the greatest curiosity and variety of machination such admirable Conduits and Contrivances such Offices and places of elaboration subservient to each other and communicable that therefore this Machine is most difficult to keep in order and soonest put out of frame Thirdly Does require and use more variety of supports and necessary requisites to preserve and supply him and therefore more subject to errors failings and discomposure Fourthly Because Man wilfully carelesly or ignorantly does not regulate and govern himself according to the Law of Nature dictated to him but deviating from those rules of preservation does discompose the regular Oeconomy of his body and introduce various Diseases and disorders which precipitates Nature in the current and course of life which otherwise more equally and evenly would glide on and sometimes by violence offered to Nature in some strange unnatural actions and exorbitancies the life is forced out and death oft procured Now other Creatures are so tyed up to the rule of Nature Creatures conformity to Nature which they cannot but observe for their preservation both individual and specisick and have not a power of electing good and evil to themselves but naturally and spontaneously do prosecute that which is proper and conservative and avoid what is noxious but Man having a greater liberty by the prerogative of his rational Soul does make his choice and wanders amongst varieties both good and evil and often deceives himself chusing what is destructive to his Being So that breaking the Law of Nature which he ought to observe as bounds and Rules to his actions making them sanative and preservative does on the contrary alter and change those necessary appointments and supports renders them destructive by his irregular incongruous use vitious customs and imprudent choice The most considerable things to be observed by Man as conducing and tending to the lengthening or shortning of his life according to their mannagement and procurement well or ill do fall under these Heads Diaetetick regiment to be observed Meat and drink place of abode sleep and watching exercise and rest excretions and retentions passions of mind In the moderation use and choice of these which particularly hereafter shall be handled consists the length and brevity of life per modum asistentiae and as causae sine qua non being auxiliary requisites and necessary supports of life appointed by Nature for the continuation assistance and preservation thereof But the length and brevity of life fontaliter radicaliter consists in the fundamental Principles and vital powers variously radicated and planted ab ortus in mans generation and fabrication But this being not in the choice and power of man to alter or change we shall prosecute upon the former Heads Man consisting of Soul and Body and this body compounded of heterogeneous dissimilar parts destinated to various actions and offices dependent in Being and conservation will necessarily require variety of assistance and supply proportionable and suiting to their several purposes faculties properties and temperatures in matter manner times and order for their maintenance and sustentation in the integrity of their actions offices and duties constitutional dispositions and Crases peculiarly conservative of themselves respectively and consequently of the whole And by the Law of Nature being subject to corruption and dissolution through the fragility of constitutive parts connexion and fabrication is bound to observe Rules Orders and Customs most consonant for preservation and continuance in Being Now if there be a disproportion or unfitness in the matter or quantum or irregularity in the manner times or order of the auxiliary requisites and conservatives contrary to what the Law or necessity of his Nature requires and commands there ariseth Distempers Ataxies and discord the praeludiums to ruine and dissolution And this body being in a continual flux and reflux conversant in vicissitudes and variations of opposites dissimilars contraries and privations as heat and cold siccity and humidity filling and emptying rest and motion sleeping and waking inspiration and expiration and the like could not subsist amidst these various subalter nations and changes if they were not bounded and regulated by due order of succession to fit and convenient times that they might not clash interfere and encroach upon each others priviledges due times and proprieties If heat exceeds the natural moisture dries up the spirits evaporate and the body withers If cold the faculties are torpid and benum'd the spirits being frozen up to a cessation from their duties If moisture prevails the spirits are clogged suffocated and drowned in the chanels of the body If siccity and dryness the organical parts are stubborn unpliable and uncapable of their regular motions and due actions the vital streams being drank up that should irrigate refresh and supple them Were the body alwayes taking in and sending nothing forth it would either increase to a monstrous and vast magnitude or fill up suffocate and stifle the soul were it alwayes in excretion and emission the body would waste away and be reduced to nothing Nor is the receiving in of any thing sufficient and satisfactory to the body for its preservation but that which is appointed by Nature proper and sutable nor emission or ejection of any thing but that which is superfluous and unnecessary to be retained If sleep prevails contrary to the Law of Nature the body in a lethargick soporiferous inactivity stupefied and senseless lies at the gates of death If watching exceeds the limits transgresseth and steals away the due time for sleep the faculties are debilitated and enervated the spirits tyred worn out and impoverished If inspiration were constant without intermission the body would puff up and be blown like a Bladder If expiration were continual the soul and spirits would soon quit their habitation and come forth If alwayes exercised in motion the body would pine and wear away if alwayes at rest it would corrupt and stink There is a rule therefore proportion measure and season to be observed in all the requisite supports auxiliary helps belonging to our preservation and by how much or often any of these necessary alternative successions are extravagant and irregular exceeding the bounds and limits prescribed by Nature justling out the successive appointed action duty or custom from its seasonable exercise and due execution by so much is the harmony of Nature disturbed vigor abated and duration shortned by these jars discords and encroachments The thwarting and crossing of Nature in any thing she hath enjoyned either in the substance or circumstance is violence offered to Nature is destructive more or less according to the dignity or quality of the thing appointed For Nature was not so indifferent in the institution of these duties and customes that they might be done or not done or so careless and irregular to leave them at your pleasure when and how or to be used promiscuously preposterously without order at the liberty of your will fancy and occasions for as you
satisfie Nature but force it down many times contrary to natural inclination and when there is a reluctancy against it as Drunkards that pour in Liquor not for love of the drink or that Nature requires it by thirst but only to maintain the mad frollick and keep the Company from breaking up Some to excuse this intemperance hold it as good Physick to be drunk once a month and plead for that liberty as a wholsom custom and quote the authority of a famous Physitian for it Whether this Opinion be allowable and to be admitted in the due Regiment for preservation of health is fit to be examined Omne nimium naturae est inimicunt It is a Canon established upon good reason That every thing exceeding its just bounds and golden mediocrity is hurtful to Nature The best of things are not excepted in this general rule but are restrained and limited here to a due proportion The supports of life may prove the procurers of death if not qualified and made wholsom by this corrective Meat and drink is no longer sustinance but a load and over-charge if they exceed the quantum due to each particular person and then they are not what they are properly in themselves and by the appointment of Nature the preservatives of life and health but the causes of sickness and consequently of death Drink was not appointed man to discompose and disorder him in all his faculties but to supply nourish and strengthen them Drink exceeding its measure is no longer a refreshment to irrigate and water the thirsty body but makes an inundation to drown and suffocate the vital powers It puts a man out of the state of health and represents him in such a degenerate condition both in respect of body and mind that we may look upon the man as going out of the World because he is already gon out of himself and strangely metamorphosed from what he was I never knew sickness or a Disease to be good preventing Physick and to be drunk is no other then an unsound state and the whole body out of frame by this great change What difference is there between sickness and drunkenness Truly I cannot distinguish them otherwise then as genus and species Drunkenness being a raging Disease denominated and distinguished from other sicknesses by its procatartick or procuring cause Drink That Drunkenness is a Disease or sickness will appear in that it hath all the requisites to constitute a Disease and is far distant from a state of health for as health is the free and regular discharge of all the functions of the body and mind and sickness when the functions are not performed or weakly and depravedly then Ebriety may properly be said to be a Disease or sickness because it hath the symptoms and diagnostick signs of an acute and great Disease for during the time of drunkenness and some time after few of the faculties perform rightly but very depravedly and preternaturally if we examine the intellectual faculties we shall find the reason gone the memory lost or much abated and the will strangly perverted if we look into the sensitive faculties they are disordered and their functions impedited or performed very deficiently the eyes do not see well nor the ears hear well nor the pallate rellish c. The speech faulters and is imperfect the stomach perhaps vomits or nauseates his legs fail Indeed if we look through the whole man we shall see all the faculties depraved and their functions either not executed or very disorderly and with much deficiency Now according to these symptoms in other sicknesses we judge a man not likely to live long and that it is very hard he should recover the danger is so great from the many threatning symptoms that attend this sickness and prognosticate a bad event here is nothing appears salutary but from head to foot the Disease is prevalent in every part which being collated the syndrom is lethal and judgment to be given so Surely then Drunkenness is a very great disease for the time but because it is not usually mortal nor lasts long therefore it is slighted and look't upon as a trivial matter that will cure it self But now the question may be asked Why is not Drunkenness usually mortal since the same signs in other diseases are accounted mortal and the event proves it so To which I answer All the hopes we have that a man drunk should live is first From common experience that it is not deadly Secondly From the nature of the primitive or procuring Cause strong Drink or Wine which although it rage and strangely discompose the man for a time yet it lasts not long nor is mortal The inebriating spirits of the liquor flowing in so fast and joyning with the spirits of mans body make so high a tide that overflows all the banks and bounds of order For the spirits of mans body those agents in each faculty act smoothly regularly and constantly with a moderate supply but being overcharged and forced out of their natural course and exercise of their duty by the large addition of furious spirits spurs the functions into strange disorders as if nature were conflicting with death and dissolution but yet it proves not mortal And this first because these adventitious spirits are amicable and friendly to our bodies in their own nature and therefore not so deadly injurious as that which is not so familiar or noxious Secondly Because they are very volatile light and active Nature therefore does much sooner recover her self transpires and sends forth the overplus received then if the morbifick matter were more ponderous and fixed the gravamen from thence would be much worse and longer in removing as an over-charge of Meat Bread Fruit or such like substances not spirituous but dull and heavy comparativè is of more difficult digestion and layes a greater and more dangerous load upon the faculties having not such volatile brisk spirits to assist Nature nor of so liquid a fine substance of quicker and easier digestion So that the symptoms from thence are much more dangerous then those peracute distempers arising from Liquors So likewise those bad symptoms in other diseases are more to be feared and accounted mortal then the like arising from drunkenness because those perhaps depend upon malignant causes or such as by time are radicated in the body or from the defection of some principal part but the storm and discomposure arising from drunkenness as it is suddenly raised so commonly it soon falls depending upon benign causes and a spirituous matter that layes not so great an oppression but inebriates the spirits that they act very disorderly and unwontedly or by the soporiferous vertue stupefies them for a time until they recover their agility again But all this while I do not see that to be drunk once a month should prove good Physick all I think that can be said in this behalf is that by overcharging the stomach vomiting is procured and so carries
at the rising of the Sun they are fresh brisk and agile and then are no longer to be chained up in somnolent darkness but to be set at liberty and enjoy the bright light which chears the spirits and is a great enlivener to them Turpis qui alto sole semisomnis jacet Cujus vigilia medio die incipit Sen. Moderate sleep refresheth the spirits fortifies and increaseth vital heat helps concoction gives strength to the body pacifies anger calms the spirits and gives a relaxation to a troubled mind Immoderate sleep dulls the spirits injurious to a good wit and memory fills the head with superfluous moisture and clouds the brain retains excrements beyond their due time to be voided and infects the body with their noxious fumes and vapours an enemy to beauty and changeth the fresh flower of Youth Go early to sleep not with a full stomach and early from sleep that you may rise refreshed lively and active not dulled and stupid Avoid day sleeps as a bad custom chiefly fat and corpulent bodies but if your spirits be tired with much business and care or by reason of old age debility of Nature extream hot weather Sōnus meridianus quibus concedendus labour or the like that dissipates the spirits and enervates then a moderate sleep restores the spirits to their vigor again and is a good refreshment but rather take it sitting then lying down Night watching and late sitting up tires and wasts the animal spirits by keeping them too long upon duty debilitates Nature changeth Youth and a fresh florid countenance heats and dries the body for the present in time abateth natural heat Vigiliae longioris incommoda breeds Rhumes and Crudities and most injurious to thin lean bodies Concerning the place for sleeping take these cautions First That you do not expose your self to the open Air for in the time of sleep Nature is not so well able to defend the body from external injuries of the Air but lies more open to such assaults being off her guard and retired to Rest Know also that it is a bad custom to sleep upon the ground as many in the Summer season do use to their prejudice and those whose condition of life necessitate them to it as Soldiers although for the present they escape the mischief yet afterwards most are made sensible of the injury by Aches stifness or weakness of Limbs and many other infirmities that it procures Sleep not in any damp place Vault or Cellar a ground Chamber much worse unboarded a new washt Room or new plaistered but chuse a high Room dry sweet well aired free from smoke and remote from any noise Let your Bed be soft but not to sink in which sucks from the body exhausts and impairs strength a Quilt upon a Feather-Bed is both easie and wholsome As for the manner or decumbiture the body must lie easie or sleep will be disturbed the head somthing elevated the other parts as best likes every person but not upon the back or constantly upon one side but by turns and be covered according to the Climate and Season of the Year The mind also must be in a good posture well composed and setled when you are in bed or that will break off your sleep before due time and defraud you of your nights rest if you lie down with roving troubled thoughts they commonly will call you up before it is fit to rise and your sleep not so placid and refreshing Therefore when you lay by your cloaths lay aside also your business care and thoughts and let not a wandring phansie prevent your rest or awake you before due time SECT IX Preservation of Health by Regular and Requisite Evacuation and Retention ALL that the body receives is not fit to be retained our food though choicely pickt and temperately used yet all does not turn into the substance of the body but some part is to be separated and sent forth the rest to supply nourish and be assimilated This regular course being continued the body thrives and is in good order but if that which should be evacuated and sent forth be retained or that which ought to be retained be prodigally wasted and injuriously emitted then the body suffers and decayes when the regular oeconomy thereof is subverted Hinc ingens morborum turba And here we are to consider of the various excretions that Nature does require and is beneficial and of such retentions as are injurious Under this Head is comprised excretions by Stool by Urine menstrual Purgations Venus by the Pores Nose and Ears of which the former are of the greatest concernment and special care to be had of them Excremental evacuations are various proceeding from the several digestions conveyed out by several Channels and Vents of Natures fabrication which duly evacuated are no smal helps to the conservation of health and are the effects of a temperate and regular body The retention of them beyond due time argue discrasy of parts or irregular living and brings much detriment to the body by their noxious inpressions and putrid vapours that infect and disturb the body If the Belly be costive and bound up if the Urine be supprest the monthly Courses stopt the Pores occluded and shut up the Soul will be stifled in the Body and the Body polluted and corrupted with its own Excrements and as these are so more or less in degree swerving from rectitude so it fares with the body better or worse And on the contrary if the Belly let pass too soon and forceably before the alimentary part be separated sweeping down both together if the Urine flows too freely and drains the body If the Female Courses be immoderately current and exhaust the vital stream If the Sperme be involuntarily issuing and daily wasting If the Texture be too lax and pervious the Pores patent and evaporating the damage is as great as the former and as much to be feared as these evacuations are more or less enormous So that nothing but moderation and an even course between these two extreams are conservative of Health and longaevity And that this may be so all your actions and necessary customs must be bounded by mediocrity this is the Golden Chain that ties all together one Link whereof being broken the whole is broken and disunited having a dependance and mutual tye upon each other As the discharging of Nature moderately and seasonably in all her requisite evacuations preserves the body in health and strength so contrarily Immoderate evacuations causeth weakness debility of Nature by exhaustion and procures several Diseases Cachexies Consumptions Dropsies c. To keep the body soluble is very good that at least once a day you may not miss to have a stool else the Faeces are hardned the body heated the stomach molested the appetite not so good the head heavy dull and sometimes pained some grosser matter which should go away by seige is brought by the Urinary passage occasioning obstructions all
their mind will their bodily infirmities be agravated or abated I shall draw up this Discourse into three Corollaryes being the Epitome of what hath been asserted and aimed at 1. There is no perturbation or passion of mind whether little or great but it works a real effect in the Body more or less according to the nature and strength of the passion and by how much the more suddain great often and of longer duration the passion is by so much are the impressions and effects worse more durable and indeleable You cannot be angry or envious or melancholly or give way to any such passion but you cherish and feed an enemy that preys upon your life and you may be assured that passion makes as great nay greater alteration within the body then the change of your countenance appears to outward view which is not a little although but a shadow or reflection of the inward distemper and disorder And were it possible by any perspective to see the alteration and discomposure within made by a passionate troubled mind the prospect would be strange and much different from that placidness and tranquility of an indisturbed quiet Soul 2. Strong and vehement passions or affections of the mind too intent upon this or that object whether desirable and to be enjoyed or formidable and to be avoided alienates suspends and draws off the wonted vigour influence and preservative power of the Soul due to the body whereby the functions and necessary operations are not duly and sufficiently performed but intempestively remisly and weakly Nor is the dammage onely privative but also introduceth and impresseth upon the spirits a morbifick Idea which is ens reale seminale producing this or that effect according to the nature and property of the Idea received and aptitude of the recipient subject Phansies and Idea's are let in naked but they streight are invested and cloathed in the body have a real existence and are entia realia though at first conception but entia rationis as the longing of a pregnant Woman being but the Idea of a thing in her mind begets various and real distemprs in her body if not soon satisfied and sometimes charactarized upon the Embryo in the Womb. Likewise a good stomach is taken off its meat suddenly by the coming of some unwelcome bad news the appetite is gone now the Soul is disquieted and the Body really affected and altered Let this sad tydings be contradicted and the Soul satisfied of the truth to the contrary it sets a new impression upon the spirits they strait are cheared lively and active the stomach calls for meat and drink and the faculties restored to their wonted operations Whereby it appears the two passions of joy and grief as they are opposite in their objects so are their effects wrought in the Body as far distant and different 3. A cogitative or contemplative person to intent alwayes or unseasonably employing the mind seriously and eagerly either in real or fictious matters fabricating Idea's upon the spirits disturbs and hinders other necessary offices and opperations conservative of being enervates and weakens their performance in duty impares Health and hastens old Age but those that live most incurious and void of studious thoughts too serious cogitations and disqueting passions preserve the strength of Nature and integrity of all the Faculties protract the verdure and beauty of youth much longer from declensions and decay for by how much the rational faculty is over busie disturbed and intempestively exercised drawing the full vigour of the Soul into the discharge of that faculty and robbing other inferiour functions of their necessary influential supply and emanative power from the Soul by so much the other faculties are impoverished and abated their executions more languid and depraved and therefore it is a close Students life a careful or passionate mind disposeth to and introduceth many infirmities enervates and debilitates nature abbreviates and shortens her course SECT XVI Perturbations or Passions of the Soul particularly Of Anger THis Passion is a great Disease if we consider the preternatural effects and alterations it maketh for the functions of the body are disordered and discomposed by it and the whole man changed from what he was In giving judgement upon Diseases so much worse is that person to be accounted whose alteration is greater from what he was in a state of health and as the functions perverted are more in number and superior in dignity This Disease does not take up one particular part for its quarters but it seaseth the whole Man All the Faculties are disordered and every part is discomposed and disturbed Take a view of an angry Man or rather a Man in the fury and perturbation of Anger his Reason is supprest or suspended he acts not rationally but as a mad man his face is changed his eyes staires and sparkles his Tongue stammers his Heart pants his Pulse beats high and quick his Breath is almost gone the Blood and all the Humours boyl and the Spirits are agitated to and fro by gusts like an impetuous Wind he trembles all over and this storm shaketh the whole Fabrick of mans body Surely this is a great Disease that thus discomposeth and puts the whole man out of frame and order such storms as these do much weaken and enervate the ability of the Faculties disorder their regular performance and discharge of their Offices but more especially infirm Parts are made sensible of the prejudice and cholerick lean bodies An inflamation of any particular part is a great Disease but Anger is an inflamation of the whole and were this distemper to continue long a man were in as much danger of life as in the highest Feaver Therefore take the Poets counsel Principiis obsta Ne frena animo permitte Calenti Stat. Fear Fear whether suddain and violently seazing or gradually approaching and threatning an evil to come both enervate and debilitate Nature Fear suddainly surprizing chaseth the spirits to and fro from their residency and faculties sometimes compressing and driving them to the heart causing violent palpitations and suffocation or scattering them from the Fountain of Life into the external parts making a dissolution almost to exanimation Such frightful surprizes as these are very dangerous and seldom happen but they leave some sad Characters and Impressions behind Etiam fortes viri subitis terrentur Tacit. Against this fear there is no remedy having surprized and seized the Person before deliberation can interpose to prevent it or preparation made couragiously to meet or valiantly to stand against this shock of terror Fear that gives warning before the evil comes and threatens as yet afar off that Soul which then yeelds up her courage and strength of resistance is disarm'd by her own phansie and vanquished by her self is conquered with nothing in Being but with the fear of something that may be The evil although to come and possibly may be prevented and never come yet it is made a