and menstruous bloud as Galen thought For 1. In Trees and Herbs there is this naturall héat yet no menstruous bloud in insects begot of putrified matter there is this heat but neither seed nor the foresaid bloud 2. This heat must diffuse it self through all the least parts of the body without which they cannot live but if it be a body there must be penetration of bodies if there bee this diffusion if there be only an agglutination of this heat to the parts of the body then these parts have not life in themselves and consequently neither nutrition or attraction which are the effects of life and by which it is preserved and so the Fibres which are given for attraction are in these parts in vain 3. If this body of our natural heat did live before it was articulated and distinguished into membeâ—s then the heart is not the first thing that liveth besides it will follow that the soul may be the act of an inorganical body which is against the definition of the soul. 4. Nor can the bloud in the veins be this body because this bloud is the effect of concoction and nutrition and it is bloud only but that body of Galens is the effect of generation and the mixture of seed and bloud 5. If this natural heat hath no life in it then it will follow that the chief part of the living creature is without life 6. This heat then is a quality in children more vigorous and intense then in men because its work in these is only to concoct and nourish but in those to extend the body also which is a greater work and therefore requires more heat Besides children cannot endure hunger so well as men because their heat being greater wastes the bodie sooner where it hath not food to work upon children then are more hot intensively but men extensively because their bodies are larger according to the dimension of which their heat is diffused And although they can eat harder and more solid meats then children it argues not that their heat is greater then that of childrens but that their instruments of mastication which is the first concoction are better and stronger V. That mans body might be a fit habitation for the Soul it was made of all bodies the most 1 temperate and 2 proportionable 3 the most copious of organs so that it may well be called a Microcosm containing as in an epitome the parts of the great world 4. It was also made naked as needing no other arms or defence then what man was by his reason tongue and hands able to furnish himself with 5. It was made not of an heavenly but of an elementary substance because man was made for knowledge this is got by the senses these are grounded on the proportion of the 4 prime qualities of which the Heavens are not capable 7. It was made strait that 1 man may be put in minde of his original that he came from heaven in respect of his soul 2 That he might affect and seek after the things above not here below 3. He abounds more in spirits and heat then other creatures and the heat and spirits raise the body upwards towards their own proper place 4. If man had not been of a strait body his hands which were made for many excellent uses must have been hindred and employed with the feet for motion and supporting of his body 6. Hee was made with long feet that his body might be the more steddy and strongly supported with feet forward because all his actions and motions tend that way 7. He was not made with wings to fly because he had hands to make him fly on the water in ships and he had knowledg to make him fly to Heaven in contemplation with the wings of Faith we can fly swifter farther then David could have don with the wings of a Dove VI. Mans head is of all parts in the body the noblest therefore it is placed in the highest Region and nearest Heaven which it resembleth both in figure and use it is almost round 1. That it may be the more capacious of spirits and of brain of which is more in man then in any other creature because in him is more variety and perfection of animal spirits then in other creatures 2. That it may bee the fitter for motion 3. That it might be the stronger and more able to resist injuries Again for use It is like Heaven for this is the seat of the Angels or Intelligences and that is the seat of the Intellect so far forth as it is the seat of the phantasie by which the intellect worketh and of the senses by which the phantasie is informed And as all sublunary bodies receive life sense or motion from the Heavens so do all our members from the Head so that if our brain be wounded sense and motion in the body presently cease The head is that by which man is Lord over the beasts therefore deserved to have the highest place in the body it is the Citadel of this little world in the safety of which consisteth the safety of the body therefore hands feet arms and all are ready to protect the head when it is in danger Hence anciently the head and brains were honored above the other members they used to swear by the head per caput hoc juro per quod pater ante solebat When any sneezed they were wont to blesse them with a prayer because the brain is affected in sneezing Men use to uncover their heads to their superiours intimating that they discover and present to their service the noblest part of their bodies and for honours sake the Priest abstained from eating of the brains CAP. IV. 1. What the spirits are 2. They differ in seven things 3. The Woman is only passive in generation Her Testicles Arteries c. not spermatical parts the males seed evaporates why the child resembles the parents the bloud may be called seed 4. Adeps how generated Of the Lungs they are hot THE Animal and Vital Spirits are so called not only because we have sense and life by them but also because they first have life and animation in themselves for otherwise how could the soul give life and sense to the body by these which are not as some think capable of either 2. These spirits are parts of our bodies parts I say not solid and containing but fluxil and contained 3. They are one with the vessels members to which they do adhere one not specifically but quantitatively so the grisle is one with the bone that ends in the grisle 4. These spirits are not the same with the vapours that are in our bodies For the vapours are excrements and hurtful to us therefore nature strives to expel them but the spirits are parts helpful to us therfore nature labors to retain them 5. These spirits somtimes are extinguished by violence somtimes are wasted for defect of food and maintenance he that is
perfect in this respect an infant and a man may be called different entities and they have their different operations yet they have the same soule If then we conclude diversities of things from diversities of operations we must inferre that every animall is different from it self because it produceth different operations and that Peter hath not the same soule when he doth different things How many different entities must there be in the Sunne who produceth so many different effects Neither do I allow of the Doctors Assertion in saying The chick is begot of the egges corruption for indeed it is begot of the egges perfection For then is the egge perfected when the chick is procreated If by corruption he understand the abolition of the form of the egge I assent to him that according to the old Peripatetick Maxime The corruption of one thing is the generation of another But if by corruption he understand putrifaction as he seems to doe I say that then a chick is not nor cannot be procreated of a putrified egge which is fitter to breed worms then a Chick IV. Because the soule is a pure and celestiall substance and our bodies are grosse and earthy on which so sublimate an entity cannot operate without a medium that may in some sort participate of both natures therefore God in his wisdom hath interposed the animall and vital spirits as the immediate instruments of the soul to work upon the body But Dr. Harvy Exercit. 70 will have the blood to be this immediat instrument of the soul because it is every where present and runs to and fro with great celerity Answ. Neither can the blood be the immediat instrument of the soul because the spirits being of a purer essence come nearer to the nature of the soule and therefore must be more immediat neither is there any ubiquitary presence or celerity of motion in the blood but by the reason of the spirits which drive it to and fro Besides all animals have not blood some being exanguious yet they have spirits by which they are moved Again he saith That the blood works above the power of the elements being the part first begot and the innate heat doth fabricate the other parts of the body Answ. The blood works not at all much lesse above the elementary powers but by vertue of the spirits which the Doctor immediatly after seems to acknowledg when he faith It is made the immediate instrument of life by the gift of the formative faculty and vegetive soule Now this formative faculty consisteth immediatly in the spirits and so doth the vegitive soule which are even in those parts where there is no blood at all to wit in the spermaticall parts according to the doctrine of Hippocrates and Galen To say then that the blood is the immediat instrument of life by means of the plastick faculty is in effect to say It is not the immediat because there is one more immediat to vvit the plastick faculty in the spirits Neither is the blood the part first begot as the Doctor saith if we will believe the Galenists but the spermatick parts are first begot if we speak of the formation of the child neither can the blood fabricate any part at all being a dull thing in it selfe but the spirits or the plastick faculty in them doe fabricate the blood is onely the materiall cause of the flesh and sanguineall parts as the Galenists affirm And whereas the Doctor saith That the blood is a spirit because Virgil saith Una cademque viâ sanguisque animusque sequuntur He speaks very improperly for blood and a spirit are specifically different and if the Poet had meant that blood and a spirit were the same thing he had used a meer tautologie which is far from his elegancie and therefore his words intimate the contrary that they are different things because he saith Sanguisque animusque though then they had but one passage or vent yet they are not one thing And whereas he saith That the blood is celestiall because the soule lodgeth in it he may say the whole body is celestiall being the house and tabernacle of the soule which lodgeth in each part thereof even where there is no blood as in the bones grisles c. But indeed the spirits are rather to be called celestiall because in them the soul immediatly resides and by them in the blood and other parts The blood then is not celestial at all but by the spirits nor these in respect of their originall but because of theiâ— celestial qualities and operations Again when he distinguisheth the principall agent from the instrumentall in this That the one can never work above its own strength whereas the other doth I say this distinction is needlesse for no agent can work above its own strength much lesse the instrumentall which worketh not at all but as it is moved by the principall agent The instrument then doth not worke above its own strength but the prime agent worketh by it above the strength of the instrument Besides when hee saith That the blood deserves the name of Spirit because it abounds more with radicall moisture then other parts by which it feeds all other parts I answer That the seed deserves rather to be called a Spirit for though in the blood there is more moisture extensively yet in the seed there is more radicall moistureâ— And if that which feeds us immediatly be a spirit then the blood is no spirit for it is not that but a roscid and benigne juice extracted from thence which immediatly nourisheth us Lastly when he saith That the soule with the blood performes all things in us If he understand here as he seemes to doe in all his discourse collaterall efficient causes I deny his saying for the soule by the spirits is the sole efficient cause of all that is acted within us the blood is onely a materiall cause having no more efficiency in it then Bricks and Mortar have towards the building of an house Doctor Harvy de Conciptione will have the Female conceive and be prolificall without any sensible corporeall Agent as Iron touched with the Loadstone draweth other Iron to it Again hee saith That the substance of the womb being ready for conception is very like the constitution of the brain Why then should not their function be alike And what the phantasme or appetite is in the brain the very same or its analogy is excited after copulation in the womb â—for the functions of both are called conceptions And shortly after As when we have conceived a form or Idaea in the brain wee produce the like in our workmanship even so the Idea or species of the Father being existant in the womb by the help of the formative faculty produceth the lik brood Then after divers amplifications to the same purpose he concludes That it is no absurdity if the female that is made pregnant by conceiving the generall Idaea without matter doth generate Answ. In
to it selfe He saith Sect. 91. That paper or wood oyled last long moist but wet with water dry or putrifie sooner the cause is for that air medleth little with the moisture of oyle Answ. He should have told us the cause of this cause for why doth not air medle with oyle as well as with water The reason is because oyle is a more tenacious and dense substance then water and therefore resisteth the heat of the air longer and cannot be so soon evaporated and indeed it is not the air but the heat in the air that works both on water and oile for the cold air drieth up neither it may well harden them Take then two papers the one moystned with water the other with oyle and hold them near the â—re we shall see the one dried up long before the other so that his saying is erroneous when he inferreth Sect. 91. That fire worketh upon oyle as air upon water For indeed the air doth not work upon water but heat in the air or fire nor doth the fire work so soon upon the oyle as on the water when they are at a distance Again he saith That white is a penurious colour and where moisture is scant Answ. There are many things which want moisture and yet are black as divers dry stones and coals many bodies are not scant of moisture and yet are white as Lilies Milk Snow There is as much moisture in a white Swan as in a black Raven But when he saith Sect. 93 That Birds and Horses by age turn white and the gray hairs of men come by the same reason he is mistaken for it is not want or scant of moisture but want of heat rather that is the cause of whitenesse for old men abound more in watrish moisture then young men and therefore we see that cold climats produce white complexions and skins whereas they are black and swarthy in hot Countries Snow is not bred in hot Summers but in cold Winters and hoar frost is ingendred in cold Scithia not in hot Ethiopia Again he is mistaken when he saith Sect. 96 97. That the soals of the feet have great affinity with the head and mouth of the stomach so the wrists and hands have a sympathy with the heart For there is no more affinity between these parts then any other the feet have as great a sympthy with the heart and the wrists with the head as these with the heart and the other with the head If there be any affinity between the head and the feet it is by reason of the nerves and so the same affinity may be to the hands If there be any sympathy between the heart and the wrists it is because of the arteries and so the sympathy may be to the feet It 's true that the heart is affected in Agues by things applied to the wrists not because there is any sympathy between the skin muscles nerves and bones of the wrists with the heart but because the arteries which have their originall from the heart lie more open and are more tangible there then in many other parts of the body and yet in the temples and divers other parts of the body you shall find the pulse as well as in the wrists and things applied to these parts will work as powerfully on the heart as if applied to the wrists His Lordship is angry Sect. 98. Because we call the spirits of Plants and living Creatures Soules such superficiall speculations saith he they have But he should for the same reason be angry with the Scriptures which ordinarily calls the spirits of beasts birds and fishes Souls He must also be angry with all wise Nomenclators which have called living and sensitive creatures Animals because they have animal soules For animal is from anima Again I would know if this word likes him not how he will call these spirits of animals If he call them nothing but spirits then he makes no difference between them and all other tangible bodies For according to his doctrine there are spirits in stocks and stones as well as in plants and animals but I hope the spirits of these deserve another name then of the others which indeed according to the old and true Philosophy are meer qualities which word also he rejects as Logicall as though forsooth Logick or Logicall terms were needlesse whereas no knowledge is more usefull and necessary as being the hand-maid to all Sciences the want of which hath occasioned multitudes of whimzicall conceits and Chimera's in mens brains Again if he will not have these chiefe acts agents or movers in animals to be called souls or spirits but air or vapour or wind he will find that all these three are called by the word Anima 1. Aire is Anima in the Prince of Poets Eclog. 6. Namque canebat uti magnum pir inaâ—e coacta Semina terrarumque animaeque marisque fuissent 2. Vapour is called anima too in the same Poet AEn 8. Quantum ignes animaeque valent 3. The wind is anima also in Horace Impellunt animae lintea Thracie and animus in the Poet AEn 1. Mollitque animos temperat iras So then call the Spirits of animals what you will air vapour wind or spirit you will still find anima or soul is the term most proper for them and that this is no superficiall speculation My Lord in his second Century sect 11. Makes pictures and shapes but secondary objects to the eye but colours and order the things that are pleasing to the sight If he had said That colours are the chief objects of the eye he had spoken more properly then to say they are pleasing to the eye for some colours are very displeasing to some eyes As for order that is not at all the object of the sight for it is a relation and relations incurre not into the senses Again he saith sect 114. That the sense of hearing striketh the spirits more immediatly then the other senses This is a very improper saying for the senses are patients in receiving the species of their objects not agents upon their objects If there be any action of dijudication that is the work of the phantasie rather then of the outward sense and though I should yeeld that there were some actions of the eye yet the sense of hearing is meerly passive and therefore it is not the sense of hearing that striketh the spirits but the species of the sound which is received by the spirit in the auditory nerve and so conveyed into the phantasie so it is not the smelling as he saith that worketh on the spirits but the object that worketh on the sense of smelling Again when he saith sect 117. That dores in fair weather give no sound he speakes by contraries for if by fair weather he means dry weather then dores give the greatest sound I know not what kind of dores his were but mine sound much in dry Summers and but little in moist weather And this stands
under water and hardned by the air Viscum or Missletoe how it grows The shade of the Ash-tree pernicious to Serpents CHAP. XXI 1. The existence of the Phoenix proved by divers reasons and thcontrary objections refelled the strange generation of some birds 2. The Ancients cleared concerning the Phoenix and whether the Phoenix be mentioned in Scripture Divers sorts of generation in divers creatures The Conclusion with an Admonition not to sleight the Ancients opinion and Doctrine The fourth Book Containing a Refutation of the Lord BACON Doctor HARVEY and others CHAP. I. 1. Fishes breath not the Reasons thereof and the contrary objections answered 2. Fossil or earth-fishes 3. Fishes delight in the light 4. Fishes of Humane shapes 5. Fishes are cunning and dâ—cible creatures 6. Why some Fishes have Feet and Wings 7. Many monstrous fishes CHAP II. 1. Publick and privat calamities presaged by owles 2. By dogs 3. By ravens and other birds and divers other ways 4. Wishing well in sneezing when and why used 5. Divers strange things in thunderâ—struck people CHAP. III. 1. The Female hath no active seed of generation Doctor Harvies and Fernelius reasons refutaed 2. A Discourse of the Cholick 3. The same soul in a subventaneous and prolificall egge Doctor Harvies reasons to the contrary refuted 4. Blood not the immediate instrument of the Soul Doctor Harvies reasons answered 5. Doctor Harvies way of conception refuted CHAP. IV. 1. My Lord Bacon's opinion confuted concerning the French disease 2. Concerning the expulsion of pellets out of guns 3. Of the wax candle burning in spirit of wine 4. Of the parts most nutritive in animals 5. Of the spirits in cold bodies 6. Of air fire water oyl whiteness the hands and feet 7. Of souls and spirits 8. Of visible objects and hearing 9. Of sounds and musick 10. Of singing birds descending species light 11. Ingrate objects and deafness with other passages CHAP. V. The Lord Bacons opinions refuted Of holding the breath when wee bearken Of time Of long life Of making gold Of starres Of oyl Of indisposition to motion Of death diseases and putrifaction Of stuttering Of motion after the head is off Of sympathies and antipathies of the Vine and Colewort the Fig-tree and Rew. Of white colour Of the Oke bough in the earth Of transmutation of species Of Incubus Of grain in cold Countries Of determination and figures Of accretion and alimentation Of the period of life Of sugar leaves roots snow and putrifaction CHAP. VI. The Lord Bacons opinions confuted concerning Snow Ephemera gravitie the sperme of Drunkards putrifaction teeth bones and nails thick and thin mediums Nilus hot Iron broin sudden darkness drie and moist bodies fish cornes hunger liquifaction hardness moisture accidents light right side spungy bodies stone-walls imagination the cramp hedghog mummy salt Cominus and others refuted concerning motion qualities colours forms the Epilogue Arcana Microcosmi OR The hid Secrets of MAN's BODY discovered WITH A Refutation of Doctor BROVVNS VULGAR ERRORS My Lord BACON'S Naturall History AND Dr HARVEY's Book De Generatione CHAP. I. 1. The Hearts dignity scituation priority necessity and use 2. The Heart first formed not all the parts together 3. The Galenists Objections answered 4. How the heart is perfect before the other members and how nourished 5. All the temperaments united in the Heart 6. Three ventricles in som Hearts 7. The Heart nervous 8. No parts more spermatical then others 9. The Liver not the first that is formed 10. The Heart the seat of Bloud and nourishment 11. The heat of the Matrix not generative 12. The right Ventricle nobler then the left 13. The vital and nutritive faculties are the same 14. Heat the cause of the Hearts motion 15. The Heart was first formed and informed 16. There is but one principal member in the body not many AS in all States and Kingdomes there have ever been factions and sidings so have there been still oppositions in the Common-wealth of Learning amongst many others there are two great factions concerning the fabrick of Mans Body namely the Peripateticks and Galenists so that in Rome there was not greater emulation between the Pompeians and Caesarians then there is between the Philosophers and Physitians in the points of Anatomy I stood as neuter a long time but at last being evinced by the multitude and strength of Aristotelian reasons am forced to side with them against the Galenists but so that I do what I can to reconcile them in some things and to make peace for Nulla salus bello I. I will therefore briefly set down the reasons that have induced me to side with the Aristotelians And first concerning the Heart I finde that it is the first member that lives and is formed in our bodies and consequently the noblest and chiefest of all our members whatsoever the Galenists say to the contrary For 1. The Heart is placed in the midst of the breast as the Sun in the midst of the world that it might impart its vital heat and motion to all parts So the seed is in the midst of the fruit 2. Where there is a medium there must needs be extreams but we finde in mans body this medium to wit that there are some parts which both give and receive life and motion therefore there must be some that receive but give not and consequently some that give but receive not and this must be the heart or brain or liver for to make more originals then one is needless seeing Nature always tends to and aims at unity Now that the heart is this principal appears by these reasons 3. First that is most likely to be the originall of life sense and motion in other members which is most apt and capable of these and so that had first life and motion which had the greatest inclination and aptitude to receive them but the heart of all other parts is most apt to receive these from the formative faculty Therefore doubtless this faculty in the seed would first produce the heart as being a matter prepared to receive first the impressions of the formative 4. What the heart is in Animals that the root is in Vegitables but the root is the first thing the plant thrusts out therefore the heart is first formed 5. The heart dieth last therefore it lived first for this method Nature observes that the parts which are last made decay first as the eies and teeth and consequently that decayeth last which was framed first 6. They that have been curious by inspection into eggs to observe Natures progress in the generation of the chick have found a red spot the third day which had a motion like palpitation this could be nothing else but the heart 7. The other members cannot live without the heart but the heart can live without the other members as I have seen a Monkeys heart live a great while after it hath been taken out of the body If then the life of the other members depends from
the superfluous moisture of the body by the natural heat be exhausted and the organs made drier 3. The bodies of other creatures are not capable of mans soul because they are not of that fabrick temper and constitution 4. The faculties of the animal soul have not their originall from the gross and earthy part of the seed but from the aereal by means of its celestial heat 5 The rational soul bringing with it all its perfections the former faculties of sense and vegetation which were in the Embryo give place to it so that now it alone works by its faculties 6. The seed brings with it from the parents it s own heat by which the formative faculty worketh the heat of the matrix is not operative but conservative of the other heat 7. The seed consisting of grosser and aereal parts cannot be called uniform and if it were yet it may have divers operations and faculties ad extra so hath the Sun and other uniform bodies 8. The Embryo is not capable of three specificall forms or souls for so it should be a threefold compound specifically distinct but it is capable of divers generical forms and subordinate the superior being preparatives for reception of the inferior and ultimate specificall form which giveth name and entity as the rational soul doth to the child being perfected CHAP. XV. 1. Why about the fourth month milk is engendred and of what 2. The effects of the Diaphragma inflamed 3. Pericardium 4. The Hearts Flesh Fibres and Ventricles 5. The Heart why hot and dry 6. The vital faculty 7. The vital spirits how ingendred 8. Systole and Diastole 9. The Hearts motion 10. How câ—used AS soon as the child groweth big about the fourth month the menstruous blood flowes upward to the breasts and when the child is born it flowes from thence and being suck'd by the child the veins of the breasts do avoid vacuity draw the blood upward for generation of new milk 2. In the breasts of Virgins and of some men also there is sometimes found a whitish liquor which is not milk because it hath neither the tast nor thickness nor nutritive quality of milk 3. The breasts or paps are glandulous bodies principally ordained for generation of milk and in the second place for reception of excrementitious humors and guarding of the heart 4. The reason why about the fourth month the blood flowes upward into the breasts is that the child growing big and wanting sufficient food might struggle to get out which it would not do having sufficient nutriment 5. It is not fit that the child out of the womb should feed on blood as it did in the womb because then the mouth of the veins being opened the blood would run out and so nature be overthrown neither would God accustom man to blood left he should become cruel and bestial II. Upon the inflammation of the diaphragma follow oftentimes phrensies by reason of the society it hath by the nerves with the brain to which it sendeth fumes and hot vapors which phrensie is known from that of the brain by the shortness of the breath the chief organ of breath being ill-affected so that the breast cannot freely move it self and because the Diaphragma is united to the Pleura and Peritonaeum which containeth all the organs in the inferiour belly hence all these parts are drawn upwards by the motion of the Diaphragma III. The tunicle of the heart called Pericardium hath within it a water for refrigeration and moistning of the heart which is begot of vapours condensate by the coldness of the membrane as some think or else it sweats through the tunicles of the veins and arteries they that have hot hearts have but little of this water and it abounds most where the heart is colder but whether the defect of this water be the cause of the heat in the heart or the heat the cause of this defect it is uncertain as it is with the sea-water which is turned into vapours by the suns heat and these vapours turned into water again by the coldness of the middle Region so the heat of the heart turns this water into vapours and the membrane converts these vapours into water again and so this circulation continues till the heat of the heart be extinguished by death then is found water onely IV. The heart hath a peculiar hard flesh of its own that it might be the better able to undergo its perpetual motion to contain the spirits and life-blood and to resist external injuries 2. This flesh is not musculous because the motion of the muscles is voluntary but the hearts motion is natural 3. The heart hath both straight transverse and circular fibers for attraction and expulsion and oblique fibers also for retension but these fibers are of the same substance with the heart and not of a different as the fibers of the Muscles which are parts of the nerves and Tendons 4. The heart is fed with gross blood answerable to its own gross substance by the vein called Coronaria compassing the Basis of the heart 5. The heart hath two ventricles whereof the right is hottest extensive as Aristotle will have it for it contains the life-blood the left is hottest intensive as containing the vital spirits and so Galen saith 6. If we consider the situation of the right ventricle which is in the right side and the priviledge it hath in living longer then the left we may with Aristotle say that the right ventricle is the more noble of the two but if we consider that the left ventricle contains the vitall spirit which in dignity excels the blood which is in the right we must with Galen give the preheminence to the left and so these two may be reconciled V. The heart is a hot and drie substance that it might be the fitter both to beget and to preserve the vital spirits to attenuate the venal and to procreate the arterial blood And though the spirits be hotter extensively yet the substance of the heart is hotter intensively as burning coles are hotter then flaming straw VI. The vital faculty by which the vital spirits are ingendred for animating the body and preserving the natural heat is an effect of the soul as all faculties are and not of the heart yet here it chiefly resides because of the soul which here exerciseth her chief functions of life 2. This vital faculty differs from the animal because it is not subject to fatigation nor rests in sleep nor doth it accompany the imagination or apprehension of the object as the animal doth 3. It is different from the pulsifick faculty because this is subservient to the vital neither doth the pulsifick beget spirits or is it diffused every where as the vital is 4. The vital differs from the vegitive faculty because the vegitive is in plants and insects but not the vital as it is procreative of spirits for the dull heat of insects is not so soon spent as to need
the imagination is vitiated or the spirits subservient to the same are disturbed or an opac vapour is interjected between the Cornea and chrystalline humor wee seem to see things and colours in the air which are not there but this is an imperfect vision because there is no reception of species from the air nor is the organ distinct from the medium and object nor is there that distance between the organ and the object as is required in perfect vision II. The eye should be of a watrish substance not fiery because water is dense and diaphonous fit to receive the species as it is diaphonous and to retain them as it is dense so is not the fâ—re for though it be diaphonous it is not dense therefore not fit to retain the species 2. The species being spiritual or immaterial do not affect or hurt the eye but the colours only hurt the eye more or lesse as they participate more or lesse of the light which dissipates the visive spirits these being lucid spend themselves on lucid objects by reason of their cognate quality 3. Sometimes the eye is wearied with seeing not as vision is a reception and so a passion but in respect of the visive spirits which are agents 4. The eye in an instant perceives its object though never so far distant because the visible species are in the air contiguous to the eye though the object be distant III. That there are spirits in the eye is apparent by the dilatation of the Ball of one eye when the other is shut which is caused by the spirit passing from one eye to the other and by reason of these spiriâ—s the eye is more cheerful at one time then at another 2. Though there be two eyes and divers mâ—scles yet they are moved but with one motion because otherwise one object would appear as two Thus by lifting up one of our eyes with our finger the object we look upon appears double because the two Balls of the eyes are not upon the same â—uperficies nor do the beams of both eyes equally reach the object Thus it is with dâ—uâ—karâ—s and goggle eyes and in conâ—ulsâ—ons of the muscles of the eye â— There are not properly any câ—louâ—s in the eye becauâ—e then the object would seem to be of the same colour that the eye is of yet the eyes seem to be coloured because they are visible IV. The optick nerves seem of all others the most soft and spongy that they â—ight bee the lesse offensive to the eye the most tender of all other members and that they might convey the gâ—eater quantity of optick spirits 2. They are united into one about the middle way between the brain where they have their beginnings and the eyes into which they are inseâ—ted that by this union they might be the stronger and that â—hey might be â—qually implanted into the same superficies of both eyes lest the visive spirits beiâ—g unequally communicate should occaâ—ion the object to appear double V. The Chrystallinâ— humour is a part of the eye because it hath its life nutriment and function as other parâ—s have it is also both a similar part in its temper and substance and it is organical in its sâ—tuation and figure 2. The glassâ—e humour is also a part for the saâ—e reâ—sons therefore the Chrystalline doth not feed upon it for no partâ—feeds upon another but it prepares the blood and alters it for the Chrystalline left it should be infecâ—ed with a red colour it affords then the same service to the Chrâ—stalline which the stomach doth to the liver 3. The white of the eye is a part thereof and no excrement for Nature exâ—ludes excrements but if this white should perish sight faileth for it is as a Bulwark to the Chrystalline and conveyeth the species to it CHAP. XIX 1. Five things required to hearing 2. Not the real but intentional sound is heard Hearing fails last in drowned men 3. The innate air no organ of hearing no spirit or part of the body 4. The caus â—f the sympathy between the ear and the mouth I. FOR the sense of hearing are required 1. A sound which is caused by the collision of two solid bodies or of the air and of another body 2. Air which is the medium that receiveth and carrieth the sound whereas the water in respect of its thickness carrieth the sound but imperfectly and dully 3. The ear containing in it the thin and dry membrane called the drum which if it be thick or too much moistned hindreth hearing 2. Three little bones called Incus malleus Stapes 3. An innate and immoveable air 4. A winding labyrinth that the external air and sound may not too suddenly rush in upon the nerve of hearing 5. This auditory nerve carrieth the sound to the brain that there the common sense and fantasie may judge thereof II. The sound which is carried into the ear is not real but intentional and spiritual or the species and image of the real sound for how can a real sound passe through a thick wall or multiply it self in a thousand ears in an instant or in so short a time reach twenty miles from any canon to the eare 2. The winding labyrinth in the ear is the cause why men that are drowned lose the sense of hearing last because the water cannot passe through that winding Meander III. The innate air of the ear is not the organ of hearing but a medium for it differs not from the external air nor can that be an organ which is no part of the body either spermatical or sanguiâ—eal as Physitians use to speak neither is it animated by the soul for the soul is the act of organical bodies onely Nor is it a spirit either animal or vital because it is not contained within the nerves or arteries and being it is not a mixed but a simple body it can be no part either similar or dissimilar IV. By reason the auditory nerves do impart some branches to the tongue hence it is that there is such a sympathy between the ear and mouth That this is a help or hindrance to our hearing and this to speaking so that if the auditory nervs be stopped or deficient not onely deafness but dumbness is caused and we finde that those who hear hardly speak little and such as are born deaf are born dumb too and if we hold a musical instrument with our teeth and stop our ears we shall hear the sound perfectly CHAP. XX. 1. How wee excell the beasts in smelling Wee smell reall odours 2. Smells nourish not 3. The nose not the brain is the organ of smelling I. THOUGH the beasts excel us in the sense of smelling in respect of celerity and way of reception yet in respect of dijudication and differencing the diversities of smells wee exceed them for our brains being bigger colder and moister then those of beasts cannot so quickly receive the smell But because of the reasonable soul we judge better of
born with all his teeth and another with a long beard yet such have been and these are but the effects of nature which though in her ordinary course â—he observes a timâ— for the growth perfection and decay of things yet sometimes she is furthered and hindred according as the matter is disposed the heat proportioned and her instruments fitted Why should not Nature have the same priviledge that Art hath but we see that hearbs and fruits can be produced and perfected before their time by the Art of man therefore such works are meerly natural not miraculous for sublunary bodies are not like the â—elestial which are not suâ—ject to alteration but â—till keep the same constant tenor II. What force the imagination hath in women to make impressions of the things imagined on the tender infant in the womb is known by many Stories and daily Examples Hence it is that so many children are born with such variety of strange shapes and marks Besides we know how forcible the phantasie is both in curing and procuring of diseases yea oftentimes of death Thus one having eat of a Rabbit pie imagining she had eat of a cat fel a vomiting and died Another having passed over a dangerous bridg in the dark and returning the next day to look upon the place was struck with such an horror that he went home and died A third being in jest made believe that he must lose his head swouned and fel down dead Multitudes of such Examples thâ—re are but the imaginatioâ—s which proceed from hypochondriacal melancholy are most strange whereby one supposeth himself to be dead therefore will not eat Another is perswaded that he hath never a head A third that his breech is made of glass therefore will not fit down for fear of breaking Anothâ—r thinks the heaven will fall upon him therefore must have a Target born over him Another wil not piss for fear he should drown the world And many more such strange conceits are some men troubled with by reason of their imaginations which are distorted by the black and malignant fumes that disturb the animal spirits subservient to the phantasie Such are the imaginations of those who think themselves wolves and therefore run into the woods and bite men and cattel they meet with I have read of one who thought himself to be a cock and therefore fel to crowing And doubtless the Lycanthropie so much spoken of is nothing else but the strength of a distemper'd imagination whatsoe'r Bodin writes to the contrary III. The cause of many extraordinary distempers in us is poyson whether inteâ—nal bred within our selves by the corruption or putrefaction of the seed blood or humors of our bodies by which pestilent and venemous fumes assault the heart and brains or external as the biting of mad dogs or cats or other creatures For I have read of some that never were bitten and yet have beene subject to the same kinde of raging and fury that they arâ— who are bit by mad dogâ— but their fits were milder because the constitution of dogs is more melancholy then that of mans therefore their venom more dangerous and who would think there were such poyson in a mad cock who being angred struck one in the hâ—nd with his beck upon which blow the man fell distracted and died neither could any physick cure him IV. The madness that is caused by the biting of mad dogs is not in all men alike buâ— upon some the poyson worketh sooner upon some later â—ccording to the degree of madness in the dog or the deepness of the wound or disposition of the body wounded for foul bodies melancholick and cholerick constitutions are aptest to receive the venom therefore in some the poyson appeareth quickly in others not in a long time to wit not in a year or more for the malignity doth not presently assault the sâ—irits heart and brains And Capivacceus observes that this poyson is of a fiery quality and hot in the fourth degree as he sheweth by one who was thus bit his body being opened there was found no water in his Pericardium but a part of it was burned up and being touched fell into ashes the ventricles also were dried up and had no blood at all V. It is strange that some do piss blood upon the applying of the Flyes called Cantharides to the neck hands or feet so remoâ—e from the bladder by this we see that the malignant vertue of these flies hath a particular influence upon that member This action of the bladder cannot be by the first or second qualities of the Caâ—tharides â—or then they should work first uâ—on the next members therefore this action must be performed by an occult quality of the specifical form of the flie And much more strange is it that the body of this â—lie should be poyson and the wings thereof a counterpoyson which in the living fly are aâ— concord by reason of the specifical form or soul of the fly ruling all the parts and keeping them in unity but when that is gon in the dead fly the one part destroys the other Who can give exact reasons of Natures secrets VI. And no less stranâ—e is it that Euphorbium and Mustard are equally hot to wit in the fourth degree and yet the one is poyson not the other and Treacle which is hot in the first degree heats more then Pepper which is hot in the fourth degree this shews that the form of the one is not so aâ—â—ive as the form of the other and therefore four times so much heat in the one is not so prevalent as one degree of heat in the other which shewes that poysons do not work by their temper which consist of elementary qualities but by their substance or form whose qualities are occult to us VII Why Napelius or Wolfe-bane Hyosciamus or Henbane and other hearbs which are poyson to man are nutriment to birds can have no other reason but that birds have a greater heat in their stomachs to subdue the malignity of these hearbs to send away the noxious and excrementitious part and to convert the rest into their own substance which substance notwithstanding is not poysonable to man because the poyson was consumed by the heat of the bird Now the heat of mans stomack is more temperate and therefore less able to master such malignant hearbs yet Scaliger Exerc. 175.1 speaks of a man who was fed with poyson from his infancy whose flesh at last became so venomous that the flies which sucked his blood swelled and died VIII That Amphiam or Opium should stir up venery and cause a tickling in the skin and yet stupifie the members and cast them into a dead sleep is not without admiration but doubtless either the Amphiam or Opium are different that being made of the white this of the black Poppies or else in the Opium there be different substances the one being very câ—ld which causeth stupidity the other very hot by causing a tickling in
is not to be denied for many will witness this among the rest Lev. Lemnius tels us de mirac l. 5. c. 12. of two old cocks which in the City of Ciricaea could be scarce driven away from incubation on their eggs till they were beaten off by slavesâ— And because the Townesmen had conceived a perswasion that of this egg the Basilisk might proceed they caused the cocks to be strangled and the eggs to be bruised It is granted then that cocks lay eggs or some seminall matter which they exclude and sit upon 2. That of these eggs ensue strange productions 3. This may be without a commixture of the seed of both sexes though the Doctor denieth it for we see what strange shapes of Insects are produced of putrifaction even in mans body without any seed 4. it is granted also that there have been and are Basilisks though the descriptions of them do in some circumstances differ For there may be divers sorts of them those which Lemnius describes seen sometimes in Germany have acuminated heads and somewhat yellow three palmes long having a belly with white spots a blew back a crooked tail and a wide gaping mouth This description differs but little from that of Albertus Magnus de anim 25. Scaliger speaks of one that was seen in Rome and Lemnius tels us that Germany is not free from them but that they are not so venemous as those of Africa Now whether this Serpent is begot of the cocks'egg is the question we have tradition and witnesses for it besides probability for why may not this serpent be ingendred of a cocks putrified seminal materials being animated by his heat and incubation as well as other kinds of Serpents are bred of putrified matter IV. The Doctors reasons against the two-headed Amphisbaena are not satisfactory 1. saith he The principal parts the Liver Heart and especially the brain regularly they are but one in any kinde whatsoever Answ. This is not so For God to shew his wisdome and greatness hath made variety of shapes among the creatures some fishes and Insects have no heads at all some but one the Amphisbaena two as Nicander Galen AElian Pliny and others witness I have read of birds in Paphlagonia with two hearts of the Serpent Chersydros that hath two tongues of a worm in Taprobona vvith four heads I say nothing of the Hydra because doubtfull vvhy then may not the Amphisbaena have tvvo heads 2. He saith That it was ill contrived to place one head at both extreams for it will follow that there is no posterior or lower part in this animal Answ. This vvill not follovv for though the head be at both extreams yet they do not both at the same time perform the office of the head but vvhen the one moveth the other suffers it self to be moved and is in stead of the tall so that head vvhich moveth Eastvvard dravveth the other after it the former then is anterior the other posterior and this when it moves Westward draws the other and so what before was posterior becomes now anterior This was so ordained by nature for the more conveniency of this creature which cannot turn it self about so nimbly as other serpents do And of this minde is AElian de anim 3. He saith That if this animal have two heads it is not to be called one but two because Aristotle saith that animal is not one but two which hath two hearts and therefore geminous births are christned with two names as having distinct souls Answ. There may be some reason why two hearts should give demonstration to two animals because the heart is the originall of life and all vital actions which need but one fountain and original but the reason is not alike in the Amphisbaena's two heads for though it harh but one life and consequently but one heart yet it hath two several motions backward and forward and therefore needed two principles or prime movers by reason it cannot turn so readily it self about as other animals which though they have but one head yet have divers instruments of motion subservient to that head which are defective in the Amphisbaena and yet the head is not the originall of all motions in our own bodies for the hearts motion of Systole and Diastole depends not upon it Besides the Doctor denies not but there are bicipitous serpents and yet are not called two from their two heads Why then should the Amphisbaena be denied this priviledge But he saith these other are monstrous productions and besides the intention of Nature He saith but he proves it not I acknowledge no monsters in Insects especially in such as are begot of the Suns heat and putrifaction nor is there any shape in them besides the intention of Nature For if by nature he means the matter it is not besides its intention to receive any form if he understand the Suns influence or formative power or God himselfe it is not against their intention to produce all kind of shapes for the ornament of the world But if these bicipitous productions were against their intentions yet this will not serve his turn because such a production is but one although it hath two heads Lastly geminous births receive two names in Baptisme not because they have two heads but because they have two distinct souls and individuall properties flowing thence so that they are indeed two individuals though their body be but one from the Navell downward as that Monster was of which Buchanan speaks Now the Amphisbaena having but one sensitive soule cannot be called two notwithstanding its two heads 4. Many animals saith he with one head perform contrary motions Answ. It will not follow that therefore the Amphisbaena hath but one head or that these one-headed animals can as easily perform contrary motions with one head as that which hath two Neither are these contrary motions performed immediatly by one head but by inferior organs which are not in this animall Besides I observe that in many worms there is as much life and activity in the faile as in the head and therefore may be said to have two heads effectively if not formally For in Damask-Rose leaves which I kept by me not being throughly dried worms were procreated whose heads when I cut off their bodies were moved by their tails as if those had been other heads V. Concerning the Viper which all Antiquity affirms produceth her young ones to her own destruction we finde some Neotericks doubt nay deny this truth Doctor Brown reasoneth against this production 1. It 's injurious to Natures providence to ordain a way of production which should destroy the producer Ans. Natures providence is no more injured in the corruption then in the generation of the Creatures seeing the corruption of one is the generation of another and not onely in Vipers but in Silk-worms also and divers other creatures in production the producer is destroyed And this also we may observe in men and
various cures sometimes it proceeds of intemperance in eating and drinking sometimes from the quality of the meat and drink we use sometimes also from the malignity of the medicament we take In some it is caused by choler in the intestine in others by flegme in others by statulency In some upon costivenesse and retention of the seces in others upon fluxes and too much evacuation In others again it is procured by the rupture of the Peritonaeum and lapse of the intestine into the Scrotum Sometimes this disease is procured by the distemper of some adjacent part sometime by stones bred in the intestines sometimes by wormes generated there sometimes by congealed blood in the same place sometimes by a wind in many it is caused by drinking cold water in others by sitting on a cold stone and in some by impure venery sometimes the malady is in the cavitiâ—s of the Colon sometimes in the tunicles and sometimes it iâ— bred by the infection of the air and sometimes by the contraction and shrinking of the intestines Thus wee see of what brittle meterials we are composed how careful we should be of our diet and how many wayes God hath to punish us for sin Like to this disease is the Iliaca passio so called from the Ilium a smaller intestine which is sometimes so violent and the obstructionâ— below so great that the excrements for want of passage downward recoil upward by vomiting Many likewise are the ways by which the Cholick is cured For besides the ordinary ways of curing by purging vomits clysters phlebotomy and outward somentations there be divers extraordinary wayes some are cured by the smoke of Tobacco used downward some have been eased by blowing of wind out of a paire of bellows into the intestine for dilatation thereof some are cured by drinking of urine some by the Wolses excrement dried and powdred and mixt with white Wine some by the Wolfs gut dried powdred and drunk with Canary or Malago others have been cured preserved by carrying about them the Wolfs excrement the flesh of a Lark either boyled or burned into ashes and so taken in three spoonfuls of warm water hath cured some The Thracians used to cure themselves of this disease by carrying about them the heart of a Lark being taken out whilst he was alive A Goats liver is commended by some for a present remedy if it be burned powdred and drunk in wine Some commend the infants navel-string being cut off salted carried in a Box. Others have found good by a hogges blind gut worn about them the decoction of Mints by some and of Horehound by others are held singular remedies so are snakes if they be burned powdred and drunk in wine Some have been eased by drinking snow and suger and by applying of cold snow to the part that was pained A Bulls pizle is commended by some for a present â—â—â—p if it be powdred a scruple whereof in Malago wine will give ease Some have been cured by drinking down quick-silver and experience shews us that swallowing of goldenor leaden bullets are present helps because with their weight they open the passages and make way I have eased my selfe of that pain by drinking white Wine in which onions have been steeped all night Thus as God hath divers ways to punish us so he hath as many wayes to ease us that very strangely for who can give a reason of those occult qualities or antipipathies which are between this malady and most of these remedies now mentioned But of this see Fracastorius Forestus Fernelius Fonseca Zacuta Rondeletius and other Physicians III. That there is the same soule in a subventaneous egge which is in a prolificall may appear by the same properties and effects in both because in both is accretion nutrition attraction retention concoction c. which are the effects of the vegetive soul yet Doctor Harvy Exercit. 25. denies this Because faith he If there were the same soule in the subventaneous which was in the prolificall egge they would both equally produce Chickins Answ. This will not follow except he could prove that the vegitive soule produceth the sensitive soule or the sensitive creature which cannot be for no soule can produce another neither can an inferior faculty produce a superior by reason the effect cannot be more noble then the cause The reason then why the subventaneous egge is not prolificall is not the want of a vegive soule which we know it hath by the effects thereof but because that egge was not animated or fecundated by the prolificall sperm feminall spirit or spermatick vapour of the Cock So the blood in a married woman and a maid hath the same vegitation though both be not prolifical for want of the mans improlificating sperm But the Doctor tells us Exercit 25. That from the male proceeds onely the plastick or formative vertue which fecundateth the egge because the seed or geniture cannot penetrate into the Hens matrix or inward receptacles Answ. The formative vertue being an accident cannot be derived or conveyed from the Cock to the Hens matrix without its proper iubject in which it is inherent And though in a dead Hen those passages or conveyances cannot appear yet in the living Hen they are open for the seminall vapour to passe For this cause in the closure of the Cocks treading there is a nimble and almost imperceptible touch of both their fundaments by which then the seminall spirit is conveyed Again the Doctor faith Exersit 25. That whereas the soule is the act of an organicall body having life potentially it is in credible that it should be in a Chick before any part â— of its body be-organized Answ. The egge is not altogether a body inorganicall actually seeing it hath different parts Besides it is organicall potentially as containing in it all the parts and members the Chick that shall bee So the seed of other animals contains potentially the animall that shall be with all its members therefore the common opinion is that seed is drawn from all parts of the body because it contains in it all the parts As the soul then is in that body which hath life potentially that is a possibility to exercise the functions of life so it is in the body that hath organs potentially or the faculty of producing organs Hence the soule cannot be in a stone which hath not this possibility Of this opinion is the Doctor Exer. 71 when he saith That in the primogeniall humidity of the egge all the parts of the chick are potentially but none actually Again he saith Exer. 25. That in the egge and chick there cannot be the same soule because they are different entities produce different yea contrary operations so that the one may seem to be begot of the others corruption Ans. I deny that the egg chick are different entities otherwise then secundum magis minus as an imperfect thing differs from it selfe when it becomes more
Arcana Microcosmi OR The hid Secrets of MAN's Body discovered In an Anatomical Duel between Aristotle and Galen concerning the Parts thereof As also By a Discovery of the strange and marveilous Diseases Symptomes Accidents of MAN's BODY WITH A Refutation of Doctor Brown's VULGAR ERRORS The Lord BACON's NATURAL HISTORY And Doctor Harvy's Book DE GENERATIONE COMENIVS and Others Whereto is annexed a Letter from Doctor Pr. to the Author and his Answer thereto touching Doctor Harvy's Book de Genetatione By A. R. London Printed by Tho. Newcomb and are to bee sold by Iohn Clark entring into Mercers-Chappel at the lower end of Cheapside 1652. TO THE WORSHIPFUL and my much honored FRIEND EDWARD WATSON ESQUIRE Son and Heir to the Right Honorable the Lord ROCKINGHAME SIR WHen I consider your proficiency in the Schoole of Wisdome your daily exercises in the Temple of Vertue for which you may in time deserve a Shrine in the Temple of Honor your hearty affection to true and solid Philosophy not that which the Apostle calls Vain and deceiving and lastly your sincere love to me I thought good not in way of retaliation but of a thankfull recognition of your favours to present this piece to you wherein you may perceive how many strange wonders and secrets are couched up within the Microcosme of our body and with what admirable artifice the base and infirm materials of this our earthly Tabernacle are united and composed Likewise you may see how much the Dictates and Opinions of the ancient Champions of Learning are sleighted and misconstrued by some modern Innovators whereas we are but children in understanding and ought to be directed by those Fathers of Knowledge we are but Dwarfs and Pigmies compared to those Giants of Wisdom on whose shoulders we stand yet we cannot see so far as they without them I deny not but we may and ought to strive for further knowledge which we shall hardly reach without their supportation I disswade no man from inventing new but I â—ould not have him therefore to forget the old nor to lose the substance whilst he catches the shadow Women and Children love new wine because pleasant to the palat but wise men chuse the old because wholsomer for the stomach As I abridge no man of his liberty to invent new wayes so I hope they will not debar me of the like liberty to keep the old paths so long as I find â—hem more easie and compendious for attaining the end of my journey Sir I will not trouble you with any larger Discourse on this subject I wish an accumulation of all vertueâ— and happinesse on you and withall the continuation of your love to him who professeth himself Your humble servant Alexander Ross. The Contents of each Chapter in these foure Books CHAP. I. 1. The Hearts dignity scituation priority necessity and use 2. The Heart first formed not all the parts together 3. The Galenists Objections answered 4. How the heart is perfect before the other members and how nourished 5. All the temperaments united in the Heart 6. Three â—entricles in som Hearts 7. The Heart nervous 8. No parts more spermatical then others 9. The Liver not the first that is formed 10. The Heart the seat of Bloud and nourishment 11. The heat of the Matrix not generative 12. The right Ventricle nobler then the left 13. The vital and nutritive faculties are the same 14. Heat the cause of the Hearts motion 15. The Heart was first formed and informed 16. There is but one principal member in the body not many CHAP. II. Blood begot in the Heart not in the Liver why 2. The Heart is the original of the Veins and Nerves of nutrition and sense and motion 3. Why the nerves and veins do not beat and the cause of Hydropsies 4. All blood is not elaborated in the heart how it is the original of the veins 5. The arterial blood must waste or else it would infinitely increase 6. Why the blood thickneth not in â—the heart till death 7. The heart is the seat of passion 8. Why the heart a fitter seat for the soul then the liver 9. A double unity to wit of the matter and of the form CHAP. III. 1 Why the heart the originall of sensation and how it feeleth 2 The brains being cold cannot beget sensitive spirits Why the animal spirits most active where is most heat 3. There can be no generation of the animal spirits out of the vitall without the corruption of the vitall which is impossible The animal spirits are not begot of the aire 4. Neither are they concoâ—ted or generated in the ventricles of the brain nor are they wasted 5. The brain is not the originall of sense and motion although these fail upon the hurt of the brain 6. Why upon the distemper of the heart there is no failing of sense and motion 7. The nerves are not from the brain though they be like but indeed they are not like the brain 8. Why the nerve of the heart loseth sense and motion beneath the knot not above it 9. The brain is the coldest of all the parts how void of veins and blood how hot and the cause of hairs 10. The blood and spirits alter not the brains temper Why its coldness is not felâ— the pith in the back bone hor. 11. Why the brain and heart at such aâ—d stance by the spirits they work on each other 12. Why both the brain and lungs were made for refrigeration 13. The mans brain larger then the womans why man hotter then Lions 14. The testicles ignobler then the heart and brain 15. The heart not the testicles the cause of sensation and generation the testicles not chief because necessary or becausâ— they cause an alteration in the body from wheâ—ce is the distinctioâ— of sexes 16. The seed receiveth its specificall form from the heart 17. Why Eunuchs fatter weaker and colder Lib. II. CAP. I. 1. Mans Body fitted onely for mans Soul Tritons are not men 2. How Mans body is more excellent then all others 3. How the Soul is most in the Brain and Heart 4. A twofold heat in us 5. What Creatures nourish most 6. The Womans imagination cannot alter the form CAP. II. 1. The Stomach and Lungs not necessary for life 2 How the limbs are moved the spirits are bodies more required for motion then sensation the spirits are light how they are the souls instruments how the Muscles move 3. Seven properties of the brain 4. Twelve properties of the eye 5. It s substance warrish 6. Why but one sight 7. The eye how an agent and patient 8. It s two lights and its colours Light gives the second act CAP. III. 1. A twofold Heat in living things 2. The Primitive Heat where and how tempered 3. Our spirits are not celestial several Reasons 4. Our natural heat what it is no substance in six Reasons 5. Many excellencies of mans body 6. The Head why the noblest part and highest
the heart and not the heart from them the heart must needs be the first that liveth 8. The heart imparts the vitall heat to the other parts it must therefore have existence before the other parts for operation follows the existence 9. The formative power of the seed doth not operate but by the vital heat of the heart therefore this must be first before that can operate 10. The matter cannot be disposed to receive the form of the members nor can the parts be distinguished one from another without the heat and motion of the heart 11. Nature in her operations aims at an end but where there is an end there is order and where there is order there is priority and something that was first II. There are some who hold that the heart is not first generated but that all the members are at the same time begot and formed together But this cannot be so for in the Embryo we see that all the parts are not equally articulated and figured but some sooner some later 2. We see this in art which imitates Nature for the artificer carves and figures one part before another 3. We see the teeth are begot long after the other parts for nature produceth the members as there is 〈◊〉 of them the infant needs no teeth whilst it feeds on milk 4. If all the parts are at the same time framed and articulated then all the body is at the same time perfected but this is not Natures work which proceeds by degrees to perfection having imperfect beginnings III. The Galenists object that Nature had to no purpose made the heart before the rest of the body seeing there is no use of the heart till the body be formed I answer there is a two-fold use namely of Animation and of preparation the heart could not animate the body before it was but it could prepare the matter by its vital heat and motion to receive the impression and influence of the formative power working by the heart on the matter the heart then is usefull not only to the body after it is generated but also whilst it is in Fieri and in generation the heart is the foundation of the whole corporeal Fabrick we cannot say the foundation is needless because it is laid before the house is built for though it doth not support the superstructure before it be yet it is ready and sitted to support it when it shal be Neither will it follow that because the house before it is built needs no foundation therefore the foundation must not be first laid There is need of priority and order the building needs it when it shall be and the builder needs it before it be though the body not yet formed needs not the heart yet the formative power needs it Secondly they object that the formative power is common to all the parts alike having no more relation to one then to another and therefore works upon them all alike and produceth them together I answer God is the common and universal cause of all his creatures yet he did not create them all in one day the universality of the cause excludes not the order of casuality nor is the common relation it hath to the effects any reason of producing them all at one time Again though the formative power hath an equal relation to all parts as they are parts yet it hath a nearer relation to the heart as being its organ by which it works on the other parts IV. If it be asked whether the heart be perfect or imperfect before the other members be articulated I answer It is perfect if it be compared with any other member but imperfect if compared with the whole compositum Again it is imperfect to what it shal be when it shall be fitted with all necessary Organs for animation 2. If again it be asked how the heart can live without nutriment seeing the liver by blood feeds it I answer though the liver be not yet formed yet the heart is nourished by some adjacent matter as the chick is by the yeolk of the egg and this nourishment sufficeth the heart till blood a perfect nutriment be prepared Again the nutritive faculty doth not flow from the liver as the vitall from he heart but it is inherent and implanted into every part as well in the heart as in the liver whereas the vitall is implanted only in the heart and from thence flowing into every member Lastly we may say that the heart needs no food till there be a dependition or wasting of its substance V. The unity of the vegetive soul cannot be preserved in so many different temperaments or the body for there are as many as there are parts if it were not for the common temperament of the heart in which all the others are united receiving from thence heat and spirits It was needfull then that the heart should be first formed as being the common originall of all the other parts all which may be said to have but one common temperament and one soul because there is but one heart VI. Though the Galenists affirm that the heart hath but two ventricles yet the Aristotelians in affirming three in bigger creatures seem to speak more reason For if in bigger animals there is greater store of spirits and a greater elaboration of them then in the lesser it stands with reason that their hearts being bigger should have also more receptacles for containing the vitall blood and spirits then the lesse VII It stands also with reason that the substance of the heart is nervous that it might be the more firm and solid 2. Because the heart is the original of motion which is performed by the nerves 3. Because the substance of the veins and arteries whereof the heart is the originall is nervous VIII The parts which the Galenists call Spermaticall are not made of the Sperma or Seed more then any other parts are but of the dryer and more solid parts of the blood as the Sanguineall are of the thinner parts thereof 2 The males seed is onely active the woman hath no other seed then the menstruous blood which is meerly passive in both which seeds there is a power or potentiality of generation the active in the male the passive in the female both which are from the heart In this also I subscribe to Aristotle IX I cannot assent to the Galenists in affirming the liver rather then the heart to be the first that lives in us and therefore the original of other parts because it is bigger and nearer to the matrix then the heart for the Aristotelians say well that the original of things consisteth not in bulk but in vertue the seeds of trees and plants are least in bulk and yet are the originals of great bodies 2. The vicinity to the matrix is not the cause of priority for the matrix is the place of but not an agent in generation the agent is only the formative faculty in the seed
X. Both Aristotelians and Galenists affirm that the child at first lives the life of a plant but from hence the Aristotelian concluds that the heart is the first members begot in us because it is answerable to the root in plants which is first generated but the Galenist infers that the liver must be the first member because the child living the life of a plant hath no other faculty but nutritive which is the faculty of the plant the seat whereof is in the liver But here I side with Aristotle because the liver is no more the seat of nutriment then the heart And because the heart is as the root but it is by the root the plant lives and is nourished And if the liver be the seat of nutriment because of the blood thereof I should rather say the heart is this seat because we finde blood there out of the veins as in a cistern but in the liver there is no other Blood then what is in the veins Neither can the liver be the originall of the nutritive power because there is the sense of indigence or want for so the stomack should rather be this originall because there is the most exquisit sense of want XI The liver cannot be generated without heat and spirits But the seat of heat and spirits is the heart therefore this must be first If any will say that the heat of the matrix is sufficient I deny it for that heat is onely conservative not generative it hardeneth and consolidateth the outward parts but doth not produce the inward XII Aristotle will have the right ventricle of the Heart the nobler Galen the left but I subscribe to Aristotle because I finde that the right Ventricle liveth longer then the left 2. That the Pulse in the right side of him that is dying is more valid then in the left side 3. The right ventricle leans upon the lungs as upon a Cushion or supporter Nature shewing as it were a greater care of this then of the other 4. The right parts are nimbler and stronger then the left because they are hotter 5. Though the spirits receive their completion in the left ventricle yet they are prepared and fitted in the right and therefore there needs not so great a heat in the left ventricle as the Galenists speak of for a moderate heat will suffice to perfect that which is already begun 6. The left ventricle is but a servant to the right in finishing that work which was begun by the right and distributing it into the body being finished XIII The Aristotelians make the vital and nutritive faculty the same the Galenists make them distinct but the Peripateticks reason prevails with me which is this That where there are distinct faculties there must be distinct operations because the faculty is for the operation But there are no distinct operations of the vital faculty from that of the nutritve for accretion diminution and generation are actions of the vital or nutritive Sense and motion are actions of the animal faculties 2. Life is the presence of the soul in the body this presence consists in action this action is nutrition for when this action fails life fails because the chief and first action of the living creature is to preserve it self which cannot be without nutrition seeing nutrition is not without tact in the sensitive creature but when tact faileth animality must needs fail XIV The Aristotelians make heat the efficient cause of the hearts publick motion Others will have the soul Others the vegetive faculty but Aristotle is in the right for the soul works by its faculties and these by heat so that heat is the immediate cause of this motion and the souls instrument yet not such an instrument as worketh nothing but by the force of the principal agent for the heat worketh by its own natural force though it be directed and regulated by the soul the heat then of the heart rarifying the blood into vapors which require more room dilate the heart but by expelling some of these vapors into the arteries and receiving also some cold air by the lungs the heart is contracted this is called Systole the other Diastole And as heat is the efficient cause so it is also the end of this motion For therefore doth the heat move the heart that it by this motion might impart heat to the body But I understand not here by heat a bare quality but that which is called Calidum innatum If it be objected that there is in Plants a vegetive faculty and heat but not this pulsifick motion nor yet in effects I answer the reason is because there are not instruments fit for such a motion nor is there any use of it 2. This motion of the heart is local not totally but partially for not the whole heart but the parts thereof change their place or seat and so in this regard augmentation and diminution are local motions XV. That the heart is not only first formed but is also first informed and first exerciseth the action of life is plain by this reason drawn from the Peripateticks the heart was made at first an Organical member but that could not be if it was not first informed by the soul which is the first act of the organical body and if it was made organicall it had been made to no end and nature had been idle to have made an useless member which could no more deserve the name of heart then a blinde eye the name of eye But the soul that I speak of here is the vegetive or sensitive resulting out of the matter which is first prepared in the heart for reception of it and not the reasonable soul which with all its perfections is created and infused by God into the whole body after it is articulated and made capable of such a noble Guest XVI The Aristotelians are more rational in placing but one principall member in the body then they who place either three or four For it is nedless to make so many principals when as one will suffice Nature aimeth always at unity for all the five senses are united in one common sense all the members in one body all the different specificall parts of the world into one common nature so all the members into one heart which hath in it the natures of all or their temperaments Nor could the soul being but one work upon so many different temperaments if they were not united into one temperament Besides we should be forced to run in infinitum if we should hold more principles then one for avoiding of which inconvenience we must stay in one chief principle If it be objected that the nerves veins and arteries are of different temperaments therefore must proceed from different principles I Answer that from one principle in which divers temperaments are united may issue different temperatures 2. I denie that the temperature of the veins nerves and arteries are different otherwise then Secundum magis
minus CHAP. II. Blood begot in the Heart not in the Liver why 2. The Heart is the original of the Veins and Nerves of nutrition and sense and motion 3. Why the nerves and veins do not beat and the cause of Hydropsies 4. All blood is not elaborated in the heart how it is the original of the veins 5. The arterial blood must waste or else it would infinitely increase 6. Why the blood thickneth not in the heart till death 7. The heart is the seat of passion 8. Why the heart a fitter seat for the soul then the liver 9. A double unity to wit of the matter and of the form I. IF blood were begot in the liver there should be some Cavity in it that the blood there might be concocted and receive its form for in the stomack Heart Gall bladder c. there are sensible cavities for generation and reception of the Chylus vital blood choler urine c. but in the liver there is no such receptacle and to say that the blood is begot in the substance of the liver is to make penetration of bodies Therefore it is more likely according to Aristotle's Doctrin That blood is begot in the heart If it be objected that if blood were not begot in the liver to what end did Nature fasten the gall-bagg to the liver if it were not to purge the blood and receive its excrementitious ' choler as the spleen doth its melancholy I answer The gall and spleen do not purge the blood made by the liver but that matter which was to be prepared by the liver for the heart the heart then makes the blood which was prepared by the liver and purged by the gall and spleen that the matter might be the fitter to receive the form of blood in the heart being purged before from its gross humors II. Because the heart is the original of the nutritive and â—uctive faculties it must also be the original of the veins â—hrough which these faculties are conveyed through the whole body The liver then hath not so much heat as is requisite for â—utrition auction and generation Therefore the original of these must be in the heart which is the fountain of heat â— And because the heart is the seat of Passions it must be also the original of sense and motion without which there can be no passion and consequently it must be the first organ of the nerves 3. The heart and veins have the same essential form which is nutritive or vitall the same essential work and end also which is to nourish the body or to give it life and vegetation The like may be said of the nerves therefore it must follow that the matter of the heart veins and nerves is the same and that from the heart they have their beginning III. The Galenists will not have the heart the originall of the nerves and vâ—ins because they do not beat as the arteries do which they grant proceeded from thence but rather will have the liver to be the original of them as also of blood because when the liver is corrupted sanguification fails and so arises Hydropsies I answer though the nerves and veins arise from the heart yet they beat not as the arteries do because the blood in the veins is grosser less hot and spirituous then that in the arteries and the nerves beat not because they have not those â—umes which by the motion of the arteries must be expelled their heat also is tempered by the frigidity of the brain and if there were any motion in the nerves it could not be so easily discerned because of the thickness of the nerves and their lying deeper within the body as for Hydropsies they are caused not because the liver doth not sanguisie but because it doth not prepare fit matter for the heart to sanguifie And indeed if the liver did sanguisie the Hydropick would presently die upon the cessation of that action for life cannot subsist without nutrition nor this without sanguification Therefore doubtless in Hydropsies the heart being found converts some part of that inconcocted matter into blood which the corrupted liver could not prepare and by this means the hydropick lives a while IV. All the blood in the veins is not elaborated in the heart but only that portion which is by the arteries distributed into al parts of the body and hath a formative power over the veinal blood The heart blood then is not conveyed by the Vena cava into the body but by the arteries 2. When the heart is called the original of the veins we do not mean the efficient cause for that is the formative power joyned to the heart but the place in which they are formed And there is no place so fit for this generation both of blood veins and other parts as the heart because it is the fountain of heat whose action is the first and the most common of all actions in the body for without the action of heat there can be neither nutrition motion sensation nor understanding as it works by the phantasie V. If the arterial blood were not the nutriment of the body and so wasted being converted into the substance of the body what becomes of it all it must infinitely increase being it is continually generated and not wasted neither can the veinal blood nourish but as it is perfected and receives its form by and from the arterial blood VI. That the heart is the proper seat of the blood appears by this that the blood never thickneth in the heart as it doth in other places being out of the veins But whereas the blood is found curdled in the heart of dead bodies and thin in the veins of the liver it is plain that the blood had received its full concoction and perfection in the heart but not in the liver as being not so fibrous and therefore more thin and watrish VII Because the heart is the seat of passions and appetite it follows that it must be also the seat of sensation for without this there can be no appetite in the sensitive creature and if of sensation then also of nutriment for the sensitive includes the nutritive faculty and if it be the original of the nutritive it must be also of blood by which we are nourished and consequently of the veins which conveyeth the blood chiefly of Vena Cava which ariseth from the superficies of the heart and so fastned to it as to its principle that it cannot be parted from it VIII Because the heart is an organical body being distinct into divers dissimular parts it is a fitter place for the soul then the liver which is altogether simular seeing the soul is the act of an organicall body and therefore the nutritive faculty must be rather in the heart then the liver and though sensation be by the simular parts yet motion requires dissimular and organicall parts because divers bendings and turnings require divers organs IX All sensitive creatures have a
of such absolute necessity as the heart even in respect of generation is plain because many creatures as plants and insects have the faculty and power of generation without testicles 2. The heart and brain in dignity far exceed the testicles because these doe not communicate to all parts the power of generation as the heart and brain doe impart life and sense 3. Creatures that have lost the testicles can live long without them but no creature can live long without the heart and brain XV. In sensitive creatures that doth originally communicate the generative faculty which imparts the sensitive because this includes that but it is the heart not the testicles which imparts sensation and consequently the heart not the testicles causeth generation If it be answered that the power of sensation is derived from the heart to the testicles and consequently of generation then we must know that this very answer confirms the Aristotelian opinion namely that the heart not the testicles is the original of the generative 2. It is a weak argument to prove the principality of the testicles from their necessity for every part of the body though never so base is necessary and yet there is but one principal member And as weak is it to argue the principality of the testicles from the change that is caused in the body upon the loss of them for so there is upon the losse of any other member and many times death it self 3. The distinction of Sexes proc eeds from the formative power but this hath not its original residence in the testicles but in the heart as being the perfectest member and chief receptacle of heat and bloud and spirits by which the formative power operates XVI The seed receives its specifical form and essence in the heart not in the testicles in which it receives indeed concoction that it might be made fitter for generation but concoction causeth only an alteration in the quality not a mutation in the substance So the fruit receiveth its maturity or ripeness immediately from the bough on which it hangeth but its generative power from the root alone so that the testicles are but the hearts instruments working by its heat and concocting the seed that it may be the fitter for generation XVII The bodies of Eunuchs are fatter weaker and colder then of other men not because the testicles do corroborate the body as the Galenists think but because the seed wanting evacuation is turned into fat and many vapours or excrements which with the seed are evacuated in other men are retained in Eunuchs which oppresse the natural heat and consequently cause debility and because of this coldnesse Eunuchs are lesse hairy for hairs are begot of hot fuliginous vapours Finis Libri Primi BOOK II. GALEN in some things maintained in some things rejected or reconciled to ARISTOTLE CAP. I. 1. Mans Body fitted onely for mans Soul Tritons are not men 2. How Mans body is more excellent then all others 3. How the Soul is most in the Brain and Heart 4. A twofold heat in us 5. What Creatures nourish most 6. The Womans imagination cannot alter the form I. AS GOD hath bestowed upon Man the most excellent Soul of all others so hath he fitted him with a Body answerable to such a Soul of which no other Body is capable and if it were yet for want of fit Organs the Soul could not exercise her functions as we see in that Fiction of Apuleius whose soul being in the body of an Asse could neither speak nor write nor doe any thing but what was proper to an Asse yet I have read of Tritons or Fishes having the face lineaments and shape of mans body One was seen in the days of Tiberius another in the time of Augustus a third under Nero Pliny AElian Theodor Gaza Trapezuntius Alexander ab Alexandro Scaliger and divers others affirm the truth of this yet these Tritons or Nereides cannot be called nor are they men though they have the outward shape for it is not the matter not outward lineaments but the form that gives essence and denomination II. Mans body is of all others the most perfect and excellent though he hath not wings like a bird to fly nor can see so far as an Eagle nor hear so quickly as a Fox nor smell so well as a Dog nor taste so well as Poultry nor hath so quick a tact as Oysters and Spiders yet his hands speech and reason doe countervail all these for celerity and reception his senses yeild to the beasts for variety and judgement they must yeild to him III. Though mans soul in respect of understanding and will be inorganical and therefore not properly resident in any particular member more then in another yet accidentally because the brain is the seat of the fantasie from which the intellect receives its objects and the heart the seat of the affections subservient to the will the brain is the seat of the intellect the heart of the will IV. There is in us a twofold heat the one celestial the other elementary that preserves us this destroys us that concocts our food and turns it into nutriment this corrupts and putrifies it and turns it into noxious humours and excrements as we see in burning Fevers It is not then every heat that chylifieth or sanguifieth or assimulateth but this celestial heat Neither is it the quantity but the quality thereof and affinity it hath with the things concocted For there is more heat in a Lion then in a Pigeon and yet the Pigeon will concoct that which the Lion cannot yet this celestial heat is helped by the elementary heat if it be temperate and by the crasis temperament or constitution if it be sound V. Nothing by way of food can cherish our natural heat and maintain our life but what had life and heat it self and the more perfect life it had the better it nourisheth as having neerer affinity with us Hence animals nourish more then vegitables because the matter of their bodies and spirits are more consonant to ours then of hearbs or fruits which if they bee contrary to us in their nature and qualities they destroy us as poisonable hearbs do Purging medicaments are of a middle nature as having some similitude with the humours of our bodies which they attract as Agary with Flegme Rubarb with Choler c. and some dissimilitude with our bodies upon which they work by weakning them especially if they have any delatory quality VI. Though the woman in conception or afterwards can by the strength of imagination impresse some note or mark upon the seed or Embryo yet she cannot alter the sex or form as she pleaseth because this is not the work of imagination but of a diviner power to wit of the external formative agent for which cause a man cannot beget any other then a man for that his seed is not capable of any other form neither doth the formative agent work otherwise theâ— as the seed
is inclinable to CAP. II. 1. The Stomach and Lungs not necessary for life 2 How the limbs are moved the spirits are bodies more required for motion then sensation the spirits are light how they are the souls instruments how the Muscles move 3. Seven properties of the brain 4. Twelve properties of the eye 5. It s substance warrish 6. Why but one sight 7. The eye how an agent and patient 8. It s two â—ights and its colours Light gives the second act THough the Stomach and Lights be two noble parts of the body for those that are to live long yet life can consist without them or their action For 1. Some have lived without chilification and respiration the meseraick veins can draw some portion of the clysters to the liver for sanguification by which life can be preserved 2. Divers creatures live all the Winter as Swallows Cuckows Dormise c. without any chilification or action of the stomach 3. Women that are hysterical can live only by transpiration without respiration at all 4. The arteries can draw air to the heart though there were no lungs at all yet not with that conveniency because the lungs temper and qualifie the frigidity of the air before it comes to the heart 5. Fishes breath not at all nor have they any lungs yet they live II. In the motion of our bodies the limbs are moved by the muscles these by the nerves the nerves by the animal spirits and these by the soul which produceth neither sense nor motion in the body without these spirits for if the nerve be cut or obstructed or bound motion ceaseth which sheweth that the soul worketh by these spirits and that in the nerve there is more then a bare faculty of sense and motion required to make it move and feel for in the obstructed nerve there is the faculty still but not the motion because the spirits are intercepted which have their original from the brain as well as the nerves but their action from the soul. 2. These spirits are bodies as appears by their generation fatigation dissipation for when these spirits fail motion ceaseth and we grow weary 3. In the nerve though one and the same animal spirit causeth both sense and motion yet a greater vigour is required for motion then for sensation because the perfection of this consists in reception only but of that in action chiefly Now more force is required for action then for passion 4. In the animal spirits there is a light or splendour because they are a very attenuated substance warmed by a celestial heat This light is perceived in the eye being shut in the other senses it is not seen because their organs are not transparent Now the spirit of the eye is the same with that of the ear c. 5. The spirits are not properly the instruments of the soul because the soul is the form which worketh immediatly upon its matter and the spirits are parts of this matter but they are called instruments becaus they convey to the members the faculties of the soul. 6. Though the will moves the muscles in men and the will moves according to knowledge and election yet in infants the muscles are moved by a natural instinct and so they are in beasts who have not election and reason III. Man hath a larger and more capacious brain then other creatures have because the soul of man being endowed with more faculties required a larger habitation 2. The brain is void of sense and feeling because it is the Judge of all the senses Thus the eye which seeth all colours hath no colour it self nor the tongue and palat any taste which judgeth of all tastes experience sheweth that the wounded brain being cut or pricked feeleth not 3. Though the brain feeleth not yet it hath a natural faculty to expel things hurtful so there are antipathies and sympathies in insensitive things 4. The brain hath no animal motion though it be the original of this motion yet it hath a natural motion of Systote and Diastole for the generation of the spirits and expulsion of noxious things 5. The brain is cold and moist cold naturally but hot accidentally by reason of the spirits and arteries in it cold otherwise the attenuated animal spirits in it would quickly wast and consume with heat and with often study and cogitation it would soon be inflamed and so into phrenzies wee should bee apt to fall 6. Though the brain be cold and the heart hot yet the animal spirits are more attenuated then the vital because these are generated immediatly of the grosse bloud whereas the animal are begot of the vital spirits and are refined by the arteries of the brain 7. The brain is moist 1. That it may the more easily receive impressions 2. That it may the better resist inflamation And 3. That the nerves may by its moisture bee the more pliable which otherwise would be stiffe IV. The Eye is the most noble of all the senses 1. Because its action is quickest apprehending its object in an instant 2. Though the object be never so far distant it is perceived by the eye as the stars are 3. Because light which is the object of the eye is of all accidents the most noble 4. The eye hath more objects then any other sense for besides light and colour of all sorts its particular objects it hath also number magnitude state motion and figure which are common objects 5. None of the senses hath such a curious fabrick for the eye hath six tunicles three humours six muscles two nerves the optick and motory many veins and arteries 6. It is the first and chief organ of knowledge for at first men got their knowledge by observation and the eye though now we have it by instruction and the ear 7. The eye hath the highest place of all the senses in the body 8. And it hath the perfectest figure for it is almost round that it may move the easier and swifter 9. It hath a liberty and command of it self which the other senses have not for it can inclose it self within its casements and open them when it pleaseth 10. It hath a peculiar light within it self besides that light which is in the air and it hath more spirits then any other of the senses and these spirits are more subtle nimble and quick then any other animal spirits are 11. Without the eye no living creature could finde out its food in which consisteth the life of the creature 12. Without the eye men could not have naturally attained to the knowledge of God and of Divinity for by the contemplation of the Heavens and their light and motions men came to have the knowledge of their Maker For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made Rom. 1.20 V. The eye is of a watrish not of a fiery substance as may bee seen 1. By the water that
flowes from it when it is hurt 2. By the fat which is about it this would consume if the eye were fiery 3. By the watrish humour which is in the cavities of the face in the new formed Embryo 4. By the reception and conservation of the species for the fire can neither receive nor confer any image or species as the water doth VI. Though there be two eyes there is but one sight or one object seen 1. Because the optick nerves are united in one before they reach to the eyes 2. Because there is but one fantasie and one common sens which judgeth of the external object VII The eye in respect of its grosse and solid parts is a patient in seeing by receiving the species or shape not the substance into the chrystalline humor but in respect of the spirits in the eye it is an agent by perception of the species and partly a patient for there is some impression in the spirits or else by them the species could not be conveyed into the common sense and phantasie The spirits then are agents not outwardly upon the object but inwardly upon the spirits received from the object and when they are employed about som other thing in the phantasie the eye seeth not its object though the species be impressed in the chrystalline because there is required for sight not only the impression in the chrystalline but also a perception and apprehension in the spirits in which action properly and formally vision consisteth And though the spirits be no part of the eye as it is a solid substance yet they are part as the eye is the instrument of sight VIII There are in the eye when it seeth two lights the one from without whereof there is greatest quantity in the white of the eye the other from within which is most prevalent in the chrystalline disposing it to receive the species as the outward light disposeth the air The outward light if it bee not proportionable to the inward makes this unfit for vision not by extinguishing or destroying it for one light cannot destroy another but by too much extending or destroying the mean and proportion of the inward light There is besides these two a third light in the eies of owls cats such creatures as live by preying in the dark which light is not immanent in the eye but transient into the air that the medium being illuminate the species of the object might be raised IX The eye hath not such colours as are made by the mixture of the four elements or prime qualities but such only as are made by the mixture of the light and the diaphanous or perspicuous body The first sort of colours are in the dark in respect of their existence or quality the second sort hath no existence at all in the dark And though the light give not the first act or beeing to colours yet it giveth the second act in making them visible and actuating them to work upon the eye by sending their species thither CAP. III. 1. A twofold Heat in living things 2. The Primitive Heat where and how tempered 3. Our spirits are not celestial several Reasons 4. Our natural heat what it is no substance in six Reasons 5. Many excellencies of mans body 6. The Head why the noblest part and highest as Galen thinks THAT there is in living creatures besides the elementary heat another called celestial is manifest because the fire or elementary heat neither in part nor in whole is the cause of generation 2. Because the elementary heat remains after the celestial is gone as may be seen in spices which retain or rather increase their elementary heat as they grow drier being separate from the Tree and yet they want that celestial heat by which they did live and had vegetation for now being dead nutrition attraction vegetation growth and other functions of life cease which were the effects of the celestial heat 3. Because in Mandrakes and other cold herbs there is this celestial heat by which they live and yet no elementary heat at all for they are cold both actually and vertually II. As in living creatures there be divers dissimular parts so there be temperaments and diversity of heat all which are united in the heart the fountain of heat which it communicates to all parts by the bloud and spirits this primitive heat is in perfect creatures compacted within the heart in Trees and Plants within the root in Insects it is diffus'd through all the body without any union in one part more then another which is the cause that when snakes and worms are cut in pieces every piece moves which is not so in the hand or foot of perfect animals if they be cut off so wee see in some twigs of Trees that being set in the ground grow and take root which shews That the original heat and substance of the root is in every part of the Tree and that the primitive heat of the creature might bee brought to a temper refrigeration is required which in terrestrial animals is performed by the air in fishes by the water in herbs by the earth moistned by which they are nourished and refreshed III. The animal and vital spirits in our bodies are not a celestial substance as some have thought For 1. The Heavens are not subject to generation and corruption as these are 2. The Heavens are a quintessence but these are elementary or aerial 3. The Heavens cannot be diminished which they must needs be if our spirits be heavenly bodies for they are as they say pieces of that great body which at last will be quite spent except they be repaired either by a new addition or by the reuniting of the same spirits to it again 4. Seeing the Heavens have but one motion which is circular how can any part therof come down into our bodies except it hath also a strait motion 5. Gravity and levity are elementary qualities whereof the Heaven is not capable and therefore cannot descend 6. Our spirits must either be united to the bodies of the Heavens and so continuated bodies with them or else separated and divided both which are absurdities 7. These spirits did either move them selves downward or else they had some other mover the first we cannot grant except wee make the celestial bodies living creatures for only such move themselves neither can we grant the second except we know what this mover should be it cannot be natural for the motion is violent nor can the mover be violent for the work of generation is natural it remains then that these spirits are aerial in their nature and substance but the instruments of the soul in regard of their function in which regard only we consider them as they are in our bodies for many actions proceed from them as they are the souls instruments which cannot be effected by the air as air IV. The natural or primogenial heat in living creatures is not a substance made up of seed
answer so can the body move after the head is off as wee see in Poultry This motion then excludes neither the head nor heart from being originals for it is caused by the remainder of the spirits which are left in the nerves and arteries As for the Apoplexy I take it to bee an affection not of the brains alone but of the nerves also VI. The common opinion is that the nerves are the instruments of sense and motion and yet we see sense and motion where there are no nerves for in every part of the body there are not nerves and yet every part feels and moves this sense and motion must needs proceed from the spirits in the blood which is in every part of the flesh and skin where there are no veins If it be replyed that upon the obstruction or binding of the nerve sense and motion fail I answer the like failing there is of sense and motion when the arteries called Carotides are bound up for as the animal spirits will not work without the vital neither will the spirits in the blood and flesh work if they fail which are in the nâ—rves such is the union amongst them that this failing all action ceaseth VII Seeing the sensitive and motive Spirits differ not specifically there is no need why wee should assign different nerves to sense and motion for the same neve serves to both it is true that there be some hard some soft nerves because some have their original from the soft brain and some from the harder pith of the baek bone and that the soft nerve is fittest fâ—r sense which consisteth in reception for soft things are aptest to receive impressions as the hard nerve is fittest for motion which consisteth in action therefore the same nerve conveyeth sense to all parts capable of sense and motion to the parts apt to be moved Hence the nerves inserted in the muscles move them but the nerves inserted into the mouth of the stomach moves it not bâ—cause the stomach hath no muscles yet it communicates to it an exquisite sense CHAP. VII 1. How the spirits pass through the nerves their swift and various motions even in sleep motion and sense not still together 2. Sense and motion in phrensies epilepsies leprosies caros 3. Muscles how when and where the causes of voluntary motion 4. How the fibres and tendons move the muscles 5. The muscles of the tongue abdomen diaphragma ribs bladder 6. The organs of tact its medium I. ALTHOUGH the nerves are not sensibly pervious as the Veines and Arteries are which were purposely made hollow for the passage of the venal and arterial blood yet the animall spirits being subtil and sublimated bodies can freely passe through the soft and spungy substance thereof as wel as sweat through the pores of the skin 2. Though in the Palsie the animal spirits cannot passe through the thick clammy and glassy flegme which by reson of its coldnesse deads the spirits which without the natural heat have no vigour or motion yet they can freely passe through the nerves by help of the native heat 3. Though the spirits by reason of their specifical form or aeriâ—l nature should only move upward yet as they are instruments of the soul they move which way the soul will have them move 4. Though no grosse body can move in an instant yet their spirits can being moved by the soul immediatly and being such sublimate and subtil bodies that they come neer to the nature of spirits 5. Though in sleep the senses are tied up yet there is ofteâ—times motion as we see in those that walk and talk in their sleep and yet feel not because the fore ventricles of the brain are affected in which is the common sense so is not the pith in the back from which the most of the motory nerves have their original 6. In one and the same nerve oft-times motion faileth and the sense remaineth because more spirits are required and greater force for motion being an action then for sense which consisteth in reception or passion 7. Sense doth sometimes fail the motion remaining sound when the nervous branches which are inserted into the skin are hurt or ill-affected at the same time the nerves inserted into the muscles may be sound II. In phrensies the motion is strong but the sense weak because the braines being inflamed the nerves are heated and dried therefore fitter for motion but the lesse apt for sense which requireth a soft nerve 2. In the falling sickness sense faileth but not motion because the fore ventricles of the brain being ill-affected the common sense is intercepted but the pith of the back bone from whence the most nerves are derived is not hurt therefore motion not hindred 3. In leprosies the sense is dulled but not the motion because the nerves and skin are dried by which sense is hindred but not motion 4. In a deep sleep or Caros there is respiration without sense because the fore-part of the brain is hurt but not the nerves and muscles of the breast 5. Oftentimes the eye loseth its sight but not its motion because the optick nerve by which we see is not the same with the nerves by which the eye is moved III. All spontaneous motions are caused by the spirits in the brains nerves and muscles in the creatures that have them but where these organs are not the animal spirits move the body without them as we see in worms 2. All muscles are not the organs of voluntary motion for the three little muscles within the ears move them not to hear when we please for many times wee hear what wee would not 3. In those parts where there be nerves without muscles there is no voluntary motion because the nerves convey only the spirits which the muscles receive and by them immediately move the body 4. Respiration in sleep is a natural not a voluntary motion caused notwithstanding by the muscles of the breast 5. Sleep-walkers are moved by the muscles which motion then cannot be voluntary for the walker hath not knowledge of his walking or of the end thereof 6. Beasts are moved by their muscles which motion in them cannot be called voluntary but spontaneous onely IV. All muscles have not tendones but such as are appointed for a strong and continual motion hence the muscles of the tongue bladder and anus have no tendones 2. The muscle is moved not onely by the nerves and tendones but also by the fibres within its own fleshy substance and indeed the fibrous flesh is the chief instrument of spontaneous motion and where they are wanting there is no such motion Hence it is that beasts can move their skins which men cannot because beasts skins adhere close to a fibrous substance whereas that of mans is nervous onely the skin of the face in us is movable because musculous and fibrous V. Though the substance of the tongue be not a musculous or fibrous flesh yet it receiveth its divers
reparation by generation of spirits 5. It differs from the animal motive faculty because it is necessary and perpetual the animal is voluntary and sometimes ceaseth VII The vital spirits are ingendred in the left ventricle of the heart partly of aire prepared in the lungs and conveyed to the heart by the Arteria venosa and partly of the purest blood powred out of the mouth of Vena cava into the right ventricle where it is prepared and attenuated a part whereof is conveyed for nourishing of the lungs by the Vena arteriosa the other part sweats through the partition that divides the heart and in the left ventricle is mingled with the aire and turned into spirits by its excessive heat VIII The Diastole and Systole that is the dilatation and contraction of the heart and arteries is all one and at the same time for the heart and arteries are so united that they make but one body so there is but one pulsifick vertue in both and the end of their motion is the same to wit the vegitation and life of the body the suddenness of the motion in the remotest arteries from the heart and the strong beating of the pulse and heart in Feavers and anger do shew the identity of motion in both 2. The arteries are moved by the spirits of the heart conveyed by their tunicles rather then their cavity for upon the pressing of the tunicles the pulse ceaseth but not when the cavity is stuffed or stopped They are not then moved by their heat and blood but by the heart as may be seen by binding the arteries whose motion beneath the binding saileth the commerce between it and the heart being intercepted 3. The heart is first dilated by receiving the aire then it is contracted by expelling the fuliginous vapours 4. The heart strikes the breast in its dilatation not in its contraction or Systole because the left ventricle which is the originall of the Arteries is distended in the Diastole and so toucheth the breast about the left pap IX The motion of the heart is not voluntary because we cannot command it nor sensitive because it is not performed by the nerves and muscles nor simple because there are two motions nor compounded because they are contrary and of contrary motions can be no compositions nor is it violent because it is not repugnant to its nature nor is it caused by an externall agent as the trembling of the heart is by distempers vapours or humours but the hearts motion is natural yet not caused by the elementary form for so there should be more agents in our bodies then one and its motion should be â—itâ—eâ— upward or downward but it is natural in respect of the soul which is the chief nature that works in animal bodies and in respect of the fibers heat and spirits of the heart which are natural organs and in respect of the natural use or end of this motion for the heart dilates it self to receive aire and blood it contracts it self to be emptied of its fumes and to communicate its spirits to the nerves which ends are naturall X. When Aristotle saith that the motion of the heart is caused by heat and cold he contradicts not the Physitians in affirming the soul or its vital faculty to be the cause of this motion for heat and cold are subordinate instruments to the soul which by the heat of the blood and spirits dilates the heart and by the attraction of the cold air contracteth it as we see water by the heat of the fire swel and dilate it self but upon the breathing of cold air to contract and fall down again CHAP. XVI 1. The Lungs how moved the air is not the spirits nutriment 2. Respiration not absolutely necessary 3. The Lungs hot and moist 4. Respiration a mixed motion as that of the bladder and intestins 5. No portion of our drink passeth into the Lungs ARistotle differs from the Galenists about the motion of the Lungs he will have them moved by the heart whose heat listeth up the Lungs upon which motion the air enters for avoiding vacuity which being entred the Lungs fall The Galenists will have their motion to depend on the motion of the breast but both are in the right For the motion of the Lungs is partly voluntary and so it depends on the moving of the muscles of the breast and partly natural and so it is moved by the heart 2. When Aristotle denies that the air is the nutriment of the spirits which the Galenists affirm his meaning is that the air doth not properly nourish the spirits as meat doth our bodies for there is no assimilation or conversion of the substance of the air into our spirits which are properly nourished by blood but only a commixtion of the air and spirits for refrigeration And indeed if the spirits were properly fed by the air there would not come out the same air that went in For the spirits would not part from their food the air then nourisheth the spirits as it doth the fire by refrigeration and preserving it from suffocation II. Respiration is not so necessary for preservation of life as the motion of the heart for histerical women can live without that but they cannot live without this Neither is the motion of the arteries of absolute necessity for the member is not deprived of life though the arterie be stopped or tied and deprived of its motion 2. The motion of respiration is more noble then the motion of the heart because this is meerly natural that is also animal and voluntary yet as the motion of the Lungs is subservient to the motion of the heart that is more noble then this for the end excels the means III. The Lungs are hot and moist hot that they mighâ— temper and alter the cold air therefore the substance is fleshy light and spongy and fed with hot and spirituous blood from the right ventricle of the heart It is also moist as appears by its soft and loose substance It is also moist accidentally by receiving the flegme and rhumes that fall from the brain 2. The Lungs refrigerate the heart not because their substance is cold but because the air is cold which they attract IV. Respiration is a motion partly voluntary as it is performed by the muscles nerves and diaphragma which are the organs of voluntary motion and as it is in our power to breath or not to breath to hasten or retard it And it is partly natural as it is performed by the Lungs which are organs of natural motion as it is not subject to fatigation as it is performed in our sleep when we have no command over our selves and the sensitive faculties then cease as it is not performed by election or apprehension of the object as voluntary motions are And lastly as in Apoplexies when the senses fail the brains and nerves are hurt yet respiration continues it is then a mixt action as the expulsive actions of the
fire till it blistred out of which blisters they came and so he was cured Salt is an enemy to them yet they are bred in those AEthiopians by the frequent eating of the salt locusts But perhaps it is not the eating of the salt meat so much as the nastinesse and sweat unwholesom waters and corrupted air that breeds them And it is certain that wild and savage people are most given to them because of their carelesse uncleanlinesse using no other remedy against them but shirts died with Saffron which some wilde Irish doe wear six months together without shifting But sometimes this disease is inflicted by the immediate hand of God as a punishment of sinne and tyranny Examples we have in Sylla Pherecides Herod Philip the second of Spain and others who died of this malady Now because Locusts are such an unwholesome food I cannot think that Iohn Baptist did feed on them and therefore it is no vulgar error to hold that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Matth. 3. doth signifie the tops of hearbs rather then locusts both because these were an unwholesome food and unpleasant to the palat and nose used rather for Physick then diet as Dioscorides and Galen shew that Locusts are good against the Cholick and Stone and may be more safely given then Cantharides to provoke urine And although the AEthiopians did eat them for food yet this is no argument to prove that Iohn did eat them which is all the reason that Beza and Casaubon bring to prove their assertion neither can it be proved that Locusts were a food ever used in Iudaea For Pelusiota who lived an Eremite many years in those Desarts never knew any such food used there But whereas they alledge that in Levit. c. 11. v. 22. Locusts are set down for clean food I answer with Munster on Levit. 11.22 who though an excellent Hebrician yet confesseth that neither he nor the Rabbins themselves doe know the true meaning or signification of the proper tearms there used Therefore the Hebrew word Harbe which we translate Locust the Septuagints call Bruchus which is another kind of Insect And the French in their Bibles have left the Hebrew word untranslated And so did Luther before as not knowing what that word meant nor the other three Hebrew words Dr. Brown then had done well rather to have reckoned the Baptists eating of Locusts among the Vulgar Errors then his feeding upon hearbs in the Desart III. There is no flesh so much subject to putrefaction as mans body because it abounds in heat and moisture so that oftentimes some parts of it doe putrifie before the soul leave it which cannot so long preserve it from corruption as salt spices the juice of Cedar and other means by which the AEgyptians used to embalm their dead bodies For indeed heat and siccity are enemies to putrefaction therefore where the ambient air which is properly moist is excluded there the bodies remain unputrified Hence the bodies which are digged out of the hot and dry sands in Egypt have there continued many hundreds of years uncorrupted Alexanders body lay many days unburied and unbalmed yet stunk not but smelled odoriferously because he had dried up the superfluous moisture of his body by continual drinking of strong and fragrant wines There be also some wines that preserve dead bodies uncorruptible by reason of their cold and exsiccating quality So we read in the Indian stories that upon the Mountains of Chily bodies have been found dead there which have many years without corruption continued The first detectors of those Countries found it so by experience for many of them were killed by the piercing subtil quality of those winds and preserved from putrefaction by the excessive drinesse thereof I have read of Horsemen sitting on Horse-back with their bridles in their hands yet dead many months before without any corruption It is also the opinion of som that bodies thunder-struck do not putrifie I am apt to believe that either they putrifie not at all or not in a long time because of the exsiccating quality of the sulphurous vapour which comes from the thunder and lightning But there is nothing more apt to preserve dead bodies from corruption then the juice of Cedar therefore much used among the Ancients both in preserving of their books and bodies which by reason of their extream bitternesse and driing quality gives life to the dead and death to the living extinguishing the temporary life of the body and in recompence giving it immortality So then we see that siccity is the main enemy to putrefaction which is the cause the Peacocks flâ—sh is not fo apt to putrifie as of other creatures because of its drinesse as Saint Augustine in the City of God sheweth who speaks of a Peacock which in a whole year did not putrifie The diet also is a great help to further or retard putrefaction for they that feed plentifully on flesh fish or other humid meats which breed much blood and humours are apter to putrifie then those who feed sparingly on hard and dry meats In the siege of Amida by Sapor the Persian King this difference was found for the European bodies who lay four days unburied did in that time so putrifie that they could scarce be known but the Persian bodies were grown hard and dry because of their hard and dry food having contented themselvs with bread made of Naesturtiuâ—â— which we call Cresses or nose-smart an hot and dry hearb Concerning the stone Sarcophagus which consumes flesh in forty days as Pliny witnesseth l. 36. c. 17. is no fable for Scaliger writes Exerc. 132. that in Rome and in the Town where he then was the dead bodies were consumed in eight days But the stone Chernites is a preserver of flesh from corruption therefore the Tomb of Darius was made of it The like is written of the hearb Clematis or Vinca pervinea which resisteth putrifaction therefore of old they used to binde the heads of young men and maids deceased with garlands of this hearb And Korrimanus de mirac mortuorum speaks of a dead head so crowned with this hearb which in the year 1635. being taken out of the grave was found uncorrupted And as dead bodies embalmed with spices are preserved from corruption so by the fame dead bodies men are oftentimes preserved alive for that stuffe which proceeds from them called by the Arabians Mumia is an excellent remedy against diseases arising from cold and moisture Francis the first carried always some of it about him It was found in the Tombs of those Princes who had been imbalmed with rich spices but that which is found in ordinary graves is not the true Mumia but false uselesse or rather pernicious for the body as not being of the same materials that the true Mumia was IV. That the presence of a dear friend standing by a dying man will prolong his life a while is a thing very remarkable and true and which I found by experience
body to be more solid so doth the right hand begin to be more agill though I deny not but in some the left hand is more agill but these are few and aberrations from the common course of Nature for we see that in all her works there are some accidentall deviations His other objections are coincident with these two and his discourse of the right and left side of heaven is impertinent to this purpose therefore I will spend no time in refelling it for some make the East some the South the right part of heaven but I will conclude with Aristotle hist. animal 1. c. 15 the right side and left in man consist of the same parts but the left side is every where weaker IV. The end why mans body was made erected was to look up toward heaven whence the soul hath its originall where our hopes should be and our happiness shall be by the contemplation of which we are brought to the knowledge of Gods goodness and wisdom For the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament his handy work Psal. 19. Yet the Doctor book 4. c. 1. will not have this the end of mans erection but out of Galen the exercise of Arts which could not be performed in any other figure Again saith he the eyes of divers fishes regard the heavensâ— birds who have no upper eye-lid have in this the advantage of man So the position of the frog with his eyes above the water serves to behold a great part of the heavens Answ. All these are weak Assertions for the God of Nature created man to enjoy happiness and to glorifie him this is the chief end of his creation Now this happiness is heaven by beholding which our knowledge of God is confirmed our hopes established and our joy and affections to heavenly things are enlarged The invention of Arts then was but a secondary end which it seems Galen that meer naturall man thought to be the chief end And whereas the Doctor saith that by sursum aspicere was not meant to look upward with the eye but to have his thoughts sublime I would know what means so forcible to sublimate the thoughts as the eye All knowledge and affection of and to the object comes by the senses How should Abraham have known the glory and multitude of his posterity had he not looked up as God commanded him to the stars The wise men found Christ in Bethlehem by looking upward to heaven where they saw his star Christ in blessing the bread and in Praying looked up towards heaven should not our eyes be fixed there where our treasure is Our Saviour went up to heaven and we exspect him again to return with the clouds of heaven Our eyes then should be directed thither as well as our thoughts The Philosophers by the knowledge of the first Mobile came to the knowledge of the first mover And though birds some fishes and frogs may have an advantage in looking upward yet this advantage was not given them to look on heaven of which they have neither knowledge hope affection or interest they look upward then not to contemplate heaven but to watch either flies to feed on or kites hawkes and other ravenous fowle to avoid them V. He doubts whether mice can be procreated of putrifaction So he may doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated Or if Betels and wasps in cowes dung Or if butterflies locusts grashoppers shel-fish snails eeles and such like be procreated of putrified matter which is apt to receive the form of that creature to which it is by the formative power disposed To question this is to question Reason Sense and Experience If he doubts of this let him go to AEgypt and there he will finde the fields swarming with mice begot of the mud of Nylus to the great calamity of the Inhabitants What will he say to those rats and mice or little beasts resembling mice found generated in the belly of a woman dissected after her death of which Lemnius is a witness who thinks this generation might proceed of some sordid excrement or seminal pollution of those animals with which the womans meat or drink had been infected I have seen one whose belly by drinking of puddle water was swelled to a vast capacity being full of small toads frogs evets and such vermin usually bred in putrified water A toad hath been found in a sound piece of Timber VI. That men swim naturally he cannot assent to because other animals swim as they go but man alters his natural posture as he swims 4. Book c. 6. Answ. This is no reason for man alters his natural posture when he crawls will it follow therefore that this motion is no natural to man But to speak properly swimming is no natural motion neither in man nor beast For if we take natural as it is opposite to animal swimming is an animal motion and if we take natural as it is opposite to artificial then swimming is an artifical motion for there is some Art in it But if we take nature for a propensity facility inclination or disposition then I say these are as well in men as in beasts Therefore Pliny tells us of the Troglodites that they swim like Fishes Lerius Acosta and other Indian Historians write that the American children begin to swim as soon as they begin to walk and that for eight dayes together they can live in the Sea and longer if it were not for feare of the great Fishes so swift and skillfull they are in swimming that they out-swim the Fishes and catch them and so farre they exceed other animals in this motion that they can swim with the left hand onely holding hooks and darts in the right which no other creature can doe If it be objected That swimming is not naturall to man because he learns it I answer That walking and talking are naturall actions to man and yet he learns both when he is a child So I have seen old birds teach their young ones to flye Lastly if it be naturall for beasts to swim because of their posture then it must needs be as naturall to those wilde men who from their infancy were brought up among wild beasts to walk upon all foure having no other posture CHAP. XI 1. The Pictures of the Pelican Dolphin Serpent Adam and Eve Christ Moses Abraham and of the Sybils defended 2. The Pictures of Cleopatra of Alexander of Hector of Caesar with Saddle and Stirrops maintained THe Doctor Book 5. c. 1. quarrels with some pictures as 1. With that of the Pelican opening her breast with her Bill and feeding her young ones with her blood But for this he hath no great reason for Franzius de animalib to whom he is beholding for much of his matter tels him that this and divers other pictures are rather Hieroglyphical and Emblematical then truly Historicall for the Pelican was used as an Emblem of paternall affection among the Gentiles and of Christs love to
fast and feast But his abstinence was to increase the pleasure of his intemperance and his intemperance was to add delight to his abstinence Beside that he was necessitated somtimes to fast for his healths sake and enjoyment of a long life vvhich could not consist in continuall surfeiting Seneca in Epistol also reproves Epicurus for his inconstancy in saying That vertue is never without pleasure and yet affirms that it is not the vertue but the pleasure that makes a man happy A foolish distinction saith he For if Vertue be never vvithout that vvhich makes a man blessed then vertue it selfe is sufficient to beatitude and that perfectly for otherwise an imperfect felicity is infelicity Again in his Book of Benefits he tells Epicurus That vertue is to be desired for its selfe not for its pleasure vvhich he proves out of his own Doctrine of God though he hath disarmed him of all power excluded him from all commerce and care of Man yet he worships him for his greatnesse and goodnesse though he have no benefit by him nor is afraid of any hurt from him Again he commends many of Epicurus his sayings not because they were his but because they were common Principles and Tenents used by him Non quia Epicuri voces sed quia publicae Another reason he gives because some sayings are rare and unexpected out of his mouth whose doctrine and practice was so lascivious and therefore he commends his sayings more then his actions he says he was fortis sed manuleatus a brave man but vvithal debauched and effeminate brave in his sayings but debauched in practice Ignava opera Philosopha sententia As there be too many like him Stoicks in opinion and Epicureall in conversation by nature saith the Comick we are all prone to pleasure lasciviousness d labore proclives ad libidinem Arcesilaus being asked why so many of other Sects revolted to Epicurus but none fell from him to them answered That Cocks can be easily made Capons but Capons could never become Cocks again It is easie to become and turn a Priest of Cybele but not so easie to return Facilis discensus Averni sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras hoc opus hic labor Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction but the gate to salvation is narrow and sew enter thereat Seneca also checks that Master of the Revels for saying In contented poverty there is much honesty For how can he be poore that is content It is content that maketh rich discontent poore He plainly bids defiance to Epicurus his opinion of pleasure in his fourth book of Benefits calling his Sect effeminate umbratick trencher Philosophers making vertue the hand-maid to pleasures which ought to be the Mistresse enslaving her to her Vassals which she ought to lead to command to keep under he calls it a manifest blindnesse in them to set the Cart before the Horse to prefer pleasure before Vertue to set that first which should be last And not onely is he angry for advancing pleasure but for joyning it with Vertue at all which scorns pleasures and accounts them her enemies desiring rather the acquaintance and familiarity of pains and labour then of such an effeminate happinesse as pleasure Now that these pleasures of Epicurus are not mental but corporal the same Seneca whom the Doctor cities for his defence makes it appeare in the 13. Chapter of the same book Your pleasure O Epicurus saith he is to accustome your tender bodies to dull idlenesse to a sleepy security in the heat to delight your selves in cold shades to solace your drooping souls with wanton thoughts and to cram your lasie karkasses with good meats drinkes in your shady gardens Any man therefore may see that Epicurus his God was his belly and gormandising his chiefe happinesse Wherefore Athanaeus lib. 7. shewes that he flattered Idomeneus and Metrodorus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for his bellies sake The same Seneca also rejects Epicurus his impious opinion of God whom he makes as idle as himselfe sitting in another world secure and careless of humane affaires acting nothing at all which is Epicurus his chiefe happinesse and taking no notice of our injuries and benefits If this were so saith he the world had been made to solicite such deafe and impotent Deities with vowes supplications and lifting up of hands Thou O Epicurus saith he hast disarmed God and taken from him all his darts and power so that he is not to be feared of any thou hast secluded him from this world by a wal or rampire so that he can neither see nor feel what is acted here Hence then it is plain that Seneca was no supporter of Epicurus though he commends some of his moral sentences not because they were his but because they were common and what greater commendation is it for him to speak some good sentences then for the Devil to utter Scripture phrases Lastly Seneca's commendations if any such be of Epicurus are of no great moment seeing with him he doubts of the souls immortality when he saith Illa quae nobis inferos faciunt terribiles fabula est c. Cons. ad Marcian II. But that we may have a more full view of this swinish Philosopher whom the Doctor commends for his vertue long life and many books we wil poynt at some of his absurd and impious tenents that Gassendus and other phantastical heads of this wanton age may see what a goodly School of Philosophy they would open here in Christendome 1. He rejects Logick calling it as Laertius tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 superfluous or preposterous whereas it is the most usefull of all human Arts or Sciences for without Logick we can neither define nor divide nor distinguish we can neither tel the essential nor accidental differences nor identities of things we can neither discourse or reason speak or write methodically we can inferre no conclusion from any premises nor find out probable and demonstrative arguments for proof of any thing nor detect the fallacies and captions that are in mens discourses But it is no wonder he denys the Art of Reasoning who knew not what â—eason was for he confounds it with the senses as if it had its essence and being in and from them And in his Epistle to Phythocles he would not have his happy men to meddle with any knowledge or discipline at all 2. He makes a difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Universe and the World affirming that there is but one Universe but innumerable Worlds subject to continual generation and corruption a position repugnant to Divinity Philosophy sense and reason 3. He makes a certain space between his worlds which he cals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tully translates it intermundium there he places his idle and carelesse Gods sleeping securely as not being troubled with noyse tumblings and clamours of this tumultuous world 4. He saith that the Sun Moon and Starres were made a part by themselves
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and afterward were palces in this 5. He will have the just magnitude of the Sun and Starres to depend upon our senses and to be no bigger then they seem to our eye so that the bignesse of the Sun cannot exceed a foot 6. He tels us that the Sun every night perisheth and every day is generated 7. He acknowledgeth no other happinesse then what consists in the pleasure of tasting smelling seeing hearing feeling or venery as may be seen in Laertius 8. He makes all things to have their existence not by providence but by hap-hazard of Atoms and not the bodies of things onely but the reasonable souls of men also which he makes subject to uncertainty 9. He makes all the Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with humane shapes 10. He reacheth as Plutarch tels us that there is no qualities in things but what the senses apprehend so that the same wine may be both sweet and source according to the palat that tasts it and hot water is not hot but coole if a man conceit it to be so 11. He makes his doctrine fit for all mens humours he commends wealth to the covetous discommends it to the prodigall and riotous he praiseth gormondising to the Glutton dispraiseth it to the abstenious he tells the continent venery is hurtful but to the wanton that it is delightful and pleasant 12. He sheweth himself to be a prophane Atheist in despising Religion making it a tyrant to keep men in aw a pernitious device and a scar-crow to terrifie and enslave the vvorld And now lest any might think that Epicurus is wronged and that these damnable opinions are fathered upon him causlesly I will not alledge Cicero Plutarch Lactantius and others that have professedly written against him but his prime Scholar Lucretius who highly commends him as being the first that freed the World from the bondage and slavery of Religion His words are these Humana ante oculos faede quum vita jaceret In terris oppressa gravi sub relligione Quae caput ◠coeli regionibus ostendeba◠Horribili super adspectu mortalibus instans Primum Graius homo mortales tendere contra Est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra Quem neque fama Deûm nec fulmina nec minitanti Murmure compressit coelum c. And so he goes on glorying in the conquest and victory that Epicurus had got over religion Quare relligio pedibus subjecta vicissim obteritur nos exaequat victoria coelo His other wicked and absurd opinions you may see mentioned and commended by the same Poet through all his Poem so that the Doctor hath no reason to complain that Epicurus is wronged and much lesse cause hath he to commend and pity so prophane and absurd a Writer to call him vertuous who was the greatest enemy that ever vertue had Neither are his many Writings or long life arguments sufficient to prove him an honest man I shall not need spend time and paper in refuting the senslesse and wicked Dictates of Epicurus being fully refuted already by divers eminent Writers both Christians and Gentiles CHAP. XVII Epicurus his Atomes rejected by nineteen reasons BEcause the Doctor speaks oftentimes in his Book of Epicurean Atomes which first were hatched in the brains of Leucippus then entertained by Democritus and by him recommended to his Scholar Epicurus and because some giddy heads of this age loathing wholsome doctrine desire to embrace any trash like women troubled with the Pica who preferre ashes chalk coals tarre and such like stuffe to nourishing meats I will propose to the Readers view the absurdities of this whimsical opinion concerning Atomes that they may see how little reason there is to fil young brains with such empty phantosms and to reject Aristotles wholsome and approved Doctrine of Principles The inventers of these Atomes at first out of a vain-glory that they might seem singular rejected the common received principles of naturall Bodies obtruding on the World their idle dreams which are greedily embraced by the vain-glorious wits of this age but upon what grounds let us see 1. Either many bodies are made up of one atome or one body of many atomes But neither are true not the first because an atome is indivisible not the second because they cannot unite together in respect of vacuity in which they are distant from each other 2. It is a maxime among them saith Aristotle That there is no passibility but by the means of vacuity Now atomes have no vacuity in them because they make them solid therefore they are not subject to passibility it will follow then that where there is no passion there can be no action for passion is the reception of action and therefore where no patient is there no agent can be because that is wanting on which the agent should act Hence it will follow that where there is no action and passion there can be no generation 3. There can be no action where there is no contrariety but contrary qualities are not in atomes for Leucippus as Aristotle saith placed heat in them but not cold hardnesse but not softnesse gravity but not levity 4. These Atomists contradict themselves for they hold their atomes impassible and yet place in them degrees of qualities making some heavier then others by which it will follow that some atomes are hotter then others and consequently they cannot act one upon another For the greater heat acts upon the lesser as the stronger upon the weaker 5. If compounded bodies are made up of atomes then the qualities which are in these bodies were first in the atomes or were not if not whence have compounded bodies their qualities being they are not in their principles If they are in atomes either they are singly so that in each atome there is but one quality as frigidity in one hardnesse in another or else there be divers qualities in one atome If the first be granted then it will follow that each atome hath a different nature from the other and so no possibility for reception of the quality of another and consequently no action if the second be granted then it will follow that atomes are divisible for there must be one part for reception of one quality and another part for the other quality There must be also besides integrall parts matter and form act and passibility which we call essentiall parts so will it follow that atomes are compounded bodies which cannot be principles 6. The uniting of these atomes must be either by themselves or by another if by another then they are passible which is repugnant to Democritus if by themselves then they are divisible into parts to wit into the parts moving and the parts moved For nothing can move itselfe because contrarieties cannot be in the same thing secundum idem 7. They make some of the atomes to be soft it will follow then that some of them are passive for soft things are apt to receive impressions
and so to suffer 8. If these atomes be smooth and round as some will have them they can no more unite to make up a mixt body then so many small seeds or grains which onely make up a body aggregate as a heap of stones but if they be rough cornerd or hooked as others say then they are divisible and so not atomes 9. If there be innumerable worlds as Epicurus holds and innumerable atomes must concurre to make up any one of these Worlds how many innumerable atomes are there to make up innumerable Worlds There must needs be more atomes then Worlds and consequently degrees of more and lesse in innumerability and infinity then which nothing can be more absurd 10. If all things are made of atomes to what end was seed given to vegitables and animals for procreation What needs the Husbandman sow corn or the Gardiner cast his seeds into the ground What needs he dig or plow plant water whereas all fruits herbs and plants can be produced by atomes Birds saith Lactantius need not lay eggs nor sit upon them for procreation seeing of atomes both eggs and bird can be produced 11. The souls and their faculties are made of finer and smaller atomes then the bodies which are compounded of a grosser sort It must then follow they have degrees of magnitude and consequently divisibility 12. Those atomes have neither knowledge reason wisdome nor counsell and yet can produce by hap-hazard worlds and all things in them which neither Men nor Angels can effect by their wisdom 13. If the statue or picture of a man cannot be effected but by art reason wisdom what impudency is it saith Lactantius to affirm man himselfe by chance to be made or by a â—emerarious and fortuitall conglobation of atomes 14. We see the World and the creatures therein governed not temerariously but by an admirable providence and wisdome how then can any imagine these should be made by chance and not by wisdome 15. I would know whether Towns Castles Temples Ships other buildings are made up of atomes If these are not how shall we believe that celestiall or sublunary bodies or the whole World should be made of them 16. When Epicurus gives to his atomes magnitude figure and weight hee makes them perfect bodies and consequently unapt for Physicall mixtion For the uniting of perfect bodies makes up an aggregative body so that in the generation of bodies there is no mixtion but aggregation which is ridiculous 17. Hee gives figures to his atomes and yet makes them invisible which is a plain Bull and contradiction For an invisible figure is like an invisible colour an inaudible sound an inodorable smell an ungustible sapor an untangible hardnesse To make the senses proper objects insensible is a senslesse toy 18. He makes his atomes move downward in a straight line by reason of their gravity but fearing lest by this motion there would never be any concurring of them for generation he assignes them in another motion which he calls declination and so to one simple invisible indivisible body he gives two motions but tells us not the cause of this motion of declination which as Tully saith argues his grosse ignorance in Natural Philosophy For I would know whether this motion be from an internal or external cause not from an internall for there is no other internal cause of the atomes motion downward but gravity which cannot produce two motions the cause cannot be external because Epicurus his Gods doe not move or work at all Beside that his Gods are also made of atomes as Cicero shews 19. Most ridiculously did he invent this motion of Declination lest he should seem to deprive man of his liberty of will For he thought mans will must needs be necessitated if those atomes of which the soul is made should have no other motion but downward which is a naturall and necessary motion And by the same means also he took away Fate or providence Thus have I briefly touched the absurdities of this opinion which is so hugged and greedily swallowed without chewing by some unsetled and vain-glorious men not regarding the dangerous consequences arising thence nor the impiety of the Authour being both an Atheist and a prophane wanton and unsetled in his opinions saying and unsaying at his pleasure For when he saw the envie and danger he had brought upon himselfe by his impious Dictates he sweetens them a little in effect as Tully saith denying all Divinity and yet in words allowing Divine Worship which is most ridiculous to pray and praise to feare and love to serve and worship such Gods as neither love nor hate us such as take no notice of our good and evill such as have no relation to us nor we to them So he palliates sometimes his swinish pleasures with the delights of the mind clothing a foul Strumpet with the habit of a modest Matron whereas by the delight of the minde he meant nothing else but mentall thoughts or the delightfull remembrance of his fleshly pleasures which we leave to him and his Disciples Epicuri de grege porcis CHAP. XVIII 1. That Chrystal is of water proved and the contrary objections answered how it differs from Ice 2. The Loadstone moves not its Antipathy with Garlick Of the Adamant Versoria Amber c. THat Crystall was at first Water then Ice and at last by extream cold hardned into a stone was the opinion of the ancient Philosophers and of Scaliger the best of the Modern but Mathiolus Cardan Bâ—eÌ„tius de Boöte and Agricola with some others will have it to be a Minerall body hardned not by cold but by heat or a Minerall spirit Of this opinion is the Doctor Book 1. Cap. but his reasons are not satisfactory For first saith he Minerall spirits resist congelation but Ice is water congealed by cold Answ. He takes this for granted which is not For he is to prove Crystal a mineral and that 't is hardned by a mineral spirit which he doth not Again all Minerals resist not congelation but further it sometimes as he sheweth himselfe of Snow and Salt by the fire side turned into Ice and of water converted into Ice by Salt-peter Besides all minerals are not hard for Quicksilver is not nor can mineral spirits harden their own bodies or keep them from dissolving into liquor it is the external heat or cold that doth it not the internal spirit as we see in Salt which dissolves into water if it be not hardned by the heat of Sun or fire and so will Ice dissolve into water if the cold grow remiss or the heat prevaile If then a Mineral spirit cannot harden its own body how can it harden the body of water What mineral spirits are there in cold water to harden it into Ice Spirits are hot therfore apter to dissolve water then harden it but we see manifestly that it is cold and not spirits which causeth Ice the same cold in some Caves where the Sun
the seat of the senses therefore in Aristophanes the word sneezing is used for feeling as when he saith I sneezed not the blow his Interpreter expounds it I felt it not as Caelius observeth But now because the Gentiles abused sneezing superstitiously and wished well to the Sneezer we must not hence inferre That to pray for the safety of him who sneezeth is superstition or Gentilisme as some do for so we may conclude by the same reason that to pray at all is superstition because the Gentiles used to pray It is an ancient custome among Christians to wish well to him that sneezeth taking its originall from the time of St. Gregory when at Rome in a great sicknesse men died with sneezing Doctor Brown out of Fernandes brings some proofes to shew that the original of wishing wel to the sneezer is more ancient then Gregory to whom I answer That it was used among the Gentiles before Gregories time but I deny that it was usuall among Christians till then From this sicknesse therefore at Rome in Gregories dayes in which this wel-wishing was used and not from the Gentiles practice we draw this civill and charitable custome in praying for our friend or neighbour when he sneezeth V. In those that are thunder-struck divers things are remarkable as 1. They keep the same posture of body being dead which they had when they were alive at the time when they were struck as Cardan de rer var. lib. 8 c. 44. instanceth of 8 harvest people in the Isle Lemnes who sitting together under an Oak at supper were all thunder-struck retaining the same posture they had before one with his hand on the cup ready to drink the other with the cup at his mouth a third with meat in his mouth so that they looked like so many statues The reason of this may be the stifnesse of the nerves and muscles being parched and dried up by the hot and sulphury matter of the lightning The like I read of those that are killed with excessive cold which so stiffeneth those parts mentioned that the body retains its posture whether sitting or standing 2. They that are thunder-struck look black because the heat drieth up the radicall moisture The like we see of fire which makes the whitest paper and linnen grow black and the Sun tans mens skins 3. Their bodies do not putrifie by reason their moisture which is the mother of putrifaction is exhausted 4. There is neither wild beasts nor ravenous birds will touch or come neere such bodies because of their sulphury smell which is noisome to them and their drinesse is such that they can afford no nutriment 5. That part which is wounded by the thunder is colder then any other notwithstanding that the lightning or thunder is of a fiery nature because all things which have been heated by the fire grow colder then before by reason the inward heat is drawn out by the fire for in things of the same nature or quality the stronger attracts the weaker 6. The Romans never suffered their bodies to be burned that were thunder-struck but covered them with earth in the same place where they were struck or let them remain unburied nor would they suffer any funeral obsequies to be performed to them perhaps they thought it unfitting to burn those with terrestriall fire who had been scorched already with fire from heaven or to take the shape away or figure of that body with their fire which the celestiall fire had spared nor would they honour him with a a funerall whom they thought execreable and extreamly hated of the gods therefore none would venture to come neer the place till it was expiared by a sacrifice which was called Bidentaâ—l being a sheep of two years old or of two eminent teeth which word also by Persius is given to the party that is thunder-struck whom he calls evitandum Bidentall Sect. 2. because none durst touch or come neer him 7. The thunder seldome or never kills those that are asleep but such onely as are awaked this may proceed from the fear which is in those that are awaked by which the spirits blood suddenly suffocate the heart whereas in sleep there is no fear or apprehension of danger and not only men but cattell also are much afrighted wherefore in thundring times the shepheards use to gather their sheep together that being united they may be the lesle fearfull whereas any creature alone is subject to be fearfull 8. It is a strange quality in the thunder to break the bones to melt the sword to dry up the wine to kill the infant in the womb and yet not touch the skin the scabbard the barrell nor the mother perhaps the skin and leather being pory transmits the sulphury vapour which is resisted by the bones and metall As for the wine exhausted I think Pliny Plutarch and others mean onely the Spirits of the wine evaporated and so the child being more tender and apter to receive the malignant vapour of the thunder then the mother might die and she live CHAP. III. 1. The Female hath no active seed of generation Doctor Harvies and Fernelius reasons refutaed 2. A Discourse of the Cholick 3. The same soul in a subventaneous and prolificall egge Doctor Harvies reasons to the contrary refuted 4. Blood not the immediate instrument of the Soul Doctor Harvies reasons answered 5. Doctor Harvies way of conception refuted WE have proved already l. 1. c. 4. sect 3. that the female hath no active active seed for generation but is meerly passive affording onely blood and the place of conception according to the truth of Aristotles doctrine but because the Physicians are of another opinion that the female hath also seed actively concurring to generation we will examine the solidity of their reasons 1. Doctor Harvy Exercit. 32. proveth That in the female there is an active principle of generation Because of the Horse and Asse is procreated a mixt species to wit the Mule the whole form whereof is made up and mixed of both parents so that the Horse alone was not sufficient to produce this form of the Mule in the matter but as the whole form is mixed therefore the Asse must concurre as an other efficient cause Answ. The Mule is not a compounded species or mixed of the Horse and Asse but rather a third species different from both as having neither in whole nor in part nor separated nor mixed their essentiall forms but hath its own specificall form and properties distinct from those of the parents as we may see in the Mules sterrility which is a property not individuall as in some other animals but specificall of which the species of the Horse and Asse is not capable As for some outward resemblances in the Mule to the parents these are but accidentall and are in animals of farre different species as also in trees and other vegetables Besides the forms or species of things cannot be mixed because essences are impartible and admit
this Tract the Doctor seemes sometimes to be in earnest and sometimes to speak-problematically or rather doubtfully But however this opinion cannot consist with reason for what can be more unreasonable then that the Noblest Animals should be conceived without any sensible corporeall Agent by meere imagination not of the brain but of the Womb For 1. If this be true that the Female can thus conceive and generate what need was there of the Male they are then uselesse in generation and fathers have no reason to provide for their wives children seeing the woman is the sole parent the man but a Cypher Why should there be any lawes against adultery and fornication seeing there can be no such sins If this doctrine be true what miracle was it for a virgin to conceive and bear a Son without the help of man seeing this is ordinary for the female as the Doctor faith to be prolificall without any sensible corporeall agents for the seed he saith is not received within the matrix But if I should grant him this which cannot be true yet he cannot deny but that the seminal vapour and prolificall spirit is conveyed thither by which the female is made pregnant if he grants this then there is a sensible corporeall agent though not so grosse as the earthy part of the seed If he deny this then it will follow that we are all produced without fathers and that there is no other sensible corporeall agent but the womb and so the fifth Commandement of honoring father should be put out seeing there is no such thing in nature Again if he saith there is no agent then it will follow that the effect can be produced without an efficient and an action without an actor If he he saith there is an agent but not corporeall then that agent must be either a spirit or an accident if a spirit then we are all the children of spirits not of corporeall parents and so man cannot have for his genus a corporeall substance And these spirits if created must be either Angels Demons or Souls which was the dreams of some ancient Hereticks long since condemned by Councels If again he saith that these agents are not spirits but accidents he will make us in a worse condition For man the Noblest of all creatures is the child of an accident therefore Aristotle should have placed man in the Categorie of quality rather then of substance But we know that no accident is operativ◠but in and by the power of the principall agent Neither can an accident be conveyed into the womb without the subject in which it is inherent and therefore Iron touched without the Loadstone cannot draw Iron if the substance of the Loadstone were not imparted to it Hence we see that as the substance of the Loadstone in the Iron decayes so the vertue of attraction decayes likewise Again when he saith that the substance of the womb is like the constitution of the brain he speaks very improperly for neither is the substance of the one like the substance of the other the one being white spermatical and cold the other red sanguineal and hot nor can the substance of the one be like the constitution of the other these being indifferent predicaments between which there is no similitude nor is the constitution of the one like unto the constitution of the other as being of different temperaments and having different uses and suppose they were either of the same substance or constitution it will not follow that therefore they must have the same function The stomach and guts have the same substance and constitution so hath the brain and pith in the back bone yet they have not the same functions Again when he saith that what the fantasm or appetite is in the brain the same or its analogy is excited in the womb for the functions of both are called conceptions He speaks more improperly then before for he seems to make the fantasm and appetite one thing and to be both resident in the brain whereas the appetite is the inclination of the will and hath its residence in the heart the fantasm is the imaginary or fictitious object of the fantasie which this internal sense residing in the brains represents to it self neither of these is excited in the womb nor any thing like it for the womb is neither the seat of the fantasie nor hath it fit organs for it nor is it the seat of appetite except by this word he understands an inclination to conception or generation neither again is this a valid reason that because the functions of the womb and brain are called conceptions therefore they are the same for the conception of the womb is far different from that of the brain neither do they agree but equivocally and in name onely so this word conception is ascribed to the action of understanding Lastly though we can produce upon stone or timber or such like matter some shape or form like that Idea in our brain yet it will not follow that the species of the father in the womb can produce the like brood for I deny that the species or idea of the father is in the womb but in the brain this not that being the proper fea◠of the fantasie which receiveth the species from the common sense and the imagination doth not alwayes work upon the seed or embryo nor doeth it produce any form it onely worketh sometimes and produceth but the accidental form whereas ordinarily both the essential and accidental forms are produced by the formative power of the seed or rather by the soul it self which fabricates its own mansion which soul lay potentially in the seed and is excited by the heat or rather innate property of the matrix To conclude it is as great absurdity to affirm that the female can be made pregnant by conceiving a general immateral idea as it was by some of the ancients to think that the Spanish Mares could as Aristotle speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conceive or be made pregnant by the Western wind and as the Poets saith Ore omnes versae in Zephyrum stant rupibus altis Exceptantque leves auras saepe sine ullis Conjugiis vento gravidae mirabile dictu The like fabulous impregnations we read of in Ravens by the north winde and in Partrages by bare imagination CHAP. IV. 1. My Lord Bacon's opinion confuted concerning the French disease 2. Concerning the expulsion of pellets out of guns 3. Of the wax candle burning in spirit of wine 4. Of the parts most nutritive in animals 5. Of the spirits in cold bodies 6. Of air fire water oyl whiteness the hands and feet 7. Of souls and spirits 8. Of visible objects and hearing 9. Of sounds and musick 10. Of singing birds descending species light 11. Ingrate objects and deafness with other passages HAving lighted lately upon two books the one of Doctor Harvie's De generatione animalium wherein he proves that all animals have their
translated into the colder will be more forward then the ordinary grain of the cold Country This is known to be untrue by divers grains transplanted hither into this cold climat and by the grains translated hence into the Orcades and other cold parts Again he saith That plants are all figurate and determinate which inanimat bodies are not if this be so then inanimat bodies are infinit for certainly vvhatsoever is finit hath its termination and figure is nothing else but the disposition of terminations even water is figurat because it is sinit though it assumeth the figure of the continent body in vvhich it is To say then that a stone is sinit and yet not figurat nor determinat is a plain contradiction a dead carcass is an inanimat body yet retains the same figure termination vvhich it had vvhilst it vvas animat In this same Section he tels us that plants do nourish inanimat bodys do not they have an accretion but no alimentation but how any thing can have an accretion vvithout alimentation is to me a ridle I speak of proper and Physicall accretion which is an extension of all the parts by an internall principle or soule converting the aliment into the substance of the body nourished For that accretion of stones and other inanimate things is an apposition of externall matter not an extension of the parts by an internall agent converting the nutriment into the thing nourished And how can stones or such hard bodies have extension whereas they want humidity which is the cause of extension Besides accretion is a supply of deperdition for where there is diminution of parts by means of the heat exhausting the radicall moisture there must be restauration â—y nutriment and consequently accretion Therefore there maybe an outward agglutination or aggregation of stones without alimentation but an accretion properly so called there cannot be Lastly he tells us in the same Section That Plants have a period of life which inanimate bodies have not If inanimate bodies have a life and no period then they are immortall like the Angels and so the stones we tread on in the dirty streets are in better condition then the great Monarcks of the world Again if plants have a period of life they have life and conquently are living creature and yet shortly after my Lord distinguisheth them from living creatures in divers respects Sugar saith he to the Ancients was scarce known and little used Sugar was both known to and used by the Ancients for that which they called mel arundineum hony of the cane was much used in Physick they called it also Indian salt because it was like salt in colour and consistence when it was harden'd by the Sun the other kinde of Sugar the Ancients knew and used as well as wee only they made it by pressing we by boyling of the canes which kinde of boyling they used not as we do because they sweetned their water by steeping the canes in them and that was their drink of this drink Lucan lib. 3. speaks Quique bibunt tenerâ dulces ab arundine succos And that they used sometimes to boil the Sugar canes is plain by Strabo lib. 35. likewise by Statius l. 1. Syl. Et quas praecoquit eboisa cannas Seeds and Roots saith he are chiefly for nourishment but leaves give no nourishment at all or very little this is not so for the leaves of cabbages coleworts lettice and such like give the nourishment and not the roots there is more nourishment in the leaves of one cabbage then in a hundred cabbage roots He gives us a bad definition of snow when he calls it the froth of the cloudy waters froth is aëreal snow is watrish froth is hot snow cold froth is light snow heavy because more terrestrial indeed in colour snow is like froth hence Scaliger saith that snow is almost froth Poetical Phylosophie discriminates froth from snow in making Venus the daughter of the one not of the other snow then is not the froth of cloudie waters though Pliny so calls it but it is the thin and raâ—ified vapours of the watrish cloudes united into those white flakes we see by cold snow then is not begot immediately of water as froth is but of cold and thin vapours Why he should call putrifaction the subtilest of all motions I cannot conceive for what more subtilty is there in putrifaction that is a kinde of corruption then in generation the one consisting in the deperdation of the old form the other in the acquisition of a new form neither doth he speak Philosophically vvhen he calls it a motion for indeed putrifaction is a mutation and no motion because both the termini à quo and ad quem are not positive as they are in all motions CHAP. VI. The Lord Bacons opinions confuted concerning Snow Ephemera gravitie the sperme of Drunkards putrifaction teeth bones and nails thick and thin mediums Nilus hot Iron brâ—in sudddn dakness drie and moist bodies fish cornes hunger liquifaction hardness moisture accidents light right side spungy bodies stone-walls imagination the cramp hedghog mummy salt Commenus and others refuted concerning motion qualities colours forms the Epilogue MY Lord thinks that there is in snow a secret warmth because the Ancients have observed worms bred in old snow but I am of another opinion though Scaliger seems to favour my Lords tenets that neither the snovv is vvarm nor do these vvorms breed in snovv our senses tell us there is no heat in snovv and vvhere there is no heat there can be no putrifaction nor generation the vvorms then are bred in the ground under the snovv but not of the snovv vvhich is not vvarm but keeps in the vvarmth of the earth and defends it as it vvere a mantle from the piercing air therefore in great snovves sheep vvill live longer under the snow then above in the sharp air And whereas the worm dieth when it comes out of the snow this proceedes not as he saith from the exhaling of the worms spirits which was shut in by the cold but rather from the chilling of that spirit which was kept in by heat for whilst it was under the snow the worm was kept warm from the piercing air which now kilsit He saith That the flies called Ephemerâ— live but a day the cause is the exility of the spirits or perhaps the absence of the Sun But neither of these is the cause not the exility of spirit for we see that among men they that have weak and attenuated spirits live longer then they who have more strong dense and more plenty of spirits and so in other creatures a Horse or Bull are not so long lived as a Crow or Raven which have more exility of spirit The cause therefore of short and long life is the goodnesse or badnesse of the crasis and temperament of the radical moisture and its due or undue proportion with the natural heat