctive and Expulsive Which concocting and altering the Food we eat come to repair the lost Substance by substituting new in its Place Whence we may understand that it will be of small Advantage to have a Child form'd of delicate Seed if Care be not taken of what he afterwards Eats Because the Formation being finished there remains to the Child no part of the Seminal Substance whereof in the beginning he was form'd True it is that the first Seed if well concocted and Seasoned is of such Force and Vigor that digesting and altering the Meats it makes them though evil and gross turn to his good Temperament and Substance But we may so far use contrary Meats as the Child may lose the good Qualities it receiv'd from the Seed it was form'd of at first And therefore Plato says that one of the things that most contributes to the ruin of Wit in Man and his good Manners is his bad Education in Diet. For which reason he advises that we should give to Children Meats and Drinks delicate and of good Temperament that as they grow up they may reject the Ill and embrace the Good The Reason hereof is very clear for if the Brain was form'd at first of delicate Seed and that impairing and consuming every day must be supplied from the Meat we eat sure it is if these be gross and of ill Temperament and eaten many Days together the Brain will be converted into the same Nature and therefore it is not enough that the Child be form'd of good Seed if the Meats he eats after he is born have not the same Qualities What these are will be no Difficulty to evidence allowing the Greeks to have been the discreetest Men in the World and that in their search after Meats to make their Children Witty and Wise they found the Best and most Appropriate For if the subtil and delicate Wit consists in the Brains being composed of Parts subtil and of good Temperament the Meats that above all others partake of these two Qualities will be the fittest to use for obtaining our End Goats Milk mingled with Honey Galen says in the Opinion of all the Greek Physitians is the best Food whatever eaten by Men for besides that it has a moderate Substance the Heat thereof exceeds not the Cold nor the Moist the Dry. Therefore we said a few Pages before that Fathers who earnestly aim to get a Wise Son Personable and of sweet Dispositions must eat six or seven days before Copulation much Goats-Milk mingled with Honey But though this Food be good as Galen says it makes more for the Wit that the Meats be of subtil Parts than of moderate Substance for how much the finer the Matter is in the Nourishment of the Brain so much the more is the Wit sharpned Therefore the Greeks drew the Cheese and the Whey from the Milk which are the two gross Elements of its Composition and left the Butter which is of the nature of Air. This they gave Children to eat mingled with Honey with intent to make them Wise and Ingenious And that this is true appears clearly in what Homer relates in his xth Iliad Besides this Food the Children eat Cracknels made of White-Bread of very delicate Water with Hony and a little Salt and in stead of Vinegar which is nought and hurtful to the Understanding they added thereto Butter of Goats-Milk whose Temperament and Substance is Appropriate to Wit Though in this Regiment there is a great Inconvenience which is that enuring Children to Meats so delicate they will be less hardy to resist the Injuries of the Air nor be so able to defend themselves from other Accidents that may make them Indispos'd And so to make them Wise they are rear'd with little Health and live not long This Difficulty requires of us how Children may be rear'd Witty and Wise and that yet the same Art may not impair their Health Which will be easy to concert if Fathers venture to put in Practice some Rules and Precepts which I shall prescribe And because nice People are mistaken in Educating their Children and they are ever harping on this Matter I will first give the Reason why their Children tho' they have Masters and Tutors and themselves ply their Books so hard make so little Progress in Learning And how they may Remedy this and that without shortning their Lives or impairing their Healths Eight things says Hippocrates moisten and fatten the Flesh of Man The first to be Idle and live at Ease The second to Sleep much The third to lie on a soft Bed The fourth to Fare well The fifth to be well Clad and Accoutred The sixth to be always on Horse-back The seventh to have our Will The eighth to be engaged in Plays and Pastimes and in things that content and please Us. All which are so manifest a Truth that if Hippocrates had not said it no Man could deny it Only we may doubt whether the Nice observe always this manner of Life but if it be true that they do we may well conclude that their Seed is very moist and that the Children begot thereof will of Course be born with superfluous and redundant Moisture which ought to be Discussed and Consumed first as that Quality tends to the destruction of the Operations of the Rational Soul and next as Physicians say because it shortens Life and impairs the Health According to this good Wit and bodily Health