the differences 2. Though the species of colours and sounds are received into the eyes and ears yet real odours are received into the nose for the head heart and spirits are diversly affected with smells some men have been cherished a long time with them some women are suffocated with smells some beasts are driven away some are alluâ—ed by them which could not be if these were not real smells and in that smells are carried to and fro with the windes And that we smell better in hot weather then in cold doe shew that these are not the species but real smells 3. Odours being accidents cannot be conveyed to the organ but in vapours or exhalation which are substances for bare accidents cannot be transported with windes to and fro nor can they affect the brain or comfort it or drive away beasts and vermin II. When Aristotle saith that smells cannot nourish he is in the right for nothing nourisheâ—h but compounded bodies now smels are hare accidents Nutriment have their excrements smels have none nutriment is converted into the substances of the body nourished and hath a peculiar place where it is concocted as the stomach is the place for the Chylus which cannot be said of smels Therefore Galen was in an error when he said that men can he nourished with smels except by smels he understand odoriferous exhalatioâ—s which yet nourish not properly but for a while only recreate the spirits because of the nearness of their substance which spirits being the immediate organs of the soul for a while can perform their functions in the body III. Galen is injurious to Aristotle in upbraiding him for making the nose the organ of smell whereas Galen will have the brain to be the organ which is ridiculous and against his own tenents in affirming that the brain is no ways sensitive neither indeed can it be seeing it is the original of the senses and how can the same member be both the original and organ of the senses Therefore not the brain nor that part thereof which they call processus mamillares reaching to the nose can be the organ of sense but the nose itself for they that want the nose smel not and a short nose smels not so well as a long and if any part of the brain were the organ of smel we should smel the meats in our mouth and the vapours of the stomach which are still mounting up to the brain Yet we never smell them till we belch them out and then we smell them as soon as they ascend into the nose which is indeed the true organ of smell in that nervous membrane thereof And how can the smell be an external sense if it have not as well as the other four an externall organ by which the externall senses are distinguished from the internall 2. Though the real smell is conveyed to the nose and not the species as the species of colours and sounds are to the eyes and ears yet not the real but the intentional smell or species is carried by the nerve into the common sense or fantasie CHAP. XXI 1. Wherein consists the organ of tast The tongue potentially moist no external medium of tast 2. How the skin is the medium of taste The prime qualities both objects and agents No creature without fact It is most exquisite in man Tact and taste different THe organ of taste consisteth partly in the nerves of the tongue palate and throat and partly in the skin thereof except we make the skin the medium for when the skin of the mouth or tongue peeleth the taste faileth and so it doth fail also when the tongue is drie without moisture or spittle therefore the spittle or saliva may be called the medium of taste 2. Because the organ must be potentially what the object is actually therefore the tongue must be potentially moist for moisture not driness is the object of taste I say the tongue must be potentially moist for if it were actually moist it could not judge of moistures for the sense should be void of that which it apprehendeth by sensation therefore there is no moisture nor relish in the tongue for when it abounds with moisture or hath in it any relish it loseth its taste 3. The taste hath no external medium as the other three senses and in this it agreeth with touching 4. Though sapors work materially upon the tongue yet the act of sensation is by reception of the species for real qualities cannot be received into the animal spirits and judged by the common sense and fantasie II. The sense of tact either hath no medium or else we must make the skin the medium and the flesh membranes and nerves the organ but indeed the skin is both the organ of tact as experience shewes and the medium in respect of the flesh and nerves 2. The four prime qualities chiefly heat and cold are not onely the objects of tact but agents upon them by warming and cooling the organs so are not the second qualities to wit hardness softness asperity c. For these are not active at all except levity in a spiritual or intentional way 3. Though there be many particular objects of tact as the first and second qualities yet there is but one general object to wit the tactile quality 4. Though this be true that the sensible object put upon the sense hindreth sensation in these senses that have the air for a medium yet it is not true in the sense of tact which hath no such medium 5. The sensitive creature can subsist without any of the five senses except the tact because this consisteth in the proportion and harmony of the prime qualities which if it fail sense also faileth and consequently animality 6. Of all creatures the sense of tact is most exquisit in man because his body is most temperate but tact consisteth in the temper of the prime qualities 7. Though taste be accompanied with tact yet they are distinct senses both in the organs media and faculties and tact is diffused through all the body whereas taste is only in the mouth CHAP. XXII 1. The use of the common sense It is but one sense The different judgement of this sense and of the soul. How different from other senses It s in the brain and heart 2. Imagination or fantasie what disturbed compoundeth The Estimative It s work and seat 3. Memory how a sense It is twofold Reminiscence what Old men and childrens memories AS there be three actions of the soul to wit dijudication composition and retention so there are three internal senses to wit the common sense the fantasie and the memory The common sense apprehends and judgeth the objects of the outward senses in which as in the Center all these objects do meet the eye cannot put difference between colours and smels but the common sense doth and though the eye see yet it doth not know it self to see that is the work of the common sense therefore mad
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
of the matrix as we see the outward skin of fruits by the heat of the Sun For nature providently fences the seed with these walls that the inward spirits may work the more powerfully and be the lesse subject to dissipation III. Besides the umbilical vein and the two umbilical arteries nature hath made a vessel called Vrachos by which the child in the matrix conveys the urine into the membran for it reacheth from the bottom of the bladder to the navel and in those in whom the navel is not well bound at first and this Vrachos dried upon any stoppage of the bladder the urine will flow out by the navel IV. The similitude of the parents is impressed on the children partly by reason of the formative power in the seed and partly by the imagination of the parent moving the spirits which being mixed with the blood on which the child is fed makes the impression upon the tender flesh of the infant 2. The childe resembleth the grand-fathers or grand-mothers sometimes as the Load-stone communicates its power to the third or fourth needle so doth the formative faculty of the grand-father which is potentially in the seed of the grand-childe oftentimes show it self V. Twins are oftentimes begot partly because of the abundance of seed partly by reason of the scattering thereof into divers parts of the matrix which â—oments each part of it for though the matrix hath no cells yet it hath a right and a left side in the right males in the left females are begot or if the seed be strong vigorous or masculine males if weak and feminine females if one part masculine the other feminine then male and female are ingendred but the female is seldome strong or lively because the time of conformation is not alike in both â—0 days being required for the forming of the male and 40 for the female 2. Twins are like each other because they are wrapped within the same membran are conceived at the same time they feed on the same blood and enjoy the same maternal spirits VI. The infant in the womb is not fed by the mouth but by the navel for there are no vessels that reach to the mouth neither is there need of chylification or sanguification neither is there any other excrement found in the intestins of new born infants except the excrement of blood therefore as they breath by the umbilical arteries so they are fed by the umbilical vein VII Sometimes there is superfetation for we read of second births some days weeks and moneths after the first which shews that the matrix after conception is not so fast bound but that it openeth again in copulation but seldome is the second birth either strong or lively because the first conception groweth strong and big drawing the blood or nutriment to it by which means the second conception is starved VIII The infant doth not cannot should not breath whilst it is in the womb but is content with transpiration by the umbilical arteries For if there were inspiration there must be air within the membrane where the child lieth but there is nothing except the child and that watrish substance in which it swimâ— this must needs be â—uck'd in with the air and so the childe be choaked Besides the rednesse and grossenesse of the lungs whilst the childe is in the womb shews that it breaths not for the lungs of those creatures that breath are of a whitish colour and of a ratified substance for the better reception of the air IX Whilst the child is in the womb the heart is not idle as some Galenists imagine but according to Aristotle it then moveth and giveth life to the body otherwise the childe should live all the while the life of a plant not of an animal if it had no other life then what it hath from the mother by the umbilical arteries 2. How could the heart having no air to refresh it within that narrow membran in which the child lieth receive refrigeration if it did not move some answer that the heart is refrigerate by the water in which the child lieth I should like this answer well if that water were cold or if the child were a fish which with its gils might receive water for refrigâ—ration of the heart 3. The arteries of the child movâ— but how can they move without the heart move also If they say that they are moved by the Arteries of the mother I would know how they can move after the mother is dead for some children have been cut out alive from the dead mothers womb 4. Although the umbilical arteries convey the material spirits â—o the child yet they give not life no more then the aire which we breathe till they be refined by the heat and motion of the heart 5. The animal spirits of the childe are begot in its brain whilst it is in the womb but the animal spirits have their original from the vital CHAP. XIV 1. Child-bearing how caused 2. Why the eight months birth not lively 3. The sensitive Soul how derived and the reasonable introduced when it exerciseth its functions it brings with it all its perfections The Embryo not capable of three specifical forms THE birth oâ— the child is caused partly by its calcitration breaking the membranes in which it lieth having now need of more food and spirits by reason it is grown bigger and stronger and partly by the contraction of the matrix endeavouring to be rid of the burthen if either of these fail the birth will be the more painful and difficult but the Mola having neither life nor motion and not standing in need of air and food remains in some many years together before it be expelled 2. The causes of difficult child-bearing are partly the â—igness of the child partly the narrowness of the neck of the matrix or the weakness of the child or the mother or inflammations or tumors and such like infirmities whether natural or adventitious II. The reason why the childe which is borne the seventh moneth is for the most part lively whereas that which is born in the eigâ—th moneth is not because the seventh moneth the child having attained the perfection of parts and so much strength as to break the membrans doth live but if it cannot break the membran till the 8 month all the time iâ— remains froÌ„ the first attempt it made of going forth it doth not prosper but decays in strâ—ngth being as it were against its will kept in prison III. The sensitive Soul is derived with the seed from the parents which soul is potentially in the seed but actually in the Embryo where the members are formed But in the fourth month after the heart and brain are perfected the reasonable soul is introduced which if it were taken out of the matter it should in reasoning and understanding depend altogether on the matter which were absurd to think 2. The rational soul doth not exercise its functions untill
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
sticks and glow-worms or cats eyes are fire or flames and if stars be flames because in colour they are like to flames let us say that the Heaven is water for in colour it is like water IV. It seems saith he Cent. 1.45 that the parts of living creatures that lie more inwards nourish more then the outward flesh except it be the brain which the spirits prey too much upon to leave it any great vertue of nourishment This is not so for experience shews the contrary that the outward flesh of sheep and so of other animals nourish more then the heart lungs liver kidney and spleen Therefore Galen l. de cibis reckoneth these amongst his meats of bad juyce and indeed this stands with reason for that nourisheth most which is easiest of concoction and softest and most abounding in benign and nutritive juyce but such is the outward flesh not the heart kidney c. which are harder and drier and not so apt to be converted into blood It is true the Romans made much of the gooses liver more to please their palate then out of any good nutriment it offorded so they preferred moshromes and such like trash to the best nutrive meates as for the brains they are less nutritive then the flesh not because the spirits prey upon them for the animal spirits in the brain do not prey more upon it then the vital spirits do upon the heart which notwithstanding his lordship acknowledgeth to be more nourishing then the outward flesh because more inward but because the brain is less sanguineal then the flesh for those parts which they call spermatical are less nutritive what is more inward then the Spinalis medulla or pith in the back bone on which the animal spirits do not prey and yet it is little nutritive V. The fift cause of cold saith he Cent. 73. is a quick spirit inclosed in a cold body as in nitre in water colder then oyle which hath a duller spirit so show is colder then water because it hath more spirit so some insects which have the spirit of life as snakes c. are cold to the touch so quick silver is the coldest of all mettals because fullest of spirits Answ. No spirit can be the cause of cold for all spirits in vigitable animals produce heat and are produced of heat therefore we finde that where there are most spirits there is least cold 2. Nitre which is mentioned by the Ancients is hot and not cold and therefore both Dioscorides Pliny and Galen adscribe to it the qualities of heat to cut extennat discuss and purge gross and cold humors and if that nitre which we use at this day be not the same yet it is not much unlike as Mathiolus shews as having divers qualities of the old nitre besides it is a kinde of salt and is begot of hot things as pigeons dung and the urins of animals therefore Brun. Seidelius makres it hot 3. I deny that water is colder then oyl to the outward touching for hot waters as he said before are in this regard cold and if oyl hath a dulâ—er spirit then water how comes it to mount upward and swim above the water sure this ascendant motion cannot produce from the earthy and gross substance but from the quick spirits thereof therefore we finde that water is cold and oyl hot in operation because more full of spirits then water 4. I deny that snow is colder then water because it hath more spirit but because it is more condensed for heat and cold are more active in a dense and solid then in a thin atternated substance so ice is colder then water and yet who will say that there is more spirits in the ice then in water besides the snow is colder then the water because begot of colder winds and in colder clymats 5. I deny that insects are cold to the touch for having in them the spirit of life because they are colder when that spirit is gon as we see in all dead bodies which are colder then when they were alive therefore death is called by the Poets frigida more and gelidum frigus the spirit of life is that which is both begot of heat and begets heat and preserveth it that when that spirit leave suâ— heat also for sakes us caler ossa relinquit saith the Poet It is not therefore the spirit of life but the temperament and constitution of the body of divers earthy and watrish animals which argue cold and we see that for this cause womens bodies are colder then mens and some men of colder constitutions then others because they have fewer spirits and more of earth and water in them We know also how dull and stupid our hands are in cold frosts till the spirits in them be quickned by heat 6. I deny also that quicksilver is the coldest of metals because fullest of spirits for it is much doubted whether Mercury be cold at all for agility proceeds from heat not from cold and such a quality became the messenger of Iupiter by whom all things receive life and vigour Indeed Mercury may be called the Monster of Nature for sometimes it refrigerats sometimes it califieth it cures sometimes cold sometimes hot diseases take it hot it produceth cold take it cold it produceth hot effects and it hath this quality of heat that nothing is more penetrating then it is Christopher Encelius de re metalica makes it hot and moist in the fourth degree Quercitan in his answer to Aubert makes it rather aerial then aquiall we know that heat is one of the qualities of air Renodaeus in Pharmac makes it both hot and cold Keckerman in Sist. Phy. sayth That it is hot as it is full of spirits but cold as these spirits are congealed Croclius in Bas. Cly. prescribes it in defluxions of the head and in hydropsies which shews it is hot And Poterius in Pharm Spagir tells us That by reason of its different operations no man can tell whether heat or cold be most predominant but it is certain saith he that it is both for is known by our senses that it is cold it is known by its effects and operations that it is hot for it cuts atâ—enuates dissolves and purges which are the effects of heat and so his Lordship doth acknowledge in the next following leaf That heat doth attennate and by atenuation sendeth forth the spirit In his following discourses he hath phrases not to be tolerated in Phylosophy as when he saith Cent. 1.80 That tangible bodies have an antipathy with air Belike then the air is no tangible body but experience shews the contrary that air is tangible both actively and passively our bodies are sensible enough of this tangibility both in hot and cold weather Again if by tangible bodies he mean grosse and dense bodies how can air have an antipathy with them seeing air is one of the ingredients of which all mixed bodies are compounded can it â—e contrary or antipatheticall
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
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
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 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
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
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
aberration of nature for the one sex is no less needfull for procreation then the other 2. The male is hotter then the female because begot of hotter seed and in a hotter place to wit the right side and because the male hath larger vessels and members stronger limbs a more porie skin a more active body a stronger concoction a more couragious minde and for the most part a longer life all which are effects of heat Besides that the bodies of males are sooner articulated and conformed to wit by 10 days in the womb then the females are the motions of the male in the womb are quicker and stronger then of the female The fatness softness and laxaâ—ie of the womans body besides the abundance of blood which cannot be concocted and exhaled for want of heat argue that she is of a dol'der temper then the man She indeed hath a swifter pulse because of the narrowness of the arteries and her proneness to anger and venery argue imbecility of minde and strength of imagination not heat 3. The male groweth flower then the female because he was to live longer therefore nature proceeds the flower as we see in trees and plants a Cherry-Tree groweth up sooner then an Oak and decayeth far sooner Besides the soft and loose flesh of the female is sooner extended then the solid and harder flesh of the male We may then conclude that the male is hotter intensively but the female by reason she hath more blood is hotter extensively II. The seed is no part of the body because the body is not more perfect by its presence nor malmed by its loss or absence nor is it the aliment of the body because then the body would not part with it nor is it properly an excrement peccant in the qualitie but it is the purer part of the blood or quintessence of it unuseful for the body when it is peccant in the quantity 2. Because the blood is in every part of the body and the seed is the quintessence of the blood therefore the seed may be said to be derived from all parts of the body for all parts of the body consume upon much evacuation of seed and as it is from all parts in respect of its material and grosseâ— substance so it is principally from the head heart and liver in regard of its more aerial parts III. Though the menstruous blood may receive corruption by its long suppression or by the moisture of some bad humors yet in sound women it is as pure as any other blood in the body For it is appointed by nature for nutriment of the infant whilst it is in the womb and after birth it is converted into milk neither doth it differ from other blood in its material and efficient causes besides that it is as red and coagulates as soon as the purest blood of the body Neither doth nature send it away because it is peccant in the quality but because it is exuberant in the quantity 2. By reason the menstruous blood is infected with ill humours on which the child in the womb feeds hence it is that there are few or none but one time or other are infected with the small pox which as divers other poisons doth not presently shew it self but lieth a long time lurking in the body And if at the first time the venome of this disease is not thoroughly purged out it returns Hence it is that some have this disease divers times 3. The menstruous blood is not the cause of the small pox whilst it remains in the vessels but when it is converted into the substance of the body hence it is that women whose moneths are stopped are not infected with this malady 4. This blood is evacuated once in a moneth ordinarily at such time as the Moon which hath dominion over humid bodies is most prevalent Nature also observes her own periods and times of evacuation of which we can give no reason But this is certain that if the evacuation of this blood were as frequent as of other excrements there would be no conception IV. The chief uses of the matrix are to draw the seed to it to mingle it with the blood to contain it to excite its faculties and spirits for it is not actually animated till now and so the seed by its spirits is made capable of animation and shortly after being incorporated with the blood of articulation These fore-named functions of the matrix are performed not so much by its heat as by its natural temper V. Oftentimes the vitiosity of the matrix is the cause of monstrous births so likewise is the imagination the defect or exuberance of seed the unlawful permistion of seeds the heat of the body and the formative faculty 2. The false conception called Mola is begot when the seed is faulty weak or deficient and the blood predominant which is known from a true conception because there is no milk in the breasts when there is a false conception neither doth it move after the fourth moneth as the child doth sometimes it is moved by the matrix but not by it self as the child besides it remains after the eleventh moneth which is the time prefixed for the birth of the child CHAP. XIII 1. The Heart liveth first not the Liver 2. The outward membrans first formed by the heat of the matrix 3. Vrachos what 4. The similitude of the parents on the children 5. Twins how begot and why like each other 6. Infants how fed in the matrix 7. Superfetation 8. No respiration in the matrix 9. The childs heart moveth in the matrix I. ARISTOTLE will have the heart to be the first member that lives in us Galen the liver but indeed Aristotle is in the right for how can any thing live till the heart which is the fountain of heat and spirits live and how can the soul frame to her self a fit habitation for exercising of her functions â—ill first she hath framed the heart by whose heat and spirits she may work If it be objected that the heart cannot live without nutrition but nutrition is by blood and this by the liver therefore the liver must first live I answer that there needs no nutrition till the body be compleat and perfected for wee see imperfect creatures can live long without food I have kept a Spider nine moneths alive in a glass without food Again there needs no nutriment but when there is deperdition and wasture of the substance which cannot bee of the heart before the body be perfected And although the body live at first the life of a plant it will not therefore follow that the heart is not first framed for even in plants there is a principle of life which is the root and nature worketh methodically by quickning that first which must quicken the rest II. As the heart is the first member that is framed by the formative faculty so the outward membranes are first formed by the heat or natural temperament
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
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
bladder and intestines are So is the motion of coughing for as it is performed by the muscles it is animall but as it is stirred by the expulsive faculty it is naturall and as it proceeds from some morbifick cause it is preternatural So deglutition or swallowing is an animal action as it is performed by the muscles and is some times hindred by imagination for we swallow with much adoe those things of which we have no good conceit It is also natural as it is performed by the attraction of the fibres which are in the external tunicle of Oesophagus Now attraction is subservient to the nutritive faculty which is naturall V. That no portion of our drink can pass into the lungs is plain because we cough if the least drop of rhume fall from the head upon the lungs besides our breath and voice should be presently stopped the light and spongie substance also of the lungs would be hurt and corroded when we drink any sharp or soure liquors or medicamenâ—s Therefore in swallowing the Epiglottis or little tongue of the wind-pipe covers the Laâ—iâ—â— or top of the Aspera arteria that nothing may fall into it yet the siâ—es of Aspera arteria are moistned by syrrups which somewhat ease our coughing CHAP. XVII 1. All the senses in the brain 2. How made for refrigeration only how hot cold and moist and why its actions 3. How void of sense and motion 4. The animal spirits what and how begot 5. Why more vital then animal spirits where perfected and prepared the ventricles of the brain AS the heart is the first remote and mediate originall of motion and sense because the spirits and heat are originally from thence so the brain is the secundarie proximate and immediate organ of the senses which have their particular seats there to wit the â— externall senses and the 4 internal namely the common sense the imagination the discursive and memorative qualities which have their distinct cels The common sense is placed in the substance of the brain the imagination in the fore cel the discursive in the middle the memorative in the back cell the fore cell is softer the back cell somewhat harder the middle is of a middle temper sometimes the one is hurt when the other is sound a good memorie may accompany a bad imagination and contrarily II. When Aristotle saith that the brain was made only for refrigeration of the heart his meaning is not as the Galenists think that the brain was made for no other use but that neither the brain nor heart could be any way useful if the heat of the one were not tempered by the cold of the other for all our frame is out of order when the brain is overheated or inflamed and though the brain be not actually cold yet by its moisture and weak heat it tempers the excessive heat of the heart and vital spirits by means of the arteries which are common to both these organs therefore it is that the brain hath not blood and veins 2. The innate temperament of the brain is cold the adventitious is hot that is iâ— is hot by means of the spirits from the heart but cold in its own substance 3. It was made cold and moist that being the seat of imagination and of the attenuated animal spirits the one might not be distempered with heat nor the others dissipated 4. It is moist that it might be the fitter for generation of the nerves for receiving the images and impressions of things with the more facility and the more apâ— for sensation which consisteth in passion 5. The actions and functions of the brain depend both upon its right fabrick and conformation as also upon its temper for if either of these be hurt the actions of the brain are vitiated III. The brain is void of sense in its own substance but senfitive in its membranes nor was it fit that the brain should feel seeing it is the common receptacle and judge of all the senses and seeing it is in the highest place and receives all exhalations from the inferior parts it should be continually molested if it were sensible of all these vapours 2. As it is void of sense so it is of motion in it self it is indeed moved by the arteries for the feeding purging and tempering of the animal spirits but the brain being the original of motion ought to be immovable in respect of self motion neither are there any fibres in the brain bâ— which it should be moved as there are in the heart neither could ever the motion of the brain be observed other then what is caused by the arteries IV. The animal spirits are so called because they are the chief organs of the soul for her chief actions of sense and motion without the brain of imagination discoursing and remembring within the brain therefore these spirits receive from the senses the images and species of things and convey them to the brain where they retain them for the soul by the phantasie to work upon 2. These animal spirts are begot of the vital but are cherished and refreshed by the external air drawn by the nostrils to the brain so that without air and vital spirits the animal canot long subsist and becaus blood is the remote matter of the animal spirits they grow feeble when much blood is evacuated V. Because there is more need of the vital then of the animal spirits therefore more plenty is required of them then of these for nothing is begot of the animal spirits therefore they waste not so fast as the vitall of which the animal are ingendred besides the vital spirits are perpâ—tually imployed even in sleep so are not the animal but they rest then nor is there any part of the body which hath notlife but divers parts have not sense which is an animal function as the bones and ligaments 2. The animal spirits are prâ—pared in the intricate labyrinth of arteries within thâ— brain but they receive their perfection in the cels therâ—of 3. Though the faculty of sense be an inseparable property of the soul yet it doth not always operate but where there is a fit organ in sleep the soul is in the eye but then seeth not 4. The ventricles of the braine serve not onely for generation of the spirits but for purging out also of superfluous excrements CHAP. XVIII 1. The eye boâ—h watrish and fiery imperfect vision 2. Why the eâ—e is watrish its action spirits and species 3. Spirits of the eâ—e proved two eyes but one motion why the object appears double sometimes no colours in the eye 4. The optick nerves soft where united and why 5. The Chrystalline and glassy humours and white of the eye THough the substance of the eye be watrish as we shewed before yet the visive spirits are fiery as may be seen by their light in the dark their mobility and their resistance to cold for they are not molested with it as other members are 2. When
men in whom this sense is hurt see but perceive it not nor doe they difference the objects which they fee but either confound them or mistake the one for the other So when the sensitive spirits are imployed by the fantasie though we see oftentimes the object yet we perceive it not 2. Though the common sense apprehends diversity of objects yet it is but one sense because its actions in judging or differencing these objects is but one So the eye hath but one action though it seeth many objects 3. The act of judging in the common sense is not that of the soul which extendeth it self to things also spiritual and universal and belongs only to man not to the beasts as the judging of the common sense doth 4. The external senses apprehend their objects onely present but the internal senses apprehend them being absent 5. The common sense is in the brain subjectively for there are the animal spirits and nerves so saith Galen but in the heart originally and in its cause for from thence are the vital spirits which are the matter of the animal and so is Aristotle to be understood II. The second internal sense is the imagination so called from the images or species which it both receiveth from the common sense and frameth to it self If the brain be sound and undisturbed it receiveth species from the common sense only and judgeth more distinctly of them then the common sense doth it compoundeth also and uniteth and in beasts it serves in stead of reason to direct them to their operations in man it is subservient to the intellect in ministring species to it therfore it is called phantasie from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shine or shew For as the eye discerns its objects by the light so doth the intellect whilest it is in the body work and speculate by the phantasie 2. In disturbed brains by phrensies fevers or inordinate sleep the phantasie makes other objects to its self then were represented to it by the common sense 3. The phantasie compoundeth that which the common sense apprehendeth in a divided way as I see a horse and a man and the common sense apprehendeth the species of both apart but to conceive them united in a Centaure is the work of the phantasie 4. The estimative is not a sense distinct from the phantasie but the very same whose office is to esteem what is good or hurtful to the creature and so to follow or avoid it therefore this sense stirreth up the appetite 5. The common sense doth not work but when the outward senses are working but the fantasie worketh without them to wit in sleep 6. The fore part of the brain in which is the common sense is humid as being fittest for reception which is the common senses work the hinder part is dry as fitâ—est for retention which is the work of the memory but the middle part is temperately humid and dry as fittest for reception and retention both which are performed by the phantasie 7. For a right and orderly phantasie or imagination there are required clear spirits from vapors a temperate organ straight nerves and passages and a moderate heat from the heart if any of these bee deficient the phantasie is disordered III. The third internal sense is the memory not so much to be called a sense as it retaineth the species for in this the nature of sensation consisteth not but as it receiveth them for sensation is properly in reception 2. This sense is the treasury in which are laid up that species of things past which have been apprehended by the external senses For as these consider things present and hope things future so doth the memory things past it is the wax receiving and retaining the stamp of the seal and it is a faculty of the sensitive not of the intellective soul for beasts and birds have memories As for the intellective memory it is all one with the passive intellect which is the keeper of the intelligible species for it belongs to the same faculty to understand and to remember 3. Though in brutes there is memory yet recordaâ—ion or reminiscence is onely in man because it is joined with discourse and deliberation which are operations of the intellect for memory is the retention of the species but reminiscence is a recollecting by discourse and comparing of circumstances the species which he had forgot therefore a nimble wit and reminiscence which consisteth in discourse go together commonly but seldome a good wit and a good memory this requiring a dry organ the other that which is temperately moist 4. Children have bad retentive memories because their brains are moist and old men have had receptive memories because their brains are too dry therefore there is required for memory a brain temperately moist to receive and temperately dry to retain the species Finis Libri Secundi BOOK III. Of mans rare Infirmities or admirable Diseases CHAP. I. 1. Of Eels voided by a maid and of other strange generations 2. A woman voided in three days six quarts of milk 3 Of women who have eat mens flesh 4. Of women that have lived some years without food 5. Of one that lived some years without a brain another without a Spleen Of one that lived with a knife in her skull 6. Of some that have swallowed knives glasses c. 7. Of some shot in the forehead and the bullet found in the hinder part of the skull HAving briefly discoursed upon the fabrick parts and passages of mans body I will as briefly touch some rare and extraordinary infirmities with which the bodies of some men have been molested and will point at such causes as I conceive may stand with the grounds of Divinity and Philosophy As for ordinary diseases with their causes symptomes and cures I leave to Physitians I. I read in Cornelius Gemma in his Divine characterismes l. 2. c. 4. and in Marcel Donatus his admirable Histories l. 2. ca. 1. of a Maid that voided Eels by the stool which I conceive may proceed from a natural cause For if by the heat of the Sun divers forms are educed out of putrified matter as Eels out of mud why may not Eels also be generated in mans body by its heat there being a disposition and preparation in the matter for reception of such a form Thus Bees are begot of Calves flesh Waspes and Hornets of Horses and Asses and divers sorts of Worms in our bodies I have read of a Bird found in an Oyster which was presented to Francis the first of France I will not speak of the Barnecles in the Scottish Seas begot of old rotten planks of ships nor of him that had a golden â—ooth which if it were not perfect gold it might in some qualities resemble it as pins that have been voided in Impostâ—umes For stones begot in the bladder and kidneys and chalk in the joints of gouty bodies are not so rare II. I read in Martin Wienrich in his book
for about tenne years ago when my aged Father was giving up the ghost I came towards his beds side he suddenly cast his eyes upon me and there fixed them so that all the while I stood in his sight he could not die till I went aside and then he departed Doubtless the sympathy of affections and the imagination working upon the vital spirits kept them moving longer then otherwise they would have done so that the heart the seat of affection and the brain the hous of imagination were loth to give off and the spirits in them to rest from their motion so long as they had an object wherein they delighted The like I have read of others And truly the sympathy of affections and strength of imagination is admirable when the mind is able to presage the death or danger of a friend though a great way off This also I found in my self For once I suddenly fell into a passion of weeping upon the apprehension I took that my dear friend was dead whom I exceedingly loved for his vertues and it fell out accordingly as I presaged for he died about the same hour that I fell into that weeping fit and we were at that time 60 miles asunder nor could I tell certainly that he was dead till two days after Thus to some the death of friends is presaged by bleeding at the nose and sudden sadness by dreams and divers other ways which the learned Poet was not ignorant of when he saith Agnovit longe gemitum praesaga mâ—li mens AEn l. 10. So by the Greek Poet the soul is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a soothsayer of evil The cause of this the Gentiles ascribed to the Sun which they held to be the Soul and our souls sparks of that great Lamp A Platoâ—â—cal conceit which thought mens souls to bee mâ—terialâ— we were better ascribe this to the information of that Angel which attends us V. That which Herodotus in Thalia c. 3. writes of this difference between the Persian and the AEgyptian skuls may be no fable for in the wars between them such as were killed on either side were buried apart after their bodies were putrified it was found that the Persian skuls were soft but the AEgyptians so hard that you could scarce break them with a stone The reason of this might be because the AEgyptians used from their childhood to cut their hair and to go bareheaded so that by the Sun their skuls were hardned Hence it was that few among them were found bald but the Persians who wore long hair and had their heads always covered must needs have had soft skuls by reason the humidity was kept in and not suffered to evaporate nor the Sun permitted to harden them CHAP. II. 1. The benefits of sleep and reasons why some sleep not 2. Why dead bodies after the ninth day swim Why dead and sleeping men heavier then others why a blown bladder lighter then an empty 3. Strange Epidemical diseases and deaths The force of smels The Roses smell 4. Strange shapes and multitudes of worms in our bodies 5. The French disease and its malignity The diseases of Brasil WHereas Sleep is one of Natures chiefest blessings for refreshing of our wearied spirits repairing of our decayed strength moistning of our feebled limbs as the Poet speaks fessos sopor irrigat artus Virg. AEn 3. 4. for easing of our diurnal cares Positi somno sub nocte silenti lenibant câ—râ—s corda oblita laborum And therefore is as Euripides cals it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the remedy of our evils And whereas in sleep the heart is at rest as Aristotle rightly said though Galen who understood him not checks him for it from feeling understanding and inventing though not from life and motion I say whereas by-sleep we have so many benefits it is a wonder that any should bee found to live a long time without sleep Yet I read in Fernelius Pathalog l. 5. ca. 2. of one who lived fourteen moneths without any rest And it is more strange what Heurinus Praxis l. 2. c. 7. records of Nizolius that painful Treasurer of Cicero's words and phrases who lived ten years without sleep Mecaenas was sleeplesse three years saith Pliny Laurentius in his Tract of Melancholy knew some who could not sleep in three moneths the reason of this might be 1. The heat and drinesse of the brain as is usual in decrepit and melancholy men 2. The spareness of 〈◊〉 so that no vapours could be sent up to moisten the brain or nerves 3. The want of exercise and motion for sedentary men are least given to sleep 4. Continual cogitation and intention of the phantasie 5. And adust melancholy humours 6. Accompanied with continual fears horrid and distemperate phantasâ—es representing to the mind unpleasant objects II. Why dead bodies after the ninth day swim upon the water may seem strange seeing till then they lie hid under the water Cardan de subtil l. 8. gives this reason Because between the Peritoneum and Omentum flatulent matter is ingendred as appears by the great swelling of the belly Now this flatulent matter is begot of humidity dissolved by heat which heat is procreated of putrifaction Besides we see that putrified bodies as eggs fruit wood grow light because their solid parts being consumed what remains are porous and full of air for experience teacheth us that the more porous and aereal the body is the lighter it is and lesse apt to sink and perhaps may bee the reason why that body which wants the Spleen swimmeth not being a porous light substance And those men who have capacious lungs to hold much air can dive and live longer in the water then others And surely some people whose bodies are active subtile and quick will not sink so soon as men of duller spirits Such were the Thebii a people which could not sink so that it is a vain way to conclude those to be Witches who do not presently sink Hence also it is plain that dead bodies are heavier then living though Dr. Brown of Errors l. 4. c. 7. contradict this because he found no difference between a Mouse and a Chick being dead and alive in respect of gravity A weak reason to reckon a received truth among his vulgar errors for though there were no sensible difference in such little animals which have but few spirits yet in men which are of a greater bulk in whom do abound vital and animal spirits to say there is no difference of gravity in their life and death is to contradict sense and reason for every woman that attends upon sick men knows that they are more pondrous when dead then when alive being used to lift and turn them Reason also grounded on experience teacheth us that those bodies are lightest in which air is predominant therefore doubtlesse where there is store of such pure and refined air as the spirits are there must be lesse gravity then where they are vvanting his
Error is grounded on a false supposition in thinking there is gravity in the spirits themselves because they participate of corporeity as if gravity vâ—ere an essential property of bodies vvhereas there is no gravity in the pure fire nor in the Stars and Heavens and yet these are bodies Besides if the spirits had any gravity in them it must follow that living bodies are heavier then dead carcasses which is absurd to think Again I would know vvhy inebriated Apoplectical and swouning persons are heavier then others is it not because their spirits fail and they resemble dead men And so in sleep the brother of death the body is heavier every Nurse that carrieth her child in her arms will tell him this Why doth a man fall down in his sleep who stood upright when he was awaked If he be not heavier then he was The Scripture acknowledgeth that even the Apostles eyes vvere heavy vvhen they vvere sleepy And vvhereas he proveth the spirits to add vveight to the body becaus a man that holds his breath is weightier while his lungs are full then upon expiration And a bladder blown is heavier then one empty I answer that I could never find this experiment true though I have made trial 2. It seems to be false because the blown bladder vvill swim vvhen the empty one sinks 3. If I should yeild him this yet his sequel is nought except he can prove the animal spirits in a mans body to be as thick and course as the grosse vapour which is blown into the bladder which is neither air in name nor purity much less to bee compared to those subtil spirits vvhich are so pure and apt to vanish that nature vvas forced to inclose them vvithin the thick walls of the nerves So likewise the air retained in the lungs may perhaps add vveight to the body because the longer it stays there the more it degenerates into a thick vapour by reason of the bodies moisture and so may become ponderous III. God is pleased many times to punish whole Nations by extraordinary epidemical diseases for the sins of the people So vvas England visited vvith a sweating sicknesse so vvas Poland with that disease called Plica of vvhich vve have spoken so vvas Ethiopia as is already said visited vvith the Lousie disease Forestus Observ. medic part 3. records that in Syracusa there vvas an universal disease called the hungry sicknesse in vvhich people did continually desire to eat and vvere never satisfied Of this multitudes died at last it vvas observed that this disease proceeded of Worms vvhich vvere expelled by Bolarmenick and Treacle And Hollerius reports that at Beneventum many died of intolerable pains in the head caused by Worms ingendred there vvho also mentions one Italian who by smelling much to the hearb Basil had a Scorpion which bred in his brain and killed him this is not impossible if vvee consider that according to the disposition of the pâ—trified matter and the preparations made for introduction of the form divers shapes of creatures are begot and it seems there is a great sympathy between the Basil and the Scorpion vvhich did facilitate the generation neither are vve ignorant vvhat force there is in smells both to breed and expel diseases and even to prolong and shorten life as appears in divers Histories of some that have died vvith the smell of coals others of new vvort or ale as those two Monks recorded by Forestus Observ. medic part 1. although I suppose it vvas not so much the smell as the smoak of the coals and vapours of the air that suffocated the spirits yet such is the force of smells that som have been purged by passing by or entring into Apothecaries shops vvhilest they vvere preparing purgative medicaments And divers with the smell of the purges vvhich they carried in their hands have been as much purged as if they had taken the whole substance But this I ascribe not so much to the smell vvhich is a meer accident and cannot passe from one substance to another but is in some subjects wherein it is inherent as to the subtile vapours vvhich from the physick being smelled convey the smell to the body The same reason may be given why some are offended with smells which to others are pleasant so I have read of Francis the firsts Secretary who was forced to stop his nosthrils with bread when there were any apples at table and so offensive was the smell thereof to him that if one had held an apple neer his nose he would fall a bleeding Marcel Danat adm hist. l. 6. c. 4. And Cardinal Carafa did so abhor the smell of roses which of all smells is most delightful to man that during the rose time he durst not go out of his doors for fear of encountring with that smell nor did he suffer any to come within his palace that had a rose about him This I adscribe to the phantasie and naturall antiphathy between him and the rose Such power there is in smells that the Ancients ascribed a Divinity to them and because good smells do so chear the spirits hence they were used in Temples both amongst Jews Gentiles and Christians Homer describes his Iuno by the sweetnesse of her smell and so doth Virgil his Venus Ambrosiaeque comae divinum vertice odorem spiravere the like doth Plutarch his Isis and so doth Ovid Mansit odor possis scire fuisse Deam But for the Rose there may be some manifest causes why its smell may bee offensive for some brains are extraordinary cold some extraordinaâ—y dry and whose olfactive passages are wider then usually to such the smell of Roses may be hurtful because the â—ose hath but a weak heat or rather is refrigerative as Dioscorides thinks which may comfort the hot but not the cold brain And if the brain be dry the passages wide the smel doth too suddenly affect it which may procure an aking but why Hysterical women and such as are troubled with the Mother are apt to swoun at the smell of Roses and Lillies and other sweet odours is because the Matrix delighteth in these smells and therefore riseth toward them to the danger of suffocation whereas it is suppressed by strong and unpleasant odours There are indeed in the rose different parts which have different qualities but the predominant are moistning and coldness whence to cold and moist brains the smell is not proper but to hot brains the rose is comfortable therefore the Ancients in their drinking matches used to wear rose garlands and to lie upon beds of rose-leaves for refrigeration Mitte sectari rosa quo locorum sera moretur Horat. l. 1. IV. It is almost incredible what is written of the multitudes divers shapes and length of worms bred in our bodies if we had not the testimony of so many grave Physitians to prove this Forestus out of Hostim Obs. Med. part 1. Obs. 2. shews that at Beneventum in Italy there was a great mortality
but a natural antipathy and that Fascination is caused by a contagious breath infecting the aire is plain by the story of the Basilisk killing with his look or breath rather at a distance There is also a Fascination by words which the Poet mentions Ecl. 11. Qui ne ultra placitum laudarit Bacâ—â—are frontem Cingite ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro We know there is great efficacy in words to move the affections upon which the spirits and humours of the body are disturbed which causeth oftentimes diseases CHAP. IV. 1. Strange stones bred in mens bodies 2. Children nourished by Wolves and other Beasts 3. Poison taken without hurt Poison eaters may infect how How Grapes and other Plants may bee poisoned 4. Of strange Mola's Bears by lieking form their Cubs the Plastick faculty still working THERE is nothing more strange in mans body then the generation of stones whereof there be so many and diversly shaped in the joints stones are bred by the gout called therefore Lapidosa Chiragra stones are bred ordinarily in the kidneys and bladder of slimy matter by the heat of these parts some are ingendred in the Liver and Spleen some also in the heart Hollerius speaks Com. 1. in lib. 6. Sect. 2. Aphor. 4. of a woman which died of an imposthume in the heart wherein were found two stones in the heart of Maximilian the second Emperour were found three stones which afflicted him very much with a trembling of the heart as Wyerus witnesses l. 4. c. 16. In the intestins also sometimes stones have beene found Zacutus speaks lib. 3. de prax ad obs 124. of a young man disordered in his diet who used to void by the seed divers stones and at last died of a stone that was found in his Colon in form like a Chesnut and as big this could not bee voided whilest the party lived neither by Glysters nor Purges nor any other physick some have thought that these stones in the intestins are hardned by cold which cannot be for though intense cold doth harden as well as heat which we may see in frosts hardning water and dirt in the generation of chrystal and though we should yeild to Galen that the intestins being membranous and spermatical parts are colder then the sanguineal yet we cannot yeild that in a living body there is actual cold for all parts are hot yet some more some lesse therefore these stones are not ingendred by cold but by a preâ—ernatural heat in the body The same Zacutus Obs. 135. l. 3. speaks of a strange stone found in a mans bladder it was round like a Ball but had issuing from it divers pyramids and between each of them a sharp prickle like a needle l. 1. Obs. 96. I have read of some who with coughing have voided stoneâ— out of their Lungs One l. â— Obs. 95. by coughing voided a stone out of his Lungs hard and long like a Date stone so heavy that it weighed almost twenty one grains But no stone so much to be admired was ever known as that which was found in the matrix of a dead mother of which we spake before to wit a dead childe that had continued there twenty eight years and was turned to a stone II. That some children have been nourished by wild beasts many histories do assure us Plutarch Cicero and others tell us of Romulus and Remus who were nourished by a shee Wolf Iustin assures us that Cyrus suckt the duggs of a Bitch Pausanias in his Corinthiacks writes that AEsculapius was educated by a Hinde AElian in his various Histories speaks of a Bear which gave suck to Atalanta being exposed of a Mare that nursed Pelias of a she-goat whose duggs AEgystus sucked and of Telephus that sucked a Hinde Divers others I could alledg but these are sufficient to let us see the cruelty of some parents and the kindnesse of some beasts far more merciful then man Besides the special care and providence of God towards tender and impotent infants Yet I know Livy contradicts the story of the Wolf that nursed Romulus and so doth Dr. Brown having no other inducement but that of Livies authority whereas the other Historians and Monuments of Rome affirm it Besides it is no more incredible for a Wolf to nurse a child then for a Raven every day to feed Elijah But besides ancient stories there be divers late Records of some children who have been nourished by Wolvs within these few years in our neighbour Countries In the Lantgrave of Hesse his Countrey was found a Boy who had been lost by his parents when he was a childe who was bred among Wolves and ran up and down with them upon all four for his prey This Boy was at last in Hunting taken and brought to the Landgrave who much wondring at the sight caused him to be bred among his servants who in time left his Wolvish conditions learned to walk upright like a man and to speak who confessed that the Wolves bred him and taught him to hunt for prey with them This story is rehearsed by Dresserus in his Book of new and ancient Discipline Hist. Med. part 1. c. 75. The like story hath Camerarius of two children which had been bred among Wolves and taken in the year 1544. I have read of a man bred among Wolves and presented to Charls the ninth of France And a strange story is extant written by Lewis Guyon Sieur de la Nauche l. 2. Divers Lection c. 34. of a childe that was carried away in the Forest of Ardenne by Wolves and nourished by them This child having conversed with them divers years was at last apprehended but could neither speak nor walk upright nor cat any thing except raw flesh till by a new education among other children his bestial nature was quite abolished We see then it is not incredible for children to be nursed by Wolves of which perhaps the old Irish were not ignorant when they prayed for Wolves used them kindly as if they had been their own sons as wee may read in Cambden Hist. Hiber out of Goade III. That some can take poison without hurt is plain by the story of Mithridates who could not be poisoned Profecit poto Mithridates saepe veneno Toxica nè possint saeva nocere sibi This story is confirmed by Pliny Gellius Caelius and others There is a story of the King of Cambaia's son who by constant eating of poison he had so invenomed his body that the Flies which suckt his blood swelled and died Solinus speaks of a people called Ophyophagi because they fed on serpents Avicenna speaks of one in his time whose body was so venomous that whatsoever touched it died I have read also in Aristotle of a Maid who was nourished with poison The like story is mentioned by Avicen Alb. Magnus speaks of a Maid who delighted to eat Spiders S. Augustine de morib Mon. S. 2. c. 8. speaks of a woman who drank poison without hurt
vvhich there are seminal spirits is not prejudiced by the vvater vvhere it is shed but the male fishes cast their seed upon the spawâ— vvhich the females leave in the vvater as Aristotle Pliny AElian Albertus and others do shew Lastly vvee must not think all the stories false vvhich are written of the Incubi vvhich vvere evil spirits conveying the masculine seed to the place of generation of vvhich there have been conceptions For to deny this saith Augustine lib. 15. de Civit. Dei cap. 23. doth argue impudence considering the many testimonies and examples of the same yet I deny not but the imagination is sometimes deluded but not still as Wierus thinks and I know also that Incubus is the same disease with Ephialtes yet it will not follow that there are no evill spirits called Incubi and Succubi For to deny such vvere to accuse the ancient Doctors of the Church and the Ecclesiastick Histories of falshood vvhich affirm that the Catecbumeni vvere much troubled vvith these Incubi This vvere also to contradict the common consent of all Nations and experience There is then a double Incubus the one natural called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vvhich is caused in sleep by a frigid grosse vapour filling the ventricles of the brain and prohibiting the animall spirits to passe through the nerves vvhereby the imagination is hurt so that they think they are oppressed vvith a great vveight This disease is much like the Epilepsia but somwhat milde The other Incubus is Diabolical III. That some men can in their sleep perform those actions which they neither could nor durst do when awaked is known by Histories and experience Marianus cap. ad audientiam witnesseth that he had a Maid vvho in her sleep could rise and make bread as if she had been awaked Francis Mendoza l. 6. de Flor. knew one vvho vvould rise in his sleep and in the night time vvalked out vvith his naked sword vvith vvhich hee struck some of the City guard but at last being vvounded vvas awaked Tirannel in Mendoza speaks of an English man in Paris vvho rose in his sleep vvent down towards the river Sene vvhere having met vvith a Boy he killed him and so returned being all this vvhile asleep to his bed Horstius de noctambulis vvrites of one vvho in his sleep usually vvould arise go up and down the stairs lock and unlock his chests He speaks of another vvho dreamed he vvas to ride a Journy riseth puts on his cloaths boots and spurs gets up into the Window vvhere he sate stradling beating the vvals vvith his spurs till hee vvas awaked And he sheweth that at Helmstad one rose in his sleep vvent down the stairs into a Court from thence toward the Kitchin neer vvhich vvas a deep Wel into this he went down holding fast to the stones by his hands and feet but when hee touched the vvater with the cold thereof he vvas awaked and finding in what danger he was gave a pitiful out-cry which awaked those in the house who having found him got him out and brought him to his bed where he lay many days speechlesse and immoveable being extreamly weakned with fear cold and crying Another story he hath no lesse strange then this of a young Gentleman vvho in his sleep arose naked carrying his shirt in his hand and by the help of a rope clambers up to a high Turret in the Castle where he then was Here he findes a nest of Mag-pies which he robs and puts the young ones in his shirt and so by the same rope comes down again and returns to his bed The next morning being awaked tells his brother how he dreamed that he had robb'd a Pies nest and withal wondring what was become of his shirt riseth and findes it at his beds feet with the young birds wrapt up in it To these examples wee may add that of Lot who in his sleep begot his two daughters with childe This Dr. Brown Book 7. c. 6 will not admit though he hath a direct Text of Scripture against him For there it is said Gen. 19. That Lot neither knew when his daughters lay down nor when they rose up Which words are expounded by Irenaeus c. 51. cont Haeres That Lot had neither pleasure nor consent nor sense nor knowledge of this act Chrysostome affirms the same expounding these words Lot saith he Hom. 44. in Genes was so intoxicated with wine that he knew not at all what he did lest he should be guilty of so great a crime acting in this neither wittingly nor willingly S. Austin is of the same minde Cont. manic l. 22. and other Expositors Now if one ask how sleeping men can do such things I answer it is partly by the strength of Imagination which is more active in sleep then when we are awake 2. All sleepers are not apt for such actions but such whose natures are melancholy or cholerick whose spirits are more fervent subtil and agile then others moving the bmuscles and by them the body though the outward senses be ound up by sleep 3. They catch not that hurt in their sleep which they would do if awaked because their senses are not avocated by other objects they have no apprehension of fear their imagination is more intent in sleep and withal their Genius or good Angel is carefull of them IV. I read of divers both beasts and men which have lived a long time without meat or drink We know that Swallows Cuckows Dormice diuers other animals sast all the Winter The like is recorded of Lizards Serpents Water-Crocodiles Bears and other ravenous beasts whose bodies by reason of their humidity and rapacity are full of crudiâ—les by which they are fed in the Winter Mendosa dâ— Flor. Philos. Probl. 24. speaks of a Hen in his time which lived eighty dayes without food and vvater Cardan de subtil l. 10. writes that the Indian bird called Manucodiata lives only in the aire upon dew as Grashoppers do Rondâ—letius l. 1. de Piscib c. 12. shews that his wife kept a fish three years in a glasse without any other food but water and yet the fish grew so big that the glasse could not at last contain it And I have kept Spiders my self in a glasse which I dismissed after they had fasted nine months The Camelion also liveth upon the air Oscitans vescitur follicans ruminat de vento cibus saith Tertullian in Pallio I have seen a Camelion which was brought hither from Africa by sea and kept in a box which all the while was never seen to feed on any thing else but air Yet D. Brown Book 3 c. 21. will not have air to be his food for these reasons 1. Because Aristotle and AElian speak nothing of this Ans. Neither do they speak any thing against it which likely they would have done if they had thought their feeding on aire had been fabulous They do not speak of what food each animal is sustained and though they doe
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
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
original from eggs which if true then that is no fiction of the Poets concerning Leda's two eggs out of which were procreated Pollux and Helena Castor and Clytemnestra but I conceive the Doctor in this speaks rather tropically then properly for simile non est idem and what may in some sort resemble an egge is not an egge however his book is full of excellent learning and observation yet I have been bold in some thingâ— to dissent from him as may be seen in the former Chapter The other book I lately viewed is my Lord Bacon's Natural History a Piece fraughted with much variety of elegant learning but yet wherein are divers passages that deserve animadversionâ— I never had leasure to run over the book till now though I had seen it before and now my distractions are such that I cannot exactly examine it but onely ut canis è nilo here and there touch a little First then I finde him mistaken in thinking that the French-pox is begot by eating of mans flesh Cent. 1. Sect. 26. His reasons are A story of mans flesh barrelled up like tunny eat at the siege of Naples the other is because the Canibals who feed on mans flesh are subject to that disease 3. Because the blood or fat of mans flesh is mixed with poysons And lastly because Witches feed on mans flesh to aid their imaginations with high and foul vapors Answ. These reasâ—ns are of small validity For 1. it was not the eating of mans flesh at the siege of Naples that brought this disease into Europe but it was procured by some of Columbus his Company who had carnal commerce with soul Indian women which with the pox they brought along with them 2. Mans flesh of all other animals is counted the most temperate therefore cannot produce such a venomous distemper so repugnant to mans body 3. This is a peculiar disease of the Indians both East and West for divers Countries have their divers maladies 4. Neither can this or any disease be counted new in respect of their subjects original causes or seminaries for this disease is as old as mans flesh though in this part of the world it did not break out so generally as of late and who knows but that the ancients had it but under another name being a kind of Leprosie 5. The Canibals among the Indians are not more subject to this disease then others who never tasted of mans flesh for in all ages there have been men eaters yet not tainted mith this malady and millions of latter years among us who are infected with this poyson and yet never eat of mans flesh 6. It is against reason to imagine that the flesh of a man should rather breed this disease then of an ox or a sheep seeing mans flesh is sooner convertible into nutriment then of any other animal because of the greater simpathy and specifical unity 7. Though ignorant Indians do mix mans blood or fat with poyson it will not therefore follow that these are poyâ—â—nable no more then wine can be called poyson because poysonable materials may be mixed with it so we mix sugar and butter with rats bane which we know have no venemous quality in them 8. Witches who are silly fools may eat mans flesh hoping thereby to aid their imaginations but there is no such vetue in mans flesh as they conceive so they use many spels charms and canting words in which there is no more vertue then in a pibble stone or a piece of rotten wood 9. Mans flesh can afford no soul vapors except it befoul it self and putrified and so indeed it may breed loathsome diseases as all other corrupt and putrified meats do which is done as it is corrupted not as it is mans flesh neither can it afford high vapors except it were full of spirits which cannot be in a piece of dead flesh he that will have high vapors must drink sack not eat mans flesh the blood of the vine not of the vein can breed high vapors Indeed the drinking of mans blood and eating of his flesh may inure a man to cruelty which Catelin knew by causing his associates to drink humane blood hence the Judaical law forbids eating of blood at all shewing us hereby how much God abhors cruelty or that which may induce a man to it II. His Lordship calls it A crude and ignorant speculation to make the dilatation of the fire the cause of the expulsion of the pellet out of the Gun but he will have the cause to be the crude and windy spirits of nitre dilated by heat which bloweth abroad the flame as an inward bellows But I would know what difference there is between dilatation and between the flame and spirit of the nitre He affirms dilatation to be the cause of this expulsion therefore his exception against the former opinion was needless and whereas he grants the flame to be the immediate expeller of the pellet he unawares affirms what he rejects neither can I see any difference between the flame of the nitre and the spirit of the nitre inflamed onely he was pleased to make shew of a new reason by altering somewhat the words of the former whereas the sense is one and the same the speculation then is not crude but the spirit of his nitre is crude which without the flame can do nothing 3. From a wax candle burning in a porringer full of spirit of wine set on fire he infers Cent. 1.31 strange conculsions As 1. That the flame of the candle becomes bigger and globular and not in pyramis and consequently that the pyramis of the flame is accidental I answer the flame of the candle becomes bigger and globular accidentally because the air about it is heated by the flame of the wine therefore as in all things like draws to like so one flame dilates it self to enjoy the other as a drop of water will contract it self upon a drie but dilate it self upon a wet table 2. He infers That the flame of itself would be round if it were not for the air that quencheth the sides of it But I say that the air is so far from quenching that it cherisheth and maintaineth the flame without which it would quickly vanish and that the flame would not be round of it self if the air round about were not inflamed for the same cause it rouls and turns not of its own nature but because the ambient flame draws it 3. He â—nfers hence That the celestial bodies are true fires for they are igâ—obular and have rotation and have the colour and splendor of flame These are weak arguments that from common accidents prove specifical identities for if the stars be true fires because globular then we may infer that water drops are fire because round and that every thing which hath rotation is fire and if that be fire which hath the colour of fire or that a flame which hath the splendor of flame we may say that rotten
with reason for the humidity of the air must needs moisten the hinges consequently hinder their sound Neither is it true which he saith of bullets sect 120. That they in piercing through the air make no noyse For Souldiers will tell him the contrary that many times they hear the whistling of the bullets over their heads So darts and stones flung with violence in the air make a sound as the Poet sheweth Sonitum dat stridula cornus auâ—as certa secat And his reason is no lesse infirm then his observation to wit That the extream violence or swiftnesse of the motion should hinder the sound whereas nothing furthers the noyse so much as the swiftnesse of motion Again he is mistaken in our definition of sounds when he makes us say That it is an elision of the air which is a term of ignorance sect 124. So it â—is indeed but in him not in the Philosophers who doe not call sound an elision of the air but the collisian of two hard or solid bodies in the air And no lesse is he mistaken when he saith That Sounds are generated where there is no air at all This he can never prove for even in the water and in the flame wherein he saith sounds are generated there is air and if it were not for air the sound should never be caried to our ear and therefore the instrance he makes â— 133 of knapping a pair of tongs within the water which we can hear and yet there is no air at all present is to no purpose for there is air present both in the water and besides nothing but air from the superficies of the water to our ear by which medium the sound is conveyed to us He gives us a strange reason Sect. 143. why we hear better in the night then in the day Because in the day the air is more thin and the sound pierceth better but when the air is more thick the sound spreadeth abroad lesse Indeed by this reason we should hear better by day for the thinnesse of the air and the easie piercing of the sound are main helps to hearing whereas the thickness of the air is a hinderance Therefore Hippocrates in his Aphorismes observeth truly That when the wind is Southerly and the air thick our hearing is heavy We hear better when the wind is Northerly and the air clear It is not therefore the thicknesse of the air but the silence of the night which helpeth hearing as the Poet saith Tunc silens omnis ager pecudes pictaeque volucres AEn 4. And then it is when every sound though never so small affrights and excites him Tunc omnes terrent aurae sonus excitat omnis AEn 2. In his third Century Sect. 201 he tells us That though there be a wall between we can hear the voyce one this side which is spoken on the other not because the sound passeth through the wall but archeth over the wall But here he contradicteth himself in his former Century Sect. 154 when he saith Iâ— is certain that the voyce doth passe thorow hard and solid bodies The voyce then may passe through a wall and not over it And how can it passe over that wall which is continually with the seeling or roofe of the House For in a close chamber I can heare the voyce of him that is in the next room though there be a wall between us and the room sieled or roofed But he saith Sect. 213. That the spirit of the hard body doth cooperate I would know what spirits there are in a stone or brick wall or in a wall of mud to cooperate If there be such cooperating spirits it will follow That where are greatest numbers of them there will be most help and the sound better heard but in a thick stone wall there are more spirits because more stones every stone having his own spirit then in a thin mud woodden or brick wall and therefore the sound must be better heard through a thick then a thin wall there being so many pneumaticall cooperators all helping to carry the sound This is Philosophy that passeth all understanding He saith Sect. 235. It is manifest that between sleeping and waking when all the senses are bound and suspended musick is farre sweeter then when one is fully waking All the senses are not bound when a man is between sleeping and waking but when a man is in dead sleep then are all the senses bound If then they are all bound and likewise all are bound between sleeping and waking what difference will he make between the extream and the medium between a dead sleep and that which is betwixt sleeping and waking Again how can musick be sweet to him in whom all the senses are bound up Which way shall the musick enter Can he heare without hearing Doubtlesse the delight he hath in the Musick doth shew all his senses are not bound up He shews 238 239. That Parrets Pies Iayes Dawes and Ravens are singing birds and that this aptnesse of singing is in their attention He should have added Thrushes and Stares to his singing birds but it is not attention which is the cause of their singing for beasts and other birds may have as much attention but its natural for birds to sing and their speaking is but a kind of singing for singing is the musick of the throat and speaking the musick of the tongue it is easie for those who exercise their throats and tongues in singing to be brought to utter words by the same organs It may be saith he 205 the spirituall species of visible things and sounds do move better downwards then upwards Those on the top of Pauls seem much lesse then they are but to men above those below seem nothing so much lessened So knots in gardens shew best from an upper window These examples thwart his may be for if the species move better downward how comes it that we see the object better from the top of Pauls then from the street looking upward to the top Doubtlesse it is because the visible species of the things seen below move better upward as being more naturall both for the air which is a light body and for the species which hath no gravity in it Hence it is that when wee stand below we cannot so clearly discern the just magnitude of the men upon the top of Pauls because the species must come from that high object to our eye downward which is not so natural The same may be said of the audible species for sounds are better heard by those who are in high rooms then by those who are below and so they that sit in Church galleries which are above the Pulpit hear better then they who sit below in the pues He speaks against experience when he saith There is a greater degree from the privative to the active that is from darknesse to light then from lesse light iâ— more light For when the day breaks I cannot see to
spread it selfe so soon on a dry board as on a wet upon a dry board a drop of vvater vvill contract it self into a globular form and rise into some height rather then joyn itselfe to its enemy whereas upon a vvet board it presently spreads it selfe So dry things will rather swim upon then sink in the vvater except their vveight force them downward He also contradicteth experience when he saith That Fish hating the dry will not approach the air till it grow moist For vve see that fish play most upon the top of the vvaters in hot and dry Summers and in the hottest and driest time of the day when the Sun is in his Meâ—idian So when he saith That Aches and Corns engrieve most towards rain or frost This is not as if they were sensible of future rain but because the extremity of heat and cold doe exasperate these infirmities For the same reason Moals vvork and Fleas bite more eagerly He tells That hunger is an emptinesse But this is not so for there is sometimes hunger without emptinesse and sometimes emptinesse without hunger It is therefore not emptinesse but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosopher tells us a desire or appetite of hot and dry things caused by the corrugation and sucking in the mouth of the stomach His Lordship is pleased to call the received opinion That putrifaction is caused by cold or preternaturall heat but nugation But if cold be not the cause of putrifaction how comes it that Apples and Cabbages doe rot in frosty vveather And if peregrine heat be not the cause how comes it that in hot and moist years and places pestilentiall Feavers and other putrid diseases doe reigne Besides abundance of vermin doubtlesse these are procreated of putrifaction and this of heat except we will forfeit our senses and reason of which he being afraid confesseth at last that such a heat tendeth to dissolution He will not have liquifaction to proceed from any of the foure prime qualities that he calls an inutile speculation but from his own phantomes For bodies saith he that are more turgid of spirit or that have their spirits more straitly imprisoned as metals or that hold them better pleased and content as butter are liquifiable How happy then are those spirits which dwell in butter where they have pleasure and content in comparison of those vvretched spirits vvhich are imprisoned in Irons and other metals and yet how these spirits should make the metall turgid I know not Surely these are but crasie fansies vvhereas it is apparent to all ntelligible men that these things are most liquifiable which aboundeth most with congealed moisture whether it be aeriall and oily as in pitch butter wax and grease or watrish alone as in Ice or of a middle nature between both or peculiar as the moisture of metals And to tell us That wood clay free-stone c. are not liquifiable because they are bodies jejune of spirits is ridiculous for there are more spirits in vegitables then in metals and it is plain that clay and stones melt not because they want moysture which is in metals So it is not the dilatation of the spirits as he saith by heat which causeth wax to melt at the fire but the rarefaction of the moysture by heat which was before contracted by the cold For this cause dry wood is more fragile then green stone then metall and fictile earth then crude because there is no moisture in the one comparable to the moisture of the other He tels us that the hardnes of body is caused chiefly by the jejuness of the spirits Indeed this Philosophy is somwhat jejun for I would fain know whether there be not more spirits and less jejune in the hard bodies of Cloves Nutmegs and Cinnamon then in the soft bodies of Wooll Silk and Cotton According to his Philosophy there is a greater quantity of Spirits in a pellet of butter because softer then in a Nutmeg which is harder he that beleeves this let him when he is troubled with flatulencies in his stomack use butter and not hard spices He saith That Moisture doth chiefly colour hair but driness turneth them gray and white In his Philosophy then gray and white are not colours nor indeed blacknes which he saith afterwards is but a privative and consequently hath no entity Aristotle indeed sometimes calls black a privation but there he useth the words in a large sense for if it were properly privative how could other colours be made of black and white seeing of habits and privations nothing can be made He saith That some fishes be greater then any beasts because these have not their moisture drawn by the air and sun-beams Also they rest always in a manner and are supported by the water If these be the reasons of fishes greatness then why are Smelts and other lesser fishes smaller then the beasts Or why are they not as big as Whales seeing neither air nor sun-beams draw away their moisture and are also supported by the water The true cause then of the bigness of fishes above the beasts is the predominance of moisture in them which is easily extendible And indeed it is a frivolous thing to give reasons for the different magnitudes of the creatures seeing Nature hath given to each creature a determinate magnitude and period of duration And whereas he thinks that fish doe rest in a manner when they swim because they are supported by the water he may as well say That beasts and men rest when they walk and run because supported by the earth they that swim find there is no rest but labour and motion Before my Lord told us That by heat in putrifaction the spirits are emitted suppressed and suffocated But now he saith That the spirits in putrifaction gather heat How the spirits at the same time should be destroyed by the heat and yet gather heat is so sublime a fansie that no fansie but his own can reach it Water saith he being contiguous with air cooleth it but moystneth it not except it vapour because heat cold have a virtuall transaction without communication of substance but moysture not He takes it for granted which no Philosophy will grant him to wit that accidents can passe from one subject to another without their substance which is to make accidents subsist by themselves and to be all one with the substance which is repugnant to sense and reason therefore without vapours neither can the water moysten nor cool the air He saith Air is not without some secret degree of heat He needs make no secret of it for it is manifest that the air is hot and moist as the fire is hot and dry but for any secret degree of light in the air I deny For though as he saith Cats and Owles see in the night this is not because there is any degree of light in the air for what light can