objection from Arts. 17. Why the Water may be reckoned the first-born Element MY sight is carried on a useful good but not on vain reasoning Wherefore seeing the Auncients do call back nature and every of its operations to the account of Elements Qualities and Complexions resulting in mixture and the Schooles do even to this day hand forth this Doctrine to their young beginners in Medicine to the destruction of mankinde I will again and again set upon the dissection of the Elements whereby it may appear that they have erred hitherto in the Causes of Diseases I will every where relate Paradoxes and things unaccustomed to the Schooles and it will be hard for those to cease from the Doctrine drunk in who do believe the whole truth to have flowed into Galen Galen hath delivered in many Volumes and with a tedious boasting of the Greeks that every Body the Earth Water Air and Fire excepted doth consist of the Wedlock of these four united together and so from hence that a Body is to be called mixt Moreover that the whole likeness and diversity of bodies doth arise from the unlike conflux or concurrence and continual fight of four Elements But the Schooles that came after do as yet dispute it as undecided whether the Elements with their forms do remain in the thing mixt or indeed whether in every particular mixture they are deprived of their essential forms and the which by a peculiar indulgence they do re-take from the seperation and general privation of the form of the thing mixed At length from the unlikeness and combate of the Elements they bid all the infirmities and first-born fewels of our mortality to descend Surely it is a wonder to see how much brawling and writing there hath been about these things and it is to be pitied how much these loose dreams of trifles have hitherto circumvented or beset the World they have prostituted destructive vain talkings in the faires of the Schooles instead of the knowledge of Medicine and so so damnable a delusion hath thereby deceived the obedience of the sick in healing Therefore the juggling deceipts of Pagans being cast behinde me I direct my experiences and the light fteely given me according to the Authority of the holy Scriptures at the beholding of which light the night-Birds do fly away Therefore it is chiefly to be grieved at that the light of truth being had darkness is as yet taught in the Schooles of Christians In the beginning therefore the Almighty created the Heaven and the Earth before that the first day had shone forth Afterwards in the first day he created the light and divided it from the darkness Secondly he created the Firmament which should seperate the inferior Waters from the waters that were above it self and named that Heaven Therefore it is hence plainly to be seen that before the first day the waters were already created from the beginning being partakers of a certain heavenly disposition because they were hidden under the Etymologie of the Word Heaven Yet they were a-kinne to these lower waters to which they were once conjoyned before their seperation In the next place that darkness covered the face of the deep and that that deep did point out the Waters because then all the Waters above the Heaven being as yet conjoyned to ours upon the Earth did make an Abysse of incomprehensible deepness upon which the Spirit whose name is Eternall was carried that he might with his blessing replenish his new Creature of water Therefore it is manifest that the Creation of the Heaven the Water and the Earth was before a day neither that it may be numbred with the six dayes Creation afterwards described Because it pleased the Eternall also to rest on the seventh day which in respect of the aforesaid Creation would have been the eighth if it had been a day And therefore it is not reckoned among the number of dayes because the Creation of the Elementary matter was made before a day sprang forth Lastly by this Text the Firmament is not onely the eighth Starry Heaven but and also that which by our Authority we distinguish into seven wandring Orbs or Circles Which the teacher of the Gentiles hath seemed to contain in one But the Chrystalline and first mover for another and at length the huge Heaven of an incomprehensible greatness wherein every righteous man shineth like the Sun for the third although that Empyrean Heaven joyned with its two fellowes being taken for the second perhaps another may remain for the third Which may be the bottomless retiring place of Fountain-light full of Divine Majesty and unsearchable At leastwise the Firmament reacheth from the Moon even to the conjoyning of the Starry Heaven and seperateth the water that is above it from these lower ones and therefore the Heaven with the Hebrews soundeth where there are waters But the Lights and the Stars began on the fourth day and were set in order in the Firmament Therefore in the beginning the Heaven Earth and Water the matter of all Bodies that were afterwards to arise was created But in the Heaven were the Waters contained but not in the Earth hence I think the Waters to be more noble than the Earth yea the Water to be more pure simple indivisible firm or constant neerer to a Principle and more partaking of a heavenly condition than the Earth is Therefore the Eternall would have the Heaven to contain Waters above it and as yet something more by reason whereof it is called Heaven that which we call the Air the Skie or vitall Air. For therefore neither is there mention made of the creating of the Water and Air for that both of them the Etymologie of the Word Heaven did include Therefore I call these two Elements Primigeniall or first-born in respect of the Earth But no where any thing is read of the Creation of the fire neither therefore do I acknowledge it among the Elements and I reject my honour or esteem with Paganisme Neither also may we with Paracelsus acknowledge the fire by the name of Lights and Stars to be a superlunary Element as neither to have been framed from the beginning the which notwithstandig it should needs be if it ought to resemble or partake of the condition of an Element Therefore I deny that God created four Elements because not the fire the fourth And therefore it is vain that the fire doth materially concurre unto the mixture of bodies Therefore the fourfold kinde of Elements Qualities Temperaments or Complexions and also the foundation of Diseases falls to the ground For our handicraft operation hath made manifest to me that every body to wit the Rockie Stone the small Stone the Gemme or pretious Stone the Flint the Sand the Fire-stone the white Clay the Earth cocted or boyled Stones Glasse Lime Sulphur or Brimstone c. is changed into an actual Salt equall in weight to its own body from whence it was made and that that Salt being sometimes
forced to a mixture with the Circulate Salt of Paracelsus altogether looseth its fixedness and at length may be changed into a Liquor which also at length passeth into an un-savory water and that that water is of equall weight with its Salt from whence it sprang But the Plant fleshes bones Fishes and every such like I have known how to reduce into its meer three things whence afterwards I have made an un-savory water But that a Mettall by reason of the undissolveable co-mixture of its own seed and the Sand quellem are most hardly reduced into Salt I have learned therefore by the fire that God before there was a day created the Water and Air and of the Water an Elementary Earth which is the Sand. Quellem Because it was the future Basis or foundation of Creatures for man their Standard-defender and therefore in the very beginning it ought to be created although in its own nature it was not truly primo-genial or first-born Wherefore I finde two onely primitive Elements although there is mention made of neither in the holy Scriptures because they are comprehended under the Title of Heaven But with the two he also created the Earth Wherefore he created two great Lights that the Moon and the lesse by shining might govern the Water but that the greater should shine upon the Earth But I shall by and by teach that these first-born Elements are never changed into each other Indeed the Water putrifying by continuance in the Earth doth obtain a locall or implanted Seed And therefore it passeth either into the Liquor Leffas for every Plant or into the Minerall juyce Bur according to the particular kindes chosen by the direction of the Seedes Which Seedes are replenished by the Ferment of the Earth at first empty and void and then straightway by the blessing of the Spirit boren upon the Waters But my experience of the fire hath taught me to wit that the three first things the Salt Sulphur and Mercury of the Water do alwayes remain undivided whether in the mean time the water be lifted up in manner of a Vapour in the form of a Cloud or be made thin like unto invisible things or at length also it doth flote in its antient shape of water For that Paracelsus would have the water by evaporating to be wholly brought to nothing let that be his own Idiotisme or property of speech at leastwise not to be winked at by the ingenious Distiller Truly I have certainly found that the water being lifted up into the Atomes or Moats of Clouds yet doth alway remain the same in number and water in kinde which the Atomes of the Mercury of the water do shew to us in the likeness of a Cloud But there is never made in the water a seperation of the three former things and much lesse any essentiall transmutation or changing For truly there is a simple turning outward of the inward parts by the fire the which again return inward as oft as the Vapour is co-thickned into drops But the cause why I may think the Earth not to be reckoned among the primary Elements although it was also created in the beginning is because it may at length be turned into water by the depriving of its essence And therefore I believe the water to be the first and most simple body seeing that never returns into Earth but by the vertue of the Seeds and so the water takes the turns of a composed body before the Earth or Sand Quellem be made Which thing I shall hereafter more largely demonstrate CHAP. IX The Earth 1. That the Fire is neither an Element nor co-mingled materially with Bodies nor that it is a matter nor that it hath a matter in it 2. The Earth is not a part of the thing mixed 3. The Virgin-Earth is demonstrated by Handicraft operation 4. Grounds or Soils in the Earth are distinguished 5. The Water within the Earth doth more than a thousand times exceed the water of the Sea and Rivers 6. The true Original of Fountains 7. How Waters do of their own accord ascend 8. The continuity or holding together of a thread is proved in the Waters 9. By what chance the Earth happens to Bodies that are believed to be mixt 10. The number of Elements and their temperaments are most destructive trifles after that the same are translated into the art of healing 11. The Earth is the Wombe but not the Mother of Bodies and that is demonstrated by many Arguments 12. Water and Air do not convert any other thing into themselves 13. What kinde of thing mixture is and what the adjoyning or application of Bodies 14. Objections concerning Glasse and the Tile or Brick are resolved 15. The Operations of the Fire of Hell 16. How out of Glasse Sand may be safely separated from its Alcali or Lixiviall Salt 17. That the Center of the World is sometimes changed THerefore neither is the Fire an Element nor is it materially co-mixed in Bodies because I will shew the Fire neither to be a matter nor to have it in it self Yea the Earth doth no where offer it self to be co-mixt with any natural body besides it self which may be re-taken thence by any labour Therefore I have lamented and been angry with my self that the foundation of healing hath been stuft with trifles and that the sick should be constrained to yield obedience to so great mockeries But I name the original Earth of the Virgin-Element the constant Body of Sand it self but the rest of every kinde of Earth the fruit of the Earth from a Mineral off-spring The which by the art of the fire is sufficiently and over proved For that the Sand is the original Earth first of all its hard reducement into water proveth because the Sand out of a flint or an Adamant may be sooner reduced into water than the Sand Quellem And then that thing also the Spade proveth because in digging truly divers Soils do meet nigh the light indeed made to differ in colours and thickness and the which although by the rustical or homely Etymologie of the Schooles they are believed to be black white yellow read Earths c. yet they are fruits of the Earth and do consist of a Seed under which is a Sand also elsewhere manifold in its varieties of Soils as well in one onely as in divers places at length under those doth the Sand reside which our Countreymen call Keybergh or the flinty Mountain from whence do flow the originall of Rocks and Mountains and the chief riches of Mines At length the last of them all the white or boyling Sand Quellem doth shew it self in a living and vitall Soil which the Spade or Mattock never pierceth For how much soever Sand and Water thou shalt take away from thence so much doth there succeed in the room of that which was taken away filling up again the same place This Sand I say being unmixt is a certain Hair-cloth or sieve and
that last sub-division of their finenesses and Atomes all Seeds Odours and Ferments which they lifted upward with themselves do dye together and do return into their first Element of water whence they were materially formed Hence Clowdes as long as they are Clowdes do stink in Mountains but not after they are by the greatest colds there extenuated into the last division of fineness And this necessity hath been in nature that the middle Region of the air should not far of from us be most cold For therefore the water alwayes remains whole as it is or without any dividing of the three beginnings it is transformed and goes into fruits whither the Seedes do call and withdraw it Because an artificial diligent search hath shewen me indeed after what sort the three first beginnings and that in a proportionable sense are in the water yet by no art or corruption of dayes are they to be divided from each other For an Element should cease to be a simple body if it be to be seperated into any thing before or more simple than it self But nothing in corporeall things is granted to be before or more simple than an Element The water therefore is most like to the internall Mercurie of Mettalls the which seeing it is now stript of all manner of spot of Mettalick Sulfur it as well cleaves to it self on every side by an undissolvable joyning as it doth radically refuse all possible division by art or nature Hence Geber had occasion given him to say that there is no moysture in the order or course of things like to Mercury by reason of the Homogeneall or samely kinde of simplicity continually remaining with it in the torment of the fire For truly either it being wholly changed in its own nature flees away from the fire or it wholly perseveres in the fire through the transchanging of its seedes I confess indeed that I learned the nature of the Element of water no otherwise than under the Ferule or Staffe made of the white wand of Mercury But since I have from hence with great pains and cost thorowly searched for thirty whole years and I have found out the adequate or suitable Mercurie of the water I will therefore endeavour to explain its nature so far as the present speech requireth and the slenderness of my judgement suffereth First of all the Alchymists do confess that the substance of Mercurie is not at all capable to endure any intrinsecall or inward division and they shew the cause because by a homogeneall and sweet proportion its watery parts are by an equall tempering conjoyned to its earthly parts the aiery and fiery ones being suppressed in silence for that these should flee away if they were in it neither do they contain the cause of constancy here required and therefore that both these cannot forsake each other by reason of their just temperature they embracing each other though against the fires will In the first place the errour of the auntients hath deluded them concerning the necessary confluence of four Elements into the mixture of mixt bodies But surely that errour was not to be indulged by Alchymists because they are those who durst not enforce or comprise the air and fire of Mercurie when as they treated of its constancy And then because it was very easie for them to experience that the water after what manner soever either by art or natural proportion it was married to the Earth yet that it never obtains a constancy in the fire as neither to be at any time truly radically joyned to the Earth Because water after what manner soever it be co-mixed with Earth ceaseth not to be water For neither shall manner or proportion ever make water to degenerate from its own essence as neither shall any conjoyning of it with Earth be able to procure that thing But water remaining water is born alwayes to flee away from the fire Surely it is a ridiculous thing that the water should rather love a proportioned weight of Earth than an unequall one and that for that loves sake it should against its will the rather forsake that temperament of Earth For truly when the speech is concerning the co-mingling of four Elements it is understood of pure Elements and those plainly unmixed together and so not defiled with any spot of mixture or otherwise prevented by any disposition For neither doth the water carry a ballance with it nor beares a respect as to weigh the Earth that is to be co-mixed with it that it may be the more toughly conjoyned to the same I greatly admire that the wan errour of the co-mixing of Elements being received hath brought forth such soâ—tish absurdities among all the Schooles and that they by that absurdity alone have locked the gate of finding out of Sciences and Cauâ— Mercurie doth not indeed admit into it or contain so mâ—ch as the least of earth 〈◊〉 is alwayes the Son of water alone Yea earth and water can never be compelled into any naturall body or be subdued into an identity or sameliness of forme by whatever skill that thing be attempted For Tâ—les or Bricks if from moyst Earth they are boiled into a shelly stone they do not receive water but for the guidance of the Clay but earth hath a seed in its own Salt whence the Clay becomes stony through the coction of Glasse-making Therefore of the water and earth there is onely a powring on and applying of parts but not an admixture of growing together For whatsoever is meet to depart into a compounded Body and of divers things to be converted into this something this must needes be done by the endeavour of the working Spirits and so far of those things that do contain them as they do promote the matter by transchanging it into a new generation But the Elements are Bodies but not spirits and much lesse do they also act into each other The Earth therefore ought first to loose its Being and be reduced into a juyce before it should marry the water that by embracing this water gotten with childe by the seed it might bring it over into the fruit ordained for the conceived seed But what agent should that be which should transport the earth into a juyce and not rather into water since the earth being a simple body should be changed into nothing but into a simple body its neighbour Surely another co-like Element should not cause that seeing nothing of like sort hath been hitherto seen to agree with the water or air Nor at length should the earth intend the corruption of it self since this resisteth the constancy of Creation Therefore although part of the earth may be homogeneally or by way of simplicity of kinde reduced into water by art yet by nature onely I deny that thing to be done seeing that in nature an agent is wanting by which agent alone onely mediating the Virgin-earth or true earth is reduced into Salt and from thence into water Let it be for
a Lesson to Chymists That the Earth although it was in its first constitution created yet properly it is even a fruit of the water Therefore neither do generations or co-mixtures ever happen in nature but by a getting of the water with childe And so that as long as the water is chief in the seed never any generation proceedeth from thence Therefore much lesse is there a flowing compound body to be exspected from thence because it resisteth the fruitfulness of the fire And that thing least of all as oft as water and earth are mutually connexed to their own bodies Therefore the constancy of bodies is onely in the fire in the family of Mineralls and indeed most perfect in the purest Mettalls Because the Eternall hath not created moysture to be â—â—kened in its constancy to metallick Mercurie And therefore there is in Mercurie it self even as in the Elements a near reason of an uncapacity to be destroyed For truly I have discerned in Mercurie a certain outward Sulphur containing the originall spot of Mettall the which because it is originall therefore is it also taken away from it with difficulty Which at length nevertheless being seperated by art skilful men say that the Mercurie is cleansed of a superfluous Sulphur and superfluous moysture Because afterwards it may not by any fire be precipitated or cast into the form of Earth by reason of its greatest simpleness whereby it is compared to the Element of water For it hath lost its earth that is its Sulphur which earth in the center of its essence is no less from the Element of water than its remaining refined Mercurie which earth albeit it had from its first beginning most deeply co-mixed with it self If therefore the Mercury in its former state had a suitable temperament of earth and water therefore at leastwise after the taking away of that Sulphurous earth it had lost its anâ—ient uncapacity of being devided the which rather by a contrary disposition of relation it haâ—h hence-forward câ—nfirmed far more firm to it self for ever For Mercurie after it is spoiled of that Sulphur is found not to be changed by any fire because it is the Mercurie of Mercurie But the Sulphur is death and life or the dwelling place of life in things to wit in the Sulphur are the Fermenâ—s or leavens putrifactions by continuance o â—ours specificall savours of the seedes for any kinde of transmutations The Mercurie therefore being cleansed of its originall spot and being a Virgin doth not suffer it self to be any more laid hold on by Sulphurs or seeds but it straight-way consumeth and as it were slayeth these except its own compeere For other sublunary bodies are to weak that they should subdue pierce change or defile Mercurie of so great worth Even as it well happens in other bodies where the seed which lurketh in the Sulphur sends it self into water But the Salt and Mercurie of things as it were womanish juyces do follow the conceptions of the Sulphur For Aqua fortis is not wrought upon Mettalls or Mercurie but by the beholding of the Sulphur For the spirit of Sea-salt without the conjoyning of some embryonated or imperfect shaped Sulphur doth not therefore so much as dissolve the common peoples Mercurie Therefore the Sulphur onely is by adjuncts immediately dissolved and changed by the fire which successive change the other parts of the compounded body do afterwards undergoe not but for the Sulphurs sake Therefore Mercurie of Mercurie or in Mercurie remaineth safe as well in fires as in its Liquor the air Otherwise if a Corrosive matter should touch on that Mercurie the pains of many might happily be recompenced Because the whole Root of transmutations is in the Sulphur Therefore there is another Sulphur of Mettalls internall to Mercurie it self and therefore it remains untouched by every corrosive thing no lesse than from the destructions of fire and air Yea a totall ruine of things should follow if every thing dissolving should pierce into the innermost Root of dissolving And although Silver dissolved in Aqua fortis may seem to have perished as being in the form of a water yet it remains in its former essence Even as Salt dissolved in water is remaineth Salt and is fetched from thence without the changing of the Salt Which thing surely should not thus come to passe if the thing dissolving should in the least be joyned in dissolving and should not be stayed by the Mercurie of that composed body Therefore the inward kernel of the Mercurie is not touched by dissolvers and much lesse is it pierced by them But the ignorant being astonished at the novelty of the Paradox will urge If the water be not pressed together nor its parts go to ruine and Gold be of water alone whence therefore have Gold or Lead their weight For truly water hath not pores bigger by ten fold than the whole water In the first place as this doubt doth not take away doubts so it argues nothing against the matter of Gold to be taken from water onely For truly if Gold should be of four proportioned Elements and air and fire are light ones I therefore may likewise object from whence hath Gold its weight But if it consist onely of Earth and water from whence hath Gold its ten fold weight Therefore an argument which of it self doth not drive away difficulties doth nothing presse the adversaries But since it behooves an Interpreter of nature to be ready to search into and render the causes of nature I will shew from the premises that the seed of Gold hath a power of transchanging the water into this something which is far different from water Wherefore it is agreeable to nature and reason that in transmutation the water doth sustain as much pressing together going to ruine and aduniting as great Stones or Mettalls do overpoyse the water in weight and as much as the necessity of the seed doth require Because that of nothing nothing is made Therefore weight is made of another body weighing even so much in which there is made a transmutation as of the matter so also of the whole essence Therefore the water while it undergoes the lawes of the seed it is also bound to the precepts of the dimensions of its own weight co-thickning and going to ruine For if the water of its own accord flies up out-flees the sight in the shew of a vapour a hundred fold lighter than it self and yet remains water why shall not the water while it is made this something neither is any longer formally water also receive thicknesses greater than it is wont by ten fold for indeed on both sides the matter doth follow the properties of the seedes Therefore the liberty of nature is perpetuall of its own accord to cause and to suffer the pressings together of a watery body and will not undergoe those by any guidance of an Artificer yea Mountains are sooner overturned by Gun-powder Therefore there shall be sixteen parts of
water pressed together into the room of one part where Gold is framed of water Wherefore so far is it that the piercing of dimensions becomes impossible seeing that nothing is more natural or home-bred to nature than to co-thicken the body of the water but indeed although there may something appear in the water like to the three first things yet also there is no hope that they should be rent asunder from each other because in the every way simplicity of the water an adequate or suitable Sulphur is after a certain sort hidden which cannot be seperated from the other two but they all do accompany together Those are not the three true Principles which are abstracted or seperated onely by the Imagination The water therefore since it doth on every side vary off-Springs according to the diversity of their seedes thus so many kindes of Earths Mineralls Salts Liquors Stones Plants living Creatures and Meteors do rise up in their particular kindes from the blast or inspiration of the seedes For the water putrifies by continuance in the Earth is made the juyce of the Earth Gums Oyl Rosin Wood Berries c. and that which of late was nothing but water materially now burns and sends forth a fume or smoak Not indeed that that fume is air but is either a vapour or a drie exhalation and a new fruit of the water not yet appointed to be wholly turned by its seed It is proved For the Body of the air cannot make a shadow in the air but whatsoever doth exhale out of a live Coal doth make a shadow in the Sun For since the air hath a limited consistence and thickness and that agreeable to its own simpleness it followes that whatsoever is thicker than the air that is not air Moreover that which being made thin by the heat of the fire doth now exhale is as yet thicker than the air and so for that cause makes a shadow surely that shall become far more thick in the cold and shall be made visible in Clouds Whatsoever exhalations therefore do from the Earth climbe upward and are joyned in Clouds for this cause also those Clouds do stink no otherwise than as water doth under the Aequinoctial line and there the Ferment and Seed of their Concretion or growing together being consumed they are turned into pure water no otherwise than the water is after it hath escaped and overcome the bounds of its putrefaction which it had conceived under the line The dew therefore is a Cloud belonging to the Spring not yet stinking falling down before it can touch the place of cold So a mist or fogg is a stinking Cloud not as yet refined through the putrefaction of its Ferment because as many as have passed over the Alps with me have known how greatly Clouds taken hold of with the hand do stink but the Rain-water collected thence how sweet and without savour it is and almost incorruptible For when any thing doth exhale whether it be in the shew of water or Oil or smoak or mists or of an exhalation although indeed it brings not away with it the seedes of the Concrete or composed Body at leastwise it carries the Ferments upward which that they may be fully abolished from thence and that the remaining matter may return into water it behooves that they be first lifted up into a subtile or fine Gas in the kitchin of the most cold air and that they passe over into another higher Region and do assume a condition in the shape of the least motes or Atomes And that the Ferments do there die as well through the cold of the place as the fineness of the Atomes as it were by choaking and extinguishing For cold is therefore a principle not indeed of life but of extinguishment To wit as it doth sub-divide the parts of the Atomes as yet by more subtilizing them even as I have above taught And so that Woods are also the sooner consumed by fire under cold as if they were driven by a blast From which necessity verily that place was from the beginning alwayes chilled with continuall cold Because the Authour of nature least he might seem to have been wanting to the necessities of his Creature hath every where fitted ordinations according to necessities Therefore cold is naturall and home-bred to that place but not from the succeeding Chymera of an Antiperistasis Indeed the matter of fruits being brought thither must needes return into their first Being and the infections of the Ferments are therefore first to be removed by the mortifications sub-divisions subtilizings piercings choakings and extinguishings of the cold The Air therefore is the place where all things being brought thither are consumed and do return into their former Element of water For in the Earth and water although Bodies sprung up from seedes do by little and little putrifie and depart into a juyce yet they are not so nearly reduced into the off-spring of simple water as neither into a Gas For Bodies that are enfeebled or consumed do straight way in the Earth draw another putrifaction through continuance a ferment and Seed Whence they flee to second Marriages and are again anew increased into succeeding fruits But the fire the death of all things doth want seedes being subjected to the will of the Artificer it consumeth all seminall things but brings over their combustible matters into a Gas. Paracelsus affirms that three Beginnings are so united in all particular principles that one cannot wholly be freed from the other by any help of art But saving the authority of the man our Handicraft-operation containing his secret Samech hath affirmed that which is contrary to his assertion by the Spirit of Wine being turned into an un-savoury water And so neither can that man cover his ignorance Indeed the Spirit of Wine being wholly capable of burning made void of Phlegme or watery moysture and Oil it alwayes for the one half of it passeth into a simple un-savoury and Elementary water by a touching of the Salt of Tartar on it Again the same thing is made by repetition as to the other part For that man was ignorant of the thingliness of a Gas to wit my Invention and next of the properties of cold in the Air yea he thought that the vapour of the water was plainly annihilated which sottishness of that his proper form of speech is least of all to be winked at in so great a Distiller Especially because he would have the Elements to be seperable from feigned Elements rather than the three first things Wherefore from the dissection of the water delivered it now sufficiently appeares that the simple water is not crude or raw and that fire doth not take away the crudity from it which it hath not Because the whole action of the fire is not into the water but into that which is co-mixed with it by accident Galen according to his manner transcribing Diascorides word for word and being willing to measure the Elementary
Degrees of Simples he hath not attempted it by the discretion of his Tongue and so he divined that more of the fire had concurred to a mixture where he found the more sharpness and bitterness Which thing the Schooles even till now hold as authenticall although Opium being bitter hinders it although Flammula or Scarrewort the Glasse being close shut layeth aside its tartness as also Water-Pepper and the like And what things are moyst do burn or sting but dried things do binde Neither shall the Galenists easily finde out a way whereby they may bring fire for water-Pepper under dirt For it hath been unknown in the Schooles that all properties not onely those which they call occult or hidden but also that any other properties do flow out of the lap of seeds and all those which it pleaseth the Schooles themselves also to call formall ones Surely I do experience four Elementary qualities to be as in the outward bark of things the second qualities to be more dangerous or destructive but the most inward ones to be immediately pressed in the Archeus Yet all of them to be from the bosom of the seede and forms But no quality to come forth from the first matter as neither from the Wedlock of the Elements because they are both feigned Mothers But because the water which is brought into a vapour by cold is of another condition than a vapour raised by heat therefore by the Licence of a Paradox for want of a name I have called that vapour Gas being not far severed from the Chaos of the â—â—untients In the mean time it is sufficient for me to know that Gas is a far more subtile or fine thing than a vapour mist or distilled Oylinesses although as yet it be many times thicker than Air. But Gas it self materially taken is water as yet masked with the Ferment of composed Bodies Moreover Paracelsus was altogether earnest in seperating four Elements out of Earth Water Air and Fire and so from his very own Elements which seperation notwithstanding he denieth to be from the three first things possible as if those three first things were more simple and before the Elements Being unmindefull of the Doctrine many times repeated by him To wit that every kinde of Body doth consist onely of three principles but not of Elements because Elements were not bodies but places and empty wombs of bodies or principles void of all body For although the Elements are among us commonly not believed to be undefiled yet Paracelsus calls them so the which he teacheth are by art to be seperated from pollutions But this description receiveth the air in one Glasse common water in another but the Earth either of the Garden or the Field in a third and at length the flame of the fire in a fourth But he shuts the Vessels with Hermes's Seal by melting of the neck And the water for a moneth continually to boyl in its Vessel As though that thing could possibly be done and the Glasse not the sooner leap asunder especially because he commands the water to be shut up without air unto the highest brim of the Vessel and the Glasse to be melted to wit with the water Lastly he conceives a flame in the Glasse and in the very moment wherein it ceaseth it is no more fire but an aiery smoak nor is the fire a substance Last of all nor can the fire be detained within the compass of the Vessel In another place he denieth any Element of fire besides the Heaven but now he calls the fire the Gas of the thing burnt up And he exalts these his trifles for causes of great moment the which notwithstanding he dared not to name Because the doubtful man hath exposed his Dreams to the World in hope of deserving thereby the name of the Monarch of Secrets CHAP. XIII The Gas of the Water 1. The Gas of the water differs from a Vapour 2. A Demonstration from Creation 3. That the Air in Genesis is signified by the Heaven 4. That in the Firmament is the operative Principle of dividing of the Waters 5. The seperating Powers of Waters in the air 6. A History of a Vapour 7. Gas differs from the exhalation of the auntients 8. A supposition of Principles 9. The manner of making in a Vapour 10. The Gas of the Water 11. An example in Gold 12. The Gas of the Water is shewne to the young beginner 13. The incrusting of the Water 14. The heat of the Alps is great yet not to be felt 15. That Gold is not the absence or privation of heat 16. Why Gas is an invisible thing 17. Why the Stars do twinckle 18. Why the Heaven is of an Azure colour 19. The Air knowes not the motion of snatching 20. Above all Clouds the Air is not voyd of all motion 21. What quietness there may be in that place 22. Gas is the Mother of a Meteor 23. Gas and Blas do constitute the whole re-publick of a Meteor 24. The Sun is hot by it self 25. The soils of the Air are the folding doores of Heaven 26. Why some are side-windes but others perpendicular or down-right ones 27. From whence the Blas of the air is originally stirred up 28. Two Causes of every Meteor 29. The water is in the same manner that it was from the beginning 30. From whence there is a stability in the quiet Perolede or Soil of the Air. 31. Peroledes are proved 32. A solving of an objection 33. The water is frozen of it self occasionally but not effectively by cold 34. Why Ice is lighter than water 35. The proportion of lightness in Ice by Handicraft-operation 36. The constancy and simplicity of the water 37. That all Beings do after some sort feel or perceive 38. A Vapour doth sooner return into water than into Gas 39. The changing into a Vapour in respect of the air the seperater is oblique or crooked 40. The air is dry and cold by it self 41. In an elementated Body there is not a simple and an every way sameliness of kinde 42. The rarefying of the Sulphur of water gives smoothness to Ice but not the immixing of a strange air 43. In the Patient or sufferer re-acting differs from resistance 44. It is proved by 17 Reasons that air is never transchanged into water nor this into that GAS and Blas are indeed new names brought in by me because the knowledge of them hath been unknown to the Antients notwithstanding Gas and Blas do obtain a necessary place among natural Beginnings Therefore this Paradox is the more largely to be explained And first after what sort Gas may be made of water and how different a manner it is from that wherein heat doth elevate water into a Vapour And likewise we must know after what sort these things do happen by the dissection of the water I will therefore repeat That the thrice glorious God in the beginning created the Heaven and the Earth and the great deep of waters But the
oftner because the number of Commissionary smitings did contain the number of Victories and repeated turns of the enemy as yet to be beaten Therefore for the keeping of peace with my friend I have explained my self I confess I say willingly that I would not search into Divine Mysteries But the manner and meanes which God useth in the Earth-quake I have attained onely by conjecture But neither at length have I desired to make these things known nor that I might be taken notice of as a brawler but that the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom may arise from the trembling of the Earth D. Streithagen Cannon of Hemsberg in his Germane Flourish hath writ down a Chronograph or Verse of the time of this Earthly trembling by reason of its unwonted strangeness and largeness of the places Smitten the 4th of April was the Earth with tumult wide From which unwonted slaughter covered Bodies down do slide From the face of the Lord the Earth was moved from the face of the God of Jacob. CHAP. XVIII The fiction of Elementary Complexions and Mixtures 1. Why the Earth hath seemed not to be a primary Element 2. That the fire is neither a substance nor an accident 3. That all visible things are materially of water onely 4. Why the place of the Air which is called the middle Region is cold 5. What the three first things of the Chymists may be 6. Some Bodies are not reduced into the three first things 7. The unconstancie of Paracelsus 8. The errour of the Chymists 9. The reducing of the three first things into the water of a Cloud is demonstrated 10. The swift or volatile Salt of simple Bodies may be fixed by co-melting 11. The three first things were not before but are made in seperating and that indeed a new Creature 12. The Oil of things is nothing but water the seed of the compound Body being abstracted or withdrawn 13. The same thing is proved in a live Coal 14. What the wilde Gas of things is 15. How a Gas is bred in the Grape 16. The Gas of Wines 17. Why much of the Grape may hurt 18. That the Gas of new Wine is not the Spirit of Wine 19. An erroneous opinion of Paracelsus 20. A twofold Sulphur in Tinne from whence the lightness of the same 21. Gun-powder proves Gas 22. Some things do mutually transchange themselves into Gas. 23. The mutuall unsufferableness of some things that are melted together 24. That Gas materially is not Earth or Air. 25. The same thing by a supposition of a falshood and seven absurdities 26. That a mixt Body is not converted into an Element by the force of an Element the Conquerour 27. A Handicraft operation of the Liquor Alkahest 28. Gas is wholly of the Element of Water 29. It is proved by the Handicraft operation of a live Coal 30. By Handicraft operation that every Vegetable is totally and materially of water alone 31. So a stone is wholly of water 32. Fishes and all fatness are wholly of water 33. Every smoak is onely of water 34. All Sulphurs are reduced into a smoak and Gas but these are reduced into water 35. Why fire cannot make Air of Water 36. Ashes and Glasse are of Water alone 37. The Gas of Salts is nothing but an un-savourie Water 38. The Gas of fruits is nothing but water 39. The Comments or devises of Schollars concerning exhalations 40. Naturall Philosophie is in darkness without the Art of the fire 41. The spirit or breath of life is materially the Gas of the Water 42. The sweat before death is not sweat but the melting of a Liquor 43. By an Endemicall or common Gas we are easily snatched away I Have said that there are two primary Elements the Air and the Water because they do not return into each other but that the Earth is as it were born of water because it may be reduced into water But if water be changed into an Earthy Body that happens by the force or virtue of the Seed and so it hath then put of the simpleness of an Element For a flint is of water which is broken asunder into Sand. But surely that Sand doth lesse resist in its reducing into water than the Sand which is the Virgin-Earth Therefore the Sand of Marble of a Gemme or Flint do disclose the presence of the Seed But if the Virgin-earth may at length by much labour be brought into water and if it was in the beginning created as an Element yet it seemes then to have come down to something that is more simple than it selfe and therefore I have called those two Primary ones I have denied the fire to be an Element and Substance but to be death in the hand of the Artificer given for great uses I say an artificial Death for Arts which the Almighty hath created but not a natural one But now I take upon me to demonstrate that Bodies which are believed to be mixt are materially the fruits of water onely neither that they have need of the Wedlock of another Element to wit that Bodies whether they are dark or clear sound or fluide bodies of one and the same kindâ— or those that are unlike Suppose them to be Stones Sulphurs Mettalls Hony wax Oils a Bone the Brain a Grisle Wood Barke Leaves lastly that all things and all particular things are wholly reduced into a water altogether without savour and so that they do consist and are contained in simple water onely For indeed most of those things are destroyed by fire and do straightway of their own accord give their part to the water which part although it after some sort resembles the nature of the composed body at length at least-wise the contagion of that composed Seed being taken away that water or Mercury of things returns into the simple and un-savoury water of rain So Oils and fats being seperated by the fire a little of the Alcali Salt being added to them do at length assume the nature of Soap and depart into Elementary water yea whatsoever things are inflamed by an open fire in the very entertainment of the Clouds are reduced voluntarily into water For such was the necessity of the cold of that place as I have already taught above that whatsoever things should rise up thither from the lower places should forget their seeds by the mortall cold in that place and their sub-division into a Gas of almost infinite Atomes For Salt Sulphur and Mercurie or Salt Liquor and Fat are in the most speciall particular kindes or Species not indeed as certain universall Bodies which are common to all particular kindes but they are similar or like parts in composed bodies being distinguished by a three-fold variety according to the requirance of the seeds Therefore if the seminall properties shall the more toughly remain in the three things now seperated then by things being admixed with them the impressions of those properties are taken away and estranged
From whence they do afterwards passe into the Element of water But some Bodies do refuse to be divided into the three things at length the Liquor Alkahest of Paracelsus being adjoyned they decay into a Salt and that Salt is destroyed by passing over into an un-savory water The Art of the fire being despised hath made these things to be unknown in the Schooles But I have not onely a War with those that are ignorant of nature the despisers of the searching mistress of Philosophy but also with Paracelsus the Standard-defender of the Chymists for whom when it was hard to have declined from the beaten Road he sometimes would have those three things to consist in the co-mingling of the Elements and sometimes he thought the Elements of the World themselves not to be bodies but the empty places or wombes of things But in another place he denieth all of whatsoever is corporeall to be Elementary but the Masse onely of the three first things And again in another place he hath taught that the very Elements yea the flame of the fire do reduce themselves by a Method into the four Elements And so they cease to be naked Elements in the place of three principles But the flame it selfe which is nothing but a kindled smoak being enclosed in a Glasse straightway in the very instant perisheth into nothing So that a Glasse made in a glassen Fornace with a bright burning fire and being shut could never contain any thing besides Air. He being unconstant to himself hath made himself ridiculous and all those particular things in fit places are to be refuted by me For the Chymists have hitherto believed that the Elements do lay hid in the three first things For they had seen Air and Fire in burning Wax to fly away together and thereupon they have thought that the water doth in part challenge to its self its air and fire But they have thought that the Earth flies away with the smoak Which thing they have likewise supposed concerning those things which do leave a Coal and ashes behinde them placing ashes in the room of earth But they have believed that the fruits of the Earth and Mineralls are indeed as it were the allied pledges of the water but they have believed them to be stirred up by the Wedlock of the other three Elements but I come to the hand Let there be Aqua vitae excellently well purified from its dregs which burns Oily bodies through its whole Homogeniety or sameliness of kinde for that Aqua vitae by Salt of Tartar which is near akin to it is presently changed as to its 16th part into Salt and all the rest becomes a simple Elementary water And one onely part is made a Salt although it be of the same kinde with the other and so is equally reducible into water because that in actions of bodies and spirits under their dissolving there are made divers coagulations of the dissolver In like manner also in the operation of the fire Salts which before were volatile or swift of flight may partly be co-melted into a fixed Alcali no otherwise than as Salt-peter and Arsenick being both volatile things may be fixed by co-melting Therefore the three first things are not onely seperated but are sharpened changed do vary the nature of the composed body and so are made by the fire a new creature not indeed being created anew but being brought forth by the fire So a sile is no more the earth of the Potter but now a Stone So ashes and smoak are no more Wood nor an Alcali nor Sand Glasse Because the force of the fire doth not produce seeds but by consuming doth transchange them and by seperating alters all particular bodies Moreover none dares to say that the Salt of Tartar in the case proposed doth produce an Element out of that which is not an Element as if a Salt were the Father of the Element of water but the Sulphur of the Wine the seed being taken away doth leave the matter of the Aqua vitae to be such as it is But the part which may be fixed in the Salt of Tartar which hath taken to it the condition of a Salt was fat it being before wholly capable of burning volatile and of the same condition with its fellowes Immediately therefore after the destruction of the seed of the Sulphur of the Wine it is nothing but an Elementary water So every Oil is materially simple water which a small quantity of seed translates into a combustible Masse and playes the maske of a Sulphur And every seed is according to a Chymicall computation scarce the 8200 part of its body which part if the fire shall change into families it shall not be hard for it also to return into water For the fire burning the fatness into Air it wholly flies up to the Clouds and there doth sometimes grow together through the cold of the place into water For Fishes do by the force or virtue of an inbred seed transchange simple water into fat bones and their own fleshes it s no wonder therefore that Fishes materially are nothing but water transchanged and that they return into water by art I will also shew by Handicraft-demonstration that all Vegetables and fleshes do consist onely of water but all things if not immediately at least-wise with an assistant they do again assume the nature of water Also every small Stone Rockie or great Stone and Clay doth passe into a fixed Alcali of its own accord or by things adjoyned for an Alcali is that which before was not a Salt yet its combustion being finished it is a residing Salt So ashes is by its own proper Alcali made a meer Salt But every Alcali the fatness being added is reduced into a watery Liquor which at length is made a meer and simple water as is to be seen in Soaps the Azure-stone c. as oft as by fixed adjuncts it layes aside the seed of fatness For otherwise it is not proper to the fire to make a water rather a flame but onely to seperate things of a different kinde Therefore if water may be made out of Sulphurs and not by the proper transmutation of fire it must needes be that Sulphurs are begotten of meer water For truly neither is water seperated from Oils but that is truly made of these because the water was not in it by a formall act but onely materially to wit the mask of the seeds being withdrawn Moreover every coal which is made of the co-melting of Sulphur and Salt working among themselves in time of burning although it be roasted even to its last day in a bright burning Furnace the Vessel being shut it is fired indeed but there is true fire in the Vessel no otherwise than in the coal not being shut up yet nothing of it is wasted it not being able to be consumed through the hindering of its eflux Therefore the live coal and generally whatsoever bodies do not immediately depart into
Earth or Air it also followes that the convertings of the Sulphur Coal and Salt-peter into a Gas or into Earth are not the ultimate as neither the true Elements of Air and Earth Lastly let us measure these things in a rusticall sense as if the aforesaid simple bodies should be sometimes turned into Air but sometimes into Earth because there was a mutuall transmutation of the Elements into each other But at leastwise the agreed on opinion of the Schooles doth resist these determinations to wit because a mixt body in its corrupting ought to restore the Elements whereof it is composed in generation 2. Because a mixt body consisting almost wholly of the Element of Air the same cannot almost wholly consist of the Element of Earth 3. Because the conversion of the Elements is made by the action of one Element and its superiority over the other 4. But not that the forms of mixt bodies or fruits suffering by the inward Elements have power to turn one Element into another 5. Next because the fire cannot dispose the mixt body that it should be sometimes turned into Air after inflaming but another time wholly into the shape of Earth 6. At length because that in the corrupting of mixt bodies there is not an immediate converting of one Element into another 7. Last of all because the variety of converting a mixt body into Elements doth not depend on the will of man who is able onely to joyn active things to passive to wit whose activity is in the victory it selfe of the superiour Element Which kinde of Element man neither bringeth nor hath he it in his hand That may here stand for a position against them which hath been sufficiently demonstrated in the Chapter concerning the birth of forms To wit that the fire is neither an Element nor indeed a substance Which things being supposed it followes that the three aforesaid simple things in Gun-powder are not to be reduced from air into air while they fly away into Gas neither that they are to be reduced from Earth into Earth while the Salt-peter doth by a certain Sulphur incline into Earth but the Coal and Sulphur are changed through waters into a Rockie Stone and into Earth And so the mixt suffering body is not turned into an Elementary nature by the action of a proper and conquering Element as hath been thought Wherefore since it hath been already sufficiently demonstrated that air and water are by no possibility of Nature Ages or Art to be transchanged into each other It altogether followes that while those three simple things do wholly yield themselves sometimes into the likeness of Earth but sometimes into the form of Air they are not true Earth or true Air but such an Earth and such a Gas which by their last reducement do return into water dissembling a strange maske according as they follow the guidance of forreign seeds For I have known a water which I list not to make manifest by meanes whereof all Vegetables are exchanged into a distillable juyce without any remainder of their dregs in the bottom of the glasse which juyce being distilled the Alcalies being adjoyned it is wholly reduced into an un-savory Elementary water Neither indeed is that a wonder For I will shew in its place that all Vegetables do materially arise wholly out of the Element of water alone If therefore every mixt body doth at length return into meer rain-Rain-water it must needes be that every Gas proceeding out of mixt bodies is materially of the Element of water Therefore the Gas which by the fire exhaleth out of a live Coal although it be enflamed yet materially it is nothing but water which very thing I have shewen above in the handicraft-operation concerning Aqua vitae 2 Macchab. 1. Nor else-where is there mention made in the holy Scriptures of a thick water which should be a perpetuall fire perhaps not unlike to ours For I have put equall parts of an Oaken Coal and of a certain water in a glasse Hermetically shut in the space of three dayes the whole Coal was turned by the luke-warmth of a Bath into two transparent Liquors divers in their ground and colour which being distilled together by Sand in the second degree of heat the bottom of the glasse appeared so pure as if it were newly brought out of a glassen Furnace Straightway the two Liquors do first ascend through the Bath both being of equall weight with the masse of the Coal But the dissolving Liquor remaines in the bottom being of equall weight and virtues with it self Moreover those two Liquors being mixt with a small quantity of Chalk do at the third distilling ascend almost in their former weight and having all the quality of Rain-water Therefore the Gas of a Coal which doth not otherwise exhale but in an open and fired Vessel together with its ashes are materially nothing but meer water For the Seminall property of the composed body which remains in the Gas by the force of cold and maturity of dayes dieth and the Gas returneth into its antient water But I have learned by this handicraft-operation that all Vegetables do immediately and materially proceed out of the Element of water onely For I took an Earthen Vessel in which I put 200 pounds of Earth that had been dried in a Furnace which I moystened with Rain-water and I implanted therein the Trunk or Stem of a Willow Tree weighing five pounds and at length five years being finished the Tree sprung from thence did weigh 169 pounds and about three ounces But I moystened the Earthen Vessel with Rain-water or distilled water alwayes when there was need and it was large and implanted into the Earth and least the dust that flew about should be co-mingled with the Earth I covered the lip or mouth of the Vessel with an Iron-Plate covered with Tin and easily passable with many holes I computed not the weight of the leaves that fell off in the four Autumnes At length I again dried the Earth of the Vessel and there were found the same 200 pounds wanting about two ounces Therefore 164 pounds of Wood Barks and Roots arose out of water onely Therefore a Coal since it is wholly of water if it be reduced in any Fountain into a stone it shall not be able to be by water changed into a stone unless also that whole stone be materially meer water For Fishes as they do make of waters much grease so likewise all fat with the Alcali Salt is made a Soap which being afterwards distilled doth return almost wholly into water the which when as by adjuncts it is spoiled of the seed of the Soap it becometh an un-savory water But every smoak is partly the volatile Salt of the composed body being preserved from inflammation by reason of the co-mingling of a water that flies away and is partly an Oil which through the swiftness of flying away escapes combustion For so the sharp Liquor of Sulphur drawn forth by a Campane
or glassen Bell doth shew that a great part of the Sulphur being untouched by the flame ascended upwards the which is again seperated safe from that Liquor by rectifying For Sulphurs or fats although they are many times distilled by any degree of the fire yet they do alwayes remain fats and even do retain their nature as long as they do enjoy or obtain the seed of their composed Body The which when as the flame or artificiall death hath touched they straightway flie over into Gas but not into water For that every Gas doth as yet retain some condition of its composed body For smoaks of the flame do differ by their generall and speciall kindes which surely should not be if they should immediately depart into their first Element The fire indeed destroyeth simply but it generates nothing for why seeing it wants the power of a seed and those things which it cannot destroy those it at leastwise seperateth or leaveth untouched and in this respect they are called fixt bodies But the fire doth not prevail in that as to exchange that which is in it self materially water into Air for otherwise it should have the seed of the Air. It is also sufficiently manifest before that water is made air or air water by no help of art or nature Therefore Wood since it is wholly of water its ashes and likewise Glasse shall be of water But that the Gas of Salts is nothing but water the following Handicraft-operation proveth Take equall parts of Salt-peter Vitriol and Alume all being dried and conjoyned together distill a Water which is nothing else than a meer volatile Salt Of this take four ounces and joyn an ounce of Sal armoniac in a strong Glassen Alembick confirmed by a Cement of Wax Rosin and Powder of Glasse being powred most hotly on it straightway even in the cold a Gas is stirred up and the Vessel how strong soever it be bursteth with a noyse But if indeed thou shalt leave a chap or chink in the juncture of the receiving Vessel and after voluntary boylings up thou shalt distill the residue thou shalt finde a water somewhat sharp the which by a repeated distillation and an additament of Chalke is turned into Rain-water Therefore one part of the Salts yielded into water but the other part into Gas But the Salts that fled away by a Gas are of the same kinde of nature with those that were reduced into water therefore the Gas of Salts is materially nothing but water But the Gas of fruits I have likewise already shewen to be nothing but water as arising immediately out of water So the Raisin of the Sun being distilled is wholly reduced by art into an Elementary water which yet being new and once wounded or bruised much new Wine and Gas is allured or fetched out If therefore the whole Grape before a ferment be turned into a simple water but the ferment being brought a Gas is stirred up this Gas also must needes be water Seeing the disposition of the ferment cannot form air of that which is materially nothing but water Therefore the unrestrainable Gas of the Vessel breaks forth abroad into the air untill it being sufficiently confirmed and by the cold of the place spoiled also of the properties of its composed body passeth over into its first matter and in the air the seperater of the waters it recovereth its antient and full disposition of the Element of water But exhalations which in the account of the Schooles are the daily matter of Windes Mists Comets Mineralls Rockie Stones saltness of the Sea Earth-quakes and of all Meteors seeing they have no pen-case or receptacle in nature nor matter sufficient for so great daily things and those for so great an heap they are wondrous dreams and unskilfully proportioned to their effects And therefore I passe by these unsavourinesses or follies of the Schooles by pittying of them At leastwise it followes that if Rockie Stones if all Mineralls do proceed from exhalations and being now fixed do resist the Agent which should bring them again into an exhalation there shall be in the remaining Earth matter for new exhalations producing effects of so great moment Especially because scarce any thing exhaleth out of the saltness of the Sea and such is the aptness or disposition of heat that it scarce stirs up exhalations unless it hath first lifted up all the water by vapours What matter therefore shall be sufficient even for daily Windes alone Truly it is altogether impossible for the Schooles to have known the nature and likewise the differences causes and properties of Bodies for as many as have set upon Philosophy without the art of the fire have been hitherto deluded with Paganish Institutions At length I have written touching long life that the arteriall Spirit of our life is of the nature of a Gas Which thing is seen in the trembling of the heart swooning and fainting For how much doth it die to a lively colour to a vitall light and to a swollen or full habit of flesh and the countenance it self being the more wrinckled or withered how quickly doth it decay straightway after the aforesaid passions For the Spirit which before did as it were unite all things by a pleasing redness doth straightway fly away and being subdued by a forreign Air is changed For truly seeing the Archeus is in it self a Gas of the nature of a Balsamick Salt if it shall finde the air of another Salt to be against it or in its way even as Sal armoniac when it meetes with the Spirit of Saltpeter it is subject too easily and forthwith to be blown away or dispersed through the pores as having forgotten to perform its duties and office of the Family For neither is it gathered into drops because it is prepared of an arteriall bloudiness If any thing of sweat at the time of faintings and death doth exhale that is the melting of the venall bloud but not of the arteriall bloud Therefore the vitall Gas because it is a light and a Balsam preserving from corruption from the first delineation of generation it began to be made suitable to the light of the Sun But after the aforesaid failings of the Spirit the in-bred Spirits of the other members as it were smoaking are again kindled by the Sun-like light of the heart even as the smoak of a Candle put out touching at the flame of another Candle doth carry this flame to the extinguished Candle by a Mean Seeing that the Spirit of our life since it is a Gas is most mightily and swiftly affected by any other Gas to wit by reason of their immediate co-touchings For neither therefore doth any thing thereupon operate more swiftly on us than a Gas as appeares in the Dogvault or that of the Sicilians in the Plague in burning Coals that are smothered and in persumes for many and oftentimes men are straightway killed in the Burrowes of Mineralls yea in Cellars where strong Ale or
piercing our middle life and it disposeth it into the last life by the first life of the poyson For they are formall sparks soulified or not soulified be it all as one Because they do not act by a formall leave and liberty whereby they pierce in a point and insinuate in an instant And they do act that which they are commanded by the Lord to act And then we must consider after what manner they so easily prostrate or destroy our life 1. To wit whether they do transchange ours their own 2. Or indeed do drive the Archeus into a fury that being mad he may destroy himself and diffuse himself throughout the whole Body 3. Or whether indeed they do mortifie by a depriving of light to wit by blowing out the light of our spark in the Archeus 4. Or at length do press together the Archeus under them by a poysonsome exaltation of themselves First of all it is certain that this is not done by contrariety the which is demonstrated elsewhere never to have entred into nature 2. It is certain that it is done by gifts conferred by God on the poyson which are called properties 3. And it is certain that poysons do divers wayes act into us and that their differences have appointed a fourfold manner of poysons 4. And at length it is certain that God hath not created death as neither poysons as the destruction of men whom he endowed with immortality notwithstanding his integrity being corrupted things became to him deadly which before were not poysons unto him In the mean time some poysons are fermentall which do not destroy us so much by the force of a lightsome spark and by a formall property as by a certain ferment almost odourable and so one onely life doth on every side fear many enemies unto it For such sort of ferments do more approach to the nature of Bodies Thou seest that thing in a sulphurated Torch or Link the which being lighted and hung up in a Glassen Vessel will burn indeed and will fill the Vessel with the sublimed smoak of the Sulphur the which although thou shalt cause to exspire and again shalt put into the Vessel a burning Torchor Link in the very moment that it entreth it is extinguished Not indeed by the Sulphurous smoak the which seeing it self is as yet Sulphur ought rather to be enflamed but by a wild Gas the onely Odour whereof extinguisheth the new flame not indeed by a materiall blast but by its Odour Yea it not onely extinguisheth a sulphurated Torch but also the flame of a Candle and that is proved Because if thou shalt send the flame into a spatious Hogs-head so long as the Vessel casts the smell of a hoary putrefaction or otherwise doth contain any small quantity of dregs putrified by continuance it blowes out the flame of the Link or Candle Understand thou therefore the same thing proportionably in vitall formall sparks For so indeed in Vaults and Mines men are easily killed by the Odours and Gas of the place So also a pestilent poyson doth oft-times without delay slay the vitall light Because such kinde of poysons are positive and blowing out mortall but not privative ones For neither can they be endowed with any other Etymologie than that they do efficiently blow out by their poysonsome Gas the formall light sensitive Soul or substantial Form of our life And therefore they have place among reall Beings and indeed among the most mighty or potent Beings CHAP. XXIII Nature is ignorant of contraries 1. The bruit Beasts were not in Paradise that man might not see a brutall coupling but that he might remain innocent of shame 2. The bruit Beasts were brought from elsewhere to our first Parent in Eden that he might name them might thereby praise God and acknowledge himself 3. What kinde of Trees were there 4. Many individuals were created in every particular kinde but not in man 5. Man alwayes ate fleshes and of the Sacrifices themselves besides the Turks and Calvinists 6. The first contemplative Philosophy of weeping Adam 7. Tillage the first of Arts. 8. Zoosophie or the wisdom of keeping living Creatures the second 9. Meteoricall Astrologie the Chamber-maid of Tillage 10. The entrance of Medicine was the last 11. They stand as yet in the first Principles Galen hath brought in a Method too easie and therefore suspected 12. Galen hath feigned one onely naturall indication to wit by contraries 13. The deceipt of that Maxim is discovered 14. Paracelsus being badly constant to himself scoffed at Galen 15. He badly judged that all healing is made by like things 16. That Seeds do not operate by contrariety but by a Command known from a former cause to the onely Lord of things 17. They know not which way the necessities of Seeds may be directed 18. The blindness of Heathenisme is hidden in the Maxim of contrarieties 19. The foolishness of Aristotle concerning the first matter is noted 20. The Argument out of Aristotle is retorted upon Galen 21. Some Arguments concluding the same thing 22. The Schooles are deceived by a metaphoricall and hyperbolicall or excessive introduced nature 23. That in the Elements contraries are not to be granted 24. That the greatest cold doth peaceably combine with the greatest heat in the same point of Air and that without contrariety 25. What a Relolleum is 26. Water doth not wax hot by fire by reason of an introduced contrariety 27. Water doth not quench fire by reason of contrariety 28. It is proved from the Elements that fire is not a substance 29. Moysture and dryness are scarce qualities to be understood in the abstract 30. Neither are they Relolleum's after the manner of heat and cold 31. That there is not a radicall co-mixture of moyst with dry 32. One onely Question of the Authour propounded to all the Learned who believe a temperature of the Elements in a mixt Body 33. That the Elements are not contrary to each other 34. That the Elements do not waste or consume each other 35. That the Elements do not fight 36. That things without life have not contrariety 37. It is proved from Faith and then by some Arguments that the action of nature is void of contrariety 38. The same thing is shewen in other things 39. What Nature may be 40. The name of a Crisis is impertinent 41. Paracelsus is noted because he will have a remedy to work by reason of likenesse 42. In what the vertue of a Medicine may be seated 43. Why hunger kills 44. What things are required for healing 45. The Doctrine of Paracelsus is refuted 46. A foolish Objection 47. Sin is not opposed to virtue simply in a privative manner 48. That the poyson of a mad Dog of Serpents of a Bull c. have not at all a contrariety of causes from whence they are made 49. A Declaration of what went before I Having already sufficiently contemplated of the integrity of nature afterwards by little and little I
is a Body mixt from a reall Wedlock of the aforesaid Elements how can it come to passe that Gold doth exceed water in weight sixteen times at least For if there be in Gold parts of Air and fire mixt by an undissolvable and equall tempering for that thing they affirm to be altogether necessary seeing they assign the perpetuall remaining of Gold in the greatest torture of the fire to be from an equall mixture of the four Elements Therefore Water and Earth in Gold being constituted shall two and thirty times out-weigh their own matter from whence the Gold ariseth Shall therefore Earth pierce it self two and thirty times at least while Gold is made of it Therefore seeing the weight it self doth bewray infallibly a ponderous Body neither doth weight wholly consist of nothing they must resolve me of this question before they shall draw me to their own opinion concerning the mixtures of the Elements In the mean time shall be room for me to shew by way of Handicraft-operation that solid and ponderous or weighty Bodies do afford out of them water of an equall weight deprived of all manner of taste Neither that an Element in nature is as neither that the Elements can ever by any skill or endeavour of nature be knit together into a formall unity these things already more largely above Therefore it is a deaf kinde of Doctrine that there are four contrary Elements which flow together to the co-mixture of other Bodies which hitherto are deceitfully supposed to be mixt and that they fight also in such mixt Bodies wherein they are enclosed no otherwise than as in their own simplicity by reason of contrarieties and that therefore they do mutually slay each other by an uncessant War and that they do as oft rise again immediately by privation that they devour and again vomit up each other That stupidity of the Schooles is not to be borne whereby they do without scruple subscribe to each other in these trifles not enquiring what that appetite in an Element of enlarging it self should be or what the motion beyond the bound once appointed for it by the Creator For first of all there is not any hunger thirst penury or any the like defective thing to which they should be subject from their Creation Neither also do they suffer defects much lesse an actuall feeling of defects Seeing every one is in it self a first and simple Being neither doth it admit of VVedlocks neither is it wasted by nourishments and through the exchange of it self hath it or doth it cast out excrements nor doth it suffer rust neither doth it by waxing weary or declining degenerate into any Body more pure than it self more former than it self more simple than it self Therefore a necessity is wanting whereby the Elements may consume each other after a hostile manner For God saw that whatsoever things he had made were good If therefore two good things should fight against each other that fight at least could not but be a great and continuall evill the authour whereof should be the Creator himself For from thence it would follow that such a property of the Elements should not be from God as neither from sin therefore from some greater than God is But if the Elements are said to be so created by God that one should continually change another into its own nature not indeed by reason of mutuall Hostility but for the necessity of nourishment Although that presupposeth a ridiculous thing yet I have what I wished to wit the taking away of contraries Therefore it is a vain privy shift and a false devlse For truly that supposition cannot subsist together with the position it self For that excuse being supposed it must needs be that there should be a fight and resistance Else one Element should presently convert all the other that co-toucheth with it into it self Because there is no difficulty of overcoming where there is no necessity of fight or resistance Because every part of an Element should have the same passion motion and desire to consume its Neighbour such things as are supposed to be in parts akinne to themselves And so that therefore those activities should be heightned into a hugeness that it should easily and presently convert the Element subjected unto it into its own nature without a re-acting And these being thus converted afterwards uncessantly others and successively others At leastwise that uppermost Air and that which is at the farthest remote distance from the water being pressed with a most tiresome and long thirst had long agoe perished or at least should languish through wearisomness or grief as being deprived of its naturall nourishment Therefore however these things may be excused the Creatures at least should be ordained by God with a desire of troubling the order and Harmony of the Universe and of their first constitution to wit of bringing in the first dissolution and disproportion by overcoming slaying and transcnanging their Neighbour into themselves Truly humane frailties are the inventers of these fables brought in by the Paganish Schooles Because through ignorance of nature it self the common people have brought in Lawes confusions contrarieties fights hostilities reducements and repeated Resurrections that men might excuse their own angry contrariety and might apply it to things that want it Indeed the Schooles and also the common people who have been deceitfully thorowly instructed by these have esteemed that in nature it is a greater more glorious and better thing to overcome than to be overcome to subdue equalls than to be subdued But God hath taught us otherwise To wit that in the top of perfection of nature it is more glorious to suffer than to do wrong that it is a more blessed thing to be overcome of a stronger than to have cast down a weaker And seeing God cannot erre in his judgements hence the judgements of the Schooles and common people have sprung not from the truth of nature but indeed from our animosity and frailty And therefore they are erroneous and abusive as as being opposite to the divine judgements Neither also shall those which God hath despised in man be able to praise him in the simplicity of a Law and necessity of Nature if they were glorious But if there were any true contrariety in things that want sense they had rightly judged that that doth necessarily arise and presuppose a conception of hatred and hostility being radically sealed in their own first and formall beginnings by reason whereof the Agent from its own self-love should stir up to it self a hatred against the Patient or it should have that hatred singularly put into it by nature for resistance unlikeness and an endeavour of successive alteration And that which way soever it may be taken is to confess Radicall Seminal and most inward contrarieties in substantial forms And so substances themselves to be immediately contrary to each other unlesse they had rather deny forms to be substances But I am provided to teach That
by a sharp or soure thing and so that a ferment doth inhabit in the stomack which should change all things cast into it although sweet presently into a sowreness Wherefore also all things are sharp which are given to drink to him that wants an appetite as are Oyl of un-ripe Olives Vinegar juice of Citron of Orange Mùstard also Salt and Salt-peter as it hath a spirit in it that causeth hunger and most pleasingly sharp And likewise the Berbery Rasp Cherries Quinces c. In this respect they give content to silk folks that want digestion or concoction Therefore the contemplation of this ferment is so necessary that it is chief in the Government of life and therefore it is to be grieved at that the knowledge thereof is hitherto suppressed in the Schools And although the dryth of the whole body waxeth strong with old age yet we do not wax old unlesse by the penury poverty and extinguishing of some ferments For truly the Stag Crow or Raven Eagle Goose c. in their first yeers of youth are far more dry than we yet they remain alive for some ages yea Youth is voluntarily renewed to the Eagle and Stag. But that digestive ferment is not placed in any kind of sharpness only For neither doth Vinegar or the Broth of Citron leaven or ferment the meal yea neither is leavened meal therefore the ferment of the stomack but this is a sharp hungry stomatical specifical and humane ferment Indeed so specifically distinct throughout all the species of Bruits that it is appropriated to themselves For Mice Dormice and Swine do sooner perish with hunger than they do eat of a Ring-Dove or Wood-Culver But in a man it for the most part aspireth to the largeness of a general kind In the mean time many do abhorr Cheese Wine Milk or do despise other things because they do not digest them And therefore what things soever do strive with our digestion are specifically contrary to the property of that Ferment and do endeavour to oppress the Ferment Therefore the Digestive Ferment is an essential property consisting in a certain vital sharpness or soureness mighty for transmutations and therefore of a specifical property For the Falcon dyeth before he will eat up Bread I have already said elsewhere that if the venal bloud be stilled by whatsoever degree of heat yet it is alwayes thickned waxeth dry and leaves a Coal behind it yet that and the same venal bloud doth wholly exhale by our Ferments with an unsensible transpiration Seeing therefore heat doth alwayes univocally or singly operate it cannot by digesting change the meat into Chyle into bloud into a nourishable liquor and at length banish it by an unsensible efflux without any remainder of it self One only heat cannot I say in a Youth change venal bloud into bones and likewise in the breaking of a bone constrain the venal bloud into a callous matter which in those of ripe yeers and likewise in healthy people doth wholly fly away into exhalations unless besides heat there are other powers knowledges and perceivances the chief effectresses of these things For truly it is proper and natural to heat to consume moisture and to retain the thicker part by drying up For Mice are fed only with meal without drink and do resolve it into their own Juice or Chyle which thing surely is far diverse from the scope of heat Therefore heat is not the Authour of digestion but there is a certain other vitall faculty which doth truly and formally transchange nourishments And that I have designed by the name of Ferments But there are many Ferments in us even as I shall by and by explain concerning digestions But seeing the Stomack doth now and then want a Ferment it is manifest from thence that its own Ferment is not proper to it selfe but that it flowes thither from elsewhere and is inspited And therefore the Spleen doth so rest upon the stomack that Hens have their spleen most unitedly heaped about their stomack and therefore do they also the more strongly digest I do here lay open the blindness of the Schools exceedingly to be admired and bewayled with tears of bloud who have dedicated that Noble bowel of the Spleen for the sink of the worst melancholious excrement by the assistance of which one Bowel we live and do possess life and the golden Kingdoms of Saturn But they have devised that the sharp and black excrement which being now and then seasoned with too much Ferment is rejected by the Spleen by reason of the indisposition of the Bowel is therefore black Choler which things shall hereafter in out Duumvirate and likewise concerning Digestions be made more cleer Moreover before the conclusion of this question we must note that among Physitians there are only four degrees of heat and as many of cold in Simples to wit from the temperate degree even unto Causticks and Escharrers because they treat only of a virtual and potencial quality the which I shall sharply touch in its place elsewhere For therefore the fourth degree of heat is with Physitians in the nature of things and temperate as to the touching But the Phylosophers do measure heat according to the sire and so even to the fire they feign eight degrees whereof the fifth sixth and seaventh they have not yet designed because men are wont to believe their positions They will have the eighth to be only in the Elements and into this they have believed the passage of the Elements to be for they supposed to have proved something in the fire as if Kitchin-fire were an Element and never elsewhere But I have already before demonstrated this whole opinion to be of no value First of all it is ridiculous that they have made the degree of heat in the fire equall to the cold of the water to the moisture of the air and to the dryth of the earth Wherein they being notably deluded neither therefore have they bravely shewn the same degrees to be so violent elsewhere as in fire Indeed in this eighth degree they affirm That the Elements do destroy devoure and consume each other no otherwise than as fire doth consume wood And then he Chymists after the custome of Physitians have made only four degrees in the fire it self taking little care to themselves touching the other Elementary qualities because they had enslaved themselves only to the Art of the fire which degrees indeed they distinguished so that the first is from a luke-warmth under a wandring Latitude even unto the fire of sublunation or cleering up of Oylie spirits But the other from hence even to the sublunation of dry spirits And then a third is even unto an obscure fierynesse But the last is even unto the utmost power of the flame of a Reverbery or striking back But I for a more cleer doctrine do in Chymicals distinguish the degrees that the first may be where the greatest cold is more remiss or slack For I who conceive
Chymistry to be the Chamber-maid and emulating Ape and now and then the Mistriss of nature do subject the whole of nature unto Chymical speculation Therefore the second degree in nature may be heat as is that of water not yet frozen The third is where it is remisly cold even as Well water Otherwise absolute heat is deceived at our touching which is luke-warm and it is thought to be cold whatsoever doth heat lesse than it self And seeing the touching is more or lesse hot it makes and unconstant token or signification of heat At length a fourth degree is that of a gentle luke-warmth The fifth is now luke-warm The sixth is ours The seaventh is now Feverish The eighth is of a May Sun The ninth is distillatory and that which now overcomes the touching A tenth distilleth with boyling up The eleventh sublimes Sulphur and dry spirits A twelfth doth melt and sublime the fire-stone The thirteenth is in a somewhat brown fierynesse The fourteenth is a bright burning fierynesse The fifteenth Lastly is the ultimate vigour of the Bellows and Reverbery Lastly Although heat and cold are real qualities and do undergo degrees yet moisture and drinesse are not to be considered but in their own Concrete or composed body and therefore neither do they constitute qualitative degrees but only quantitative ones Because moisture in one only drop is as deeply moist in dry white earth as in its own Element because moist and dry do co-mingle themselves in their root neither do they mutually enter and pierce each other And therefore neither do they mutually dispose of and affect each other formally For those kind of appropriations do agree to seeds but not to Elements Therefore moisture and driness do not admit of degrees neither therefore do they change as neither do they alter each other Because properly they are not qualities in the abstract but qualified bodies themselves But heat and cold do mutually pierce each other throughout their least parts and do break and graduate each other And therefore it is no wonder that the Schools have remained so dumb in the degrees of moisture and drinesse For to the air that there is a moisture heightned unto eight degrees but to the water that the same is remiss or temperate to wit to the fourth degree Lastly That driness is heightned in the earth to eight but remiss in the fire unto four degrees But these trifles of Complexions as well in Elements as in Bodies which they have hitherto believed to be mixt of the Elements have fell to dung being on every side already sore shaken by a manifold necessity of going to ruine CHAP. XXVIII The threefold Digestion of the Schools 1. The generall scope of this Book 2. The first digestion in the stomack 3. The first Region of the Body 4. Two things are to be admired in this work 5. Another digestion and second region 6. The third digestion 7. The last Region of the Body 8. The forgetfulnesse of the Schools 9. The state of Growth IT is not enough to have shewn that there are not four Elements in nature as neither the material mixtures of them and Complexions and Strifes resulting from thence Lastly Not their Congresses or Combates embraces of humors feigned from thence and the madness of these But that contrarieties sprung from thence and the abounding of humors in the Body are the meer dreams of the Gentiles brought into Medicine and even till now adored by the Schools Neither is it enough that I have shewn elsewhere that the three-first things are to be banished from the rank of diseases and cures Likewise to have refuted the causality of the Stars in healing also to have hissed out Winds to have rejected the Consumptions of radical moisture as vain terrours Last of all to have expulsed Catarrhs and the hard and new invention of Tartarous humors and so to have shewn that a disease as well in the general as in the particular hath hitherto lain hid from the Schools and consequently that mortall men do languish under a conjectural Art as yet fundamentally unknown unless I shall even discover the proper causes of Diseases And seeing the causes of the most inward enemies are for the most part intimate or most inward I will before all things propose a history of the functions or offices but after that done I will demonstrate some principles of nature necessary to be known hitherto unheard of The Schools affirm That the meat and drink are by the force of heat transchanged in the stomack into a liquor the which by reason of its likeness to Barley Cream they have called Chyle But they say That afterward this Chyle is by the veins inserted in and accompanying the stomack and whole guidance of the Bowels therefore being annexed by the mediating Mesentery which in the room of a third Coat doth cloath encompasse and involve the Bowels by little and little sucked forward and drawn inward But that the more grosse remaning part is left in the Bowels as it were unprofitable dross to be expelled thorow the Fundament Indeed this first coction they have called the first of the three digestions And so that the first Region of the Body begins from the mouth but to be terminated in one part in the fundament but in the other part in the hollow of the Liver Two things sufficiently admirable do concur herein To wit that in a few houres hard meat is resolved into juyce and that the veins are terminated into the bowels by their utmost mouths that by these I say they suck thorow as much Liquor every day as is cast in and made But that they do not suck to them any thing of a blast more subtile than that Cream yet the bowels are not found porous or holie in life more than in death Nevertheless the whole Chyle passeth thorow the veins of the Mesentery into the Liver Wherein they say the whey of the venal bloud is again seperated for Urine which passeth thorow to the Reins but they will have the more corpulent Cream to be changed in the Liver into venal bloud For in the first digestion that which is more hard and thick is excluded But in the other the thick is retained the transparent part being secluded Therefore the second Region and Shop of the Body begins from the very Body of the Liver and is terminated in the ultimate branches of the hollow vein And then in the third place the bloud falling down out of the veins and being snatched into the nourishment of the solid parts is by degrees perfected and transchanged into a humour which they call secondary And that they divide into four degrees of affinity before it being truly informed be admitted into the solidity of the sound parts Therefore in this alimentary humour is bestowed the labour of the third and highest digestion And therefore they call this last shop of the Body the habit of the Body and do forget the Bowels The which indeed do also
the mean time they do now and then assoon as may be reach the Air but sometimes they run head-long down by long journeys and Pipes of Earth and rockie Stones before they yeild themselves to the Light yet there was the same reason necessity and end of their Institution on both sides to wit the will of him who created all things for our uses But it remains to crave leave that Aristotelical spirits may indulge my liberty if I shall judge it a dream impossible to Nature that Fountaines should be bred from a co-thickning of Air For indeed that also is chiefly true That Air was never nor is it to be in any Age Water even as neither was Water to assume the Form of Air. For they are first-born Elements and the constant Wombs of things stable from the Creation of the World and so remaining unto the end thereof But whatsoever hath through the ranks of Generations subscribed it self unto successive change whether it may seem to be Earthly Stony or Liquory it derives all that from the mass of three Principles dedicated unto the Tragedy of Generation but not from the first Elements which rejoyce not but in a stable continuance and the which do again lay up their deserved Youngs into their antient â—â—ceptacles until the seeds are ripe for the Generation of a new Off-spring which Seeds the same Principles of Bodies being in the mean time thorowly changed by Digestions do again cloath and re-assume For from an invisible and incorporeal seed entertained in the Wombs of the Elements and putting on the Principles of Bodies all Generation in the Universe which is called voluntary is made Others have called that thing a Flux from a Non-being unto a Being which things that they may become more perspicuous it is to be noted that unto the production of every thing two onely Sexes if not one promiscuous one at least have concurred Therefore also by the same Law of a worldly harmony there are Originally two onely Elements in the Universe to wit the Air and the Water which are sufficiently insinuated from the sacred Text by the Spirit swimming upon the Abysse or great Deep of Waters in the first beginnings of the World The Earth therefore and the Fire or Heaven if they are Elements they are called secondary ones proceeding from the former For whatsoever of Earths rocky Stones Gemms Sands c. doth exist or flowes forth into a stinking Vapour or is at first changed into Ashes a Calx or Lime or at leastwise through the Society of some Addittament into a Salt the off-spring of Waters presently afterwards they all the volatile Summe exceeding or over comming the fixed Summe are made aiery and vapoury Efluxes rushing-into water with a hastened Violence And so that whatsoever is earthy hard solid and compacted seeing all that is reducible unto a more simple thin pure and former remaining substance pardon the Novelty most resplendent Prince it must needs be that it hath no Efficacy of an Element at all but that they are more latter things than Air and Water In like manner we say of the Heaven that the Heavens shall be changed shall wax Old and Perish and so that the Heaven and the Earth shall at length Perish the like message of which Destruction thou shalt not find concerning the Air and Water In the next place the Water or Air could never in any Age be reduced into any other former Body by Art or Nature This therefore is the Face this the Ordination this in the next place is the Office Combination Fate and End of the Elements to wit that the unchanged Essence of two most simple Bodies and their unmixed substance may afford a vital Womb or Prop unto Seeds and Fruits until at length the number of things to be generated being accomplished the heap of Principles together with the Seeds do constitute strange Families and Colonies their Bride-bed being separated in a more blessed Seat For the very many Dreams wherewith the World hath suffered it self to be hitherto circumvented the handicraft Operation of the Fire doth deride with loud Laughter Who indeed will deny but that the Water is easily changed into a Vapour But that Vapour or Exhaltation is so far from being Air that the Powder of Marble or a Flint may sooner be Water as we have shewn For a Vapour is in very deed materially and formally nothing else but a heap of the Atoms of Water lifted up on high The which our School shews forth more clearly than the Light at Noon The Air therefore whether it be received in hot or cold Glasses and pressed together therein shall never afford Water but according to how much of a Vapour that is of an extenuated Water it shall contain within it But the Water is seperated into very small conspicuous Drops against the Sun thorow the Glass at the Beginning of Distillation as long as the sides are cold to wit while through the vigour of Heat it flies away extenuated into a Vapour And that thing indeed happens no otherwise than by a proper Magnal which in things mixt and so also in the Water it self is the Skie thinner than the Air and dis-joynable from the same and sustaining its compression and enlargment contending for a middle thing or Nature between a Body and not a Body receiving the Impressions of the External Stars of its native Soyle being altogether intimate in all things by reason of which alone and not of Air we draw our Breath a proper Magnal I say and a spiritual Being in the Water doth indeed lift the Water on high it being lightned by Heat procuring a divulsion or renting asunder of the Magnal which same rent Magnal detains a quantity of Water proportioned unto it self which is rent upwards as well in the Glasses as in the Clouds and doth preserve them from falling until through the compression perhaps of succeeding Atoms as it comes to pass in distillation the former do grow together into drops and do enclose the former Magnal or vital Being within themselves Or the same Magnal of the Water being rarified through Heat and being straightway after condensed through help of External Cold doth constrain and restrain those same its own Atoms of small Drops within the Limits of its command I return unto thee Stagyrian Aristotle If Air be co-thickned into Water seeing thou teachest Air more to excell in Moisture than Water I pray thee why shall Cold which is natural to the Air change the Nature of the Air into a matter which is too moist of its own Nature In the next place now Cold and no longer Heat shall possess the vital Principle of Generation Wherefore although a Vapour be Air generated of Water formally transchanged and of the same again alike water doth grow together Now thou differest from thy own self who admittest of so frequent and easie a return from a privation unto a habit At length take thou also this handicraft Experiment Air may
Anthonies fire c although the mouth might sometimes be bitter yet the liquour issuing from an Erisipelas is not bitter but plainly of sharp is become salt That Humour I say of whose burning heat the Schools complain in an Erisipelas is called a most sharp one when as in the mean time it bears neither any sharpnesse nor bitternesse before it And they are unconstant in this when as notwithstanding the sharpness of Humours ought to differ as much from their bitterness as Pepper doth from Coloquintida or from wild Cucumber And so the Schools have treated thus carelessely and unconstantly concerning the properties of their own Choler Because in Law a varying witness is unworthy of any credit he is accounted for an unsavoury or foolish or false witnesse and he is constrained to restitution by how much hurt he hath brought unto another by his testimony But come on then let us suppose but not believe that the liquour swimming on the blood is Gauly Choler and of the natural composition thereof At leastwise that blood on which that Choler now swims should be no longer blood if one of its four constitutive parts hath failed it and there be made a seperation of the Marriage bed to wit a real seperation of things composing for Cheese from which the Wheyinesse is withdrawn is no longer Milk For neither do I deny that the whole entire body subsisteth from an union of Heterogeneal parts but the integrity of the former composed body ceaseth assoon as one of its constitutive parts hath retired The Schools indeed suppose a permanency and co-knitting of four Humours for the constitution of the blood Yea besides this simple and vain supposition nothing hath been hitherto proved by the Schools which may not be more worthy of pity than credit Therefore I deny their blockish supposition not proved to proceed unto the false derivations of Choler and embassages of these into the diverse parts and passions of the body If they shall not first make it manifest concerning the question whether there be any Choler requisite for the constitution of the blood Therefore Choler hath not place in the constitution of the blood although a uriny wheyishnesse swim upon blood let out of the veines For that whyishnesse is unto the blood by accident which thing the blood of those who have drunk little and laboured and sweat much doth sufficiently prove For oft-times the blood of such being taken away by Phlebotomy wholly wants all Wheyishnesse And by consequence it should be deprived of Choler And likewise neither doth that blood cease to be blood the which doth not admit of Wheyishnesse but by accident The which I have in the Chap. of the Liquour Latex hitherto unknown to the Schools concerning the rise of medicine elsewhere demonstrated For the Latex is left in the blood for its own ends the ignorance whereof therefore hath hitherto secluded Physitians from the signification of the urine and the knowledge of many diseases I will therefore re-sume by supposing That yellow Choler is naturally a watery liquor swimming on the blood Let the Schooles therefore at least reach if Choler be an Humour most fiery representing fire and conteining it in substance and properties how fire can glister in a meer salt water How is it that it is not stifled in that water After what manner do fire and water co-suffer with each other under the famlinesse of unity as also the air immediately under Phlegm What have they any where found in nature which may constraine fire to conjoyn in salt water They will finde at length that they are driven to believe these trifles by reason of a Quaternary of Elements and a necessity of mixed bodies Both which after they have been oppressed by demonstrations propter quid or for what cause the world will Sue for my writings The very Schools themselves and all posterity will laugh at the blockishnesses of Ancestours which have hitherto been so stubornly defended they being so pernicious in healing and false in instructing Because will they nill they they ought to swallow two Maxims of mine elsewhere demonstrated One whereof is That there is no Element of fire and that kitchin or artificial fire is not a substance And consequently that if more things than one should concurre unto the composition of the blood at least wise that four Elements could not flow together thereunto And therefore that the fiction of four Humours doth badly square for our blood for mixture tempering strife and likewise for the truth existence actuality diversity and healing of diseases and cures But the other of my Maxims is elsewhere sufficiently proved That every sublunary visible Body is not materially composed of four as neither of three co-mixed Elements They must therefore seriously repent Because the fire is neither an Element as neither a substance neither is a salt watery liquour to be called into the composition of us for the feigned comparison of a Microcosme or little world that it may represent the form of fire Again I by way of connivance suppose That nature scarce makes enough blood of all the food dayly even as in the book of the unheard of doctrine of Fevers At least wise nature approves of that since she hath hitherto appoynted no place of entertainment for superabounding blood Yet she alwayes prepares out of all food both Cholers abundantly and super-fluously which the Schools prove by the tincture of the urine and filths of the belly therefore at least wise the nature of the Liver daily erreth and is founded in errour and offends also in abstinent persons fishes and Nations that are satisfied with the drinking of water only Because indeed it generates the least of a super-abounding fiery and earthy humour and yet more than it hath need of for its own nourishments Why therefore doth not nature offend rather in quality even as she daily without distinction offends in quantity Why also in the place of blood to wit the fourth ordinary Humour doth she not likewise in offending produce a certain abortive excrementitious blood to be sent away into banishment as she daily actually banisheth the two excessive Cholers out of the composition of the blood and fellowship of life Why also doth she daily bring forth more of malignant humours and those to be expelled out of good and much juicy meats moderately taken than out of the best blood Since as Galen is witnesse in hot natures hony which otherwise in temperate and therefore in Sanguine persons is totally turned into blood is wholly turned into yellow Choler To wit it s other three companional Humours being excluded Whence it followes That the framing of Humours proceeds not from the complexion of the food but altogether from the condition of the Liver From whence consequently if more of both Cholers than is meet be daily made that all that is to be attributed unto the offence and vice of nature And therefore that every naturall complexion of the Liver is vitious
ice but is only carried forth unto objects that are to be eaten from whence nature hopes for nourishment to her self But it is not carried promiscuously towards any objects So neither doth nature desire that which she had once cast out as reprobate As knowing that any thing cannot be made out of every thing neither therefore doth she hope for or look for nourishment from an excrement The which she therefore neither desires nor allures to her self And I wish the Schools had considered that thing before their rash doctrine of Choler I grant indeed that through inordinacies inordinate and confused obediences do now and then follow But I shall not therefore admit that a sixfold quantity is drawn out of the little bag of the Gaul for vomit as neither that any thing is rashly drawn to the stomach Seeing the very Gaul it self is a Nobie and vital Bowel even as elsewhere Wherefore I now and then in the more curiously searching have lookt into the chest of the Gaul and yet I have found no passage to lay open a-top out of the Liver unto the Gaul and that I suppose in right for the deed done Wherefore I have also judged the Gaul not to be made by the Liver but to be prepared materially of the pure blood of the Liver and efficiently by the proper Archeus of the Gaul in its own case or Chest At leastwise if there were any unpercievable pore which there is not that might inspire Choler from the Liver unto the chest of the Gaul why therefore doth the mouth at the utterance of the Gaul lay open fifty times more at least for the ejecting than for the entring of Gaul For truly no entrance could as yet be discerningly viewed by the eye for so many ages Is there not also from hence an easy confirmation that the orifice of the Gaul tends into the empty gut only for an in-breathing of its own vital and necessary ferment For the Gaul in a Tertian should never be sufficient for tinging of the urine the drosses of the paunch also for tinging of the daily nourishment and the which they require for the substance of the blood Moreover as neither for the abundance which even sober persons vomit up every other day about the beginnings of their fits For had it not behoved them from hence to have learned that whatsoever they call Choler is a meer excrement procreated from a diseasie constitution and that what is so engendred cannot repaire the essence of the blood Choler or Gaul Because it is that which hath no right of judging of the necessities of a quaternary for the integrity of the blood and an apposition instead of a composition For as soon as sour belchings are made in the stomach the presence of that unhappy and bitter excrement made in the stomach of the Chyle being defiled ceaseth And therefore from that time burntish stinking belches depart It is therefore feigned Choler in the stomach whereby the Schools contend originaly to stablish the Choler of the Liver alike feigned it ariseth from the inordinacy of the stomach but not from the intention of nature for the constitution of the blood It is therefore wholly an excrement and badly squares with another Choler feigned to be in the composition of the blood Because it is that which will never be proved to be within the bounds of nature since no necessity of its presence presseth the same For the Gaul is a vital bowel and exceeding necessary Wherefore neither is it rashly to be reckoned sunonymal or of the same name with an Humour or an excrement as neither to be accounted for a part of the blood For they say that the Elements do repeatingly destroy and devour each other But they have hitherto failed in the proof But they alleadge onely artificial fire which they think doth convert water and air into each other as oft as those are no longer beheld But they fail in their own position For they teach that fire converteth water into it self and not into air And it should be a foolish action of the fire which should labour not for it self but for the air Yea although water quencheth fire yet it was never seen that on the other hand fire was made water For they have thought it sufficient to have stated and not to have proved their own positions But among Humours that which they will have to be made like unto fire they shew a water not sharp biting as neither salt-bitter but modestly salt and the which they elsewhere call the Whey of the blood its Etymologie being drawn from the watery part of Milk They call I say Choler an Humour answering to fire For they command that that the Elements ought to obey their dreams For the Schools being seriously asked say that Choler is an Humour meerly fiery and Gauly because it is actually composed of fire predominating But I being silent as to these trifles am amazed while as I behold a waterish whey swimming on the blood They add also that true fire is suppressed in Choler as being masked and bridled by the form of the mixt body But let them believe that will that the form of Choler being received from the meer dominion of fire that it might produce the effects of that Element in us should so restrain its own product wherein it should actually lay hid that it should be altogether Cold in act and be a wheyie and meerly a watery Being I therefore suppose and know that if but a very smal quantity of actual fire were in a mixt body that it would presently perish as being suppressed by adjuncts a Yea if fire should neverthelesse persist safe by an irregular power at leastwise it should not any thing worship the form or body of that mixture but should according to its own disposition wholly burn and consume it without reflection or connivance Therefore either the fire should cease or the mixt body of necessity perish neither could the form of Choler hinder either of the two For it hath not hitherto been seen that an artificer who prepares glass earthen pots tiles or bricks Aurichalcum or Latten c. by the fire can in any place or at any time couple fire unto earth water and air that he may from thence constitute any mixt body and much lesse that he can allure fire to flow down from Heaven and shall connex it with air water and earth It s a wonder therefore that the whole faculty of medicine doth hitherto establish its Basis in an impossibility And so much the more wonderful that the whole world hath as it were snorted in a deep sleep at these deaf dreams and hath befooled all with a credulity And so much the more to be admired that they have believed the fire to be suppressed under other Elements in mixtures and neverthelesse as yet to remain safe when as notwithstanding they have sufficiently known and taken notice that all fire presently as soon as it ceaseth from burning
differ only in the unequality of the temperament of the Elements now granteth an equality of the Elements flowing together according to an equal weight in the one humane kind when as otherwise if the heart were the most temperate part now the whole man ought according to any of his parts of necessity to have the consistence and hardness of the heart But I as the first have rejected the opinion of Elements co-mixtures and temperaments as foolish and totally false by firm demonstrations in the Volume set forth concerning the original of medicine This co-mixture of Elements therefore I willingly yield to the Galenists and am willingly ignorant after what manner air or fire can be weighed that being weighed together according to the weight of water and earth they may compose from themselves flesh sinews bones brain heart marrows c. Ah vain fiction cruel wickednesse hissing it self forth against our neighbours Moreover the animosity or stoutnesse of mind which I praise is not affrighted by death or the plague it adorns the Archeus that he may resist the poyson and expel that poyson received by accident but otherwise he cannot overcome or kill it no otherwise then as terrour shuts the pores by the motion of nature being obedient unto it Wherefore they who have recovered from the plague are scarce alike easily infected with the plague the same year The contrary is seen in other diseases and poysons For truly these do not onely leave behind them weaknesses from whence there is a more easie relapse but also other poysons do operate by changing the parts wherein they are entertained But a pestilent terrifying poyson primarily invades the Archeus alone and sorely affrights him The which when he hath once known and overcome his enemy he afterwards presumeth and is made more confidently bold that he shall not so easily fail under him neither is he thenceforth so easily affrighted through occasion of the poyson brought unto him neither doth the weaknesse which the Pest leaves on him hinder because it is sufficient that he is not alike easily terrified and that he doth not decypher the pestilent image of terrour in his own proper substance And therefore other poysons of diseases are far more grosse than the image of a drawn-in terrour For some hurt not but under on open skin but others require to be eaten or drunk But the most rare poyson of the Basilisk or beholding Cockatrice is sent forth by imagination directing the sight But a pestilential poyson is framed within by the proper conception of the Archeus Other poysons are bewrayed by some sensible signe But the Pest alone is communicated by an unsensible contagion even so as the foot-step of a man keeps its odour Behold how the image of sudden sorrow prostrates the appetite how the image of a nauseous matter câ—eates vomiting the image of condolency produceth tears the image of slow sorrow or lingting grief stirs up sighs the image of fear generates the Falling Sicknesse and now and then the Palsie Therefore I elsewhere writing of Diseases have not in vain demonstrated that joy fear anger hatred and other passions and perturbations do generate in us their own proper and singular actual image no otherwise than as terrour doth the Plague But the generations of these are the domestical and more ordinary off-springs in us But the image of a pestilent terrour brings forth a poyson immediately existing in the Archeus and draws its own matter from the same And therefore the Senses cannot conceive that image The Archeus therefore having beheld a mortal enemy nigh at hand being bred within or brought to him from far admits this enemy through his own terrour and an image decyphered anew and confirms him with his own character and substance For our hand being moved to a Carcass that died of its own accord soon waxeth so cold through the flight of the Archeus that it at length scarce waxeth hot again at a long fire Yet Dogs perceive not that cold while they devour such a dead Carcass even as the dead Carcass of a Beast doth not much cool us Therefore the cold of an humane dead Carcase is fraudulent and accidental and doth more cool than it hath of cold And the Carcass that died by little and little doth more cool us than the Carcass of a person that died of the Gowt or of a sharp Fever Yet since we discern by an engine whereby we measure the degrees of the encompassing air that the cold of both these Carcasses are equal To wit the Archeus being sorely affraid of death which the hand applyed to the dead Carcass extinct by a long infirmity perceiveth flieth forsaketh the hand neither because mindful thereof doth he easily return Therefore it is manifest that the Archeus doth perceive and shun death even that which is before and out of himself And as yet more the ferments of putrefaction as in the cold fit of an Ague being conceived or bred within And most especially those which being received within his family-administration in manner of an image do tend unto a formal transmutation of his own essence Because the poyson bred through an Idea of terrour is of the highest actual power And the image of fear and also of dread differs from the image of terrour by reason of the formal activity of faith concurring even as before I have noted And moreover although the Archeus doth well perceive death and poysons yet he doth not well perceive the poysonous terrour because he thinks it to be his own terrour and a vain passion until that by the fore-gone ferment of appropriation he hath certainly known that that poyson was a forreigner unto him which he had lain up in a part of himself while he formed that forreign Idea and so with a certain destruction of himself he presently expels the poyson from him And I wish that the power now inbred in him were not communicated throughout the whole body by what way it proceedeth For so the poyson of a mad dog is in no wise throughly perceived by a man as neither by his Archeus except after that it hath established a ferment for it self in the Archeus In the which then image of doglike madnesse sinâ— there is presently an estrangement of the mind connexed Hence the Archeus conceiveth no terrour to himself in fury For the stumbling in imagination rather shakes off terrour is rashly mad and by the poyson of the mad dog is directed into an Hydrophohia for the disease causing a fear of water Lastly therefore the one onely poyson of the Pest hath also the one onely beholding of terrour and one way unto the grave or unto recovery by good or unfit remedies But whatsoever things I have hitherto spoken concerning the pestilent Idea of terrour I will not have to be interpreted at liberty For a fear from enemies from a thief from a disease from an hurtful Animal from a Sword do indeed generate an image of dread but not a
not the causes of natural things 6. The Form is not the Act. 7. A false Maxim of Aristotle 8. He erreth in the attributes of the Form 9. He knew not the true efficient cause 10. The Father is not the efficient cause of the Son 11. There are two onely causes in Nature 12. The End hath no reason of a cause in nature 13. That the three beginnings of Bodies of Paracelsus have not the nature of causes 14. Whence the definition of any sort soever of natural things is to be required 15. The definition of a Horse 16. The division of sublnnary bodies among the Auntients is dangerous or destructive 17. The definition of Animalls Plants and Mineralls 18. The name of Subject sounds improperly in Philosophy why 't is to be called a co-worker 19. Things without life that are produced how they receive their ends 20. Why the seminal Power is attributed to the Earth 21. That there is not a conjunction of the Elements 22. The Principles of the Chymists have not the power of principiating 23. That there are two onely Principles or beginnings of Bodies to wit that from which and by which 24. What the Ferment or Leaven of things is 25. What are Ferments in their kinde 26. What is immediately in places 27. The Ferments of the Air and water 28. There is onely a speculative distinction of the Ferment and efficient cause 29. The Ferment is the original of some seeds 30. The principiating Ferment of what sort it is and where 31. Ferments are immediately in places in things themselves as if in places 32. The name of matter is speculative but that of water is practical 33. What the inward efficient cause is 34. A false Maxim of Aristotle 35. The efficient cause in natural things is explained 36. Fire is not of the number of seminal efficient causes as it hath deceived the Aristotelicks neither is the influence of the Heavens among the number of efficients 37. The diversity of the efficient and effective cause 38. The wit of Aristotle is ambitious and idle 39. A false Maxim of Aristotle 40. Aristotle was more able in the Mathematicks or learning by de monstration than in Nature 41. How great hath been the ignorance of the Schooles in natural things hitherto 42. Aristotle is in the things of natural Philosophy ridiculous and to himself contradictory I Come into a forsaken house to re-melt the dross that is to be swept out by me Most things are to be searched into and those things to be taught which are unknown those things which have been ill delivered are to be overthrown what are unclean are to be wiped off and what things are false are to be cast away but all and every thing duly to be confirmed But let it be sufficient to have forewarned thee of these things to withdraw wearisomness if happily new and Paradoxall things do more trouble than true things delight The knowledge of Nature is onely taken from that which is in act and in the thing it self for it is that which no where consisteth in feigned Meditations Indeed the whole composure of Nature is individual in very deed in act and fastned in any Body except the number of abstracted Spirits Lastly and chiefly I seriously admonish that as often as I speak of the causes of Natural things these things are not at all to be taken for the Elements or for the Heaven because they supernaturally began with the Title of Creation and to this day do also constantly remain the same which they were from the beginning Therefore I understand the causes of natural things to presuppose a Being subject to change And although the Bodies of the Elements have come under Nature yet their speculation is of another manner of unfolding and another kinde of Philosophy For they who before me have thought that to all Generations or Births of Bodies four Elementsdo co-mix have beheld the Elements after the heathenish manner have tried by their lies or devises to marry the Elements obey them Therefore every natural Body requireth no other than corporeall beginnings for the most part subject to change and succeeding course of dayes but Nature doth not consist of an undetermined hyle or matter and an impossible one neither hath it need of such a Principle as neither of privation but order and life are in the efficient cause of necessity And every thing is empty void dead and slow unless it hath been constituted or sometimes be constituted by a vitall or seminal Principle present with it And moreover those Lawes should rush down together unless there were a certain order in things which did interpose which might incline proper things to the support or necessities of the common good Aristotle hath declared four constitutive causes of things which have made also their own Authour ignorant of Nature For in the first place he confoundeth the Principle with the material cause to wit calling the first cause an undetermined or unlimited matter or a corporeal subjected heap wanting a formall limitation And then he confoundeth the other cause even the inward Essence or form of a thing with another of his Principles Next the third which is external he calleth the efficient cause and at length the fourth he nameth the end to wit unto which every thing is directed But this cause in the minde of the efficient he would have to be the first of the three former causes and so natural things not onely to be principiated or made to begin by the Being of Reason and mental but also as if they were inanimate things they did lie hid through the end in the minde of the efficient cause But if therefore he doth badly search into natural causes he hath far worse appointed a supernatural end in the minde of the first mover in the room of a natural cause or he requireth a mentall conceit of the end in things without life Truly I who have not been accustomed through the floath of consenting to serve others enterprizes without foreweighing them have very much found that the three latter causes in natural knowledge are false yea and hurtful But the first of the four I will by and by shew to be fabulous For first of all since every cause according to nature and succession of dayes is before its thing caused Surely the form of the thing composed cannot be the cause of the thing produced but rather the last perfect act of generation and the veriest essence and perfection it self of the thing generated for the attaining whereof all other things are directed Therefore I meditate the form to be rather as an effect than as a cause of the thing Yea more For the Form seeing it is the end of generation is not meerly the act of generation but of the thing generated and rather a power that may be attained in generation but the matter or subject of generation as it is in act so also its act is an inward worker or
to be a Bird a thousand dispositions do succeed each other in the way and all of them to be external and accidentary to the Seed neither that in the mean time it ceaseth to hasten to the aims of its appointment For the figure of the yolk of the Egge together with accidentary dispositions succeeding each other do passe over it indeed yet there is not a new generation of the form of that puttified Egge present at every disposure of the putrifaction Indeed one onely vitall form of the Chick being excepted there comes to it no other which by degrees is stirred up by foregoing dispositions and at length the ripeness of dispositions being attained floweth into it For neither when the Bird dyeth is there a certain essential form and generation of the dead Carcase Because all generation in nature is enclosed in an essential form which a dead Carcase wanteth even as also a seed and an Archeus the Governour as shall be shewed in its place Even as the essence begins him with the Vulcan of the Seed and the same essence continues with the product or thing generated so the same product failing the same essence perisheth But the essence perishing the form the Governour or President thereof also goes to ruine For the Vulcan or Master-Workman forsaking the body the flesh heart veins c. do begin to putrifie for that they are now deprived of the vital Balsam their leader For under life the flesh and the bone c. were distinguished In its particular kinde and proper form the flesh was flesh and was formally severed from the bone in which form in the dead Carcase they do forthwith appear And so through death no form or essential thingliness comes upon the dead Carcase in the whole or in any particular parts Onely that which was vitall is seperated Therefore let it be an erroneous thing That the corruption of one thing is the generation of another Because the corruption of life happens onely through the quenching of the vitall Balsam or form therefore without a new generation of a Creature Therefore no privation happens in things that have life and so neither can privation there have the force of a Principle Seeing that from the seed even unto the vitall being there is but one progress promotion and ripeness about the end whereof the form is given Therefore also generation doth reciprocally or cursarily happen without any corruption as often as the matter being now brought to the ripeness of its appointment by the seminal Vulcan hath obtained a form coming to it from elsewhere Yea that Vulcan through the departure of life departs flies away and vanisheth without any corrupting of it self no otherwise than as light perisheth without the corrupting of it self Indeed life vanisheth after the manner of light perishing And the Vulcan seeing it is a certain vitall Air fleeth away Both of them without the corruption of themselves and the body which is deprived of life properly for that very cause is not corrupted although through the failing of the vitall Balsam corruption doth soon succeed Which thing sufficiently appeareth in Mummies and also in Vegetables which being dry and deprived of life are kept for uses yea they do very often drive away all corruption So far of is it that their life perishing for that very cause they should be corrupted Therefore death in things that have life is not the corruption of their own life as neither of that which lives but the extinguishing of life And although in some things the corruption of the body may follow truly that is to life and the body by accident which thing is manifest For truly dead Carcases are preserved from corruption by art Therefore now Aristotle confounds privation with corruption and doth not distinguish his own Principle non ens or a non-being from the Being corruption Lastly the forms of things are not subject to corruption and therefore neither are they corrupted but annihilated or brought to nothing Wherefore neither can the withdrawing or the extinguishing of the form include any corruption on behalf of the form Furthermore I have hated Metaphors or figurative Translations of words from their proper signification to another in the History of nature and Family of essential things because they are those things which have introduced the errours of the Schooles brawls of disputing and religious Worship given to Aristotle But besides if Aristotle be unskilful in nature and ignorant of all natural Philosphy truly Galen hath hitherto every where manifested a greater ignorance For first of all I will make it manifest that there is not a quaternary or a fourfold kinde of Elements nor a congress or conjunction of these for bodies which are believed to be mixt much less a strife or fighting of qualities or Complexions or for the Causes of Diseases And so that neither doth the Treatise of the Elements properly belong to Medicine Truly I finde Galen diligent in opinions and a boasting Writer without judgement or discretion For neither hath he better perceived of Nature Diseases Causes and defects than of the decrees of Hipocrates and Plato For I profess I have twice read over those Volumes of Galen with attention but I have found the poverty and undistinct ignorance of Galen to fight with his rashness For truly those Books do touch at nothing lesse than the Doctrine of Hipocrates or Plato Neither also hath Hipocrates any thing common with Plato And so that I have not found any one who hath judged them worthy of a Commentary as neither to have been written concerning the preserving of health This one thing is alway to be found in Galen that the names of Authours being suppressed he hath willingly snatched the Inventions of others to himself a man wholly scanty or very poor in judgement as oft as he hath expressed the conceptions of his own judgement I ought to declare these things concerning the two Standard-Defenders of natural Philosophy that the Schooles may abstain from worshipping these Masters CHAP. VIII The Elements 1. The Doctrine of the Elements in healing is wholly impertinent and so that in Galen such a heap of those Books is ridiculous 2. The vain opinions of the Schooles concerning the Elements 3. The true beginnings of naturall Science are delivered 4. Six conclusions out of the holy Scriptures 5. That there are onely three Elements 6. The Content of the Heavens 7. That there are two first-born Elements 8. That Fire is not an Element 9. The Errour of Paracelsus touching the matter of the Heaven 10. A Quaternary of Elements for the mixtures of Bodies and for Diseases falls to the ground 11. A Proposition that all things which are believed to be mixt are materially of water onely with a mechanicall or handicraft demonstration 12. What the Elementall and Virgin Earth is 13. From whence the two Elements may be called the first-born 14. An objection from artificial things 15. The force of the artificial fire of Hell 16. Another
the foundation of nature by which all waters are strained thorow that all of them may keep a Communion among each other from the beginning of the Creation unto the end and from the Superficies or upper part of the Earth even to its Center And moreover the water detained in this Soil of Sand is perhaps actually greater by a thousand fold than the whole heap of Seas and Rivers floating on the Superficies of the Earth And that is easily verified by supposing the whole superficies of the Earth also to be covered with waters to the depth of 600 paces Therefore it followes respect being had to the Diameter of the Earth that there is easily a thousand times more water under than upon the Earth For truly dry Sand drinks up at least about a fourfold quantity of water in the same extension of place yet I will not have it that although the Quellem be the last ground or Soil to the Digger that all subjected grounds are every where to be found by order For the aforesaid Sand which sometimes overwhelms it self perhaps to a thousand paces beneath the Horizon elsewhere boils up with speed under the open Air yea and oft-times in the top of Mountains Of which thing the Schooles with their Aristotle being ignorant do toughly hold that all true springs do owe the cause of their continuance from the Air co-thickned into water when as notwithstanding they cannot maintain that thing because in the tops of the highest Mountains springs do oft-times leap forth where another Mountain of the like height is not neer nor a water-Channel extended on either side to this Therefore they hold their peace with a lofty look and are silent at the unwonted miracle of the thing Surely as long as waters do wander in the living and vitall Soil of the Earth and are detained in the Sand Quellem so long I say they are not constrained to bring forth by the water drawing lawes of Scituations No otherwise than as the bloud while it is nourished with life in the veins so long also it knowes not above and beneath and it is as well in the fore-head as in the feet But at the very moment wherein it once falls out of the veins or the waters do disgorge themselves out of the Quellem they cease not to flow down by obeying the lawes of Scituations Therefore the Sea in its own ground doth sup up the received waters in the sieve of the Virgin-Sand For so according to the wise man however all waters do flow into the Sea yet it never re-gorgeth them again Because by one onely thread there is a continuall passage out of the Virgin-Sand into Springs Streams Rivers and the Sea to moysten the Earth and appointed to enrich it with Mineralls Whither again the waters being driven they are supt up partly by the Quellem and partly do snatch the Air. So indeed doth the Universe distribute its waters and lay them aside for divers fruits And therefore I have meditated with admiration that the Almighty hath set before him the necessities of ungrateful immortal men as the aims of things I return to the Earth I have found for certain that the original Earth doth no where of its own accord concur to the mixtures of fruits slide thereto by chance nor that it is assumed by nature nor is found to have assumed the works of nature or art And therefore the reason of mixtures waxeth lean the number of Elements Qualities and Temperaments ceaseth and so they are lying fopperies which have been hitherto stifly and ignorantly garnished out by the Schooles For of a man Wood c. be it dust or ashes that is left by the fire yet Earth is never drawn out for else our burying places would soon swell Therefore the Earth is at least the remaining wombe but not the Mother Which if it should sometimes have a conflux unto fruits or mixt bodies it would either abide in the same and so by the solution of art or nature would sometimes be found or should return from thence which is false or plainly should be taken to the mixt Body and in it should cease to be Earth being already changed into another thing and so should be elsewhere diminished which I will straightway shew to be alike false or by the death or dissolution of the thing should return again into earth and there should be a daily and repeated returning of one and the same Element from a privation to a habit Or if this should not return into earth it should remain changed into fruits and so the whole Earth had long since gone into fruits and nature had lost her constancy and had mocked the first aims of the Creator or the earth had returned from the dissolved mixt body into another Element the impertinency whereof ceaseth For truly it is not natural to water or air to turn another Element into its own substance From hence I will straightway demonstrate that never one drop of water is turned into air or likewise air changed into water Which changes notwithstanding do appear lesse labour some than of the earth into water or into air And therefore if nature hath not as yet attempted the more easie transmutations after what sort shall it presume on the more difficult ones For otherwise the earth should be â—upt up and brought to nothing by Elements that are so much more large co-touching with it and more active But the Father of the Universe being a lover of Concord hateth discord and brawlings and chiefly in the Elements which that they might be the stable props of nature he hath not created the same fighting ones For he hath also directed the Elements to their appointed ends and lawes of continuance to wit that he may bring forth and nourish his own fruits for his own honour and the use of man Notwithstanding neither the honour of God nor mans necessity did any where or any way require the battels devourings strifes of the Elements their trampling on each other as neither the exchanging or nourishing of one by the other Nor lastly that at the end of an Element to increase it self by covetousness hunger luxury or necessity with the destruction of anomer For neither are they guilty of the fault of coverousness or hatred as neither do they desire to be nourished Last of all neither have the Elements obtained an Archeus a kitchin or properties for that transchanging Therefore the whole Doctrine of the Schooles concerning the elementary War is an old Wives fable Therefore the earth is never taken or of its own accord doth materially run out of it self into the constitution of bodies And there is by right made no mixture in nature which can firmly grow together under the unity of the natural composed form unless it be between juyces and spirits On the contrary no pulverous or powder all co-mixture doth tend to generation but there is onely an apposition or applying presently of its own accord and again
as it were the sheath of the Earth nigh the Poles is deeper than under the compass of the Sun for if Lucifer or the Day-star being willing to place his seat over the North may be understood to have been guilty of pride Truly if he were not higher in the same place that should not be imputed as a signe of arrogancy especially since in the places where the holy Scriptures were written the Pole-star hath alwayes seemed very neere to the Horizon neither doth the Heaven there promise any thing of height as to sight But in our Horizon I have seen the whole Body of the Sun to have given a shadow on the pin of the Diall a little after the ninth houre in the fourth moneth called June but in the morning I have seen the whole Body of the Sun above the Horizon about the fourth houre for it did not as vet cast a shadow by reason of the thickness of the Air and Vapours Therefore the shorâ—est night is onely of seven houres at the most but in the Winter Solstice the Sun ariseth â—5 minutes before the eighth but sets 27 minutes before the fourth Therefore the shorest day is at least 7 houres and 42 minutes But it dâ—rogates or takes away from the roundness of the Sphere to have more of light than darkness At length modern or late made Navigations have seen the Sun under the North for a moneths space before that the perfect roundness of the Heaven had suffered that thing CHAP. XI The Air. 1. The Dreams of the Schooles concerning the maystness of Air. 2. A foolish or unsavory objection 3. They preâ—uppose impossibilities 4. The Air is never made Water through a condensing of its parts 5. They beg the Principle 6. A ridicuâ—ous thing of the Schooles concerning the â—â—tive heat of the Air. 7. The old Wives fiction of an Antiperâ—stâ—siâ—â—â— compassing about of the contrary 8. The deep stupiditâ—â—â— of the Schooles are discovered 9. Arguments 10. Another alike stâ—pidity 11. That the Air is colder than Snow 12. An Exhortation of the Authour unto young beginners A Mathematicall demonstration that the Air and Water are primigeâ—iall or first-born Elements and ever unchangeable by cold or heat into each other THE Schooles with their Aristotle do hitherto endow the Air with eight degrees that is to be most moyst but to be hot unto four degrees or to a mean but they give the greatest coldness to the water with a slack or mean moystness And so they command the Air to be twice as moystas the water for that because the Air by its pressing together and conjoyning doth generate the water But I pray you what other thing is that than to have sold Dreams for truth For if the Air be co-thickned the moysture thereof shall be also more thick greater and more palpable in water than it was before in Air seeing that condensing cannot make a new essential form nor is it a principle of generations what other thing is that than impertinently to trifle At least the water should not be but Air co-thickned in the moysture to ten fold or rather to an hundred fold and more active and therefore and straightway it should moysten more and stronger than the Air by a hundred fold So far as it that therefore the water should be lesse moyst than the Air. But if a naked condensing doth dispose the Air to a new form seeing the same disposition of the inward efficient is the necessary cause of that thing generated it must needs be that the same doth remain in the thing produced and so if the Air co-thickned be water there shall now be but two Elements to wit Water and Earth Whiles the water shall be as moyst as while it was being at first Air to wit wherein the condensing alone came which is a co-uniting of parts but not a formall transchanging of a thing into a thing For truly the form every way re-bounding from the moysture of the Air being condensed into an hundred fold it shall be even moyster and shall more moysten by an hundred fold than the auntient Air. But surely the water doth not moysten by reason of thickness for otherwise the Earth should hitherto more moysten because moysture onely doth moysten and not thickness For else Quick-silver should more moysten the wooll or hand than water For whatsoever doth more moysten that it self is also more moyst and on the other hand whatsoever in an Elementary nature is moyster that likewise doth more moysten Nature laughs to require belief of things known by reason of sense from a Dream and even till now to teach the shameful devises of Airstotle for truth But the Schooles will say we must thus teach it for a Maxim That by reason whereof every thing is such that thing it self is more such as though that for the honour of a Maxim we must belie God! But the water is not moyst but for the Air therefore the Air ought to be moyster than the water But they shall sweat more than enough before they will prove the subsumption or second Proposition but the Air is neither moyst nor hot in it self and whatsoever of moysture there is in it that is a stranged contained in it never touching at the nature of Air although vapours may be contained in the porinesses or hollow places of the Air. For what doth it belong to the nature of Glasse if it shall inclose water within it For I shall teach by and by that it is impossible for Air and water to be changed into each other And so by absurdities the Schooles do wholly suppose impossible speculations For it also contains an absurd and impossible thing that Air condensed should be made water and be the perpetual matter of Fountains For there hath been Air pressed together by some in an Iron Pipe of one ell almost the breadth of fifteen fingers which afterwards in its driving our hath like a hand-gun discharged with Gunpowder sent a Bullet thorow a Board or Plank Which thing verily could not be done if the air by pressing together might by force be brought into water Especially because that experiment did no lesse succeed in the deepest cold of winter than in the heat of Summer What if therefore the Air being pressed together by force in a Pipe and cold season be not changed into water by what authority shall the Schooles confirm their fictions touching the co-thickning of the Air for the springing up or over-flowing and the continuance of Fountains For Cold hath not the Beginnings Causes and properties of generating in nature Yea no moysture at all is found in the aforesaid Pipe and moreover wet Leather in the end of a Hand-Pistoll drieth presently It is also a ridiculous thing to prove the Air to be moyst by the original of Fountains and likewise to prove the rise of Fountains from the supposed moysture of the Air. Both Arguments of the Schooles is from the scarcity of truth and a childish begging
thing doth it not assume the same thickness of water even by reason of cold For so they had at least spoken something likely to be true Give heed therefore whosoever thou art that endeavourest by healing to work out the salvation of thy Soul what a Patron the Schooles do hitherto defend By what counsel have they made the Elements Complexions and degrees of qualities the foundation of healing who being seduced not but by a sleepy credulity have yielded the number essence use properties fruits and passions of the Elements and their own names to heathenish blindness Behold how slavishly the Schooles have borrowed their Elementary qualities and would have them be obedient at the pleasures of Dreams they have coupled increased blunted or repressed and divided them they have even sent abroad as it were wan devises for the causes of natural things knowings of Diseases healings and destructions of the Temples of the holy Spirit Therefore the air water and earth are cold by Creation because without light heat and the partaking of life Heat therefore is a stranger to them external to the Elementary Root But the air and earth are by themselves dry the water onely is moyst These are the qualities of those Bodies which none may vary as it listeth him But the air hath emptinesses as in its place else where whereby it drinks up and withholds vapours This is the state order Complexion of the Elements And which belongs not to the profession of Medicine unless by the way And so I will shew that in the Schooles that which least belongeth hath been very much searched into as if it were of the greatest moment and that which is of the greatest moment hath been hitherto neglected Because the whole pains of Physitians hath given place to mockeries and unprofitable brawlings Therefore if the Elements do not enter into mixt Bodies vain is the Doctrine of the Schooles touching the number composition temperaments concerning the contrariety proportion strife and degree of Elements for degrees are bound to the Seedes of simple Bodies not to an Element They are vain trifles whether the forms of the Elements do remain in the thing mixt because they are those things which are not in it as an Element it never ceaseth from that which it once began to be except the water to wit when being espoused to the Seeds it departs into a Body which hath hitherto been believed to be mixt Vain therefore is their fight interchangeable course Victory and that hence every Disease dissolution ruine healing and restoring doth depend Vain also is the method which is framed by contraries fetched from hence For the Schooles being by degrees guilty of those ill patched lies however they may a long time prate concerning Complexions at length they fail and being contented with feigned humours they scarce any more do debate concerning the fight of the Elements except in the six things besides nature and the frivolous Commands of Diet. 1. The Air and Water are Bodies not to be changed into each other The Demonstration The air which is in A being made thin by the heat of that which encompasseth it increaseth by the increase of dimensions and therefore it takes up more room than before Which thing notwithstanding cannot be unless it drives the Liquor B. C. into C. E. otherwise a poriness or fulness of little holes of the Vessel should be admitted or a Rupture of A. Which contradicteth the supposition of Heer and successively the air which was in C. E. into the Vessel D. But D. cannot receive that air unless it drive away so much air through the hole of the Pipe F. The Conclusion Therefore without the opening in F. the Liquor B. C. had not been moved from its place Therefore it is no wonder that the Liquor of Vitrioll hath by little and little exhaled of its own accord through the necessary opening in F. Therefore the stupidity or dulness of N. is laid open to whom when I had given many Instruments of like sort yet he had never observed the opening in F. Yea although I had plainly shewen these things to him many being present before that he had set forth his ridiculous fable against me yet he feigned afterwards that he wondred Because that Liquor had perished by degrees He saith that he found the whole Vessel most perfectly shut for neither doth that which is not exactly shut deserve to be called shut yet he grants that a motion of the Liquor was made which had shewen the temperature of the air And that the Liquor was changed into air the Glasse being shut Therefore false observations being supposed I will discover his misfortunes It being granted that the Vessel D. is as equally shut as is the Vessel A according to his supposition The thing required we must demonstrate That the water B. C. cannot be moved Likewise that it cannot teach the temperature of the air also that it could not be dried up or exhale Likewise that it could not be turned into air The preparing of an absurdity For if he admitteth of the motion and dryness of the water he ought to admit absurdities and contradictories or to confess his errours The preparing of the demonstration Let some heat be applied to the Vessel A. exceeding the temperature of the air encompassing for then the air included will enlarge it self according to the more or lesse heat and according to and as it exceedeth the true temperature of the air shut up in the Vessel D. against which it driving forward the water B. C. it shall destroy the equall tenour through too much action So that the air shall be pressed together and co-thickned by restraint that it may yield to the enlargement made in A. The Demonstration Therefore according to the supposition of Heer that air pressed together is turned into water the Liquor had never failed in the Vessel Yet his own observation will have it that the Glasse being on every side exactly shut the water was nevertheless dried up and made air But he cannot admit of dryness in a Glasse exactly shut unless his own supposition be destroyed to wit that air pressed together is changed into water neither again can that supposition subsist unless he shall admit of the continuance of the Liquor which notwithstanding doth contradict his own observation Likewise he cannot admit of the moving of the Liquor B. C. unless he shall grant the Glasse to be opened in F and by consequence he confesseth he hath erred in his observation And which thing although by the force of demonstrations he was constrained to confess before that he vomited forth his Apologie with all kinde of reproaches against me yet he hath persisted therein to discover his own ignorances The Conclusion Therefore it must needes be if the water B. C. be moved through some temperature of the air that both the Vessels A and D are not shut For else the Instrument should not be convenient for measuring of the temperature of
the air which is contrary to his supposition for seeing the air is of the same heat about A and about D the Liquor B C shall also necessarily take rest Because the quality of the air which encompasseth is the moving cause of the water B. C. acting with an equall strength and giving an equall tenour Now through the supposition of that which is false I will demonstrate what may follow upon his ignorance Let I say the water B. C. according to his observation be changed into air In the first place this observation cannot be admitted without rarefying caused by heat Nor can that rarefying be granted without an increase of place beside the heat And the increase of place cannot subsist without the enlarging or breaking of the Vessel Because he confesseth the Glasse to be exactly shut with a continuation of the Glasse without ruine or poriness 2. A transchanging of the water into air cannot be granted without co-thickning and restraining and restraint is not given without the addition of parts by pressing together actually within the same space or magnitude Which ought altogether to be named a condensing of the air which in this place cannot be made but by cold alone which supposeth the air to turn into water therefore not the water into air Since therefore neither heat nor cold can turn water into air much lesse shall that which is temperate do that For that this doth not beget an alteration in those Elements Likewise air is not turned into water because this conversion cannot be admitted being made by rarefaction because the rarefying of the air doth not happen in this place without the mediation of heat But Heer will have it that the air is co-thickned into water by cold Therefore water shall not be generated of air by heat 2. That transchanging of air into water cannot be admitted but by condensing and restraining which cannot happen in a Glasse perfectly shut but by cold Which agent upon the air being shut up within A and D should change it into water according to the supposition of Heer For so water had been increased by generation in Vessels perfectly shut Which contradicteth his own words This pretious Liquor perished it is no more it hath ceased to be and that indeed in the raging winter Therefore since neither heat nor cold can co-thicken air into water much lesse shall that do it which is temperate Therefore never It is a wonder therefore why it hath not hindered the drying up of the Liquor in Vessels Since according to his own prattle those should be onely buried under the Snow that they might be filled with water Now there shall not hereafter be need of rain if the Cave being perfectly shut and cold continual Cisterns should be made And likewise when the water should over-weigh the air that water shall fall into the bottom of a great Vessel very closely shut from whence as oft as one would list the water should be drawn out And so that Vessel should be changed into a winter Fountain For as Heer saith The Vessel was very closely shut it wanted little holes neither had it need of opening as well for the entrance as the transpiration of the air But if a new air might afterwards enter the same way and by the same meanes whereby the water that was changed into air the Glasse being shut flew out Hereafter therefore sweet water shall not be wanting to Marriners in a Ship if by the cold of the night the air growes together by drops into water Venice and Antwerp shall frame Fountains in the belly of a Brasse Cock which in the Pinacle of the Temple sheweth the windes For by the night-cold the air shall weep being turned into water And although the Pipe be moyst to those that play on Flutes that is not from the air Otherwise Organ-Pipes also should be moyst within which is false For the air utters the sound or tune and the salt vapour drops water out of the Pipe They having pressed air of one ell together in a gun to the space of 14 fingers even in the cold of winter and so far is it that the air so pressed together in excelling cold was changed into water that it cast out a leaden Bullet thorow an Oken Plank more strongly than a hand-Gun or Pistollet Now I will proceed to prove that thing by positive Reasons Because an applied esteem or thinking hath on every side overshadowed the Schooles with a manifold absurdity CHAP. XI The Essay of a Meteor 1. A vapour raised from the heat of water differs from that which is made by cold 2. That Air is not made of water 3. That air can neither by art or nature be brought into water 4. That the Air doth not subsist without an actuall vacuum or emptiness 5. It is proved by Handicraft operation that the subtilizing or rarefying of Art however exact or fine it be is nothing but a sifting 6. By handy operation the same thing is shewen in the sifting or making of leaf-Gold 7. The water is examined by three proportionable things and the Doctrine of necessity in the highest degrees of cold of the middle Region of the Air is delivered 8. The likeness of Mercury with water 9. The nature of Mercury 10. The rashness of antient Chymists concerning Mercury 11. That earth and water are never made one thing by any co-mixture 12. How art exceedes nature 13. The Earth is properly the fruit of the two primary Elements 14. A neere Reason of an uncapacity in Mercury of being destroyed 15. Aquae fortesses do not operate upon the Center of Mercury 16. Nor the Spirit of Sea-salt upon the body of it 17. The inward Sulphur of Mercury 18. How water may give a weight more weighty than it self 19. After what manner there is an ordinary piercing of Bodies in the way of nature 20. In the way of nature there are not the three first things although in its own simpleness there is a conceivable difference of kinde which is to receive the Seedes 21. Smoak is meer water 22. Why Clouds do stink 23. What the Dew is 24. What a mist is 25. Wherefore it behooved the Air in the middle Region of the Air to be cold 26. In this cold all seeds seperated by Atomes or Motes do die and therefore the water returns into the simplicity of its own Element but in Earth and Water if things are spoiled of their seed they do not return unto that simplicity but do conceive a new seed 27. By Handicraft operation the errour of Paracelsus is laid open 28. The errour of the Galenists about the savours of things Elementated 29. What the Gas of the water is 30. The unconstancy of Paracelsus concerning the seperation of Elements from Elements IT is already sufficiently manifest that the water by the force of heat is lifted up in manner of a vapour which vapour nevertheless is nothing but water made thin and remains as before and therefore being
great deep began from the hollowness of the Heaven and was bounded upon the Globe of the Earth Nothing is there read of the creating of the air which notwithstanding is a Body and created into an Element not indeed after the six dayes Creation that it might fill up the place where the air now is Therefore the Heaven designeth or signifieth the Air and the matter of the Heavens is otherwise hitherto unknown And then the Eternall created the Firmament that it might seperate the waters which ought to remain under it from those that were to remain above it But the Firmament was not as it were the floud-gate or as it were an idle partition of the waters but rather the operative Principle of that seperation Even as the Sun is not the middle partition between the day and the night although it was made to seperate the day from the night but the Sun is the maker of the day it self Therefore the Heaven or Air was appointed the seperater of the waters to endure as long as the very World it self For which cause it hath obtained two notable powers To wit exceeding coldness and dryness proportioned thereunto It hath indeed great lights in it which are rowled about in it and the which however they may mitigate its in-born cold yet the air ceaseth not from that office of a seperater And in what part that kinde of seperation ought to happen which is neere to us there are no lights at all yea nor also far aloft But by how much the neerer that air toucheth at the Chambers of the blessed it abounds with many lights Thus is the air it self disposed But now I will set upon the History of an exhalation which contains a vapour and also a Gas and so we must examine the thing contained in the air For neither is Gas a dry and Oily Body which the Antients have called an exhalation but it containeth moreover another watery body also besides Vapours from whence the body manner and progress of Meteors will be known I consider the body of the water to contain in it an Elementary and native Mercury liquid and most simple next an un-savoury and alike simple Salt Both which do embrace within them a uniform homogeneall simple and unseperable Sulphur These things I suppose even as Astronomers do their excentrices that I may go to meet the weakness of our understanding Therefore the Salt of water as it is moved and waxeth hot from the least lukewarmness being impatient of heat straight-way climbes on high as it were to the place of rest and refreshment with a proportionable part of its own Mercury And for that cause the Sulphur also being unseperable from both ought to accompany them The three things being thus conjoyned are the vapour which being brought into the luke-warm air for the same Reasons hasteneth to ascend untill it hath touched the places of its refreshment provided by the Creator Whither the vapour being now brought the heat which troubled it being presently laid down the Salt as it were repenting of its flight could wish that it might again receive a resolving in its Mercury and return into its former state of water But the lofty and troublesome cold of the place hinders it By occasion whereof the Mercury of the water is so frozen or congealed that it is unfit for the resolving of its Salt Wherefore that vapour is presently changed into a Gas and Gas hanging in doubt in a shape wanders up and down So that unless the cold did dry up the Sulphur of the water in a bark or shell and in this respect divide it every vapour and Cloud even as in our glassen Vessels as being heavier than the air should by and by rush downwards Hence we see that vapours having slidden down a little beyond their bound even as straightway after great colds when as the South winde blowes on it at unawares the Mercury of the water being unfrozen that the Salt is at length easily resolved within its Mercury For the importunities of cold and heat do command the Beginnings of the water to be turned inward or outward For so the lesser rains and the dew do fall down in the least Atomes as it were descending and resolved vapours Therefore there is not a new and substantiall generation while of water a vapour is lifted up since it is onely an extenuating by reason of a turning of its parts outward As neither also whiles the Mercury of the water doth resolve the Salt which it again shuts up within it self and is changed into rain Which is nothing but the resolving of the former Atomes of the water and a co-uniting them into greater drops For a changing of the essence doth not interpose where there is onely a locall dividing and turning of parts outward For example yellow and malleable gold doth not change its essence while being dissolved by Aqua Regis it hath the colour of Iron rust nor while it waxeth black in Chrysulca and is beaten into the smallest powder Moreover that thou mayest know Gas in the first place meditate the air to be the seperater next to be simple in its Root so likewise to be simply cold and dry Since therefore heat and cold are more active than moysture and dryness therefore the moysture of the Mercury doth first suffer by the coldness of the air and seeing that the Mercury and Salt of the water are more cold than its Sulphur therefore they are more speedily affected and first of all indeed the Mercury because it is the coldest of the two Companions But since every thing desireth to remain in rest without the change of successive alterations and since the Elements also ought to remain without destruction therefore the Mercury and Salt of the water do hasten to preserve themselves from the coldness of the air And so they co-thicken arm and incrust themselves in Ice that they may the more resist in soundness which otherwise being changed into Gas are lifted up for it is alwayes a property of the air to seperate the waters from the waters or else they stop or hinder that changing and flight But if indeed the water being stirred or disturbed is not made Ice then the cold and dryth of the air do lay hold on the three first things of the water so as the Mercury of the water is made uncapable of resolving the salt in its moysture And so the Salt doth under the cold after a sort wax clotty in the Mercury and Sulphur So as that the Sulphur being more dry than the other two doth also more easily suffer than its fellowes and more from the dryth of the air than from its coldness Wherefore the Sulphur is enlarged into the smallest parts and the Mercuries and Salts of all which parts being made clotty they thrust their Sulphur outward that it might suffer from the dryness of the air Wherefore seeing the Sulphur is equall to either of them both the other two must needes
silent concerning the Equinoctial Line and its wonderfull properties that a Canon being discharged on one side of the Stone not any noyse or trembling should be heard on the other side thereof the which therefore is called a mute one So also we must needes consider that there are side folding-doores or Gates of Peroledes in the Air because the windes going forth for the most part with a side motion are also by the Blas of the Stars agreeably carried a crosse their bounds From the aforesaid Doctrine of Gas I at length object against my self If the water be frozen by cold into snowes Hail and Ice then the water shall not be dissolved by cold into Gas if of a uniform Agent and Patient there ought to be the same action and effect Where I must seriously note That the Water freezeth it self but is not frozen efficiently by another For although cold may be hitherto thought to congeal yet that is onely occasionally not effectively The water therefore after the sense of its measure perceives the cold of the air not indeed a certain absence or privation of heat even as I have already demonstrated by an ordinary example in Helvetia but as a positive cause in a naturall quality For truly first of all it is without doubt and is manifest by the sight that the cold Air doth by degrees consume Water Snow and Ice yet these two more slowly and the other more swiftly In the next place it is easie to be seen that whatsoever the Air thus privily steales away that presently for that very cause passeth over into an invisible Gas If therefore the cold of the Air should harden water into Ice a further action of the Air would also the Ice being now made continually cease but the consequent is false therefore also the Antecedent For the Sulphur of the water doth easily wax dry and is divided by the cold wherefore the Mercury and Salt of the water perceiving the frost of the Air that would seperate the Waters from the Waters and that they ought to suffer the extension and drying up of their Sulphur and so an alltogether violent impression of the seperater and that they do desire to remain as they are Hence the whole water at once doth arm it self by a Crust that it may resist the seperater Which thing indeed it could not accomplish but that also some part of the Sulphur hath already suffered an extenuating of it self and so also in this respect the Ice doth swim upon the water But that the Sulphur of the water although it was extenuated in the Ice yet hath not laid aside the nature of water is proved by handicraft-operation Fill a glassen and great Bottle with pieces of Ice but let the neck be shut with a Hermes Seal by the melting of the glasse in the same place Then let this Bottle be put in a balance the weight thereof being laid in the contrary Scale and thou shalt see that the water after the Ice is melted shall be weightier by almost an eighth part than it self being Ice Which thing since it may be a thousand times done by the same water reserving alwayes the same weight it cannot be said that any part thereof was turned into air For such is the continuance and constancy of the Elements that although the water departs into a vapour into Gas into Ice yea into composed bodies yet the auntient water alwayes materially remaineth in some place masked by ferments and seedes coming upon it and else-where onely by the importunities of the first qualities made to differ in the Relolleum of Paracellus that is without a seed But from what hath been said before Some remarkable things do arise 1. That the water hath a certain kinde of sense or feeling and so that all Beings do after some sort partake of life Come let us worship the King by whom all things live 2. Seeing that the water doth not incrust it self in the fabrick of a vapour therefore a vapour as well in the cause as in the manner is more acceptable to the water than a Gas is And that thing doth argue in the water something like to choice 3. And that therefore a vapour doth sooner return into water than into Gas 4. That the changing of water into a vapour is in respect of the seperater oblique or crooked and as it were by accident but that Gas consisteth of a proper appointment of the air whereby the air doth seperate the waters from the waters 5. That the air is far more cold in it self than the water 6. That it is dry by it self 7. That the unity or connexion of entire parts is as acceptable to nature as the dividing of the same is to things opposite 8. That the fabrick of Gas shall afford another intimate principle to the water since it hath not a compositive beginning or part that is the cause of some small difference of kinde besides that which is touched by heat in the rise of a vapour 9. That all created things by how much the more simple they are by so much the more of the same kinde yet an every way most simple homogeniety or sameliness of kinde is not found in bodies 10. That the Sulphur of the water being extenuated in the Ice is the cause of smoothness in congealed things but not the enclosing of a forreign air because alwayes and every where water doth exclude the Wedlock of air 11. That the cold and dryness of the air can act nothing else into the water but to extenuate its Sulphur But that the congealing or hardening it self is an action proper to the water whereby it puts a stop to the seperater 12. That the air acts upon the water without the re-acting of this and the suffering of the air since it is appointed by divine right the seperater of the waters 13. That even in unsensible naturall things re-action differeth from resistance For truly there is no re-action of the water on the air and yet the water is with a resistance 14. That the Schooles have erred because they have dictated every action of nature to be made with a re-acting of the Patient and a suffering of the agent 15. That the changing of Gas into air is impossible 1. For otherwise the air should alwayes increase into a huge body and by consequence all water had long since failed 2. Because besides that which I have elsewhere demonstrated that the air can by no meanes return again into water the same thing is manifest from the but now aforesaid particulars 3. For truly it is proper to water to suffer by air and not likewise to re-act on the air Therefore air being once made by water should alwayes remain air seeing a returning agent is wanting which may turn air into water 4. But for air by it self to return into water opposeth a generall Maxim That every thing as much as in it lies doth desire to remain in it self 5. Especially because air
wants in it self a dissolutive principle of it self caused by the rottenness and interchangeable course of parts 6. If air should at any time be made water that thing should especially be while air is pressed beneath the water And if in water there should be the action of water it should then chiefly obtain its effect upon that air Therefore fill a Glass Bottle half full of water and stop its mouth with a Cork that nothing may breath out then shake the vessel strongly a thousand times upwards and downwards that all the water may as it were froath into bubbles At length notwithstanding thy pains thou shalt not finde air to have departed into water or water into air 7. If therefore water doth not change air into it self otherwise a natural agent works to this end that it may make the Patient like it self there is no other thing afterwards whereby the air may be made water Where as it were by a Parenthesis it comes to be noted that the aforesaid Maxim looseth its universality and truth not onely in the Elements where a mutuall action happens among each other without a desire of changing one into themselves but also in the Heavens yea and also in very many compound bodies For neither doth Mercury in its whole and indivisible substance therefore kill lice that it may make them like it self So neither doth Amber draw Chaffe that thereby it may make it Amber Therefore by a strawie argument the Maxim of the Schooles falls to the ground which otherwise is blown away with a light winde 8. For if air were changed into water that would chiefly happen where those two Elements are co-mixed with each other in their smallest parts for that is in the Clouds But in the Clouds this comes not to passe because in whatsoever place degree manner and quality the air hath touched on the superficies of the water the water is alwayes lessened by the air never at any time increased Therefore there is no action of water into air for if there were any it should be in the hollow superficies of the air where the force of the Element of water residing in its native place is strongest and most conjoyned but there the air consumeth the water because it divides it into a vapour Therefore air never departs into water 10. Seeing therefore no Element hath in it self a Root by which it being as it were affected with wearisomness may change it self into another Element for truly every transmutation proceedeth from a duality or a twofold thingliness elsewhere but there is not a voluntary desire in an Element of dying and converting into another and an appetite appointment and necessity of increasing of nourishing of exchanging it self or of changing the nature in which it was created of God is wanting 11. Vain therefore is the contentious co-mingling of Elements in compound bodies and frivolous is the transmutation of one into another seeing none of the Elements is careful for the passing over of its being from another nor from it self Wherefore I have first concluded with my self that the water and air are primary Elements nor that they can ever make a retrogression or return 12. For the blessed Parent of Nature would not that the Elements should be hostilely opposite and applied that they should breath forth mutuall destruction and devouring continually and that they should be so often made fail and with so many daily formall privations should rise again from death unto their former state without the interposing of a more simple mean Which mean surely should otherwise be desired to be a partaker as well of air as water and yet ought to be neither of these 13. Therefore the holy Scriptures do name the air the seperater but not the destroyer or annihilater of the waters Nor is it right that the air should be drawn to other offices than those which are enjoyned to it by the Workman and Lord of things 14. Finally rarefying or condensing do not change the essential form of the water because they are materiall dispositions destitute of an Archeus 15. Moreover if water having suddenly taken to it a ferment and seed be transchanged into a concrete or composed body Yet that is perpetuall to it by an Elementary priviledge as neither therefore that it ever layes aside the matter of Elementary water 16. It is granted indeed to seeds to frame their composed bodies out of water and to act their Tragedy by the defluxion of forms untill death But the forms of composed bodies do not therefore destroy the simplicity of water and sameliness of its form Much less than the Soul coming suddenly on a body doth destroy the form of flesh For subordinate forms do every where in composed bodies suffer together with each other Therefore much more doth the form of a composed body suffer also the form of its own Element to be untouched Last of all although the air by its greatest coldness doth change the water into Gas yet it never desisteth from the office of Seperater of the waters So that if its cold be restrained at least by its dryth it ceaseth not to raise a vapour out of the water For the action of the Heavens in their circumvolving is uncessant and next also the obedience of the air and water is continuall yea there is an interrupted thread in the acting of all seminall things For truly created things do alwayes respect the will of their Creator which man alone neglecteth CHAP. XIV The Blas of Meteours 1. What Blas is 2. The Blas of a Star worketh more famously by locall motion than by light 3. What the Motive Blas of the Stars is 4. What the Winde is and whence it may be moved 5. That the Stars are made for us 6. Divers activities in Blas 7. That the activities of the Stars are brought down by Blas the executer of motions 8. The errour of Paracelsus 9. The two great Lights do work their own properties 10. How the influences of the Stars may be reduced under the two Lights 11. The Births of rains and Meteors 12. Putrefactions by continuance do arise straightway after the sliding down of the Waters whence are the Ferments and seeds of things 13. A History of Cyprus 14. A resolving of a Question touching the rest or quiet of the Summer-air and the continuall breathing of the Winter-air THE Stars are to us for signes times or seasons dayes and years Therefore they cause the changes seasons and successive courses or interchanges To which end they have need of a twofold motion to wit locall and alterative But I signific both these by the new name of Blas And they do rather stir up a Blas by their mooving through a place than by their light Indeed in a dark night the South winde oft-times followeth the blowing North-windes and this likewise it Therefore because Blas breaths forth a luke-warm winde it hath need not of the heat or light of Heaven it self but of place direction
fore-going Chapters I now at length proceed to a diligent examination of the Air. For I have therefore said that it is to be proved by Handicraft-operation that water is not from the co-pressing of air how cold soever it be and so that they have hitherto erred in the mixing of the Elements originall of Fountains c. But the Handicraft operation is true that air may be pressed together in an Iron Pipe of an ell about the length of fifteen fingers at the expansion or enlarging of which co-pressed air the sending forth of a small Bullet thorow a Board or Plank should happen no lesse than if it were driven out of a Hand-gun Which thing surely could not so come to passe if the air by so great a pressing together of it self under the cold of wintery Iron were to be changed into water For from thence have I first of all learned the matter and conditions of the air that it should sometimes most easily sustain a pressing together and enlarging of it self as the sight doth shew From whence I consequently have supposed that by all meanes there must needes be in the air enlarged some free space and vacuum according to the double extension of it Suppose thou if from the breadth of twenty eight fingers air be shut back under a Pipe of five fingers without any destruction of air it followes that almost the fingers and almost half of the air are void of a body For either of the two must needes be so under this mechannick proof that either absolutely there is ordinarily granted a vacuum in the nature of the air or a piercing of bodies in the air being pressed together as was said Many surely will with me more easily admit of a vacuum than of an existence of divers bodies in the same place Seeing a vacuum doth not far differ from nothing and since the action of nothing is more weak than the action of a doubled Being And since nature began of nothing it is neerer to nothing than to a double Being And so nature doth more skirmish against a double Being For Gun-powder over-turns Mountains Mines and Cities But an example of the same force is never offered in behalf of a vacuum But besides I again thus prove an ordinary vacuum in nature in the air Let a piece of Candle be placed in the midst of the bottom of a dish being fastened to its melted Tallow in the bottom Let it burn and let water be powred round about it to two or three fingers space but let a deep Cupping-glasse be set over the flame the flame appearing three fingers space out of the water so that the mouth of the Glasse set over it may stand upon the bottom of the dish Thou shalt straightway see the place of the air in the aforesaid free Glasse but the water by a certain sucking to be drawn upwards and to ascend into the Glasse in the place of diminished air and at length the flame to be smothered wherein many things come to hand First true things 1. And in the first place it is not to be doubted but that the flame is a kindled smoak 2. That that smoak is the body Gas 3. That a smoakiness or fuliginous vapour doth ascend from the top of the burnt smoak 4. That one part of the Tallow or Wax is easily extended into ten thousand fold as much as it self From whence I conclude that the place of the air ought not to be lessened by the flame but necessarily to be increased unless some place in the air were empty which is lessened Nor otherwise doth it want an absurdity that an Element should be brought to nothing or consumed For indeed a Gun or fiery Mines or Burroughs should not work those monstrous things of our age nor the breakings asunder of the hardest and greatest stones in Mines unless a small quantity of powder being kindled as it were at one moment did send forth ten thousand times as much flame as it self at least which flame cannot be stayed with the former place of the Powder it rather breaks asunder all things than that smoak should pierce smoak or flame flame 5. To which particulars the extension of the air through the heat of the flame hath access and not a pressing of it together as it otherwise appeares to the common sort Lastly let a sulphurated Toreh or Candle be hung up by a thred in a Glasse-bottle but let there be some small quantity of water in the Bottle and let the Bottle be exactly stopped with the bark of the Cork-Tree that nothing breath out Thou shalt see the flame and smoak of the Sulphur to fill up the whole floore or space of the Bottle in which the air is and at length the fire to be quenched Yet that there is not made a lessening of the air nor a sucking of the water upwards because the water ought to be put in the place of the air so that sucking here should make no gain nor should recompence the defect in the air Well indeed because the cover being opened a sucking is discerned But the flame doth not so toughly stick on the Candle that it may be for the lifting up so great a weight of water which flame is dispersed from its Candle by the least blast And so the flame doth not immediately lift up the water but a sucking being caused through a consuming of some part in the air doth lift up the water and for many dayes the water remains as yet advanced after the extinguishing of the flame Wherefore I have meditated that the air hath pores or little holes which should suffer a violent constriction of the air in the Pipe and some certain naturall annihilation in the dish But that the Air should be co-thickned in the Glasse by reason of the heat flame and smoak that opposeth Mathematicall Demonstration And the Instrument sheweth that by how much the degrees of the encompassing air are measured the heat doth enlarge but not contract the air Therefore the aforesaid objection opposeth the supposed position wherein it is granted that there is made an addition of matter in the Air by a new matter of flame and smoak But if it be said that there is something in the Air that is inflameable which is consumed by the flame of the Candle Now a new absurdity ariseth To wit that some body is plainly annihilated or burnt up by the flame and in burning up that it is not enlarged Again by supposing something to be wasted away it is at leastwise necessary that that inflameable matter be turned into nothing or into something But it is the property of fire that in burning up it doth extend every thing that is inflameable but doth not presse that thing together As before I have taught by Gun-powder But if we say that the air in the Glasse is lessened by the flame now I have what I intended To wit that there is in the air something that is lesse than
perfectly teach my own opinion not stablished by heathenish Dreams but confirmed by the Doctrine of a higher authority For first of all the Earth is actually distinguished by certain Pavements Soils or grounds for truly the outward Soil of the Earth is plainly Sandy Clayie white else-where clayie-yellow muddy grisely or grayie white yellow black red c. sporting with divers varieties Under which for the most part is a Sand and this very Sand differenced every where with great variety But under this Soil is at length the flinty Mountain which they call Keyberch being the Pavement and Originall of Rocks and first Root of Mineralls And at length every where under this Soil is the living or quick Sand the boyling Sand Drif or Quellem which is extended even into the Center of the World being thorowly washed in its un-interrupted joyning with waters And although all the aforesaid Soils do not every where succeed each other in order yet the Quellem is every where the last Pavement of the World although oftentimes immediately exposed to the Air and plain to be seen As concerning the Originall of Fountains in my Book of the Fountains of the Spaw This therefore being once supposed I say that the place where the exhalation should be which is believed to be the cause of the Earth-quake ought to be placed or appointed in some or amongst some of the said Soils seeing that in the Earth there is not a place out of the aforesaid Pavements But to the overthrowing of that Doctrine a demonstration is required which from a sufficient enumcration of the Pavements may shew that such an impossible exhalation cannot be contained or be raised up in any of the said Soils or if it should be there stirred up yet that it hath not the power of forming an Earth-quake As to the first of the three members to wit that not any exhalation can be contained under the Earth which may actively cause its trembling I prove First of all not under the outmost Clayie or first Soil of the Earth next to the Air and designed for the habitation of Mortalls because so S. Rumolds Tower had not trembled as neither Buildings built immediately upon the Quellem As neither had Ships without the raging of Windes been removed in deep Waters far from the ground of the Sand. For it being granted that the bottom of the Sea did tremble just even as the Earth else-where inhabited yet the Superficies of the Water could not keep the tenour of the same trembligg Sand without winde and storm which thing notwithstanding is discerned to be false for flying Birds also feeling the trembling of the Earth would not fall down they being as it were sore smitten or astonished for a sign that the Air it self doth tremble For the Elements shall at sometime melt in the sight of the Judge Therefore if the water doth tremble no lesse than the quiet Earth it self the cause thereof is signified to be in the Globe or because the Earth and water do at the same stroak of smiting together with the Air feel a fear or hand of the smiter Secondly neither can an exhalation the cause of an Earth-quake dwell in any of the Soils of Sands because then Fens Medows and places wherein the Quellem is immediately prostituted beneath the Clay had not trembled VVhich thing is as equally different from the truth of the deed as the former Next in the third place neither can the same exhalation be hidden under the Keyberch For in the whole Circle a few places excepted wherein the Earth then trembled at the same moment of time the ground Keyberch is not extant At length neither could an exhalation arise or be detained between the Quellem which is sufficient to shake so great an heap with an equall fury Because the Quellem that is oft-times next the Air and conjoyned even into the Center of the Universe by its continuall unity and thorow mixture of waters should easily puffe out such an exhalation before it could equally lift up so great an heap at once For it is of an unexcusable necessity because such an exhalalation should break forth out of the more weak lesse heavy and lesse resisting part that is in the place that is least ponderous And so under the position of the granted exhalation there could not be an alike trembling of all places which resisteth the thing done For before that the exhalation should lift up so great weights through so vast and various spaces of ground and waters at once and at one moment it had sought and had found out easie following and the more weak places through which it had made a way for it self to break out at For otherwise the exhalations should fight against the rules of nature proportion and motions which should lift up equally and at once all the parts of the Low-Countries and a great part of Germany Especially where there is not an equall capacity of every place wherein the exhalation should be entertained not an equall fardle of the incumbent burden or resistance of weight as neither is there an equall awakening of that exhalation possible to be that at once and almost at one onely moment it should alike act thorow so many Regions Which is to say that it is impossible that the exhalation the Mover of the Earth-quake being granted there should be an equality in the sameliness of time and power of motion through so great a space through so great a difference and resistance of the Soil and of the Heaven and diversity of weight seeing such an acting exhalation meating out its efficacy by the variety of places difference greatness activity swiftness of the Mover being of necessity unlike ought also to obey the unlikenesses of places Therefore let the quantity rise power entertainment and swiftness of exhalations be ridiculous which should at one and the same moment after a like manner and re-iterated course shake so many Cities Mountains Valleys Hills watry places Meadows Rivers Islands and so vast a heap longly and largely displaced and sooner than it should seek finde and make a passage for it self But now I coming to the second Member of proving to wit that in the aforesaid Pavements of the Earth the raising up of an exhalation is impossible which may be the cause of an Earth-quake Let every kinde of naturall vapour be determined and examined by its causes The exhalation which may be supposed to be the Mover of the Earth is not in the first place a vapour or watery exhalation because that most swiftly returns again into water daily by pressing together of its own accord in our Alembicks but an exhalation according to Aristotle that is chiefly necessary for these bounds is a hot and dry flux or Issue out of Bodies for the most part also Oylie lifted up from the dry parts by a sharp heat into the form of Air or a rising smoak But I could wish that the Schooles may answer what therefore at
much Air cannot lift up a Bladder surely much lesse shall the Air rise up being pressed down under the huge weight of the low Countries For indeed the Elements do in the first place and onely respect themselves truly they act all things for their own sake And therefore a Glasse-bottle being filled with Air and buried can never a whit endeavour to spring up out of the Earth because the Air is every where in its own naturall place as oft as the space of its place is not filled with another body neither is it carefull for passage Therefore if there are hollow places under the Earth the Air doth naturally rest in those places from all locall motion But in places where Sands fall down as it were a fluide body there because the dust fills up the empty place and falls down through its weight it also by accident presseth out the air But that motion of the Earth or Water is not therefore efficiently from the lightness of the Air or that the Air by the proper motion of its own lightness doth move it self and climbe upwards But mark in this thing weightiness it self is the active primary and totall efficient cause seeing weightiness hath a reall weight and is an active quality but on the contrary the lightness of the Air is the effecter of nothing seeing it hath no weight it of necessity betokeneth nothing neither can it have any efficacy of acting From whence it followes 1. That the lightness of the Air worketh nothing nor that a Bladder which should be great and weigh onely six grains could be of its own accord lifted up by the inclosed Air how great soever otherwise which is false the Air should be lighter than that which hath no weight 2. That the Air doth not appear out of the water by reason of its lightness as it were the active or the moving quality of swimming but weightiness is the reall quality which expells the Air. 3. And therefore the position of the Schooles is absurd wherein Air or an exhalation is appointed for the efficient cause of an Earth-quake by reason of its lightness as if it should shake the Earth by lifting it up Wherefore seeing it is now sufficiently proved 1. That there is not a place in the Pavements or Soils of the Earth wherein any Aiery Body may be entertained whether that Body be a Winde or an Aiery exhalation but by how much the deeper that place shall be sought for by so much the greater difficulties do arise as well by reason of the greater abundance of water as the greater fardle of Earth from above so that that is as it were of an infinite power which should cause a trembling of the Earth 2. And then that there can be no fire heat driness or any other stirrer up of an exhalation of so great power or that which is co-related to it That there is no possibility of such an exhalation in nature there to subsist And at length thirdly that no exhalation by reason of lightness doth operate any thing or lift up a heavy body much lesse so vast a Country of Earth Therefore I conclude that it is an empty fiction of the Schooles whatsoever hath been hitherto diligently taught concerning an Earth-quake Wherefore I will perfectly teach that the manner of an Earth-quake diligently taught by the Schooles is altogether impossible Let us therefore again feigne absurdities that as it were by the rule of falshood the errour of the Schooles may be discovered To wit let us grant a Bladder to be of a matter that is tractable or easily to be beaten thin being a thousand times stronger than all Iron and to be spread it is unknown in what Soil throughout all the low Countries and Germany under the foundation of Mountains Cities Seas and Rivers But a thousand huge paires of Bellowes most firmly and excellently annexed thereto Therefore that they may be able to lift up all the low Countries at once it must needes be that those Bellowes and the Posts and Axles of these be so strong as that they might be sufficient to lift up the weight And then a hand should be required or an Agent of so great strength that it might be able to lift up all the low Countries with its Palme or else it could not presse together those Bellowes which are full of winde But such an Agent is not in the Sublunary nature of things although the other granted absurdities should be present therefore the vain lightness of the Air or an exhalation is frivolous and the inbred desire of their breaking forth Therefore I never a whit doubt to deny the naturall cause rendered by the Schooles invented by the Devill that my God his own honour may be over-clouded Because the Schooles have been hitherto ignorant that lightness is not an active quality and so much lesse should it be an overturner of Mountains but they have sometimes considered that a Mine which was before over-covered hath straightway after an Earthquake belched forth a stinking poyson and made a gap for it self therefore they have dared through inconsiderateness and ignorance to refer this effect of an Earth-quake by accident into a cause by it self Which things that they may more clearly appear let us again feign the aforesaid Bladder under the low Countries to be stretched out with an Aiery Body of its own accord or by the influence of the Stars for when reason faileth those that are ignorant do alwayes run back to the Stars and causes afar of and for Witnesses not to be cited and no Bellowes to be as neither holes round about Then at leastwise the Body of all the Low-Countries laying on it should so presse the aforesaid Bladder with its weight that if it burst not it should at least in its weaker and lesse ponderous part belch forth that which is contained in it Which thing being obtained now indeed the cause of the pressing together of the Bladder and of the fall of the Low Countries together with the opening of some gap is present But the cause of the lifting up of that Bladder is not yet to be found and much lesse of the repeated succession of trembling and quaking Lastly neither is such a Bladder and its substance possible to be without which although there should be room in the Earth yet it is not fit for nourishing or receiving that exhalation Yea the bounds of the aforesaid Bladder being set or supposed at leastwise the Air or exhalation works nothing that it may lift up the Earth by its lightness but if the Earth fall down or go to ruine it findes not a cause for it selfe as to this thing in the lightness of the detained Air seeing it shuts up the whole cause in the Fist of its weightiness and the pressing out of the Air is to be measured according to the measure of the weight that layeth on it Therefore the Bladder being again supposed if any Winde or Air should blow from without
water nor yet are fixed do necessarily belch forth a wild spirit or breath Suppose thou that of 62 pounds of Oaken coal one pound of ashes is composed Therefore the 61 remaining pounds are the wild spirit which also being fired cannot depart the Vessel being shut I call this Spirit unknown hitherto by the new name of Gas which can neither be constrained by Vessels nor reduced into a visible body unless the seed being first extinguished But Bodies do contain this Spirit and do sometimes wholly depart into such a Spirit not indeed because it is actually in those very bodies for truly it could not be detained yea the whole composed body should flie away at once but it is a Spirit grown together coagulated after the manner of a body and is stirred up by an attained ferment as in Wine the juyce of unripe Grapes bread hydromel or water and Honey c. Or by a strange addition as I shall sometime shew concerning Sal Armoniack or at length by some alterative disposition such as is roasting in respect of an Apple For the Grape is kept and dried being unhurt but its skin being once burst and wounded it straightway conceiveth a ferment of boyling up and from hence the beginning of a transmutation Therefore the Wines of Grapes Apples berries Honey and likewise flowers and leaves being pounced a ferment being snatched to them they begin to boyl and be hot whence ariseth a Gas but from Raysins bruised and used for want of a ferment a Gas is not presently granted The Gas of Wines if it be constrained by much force within Hogs-heads makes Wines â—urious mute and hurtfull Wherefore also the Graâ—e being abundantly eaten hath many times brought forth a diseasie Gas For truly the spirit of the ferment is much disturbed and seeing it is disobedient to our digestion it associates it selfe to the vitall spirit by force yea if any thing be prepared to be expelled in manner of a Sweat that thing through the stubborn sharpness or soureness of the ferment waxeth clotty and brings forth notable troubles torments or wringings of the bowels Fluxes and the Bloudy-flux I being sometimes in my young beginnings deluded by the authority of ignorant writers have believed the Gas of Grapes to be the spirit of Wine in new Wine But vain tryalls have taught me that the Gas of Grapes and new Wine are in the way to Wine but not the spirit of Wine For the juyce of Grapes differs from Wine no otherwise than the pulse of water and meal do from Ale or Beer For a fermentall disposition coming between both disposeth the fore-going matter into the transmutation of it self that thereby another Being may be made For truly I will at sometims teach that every formall transmutation doth presuppose a corruptive ferment Other more refined Writers have thought that Gas is a winde or air inclosed in things which had flowen unto that generation for an Elementary co-mixture And so Paracelsus supposed that the air doth invisibly lurk under the three other Elements in every body but in time onely that the Air is visible but his own unconstancy reproveth himself because seeing that he sheweth in many places else-where that bodies are mixed of the three first things but that the Elements are not Bodies but the meer wombs ' of things But he observed not a two-fold Sulphur in Tin and therefore is it lighter than other Mettalls whereof one onely is co-agulable by reason of the strange or forreign property of its Salt whereby Jupiter or Tin maketh every Mettall frangible or capable of breaking and brickle it being but a little defiled with its odour onely but that the other Sulphur is Oily For Gun-powder doth the most neerly express the History of Gas For it consisteth of Salt-peter which they rashly think to be the Nitre of the Antients and the which is at this day plentifully brought to us being dried up from the inundation of Nilus of Sulphur and a Coal because they being joyned if they are enflamed there is not a Vessel in nature which being close shut up doth not burst by reason of the Gas For if the Coal be kindled the Vessel being shut nothing of it perisheth but Sulphur if the Glasse being shut it be sublimed wholly ascends from the bottom without the changing of its Species or kinde Salt-peter also being melted in a shut Vessel as to one part of it gives a sharp Liquor that is watery but as to the other part it is changed into a fixed Alcali Therefore fire sends forth an Air or rather a Gas out of all of them singly which else if the air were within it would â—end forth from the three things being connexed Therefore those things being applied together do mutually convert themselves into Gas through destruction But there is that un-sufferance of Sulphur and Salt-peter not indeed by the wedlock of cold with hot as of powerfull qualities as is believed but by reason of the un-cosufferable â—lowing of boyling Oil and Wine no lesse than of water or of Copper and Tin being melted with Wine For in so great heat when they co-touch each other throughout their least parts they are either turned into a Gas or do leap asunder For so Lead being roasted with Mercury and Sulphur departeth into a sudden flame a small lee or dreg being left almost of no weight yet enlarged to the extension of the Lead VVherefore if the Gas were air all the Gun-powder should be air and the Lead it self should be wholly air But it is not possible for the fire to produce out of the same Elementary fruit sometimes air sometimes water with an ultimate reducement unlesse the fire loose also its uniformity of working that was planted in it by the Creator In the next place it is already above sufficiently manifested that air and water can never be brought over into each other Therefore if Gun-powder or Salt-peter may observably be reduced into an Elementary water by fire or any other mean whatsoever a transmutation thereof into air is not possible to be But some thousands of pounds of Gun-powder being at some time enflamed at once have not yielded any thing but an inflamed Gas which hath growen together in the Clouds and at length returning into water Furthermore a Coal is reduced in some Fountains into a Rockie stone Likewise I have known the meanes whereby the whole of Salt-peter is turned into an Earth and the whole of Sulphur being once dissolved may be fixed into an Earthly Powder What if therefore these three Earths should contain three or four Elements at leastwise the Earth should occupie the greatest part nor that reducible into its former Gas neither is it consonant to Reason that a Body which wholly flies away into an aiery Gas should be converted into Air or into Earth as man listeth Next seeing the three aforesaid Powders are at length made water under the Artificer which afterwards cannot any more through humane cunning return into
Vessel putrified by continuance it conceiveth Worms it brings sorth Gnats yea is covered with a skin Fens putrifie from the bottom through continuance hence arise Frogs Shell-fishes Snails Horse-leeches Herbs c. And moreover swimming-herbs do cover the water being contented onely with the drinking of water putrified through continuance And even as stones are from Fountains wherein there is a stony seed and ferment existing So the Earth stinking with metally ferments doth make out of water a metally or Mineral Bur. But the water being elsewhere shut up in the Earth if it be nigh the Air and stirred by a little heat it putrifieth by continuance which is no more water but the juyce Leffas or of Plants by the force of which hoary ferment a power is conferred on the Earth of budding forth Herbs for that putrified juyce by the prick of a little heat doth ascend into a smoak is made spongie and encompassed with a skin by reason of the requirance of the ferments therein laying hid Therefore that putrefaction by continuance hath the office of a ferment and the virtues of a seed hastening by degrees into the Archeusses through its seminall virtues into a quantity of life Therefore the juyce of the Earth putrified through continuance is Leffas From whence ariseth every kinde of Plant wanting a visible seed and from whence seeds that are sown are promoted into their appointments therefore there are as many rank or stinking smells of putrefactions by continuance as there are proper savours of things for that odours are not onely the messengers of savours but also their promiscuous parents The smoak Leffas being now gathered together doth at first wax pale afterwards wax yellowish straightway it waxeth a little whitishly green And at length it is fully green And the power of the Species or particular kinde being unfolded it assumeth divers Colours and Signates In which flowing it imitatets the leading of the water under the Equinoctial-line yet in this it differs that these waters have borrowed too Spiritual a ferment from the Star and place without a corporeal hoary putrefaction and therefore through their too frail seed they straightway return into themselves but Leffas is constrained to perfect the Tragedy of the conceived seed Therefore Rain conceiving a hoary ferment and being made Leffas is drawn into the lustfull roots by a certain sucking And it is experienced that within this Kitchin there is a new hoary putrefaction of the Ferment the Tenant by and by it is brought from thence to the Bark or Liver where it is enriched with a new ferment of that bowel and is made an Herby or woody juyce and at length a ripeness being conceived it becommeth Wood becometh an Herb or departs into fruit but the Trunk or Stem if it sooner putrifies under the Earth than the Bark or Rhine becomes dry it cleaves asunder by its own ferment sends forth a smoak thorow the Bark which in its beginning is spongie and at length hardens into a true root and so planted branches become Trees by the abridgement of art Therefore it is now evident that there is no mixture of the Elements that all bodies primitively and materially are made onely of water through a seed being attained by a ferment and that the seeds being exhausted or overcome with pains Bodies do at length return into their antient Inne of water yea that ferments do sometimes work more strongly than fire because great Stones are turned into Lime and Woods indeed into ashes and there the fire makes a stop the which notwithstanding a ferment in the Earth being assumed do of their own accord return into the juyce of Leffas and so also at length into simple water For otherwise Stones and Bricks do of their own accord decline into Salt-peter Lastly Glasse which is unconquered by the fire uncorrupted by the Air in a few years putrifieth by continuance rots under the Earth and undergoes the lawes of water for whatsoever things may be melted in water do forthwith return into water but other things are made volatile by the ferments and what things soever were compacted and not to be thorowly mingled being brought by the ferments of putrefactions by continuance into a necessity of transmutation are opened and do hastily consult of seperating But the most clear Fountains although they climbe thorow the Rocks and Sand out of the un-savoury soil of nature or the Quellem are purified far from the contagion of Clay a ferment and corruption neither do they also fall down by chance but are appointed for great uses yet seeing they contract at least the hidden Odours of the Rockie Stone unperceivable by us they hasten into other bounds Therefore Streams Springs Rivers Fens Pooles Seas and whatsoever things are contained in the belly of the water do likewise even from the very birth of the Fountains conceive their seeds and in wantonizing do ripen them by their course Also great storms of Rain being struck down through the putrefaction of Thunder are fruitfull but sober rains are great with young of dew or a conceived exhalation For I have perfectly learned by the fire that the dew is rich in a sweet Sugar They deliver that in Snow Northern worms are bred therefore the Mountains to be covered over with a long Snow and although their Grass be sparing yet that it is most apt for the fatting of lesser Cattel so that unless they are driven away in time they will be choaked with fat But the waters which contain a melting Paracelsus doth call corporeall ones and he ignorantly denieth that they contain an Element in them Therefore Ferments do by seeds play their universall part in the World under the one Element of water CHAP. XV. The Stars do necessitate not incline nor signifie of the life the body or fortunes of him that is born 1. Naturall Philosophy without Medicine wants its end 2. The objects of the Stars 3. By what Argument the admittings of Ephemerides or Dayes-books may be supported 4. The errour in admitting them 5. However influences may be taken they do alwayes include a necessity 6. What the Works of the Lord in Psal 14. are 7. The fore-knowledge of God is infallible as well in things freely happening as in those of necessity 8. Death is foretold to Hannibal 9. How the Devil foreknoweth things to come 10. The Confession of the Authour 11. How much and from whence an evill Spirit hath a foreknowledge of things to come 12. Which way foreshewing Signes may be made which scarce any one understands 13. The foreshewings of the Stars determined out of the holy Scriptures 14. In what manner or what thing the Stars may act 15. The action of government 16. A diversity of government is shewen from their motion and from their light 17. Sick persons foreshew things to come 18. Why Insects have better known things to come than men 19. VVhy diseased persons do fore-perceive Tempests 20. Foreshewing doth not take away a liberty of
Meteor is reckoned by the holy Scriptures among wise men Which square if Astrologicall Predictions shall through a rash boldness exceed they are not onely vain and conjectural but driven out of both Testaments of the holy Scriptures with the name of Sooth-sayers of Heaven So that St. Ambrose doth rightly compare them to Spiders Webs which indeed do serve to take flies and gnats ensnaring themselves but by a stronger living Creature they are most easily broken asunder So indeed these Predictions do catch onely those that are apt to believe and lesse firm in the faith But that they are vain in themselves and framed by conjecturall Rules I prove because they are supported with a double foundation to wit with none at all and by a false one that which concerns nothingness is that they will have attributed to the Seven Planets the figure inclinations strength or valour wit fortunes and death of him that is born Seeing God hath appointed the Stars onely for signes seasons dayes and years but not for the causes of Predictions And so if those Predictions do contradict divine appointment for that very cause they are null and false Secondly because it is not yet agreed among Astrologers hitherto concerning the Scheme or order of the Heavens To wit whether Mercury and Venus are carried in particular Orbs beneath the Sun according to Ptolomy and all the antient Judiciaries Or whether they are rowled about in like or equall Circles round about the Sun Which thing the Optick-Tube or Glasse hath thus searched out therefore the Aphorismes of Predictions supported by that foundation that those two Planets are alwayes lower than the Sun do fall to the ground And then if two of the Planets Venus being the greatest or chiefest Star except the Sun be carried about the Sun and they are of so great power in judgements and so near to us those spots or Stars in the Sun or most near to it shall likewise be of far greater authority to refell all the Aphorismes of the Antients And the Stars which have lately been found to be moved about Jupiter shall conjecturally convince of the Rules of Almegistus whether they were written from a foundation That in the mean time I may be silent touching the opinion of Copernicus which at this day doth not want its followers and those of no small authority although they do presse their consent under silence which opinion notwithstanding once breaking forth will ruine all apparitions in the Heaven and Predictions Fourthly the point of nativity is uncertain and seeing that the Stars do vary in every point Every prediction is of necessity uncertain I being sometimes deceived in my younger years have attributed very much to the significations of the Stars but when I could not satisfie my self that by the remarkable accident of him that is born I could finde the point of his Nativity which is plainly necessary if those accidents do any way proceed from the Stars at length in behalf of a great Nobleman I described or wrote down his accidents to wit That in the eleventh year of his age a Wife of six years was married unto him he having obtained the degree of Knight of the Garter having travelled far even to the nineteenth year that he had received a wound in a Duel that his right thigh was broken by chance in a Coach the precise houres being adjoyned with very many observations of things The Countrey where he was born being added on the ninth day of the fourth month called June and the houre between seven and ten in the forenoon of the year 1604. I my self went to the most skilfull Judiciaries the Question being also sent away into other Countries with a promise of 600 Crowns to him who could divine or tell the point of his Nativity to us known from the aforesaid accidents At length none touched at the true point but he that came nearest did differ as yet the space of seven points above half an houre from thence There were in the mean time Standard-defenders who denied that such a point was between the seventh and tenth houre by which such accidents could be signified but indeed that point was found to be presently before the fifth houre in the morning yet in the truth of the matter he was born at London I being present seven points after the ninth houre Solar or according to the Sun and not horologiall or according to the Diall or Clock Afterwards therefore I with a notable repentance lamented my aptnesses of belief Moreover touching the falseness of the foundation of Predictions it as yet more clearly appeareth For indeed they themselves do confess that their Eccentricks or things not having one and the same Center c. to be meer fictions and almost impossible to save or preserve their speculations which soundeth that they are ignorant of the Orbs or Circles of the Heavens and the carryings of the Stars And so these absurd fictions being supposed it s no wonder that many near akin to them do follow I have known a remedy whereby otherwise the young would stick in the birth for the space of a day and houres and that drink being taken the Woman brings forth presently after a quarter of an houre and so the point of Nativity is deceived and likewise Herms's Scale of Empsuchosis or quickning but this Remedy I have written else-where to consist in the Liver and Gaul of an Eele being dryed and powdered Lastly the falshood doth more appear for they say that Saturn is a cold and dry melancholy Planet and therefore envious and stirring up to thefts and treacheries plainly evill because of the nature of the Earth But that Mars because he is hot and dry not the Sun is evill cholerick a Warriour murderer and cruel because of the nature of the Element of fire But that Jupiter and Venus are of the nature of Air merry sanguine good even as the Moon and Mercury being cold and moyst are of the nature of water and phlegme And so also therefore of a middle nature But a moderateness agreeth to the most hot Sun not a humour nor an Element Wherefore either the Sun shall languish by reason of injury or the feigned powers of the Elements are badly attributed as causes of the properties of the Stars whose property it is not to change but to give an alterative Blas to these inferior Bodies Wherein many falshoods come to hand For first of all they do causatively â—ink evill within the Heaven Secondly That the qualities of the Earth are evill or naught Thirdly They place the fire among Elementary Bodies Fourthly The Stars also even the two Elements which God had made were not to be good 5. They falsely compare the Stars in their causative property to Elementary qualities 6. Therefore they do falsly attribute to the Stars a causall virtue of fortune wit c. with respect to the first qualities Wherefore since there are in the judiciall part of Astrologie so great nakednesses
onely They have consented through the strong belief of credulity into the errours of the Gentiles and have been seduced into many absurdities 1. They have been constrained absolutely to deny the forms of things to be lights 2. That lives or forms and lights are placed among substances seeing they acknowledged no middle Being between a substance and an accident 3. Matter although it is a substance to be constantly abiding and alway remaining but forms to be privative substances yet to be annihilated like accidents 4. That matter doth bâ—rrow its substantial essence from a form not constantly abiding but to be annihilated or brought to nothing 5. That forms do yield to the matter in supporting and subsisting which absurdities unless they had been credulous they had by looking back taken notice of 1. For they had known that the minde onely among forms is a substance 2. But all other forms to be of the rank or number of life without an accident and substance 3. That it is impossible for matter ever to be made an accident 4. Because matter is not to be annihilated 5. That it is impossible for an accident to be changed into a substance 6. That an accident taketh to it degrees but not a substance 7. And that therefore an accident being on both sides graduated cannot lay aside its graduality that it may be made a substance 8. That although light be accounted an accident it shall never make fire of it self unless fire cease to be a substance 9. That it is a frivolous Question how an accident doth make a substance seeing it presupposeth an impossibility Therefore an accident shall not produce a substance from it self seeing this is impossible neither can an accident make a substance of a substance For also the Question doth not presse how a substance is made of a substance But how an accident doth produce a substance For although a dispositive and accidentall operation doth interpose in the producing of a substantial thing yet the producing of a substance it self doth not any way respect an accident as its productive principle Moreover seeing the two chief leaders of the Schooles waxing blind under the beholding of the light and fire have been made to wander from the truth I have judged it worth my labour for me to demonstrate to the young beginner of the art of the fire that the fire is neither a substance nor an accident but a Creature peculiar and seperated from both which no where hath its like But that Kitchin fire is not a substance For indeed none is Elementary yea if it were it should be of no use as I shall shew in its place For four Elements cannot concur to the composition of Bodies which are believed to be mixt Because the substance of Elementary fire doth not descend from so many leagues that it may joyn it self to its fellow Elements for the constitution of those mixt Bodies and that hastily and presently at the pleasure of the seeds Neither is it the property of fire to descend as neither is it the property of the water to call to it fire for a mixture for the future to be made For those co-mixtures of Elements are the Dreams of Heathens and their ridiculous mockeries whereby the Schooles have hitherto without controversie suffered themselves to be circumvented Because if there were an Elementary fire nigh the Moon that it might be true fire it ought plainly to have the same properties which Kitchin fire hath or this likewise should not be fire and the properties of this should not be essentially common to Elementary fire For the Heavenly or Elementary fire ought actually to consume and to have a nourishment not indeed one more outward about it but wholly very well mixt within it seeing one part of the fire ought to be nourished as well as the other yea for unless this should thus happen the fire that was neighbour to the Air as to its nourishment had devoured and consumed that its nourishment and in the mean time the fire near the Heaven had before perished without nourishment Also I have shewen in its place that it is a ridiculous thing for the Air to be the nourishment of that fire and that being as yet granted that all Air had long agoe failed that fire cannot make an excrement out of Air nor any thing more pure simple before it or finer And moreover if it should make fire of Air there is not afterwards an Element a Neighbour to fire which of fire may at length produce another Element Now of necessity there had long since been no longer Air but whatsoever had been of an Aiery form had been onely fire Or if Elementary fire ought not to be nourished although it hath most exceeding devouring qualities at leastwise the Schooles ought to have shewen why fire is lesse nourished or doth turn the guest its neighbour into it self than they suppose the other Elements to do that And likewise why Kitchin fire seeing it is true fire hath this adjoyned necessity of nourishment for its support or decay and why the primary Element of fire it self is deprived of the same For they have not considered that true fire stands in the will of the Artificer and is forged slackened and heightened for his uses For he stirreth up fire at his pleasure out of things which it is virtually in neither also promiscuously out of all things Otherwise man shall be a creator of the fire who is onely the stirrer up thereof Furthermore I call accidents all the properties powers and qualities of things But the Beings which have those qualities in themselves besides their essence are not accidents but the originall or entertainment of these So the heat of the fire is 〈…〉 property and accident neither is fire more heat than fire is dryness as neither is drynesâ—â—eat And seeing there is a distinct duplicity of these those two cannot be together in the fire that they may be the immediate essence hereof But fire so differeth from both that it may rightly be denied that the fire is either heat or is dryness Therefore the fire hath also its many properties and first qualities To wit heat and dryness And likewise other properties as there is in it a force of seperating destroying burning up making glass of that which is not glass of promoting ripening c. Thirdly there is light in the fire as it were a property more intimate and formall to it But the first and second of the aforesaid qualities in the sire are meer accidents distinguished in themselves apart from the fire to wit whose subject of inhering the fire it self is but light doth little differ in essence from fire although in a formall piercing and congress the light may receive a degree requisite to the Being of fire Therefore I will shew that the fire is not a substance or matter yet it is the subject of inhering of those accidents or of its aforesaid properties therefore the fire is a
upon a fat exhalation which is the same as to be enflamed Let two Candles be placed which have first burned a while one indeed being lower than the other by a span but let the upper be of a little crooked Scituation then let the flame of the lower Candle be blown out whose smoak as soon as it shall touch the flame of the upper Candle behold the ascending smoak is inlightned is burnt up into a smoakie or sooty Gas and the flame descendeth by the smoak even into the smoaking Candle Surely there is there a producing of a new Being to wit of fire of a flame or of a connexed light Yet there is not a procreation of some new matter or substance For the fire is a positive artificial death but not a privative one being more than an accident and lesse than a substance Which thing since the Schooles are as yet ignorant of we must more largely declare as well because it is a Paradox and hath respect unto the knowledge of forms as that because from the ignorance thereof most grievous errours have crept into Medicinall affaires Wherefore that I may perfectly teach the divers inclining nature of the fire I will suppose some positions 1. That the fire in an inflamed Body is so united to the inflamable matter that it is like an essential form to it when as notwithstanding it is the destroyer of the same 2. That the inflamed matter is converted into a smoakie Gas which is not yet water because although the fire hath consumed the seminall forces of the thing yet some first fermentall marks of the concrete Body do remain which at length being consumed and slain that Gas returns into the Element of water 3. That every essential form is as for the essence of the thing in which it by it self is And that the fire doth destroy even the fat smoak or Coal the which it inflameth and converts into a wild Gas of which in its place 4. That every essential form is so united to its own matter that it being once seperated from thence by extinguishing or withdrawing it returns no more to the same habit or formall act 5. That every form coming upon a matter is impatient of another totall form But a Metall or any other fixed Body being fired the presence of the bright burning fire being withdrawn returns alwayes into its former state 6. That every form of a substance hath a specificall matter wherein it is but the fire hath Wood Wax Pitch and as many subjects as there are particular fireable kindes 7. That every substantial form doth at length rise up in the matter disposed by a foregoing seed but the fire wants a seed yea if there are any it consumeth or wasteth them away 8. That the forms of substances have not degrees but the fire doth admit of a degree by the bellowes From which particulars I conclude that fire is not a substance not the essential form of substances but a positive death of things and their destroyer a singular creature second to no other from whence I proceed thus to demonstrate it There is no doubt but that a Coal is far more porie than Iron and that it hath lesse of soundness but yet Iron being fired doth more burn than a Coal Therefore of necessity Iron contains more of the fire in matter and form but the consequence is false Therefore fire is not a substantial composed Body consisting of the matter and form of fire because otherwise if there were any substance proper to the fire it should not pierce the dimensions of the body of the Iron The Schooles answer to this against themselves to wit that the matter is more compact in Iron than it is in a Coal and therefore it burns the more powerfully as the Iron is capable of the more fire For that thing I assumed to wit that I might draw this Argument from thence If fire were a substance consisting of a fiery matter and form after the manner of any other substance the Iron should of necessity be capable of lesse fire than the Coal for that it is weightier than a Coal and hath lesse and fewer pores wherein the fire may be entertained But if therefore the Iron be capable of lesse matter it ought to burn lesse But the consequence is false therefore also the antecedent Because two matters or Bodies as neither the essential totall or ultimate forms of these cannot suffer each other at once in the same place and subject Wherefore Iron and fire it this were a substance could not lodge together in the same subject But if the Schooles endeavour to evade and say that Iron indeed becomes on a fire yet that it is never changed into fire I answer whatsoever obtains every property of fire is fire or fire hath not proper but common passions with another Being of another particular kinde But the properties of fire are to kindle burn seperate Heterogeneal things to melt Lead Copper Wax to burn in a combustible matter and to consume But all these things Iron fired doth more powerfully perform than a Coal therefore in fired Iron there is fire and so much the more of fire by how much it doth more burn than a Coal Again if Iron fired hath not in it true fire but the properties of fire without fire those therefore shall be brought in and left in the Iron by the fire From whence it followes that the formal properties of the fire have left the proper form of fire in which they were suppose in the Coals or flame and have wandred into the substance of the Iron diverse from them For truly they will not have it called fire but as the inflamable body is kindled Add to these things that if fire be a material substance the substance of glasse which the detaining of the most subtile Chymical Spirits teacheth to have no pores and the substance of fire should pierce each other at the pleasure of the Artificer which things the Schooles themselves do utterly deny But besides the aforesaid absurdities another doth accompany to wit that heat in the fire doth onely make hot but its dryness dryeth up and nothing else So also the kindling enlightning power doth kindle and enlighten the seperating power seperates the destructive doth destroy c. All which properties should not onely be generated by the form of the fire in the strange matter of Iron but should also there subsist without the proper subject of their inherence Wherefore the fire that is infired is true fire not a substance as neither an accident but a neutral Creature having in it self divers properties after the manner of substantial Beings If the Schooles I say had known this thing they had known that light doth generate light and fire not indeed as differing in the particular kinde but onely in uniting dispersing and so to be different onely in degree Neither therefore that an accident doth produce a substance in any respect Indeed they think that
aforesaid light Suppose also after the same manner Vegetables to obtain a twofold light from the nature of light but not of an Element because all things do consist of one onely Element Seeing therefore the Schooles have been ignorant of the properties of Lights it is no wonder that they have stumbled in the degrees of Simples And so another judgement is hereafter to be given concerning the degrees of Simples according to their participation of more or lesse light from their governing light That which the art of the fire declareth by the separation or withdrawing of the lightsome Being from the other part of the composed Body which thing is scanâ—y or difficult enough to many but to the Adeâ—tists very easie For by the fire of Hell which is the Liquor Alkahest of Paracelsus it may be known how great a part of either light a Vegetable even unknown bruised and covered in its Scituation may possess no lesse than with what shape or figure it was adorned And that not by the perswasion of Quercetanus who when he had seen a weak Lixivium or Lye to be congealed thought the seminall Being of a nettle after its turning to ashes to have â—emained in the Salt of the ashes because the Ice beginning doth contract its drops point-wise Paracelsus also is deceived because he writeth that all Vegetables cannot exceed a heat of the first degree Indeed the great Lights have wonderfully shone in Simples and their seeds do ascend for the grace of the Universe to a largeness of degrees and therefore all Forms have a light of essentificall thingliness reduced to the conjunction of either light Yet the lights of the Luminaries are not the constitutive Forms of Simples for that the light of the Sun is combustive or burning up even in its simplicity Therefore it is a shamefull thing that a man and the Sun doth generate a man Because it is that which is stuffed with the Idiotisme or proper form of speech of Heathenisme In the next place the seeds of Birds and four-footed Beasts are at first muckie or snivelly because they are perfected by a very small help of the light of the Sun But they are contracted and thickned by little and little that they may be sufficient for the consistence of their generated young In the mean time the Eggs of Fishes are at first more hard and straightway the light of the Moon assisting they wax tender into a snivelliness Therefore there are two great Lights and those sufficient as there are so many primitive Elements The Sun is chief over the Air as the Moon over the wombs or Motherly Waters Wherefore a living Creature brought forth by the light of the Sun hath need of a continual sucking of Air as also Fishes are constrained uncessantly to draw waters for the sustaining of themselves and the refreshment of their light I have known indeed the light of the Sun to betake it self into a Flint to wit onely by the preparation of the Flint that without the presence of the Sun that attained light may remain for some space under the thickest darkness and again the light is drawn out by a new exposing of the Flint to the Sun in the day-time although clowded Therefore this was the necessity of inspiration not to be despised by us to wit as a restauration of the lights contained by a certain consanguinity in seeds doth happen but not onely a desired temperature of cold alone as the Fish witnesseth It sufficeth therefore that no form of naturall things is produced by the Heaven by the Sun out of the dreamed appetite of the matter or whatsoever disposition of the seeds because that all these things are included in the race of accidents neither have they known the way to a creating of nothing For nature is not able of it self ever to ascend to the procreation of a vitall light but Christ the Lord of the Universe is alone the life and parent of all things neither will he give this honour to any Creature Therefore God alone is the Father of Lights But he is not so called because he made the Stars For as he is not called the Father of Stones or of things not living so neither of the Sâ—ars Yea neither is he therefore called the Father of Vegetables although they have a certain vitall light in them Therefore the Father of all lights is he alone to whom onely the name of Father belongs And who is onely to be called Father and is in the Heavens For although a fleshly Father doth give of his own whence the name of Paternity or fatherliness is given unto him yet because he is not the giver of vitall lights or the Creator of Forms â—he name of vital Fatherliness is forbidden to be given to the Creature Therefore God is the Father of Lights or of vitall Forms And there are as many of those diverse lights as there are of vitall forms For because Souls are not known by a notion from something before them or of a precedent thing therefore are they by a general Etymologie called Lights with a Son-like property whose correlative is a Father Yet so as that paternity is by way of proportion or similitude For although he truly createth all living Souls yet Beasts do not assume the Sonship of a proper name because neither the likeness of that their father For their souls do perish with their life in manner of the flame of a Candle Therefore the mind of men onely is an immortall substance shewing forth the Image of the Father of Lights and therefore power is given to him of becoming the Son of God Which things seeing we believe by faith I am angry that even still to this day it is taught by Christians that the forms of things and souls of bruit Beasts are true and spiritual substances by consequence that they are not vitall lights nor created by the Father of Universal Lights but are given and made by the Sun and likewise raised up out of the power of the seed As though a spiritual substance could be created by the power of a matter For I esteem that thing to be retained in the Schooles among the sweepings or drosse of Heathenisme but not without wronging the Divine Majesty To whom all Filial or Son-like love is due CHAP. XXII Magnum Oportet that is it is a thing of great necessity or concernment 1. The unconstancy of Paracelsus 2. The birth of voluntary things by their generall kinds 3. The disagreement of Archeusses 4. Very many accidents do remain in a new generated thing 5. Species are to be added to or diminished by Oportet or necessity contrary to Aristotle 6. The errour of Paracelsus in Oportet it self 7. Accidents do change their own proper formall objects 8. A contrary perswasion hath hitherto overthrown natural Philosophy 9. How the same accident doth wander with the middle life of a thing 10. From whence there are so many diversities of natures in a man 11. That
water is a transitory Relolleum because it is violently brought in For therefore the fire ceasing from which it was produced of its own accord it presently is diminished and ceaseth being no longer cherished That the heat in the hot water being divided throughout the least Atomes of its subject perisheth of its own accord but is not overcome expulsively by a contrariety Because a Relolleum is an efficient quality not proceeding out of the Ferments and Seeds of things And it is twofold to wit One in its own body but the other in a strange body Amongst proper Relolleum's some are seperable As cold in the air and water but others are unseperable as heat in the light of the Sun Candle and Fire which can never wax cold A strange Relolleum is violent by which if it be not nourished it therefore perisheth by its moments and degrees And therefore it is called transient as is heat in the water Therefore aire and water are not made hot by the fire through contrariety but by the generating of a strange Relolleum as it acteth that which was commanded it to act after a different manner of acting with seeds And therefore it neither acteth to or for a form In like manner when water extinguisheth fire or fire lifts up water into a vapour that never happens by the force of contrariety Because the whole fire of the universe cannot blot out or lessen the least moistness from one only drop of water Wherefore the contrariety of the fire should be in vain and foolish or its fight vain and invalide But that aire cannot in any ages by Art or Nature be converted into water or this likewise into aire as I have elsewhere demonstrated by Science Mathematical and by other means sufficiently enough demonstrated For neither is the fire quenched by the water by reason of the presence of a contrary cold in the water For so hot water should not quench fire And fire burns more strongly under the blowing and cold of the North than of the South and the coldest blowing of Bellows doth the more kindle or enflame the fire Therefore water slayeth fire but not fire water Also fire gives place not being overcome by cold but being choaked it perisheth And so hot Oyl doth extinguish a bright burning Coale If therefore contraries ought to be under the same generall kind fire cannot be contrary to water seeing fire is not a Substance even as I have sufficiently demonstrated elsewhere Lastly If they were contrary they should be primarily by themselves substantially and immediately contrary as simple bodies and that being granted their action ought to be a like and equall sight which thing I have already before shewn to be false even as also that nothing is contrary to substances For by the beholding of which two things to wit The fire and the water the Schools have feigned every contrariety of Mixtures and Complexions in the Universe What wonder is it therefore that the contrariety of nature dreamed of in the Schools is now to be had in suspition Seeing their own privative contraries are without contrariety likeness or equality combate co-mixture and grappling of forces Furthermore moysture and dryness are qualities scarce to be understood in the abstract even as otherwise heat is considered in the hand besides or without the fire yea in its improper subject as is the water but moystness and dryness are rather very Bodies themselves qualitated or endowed with qualities Neither therefore are they attained by parts and degrees with the leave of the Schooles after the manner of qualities For moystness is not properly produced but a moyst Body being added to a dry one more of the moyst Body is applyed and so moystness improperly waxeth great That is moysture increaseth quantitatively but not qualitatively But water doth never wax dry although it may deceive the eyes by vanishing away Even as concerning Gas elsewhere Again Siccum or Dry soundeth properly ex-succum or without juyce and contains onely a denyall of moysture But although through the admixture of dry water may seem to be diminished in Clay yet the water doth alwayes keep its own intrinsecall moysture As also the dry Body keeps likewise its own dryness Because there is not a piercing co-mixture of those in the Root but onely an applying of parts Therefore moysture and dryth are so tied to a Body that they can in no wise be distinguished from it And therefore they are not Relolleum's in manner of heat and cold which are brought in by degrees The whole water indeed vanisheth away into a vapour yet it never assumeth even the least quantity of dryth But if of meal and water pulse or bread be made and at length the nature of a fermentall seed being conceived they do passe into a Stone yet truly those things are coagulated ones which do cover and vail the antient moystness of the water but at length the antient water is fetched again from thence For it was not dryed up nor hath it perished although it were coagulated by the seed of things For I have demonstrated elsewhere mechanically and mathematically that all solid Bodies are onely of water nor that they do admit of the congress or concourse of the other Elements Or that every rangible Body is at length resolved into a simple Elementary water such as falleth down through Rain yea being of equall weight with its former solid Body which onely head destroyeth the compact temperature of the Elements and the intestine and uncessant Warr of qualities in us wherefore it behoves the Schooles diligently to search for altogether other causes of Diseases which I have declared by the unheard of beginnings of naturall Philosophy Therefore it is a part of blockishness to be admired at to have dreamed that moysture cometh to a thing by degrees and likewise that moysture and dryness are slackened in the Elements And so that it is a huge fiction to have introduced these stupid Dreams into the Families of Diseases and Cures and confidently to have built upon these the whole foundation of healing So that throughout the whole ranks of moystures and dryths they have married each other as well by their mutuall kinne as by the bawderies of heat and cold To wit for one onely fault that their Neighbours might mournfully deliver their substance unto their vanities of temperaments Being altogether ignorant that there is no piercing of moyst with dry in nature no radicall union co-mixture or radicall temperature whereby they may divide between each other in the bosom of a Form And I do propose one question at least to all by me resolved elsewhere how many contrary Elements soever they hitherto suppose to conflux into the constitution of Bodies which are believed to be mixt Since indeed they suppose two weighty ones to wit the water and Earth and two light ones And likewise do suppose a penetration of Bodies to be impossible in nature Thirdly also seeing they suppose that Gold without controversie
so bent their Studies that what was not yet found out by the Greeks and Arabians they may find more successful elsewhere Hence indeed they have been devolved with a steep fall unto the Fictions of Tartar but surely their curiosity is to be had in great esteem although it shall not attain unto its desire For It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God alone that sheweth Mercy Therefore the Schooles donow leave their title and Market For what shall they do if the conjoyned root of Diseases and method of Curing them be not to be drawn out of the Elements Qualities Contrarieties Humours Stars Windes and Catarths But seeing other Examples of healing have possessed the more Modern followers of Paracelsus it must as yet be diligently searched into whether the Causes of Diseases have been made known to Paracelsus For when he the Lessons of the Ancients being rejected had sufficiently understood that there was nothing of a Foundation or Truth in Complexions and Humours he began by variously doubting to inquire into the most immediate Cause of Diseases and Posterity owes him Praise for it Although he hath not exactly touched at the matter that cannot be accounted a fault if the Most High the Dispenser of Gifts as yet vouchsafed not to open the Truth to Mortals in Paracelsus's days This man therefore had learned of Basilius Valentine that Water Oyle and Salt were to be separated by Distillation from most Bodies He began to call these Three Things not only the first universal beginnings of corporal beings but also he so introduced them within Diseases and the necessities of healing that he referred all Diseases immediately into some of those three things And thus he made his followers almost mad that the first hope of diligently searching into the truth being rejected they consecrated all things to the three first things Which Doctrine hath fixed its roots the faster because the three things are actually separated from most Bodies and so that they were not undemonstrable like humours arisen from feigned beginnings But surely this abuse was discovered while as these three beginnings were wrested aside unto the originals of any Diseases whatsoever For truly because many Bodies being dissolved by the fire gave from them Salt Sulphur and Liquor which they point out to be Mercury it was thought that all Diseases did owe their Birth unto those constitutive beginnings First of all Hermes before the industry of the Greeks sprang up because in his Pymander he had noted every Trine to be perfect consequently also he foresaw that in Chymical things Mettals did consist of two extreams to wit of a Body and a Soul and the which he would have cleave together not but by the baudery of a certain third thing or Spirit Afterwards Basilius Valentine a Monk of Benedict wrote more distinctly he named the Soul of a Mettal the Sulphur or Tincture but the Body the Salt and lastly the Spirit he called the Mercury Which things being thus borrowed of Basilius Theophrastus Paracelsus afterwards transferred by a wonderful diligency of search into all the Principles of Bodies he being one Age younger than Busilius The Doctrine of whom the Authors name being suppressed he snatched on himself and by a liberty of his own introduced it into the speculations of Medicine So indeed that after he had banished every Disease into the Caralogue of Tartars and had not yet satisfied his own scruple at length he adoms his Paramire of the three first beings with much boldness Indeed he forged these three things as it were the beginnings of all Bodies and declameth many things in general touching Diseases but being constrained by necessity when as he would reduce Diseases into the ranks of the three first things being pressed down under the burden he was silent Except in the Family of Ulcers where he had seemed to himself to have found salt at least wise in the other two beginnings he on both sides remained scanty and almost ridiculous For he had commanded that it should every where be believed that the four Elements were nothing but the incorporeal Wombs and asit were the Inns of Bodies but that the first beginnings did so supply the conditions or offices of Bodies that also the Elements of the world have all their substance and subsistance from those three things only Elsewhere also he being unmindful of these hath stuck wholly in the Elements and next he hath ascribed the inclinations and properties of Stars and men to the complexions of these He also hath dedicated unto all the particular Elements their own fruits and degrees of fruits but not all to one Element nor the fruits any longer proceeding from incorporeal Elements as Wombs but that these did borrow their Bodies from the material Elements themselves Lastly by the same liberty and unconstancy of a borrowed matter he hath taught that Bodies do by a resolving decay sometimes into four but sometimes into three Elements only Truly he hath so graced the Art of the Fire by bringing it into Medicine that he breaths after an eternal Name for himself and hopes that the time would come that he should sometimes wax proud with the Title of the Monarch of Secrets He foreseeing that the Doctrine of Basilius was not commonly known therefore the Name of the Author being concealed he made it his own and in this respect hath he enlarged his own Sections Wherefore his Tartar now and then losing its universal dominion in Diseases it being suppressed he makes an invasion as being constrained by the Laws of his three first things Which his three first things as presuming on increase he would at length that they should become the Mothers and Wombs even of all Diseases as well of the mind as of the Being or Body This indeed was only his own and not the Invention of Basilius and the which when he would endeavour to disperse into the ranks of Diseases by Troops he sometimes goes confusedly to work yet doth he again more oft go beyond himself being every where forgetful of his own Doctrine delivered For in his Archidoxals he hath dedicated a little Book to the separation of the Elements which are to be brought out of the flame air water and earth And thus far he hath resisted his own Doctrine concerning the three first things and concerning the Wombs of the Elements because now there should be four beginnings no longer the three first and ultimate into which at length by long labour the three first things as being after the Elements so of right no longer the first should be derived For they being also thus enriched by one number should beget far more Diseases than of late than while that pretended Monarch commanded only three to be the principles as well of Bodies as of Diseases Yea truly he accuseth as guilty only and at length one only Tartar to be the cause of almost all Diseases But elsewhere in some peculiar Treatises he calls the Heaven
now made cold then afterwards hot that the whole Body may be cold and hot at the successive change thereof But they are the works and signatures of life not the properties of diseasie Seeds in the matter but meer pessions of the Body thus moved by a Blas from the heat and cold of the Archeus And therefore neither do they any longer happen in a dead carcass as neither after a Disease obtains the Victory neither also when the Disease ceaseth the occasional matter in the mean time remaining 3. That the very thing which worketh heat in us doth efficiently also produce cold Not indeed privatively in respect of heat because cold is a real and actual Blas of the Archeus 4. That no curing is made by contraries as neither by reason of like things because a Disease consisteth essentially in the seminal Idea and in the matter of the Archeus but at leastwise substances do not admit of a contrariety in their own essence 5. That a Disease is primitively overcome by extinguishing of the Idea or a removal of the essential matter thereof 2. Originally by allaying and pacifying of the disturbed Archeus And 3. From a latter thing to wit if the occasional matter be taken away which stirs up a motive and alterative Blas of entertainment that the Idea or Disease may be efficiently made 6. That both the inward causes connexed in the Archeus is the very substantial Disease having in it its proper root But the occasional matter however it be received in the Body is alwayes external because it is not of the inward root and essence of a Disease 7. That Symptoms are accidents by accident breaking forth by excitation or stirring up according to the variety of every Receiver And it is rather a wandring error or fury of our Powers 8. That the Archeus which formed us in the Womb doth also direct govern move all things during life Therefore occasional causes are perceived only in the Archeus who afterwards according to the disturbance thereby conceived doth bring forth his own Idea's which immediately have a Blas whereby they move direct and change and finish whatsoever happens in health and Diseases But the parts of the Body as well those containing as those contained and likewise the occasional causes of Diseases of themselves are dead and idle neither can they move themselves or any other thing Seeing nothing is moved by it self which is not by it self and primarily vital except weight which naturally falleth downwards 9. That the products and effects of Diseases are seminal generations so depending on the Seeds that they do shew forth the properties of these 10. That heat cold heates c. seeing they are not the proper causes of a Disease nor the true products of Diseases but only the symptomatical accidents and signatures of Diseases therefore also neither do they subsist by themselves but they do so depend on Diseases that they depart together with them like a shadow Because they are the errors of a vital light or an erroneous Blas stirred up from Diseases 11. That Diseases are seminal Beings except extrinsecal ones wounds a bruise or stroke burning c. and therefore effects of the Archeus resulting in a true action from the occasionals of the exciter accidentally sprung up in an Archeal error of our Powers 12. That although without the will of a living Creature contraries should be found in nature yet by these there should be no possible restauration of the hurt faculties as neither a pacifying of the Areheus and by consequence no curing if that be even true That Natures themselves are the Physitiannesses of Diseases and that the Physitian is their Minister Truly that thing is proved by the Fire the which by reason of the most intense coldness of the Aire which I have elsewhere proved to be far more cruel than the cold of the Water doth the more strongly flame and burn So far is it that Fire should be exstinguished by cold which is falsly reputed its contrary And moreover neither have the Schooles known that Fire is not extinguished by Water because it is cold moist or contrary to it but by reason of choaking onely The which we daily see in our Furnaces For as the Fire is momentany and connexed unto it self by a continual thred of exhalations hence it is stifled almost in one only moment for so the water because it is fluid enters into the pores of the burning matter and by stopping them up doth suffocate or quench the Fire so also a Mettal or Glasse being fired and burning bright do shine long in the most cold bottom of the Water and in the mean time a Coal being fired is choaked in an instant under the Water Because the pores thereof are presently stopped Therefore Copper burning bright is sooner extinguished than Silver and Silver than Gold But Glasse being fired because it wants pores shines longer under the Water than a like quantity of Gold Yea hot Water doth sooner quench Fire than cold because it sooner pierceth the pores Therein also they have remained dull that they considered our heat alwayes by making a comparison of it with Fire For although the Fire be a Being of Nature yet because it was directed by the most High for the uses of Mortals that it might enter into Nature as a Destroyer and might be as it were an artificial Death therefore it prosecutes its own artificial ends but hath not any thing in its self which may be vital or seminal There is therefore no Fire in Nature if it hath not first arose unto a due degree for a Destroyer wherein it is nothing or little profitable for the speculation of Medicine Surely our heat is not graduated and therefore neither is it fiery neither doth it proceed from the Fire as being weakened or diminished but it is the heat of a formal light and therefore also vital neither therefore doth it subsist in its last or highest degree even as the fire doth For it admits of a latitude and its degree is made to vary according to the provocation if its Blas For although it be from a formal light and in that respect doth live yet through a Blas it doth oft-times ascend higher or is pressed lower as well in healthy persons as in sick folk In the next place it more highly deviates through furies and then it as burnt up uncloaths it self of a vital light and assumes a Caustical or burnt Alcali which thing is seen in moist and compressed Hay where Fire voluntarily ariseth So in Escarrie effects our heat being forgetful of its former life passeth into a degree of fire For through a congresse of lightsome beames and a degeneration of the salt of the Spirits even as in Hay true Fire is bred and would burn us if the Archeus should expect this end of the Tragedy before death Our heat indeed is in the Fire as the number of Two is in the number of Forty yet the Fire is not in
penury of distribulation and perceiving the unequality of injustice becomes a complainer and seditious as it were against a step-mother The Idea's of which passion or impatience seeing it is not meet to send else where he being crabbish retorts on himself and brings forth the effects of sorrow in his own Digestions Therefore the very seminal Beginnings themselves of Diseases are drawn out for diverse ends although they glisten in one only immediate subject of inherency because they are received after the manner of the reciever That is they do sustain a dis-formity or disagreement in their mansions through the diversity of the humane Body and parts And moreover the Archeus himself according to the diversity of his motions doth stir up a various houshold-stuff of Symptoms The Spirit saith Hippocrates hath made three motions in us within without and into a circuit and he moveth and transchangeth all things with himself even while he is orderly But in his irregularity whatsoever he shall perform he shall also utter memorable effects of his disorder CHAP. LXXI The birth or original of a Diseasie Image 1. A description of a Disease by a numbring up of things denied 2. What a Disease is 3. The vain thought of Physitians concerning a Disease 4. The Inne of Life belongs to a Disease 5. The force of a Diseasie Idea is proved by Vegetables 6. By the Blas of meteours 7. The Blas of an Archeal Idea in us is proved from the Premises 8. The ordinary seat of Diseases 9. The Images of perturbations are cited 10. From a mental Non-being is made this something 11. A twofold Diseasifying Archeal Idea 12. Idea's brought unto the venal Blood 13. The rule of right in healing 14. Why the Author keeps the names of the Antients 15. A probative or proofe-ful Idea is framed in the Archeus alone I Have already at large described an unheard of Doctrine of a Diseasie Being premised by me That Physitians may learn to look into a Disease from the fountain and may desist from being seduced by Paganish Opinions Wherefore a Disease is not a certain distemperature of elementary qualities or a victorie proceeding from the continual strife of these even as hitherto the Galenists have dreamed neither likewise is a Disease one of the four feigned Humours exceeding its natural temperature or mixture and matched to the four Elements Neither at length is a Disease a certain degenerate matter awakened by an impression of the Elements But every excrementitious matter is either a naked matter preceding a Disease and therefore an occasional Cause of a Disease or it is the product of a Disease resulting from the errour of the parts and so a certain latter effect of a Disease although afterwards it may occasionally stir up another Disease or may nourish or increase another antecedent Cause Nor lastly is a Disease a hurtful quality budding from the poyson or contagion of another and that a hurtful matter Notwithstanding such offences as those do only accuse its presence but not the effect depending only occasionally thereupon A Disease therefore is a certain Being bred after that a certain hurtful strange power hath violated the vital Beginning and hath pierced the faculty hereof and by piercing hath stirred up the Archeus unto Indignation Fury Fear c. To wit the anguish and troubles of which perturbations do by imagining stir up an Idea co-like unto themselves and a due Image Indeed that Image is readily stamped expressed and sealed in the Archeus and being cloathed with him a Disease doth presently enter on the stage being indeed composed of an Archeal Body and an efficient Idea For the Archeus produceth a dammage unto himself the which when he hath once admitted he straightway also afterwards yields flees or is alienated or dethroned or defiled through the importunity thereof and is constrained to undergo a strange government and domestically to sustain a civil War raised up on himself indeed such a strange Image is materially imprinted and arising out of the Archeus A true Diseasie Being I say which is called a Disease For although Physitians are only busied about the dissolution cleansing away and expulsion of the hurtful occasional matter yet our thought is not able to vary the Essence of a Disease To wit that because a Physitian labours in the banishment of the occasional hurtful matter therefore also that a Disease ought to be that which that deceived Physitian doth in a rash order intend to expel For a Disease is effentially that which it is whether the Physitian be absent or present For neither doth a Physitian in the begining more determine or limit a Disease than the Disease doth terminate it self because it is that which doth not accommodate it self unto the thought or esteem of others but doth dayly deride the same Wherefore as health consisteth in a sound Life so doth a Disease in the very Life it self being hurt but Life doth only and immediately subsist in the seat of the Soul but the Soul doth not operate out of it self unless by virtue of its official Organ which is the vital air of the Archeus And therefore it is a wonder that it hath hitherto been unknown that a Disease sits immediately in the same vital inne where the Life enjoys it self of which more largely hereafter for hateful persons will scarce believe that every power of sublunary things is stirred up and contained in Idea's But that thing I have already before sharply touched at by the way yet it shall profit to have it more strongly bound or confirmed For we have known and believe by Faith that a power is given to Herbs of propagating their like But that proprietary faculty is a real Being actually existing which is alwayes and successively manifested in the seed neither is that faculty a certain accidental power or naked quality but it is a seminal virtue whereby the Plant which is the Parent decyphers an Idea in his own seed the container of figure and properties according to which it will stir up delineate the seed it self and make the Plant its Daughter to grow For in seeds a manifest Image is known skilful of things to be acted for a new propagation In like manner the Sea doth not cause but suffer horrid tempests which the Wind doth efficiently stir up and truly the Wind is not moved by it self and of its own free accord But by an invisible influence of the Stars according to that saying The Stars shall be unto you for signs times or seasons dayes and years for so great a storm of the primary Elements or Air and Water breaks forth from a Being which is like unto Light But the Blas of the Elements is not stirred up from the meer Light of the Stars For although the Light of the Stars be incorporeal and immaterial yet it is not a certain simple Light but that which besides the property of a solitary Light which is only of enlightning hath a motive Blas in it self
Life For neither hath Renovation long Life as a necessary Adjunct nor on the other hâ—â—d is Renovation annexed to long Life As is manifest in the Stag Goose c. Be it therefore that every of the Arcanums of Paracelsus do take away almost all Sicknesses renew the Nailes Haires and Teeth yet they cannot first of all make equal the unequal Strength of any failing part much less vindicate the failing Powers from Death and least of all restore the same into a youthful Vigour Therefore those Arcanums or Secrets do not respect the Powers of the Organs as neither long Life depending thereupon but only the greatest cleansing or refining of all the Members and Health sprung from thence All Diseases indeed which either issue from Filths which lurk in the Filâ—â— themselves or lastly which do further propagate Filths by their Contagion are cured by the aforesaid Arcanums but not those which do primarily concern the vital Powers Not those I say which contain a weakness inbred or attained from a Disease or Old Age together with a diminishment of the Powers For those of this sort return not into their antient State but by the Remedies of long Life neither yet into their antient â—tate with a perfect and full restoration For otherwise this thing should conclude an absolute Immortality For the Weaknesses which invade Men from Gluttony or Drunkenness Leachery c. are very little restored by the Secrets of Paracelsus but not unless an infirm Nature doth accompany them For Madnesses which arise from an evil framing or composure are not any thing restored but those which have arisen from a remarkable Animosity of Pride stand alwayes in fear of a relapse But otherwise the Phtensie Doatage Falling-evil Raging Madnesses of the Womb of the Hypochondrials and whatsoever Weaknesses are made from some off-springs of Impurity are perfectly and compleatly healed by the Remedies of Paracelsus Madnesses therefore which proceed from a notable Arrogancy are indeed presently cured but with the fear of some less relapse because those do argue a meer Defect of the imaginative Power and therefore they so defile the Seed that they being thenceforth translated into some Generations do oft-times shine forth So also the Sons of Drunkards do oftentimes retain the Tokens of vitiated Powers as though the Sons being Heires of their Fathers Crime ought to pay the Punishments thereof That is strong or valiant Men are generated by strong or valiant and good Men. And on the other Hand a bad Egg of an Evil Crow For the Sons of Drunkards are for the most part drowsie in searching into things stubborn or stedfast in their Conceits Cup-shot or giddy in things to be done and easily to be drawn aside into Vices At least-wise I doubt not but that Paracelsus made use of his Arcanums because he was he who saw not only prosperous Cures to succeed but also that some who the longer used them were renewed in their Haires Nailes and Teeth Notwithstanding seeing he had not a long Life his aforesaid Arcanums shall be for a Testimony unto us concerning my Judgment delivered For indeed a Will or Testament of Paracelsus is born about the which because it contradicts the publick Authority drawn out of his Epitaph which is seen in the Hospital of Saltzburge in a Wall near the Altar of St. Sebastian and the which mentions That he appointed his Goods to be distributed to the Poor and to be honoured thereby Therefore that Testament I believe was feigned by the Haters of Paracelsus Others therefore of that leaven affirm that Paracelsus a limited term being compacted with Satan died in full Health The which contradicteth the aforesaid Testament from the published Language of his Enemies To wit wherein it is said that himself was some dayes before his death Diseasie And that Act of so great Guilt contradicteth that he was so bountiful to the Poor There are also others who say that he was taken away by Poyson For which seeing Remedies were no less known unto him and in readiness than for other Diseases they supposed him to have been slain by the Powder of the Adamant eating out his Bowels But I no way admire at the untimely Death of the Man who was solicitous or carefully diligent from his Youth about Chymical Secrets Most especially if a too much Curiosity of searching into Science day and night hath vexed those who were careless of their Life For which of Mortal Men may not the Fumigations of live Coales infect those of Aquae Forte's graduating or exalting and Arsenical things And likewise a new dayly examination of Antimonials The which we through the long tediousness of experiencing being not yet experienced draw in from the malignity of those things as being not admonished but by late experience For what can the somewhat curious and undaunted Young Beginner in an Art so abstruse otherwise do and he refusing any other Master besides the torture of the Fire Where indeed the Speculations of Art are obscured from his desire not indeed that they may be abruptly known but rather that they may not be known For Understanding is given only unto those that are chosen through a long preparation of Dayes and Works to those that are furnished with sufficient Health and Money nor those that have deserved Indignity through the load of Crimes I grant that there are some Universal Medicines which under a most exceeding grateful Unifon of Nature do unsensibly lead forth the bound Enemy after them together with a famous clarifying or refining of the Organs I grant likewise that there are some appropriated ones whereby they imitate the largeness of a Universal Medicine in the Specifical directions of Diseases take away the forreign Society of Impurities and plainly lord it over the already contracted Vice no otherwise than as an Axe plucks up a Tree with authority An Index or Table of the Secrets of Paracelsus is First of all the Tincture of Lile reduced into the Wine of Life from an untimely mineral Electrum or general composure of Mettals one part whereof is the first Metallus but the other the Essence of the Members And then follows Mercurius Vitae the off-spring of entire Stibium which wholly sups up every Sinew of a Disease In the third place is the Tincture of Lile even that of Antimony almost of the same efficacy with that going before although of less efficacy In the fourth place is Mercurius Diaphoreticus being sweeter than Honey and being fixed at the Fire hath all the Properties of the Horizon of Sol for it perfects whatsoever a Physitian and Chyrurgion can wish for in healing yet it doth not so powerfully renew as those Arcanums aforegoing His Liquor Alkahest is more eminent being an immortal unchangeable and loosening or solving Water and his circulated Salt which reduceth every tangible Body into the Liquor of its concrete or composed Body The Element of Fire of Copper succeedeth and the Element or Milk of Pearls But the Essences of Gems
Ferment of the Plague 11 22 There are double Ferments in nature 112 8 Ferments the causes of transmutation 207 8 The Ferment of the Stomach not from it self ibid. Ferment of thâ— Spleen turns the Spirit of wine wholly into a Salt 733 Fishes made of water proved 115 29 Fishes helpful to Chastity 667 38 Fishes why long lived 684 93 Fishes bring forth without pain 685 95 Fire no Element 48 9 50 1 134 24 138 35 It receives not its nourishment from the Air. 84 16 134 24 It generates nothing 109 34 VVhat its appointed ends are 129 26 Its divers Inclinations taught by Positions 136 31 Its being no substantial Body proved by demonstration 137 33 It is the Vulcan of Arts. 138 38 Actual fire cannot subsist in a mixt Body without consuming it 1049 18 What a Flatus is and its kind 421 34. c. Two irregular ones in us 424. 50 Whence they arise 425 61 Where made 428. 78 A Flint capable of retaining the solar light 147 95 155 35 The Bloody Flux how cured 475 29 The quality of food doth not hurt except where medicines are wanting 702 What a Fog is 68 24 VVhat a Form is and whence 130 2â—3 c. The distinction 'twixt an Essential and substantial form 130 7 133 22 143 67 A four-fold form 143 67 Fox lungs censured 260 38 Of the original of Fountains 6â—â— Fountains dispense the seeds of Minerals and Metals 690 19 Fountains not thickned by the air 691 From whence the best fountains do arise 694 Of the Keeper of Fountains ibid VVhy they are called sharp ibid VVhat the sharpness of Fountains proceeds from 695 22 Of the fountains of the Spaw 696 1 VVhat they contain 697 5 VVhy a vein of Iron is invisible in fountains 698 8. VVhy fountains are different in strength 698 14 Of the virtues of the hungry salt of the Fountains and how far they act 699. VVhom they do not hâ—lp ibid How they profit in the stone 700 12 The qualities of fountains are Relolleous and Cherionial â—01 19 Advice to those that drink of Spaw waters 702 How the waters may pass to the midriff quickly ibid How much he ought to drink and what he is to take with it 703 10 A Frog how reducible to its first matter 141 56 G. GAs what it is 69 29 71 10 106 14 VVhat it retains 109 34 Galen ignorant of the causes of Ulcers 321 25 Galen no Anatomist 423 43 303 3â— Galen never knew Rose-water Aqua vitae nor Quick-silver 10â—â— Galens errors about Ulcers 319 14 1â— Galen ignorant of the Latax 378 33 VVhat the Gaâ—l's use is in the body 427 74 The Gaul a vital Bowel 211 34 1061 It performs its digestion by a fermental Blas 214 46 The Gaul hath the nature of a Balsam 216 53 It is taken so in Scripture ibid. 1041 24 From what the Gaul receives a ferment 1048 14 The Generation of Fauns Satyrs Nymphs c. 681 81 Generation of Troâ—ts 684 91 Generation of man described 736 737 738. Ginger produceth sweat 250 â— Glas turns into water under the earth c. 116 33 151 15 The Globe is Oval 35 â—2 The best manner of drawing forth Goats blood 210 75 Its wonderful virtue ibid God made not Death 337 572 157 58 649 How it came to be 649 â— 650 651 The Essential Image of God is in the mind 718 Gold distilled over the Helm 64 6 Its ponderosity is from its seminality compressing the water 67 18 Though reduced into the form of Butter Râ—zin or vitriol yet useless 478 42 VVhat it is rendred efficacious by ibid Gold and precious stones examined 970 Purging medicines hurtful in the Goâ—errhea Of the original of the Gout 291 9 842 292 The Gout sometimes driven away by fear 293 15 Gout not from a defluxing Catarrh nor helped by Cauteries 385 23 386 1 Gout distinguished not by heat or cold but by a seminal Essence â—87 8 The original of the Gout and its progress 388 13 The Seat of the Gout 389 Of the curt with an Epitomâ— of the Gout 390 25 Caâ—teries and drying drinks â—ain in the Gout 391 32 35 The action of Government unknown produceth many errours 333 36 Grapes immediately eaten hurtful 107 16 Grass roots cannot cool the Liver 319 1 Of Gunpowder 107 21 H. HAres fat puls out a â—horn 521. 1160 Being dryed cures the bloody flux 4â—3 To what end the motion of the heart is 179 24 Herbs and â—â—rbarists why disesteemed 1â— 10 The Schoolmen's way of judging of the elementary degrees of herbs erroneous 69. 28 459 1â— Their sloath and errour in the search of their virtues 15â— 3. c. Why their preparation requirs much wariness 458. 11 1â— c. Their properties distinguishable by their specifick savour 460. 17 472 12 Their time of gathering when 460. 17 468 19 142 60 The Heaven gives neither life nor form 129 1 132 14 108â— It doth not cause diseases 1084 1086 1087 1091 What is required for healing 17â— 44 Heat not the first 〈◊〉 of life 196. 26 Heat not the proper 〈◊〉 of digesâ—ion 199. â—â—2 Heat consumes not radic at moisture â—17 Heat is not the life 718 Heat fails not for want of moisture 744 Hâ—â—â—rhoids 943 Their cure 944 From whence the pain in the head may arise 339. 1â— What ought to be minded in applying remedies to the head 276. 20 Of the effect of Remedies applied to the head 292. 12 Hellebor commended for the heal 368. 63 Also for madnesse 302. 26 The defects that manifest themselves in the head cured by stomack Remedies 302. 26 Memory placed in the head 304. 3â— A History of a woman infected with the pox 34 40 Of Count Destaires being opened 509 Of Cardinal Ferdinand 951 Of a Hydropical man 406. 33 510 520 Of a boy troubled with the Iliack passion 422 38 Of a Gas stird up by Sal Armoniack and Aqua â—ortis 426 62. Of a bursten man 428. 75 Of a noble woman strangled by affects of the womb 428. 76 Of a Sonatours wife in child birth 443. Of a merchant's ascending the high mountain of the Canaries 73. â—â— Of an earth-quake at Faâ—â—agusts 79. 13 Of thunder 91. 20 Of an earth-quakâ— 93. 3 Of predictions deciphered in the Stars 122. 27 Of the Authors Chamber-fellows walking by night 141. 53 Of Butler 563 Of several wonderful things 597 Of the Author 958 Of a man with a Quart an Ague 91â— History of Crabs 886 Of a preacher in England 846 Of a Duke being diffected 627 Of a woman whose Liver weighed 21. pounds Ibid. Of a boy that aâ—e this own dung 211. 36â— Of a Printer of Bruâ—els that lived 23. days of his own dung 212 Of a Chymist that made viâ—â—gar yearly by the odour of the vessel 217 Several Histories of the distasted 〈◊〉 228 28 History of Paracelâ—us his Birth and life 230 28 History of Groynland fishing 232 History of a speaking Satyr 683. 685 88 Of the bignesse and
Soul God spake unto himself as the first Chapter of Genesis witnesseth And God created Man according to his own Image which Image is God the Son After the Image of God created he him Male and Female created he them And God blessed them and said Increase and multiply Which command was enjoyned to Adam in respect of his Spirit and Humanity but not as to his Soul for this is Eternal and Immutable So also all his Parts are like unto him whereof I also possess the whole Now even as man was made of the Mud or Clay of the Ground so also it behoves him to increase as other terrestrial living Creatures by a growing and uniting and eating of living Creatures which Foods are required to die in the Stomack and to be changed from their Substance if they ought to be converted from a more vile Substance into a more excellent one or to be promoted by the Spirit of Man unto a united Life from which co-nourishing and increasing my Vessel or Body and Substance I hold as Adam did because I proceeded from him after that he was made into a living Soul as it is found in the second Chapter of Genesis but for Adam there was not found an helper like unto him Therefore the Lord God sent a deep Sleep into Adam and when he had slept he took one of his Ribs and filled up the Flesh in the room of it And the Lord God framed the Rib which he had taken from Adam into a Woman and he brought her unto Adam And Adam said This now is Bone of my Bones and Flesh of my Flesh this shall be called Virago or Wo-man because she was taken from Man Wherefore a Man shall leave his Father and his Mother and shall adhere to his Wife and they twain shall be in one Flesh Wise Men Thou hast explained unto us what thou hast been wholly in Adam according to thy Spirit and Soul and in Eve according to thy Body likewise that the Vessel hath received the Spirit and the Spirit the Soul Now we could desire to hear in what respect Eve was produced by God out of Adam and what the sleep sent by God into Adam before he framed her doth denote Mercurius Adam from the Beginning was perfect in his Essence as being the first Man created by God so his Spirit did shine thorow his Flesh and Vessel and did illustrate it even as now the Light did illuminate his Darkness and was able to subdue it so it ought to excel and overcome the Darkness because it was Internal Stable Eternal and good in its own Essence the which Spirit existing Adam could not of his own accord produce his Like without Sleep sent into him for he persisting in his Essence was without sleep and because he had divided himself from himself all his Parts had remained proper unto him and again had returned unto the whole into one assoon as he had listed because by his Spirit predominating he had divided the Body subjected unto it self which Parts were inwardly and outwardly enlightned from his own Light which gave an Essence unto all his Members But some may ask how in the next place had it gone with Adam if he had not eaten the Poyson from Eve It is answered there had alwayes been in him a combating with his Spirit or Light against his Darkness the which on the first Day God divided of which two also Man was composed even as the said Chapter sheweth which is further explained at the end of the same Chapter on the sixth Day in these Words And replenish ye the Earth and subdue it And when they had fought to the utmost they had filled the Earth and the Darkness with their Spirit or with their Light and had so subdued it that the former Darkness had been supped up and co-nourished which was his proper and one only Work alwayes to be done and perfected But some one may further query seeing in Adam the said Light being separated from the Darkness had overcome the Darkness as it was shewed to be by the very same Light whether or no according to a spiritual returned or restored United Body he had been entire and eternal in all his particular Parts and Members This being so by that reason he might have been divided into Innumerable Eternal and Infinite men without the aforesaid sleep preceding I answer it is certain that this Deified man would have been entire in all his Infinite Parts likewise that all those Parts would again as one have constituted one Entire Body He having himself in such a manner had been likewise to be one Deified Man he being reduced hitherto by his necessary strife would by Grace in his Life have enjoyed or rejoyced in the same with Christ our Saviour after his Resurrection Whereby many such men might now have been begotten or brought forth and whereby all also of them might have enjoyed that very same Grace for which Adam was procreated and whereby they might have attained it by that very same strife It pleased the Lord God to send the aforesaid sleep into Adam to shew that he soundly sleeping had not contributed any thing to the structure of Eve but she was now founded in this sleep by God Moreover the curious might busily enquire why Eve was framed of the Rib of Adam but not of his Flesh I return an answer the former Man was Adam the second Eve made for his help and conjoyned Procreation Now Propagation consisteth partly in Man as in other living Creatures by conjunction or nourishing as was said and it is further to be observed in all increase of created things in this World before they are able to grow because they consist of two things that the one ought first to die to wit the Body and Form which consist of Water and Earth and do arise from the Light of the Moon and Stars as of the Lights of the Night every thing according to their different Nature none excepted and that this might be perfected in Adam the Lord God took a Rib out of Adam which is a Bone according to its being made in Adam a Progeny of Veins the which with the Dutch sounds also a Progeny of Vipers which Bone is governed by the Moon as shall be found that when the Moon increaseth the Marrow likewise of the Bones doth increase like the Waters and together with it doth decrease It will further be found that when Flesh is burnt in the Fire it looseth that form A Bone not so yea that is so stable that the Examiners of the goodness of Coyn do make their Crucibles thereof wherein they melt and search Gold and Silver So that a Bone or Rib is and doth retain nothing besides the humane Earth as it is a second Production in Man like that of the Earth out of the Waters so far it differs from the first and one thing Wherefore Eve as she was procreated from hence she is likewise of a second and
working motion to the co-working the action doth re-bound Therefore things that are produced without life do not receive their forms through the makeable disposition of the working terme or limit but onely they do obtain the ends or maturities of their appointments and digestions For while from the causes of Minerals or Mettalls a stone doth re-bound or from the Seed of a Plant while a Plant is made no new Being is made which was not by way of power in the Seed but it onely obtains the perfecting of the appointed ripeness And therefore power is given to the Earth of producing Herbes but not to the water of producing Fishes Because it is not so in things that have a living Soul as in Plants For as their Monarchies are plainly unlike so also their manners of generation and generating For therefore the natural gift of increasing Seeds durable throughout Ages is read to have been given to the Earth not so in living Creatures although these in the mean time ought to propagate Therefore the Seeds of things that are not soulified are indeed propagated no otherwise than as light taken from light Yet in the partaking of which enlightning the Creator is of necessity the chief Efficient But the Creator alone createth every where a new light whether it be formal or also vitall of the individual that is brought forth for neither was that light before not so much as in part although from the potential disposure or fit or inclinable disposition the Seeds of things not soulified may in some sort be reckoned to obtain a Form so are things that have life yet the formal virtue is not so neerly planted in these as in Plants For Souls and lives as they know not degrees so also not parts And although the Seed of a living Creature may have a disposition unto life yet it hath not life neither can it have it or effect it of it self for the Reasons drawn from the Rise or Birth of Forms Wherefore I shall teach by and by that there are not four Elements nor that there is a uniting of the three remainders yea nor of two that bodies which are believed to be mixt may be thereby made but that to the framing of these two natural causes at least do abundantly suffice the matter indeed is the veriest substance it self of the effect but the efficient its inward and seminal Agent and even as in living Creatures I acknowledge two onely Sexes so also are there two bodies at least the beginnings of any things whatsoever and not more even as there are onely two great lights For the three beginnings of bodies which the Chymists do call Salt Sulphur and Mercury or Salt Liquor and Balsam I will shew in their place that they cannot obtain the Dignities of beginnings which cannot be found in all things and which themselves are originally sprung from the Element of water and do fail being dissolved again into water as at sometime I shall make to appear for it behoveth the nature of beginnings to be stable if they ought to bear the name and property of a Principle Therefore there are two chief or first beginnings of Bodies and corporeal Causes and no more to wit the Element of Water or the beginning of which and the Ferment or Leaven or seminal beginning by which that is to be disposed of whence straightway the Seed is produced in the matter which the Seed being gotten is by that very thing made the life or the middle matter of that Being running thorow even into the finishing of the thing or last matter But the Ferment is a formall created Being which is neither a substance nor an accident but a neutrall thing framed from the beginning of the World in the places of its own Monarchie in the manner of light fire the Magnall or sheath of the Air Forms c. that it may prepare stir up and go before the Seeds This is indeed a Ferment in general But what things I here suppose I will at length evidently shew every thing in its place I will not treat of Fables and things that are not in being but of Principles and Causes in order to their ends actions and generations I consider Ferments existing truly and in act and individually by their kindes distinct Therefore Ferments are gifts and Roots stablished by the Creator the Lord for the finishing of Ages sufficient and durable by continual increase which of water can stir up and make Seeds proper to themselves Surely wherein he hath given to the Earth the virtue of budding from it self he hath given so many Ferments as expectations of fruits that also without the Seed of the foregoing Plant they may out of Water generate their own Liquors and Fruits Therefore Ferments do bring forth their own Seeds not others that is every ones according to their own Nature and property which the Poet saith For Nature is subject to the Soil Neither doth every Land bring forth all things For there is in places a certain order divinely placed a certain Reason and unchangeable Root of producing some appointed effects or fruits nor indeed onely of Vegetables but also of Minerals and Insects or creatures that retain their life in a divided portion For the soils and properties of Lands do differ and that by reason of some cause of the same birth and age with that Land Indeed this I attribute to the formall Ferment created in that place Whence consequently divers fruits do bud and of their own accord break forth in divers places whose Seeds being removed to another place we see for the most part to come forth more weakly as counterfeit young But that which I have said of the Ferment or Leaven placed in the Earth that very thing thou shalt likewise finde in the Air and Water for neither do they want Roots Gifts fermental Reasons or respects which being stable do bring forth fruits dedicated to places and Provinces and that thing not onely the perseverance of fruits doth convince of but also the voluntarily and abundant shedding abroad of unforbidden Seeds Therefore the Ferment holds the Nature of a true Principle divers in this from the efficient cause that the efficient cause is considered as an immediate active Principle in the thing which is the Seed and as it were the moving Principle to generation or the constitutive beginning of the thing but the Ferment is often before the Seed and doth generate this from it self And the Ferment is the original beginning of things a Power placed in the Earth or places but not in seminal things constituted But the Ferment which growes up in the things constituted or framed together with the properties of Seeds hath it self in manner of the efficient cause unto the Seed of things but the seminal Ferment is not that which is one of the two original Principles but the product of the same and the effect of the individual Seed and therefore frail and perishing Whereas otherwise the
At length the one onely Fountain and Spring of waters which thou hadst placed in the heart and top of the Earth is afterwards spread abroad into a thousand veins which did almost every where pierce thorow the Globe of the earth to far better uses And moreover thou hast also dashed the Sea almost into every Creek of the earth that there might be the greater fellowship of Mortalls thereby Therefore if thy punishment be blessed and happy what shall the free gifts of thy blessings be Oh Lord keep us for the exceeding greatness of thy goodness within that number who shall praise thy great and mighty deeds for ever in the sanctifying of thy name But although that one onely Fountain now ceased neither Lands being now rent asunder one alone was not enough yet perhaps the same entrance of waters remained Because in the sweet Sea between Roest and Loefelt according to the Table of Gothland a Gulf of waters is described by Olaus whereinto Ships Marriners being not aware and their endeavours being in vain are supt up For indeed it is the mouth into which the waters of that Ocean do fall and by one onely passage were before the Floud carried thence unto the aforesaid Fountain But afterwards that passage like the hollow vein was diversly distributed and hedged in by a Rock by some thousands of veins ending upon the face of the Quellem from which afterwards the waters being drunk up do hasten from far unto their appointed offices Moreover that Whirle-poole or Gulf if it ought to be any where and Olaus be a true Writer or if not at leastwise it is fitly in the Sea as well for the sweetness of the Sea as for the long and round figure of the World by me straightway to be proved In the next place if one onely Fountain were for the moystening of the Earth the aforesaid Whirle-poole shall be sufficient especially because the bottom of the Sea hath the Sand Quellem longly and largely laying open which would be sufficient for the drinking up the water And the rather because the Sea doth sometimes wash upon and rince the earth on every side and thorow many middle spaces Therefore the Sea being supt up in the said Whirle-poole it is by little and little brought thorow stony Channels and hence by lesser pipes thorow a great part of the earth Notwithstanding they are scarce over whelmed beneath the Soil Keyberch but as often as the veins of the Whirle-poole do cut or touch at the Quellem rising up thorow middle places and rushing forth into a Fountain indeed the sweet veins do perish and veins of Sea-Salt are produced Otherwise the briny Liquor if there be also any in the Gothick Sea doth through the lively Archeus of the Earth lose by degrees the nature of Salts or if the Ferments of Salts in places do any where exist those very waters do put on the seeds as well of divers Salts as of Stones and Mettalls and are changed into the same fruits For so neat gemme nitre aluminous vitriolated Sea Salts do grow of the water they as it were promising the first birth of the water to themselves And then from hence they do decline or decay into Bur or the first off-spring of Mineralls and degenerate by the guidance of the seeds So some fruits of the water do stop up the passages of their own Fountain and by their last ripeness do attain the perfection of that Minerall whose appointments the seeds did bear before them which were entertained in the Ferments of places Moreover as that Northern Whirlepoole or Gulf doth also sup up Fishes within it so it sups up the same exceeding small ones the greater being detained within the Channels Where oft-times they are either made Rockie or wax filthy through putrifying or also are seasoned with the Balsam of the soils as also that Fishes are oft-times found digged up which the Husband-man and others being amazed at do think they were born in undue places and without a seed Furthermore whether the Conduits have received the water or at length have drunk up that Quellem the waters are at least there endowed with a lively and seminall property For no otherwise than as a vein even in a dead Carease preserveth the bloud contained in it from coagulating or curdling which is a corruption of the first degree truly by a stronger Reason that right agrees to the veins of the earth which is not yet dead Therefore the water is supt and drawn within the lively soil of the Earth whence it having gotten a common life Come let us worship the King by whom all things live it knoweth not the Scituations of places it easily ascendeth unto the tops of Mountains without trouble together with the Quellem that it may from thence send forth fountains without ceasing VVhich things surely being unknown to the Schooles they have left that place of the wise man Coheleth or the Preacher scanty or barren where he saith all Rivers hasten towards the Sea the which notwithstanding doth not therefore re-gorgethem again For truly Rivers do return to the place from whence they came forth that they may flowagain Which words have been corrupted heretofore with divers modellings or qualifications Because springs in the tops of Mountains were not seen to proceed from the Sea whither they at length do rush Therefore Springs have been hitherto falsely judged by the Schooles to take their Beginnings and Causes from Air condensed or co-thickned by the force of cold between the hollow places of Mountains ready to fall upon each other The which I in a little Book concerning the Fountains of the Spaw printed in the year 1624 at Leidon have shewne that they have themselves after the manner now delivered in this place Therefore the true originall of true Springs being manifested it hitherto remains unknown to the Schooles The Scripture-Text entire and cleared But seeing the same Law course and re-course of waters from the Quellem into Fountains and at length from Fountains into the Sea was kept no lesse in dayes wherein it hath not rained for three years and more than when the whole year doth almost wax barren with a continual showre we must know that it is sumcient for the Earth that it doth not send forth such bountiful Springs through its Water-pipes and steep-running Brooks as by the common besprinkling of Dew and Rain Moreover before I shall come to the unchangeable substance of the water wherein the Schooles do promise that Air is easily changed into water and this likewise into it I will first clear up another Paradox To wit that the Globe being composed of Earth and Water is indeed round from the East thorow the West into the East yet not from the North into the South but long and round or of the figure of an Egge Which thing in the first place hath much deceived Saylors Because the Waters do slide with a more swift course from North to South than otherwise
of the Principle And that they may adorn the four Elements with qualities they attribute to every one one the highest quality but another a slack one and the Schooles command nature to obey their fictions Therefore they say that the Air is slackly bot because they will have it neer to the seigned Element of fire that is or because it borroweth that slack quality of its Neighbour and it changeth its proper and native disposure at the pleasure of its Neighbour and that impertinently while the speech is of native properties Or because it hath that quality of its own disposition and although slack therefore notwithstanding it shall also have such a Neighbour which thing is alike impertinent and naught And that they may prove the moderate heat of the Air they carry on the like foolish invention of an Antiporistasis or a compassing about of the contrary To wit that the Air in its uppermost part is hot by reason of a nearness of the fire and so they seign not an essential heat but a begged and improper one by accident and that nigh the Earth it is likewise hot from the reflexion of the Sun-beams Which heat is for a little space a stranger by accident and therefore a seigned property of the Air. But they will have the middle Region of the Air to be wonderful cold by reason of an Antiperistasis To wit because both parts of the hot air doth compass it about Whose like they say doth happen to deep wells they being cold in Summer and luke-warm all the Winter But I wonder at the deep or profound benummednesses of the Schooles and the drowsie distemper of the auntients 1. Because from this their whole Structure it appeareth that the air is generally cold but not meanly hot 2. For truly the fire is not an Element in nature and much lesse is it under the hollow of the Moon neither therefore can it make hot the uppermost part of the Air except by a Dream 3. For if the Air be hot by it self and of its Elementary property then is it alwayes and every where hot even in deep Wells 4. But if it be hot through any other thing proper of familiar unto it which makes it hot then besides that it should have something besides it self mixt with it from whence the Elementary simplicity of its own Body should cease it should also alwayes and every where actually be hot or lastly should be hot by reason of something applied to it acting by accident Which thing is impertinent as often as the thing to be proved is taken as concerning essential things Therefore if the Air be not by it self hot it must needes be cold by it self Since those two do subsequently exclude each other in nature 5. If the fire be never cold or moyst and the water be never dry so the Air can never be lesser than intensively or most moyst and slackly hot if the Schooles speak truth 6. They would have that to be the middle Region of the Air which is scarce distant half a mile from us being unmindeful of their own Doctrine To wit that the Diameter of the Air exceedes the Diameter of the Water ten fold but that this is greater than the Diameter of the Earth two fold which fiction being granted the Semi-diameter of the Air should be deeper than 570000 miles Therefore half a mile should be as nothing in respect of the middle Air. Oh ye Schooles I pray you awake For if the Air should of its own accord and of its own nature be hot by what cause at length should it be cold in its middle part For is it because its Neighbour on both sides is hot But then the Air would not propose to it self wrathfulness but rather joy from the agreeableness of its neere nature For why doth the Air put off its natural property because it did on both sides touch the luke-warm Air agreeable to it self For how shall luke-warm powred on luke-warm wax cold because it doth finde luke-warmness on both sides Or if cold be placed between two Colds shall it therefore wax hot in its middle I cannot sufficiently wonder at the unpolished rudeness of the Schooles who deliver the Doctrine of Antiperistasis which desireth so great credulity not judgement For although that fiction should please us while the Air is hot about the Earth but certainly it could by no meanes in the Winter seasons For truly neither then indeed is that middle Region of the Air adorned with a native heat 9. It is a wonder I say that such absurd falsehood and Doctrine hath not yet breathed out of the Alps. And so hence it is manifest that the Peripateticks do even from a study of obstinacy teach known falsehoods least they should not swear in the words of Aristotle or that no judgement at all is left them that they may ingeniously perform their office and that they may think they have done enough if they follow the herds of those that went before them Therefore Antiperistasis is a dream of his who when he knew not the least thing in nature yet would seem to have known all things and to be worshipped for a Standard-defender by the Schooles his followers But because Aristotle fleeth to the heat of Wells in Winter for the demonstration of an Antiperistasis that shall straightway fall to the ground through the instrument whereby we measure the just temperature of the encompassing Air Wherein we see by handicraft-demonstration that the Air in deep Wells and Cellers is stable in the same point of heat whether it shall please us to measure it in Winter or lastly in the greatest heats of Summer 10. But it being granted that there were not an equall temperature in Wells but yet surely it would be a foolish thing for the Air otherwise naturally moderately hot sometimes to be cold sometimes again to be hot as it were through despight by reason of the applied alteration of the encompassing air 11. The holy Scriptures declare the Snow to be colder than the water because Snow is water in which the utmost power of cold is imprinted and the Air to exceed the Snow in coldness hence it is read He that spreads abroad the Snow and the Wooll that the Wheat may be kept safe under the Snow from the cruelty of the cold Air as it were under a woolly Covering For we see by handicraft operation that a member almost frozen together waxeth hot again under the Snow and is preserved from putrifaction or blasting because else the Air would straightway proceed wholly to congeal it or if it be suddenly brought to the fire it dieth by reason of the hasty action of another extream Therefore this is to have gone thorow meanes if it be to go from the cold air thorow Snow water and then into a slack luke-warmness Therefore Snow is lesse cold than air 12. But why to the moystness of the water do they implore its thickness for moystening which is a ridiculous
retorted or struck back by an Alembick it returns into its antient weight of water Yet it may be doubted whether water consumed by the cold of the air is not changed into the nature and properties of air Because after the floud the Almighty sent the windes that they might dry the face of the Earth And even unto this day water is sooner supt up under the most cold North than in Summer heats Also a Fountain falling into a place or Vessel of Stone or Marble under the most chilled cold with a continuall Gulf the motion of the steep falling Fountain hinders indeed the water from congealing yet a certain vapour is seen to ascend which being straightway invisible is snatched away in the Air. That which is presupposed is that the every way nature of air is at least consumed by cold if not by heat First of all I answer that absurdity being granted the Schooles in the first place have not any thing for themselves from thence that therefore the air by it self should be moyst so far is it that the air as they determine should be far moyster than the water Because it is at least water dried up For that which is transchanged doth alwayes loose the properties which it had in the terme or bound from which and borroweth the qualities of the thing transchanging For however either the whole air was sometimes water or that onely should be moyst which was born of water but the other first-born air should be dry from its Creation And so there should be two aires essentially different But that the air in its own purity is dry by an inward property it appeares from the objection of the aforesaid cold because if the air from its Root were moyst windes had not been sent to dry the Earth But if indeed through the windes the waters of the floud were truly changed into air there should be much more air after the floud than before Consequently either some part of the World had been empty or certainly now by reason of a pressing together and thickning caused by a new air of so great an heap we should be choaked which thing shall hereafter be manifested by the handicraft operation of a Candle or an equall part of air ought successively to had been annihilated or brought to nothing under the generation of so great a new air For the Text will have it that so deep waters and the whole superficies of the Earth also was dryed by the windes Or if before the floud the waters had been air in the floud-gates of Heaven in like manner therefore in the whole floud there had been an emptiness in those floud-gates of Heaven to wit if the water be thicker and more condensed by a hundred fold at least than the air Therefore I lay it down for a position That the water doth never perish indeed not through cold or that it can be changed by any endeavours of nature or art and likewise that the air in no ages or by no dispositions not so much as in one onely small drop can be reduced into water For the water doth not endure an emptiness as neither the co-pressing of it self in being pressed together by any moover Onely it is pressed together in a seminall in-thickning through a formal transchanging of it self But on the contrary the air cannot subsist without a Vacuum or emptiness which thing I will prove in its Chapter and therefore it suffers an enlarging and straightning of it self Therefore there are two stable Elements differing in nature and properties among themselves because it is impossible for them to be changed into each other I confess indeed that out of the Stone-Vessel of a Fountain a watery exhalation doth ascend like a mist from the smallest Atomes of the water which exhalation although departing but a little from thence it be made altogether invisible it doth not therefore corrupt the Doctrine delivered For truly of one equall agent there is one onely and equall action Wherefore if cold doth first change the water into an icy exhalation the same cold cannot afterwards have another action upon that exhalation than of more extenuating and dispersing the same so as that through its fineness it may soon be made invisible And afterwards may be made more and more fine For neither could the hundredth extenuation of the same exhalation more transchange the water than the first Because it is an Element and Body impossible by its appointment to be reduced into a greater simplicity since subtilizing made by the division of parts is nothing but a certain simple shifting For example Beat Gold into Plates and then into the thinnest leaves but thence into the Gold of Painters straightway again make it smooth or plain in a Marble Morter And then with minium or red Lead and Salt bring it into an impalpable or exceeding fine Powder seperate the minium by the fire and wash away the Salt with water and repeat or renew it often as thou listest At length also with Sal armoniac Stibium and Mercurie Sublimate drive it through a retort and renew that seven times that the whole Gold may be brought into the form of a flitting Oil of a light red colour For it is a very smooth yea and a hard sound that which may be hammered and a most fixed Body which now seemeth to be turned into the nature of an Oil. But truly that dissembled Liquor is easily reduced into its former weight and body of Gold What if therefore Gold doth not change its antient nature by so many manglings nor doth by any meanes loose its own seed much lesse doth water a thing appointed for a simple Element by the Lord of things for the upholding of the Universe Although water should be potent in the three divulged Beginnings and should truly consist in Salt Sulphur and Mercurie mingled together yet it suffers no seperation of the same things by reason of the most exquisite simpleness of its nature and the most firm continuance of its constancy For Bodies when they are made subtile or fine to the utmost that they could be no more fine if they should continue in making them fine at length they depart into another substance with a retaining of their seminall properties And in this respect the Alkahest of Paracelsus by piercing all Bodies of nature transchangeth them by making them subtile Which happens not in the Elements Water and Air because by reason of their highest simplicity and priority of their appointment they refuse to passe or to be transchanged into any thing that is before or more simple than themselves Therefore when exhalations being gotten with child by the odours or smells and seeds of compound Bodies are translated from the lower parts to the middle Region of the air there through the most subtile dividing of the vapours by cold as much as is possible for nature to do they are reduced indeed into their most simple and primitive purity of Elementary water but in
be divided and enlarged according to the measure of the Sulphur From whence the Mercury with the Salt of the water are also most easily frozen within the Sulphur by the cold of the air Wherefore seeing the Salt and Mercury are unfit for the moystening of the Sulphur they are likewise necessarily changed into Gas and being more and more made fine they are sub-divided even into the utmost and possible fineness of the Element Therefore Gas differs not in substance and essence but by way of alteration onely For the Salt in the vapour being impatient of heat riseth up with the Mercury and they have the Sulphur included in themselves And Gas turns the Sulphur of the water outward throughly dries it and sub-divides it For the vapour while it toucheth at the place of its refreshment doth for the most part wander up and down half congealed in the shape of a Cloud nor doth it ascend but the cold of winter coming on when now that Region of the air doth beyond measure wax cold straightway the air becomes clear the Clouds do sever or disperse and are changed into Gas In the Mountains of Helvetia and Subandia the Clouds do float under ones feet and through their holes we behold the World downward by reason of the cruel cold of the place but whatsoever is above the Clouds is without a Cloud because that whole vapour is by degrees extenuated into Gas and ceaseth to be seen Indeed the Sun shines clear in that part unless it do snow but the heat thereof is not to be perceived although I have seen my Companion on that side whereon the Sun-beams had directly struck him a whole half day to have scorched his face and neck no otherwise than as if he had applyed Cantharides And that without the feeling of heat or pain For neither doth this come to passe through the too much subtility of the air and heat For truly degrees of heat but not the fineness and purity thereof do burn yea the thicker body as Iron burns more fervently than the live Coal that is thinner And much lesse by reason of the reflexion of beams For truly he was burned in that part whereon the Sun but not the adverse reflexion of the Mountain did strike him For the cold of the place causeth that the heat of the Sun is the lesse felt Hence indeed it is manifest that cold is not a meer absence or privation of heat or a non-Being For truly here both of them do stand also distinctly operate and that indeed in a high degree And do make the air by their tempering to be almost the sweetest in the whole world Yet the Snow cannot be melted in the Mountain by that heat of the Sun because the cold of the Snow and also of the place are both suitably equal to the heat of the Sun But by how much a man is hotter than the snow by so much indeed the heat of the Sun doth prevail and mightily burn for that humane warmeth doth almost wholly exclude the cold of the place and the heat of the Sun doth almost act alone by it self While Vapours and Clouds are made Gas they are made fine and by how much the finer they are by so much the higher also do they climbe in sub-dividing and do more shun the sight For otherwise the Sun by reason of the multitude and thickness of the Clouds should never shine on us and much lesse should it heat the Earth Therefore the Stars do twinckle and the whole Heaven being void of colour is bright or cleare yet it sheweth an Azure colour For although Gas be a most subtile thing and invisible in its own body yet because it as yet differs from the every way clearness of the Air therefore in so great depth of it self it dissembles a Skie-colour For Gas which in its first division I have said to give a shadow in a thousand sub-divisions of it self doth not appear unless that in much depth it at least sheweth the aforesaid colour It is also a frivolous thing that the air is carried about by the snatching motion of the first Moover Because Clouds do follow the guidance of the windes But the motions of the windes are irregular because they are of the Blas of the Stars but not of the mooving of the Orbs. And moreover far above the Clouds the air is almost unmooved For truly a Dutch Merchant ascendeth a Mountain in the Canaries which at this day is thought to be the highest of the whole World But there was one guide two Masters and as many Servants five Camels one whereof was appointed for Victuall and Fodder In the fourth moneth called June early in the morning they went up But they had scarce gone an houres space when as the cold offended them and they complained all the day that about night it would be so unwonted that they ought to increase their Garments On the third day in the morning about three houres after Sun-rising they came to the top of the Mountain For there in the Sand were the steps of Camels imprinted a year before being as it were new made and the names of certain persons written on the ground as if it had been with a yesterdayes finger For besides a most exceeding sweet air they found no Vegetable for want of rain Therefore they hastened to descend the Camels all the five dayes space being nothing at rest except a little while wherein they might take their Fodder But all the third day they were distant perhaps fifteen Italian miles from the Horizon But although this Region of a quiet air did not so feel the tempests of windes yet notwithstanding it must needes have a sweet flowing air and an alterative Blas not onely because it suffers day and night cold and heat but also because it transmitteth the Blas of the Stars receives the lower Gas and suffers other Consequences from thence And as that Region sends thorow it the alterations of the Stars so also it conceiveth and partaketh of them For the Sun let the same judgement be of the other Stars cannot but heat which burneth Bladders in the coldest Mountains and it is required that this heat be there in the day-time Because also the night there wanteth this heat Therefore those successive changes must needes be in that very place entertained After the same manner also the beams of the Stars with their full forces do passe thorow the vast Monarchie of the Air and in it do sow their alterations For neither although they do not produce their proper effects but in the bound of their scope into which they are directed for the use of mortall men yet they cease not to season the air by altering it with their impressions throughout the bounds where they passe And as yet the rather because in this part are the Floud-gates of Heaven that is in the huge space of the quiet air it self is the Gas of the water which by the most exact rarefying of
subdivision is many times re-shaken sub-divided by the colds through which it hath passed This Gas at least should never of its own accord return into its auntient water nor should descend unto the most cold places through which it escaped by climbing upward unless the uppermost Blas of the Stars should force its descent And so the Region of the still air is not void of successive changes but that the Rain doth not there moysten the ground nor the rage of windes serve for the commotion of the waters For since the Gas which it keepes in it self is now reduced to so great a fineness of it self and all its Atomes being as it were roasted with heats in the outward superficies of the Sulphur surely they cannot return into rain unless by a sweet winde they descend to the middle Region where they do re-take the beginnings of coagulating under the luke-warm blowing of the air For a certain alteration opposite to that place from which the Gas departed ought to reduce the Gas into water For a sweet luke-warmth in the still air maketh the Atomes of Gas being covered in their own Sulphur to divide which Sulphur a skin being as it were broken thorow or like a Glasse that is brought suddenly from luke-warmth into the cold is broken and so the Mercury of the water doth dissolve its Salt at the dissolution whereof the Sulphur it self may be melted into its former water And that kinde of inversion or turning in and out of the body of the water and that torture through the exact searching of the cold is necessary that all the power of the Ferment may be wholly taken away out of the Clouds For else much corruption and the much stink of mists would soon destroy mortalls As in Silver being melted the exceeding small atomes of Gold do slide to the bottom So do the atomes of the Gas settle and by sliding they do increase or wax bigger which otherwise being infirm by reason of the coldness of the Air are again lifted up unless a gentle or favourable luke-warmth in the coldest place did now and then hinder it For so indeed rains shoures storms so Hail Snow mist and Frost are through an alteration by accident having arisen as well from a motive as an alterative Blas in the most cold places And so Gas and Blas have divided the whole Common-wealth of a Meteor into Colonies In like manner I have learned by the examples cited that the Sun doth not heat by accident but by it self and immediately And that heat is as intimate and proper to it as its light is to it The Air hath therefore its grounds or soils no lesse than the Earth which the Adeptists do call Peroledes Therefore the invisible Gas is entertained in the various Beds or Pavements of the Air if the Water hath its depths of its Gulfs it s own Gates are in the Peroledes which skilfull men have called the Floud-gates and folding doores of Heaven For neither is Gas falling down into the place of Clouds carried out of the depth of Heaven without its directer Blas Yea it falls not down but thorow ordained Pavements and folding-doores For all the folding-doores do not promiscuously lay open to the Planets but all the Planets in particular are by their own Blas the Key-keepers of their own Perolede Which thing I submit to be examined by Astrologers that are the shewers or disclosers of Meteors and I promise that they shall finde out a rich substance For so windes do sometimes hasten perpendicularly downwards and smite the Earth but otherwise they go side-wayes out of their folding-doores they beat down Houses and Trees as also bring miserable destruction on all sorts of Shipping But the more luke-warm Air doth foreshew the Winde to come out of the depth of the Air and the Gas to bring with it the Blas of Heaven downwards Whence Gas is straight-way again resolved into a Vapour and afterwards into rain Indeed Clouds do then appear which not long before were not beheld at any corner of the World Because the invisible Gas slides downward out of the depth of the upper Air the which growes together into vapours and from thence into drops For that is the appointment of the Air that it may continually seperate the waters from the waters But seeing that one part of water is extended at least to a hundred fold of its dimension while it is made a vapour and so much the finer by how much the Gas thereof is sub-divided into the more lesse parts and since there is that order and that law of universe that all things may be carried on for the necessity of man and the preserving of the World Indeed in this respect do heavy things tend upward light things are drawn downward Hence it hath seemed to me that the Blas of the Stars is disturbed into rain and is carried into clearnesses and other seasons as oft as the pluralities of Gas it self in the still Perolede of the air do seem to threaten almost choakings and the too-much com-pressions in the air Yet I am not so carefull concerning the occasionall causes of a Meteor it is sufficient that I have known an exhalation arising from beneath to wit a vapour and Gas to be the materiall cause of every Meteor It sufficeth to have known Blas to be the effective cause by the authority of the holy Scriptures The Stars shall be to you for times or seasons dayes and years This therefore is the unrestable appointment of the water that by proceeding continually upwards and downwards it should answer no otherwise than as the windes by an inordinate and irregular motion do answer to their Blas of the Stars And so the water which existed from the beginning of the Universe is the same and not diminished and shall be so unto the end thereof But I meditate of the Peroledes or Soils of the Air to be as it were the Bottles of the Stars by which they do unfold their Blas even through their determined or limited places for the uses and interchangeable courses of times or seasons And chiefly because the upper and almost still Perolede doth contain the cause why there are windes fruits dewes and especially things pertaining to Provinces For seeing that the winde is a flowing Air and so hath an unstableness in it we must needes finde the locall cause of stability in the more quiet Perolede Therefore the folding-doores are shut or laying open in the Perolede according to the Blas of the Stars which they obey Nor is it a wonder that there are limits or invisible bounds in the air of so great power and capable to restrain a heap for the visible World doth scarce contain another Common-wealth of things and the least one of powers For who will deny that under a Rock or great Stone of Scotland scarce 12 foot broad and deep 30 there is not some division of a Perolede that in the mean time I may be
and connexion Whither when the light of the Stars shall descend the folding-doores do open and shut themselves Therefore let the Key-keeper of the folding-doores be the motion of the Stars Which also moveth the Peroledes or Pavements of the Air. Therefore all heat is not made by fore-existing fire or light nor doth cold shew a naked absence of heat But the motive Blas of the Stars is a pulsive or beating power or virtue in respect of their Journey through places and according to their aspects Which circumstances in the Stars do cause the first qualities on these inferiour bodies no otherwise than bashfulness anger feat c. do stir up cold and heat in men And that thing the Stars have by the gift of Creation The Winde according to Hypocrates is a flowing Water of the Air but I defining it by its causes say that the Winde is a flowing Air mooved by the Blas of the Stars And that for a naturall winde but otherwise it is often granted to an evill Spirit that even without a Blas he should stir up windes or increase a tempestuous Blas Therefore the Air unless it have a Blas remains quiet nor hath it the principle of motion from it self but it comes to it from elsewhere Therefore the motive Blas stirreth up Windes Tempests over-flowing of Waters by running thorow the divers Peroledes of the Air sometimes upwards sometimes downwards across long-wayes side-wayes into all the Coasts of the Earth although the Elements have no need of motion yet mans necessity requireth that motion But seeing nothing was for mooving of it self except the Archeus granted to seedes it hath well pleased the Eternall to place in the Stars a flatuous violent motive force not much unlike to the Command of his mouth So that Blas is for a testimony to us that God of his excelling goodness hath made the Elements and Stars for us by measuring out bounds of these according to our Commodities Blas therefore mooveth not so much by light beames and motion as motion but as the Stars have come down unto certain places whereunto these Stars do owe their offices Therefore there are stable properties in those places but if they are not stable that happens in respect of other Stars brought with them by an analogicall or proportionable motion for the interchangeable courses of continuance Blas therefore as a Masculine thing in the Stars is the generall beginning of motion it seemes no lesse to respect the Earth than the Air and Water For the Moon according to the holy Scriptures ruleth the night as the Sun doth the day although the Moon for her own half runs not under the night For the Globe of the Earth is divided into four parts into two accesses or flowings and recesses or ebbings of the Ocean daily And it spends almost 28 houres therein and so much the lesse by how much the Sun and Moon shall in the mean time depart from or draw near to each other Blas therefore stirs up also a raging heat in the waters the winde being still But the alterative Blas consisteth in the producing of heat and cold and that especially with the changings of the windes But the Stars neither have nor give moysture or dryth of themselves For neither is moysture to be considered in nature as naked quality without a matter and therefore neither is it brought down from the Stars unto us For all moysture is from the water which was before the Stars were born Therefore Paracelsus erreth who saith that rains snow c. are so the fruits of the Stars that they are boyled to a ripeness in the Stars as it were in bottles Dryness also was in the air the seperater of the waters before the Stars nor is it to be considered without a body in manner of a quality But heat and cold are rather qualities abstracted from a body Therefore there are onely two great Lights and therefore two onely qualities of them are spread into the air from whence all Meteors are stirred or mooved For the heat of life is the property of the Sun but cold of the other Star Also the other Stars have given their names or honours to these two Lights As often therefore as the Stars of the nature of the Moon are brought thorow places of the Sun a luke-warmth is made in the air but if Stars of the nature of the Sun do run down under the same places heat is made according to which qualities of the air the Gas of the air is also diversly altered Hence indeed Blas heats after the same manner thorow the soils of the air therefore Gas also is either detained in its pavements or soils or is brought downward to us So as that the atomes of Gas being invisible through their too much smallness loosing their constriction and excess of cold do again fall together or decay into the smallest drops and hasten downwards But if indeed the luke-warmth doth affect the lower Peroledes when Gas being provoked by Blas wandereth downwards Summer Snowes are made Surely Gas being grown together through frost a luke-warmth presently arising it is melted and rusheth headlong downwards For the Mercurie of the water resolveth its Salt and the Sulphur doth as it were rowl up these two And so they fall down into rain But if indeed that thing happens in the upper Perolede the drops descending are frozen in the middle cold pavements and so they are cast down headlong into Snow and Hails But if luke-warmth do bear sway thorow some continuall Peroledes of the air daily rains do accompany it Hence also it appeares that an unequall Blas in divers soils of the air doth bring forth divers effects For oftentimes the lowermost Peroledes are luke-warm and the day is plainly clowdy and there are very many Clouds But else the second and the third Perolede are luke-warm the lower being cold whence are Snowes And so the other Troop of Meteors is caused unto us Therefore I am now confident that by Gas materially and by Blas operatively and motively their causes and manner do more clearly appear than heretofore they have done From whence Astrologers and Physitians shall be able from a founder ground to presage of some things In the mean time I leave the matters of presages untouched which God by his ministring Spirits hath laid up among his signes of good or ill Onely I will relate what Fryer Stephen of Lusignan the last of the Family of the Kings of Cyprus of the Order of S. Dominick in his description of Cyprus printed at Paris in the year 1580 page 212 rehearseth in French to this purpose About the end of the year an Earthquake happened at Famagusta which continued eight dayes But afterwards raging or Whirle-windes arose passing over the Island and entring into the Market-place of Famagusta for there by beating down a great Pallace they presently take away very many Houses with some Men. So that if some Marriners had not by the chance of
a body which fills up the emptinesses of the air and which is wholly annihilated by the fire Nor that indeed as if also it were the nourishment of the fire it self For although that thing be impertinent to this Question and place yet that which is not truly a body can nourish nothing And then seeing it is neither a body nor a fat thing it cannot be inflamed kindled or wasted or consumed by the fire Then also I will demonstrate in the Chapter of forms that the fire is not a substance but that which is not a substance doth not require to be nourished Lastly seeing the Air is an Element and a simple thing it cannot admit of composition or a conjoyning of divers things or Beings in its own nature Nor are there in the essentiall substance of the Air diversities of parts some whereof may be consumed by the fire but others not For therefore if the fire had found a part in the Air capable of inflaming the whole Air being kindled had even by one onely Candle long since perished For neither had the fire ceased if having need of nourishment it had known that to be in the Air which was neighbour to it Yea if the Air could be burnt up by the fire the Air should passe over to some more simple and formerly Being and should cease to be an Element for the flame of the Candle should be before the Element of the Air and more simple than it Therefore it is manifest that the flame in the aforesaid Glasse although in respect of heat it enlargeth the quantity of the air yet that naturally it will have its smoakes entertained in the hollownesses of the air so far is it that the air doth extend it self and this is the one onely cause of the diminished space in the air whence the flame is also consequently smothered For the heat that is externall to the Glasse seemes to inlarge the air in the Glasse but the fire within by reason of its smoakes doth actually stir up a stifling and pressing together of the air Therefore the heat doth by it self enlarge the air as appeareth by the Engine meating out the degrees of the encompassing air but the fire by reason of its smoakes presseth it together And so it followes that smoakes do more strongly act by pressing together than heat doth in enlarging And then also that smoaks are more importunate or inconvenient to the air than its own naturall vacuum yea than is the enlarging of its own vacuum Seeing that the enlarging of the space of the air made by heat is delightfull to it in respect of com-pression caused by smoakes For from hence I conjecture that all particular members of the Universe have a certain sympatheticall feeling And so seeing the air essentially hath porosities or little hollow spaces it grieveth it that they should be filled up and over-burdened by a strange Gas Yet unless the air should have empty porosities at leastwise the Doctrine of naturall Philosophy founded upon a vacuum negatively falls bodies could never admit of an enlargement of themselves or of a strange Gas because by the changing of them into Gas they should require a thousand fold bigger capacities and so room would fail for the breathing our of belching blasts Therefore the air was created that it may be a receptacle of exhalations wherefore also it must needes have an emptiness in its pores yet it receiveth those exhalations by its set and just proportion and where it hath its emptinesses filled up to a just measure the air fleeth away and in its flight it forceth or gathereth all the flame into a Pyramide or Spire But if the air being detained from its flight be loaded with too much smoak it straightens it self and extinguisheth the fire which fills it self with smoak above due measure These things have not as yet been thorowly weighed by the Schooles and therefore they have thought the fire to live and be nourished by the air neither have they proof for this unless on a contrary sense because fire being stopped up with air is straightway smothered But that Idiotisme of the Schooles doth sufficiently make it self manifest Seeing the fire is not a body for as much as it is fire nor is it a creature of the first constitution for neither doth it live nor is nourished the which is like unto death Even as shall be manifested concerning the birth of forms But the Air is a simple Element For neither doth the stifling of the fire presuppose a necessary life as neither nourishment nor is there for this cause an increase of the fire although it be built in an abundantly open air neither also doth fire consume even the least quantity of air or convert it into its own substance which it hath none as it were its nourishment they are fables For the fire being deprived of air perisheth not indeed in respect of denied nourishment or of a participated life but for want of room which cannot contain the smoak by the pressing together whereof the fire being stifled is extinguished For after another manner from the too much and hasty blown up air the flame straightway perisheth when the flame being lesse toughly fastened to the Candle is presently taken away by a blast and being once taken away from the Candle it cannot have afterwards a subsistence in the air as neither having a substance in it self Therefore the pores of the air being filled up with smoak they fly away and give place to another air coming to them that they may also receive their juyce or moysture from Gas Which flight of the air stirs up as also requireth winde In the Salt pits of Burgundy a plain Earthen pot being filled up with water and placed nigh the grate of a Furnace doth far sooner freeze than any other which is set out in the open air and frost by reason of the continuall Flux and passing over of the air which by the Schooles hath been rashly thought to flow thither for the life or nourishment of the flame Therefore the empty places of the Air are moderately filled but if they are over-loaded the space of the air doth presently straighten it self and shuts it self up in a narrower room the empty porosites being consumed that it may by stifling the exhaling fire divert it from its enterprise That thing is inbred in all created things through self-love For neither otherwise doth water incrust it self in Ice than that it may not be snatched away by the cold of the air into Gas. There are therefore necessary vacuities or emptinesses in the Air that according to their capacity they might entertain the fluide vapours that are to be evaporated for whose sake the air hath seemed to sustain a pressing together and enlarging For else a vacuum of the air being taken away the least motion should move almost the whole Universe through its continuity or un-interrupted joyning and exhalations soon arising the mortalls that are near being choaked
should go to ruine no otherwise than as doth very often happen in the burrowes of Mines Where those that dig Mettalls are stifled not through want of air abounding nor also alwayes through a choaking poyson but especially for that the air in the Burrowes being filled by the Gas of the Minerall is not renewed And so from hence it also happens that the Lights and Lamps are presently of their own accord extinguished together with the diggers Wherefore they do beat the Burrowes very much and do draw out the air that is filled up with the exhalation with divers Engines and powre on them and inspire into them new air But the air doth refuse too much exhalation no otherwise than as the water doth of the air and any other thing violently coupled with it in the same Mine Let there be a brassen Bottle in whose bottom let the water be A the air B the neck C the hole of the Bottle D by which with a Sypho or Pipe the air may be strongly snuffed up But then let the neck be rowled about that it may violently withhold the air under it I say therefore that while the neck is again swiftly rowled about that it gives utterance to the air For it shall not onely snuffe up the air B that is pressed together but also together with it A shall wholly fly upwards with a great force The air therefore doth sustain an unvoluntary co-pressing of its emptiness therefore it also brings up the water A with it which surely sheweth that a vacuum is more pleasing than the pressing together of the air because it is that which approacheth to the unvoluntary penetration of a body Now therefore of a vacuum an impossible thing with Aristotle is made a thing ordinarily required of nature Notwithstanding those porosities of the air however they may be actually void of all matter nevertheless they have in them a Being a Creature that is some reall thing not a fiction nor a naked place onely but that which is plainly a middle thing between a matter and an incorporeall Spirit and neither of the two I say of the number of those things which in the beginning of the Chapter concerning forms I have denied to be a substance or accident It is the Magnall or sheath of the air the which seeing it hath not in created things its like therefore it refuseth to be made manifest by that which is like unto it The Magnall indeed is not Light but a certain form assisting the air and as it were its companion and as it were conjoyning to it by a certain Wedlock An assistant I say not conjoyned to its essence and therefore an associate in its pores To wit by this the Blas of the Stars is immediately and without hinderance extended on every side and by a momentany motion but not by a thousand generations of a thousand kindes finished as it were at one onely moment as oft as the light or heavenly influences do strike inferiour bodies These very things are the fables of the Schooles to wit least they should be compelled to grant one accident to passe over from subject into subject they had rather that a thousand generations of a thousand particular kindes of light should be made in an instant while the Sun doth at so far a distance shake his beams at us For that which the Schooles do in this respect determine to be as an unpossible thing I will teach to be the ordinary course of nature in the entrance of Magnum oportet Now therefore the natures of Gas and Blas are sufficiently manifest and which way Blas may descend unto us The Doctrines of the Schooles concerning the windes are to be added First of all the Schooles of Aristotle do teach that the winde is a dry exhalation but not an air lifted up from the Earth by the vertue of heat the which when it is hindered by a Cloud from climbing upwards it as furious runneth down side-wayes and effecteth the strength or force of so great an heap or attempt As if it had lost its antient lightness through the first repulse of the Clouds and that therefore being mad it runs down sidewayes as if there were a continuall co-weaving of the Clouds nor should there in any wise be granted any entrance and any passage to the climbing exhalation being once repulsed by so small a Cloud as though a Bottle filled with air and pressed down under the water but ascending should finde a hand against it and therefore should run down sidewayes thorow the water and as if it had lost its former endeavour upwards for the future so as having forgotten to climbe upwards although it should not finde a continuall Cloud it should wish thenceforward rather to be carried sidewayes For neither have they considered that the side motion of the windes ought to be broken or weakened and also of necessity to be more feeble than its motion upwards and so that the winde is more able to beat down high Towers than to remove or scatter the vaporous Cloud about it Surely in all things I wonder at the subscribed sluggishness of the Schooles through a custom of assenting For Aristotle writes that the Salt of the Sea which notwithstanding he thought to be co-eternall with the World hath its originall from an exhalation he understood not an exhalation in the least because it is that which is volatile or swift of flight and the Salt of the Sea a fixed body for neither can Sea water otherwise sweet fix the volatility or swiftness of an exhalation any more than Sal Armoniac it self also all Metcors and especially windes yea the Earthquake and Comets whereof that of the year 1618 was a thousand times bigger than the Earth likewise small Stones Rocks great Stones he hath dedicated to exhalations alone A suitable Store-house whence so great exhalations should proceed hath been wanting to his Dreams And nevertheless the Schooles subscribe to those trifles nor do they awake out of their drowsie sleep but while Aristotle doth expresly spurn against the faith But Galen thinketh the winder or blast to be vapours lifted up out of the water and Lakes by the force of heat but now and then that it is an air resolved out of a mixt body But both of them he salth to be cold being likened to decrepite age to inbred heat failing and to cold effects surely he stumbling in all and every thing hath hugely spread his childish Dreams for truth For in the time of Galen the art of distilling was not yet made known who never saw Rose-water as neither Argentvive or Quick-silver For he had badly read Diascorides together with Pliny he writing that Quick-silver by reason of its great weight cannot be detained in Leather not in wooden Boxes but is to be kept onely in Cases of Mettall As if one onely ounce thereof should weigh more than an ounce of Lead Wherefore Galen must needs have been deeply and heartily ignorant of the
deepest things of Philosophy and of the most inward principles of nature and of the seminall resolutions and exhalations of any properties whatsoever At length to shew an emptiness in the air it is convenient more deeply to search into the thingliness or nature of its rarefying and condensing For first of all whatsoever I have hitherto spoken concerning the rarefying of the air that I confess hath been done for the capacity of the common sort else to speak properly although the air may seem to be pressed together and to be enlarged in the space of place yet rarefying it self doth not belong to the air its self that is that the very body of the air may be made thinner than it self in the same manner wherein a vapour is made of water Because I have already divers times shewn that a vapour is a Cloud of the atomes of the water rent a sunder from each other by the middle parts of the air interposing and that therefore the water in the vapour doth also alwayes remain water neither that it suffers any thing besides the extension of it self and division into atomes made by its seperater For if the body of the air be therefore made thin this should be either as it should be changed into another body more slender thin and simple than it self which is to feign a new and unheard of Element actually cold thinner than the others and more simple than the air Or the air should be made thin by the seperation of the atomes and the interposing of another unknown body and then the body coming between should admit of degrees of thinness And therefore the rarefying it self should not be so much referred unto the air as unto the unknown body coming between Nevertheless rarefying is not of the air but in the air and that not onely by reason of admitted smoaks as in the Handicraft operation of a dish but through a naked quality of heat as is manifest by the Instrument meating out the qualities of the encompassing air therefore as oft as rarefying doth appear in the air it must needes by all meanes happen through an increase of the Magnall Which sounds that a vacuum being increased in the air the pores of the air are enlarged and extended and so so far is it that by reason of heat the air by it self and in its own body doth sustain a rarefying and that the body of the Element is changed that rather it is coagulated at least is pressed together and that the little holes of the vacuum do extend themselves or that the Magnall it self is multiplied in the air Wherefore there is also an improper speech while we signifie the air to be tarified by it self when as rather it is thickned or pressed together by it self but the Magnall that is co-bred with it is therefore extended But from what hath been said before is deducted that the body of the air is under cold brought unto its just extention And again that which followes from thence is that cold is naturall or pleasant to the air But that the Magnall is contracted under cold But as oft as the Magnall is straightned the wayes or passages of the Stars to us are straightned And hence it is plainly to be seen why the Land of promise is very hot that is why in the more hot Zone there are the more happy confanguinities or neernesses of alliance of the Heaven with the earth the more plentifull fruits and the more savoury ones Therefore the Magnall is like light and is easily made and easily brought to nothing For that which is in it self the vacuum of the air is almost nothing in respect of bodies For it came forth from nothing also it may be reduced to nothing But not but against the will of the air because it hath need of this vacuum Alas how nigh to nothing is all nature which began of nothing In the aforesaid Instrument meating out the encompassing air by the heat or cold of the Sun the place of the air is seen to be greater or lesse but we perceive that at the rarefying of the thing contained the air is expelled whose breathing place if it then be shut up for want of air a sucking is felt Therefore by more fully looking into the matter the vacuum or Magnall of the air is increased and lessened but the Air is not rarefied So also the condensing or pressing together of the Air is not in respect of its body but onely of its Magnall or Sheath CHAP. XVI An Irregular Meteor 1. The Mysteries of the Rain-bow and the Images of the Sun 2. That before the floud there was no Rain-bow 3. That the Rain-bow was given for a signe of the Covenant yet that the cause thereof is not yet known 4. Yet the Rain-bow doth daily bring its own Covenant to remembrance 5. The Mystery of the Covenant is as yet under the Rain-bow 6. In what thing the Rain-bow doth denote the end of the World 7. The dotages or toyes of the Schooles concerning the Rain-bow 8. Things required of the Schooles 9. That the Rain-bow hath not its Colours immediately in a Cloud but in a place 10. That the Rain-bow is of the nature of Light 11. The existence of Colours immediately in place is proved 12. The Object of the sight is immediately in Place the object of hearing is immediately in the body of the Mean 13. Creatures of neutrality do subsist immediately in place without a body 14. Paracelsus concerning the Rain bow is refuted 15. The frequenoy of a Miraole doth not reduce that miracle into the number of nature 16. Some supernaturall things are ordinary 17. An Atheisticall and childish opinion of the Schooles concerning Thunder and Lightning 18. Wonderfull sights or visions in high mountains 19. The spirit all noyse or cracking is the Blas of the evill spirit 20. A Historie of Thunder 21. The noyse of Thunder how it putrifieth 22. Outward Salt preserveth I Have said that Meteors do consist of their matter Gas and their efficient cause Blas as well the Motive as the altering But the Rain-bow is irregular a divine Mysterie in its originall I judge the same thing of the Parelia or Image of the Sun whereby two or three Suns do appear at noon-day alike equally clear or lightsome But for Thunder it doth not alike include a Mysterie and monstrous token We being admonished by the holy Scriptures do believe by faith that the Rain-bow was given for a sign of the Covenant between God and mortall men that the World should no more hence forward perish by waters For first I draw from thence that the Rain-bow was never seen before the Floud Otherwise mortalls had justly complained For we have oftentimes already seen the Rain-bow and yet the World hath perished by a deluge what safety dost thou therefore promise us by an accustomed Rain-bow this Covenant is suspected by us it takes not away our fear The Rain-bow was therefore new to the World when it
first appeared for a sign of the Covenant Wherefore mortalls were amazed at that unwonted Being and being otherwise incredulous gave credit Secondly From hence I learn that the Rain-bow was given for a meer sign wherefore neither that it hath even to this day any reason of a cause with relation to any effect Thirdly seeing now the World before the floud had been about two thousand years old and yet there had been causes in nature which to this day the Schooles do attribute to the Rain-bow yet there was no Rain-bow Surely that convinceth of the falshood of those causes Whence at length in the fourth place it followes That unless the Rainbow be also at this day for a sign of the Covenant and for the sake of its first appointment it otherwise appeares for a frustrated purpose Therefore also the Rain-bow doth now and then remember us of the Covenant once stricken that we may believe and alway be mindfull that God the avenger on sinners sometimes sent the waters that they might destroy every soul living on the Earth that the same God might be a conscious or fellow-knowing revenger and Judge of our sin For all flesh had corrupted its way by luxurie which ought to be choaked by waters By the Rain-bow therefore God will alway have us mindefull of threatned punishments who by this sign doth signifie that he is the continuall President or chief Ruler the Revenger of nature But that the Rainbow might signifie that the World should be no more drowned with waters it was meet that it should bear before it not indeed a certain unwonted spectacle in the air without difference to any other thing but the mystery of the promised Covenant ought to lay hid in the Rainbow which might declare the promlse and belief of the thing promised by a signe Surely I seem to my self to admire with Noah three colours in the Rainbow and the pleasing splendours of three Sulphurs shining forth in co-burnt Mineralls And so the Colours do give testimony that the Earth being the womb of Mineralls is at length to satisfie the wrath of God by the extream melting of the burning of her Sulphurs Therefore the Rainbow doth not henceforth presage water but fire I wonder at the Schooles who will not hearken to the truth of the holy Scriptures delivered but that they even to this day proceed to make young men drunk with heathenish toyes or dotages For they hand forth that the Rainbow consisteth of a twofold Cloud to wit one being deeper and thicker but the other being thinner and moreover extended over that other that in manner of a Glasse it may resemble the Sun from the contrary part Verily it is a vain devise like unto an old Wives Dream For I have sometimes kicked the lower part of a Rainbow with my feet and have touched it with my hands and that not onely in Cloudy Mountains but in an open and Sunnie-field And so I have certainly known by my eyes hands and feet the falshood of that supposition Seeing that not so much as a simple Cloud was in the place of the Rainbow For neither although in the morning I did cleave the Rainbow and drew it by the colours of the Rainbow have I perceived any thing which is not every where on every side in the neighbouring Air. Yea therefore were not the colours of the Rainbow troubled nor suffered confusion The Schooles ought at least to declare why it should have alwayes the figure of a Bow or Semi-circle but never the resemblance of a Glasse Why if it be the Image of the Sun reflex doth it not shine in the middle of it self seeing the Parelia shines like the Sun with an undistinct and ruddie light Why should those two Clowds be alwayes folded together with the equall form of a Bow and variety of Colours Why doth not the Glasse that is against the Sun represent those Colours if that double Cloud be in the room of a Glasse Why doth not that doubled Cloud at least in its more outward and conjoyned part change the wandring Latitude of the Clouds if its hollow part be pierced with an abounding light of the Sun declining or going down Why doth a Rainbow also appear the Sun being hid under the Clouds and no where shining Why doth the Sun I say paint out alwayes those uniform and various Colours and so neerly placed together and not one onely Colour according to the simplicity of its own light Wherefore do many Rainbowes now and then appear together in one field For truly in so vast a Circle of the Air of the Horizon the reflexion falls not in one or two miles but the Cloud opposite to the Sun hath not its reflexion directly unless on the opposite part answering to it self in the Horizon but not on the part near to its side Lastly it is absurd that the upper and thinner Cloud which is void of Colour and which the light of the Sun doth easily pierce should fashion Colours in the other thicker Cloud which neither the Sun nor either of those Clouds have in themselves Surely I have very much admired at these vain positions of the Schooles while as I should handle a Rainbow with my hand and should see no Cloud at all round about Wherefore I have noted that the Rainbow by a peculiar priviledge hath its Colours immediately in a place but in the Air by the place mediating And so I have taken notice that those Colours and the figure of the Rainbow in their manner of existing are of the nature of light That is the Winde blowing the Colours which are immediately in a medium or mean do walk together with the mean and are dispersed according as the mean in which they are is but the Colours or Lights which are immediately in place are not changed although the Air or Mean in which they appear may change its place and flow So neither the winde blowing doth the Rainbow perish or walk For from hence it is that the object of sight is at one onely instant brought to the Eye but the object of hearing because it is not immediately in place but in an Air placed doth presuppose a durance of time and motion Wherefore the Rainbow not onely is not in a Cloud but moreover not indeed in the Air but immediately in place but in the Air immediately to wit as this is in a place For so the light of the Sun doth the more swiftly strike it self in an instant even unto the Earth because it is immediately in place but in the Air mediately to wit as this is in a place But that the Sun is the cause of the Rainbow that I believe is naturall but that a Bow immediately in place is appointed to be so coloured by the Sun but in no wise in the Air that hath the force of a sign For the Schooles have hitherto been ignorant that Light and Colours can subsist unless they do inherit or stick in some certain
Rentings asunder or disruptions for fear of a piercing of Bodies do differ from that which might happen through the supposed gentleness of exhalations 15. An impossibility is proved from the nature of the composition of exhalations 16. Those things are resisted which were granted from the connivance of a falshood 17. Wells and Caves are all the year in their depth or bottom of an equall temperature 18. That there is no fiery exhalation as neither a fiery Gas 19. An exhalation cannot lift up the Earth with its lightness 20. A Bladder filled with Air doth not spring up out of the water efficiently by reason of its lightness but occasionally 21. Weightiness is an active quality but lightness seeing it hath no weight doth signifie nothing 22. Three remarkable things drawn from thence 23. That the manner of an Earth-quake delivered by the Schooles is impossible 24. The ignorance of the Schooles concerning the properties of lightness 25. A faulty Argument of the Schooles from ignorance 26. After what sort the Schooles are deluded in this thing 27. A new Sophistry by reason of errours 28. An Earth-quake declareth monstrous tokens 29. The Earth trembles being shaken by God 30. The one onely cause of an Earth-quake 31. An objection of a certain one is resolved 32. The Earth doth not feel or perceive after an animall manner 33. What an Earth-quake may properly portend 34. Sacrifices for the purging of offences do differ according to sins 35. The proper inciting cause 36. What an Earth-quake in the Lords Resurrection denoted 37. An answer to a friendly objection I Being to speak of the Earth-quake its Causes and ends will first of all begin with its name It is wont to be called a Moving but it seemes to me to be a name too generall and very improper For truly while the Earth or any other heavy Body doth hasten downwards it is said to move it self so that water flowing moves the Wheel actively but in an Earth-quake the motion seemes to be passive and so by accident as improper to it Nicolas Copernicus by very many fictions doth contend the Earth to be circularly moved with the Orbe of the Moon and seeing that no motion is proper to a Globe but a Sphericall or round one and that doth not agree to the Earth according to the Decree of the Church therefore I have withdrawn the name of Moving from the Earth and have changed it to wit that it being rather fearfull is said to tremble For truly the Earth being passively smitten or threatned by a certain huge force it is as it were jogged or shaken through fear and horrour but doth not leap or skip for joy because it seemeth to undergoe some cruel and horrid thing besides the ordinary course of nature Therefore the name of Quaking being first established next the shew of the deed comes to hand For truly there was a night between the third and fourth day of the second month called April in the year 1640 indeed a quarter past the third houre after midnight the Moon being at full two dayes after that time and it being the fourth day of the week called Wednesday before Easter when as Mecheline where I then was by reason of some occasions notably trembled and leaped with three re-iterated approaches or fits and at every onset the trembling endured a little lesse than there might be of the space of repeating the Apostles Creed but a certain roaring in the Air went immediately before every fit and as it were the action of Wheeles whereby great Ordinance are carried thorow the streetes shooke the Earth I say the night was fair clear void of Windes For truly for the cause of the revisall then to be sifted a little before midnight I returned home But I rested nigh Dillie in the Commendatory of Almaine commonly called Pitzenborch being received through the Courtesie and humanity of the famous man the Lord Wernher Spies of Bullensheim of the Teutonick order he being Provinciall Commendatour of the confluence of Bullensheim and Commendatour of Pitzenborch Toparch or President in Elson Herren-nolhe c. But I was removed for the space of seventy spaces from the streetes And then I learned of my friends that almost at the same moments of time and with the same three re-iterated turns seperated by an equall intervall and the same roaring accompanying them Bruxells Antwerp Lire Gaudan the Mountains of Hannonia Namurc Camerac trembled Afterwards we heard that the same thing happened in Holland Zealand Friesland Luxemburg and Gilderland yea that even Francford upon Menus no lesse trembled That at Mentz some Towers were beaten down and that new Buildings nigh Theonpolis fell down together Also that Westphalia yea Ambiave and the nearest Coasts of France trembled Truly all these places trembled at the very same instant of time although by reason of the roundness of the Sphere the Dialls the Messengers of dayes did necessarily differ It is a tract of Land at least of three hundred and sixty Leagues in every one of the least places of its Circle the ground every where trembled with an equall fear For neither was the Watchman in the most vast Tower of the Temple of Mecheline any otherwise shaken than any one that lay in a low Cottage No otherwise I say a borderer of Scalds an Inhabitant of the Islands and Citizen of the Medows than they which stayed in the more high Hill Then was the fortune of all and every one alike Lastly I understood that the Ships in the Havens of Holland and Zealand were shaken in their Masts and Sails without Winde Concerning the immediate Causes of so great an effect there is much agreement among Writers The modern or late Writers I say supping up the Lessons of Aristotle have not gone back from thence a nails breadth hitherto Although they have added their own inventions to the Precepts of the Auntients The Schooles therefore do teach that the Earth trembles by reason of Air Winde or an exhalation gathered together in the hollow places and pores of the Earth which seeking and sometimes making a passage for it self doth make the Earth to leap or dance For from hence it oft-times suddenly breaking out thorow gaps and clefts hath given a rise to destructive Diseases This is a Tradition of the Schooles received throughout the whole World for one and twenty Ages Which if it had seemed to me to be agreeable to the ends of the Divine power I had desisted from writing But truly it hath seemed to me to be sowen with heavy perplexities and an unavoidable absurdity so that it containeth not a little of an old Wives fable Indeed Man-kinde doth of its own accord so incline to drowsiness that the hope of Learning being as it were beheaded it hath commanded all the Treasures of Sciences being drawn out in one Aristotle to have been as it were left off from a further diligent search First therefore I will shew the impossibility of that Doctrine and then I will
length shall that actuall equall and connexed heat under the Sea Rivers pooles Meadows and under the Quellem be For truly it behoveth heat and dryth to be actuall and strong which may there be sufficient for so notable an effect but not potentiall naked remote possible or dreamed qualities What is that heat from what and whence is it rowsed in the more deeper cold what is that heat so short so strong and so interrupted which after a few rigours or extremities of tremblings ceaseth nor which doth shake the Earth a new by trembling For if the cause of so great motion be in heat there shall not at leastwise after the motion be in heat the cause of so sudden rest Lastly what is the dryness connexed to the fire which may forthwith kindle under the Earth and Waters the Waters being all alike dryed up throughout all the Low-Countries a fire the Patron of so great exhalations But go to let us feign by sporting and grant a heat to be actually under the Earth and Water which is made by kindling likewise that great and stubborn heat and its unwonted action which may raise up the exhalations before the dryness of the thing It is verily an irregular effect not as yet hitherto seen among the Artists of the fire Again let us feigne also other absurdities that actuall fire violent in the Water or under watery Bodies may there be bred without fewel and be sustained proceed and long persist without fodder but at leastwise that fire shall not be able to raise up vapours and much lesse inclosed exhalations and to detain them in a narrow place which may not choak that fire out of hand and make the sufficiency forces and successive generation of those exhalations void For truly in the Burrowes of Mineralls if the lights are not forth with from above refreshed with a new blast of Air they are presently extinguished and the diggers also are deprived of breath and life But if that the fire and that the exhalation do subsist untill a sufficient breathing be given Now for that very cause the motive exhalation its off-spring shall first expire from thence or if there be not room for a sufficient breathing the fire verily shall of necessity be stified nor shall there be place for so great a successive exhalation or for the repeated onset of an Earth-quake Let us feign again not indeed that actuall fire or heat is entertained under the Waters in the aforesaid Soils of the Earth but that all the Low-Countries have had something in all places like to Gun-powder which at length by its own ripeness or a hidden conspiracy of the Stats is enflamed at once and every where and for that cause doth afford a sudden exhalation in every place equall But neither truly under so many trifles should all the Low-Countries then jogge any more than once and it had gaped in the more slender and lesse deep and weigh y places and some pieces thereof had leaped forth on high and a Chimny of that exhaling flame would there follow But the Low-Countries and part of Germany had not therefore trembled For once and at once the Earth had some where rose up on the top where it had gaped but it had not often trembled as it were with an aguish rigour For truly the supposed action of inflaming should be made onely that the piercing of Bodies might be hindered Therefore as to the third point To wit that also a sufficient exhalation being granted to be under the Earth nevertheless an Earth-quake is impossible I have begun indeed already to prove by some granted fictions Otherwise after what manner soever an exhalation may be taken and wheresoever that of the Pavements may be supposed the Earth should not thereby tremble but where the least resistances should be it should rise up into a heap or bunch untill it had gaped and the exhalation had made a passage for it self by expiring thorow a huge Gulf. Which things seeing they are not found to have happened the tradition of the Schooles doth in this respect also go to ruine For first of all that it may more clearly appear that the action and manner of the action is divers when as for fear of a piercing of Bodies a thing leaps forth and that nature doth operate after another manner by reason of the supposed lightness of exhalations striving to break forth observe a Handicraft-operation Let there be a Glasse-bottle spatious thick and strong infuse in it four ounces of Aqua fortis being prepared of Salt-peter Alume and Vitriol being dryed apart But cast into that water one ounce of the Powder of Sal Armoniac and straightway let the neck of the Glasse be shut by melting it which is called Hermes Seal As soon as the voluntary action shall begin and the Vessel is filled with a plentifull exhalation yet an invisible one and however it may be feigned to be stronger than Iron yet it straightway dangerously leapeth asunder into broken pieces for fear of piercing but not by reason of the lightness of many exhalations For truly although it bursteth by reason of the multitude and the pressing together of most light and invisible exhalations yet the lightness of the same in this things hath nothing of moment Because if any of these things should happen for lightness sake the Glasse Vessel it self before its bursting would be lifted up into the Air and fly upwards Because it is a thing of lesse labour to lift up a weight of three or four pounds than to break asunder a most strong Vessel Therefore the exhalations which do break the Glasse should much more powerfully lift up the Glasse if the Schooles did not beg the vain help of lightness from exhalations for an Earth-quake If therefore exhalations are not able by their lightness to lift up the Vessel wherein they are shut much lesse so great a quantity of Earth and vast an heap Lastly seeing that every exhalation is of some body and every body if it be to be seperated is divided into Salt Sulphur and Mercury and the Mercuriall part be the watery part of the body therefore it must needes be that every exhalation is of a Salt and Oylie matter And that that is first to be raised up before the watery part Which thing hath not as yet so happened in our Glasses by the an equall action of heat If therefore an exhalation be Salt it is easily soaked or imbibed into the Earth which may be seen wholly in all waters and exhalations of what Salts soever which in acting upon the Earth are coagulated in it and loose all activity Therefore if they should be stirred up in the earth they had failed before they were or in the making had ceased to be But if the exhalation be oily surely that being laid deposited or laid up into the Earth it retakes the former shape of Oyl and so growes together Which thing seeing it easily comes to passe it cannot be thought
how an exhalation may by its lightness make so great a heap of Earth and of huge weight to stumble sooner then to consult of coagulating And upon every event there should not be room but for one elevation of the Earth and one onely settling of the same after some gaping chap is found but not of stirring up a quaking trembling But let these Dreams be in watery places Meadows Clayie places pooles the Sea Rivers c. Therefore the absurdities which I granted before in jest I will now oppose in earnest First of all I demand what is that so unwonted heat which from the year 1580 even unto the year 1640 was not seen at Mecheline as neither an Earth-quake wherefore not every year wherefore in the 2d moneth called April under a most cold night when as the day before it had snowed much under the continuall North Winde and not under the Dog-Star Is it because the more inward parts of the Earth are then hot Why therefore not every year in the eleventh moneth called January But this Argument of the Antients ceaseth after that the Instrument meating out the Degrees of the encompassing Air is found For Wells and Caves are found all the year of an equall heat and cold Again why doth so great heat the stirrer up of exhalations cease so suddenly especially where it may stir up an exhalation the moover of so great an heap by what fewell it is kindled under the water by what Fodder doth it live and subsist by what Law is it not in the same place stifâ—ed by what priviledge doth it despise the respects of bodies places and weights at length by what Prerogative doth it stir up an exhalation of so great a vastness out of moyst Bodies without moyst vapours or if it doth also allure or draw out vapours after the ordinary manner why do not these mitigate a heat of so great moment do they extinguish do they choak together with their Sisters and forthwith following exhalations or what is that exhalation which shaketh the vast Tower of Mecheline with no greater respect than a low Cottage nor that respecteth any resistance of a huge weight or which doth in a like manner operate near at hand as at a distance or which doth at once every where and alike finde throughout its whole Superficies the collected power of its own Center that at once every where alike it may operate in one moment equally and alike strongly Why through the necessity of naturall causes is not the thred broken in the weaker part but all things do at once undergoe yea and sustain the same law of violence Surely if these things be rightly considered there is found in the Earth-quake a certain operative force of an infinite power which lifts up Mountains and Towers without respect of lightness or weight as if nothing were able to resist this moving virtue But I have proved that an exhalation if in any there be an efficient moving cause of an Earth-quake is neither of the race of Salts nor of Sulphurs as neither of Mercuries because that this is not an exhalation but the vapour of the watery parts Therefore it remains that it is not an exhalation but Gas it self not an eflux of Bodies stirred up by heat but rather an effect remaining after the fire To wit the Gas of the flame of the fire alone or of the smoak sprung from this But neither of these exhalations also can be the effective cause of an Earth-quake Therefore if none of these exhalations be the mover of the Earth there shall be none at all since another is not found and by consequence it is a vain fiction of the Schooles which they will have themselves to be believed in in the Earth-quake But if indeed they thinking of an escape do say that they do not understand an exhalation raised up by heat not brought forth by dryness but an unnamed vapour constituted by its causes To wit like as Aristotle writeth that all Rockie Stones small stones Mineralls and likewise the Salt of the Sea Comets although a hundred fold bigger than the Globe of the Earth and all Windes do proceed from some irregular and un-explained exhalations distinguishing the Windes therein against the Air This I say is to be willing to doat with Aristotle and to remain ignorant of naturall Philosophy with the same Aristotle Lastly it is an impertinent thing for them to have cited Aristotle and by his authority to be willing to defend their errours Notwithstanding I will treat against the Schooles by reason that seeing they do publish themselves to be so rationall they may deliver up their weapons to reason I say therefore that no exhalation can be more light simple or subtile than the Air because this is the simple body of an Element but that is a composed body and so however it be it hath in it a weighty body which the Air wanteth Yet the Air is not lighter than a Body that is without weight that is the Air is not lighter than it self nor can it lift up any thing besides it self unless by the motion of a Flatus or blast or of flowing that is by a Blas Which ceasing the body which it lifted up setleth From whence I conclude that the Air or Winde whether it be shut up or free cannot lift up the Earth by reason of its lightness alone unless it be by chance stricken by an externall and violent Mover but in this case the force of the exhalation ceaseth seeing it is a constraining force which moveth but not the exhalation it self Because it is that which in such a case is onely the mean or Instrument of motion but not the chief motive force And much lesse is that agreeable to an exhalation because it is that which is thicker and weightier than the Air as it containeth water I prove it by Handicraft-operation A Bladder stretched out with Air springs up out of the water not primarily because the Air is lighter than water but because the water is a heavy and fluide body and therefore it suffers not it self to be driven out of its place by a lighter body For indeed it is the first endeavour of the water to joyn it self to the water from whence it was seperated its secondary endeavour or that as it were by accident is to presse out by its falling together whatsoever is lighter than it self Therefore weightiness not lightness doth operate in this thing for the reason straightway to be shewed Let a Bladder able to contain three pounds or pints of water be put in a small trench or ditch and let it be covered with Earth Truly it shall not shake off from it half an ounce of the dust poured upon it Yea neither shall the Bladder desire to appear out of the dry more weighty Sand. Let it therefore be ridiculous that a Bladder weighing half an ounce doth ever from any lightness of Air of its own accord fly up into the Air. If therefore
signes times or seasons dayes and years Moreover I know that in the Sea and deep Lakes there is their motive force whereby they suffer a raging heat without windes whereby I say our Ocean is rowled six houres and else-where six constant months with one onely flowing Lastly I know that the Earth is at rest nor that it hath a motive force actively proper to it self Therefore I believe that the Earth doth quake and fear as oft as the Angel of the Lord doth smite it Behold a great Earth-quake was made for the Angel of the Lord descended from Heaven Mat. 28. The word For among the Hebrewes doth contain a cause as if he should say Because For this is the onely cause of an Earth-quake whereby all things do without resistance equally tremble together as it were a light Reed In the Revelations the third part of Mortalls Trees and Fishes perished at the very time wherein the Angel powred forth his Viall For abstracted spirits do work by the divine Power and nothing can resist them Evill spirits also as oft as it is granted them to act by a free power they act without the resistance of bodies or a re-acting of resistance For matter is the Client of or dependant on another Monarchy and it cannot re-act into a spirit which it by no meanes toucheth and with no object affecteth Even as the Angel useth the powred out liquor of the Viall unto the aforesaid slaughter so for the Earth-quake he for the most part makes use of a note or voice For a wandering note was heard in the Air no otherwise than as the creaking of Wheeles driven thereupon as it were a tempestuous murmuring sound succeeded yet without Winde and at that very time the whole tract of so great Provinces trembled at once with a huge horrour Which same note accompanied the trembling of the Earth at every of the three repeated turns The same thing almost happens in Lightning Truly the Lightning burns and causeth melting but surely it smiteth not According to that saying The voice of Thunder shall strike the Earth because it smiteth For Silk-worms die Milk is curdled Ale or Beer waxeth sowre a slain Oxe hanging up retains flaggie flesh unfit to take Salt and that onely by the Thunder-stroak the Lightning doing no hurt there Therefore let the voice of Thunder and the voice of the Earth-quake be the note or tone of ministring spirits But the Stars do not stir up a motive and alterative force of the Air or Water through a note but do act onely by an Aspect which they call an Influence And it hath its action and direction in a moment even as light sight c. For otherwise there should be need of many years before the audible Species or resemblances that are to be heard should come down from Saturn to the places of a Meteor And then a note or sound although it be great yet it faileth by degrees in the way But that the Earth doth tremble with a Tempest of Windes or that the Tempest doth sometimes run successively thorow Villages Cities and as it were thorow street by street in its wheeling about That is wholly by accident and according to the will of him who shaketh the Earth for a monstrous sign Likewise that else-where it doth oft-times tremble in quick Belgium very seldom that changeth not the moving cause For it stands in the free will of him who encloseth the Universe in his Fist who can shake the Earth at his pleasure and alone do marvellous things At the beholding of whom the Earth shall at sometime smoak and the Mountains being melted shall go to ruine But that in another place gapings chaps after an Earth-quake have sometimes appeared and a filthy poyson and fumes of arsenicall bodies have breathed forth that is joyned onely to its naturall causes Nor are they the effects of an Earth-quake but by accident but not the causes But this blindness of causes of the Earth-quake hath been invented the Devill being the Authour whereby mortall men might set apart all fear of the power and so might prevent if not wholly neglect the ends which God hath appointed to himself for the serious reverencing of the power of his Majesty that they being mind-full of the faults of their fore-led life might repent Deh qual possente man conforzze ignote Il terreno a crollar si spesso riede Non e chiuso vapor como altro crede Ne sognato stridente il suol percuote Certo la terra si rissente scuote Perche del peâ—cator sa aggrava il piede Et i nostri corpi impatiente chiede Per riemper se sue spelonche â—uote E linquaggio del ciel che l'huom riprende Il turbo il tuono il fulmine il baleno Hor parla anco la terra in note horrende Perche l'huom ch' esser vuol tutto terreno Ne del cielo il parlar straniero intende I l parlar della terra intenda al meno Behold with what a mighty yet unknown A force the Earthy Body makes a noyse And with so thick a rushing gives a groan 'T is not a vapour hot shut up they 'r toyes Even as some believe which beats the ground Or thumps its entrails with a whistling sound Truly the Earth it selfe doth feele and quake Because the sinners foot doth load its back And our impatient mortall bodies fall In to fill up its own deep Vaults withall The Language of the Heaven which reproves Man is the Whirle-winde Thunder Lightning flash And sp'ritous howling in the Air Ecchoes Now speaks the earth more-o're with horride lash Of signall tokens ' cause since man which would Be wholly earthly doth not understand The Linguo strange of Heaven yet may or should At least the Earth it 's Language apprehend These things nothing hindering there hath not been one wanting who said that from a most deep well of the Castle of Lovaine he by a sure presage foretold an Earth-quake was shortly to be because the water of the same Well three dayes before sent forth the stinking savour of Brimstone and that its contagion yellowness together with the turbulency of the water did bewray it But let that good man know that that Well is one hundred and fifteen foot in depth because they go up to the Castle from the Street that is next unto it by ninety three steps And so that Well in one part is not deeper than its Neighbouring Wells although in the other part where it is co-touching with the Hill of the Castle it is deep as I have said But seeing that a vein of Sulphur is not hidden in the Hill the water could not breath Sulphur which was not there But if it cast the smell of Sulphur a sign might precede God admonishing but it had not Sulphur which neither is in that place nor was enflamed therefore neither could it cause an Earthquake unto all Belgium or the Low Countries Therefore there is no naturall reason why the water
Beere belcheth forth its Gas an easie sudden death and choaking doth break forth Wherefore I have greatly grieved and pittied mans condition that by so gross negligence of the Schooles the more profound Remedies of fumes are almost suppressed whereby not onely those who faint are refreshed but also whereby the healings of most Diseases are performed Which thing concerning odours or smells at sometime explained in the matter of Medicine every one shall with me more easily disclose Surely almost all Medicines are neglected which do restore the strength and they have applied themselves onely to the diminishments of bodies by the with-drawings of bloud and solutive scammoneated potions and by Cauteries Baths Clysters Sweats and Cantharides For a Gas is more fully implanted and odours do keep a more immediate co-touching with the vitall Spirits than Liquors if they are not partakers of a poysonous infection at leastwise of the dulled properties of second qualities and the which qualities or especially that sublime one of the first digestion they do lay aside as it were Soils covered with Clay if they are not as yet received with a great averseness of the Archeus or they being rebellious and stubborn do with anguish resist the digestive powers Notwithstanding the Scripture might be opposed against me which saith concerning man Thou art Earth and into Earth thou shalt go How therefore shall flesh bone c. be materially of water alone But I will say this from the force of the same Argument If man be Earth how therefore do the Schooles affirm that man materially is not one onely Element but foure Elements therefore from that Text those things which I have spoken above are confirmed To wit that the Earth is not in the holy Scriptures a primary Element but every thing co-agulated of water is called Earth because by its consistence it is more likened to Earth than to Water and so the veriest Earth it self the prop of nature is of water no lesse than Man Wood Ashes a Stone c. CHAP. XIX The Image of the Ferment begets the Masse or lump with childe of a Seed 1. There is no seminall successive change without a Ferment 2. Handicraft operation is brought into a Circle by Ale or Beere 3. The Ferment makes volatile that which otherwise is changed into a Coal 4. It is proved by handicraft-operation in the venall Bloud 5. The Bloud attains its own various ferments in the Kitchins of the members 6. The unconstancie of Paracelsus is taken notice of 7. The Beginnings of Paracelsus are made by the fire but they are not in Bodies 8. There are double ferments from whence are the seeds of things 9. The Birth of Insects 10. 'T is not sufficient to have said that Insects are born of putrefaction or corruption 11. A twofold manner of generation 12. How seedes are made 13. In what manner an odour or smell causeth a ferment and seed 14. A Scorpion from Basil 15. The ferment in voluntary seedes reacheth to the Horizon or bound of life 16. The ferment of Diseases and healings 17. Almost all Medicines do act by way of an odour onely 18. Therefore seedes are strong onely in a specificall odour 19. An odour and light do pierce the spirits 20. Odours do cause or incite and cure the Plague and divers Diseases 21. Art having forgotten its perfume is translated into a servile rage or madness 22. Vnappeaseable pains are presently appeased by the odour of an outward application 23. The ferment is the Parent of transmutations 24. Of what quality the ferment of the stomach is 25. Why very many do abhorre Cheese 26. A sharp fermentall thing differeth from soure things 27. From whence belching is 28. The labour of Wisdom 29. All things which are believed to be mixt are onely of Water and a ferment 30. The ferment of the Equinoctiall Line 31. The progress of seedes and ferments unto proPagation 32. The originall and progress of Vegetables 33. Ferments do sometimes operate more powerfully than Fire 34. Paracelsus is noted AS no knowledge in the Schooles is scantier than the knowledge of a Ferment so no knowledge is more profitable The name of a Ferment or Leaven being unknown hitherto unless in making of bread when as notwithstanding there is made no successive change or transmutation by the dreamed appetite of matter but onely by the endeavour of the ferment alone In times past leaven and all things leavened were forbidden and the Mystery hidden in the Letter was then of right interpreted according to the Letter For as leavens or ferments were altogether the way-leaders and necessary unto every transmutation of a thing so they did denote corruption unconstancy and impurity and therefore a flight from leaven was enjoyned I will first of all explain a thing surely so paradoxall in naturall Philosophy by an example The purest of Ales or Beeres which is deservedly the nourishing juyce or meat melting or finished right of the Grain requireth so much Grain by how much there is capacity and largeness in the Vessel or Hogs-head And so indeed that the Bran being taken away all the Meal doth melt into the Ale or Beer and the Water onely supplies the place of the Bran. That Ale or Beer by a very little ferment or leaven being administred doth boyl up by fermenting in Cellars it waxeth clear by degrees and the dreg falls down to the bottom at length something doth fermentally wax soure by which tartness it consumeth all its dreg And then it looseth more and more daily its sharp or pricking soureness At length it is deprived of the taste virtues and body of the meal And last of all it of its own accord returns into water That Ale or Beere being distilled layeth aside very much residence in the bottom like a Syrupe which at length by proceeding is changed into a Coal But if that same Ale or Beere by the degrees of the ferment shall passe over into water it leaveth no more dregs in the bottom while it is distilling than otherwise the water from whence it was boyled did contain because the natall sediment of the waters is not subject to the ferment of the Grain since it is not the object thereof but the Client of or dependant on another Monarchy Therefore the Grains do return unto their first matter whereof they are which is water and that by the virtue of the ferment onely In the next place every one of us doth daily frame to himself 7 or 10 ounces of bloud but at leastwise in our standing age as much bloud must needes be consumed as is a-new generated For else a man might straightway fear a hugeness or excessive greatness And then the bloud is by degrees changed into a vitall muscilage or flimy juyce the true immediate nourishment of the members of which it is wont to be said we are nourished by those things whereof we consist But they will have this nourishment to be sprinkled on all the particular members in
whereby they might provoke their minde to studies whereunto when Satan had joyned his hidden deceits the art of perfumes being first suspected straightway after remained wholly rude or untilled They had learned in the Law that sweet smelling Sacrifices were pleasing to the Gods above and the Israelite was enjoyned in the Camps daily to cover his excrements in the ground least it should grieve the Angel to go over or compass the night Camps For I remember that a certain man was well nigh consumed with a grievous pain of the stomach For four houres after meat he wailed howled and was drawn together unless he laying on a Table did strongly presse the place For I being deceived with an aptness of belief then thought with Paracelsus a Canker of the stomach to be incurable for it was the place where the bastard ribs do approach the mouth of the stomach This man I say I saw cured in a few houres by a fragrant emplaister extended scarce to the breadth of the palm of ones hand After what manner the ferment is the parent of transmutations I have not better found out than by the art of the fire for I have known that as often as a Body is divided into finer Atomes than the necessity of its substance doth bear a transmutation of that Body doth also continually follow in an Element As the ferment being drawn and snatching to it the aforesaid Atomes doth season or besmear them with the strange character of it self in the receiving whereof there are made divisions of the parts which diversities of kindes and divisions of parts a resolving of the matter doth follow for this cause indeed Chymistry doth digest and send putrefactions before hand that a ferment being received the parts may cleave asunder into the smallest things And so meats in the stomach are resolved through the ferment of the place being seasoned with a sharpish quality but in the liver and other places continually by other ferments For so although people are fed with much Sugar yet straightway they sometimes vomit up that which is soure yet neither is the ferment of the Stomach as it is sharp the ferment For neither do therefore Vinegar or Raspes Leaven although they are soure and harsh but the sharpness of the Stomach is the proper specificall mean thereof But yet also in one particular kinde or Species it undergoes much latitude for this man beares grievously Potherbs another pulse some one Fishes or Wine because he doth not digest them Very many do not eat Cheese not indeed because it is a meer Tartar or a meer Salt both by course so Paracelsus willeth but the new waxeth breachily sharp which doth easily stir up torments or wringings in a soure stomach But the old casts a smell of rottenness or corruption which it hath from the dead curd being before excrementious in it self Therefore it breedeth worms and easily putrifieth because it hides part of a stinking or Dunghilly ferment under the soureness of the milk in many it is manifested and ariseth into a degree And therefore it displeaseth many onely with its smell therefore the latitude of a sharp ferment although specificall happeneth to be in the stomach because there are divers alterations of the framer and receiver in acting but in this a sharp fermentall thing differs from soure things That what things that pierceth it doth also make volatile by the same endeavour but every sharp Spirit in dissolving is it self coagulated according to that Chymicall maxime The bread of one is broken small by a Man a Dog Horse Cow Sheep Bird Fish and so by as many specificall and soure ferments being distant in kinde Boyes say that Sparrowes wax wondrous sharp in the throat and therefore they are also devouring for it happens that a Sparrow hath snatched at the tongue of a Boy put out and hath endeavoured to swallow by which meanes they say that they have tasted the sharpness of his throat For so many living creatures are constrained for the asswaging of sharpness sake to eat Chalk Lime Bricks or white Earth Therefore the more fine and the volatile Atomes of meats are easily changed by the ferment of the Stomach into a windy Gas when as the other part is content to be resolved onely into a juyce For Chymistry is carefull in searching for a body which should play together with us by a harmony of such purity that it cannot be dispersed by that which corrupteth And at length religion is amazed or astonished at the finding of a latex or liquor which being reduced to the least Atomes possible to nature as loving a single life would despise the Wedlocks of every ferment therefore desperate or without hope is the transmutation of that it not finding a body more worthy than it self which it might marry But the labour of wisdom hath caused an irregular thing in nature which hath arisen without a ferment diverse from it self that may be mixed with it That the Serpent hath bitten himself hath revived from the poyson and knowes not hereafter to die And indeed because the Schooles have been ignorant of ferments they ought also to have been ignorant that solid bodies are framed onely of water and a ferment for I have taught that Vegetables and grain and whatsoever bodies are nourished by those do proceed onely from water for the Fisherman never found any thing of food in the Stomach of a Salmon If therefore the Salmon be made of water onely even that of Rivers he is also nourished by it So the Sturgeon wants a mouth and appeares onely with a little hole beneath in his throat whereby the whole Fish draweth nothing besides water therefore every Fish is nourished and likewise made of water if not immediately yet at least by seeds and ferments if it be great with young From the Salt Sea almost every sweet Fish is drawn Therefore it turneth Salt into not Salt or at leastwise water into it self not into water Lastly Shell-fishes do form to themselves stony shells of water instead of bones even as also all kinde of Snails therefore the Salt of the Sea which scarce yieldeth to bright burning fire waxeth sweet by the ferment in fishes and their flesh is made volatile and at the time of nourishing it is also wholly dispersed without a residence or dreg So also Salt passeth over into its original Element of water and so the Sea although it receiveth salt streams yet it is not every day the salter For the purest water although it be free from all defilement nevertheless under the Equinoctial-line it waxeth filthy or hoary stinketh straightway it becomes of the colour of a Brick half burned and then it waxeth green and lastly it waxeth red with a notable horrour or quaking Which afterwards of its own accord returns entirely into it self again Truly these things happen by the conceived ferment of the place and that being consumed they cease So the most pure Fountain-water waxeth filthy through a ferment of the
meer Fire with every thing requisite thereunto And then that the same Light of the Sun falling upon the Icy Glasse of the Moon doth loose the property of his own heat and is made a cold light Which comes not to passe if it shall fall upon Ice Glasse Water a white Wall c. Therefore the Moon hath powers or faculties whereby she altereth the Sun-beames And that cold Blas ought to be of the nature of her own light if between the Agent and Patient a co-resemblance ought to interpose For truly another cold object re-percussing or smiting back the Sun-beames cannot therefore change these into cold beames Truly neither heat cold rough brickle sweet or bitter do act on the Light but onely visible and dark objects therefore the Moon hath a lightsome force or power of her self which as it is such doth act upon the hot light and changeth it into a contrary property What if the Astrologer doth foretell the future Colours of Eclipses do not those Colours promise some certain light proper to the Moon For truly they are not conjectured of from a Mean or vapours because colour cannot be foretold from the quantity of vapours in the calculation of a future Eclipse Therefore let the Colours of the Moon failing of light be the tokens of a light proper unto her And in this the beames of both Lights do differ That the Sun strikes his light by beames in a right line but the Moon doth never respect the Center of the World or the Earth in a right line but her center is alwayes excentrical For she respects the Center of the World onely by accident that is when she is con-centricall with the World And therefore as oft as she is con-centricall in full Moon and new Moon there is an Eclipse Therefore the Dragons Head and Tail are night-points wherein onely the Sun is directly opposed to the Moon in an excentrical Diameter Therefore the Moon-beames do not strike the Earth in a right line but they are dispersed into an excentricall space and so she by way of influence or by the action of government of which in its place displayes her forces on the night or on Nadir the point underneath the Horizon right opposite to our feet whether she accompany the Sun or indeed be estranged from this Sun by a full Diameter For such is the appointment of the Moon which the exundations or Spring-Tides of the Sea do confirm which are wont to be no lesse under the Moon laying hidden than at the full of the same Therefore one end of the Lights is to rule the day and night next another end is to seperate the light from the darkness and another end to seperate the day from the night Neither is that repetition to be imputed to a Solecisme or incongruity For truly the Sun shining or the Moon restoring her Light received from the Sun the Light indeed is sufficiently seperated from the darkness but the Light of the Sun never rules the night as neither doth he shine in the night therefore that the Moon likewise may satisfie her appointment she can never rule the night by a borrowed Light of the Sun Which thing sufficiently appeareth at leastwise while she runs with the Sun by day according as by night Therefore if then also the Moon ought to satisfie the divine intention she must needes have also by all meanes another light whereby she may shine all nights and may rule the night and a far other manner of powring forth her light than that wherein she reflecteth the Light of the Sun Indeed the Moon sends forth her proper displayed Light beyond no lesse than beneath the Hemisphere of the Air Water and Earth which way the supposition of the Center of the Universe maketh or tendeth according to the Opinion of Tycho Yet so that the action of government of light and influence operates more powerfully in the night from whence the Sun is absent the which that he may seperate the day from the night ought to seperate the properties of the Moon from his own although the Moon be conjoyned with him Diseases belonging to the Moon do prove that thing which are exasperated a little before night also at the new of the Moon And so she worketh thorow the bones and Marrowes of those who are shut up in their Bed-chamber which thing is not so proper or natural to the Sun Therefore the Moon doth sometimes make a stronger influence on that part of the Sphere that is opposite unto her than on the part where she is placed This light being unknown to the Antients hath been called an influence But I had rather reserve the sense of the Scripture because it is said The Moon was created to give light by night that is all nights indifferently even so as the Sun gives light by day Therefore that which they have called an influence is the property of the Moones light and that is not to have named a thing from the effect but from the causes The Bat Dormouse Mouse Owl and whatsoever Creatures do distinguish their objects afar off in the night under the thickest darkness and do note the swiftest motions of objects which our eyes can scarce observe at noon-day some of whom although they may bear before them a Grayish or Skie-coloured brightness yet they never enlighten the mean by that brightness that they may see perfectly through it at a far distance Therefore there must needes be some continual light in the thickest night and shut up Den for which lights sake such living Creatures do perfectly see But if it be unperceived by us and yet doth in truth exist it is no wonder if the light proper to the Moon hath deceived our eyes But that it may be plainly made known that night-wandring Animalls do send no light out of their eyes which may be for the enlightning of a medium or mean to know distinctly an object placed afar off and so that those Creatures do see onely for the light of the Moones sake Let a Looking-glasse be placed between the Eye of a living Creature and its object and that under the thickest darkness and surely thou shalt not finde the least reflexion of light in the Glasse yet if thou shalt put a small Candle at the utmost end of a large Hall but if in the other furthest end of the Hall there be a hole thorow which that feeble light may passe into another dark Hall or room in whose end let a Looking-glasse be truly that weak light being shaken by the direct beame of the flame of the Candle is received and will appear in the Glasse yet it is not sufficient for a man to discern any object Therefore much lesse shall the brightness or shining of the Eyes a beam whereof doth not fall and appear in a nigh Glasse be fit to enlighten the mean that they may perfectly discern all things For there is under the Earth a light even at midnight whereby many eyes
is before to please and to please is before to displease and nothing can displease or wish for a successive change but as a pleasure being gotten and known something more perfect possibly also better is shewen For in the more crude seeds which nave conceived their first ferments by Odours the Odour goes before the complacency or good pleasure but this doth generate a desire of it self and of a thing remaining But in things possible desire causeth the same appetite of remaining but not of perishing by the changing of its Being But if indeed by reason of the hidden impediments of death a permanency is not granted there is made a dissolution in Bodies but thence a weariness but from weariness there is a proceeding to a remove or change through the ruling virtue by degrees declining from whence at length destruction is not intended but following after through necessities It belonged to the Schooles to have known that to be doth alwayes go before a wearisomness unto a non-being because this wearisomness is not of the intent of nature but rather an imaginary Metaphor or translation succeeding upon the defects of things At least that this wearisomness ought to precede the desire to a non-being And much more a desire to a new Being and unknown to it self Seeing a new Being is not granted before the death of the present Being In brief because also the wearinesses of the displacency of the appetite do but dreamingly agree to a non-being And at length because from dreaming principles so absurd nothing is to be exspected besides errours full of confusion Therefore successive change in nature is not from the desire of the matter but from the power of the efficient Vulcan Wherein the Odour and Savour of the middle life do generate a seminall Image the beginning of transmutation For neither are the Schooles as yet constant enough to themselves in that appetite of the matter yea the Schooles do not seem to have taught the speculative principles of nature for the service of the truth For truly when they descend to the things themselves they do no more blame the appetite of the matter for the corruption of a thing but they blame the Air as the effecter of all corruptions whatsoever But I know that many things are dried under Air which otherwise under the Earth or water do putrifie presently For truly Glasse the last of things putrefiable doth in the Air main as it were for ever But being buried after some years it admits of a putrifying through continuance is covered or enrowled with a Crust its Salt being dissolved it decayes and its constitutive Sand remaineth The Air is a Case in whose porosities some things do dispose themselves into successive alterations some things under the water and many things also under the Earth according to the dispositions of the seeds For truly those things which do spinkle from themselves an Odour do loose the same by the flowing and snatching wind or the Vessel being close shut they do retain the same within For if the former the pores of Bodies being afterwards empty they do receive Air which being there enclosed doth putrifie through continuance with the odourable thing whence the residue of the Odour doth receive a ferment doth draw a warerish filthiness from the said putrefaction by continuance and becomes rank or muckie But if the latter comes to passe then the Air there detained doth cause the composed Body to putrifie by continuance and brings it to corruption unless the odourable Body hath the properties of a Balsam because a new ferment thinks of a successive change Volatile or exhalable and swift flying things do easily decay because for the most part they have a diversity of kindes through want whereof distilled things are scarce corrupted one whereof doth ferment or leaven another from their true Element they are even choaked and do putrifie through continuance or do conceive an air as before Therefore the ferment changeth the thing as it alters its Odour according to the essence of the matter imprinting of the Vessel of the place or of the thing adjoyned which things I prove by this Handicraft-operation For truly I do preserve the broaths of fleshes of Fruits even as also any boyled things otherwise soon subject to corrupt for years from corruption so that I shall poure a balsamicall ferment into the Air and that ferment being continued I shall restrain it With me therefore corruption is thus as I have said Forms are never corrupted they die indeed onely the minde of man departeth safe but all other forms do perish But matter neither departeth nor dieth but is corrupted And so corruption is onely of the matter Therefore corruption is a certain disposition of the matter left behinde by the ruling Vulcan decaying For as the Body saileth its Ruler or Pilots being in good health it being safe doth not hearken unto strange ferments Neither is corruption therefore to be numbred among privative things if it consist of positive causes Wherefore another Beginning of Aristotle in nature falls to the ground For truly the Archeus is not of his own accord taken away dispersed changed or estranged unless by a new one troubling him under another ferment Therefore strange ferments are chief over all corruptions and by the interchangeable courses of ferments all corruption begins doth by little and little ascend unto a degree and pitch and at length having obtained its period is terminated For there are some things in whom the proper lust of their seeds is wanton and calls them away from the tenour of constancy to undergo the transmutations of successive changes not indeed by reason of a desire to another form but because the implanted Balsam of nature is easily blown away and perisheth as are fleshes and Fishes But others do change their Wedlock not without a putrifying being first stirred up and do put on the careful governments of new seeds As are Woods Stones and Glasse which is most constant in fire Among which they do interpose in a middle degree for whom the touchings of the place do cover their Superficies with a hoary putrefaction or mouldiness From whence Odours being dispersed they do disjoyn the Wedlocks of the antient seeds and meditate of a new Generation by dissolving It is a mark naturall or proper to the Air uncessantly to seperate the waters from the waters and there are many things which do not endure such a successive alteration without a spot or corruption hence therefore they do most immediately slide into a sudden disorder Therefore corruption as it includes an extinguishing of the naturall Balsam so the constancy of a thing desires its continuance for in such things whose Balsam doth voluntarily flow forth or expire it being joyned to fixed things they are seasoned therewith it sticks fast is restrained by the bolts of dryness or at leastwise is nourished by a predominating ferment that is no stranger to the disposition of a Balsam For so sweet things
middle life of the Archeus if the first life of the thing doth begin with the last life of the seeds For in Herbs although seeds may seem to begin their life when they swell and chap yet they do then rather die in the last life of themselves that they may bud in the first life of the thing that is to be constituted Therefore the first life of the fruit is the last of the seed In the middle life Herbs Roots and stalks do grow or increase but Floures and Fruits do threaten a period to the last life To wit this life must needs die in things if profit be to be hoped for from nourishment and Medicine Medicines hanged about the neck or head and what things do act by the force of rule or government of which sometimes I except Indeed the last lives of things ought to go backwards that the thing in the juyce which the Archeus from the beginning married may unfold its vertues to wit by laying aside the Title and property of the last life that it may rise again to a middle one Which death is not an exstinguishing and a true death of the thing but rather a transmutation which shall presently appear in an Apple For grain is eaten Truly at that very moment the last life of the grain dieth within is reduced into its own life the which our Archeus coming upon over-shadoweth and bringeth the middle life into its first life by transumption or translating it but the remaining properties of the former grain being dulled In the death of the grain or the last life of the seed the first life of a new Creature ariseth together with it To be brief as oft as the Archeus of a thing is transplanted under a strange guide so oft is there a changing of life made from the last to the first Being which first Being is translated into a new life of the thing and a middle life of the Archeus the Conquerour onely the blunted property of the middle life remaining whereby the going backward is made Let an Apple be cut asunder whose inward pulp let it be rubbed on Warts untill it shall be luke-warm and the half pieces being tied fast by a thred untill the Apple shall putrifie for then thou shalt see that the touched Warts have dispersed For as soon as the last life of the Apple perisheth unto which the impression of the Warts was glewed the last life of the Warts perisheth by going backward through the middle life For here words faith or confidence are not required because if that Apple be eaten by a Sow or a Mouse the Warts perish not For that the Stomach doth as it were preserve the last life of the Apple in the going backwards of the middle life which the Archeus taketh to himself But in the death and extinguishing of the last life of the Apple by putrefaction there is not a preserving nor a going backwards into the middle life And so with the death and extinguishing of the last life of the Apple the absent Warts do perish together with it by a Sympatheticall action of government for the resembling mark of Sympathy is seated in this thing Because the pulp of the Apple which cloathes the Kernel is as it were the Mushrome of its own branch no otherwise than as Warts are the Mushromes of their own flesh Therefore the impression of the Warts being translated into and sealed on the co-resembling fruit together with the death of the last life of the Apple the Seal dieth and that whereof it is the Seal For by no lesse reason doth an eflux bear a co-resemblance with its own body from whence it was taken than a Tune or note doth with its own musicall Instrument not so nigh at hand placed For in a Unisone or one and the same sound it manifestly leaps and triumphs for joy on a ring being hanged or laid on the string of the Instrument but in other notes although far greater and otherwise higher ones it is quiet For where the sense of a little leaping is beheld there is also a possible sense or feeling both of gladness and of sorrow and of death Therefore it hath seemed to me to be void of Superstition if the Wart consume through a natural sense of sorrow a sense of its own Eflux being imprinted in the death of its last life And so much the rather because the Apple is as it were the Mushrome of the primary intention of nature and of a more strong effect but the Wart is not of a primary intention neither hath it a Root in the whole Archeus For the death of the Apple doth not intervene if it be eaten by a Dormouse as neither a death of the added impression because the middle life is preserved being transplanted under the preserved Archeus of the Apple into the Archeus of the living Creature Wherefore although the Schooles have made mention of one onely corruption in generall yet there are divers destructions For some things do return from the last life into the first but others there are which go back unto the middle life but those things which go not back unto any life do expect the last resolution of themselves that they may passe over into a new seminall generation but they rise again by their first life at the coming of a new seed out of a Ferment putrifying by continuance Of this sort are those things which perish by the poyson of life or by the death of the fire For so an Apple putrified of its own accord and any dead Carcases do either wax Herby with the juyce Leffas or do first breed worms At length Mineralls also do shew three lives by a distinct order It is thus Mineralls indeed have not a seed with the Image of their Predecessor after the manner of soulified things which thing notwithstanding hath deceived many a proportionable or resembling flux of seeds being not rightly well weighed For Mineralls are tied to their constitutive causes no lesse than other things and so do proceed from a necessity and flowing of their own seeds And therefore they cannot want a threefold difference of a seminall life For whatsoever doth proceed without a Father unto this something as do Mineralls it findes its seed in the Inne of places Wherefore some things are immediately in place but other things in the Body placed The winde indeed doth uncessantly flow in a place yet its property is in some places stable there are certain windes and stated Tempests in Provinces which things I attribute to the place not to the Air or the unstable waters Therefore God hath endowed not onely Bodies with Virtues but also places he hath immediately replenished with an incomprehensible Treasure of seeds to endure to the end of the World For he hath loaden places with riches to come forth to light in a set maturity of dayes and to put on the garment of water For the Earth was at first without form or empty and
Fishes before the Floud Because then one onely Fountain did water the whole Earth and the Sea stood on the other part of the Globe whose other half was calfed dry Land And so Fishes were onely of the Sea while the whole World was an undivided Continent in the middle or heart whereof one onely Fountain being divided into four Rivers did water the whole Earth Therefore Cock-boats or Skiffs had not as yet been made known so fishing in the Sea was unaccustomed Neither also did the Habitation of men occupie the shoares For one onely and vast Continent of the Earth gave pleasures enough to the Husband-men that they detested the barren Sea made frightfull by a thousand Tempests Gen. chap. 1. v. 28. It is read that first of all the Dominion of the Sea was given to man and then over the Fowls of Heaven and thirdly over all living Creatures which move upon the Earth yet when as the speech is of meats Chap. 1. v. 29. Every Herb and Tree is given for meat And Chap. 1. v. 30. All living Creatures of the Earth and Birds of Heaven and whatsoever is moved upon the Earth having a living Soul is given to men that they might have that which they might eat Yet the Fishes are no where read to have been granted as neither the Fishes of the Sea to have been brought over to Adam that they might obtain their names From which particulars it is presently plain to be seen that no Herbs Trees or any creeping things were contrary to man or for a Medicine of destruction unto him Likewise the restriction for Birds and what things do move themselves upon the Earth doth exclude the Fishes Wherefore as soon as after the Floud by the dividing of the one Continent the Springs and Floud-gates diffused themselves from the lowest bottom Fishes being allured by the sweetness of the down-sliding waters some remained in Rivers and Fens others in the mean time through a new thorow-mingling and liberty of the Floud ascending out of the Sea Therefore let Fishes be fleshes although before not used by man Fleshes I say which after the Floud should be like unto Pot-herbs otherwise the flesh of flying Fouls did nor repay or supply the Rooms of Pot-herbs but Corns as four-footed Beasts had now long since from the beginning supplied the place of pulses Therefore our first Parent being banished into the Earth and being full of miseries weariness and repentance through the leasure of most ample Ages perceived his nature now to be defiled with corruption and wanting preservation Lastly as necessity is the Mother of Wits and Inventions he began to meditate by what reason or meanes he might prevent the inward Calamities of life and especially the injuries of a Meteor In which labour the eldest of his Sons began thorowly to weigh the Nativities of fruits their prosperous and unfortunate increases whence Agriculture or Tillage was the first Philosophy The other Son also noted the properties and Societies of living Creatures whence by the undoubted hope of a Flock a quiet life is led This indeed was Zoosophie or the wisdom of keeping living Creatures together But their successors making afterwards a more plentifull progress joyning the decrees of the Stars with the observations of their Predecessors observed the denounced successive changes of things with a profitable and pleasant observation Therefore Astrologie the Chambermaid of Tillage thus arose Notwithstanding the dispensations of naturall things have remained altogether obscure even as also among all men the knowledge of ones self is the last and hardest of all things But the generations or births of Diseases their Remedies and Curings which as yet then were most rare or seldom were far more obscure For at first every one brought the Remedies which had profited him into open view without envy But Hypocrates first laid up his Observations into a written style or method in which labour he felt the divine assistance which he had not known But Galen as it were the North winde having seemed to himself to have dispersed the vain Clouds of desires having filched many things from every place boasted that he had raised up the Speculations of the Elements first qualities Complexions and humours And dedicated all the works and fortunes as well of found as invalid nature to these which things afterwards the Greek Nation plentifully increased By which suppositions the Moores striving for the Victory built loose experiments upon them This therefore was the Originall and condition of bringing forth Medicine and these were its inventers At length in these it was at a stand neither afterwards made it a progress Galen being instructed by his Elders observing that fire was quenched by water and that water being heated by fire did vanish away supposing that he held the Hare by the Eares boldly constituted almost all Diseases and their Remedies in those first Bodies and their qualities For he said The fire was at enmity with the water and this with it whence he established it by a generall decree that there is in us the combate of four Elements fighting in us by a continuall Warre And that there doth skirmish in us a continuall and unexcusable strife of contraries Wherefore although nothing should weary us from without yet it would come to passe that sometimes a distemper or Disease and ruine should happen of their own accord That death I say should break out of the composition of the Elements This indeed was to be winked at in Galen But not in Christians if they do not teach that in Adam there was a like necessity of composition before as there was after sin To wit if the composition of Adam stood connexed unto four encountring Elements Therefore all the Schooles do determine that onely contraries should be the remedies of contraries To wit whereby every excess being notably marked with the name of a Disease might be reduced into a mediocrity or mean That plausible and stupid Doctrine easily pleased all that were inclined to a sluggishness of subscribing Because it was that which might easily be conceived by a rusticall sense a great compendium and in all places by any one and hence therefore it was most greedily drunk in Galen the while although he knew that cutting off or resection was privately opposite to a Being that is born yet he doubted not to reduce the withdrawing of parts or humours in respect of the members unto the order of contraries And he neglected the Family of privations as born by an adulterous congress Hence all things universally which should disagree in number scituation magnitude proportion afflux or eflux he took from their due order as though they were contraries that he might make an establishment of his own foolish Rule As if Medicine did not work naturally but stood by learning by demonstration alone Hence at length by a most generall absurdity he dictated the naturall indications or betokenings of Diseases to be made onely by the oppositions of contraries For
of their own forms For from whence had they drawn their own contrariety whose matter and form indeed the total principles of accidents do repulse all contrariety far from them especially because accidents being considered in themselves are not so much Beings as of Beings and so that of themselves they are nothing do work or prevail nothing Therefore it must needs be that if there be any intention of contrariety in nature that is primarily in the active Principle that is in the bosom of the forms So that even in this respect forms themselves the which notwithstanding without controversie they have banished into the number of substances should be actually and potentially contrary by a primitive right Consequently also the Maxim of the Schools is false That nothing is contrary to substances or it behoveth accidents to have the same contrariety not depending on forms and from their own proper nature without and against the possibility of forms That is not to be the immediate means products and instruments of forms but to arise stand persevere and act of themselves even against the will of forms without and besides forms To be I say independent Beings and no longer of Beings Or Thirdly At length they must confesse with me That there is no contrariety in nature except among free and elective Agents I adde If the equality of contraries subsisteth according to the aforesaid Maxim it must needs be that the relation of a relation to be founded between contraries depends on a substantial root or on a radical respect of contrarieties and an intimate suitableness of proportion most fully present which is as much as to say That the essence of the relation of contrarieties to be founded otherwise more former than the existence it selfe of forms can be is altogether seated in the most full or innermost substantial principle of forms it self wholly uncapable of contrariety And that whether thou dost respect God himself or any other created substance and so it must needs be That contrariety in nature doth include a contradiction in its own Beginnings and those of Phylosophy But if thou considerest these things even as supernaturally and in God they are not also therefore made contrary and so neither shall they flow from God into nature as contraries And this very thing I say I also urge further If one contrary may be declared so many wayes as oft as also another Neither is there any thing contrary to substanstial forms therefore there is also no friendship co-resemblance or likenesse between forms which is false For truly from hence doth appear a Character of things not to be blotted out because all things were created by God the Lover of Peace For after that I submitted my self to be instructed by better Beginnings I seriously knew for certainty whether I should behold substances or at length accidents that there is no contrariety in nature unless among angryable or wrathful Beings and moveable living creatures So far is it that the action of every Agent on its Patient should onely proceed from the term of relation of a contrary unto its contrary Therefore I have found contrariety only in the wrathful power of Sensitive creatures and not else-where Whence perhaps by an improper metaphor or hyperbole or excessiveness contrariety hath been also wrested unto all individuals of the world Whether the Schooles feeling a proper animosity of disputing have also meditated that the other products of Seeds also are in like manner stirred up only by anger to wit by the action of the greater to the lesse of the Conqueror to the thing conquered and of the stronger to the weaker by Reason of the Relations of Contrariety Therefore the sense of that Negative Maxim wherein it is said That nothing is contrary to substances is equivalent to the Position fore-placed in the Title of this Chapter to wit That nature is ignorant of or knows no contraries If there should be any power of contrariety in nature except in the wrathful faculty of sensitive creatures for of Terms and applyed Relations of Logick I do not speak surely that should be in the manifest and primary qualities of the Elements but in these there is no contrariety therefore in no place elsewhere The Assumption is proved for that the Schools do draw the first qualities in mixt bodyes from the very contrarieties of the composing Elements But the Subsumption I have proved elsewhere here to be repeated A young man in the morning descending from the Alpes which are covered with continuall Snow yet on the side respecting the Sun his whole neck was burnt into Bubbles or Bladders And there the aire is exceeding delightfull and poured all abroad as it were with a new sky Learn thou thence in the mean time first of all That Cold is not a privative absence of Heat but a true Being Therefore Cold and Heat being there heightned at once in the same place time and subject of the aire do mutually suffer each other which thing the Schools will not admit to be possible in contraries for truly they are such things which they will have mutually to beat down break expell slay each other and to bring to a middle and neutral state We must note here by the way that in the same place the heightned cold is entertained immediately in the aire but the heightned and bladdering heat to be there in respect of the Light and so immediately in the place it selfe of the aire but mediately in the aire But seeing that place doth pierce the aire throughout its whole substance and the enlightned place doth heat also the aire it self which therefore the light doth at once pierce therefore in the same point of the aire there is a heightned heat together with heightned cold The knitting of both which brings forth an acceptable and friendly luke-warmth to the sense yet a mocking one because the effect of both qualities being knit together bewrayeth a great heightning or degree under that luke-warmth And therefore neither is luke-warmth caused as both qualities being equally heightned do dash or batter each other through the fight of contrariety and reduce each other into a middle and plausible mediocrity but the Senses and Schools which according to sensualities suffer themselves to slide every where without a more inward narrow search are too improper and rusticall Judges of natural things Likewise hot water being powred into cold of a like proportion although they do presently stir up a luke-warmth in the thing co-mixt Yet both qualities in a heightned degree are in that luke-warmth no otherwise than as in the aforesaid aire of the Alpes although the sense doth not distinguish them For otherwise it is not possible that that heat of the water gotten by the moment of degrees should perish in an instant yea neither is it the fight of contraries which hath presently generated that luke-warmth as neither the victory of cold excelling the heat while the former heat is slackned but the heat in the
than the stars yet the seeds of these are not more ignoble than the seeds of plants or annexed to the stars by the band of a greater subjection Because the Stars were before the Creation of sensitive things therefore it was meet that the Blas of men should not indeed follow the guidance of the Stars but only that it imitate the motion of those not as of motive powers but no otherwise than as by a free motion we do follow the foot-steps of a Coach-man or Post for so our bowels have perhaps assigned the Planets as their fore-runners For every bowel forms a proper Blas to it self within according to the figure of its own Star which also hence is called Astrall or Starlike Because it imitates the foot-steps of the Heaven as well in the priority of the dayes of the Star its fore-runner as in the Laws of appointments in nature Otherwise In infirmities as all the endeavour of nature is sumptomatical so then the Blas of man goes before and fore-sheweth future tempests whereas otherwise in health a humane Blas doth ordinarily follow after the remarkable successive changes of times or seasons But bruit beasts as they were created in a day before man so their Blas doth alwayes go before and fore-run the Blas of the Stars Wherefore many Prognosticks of a Meteor are drawn naturally from beasis And superstition hath had access thereto which hath added Divinings and Sooth-sayings to the credulous and superstitious Yet the Blas which is by the will of living creatures directed to a local motion surely that is by no means connexed unto a Supernatural or Coelestial circumvolving motion Because all carnall Generation flows out of the power of the Seed and the power of the seed from the will of the flesh Therefore fleshly generation hath a Blas of its own readily serving for the uses of its own ends flowing out of the Beginnings of its own Essence which are the will of the flesh and the lust or desire of a manly will Therefore there is in us a twofold Blas To wit One which existeth by a natural motion but the other is voluntary which existeth as a mover to it self by an internal willing Hence therefore it is impossible that the predictions of the Stars should rightly conclude in us It hath now been sufficiently demonstrated that there is something in sublunary things which can move it self locally and alteratively without the Blas of the Heavens and an unmoveable natural mover The will especially is the first of that sort of movers and moveth it self also a seminal Being as well in seeds as in the things constituted of these Moreover as God would so all things were made Therefore from a will they were at first moved For from hence whatsoever unsensitive things are moved they are moved as it were by a certain will and pleasure or precept of nature and have their own natural necessities and ends even as is seen in the beating of the Heart Arteries expelling of many superfluities c. For Galen hath artificially enough distributed the Pulses yet being by Aristotle deluded therein who supposed the end and efficient to be externall causes and thought the ends of Pulses to be their totall Causes For he passing by the proper Blas of the Pulses searched only into the ends and necessities of nature for which things sake indeed the Pulses should not be made but rather measured or modelled And therefore he hath distributed the differences of Pulses into a Scheme or Figure only by their ends And so that therefore he hath not reached their more potent and efficient respects Therefore he hath reduced the Causes of Pulses unto two heads of necessity To wit To the cooling refreshment of the heart to which end the Heart and Arteries should at once dilate themselves and to the casting out of smoaky vapours stirred up by heat For which cause indeed the Heart and Artery should at once presse themselves together and fall down at once for fear of choaking which two by variously interweaving them with their Correlatives according to strength swiftnesse weaknesse hardnesse and greatnesse he hath compiled the differences of Pulses by an artificial diligent search And I wish that his other writings did not bewray that these things were transcribed our of some other Authour But the Antients being not contented with two ends to wit cooling and refreshment and expulsion of smoakinesses have added a third which was the nourishment of the vital spirit by aire As if indeed aire could ever be made vitall spirit For if the Spirit be increased or nourished by aire adjoyned to it seening a Simple Body is not to be digested now only by mixture vitall spirit should be made of aire and now all things shall no longer be nourished immediately of those things whereof they consist Therefore it hath been the ignorance of the Antients who knew not the constitution of the vital spirit thinking that a little water being co-mixed with much wine or a little Tinne co-mixed with much melted gold should be made wine or gold I will tell here what I have perceived after that I made more use of discretion than of the sloath of assenting Therefore I began first to consider That heat was not primarily and of it self in the heart but to be a companion of the life and soul a sign and mean of operation in living creatures that are hot from the nature of the light of the Sun But in fishes that the life is of the nature of a cold light and therefore that it subsists without an actual that is a true heat And therefore that a Pulse is not made in nature for a cooling refreshment of the 〈◊〉 and puffing out or dispersing of smoaks a dissected Frog will teach For in a living Frog thou shalt see his Heart and Arteries to be moved his Heart at every Pulse or by dilating to wax red and by contraction or pressing together to wax more pale although it be not transparent Notwithstanding seeing the Antients thought heat to be the cause of Pulses yet there is none that hath decyphered that heat by its heats by what way reason and mean that heat is stirred up kindled and doth persevere in us because none hath meditated of life and forms And therefore none also of the efficient cause of Pulses None indeed hath hitherto doubted that heat springs from the Heart and none contesteth but that the young is at first nourished by its mothers heat untill that through maturity of dayes a fewel of its own be kindled in it But what that fewel is and why it being once kindled doth not presently dye and doth continue even to the end none hath diligently searched into because all have passed by the life The Schools indeed do feign a fiery heat in us contrary to Aristotle who will have this heat to answer in proportion to the Element of the Stars and hath distinguished it from an Elementary and Fiery one also that it lives
use of the Pulses and another of breathing and â—â—â—ther for heat only For in the most sharp and hot diseases to wit as oft as there is the greatest breathing drawn and that like a sigh the Pulse is small and swift also the strength remaining Therefore the use of breathing and the Pulse do not answer especially because we are more refreshed by a great draught of cold water abundantly drunk than if the same quantity be drunk at many times I say we are more refreshed by one only sigh than by many small and more frequent breathings Even so as a pair of Bellows doth perform more by a great and continual blast than by those that are lesse exact although many whence it may be sufficiently manifested to a well considerate and judicious man that there is another use of the Pulses of greater moment to wit That which respecteth the ferment of digestions Whence I repeat a handicraft operation to wit That at length under the last digestion all our Arterial bloud doth perish and exhale neither that it leaves any dreg behind it Yet whatsoever doth exhale by heat alone all that as well in living as in inanimate things doth leave a dreg behind it the skilfull do call this The dead Head which dreg being at length thus roasted doth resemble a Coale For the action of heat is of it self every where Simple Univocal and Homogeneal differing in the effect by reason of the Matter Therefore if the vitall bloud ought to be wholly so disposed in us that it be at length wholly blown away without a dead head it was altogether necessary that that should happen by some other Mean than that of heat But the aire was alwayes and from the beginning every where the seperater of the waters from the waters This hath not been known in the Schools to wit that the whole Venal bloud that it may depart into a Gas it hath need of two wings to fly the aire and a ferment Wherefore observe thou That as oft as any thing of bloud becomes unfit or is not by degrees disposed of and undergoes its degrees in the outward part of the body that it may wholly throughout the whole be made volatile and capable to flye away or thorow the poâ—es at the same moment now Scirthus's Nodes or Knots and Apostems are conceived but if that thing happen in the more inward part thereof for the most part Fevers Apoplexies Falling evills Asthma's likewise pains and deaths do soon follow Let us see therefore what the aire or what a ferment may conduce hereunto First of all Every muscilage of the earth which else is easily turned into worms likewise Starch Fleshes Fishes c. being once frozen at that very moment do lose their muckinesse and return into water As the aire was once very well combined to the Ice as I have sometimes spoken concerning the weight of Ice and so it is the first degree whereby the aire doth resolve a tough body into water And then under the greatest colds and purest aire we are more hungry yet we sweat and less is discussed out of us with a small and more hard siege or excrement Therefore one that saileth in the Sea eats more by double if not by treble unlesse he be sick and le ts go less excrement than himself doth living at Land whence is the Proverb The water causeth a promoting of digestion As if indeed he that saileth should not float in the aire but in the water but floating doth renew the aire in us and from hence there is a stronger digestion Therefore if we do eat more strongly and do cast forth less excrements it necessarily follows that the more is discussed or doth vanish out of the Body which is to say That the more pure Northern and Sea-aire doth conduce to a transpiration or evaporation of the body or doth dispose the bloud unto an insensible perspiration or breathing out of it self Surely for that cause is breathing made not indeed that the air may depart into nourishment for the vitall spirit but that it may be connexed with it being sucked to it thorow the Arterial Vein and Venal Artery of the Lungs and that the air being for this cause transported into the heart it may receive a ferment which accompanying it they both may dispose the venal blood into a totall transpiration of it self After another manner many things are made fixt and do resist a breathing forth if they are provoked by heat otherwise they were in themselves volatile Wherefore an Alcali is not generated in ashes by the fire essentially although effectively it proceed from thence For the office of the fire is indeed to kindle consume and seperate yet not to produce any thing Seeing the fire is not rich in a seed it is the very destroyer of seeds But from seeds all Generation proceedeth When therefore an Alcali is fixed out of a Salt that was before volatile it is not a new production of a thing but only the Alteration of a thing For the Alcali was indeed materially in the composed body before burning and did flow together with its Mercury and Sulphur Notwithstanding while the fire takes away the Mercury and Sulphur the Salt indeed as being a principle more subsisting in the melting of the combustion doth snatch to it self the neighbouring part of the Sulphur or Fat and when it is not able sufficiently to defend it from the torture of the fire it partly also flyes away under the mask of a Gas and attains the odour of corrupted matter and is partly incorporated in the laid-hold-of co-melted Sulphur and is made a true Coal Wherefore the Sulphur being now fixed by the wedlock of the Salt it doth not speedily incline from a Coal into a smoaky vapour But by degrees and not unlesse in an open Vessel and so with the former Sulphur for from hence the Sulphur of a thing being for the most part sharp doth retain the savour of a volatile Salt and at length with the Coalie Sulphur the just weight of its volatile Salt flies away Which thing surely is no where more manifest than in the Coal of Honey For if this be urged or forced by a shut vessel it remains not changed in a bright burning fire but the vessel being open both do so depart that moreover no remainder of ashes doth ever survive Therefore the Alcali Salt doth fore-exist materially in the composed body before combustion Because all the Salt was formally volatile in the composed body and not in the form of a more fixed Alcali which thing is now especially manifest in the bloud which being wholly volatile exhaleth unsensibly through the Pores without any residence But if it be combusted or burnt it leaveth very much fixed Salt in its own ashes In the next place The wood of the Pine-Tree which affordeth little ashes and less Salt in the preparation of ashes barrelled is by calcining wholly turned into an Alcali For barrelled ashes are brought
to us out of Scandia called Weedaschen combusted for the most part out of the Pine and some out of the Oak which do infect the Hogs-head wherein they are carried with a more moist aire to wit with a melted Salt Therefore the woods of the Hogs-heads being thus salted when they are burnt they melt like Horn and do almost wholly degenerate into Salt for part of the ashes also is made a Salt by reason of the contained Salt which afterwards they name Potaschen For else the ashes of the same wood the Salt being taken away do remain ashes and are not made Salt Whence indeed it is manifest that the Salt of the ashes doth afterwards make a Salt like to it self by co-melting and that indeed a fixed one And therefore there doth arise a fixedness in the composed body by reason of the Salt and co-melting which otherwise doth not exist So when Tartar of Wine is burnt sixteen Ounces of it doth scarce yield two Ounces and a halfe of Alcali Salt therefore thirteen volatile Ounces and a half have perished in the calcining Yet if these are distilled and are at length imbibed in their own remaining Coal they will as yet yield four Ounces and the third part of an Ounce of Salt by co-hobating Therefore what thou seest to be done thy self being Judge concerning the four Ounces and a third part judge thou the same touching the two Ounces and halfe of the former Alcali Hitherto doth that belong which I have elsewhere spoken of Aqua vitae being fixed in the Alcali of Tartar and the same thing happens in distilled Vinegar Hence therefore it appeareth that the volatile Salt of a thing is fixed in its own fixed Alcali or Salt Yea likewise that the whole ashes was before volatile and fixed under the first co-melting of combustion But that the volatile Salts which were nigher to their Essences departed together with their Essences in the first torture of the fire Yet note that although an Alcali be made of the spirit of Wine in the fixed Salt of the Tartar nevertheless as the Salt of the Aqua vitae was changed by the Wedlock of Essence yet one is to be separated and distinguished from the other in the univocal or single fixedness of them both As the Alcali of the Spirit of Wine being powred on Aqua fortis becomes red but the Alcali of Tartar doth not change its colour Wherefore also there is among Alcalies their own Common-wealth and the Adulteraters of money do labour very much about Salt of Tartar he Alcali of Salt-peter being contemned Also an Alcali Salt being prepared as is here said of the Spirit of Wine doth by the joyning of it self change the Savour of the Lixivium or Lie of Tartar So as that it becomes the astringent Balsam Samech of Paracelsus the which before it had the Savour of a Lixivium was an expert Balsam and did resemble a Caustick on At length hitherto that suits that rotten and putrified Woods do scarce leave a Salt in their ashes Because the volatile Salt departed with the Sulphur through a Ferment of putrefaction And so there was at least as much volatile Salt in the thing or composed Body as is found to fail in the ashes that is the whole whence it followes that the volatile Salt fetched as well from the Sulphur as from the Mercurie is materially the same with the Alcalized or fixed Salt And therefore a volatile Salt is fixed and likewise a fixed Salt is made volatile the formal property of the composed Body remaining Again it followes That the Sulphur of a composed Body being distilled and the Sulphur of a Coal are of the same particular kinde although this be imprisoned but that is free Truly Handicraft-operation taught me these things after that I knew how to seperate the three things from ordinary composed Bodies without a corruption of matter I learned that every combustible Body hath in it a volatile Salt which by the snatching of its own sulphur unto it is fixed into an Alcali In the mean time that part for the most part aboundeth which escapeth the embraces of the co-melting volatile sulphur In which co-melting the action springs into the Sulphur of the thing Which understand thou by an example of distilled Vinegar This I say seeing it is water impregnated or got with childe of a sharp volatile salt if it shall through the action of its sharpness touch any thing by biting it is straightway co-agulated which afterwards by combustion is found to be a fixed Alcali Yea if the sharp and volatile Spirit of Vitriol shall corrode a Mercurie alike volatile the sharpness of the Vitriol is fixed into a true Alume Which Handicraft-operations I do moreover shew in drawing them to the scope of a totall consuming in the Venal Bloud If the Air let him who can comprehend the secret doth in the first place volatize the Sulphur of the composed Body with the every way seperation of its Salt this Salt which else in the Coal should be fixed into an Alcali by the fire is made wholly volatile and climbs upwards sometimes in a liquid shape and oft-times in the form of a Sublimate and hath the whole constitutive temperature of the composed Body This Salt is demonstrated by Handicraft-operation but its demonstration is known to few although it listeth us to make it plain At least it from thence appeareth that the true use of the Air in the Pulse and breathing was not made known to the Antients by reason of the ignorance of the Art of Alchymie Likewise from thence it is manifest that from a continual necessity the Air is drawn inward for a peculiar end that it may cause the bloud of the veins else through our heat not to be discussed but rather to be condensed to be plainly volatile without the remembrance of a remaining dead Head But in Fishes as the venall bloud is not stirred by heat but onely by the vitall Ferments of the parts So neither was there need of breathing For truly those living Creatures might freely want breathing whose venall bloud wants the fear of heat Because it is a thing unseparable from heat that the more watery part of the venal bloud being exhaled the remainder doth wax clotty and at length doth degenerate into a dry lump unless by the uncessant attraction and Wedlock of the Air in the Bride-bed of the Lungs and Breast the Air it self should be co-mingled with the sulphur of the bloud it being as it were the seperater of the waters and should bring forth the sulphur changed in its last essence and breathed thorow the pores together with a watery vapour by an unperceiveable Gas That was not a naked office of cooling refreshment although it be in the Schooles so thought who are wont to measure all things by heat and cold but the vitall Ferment of the Arteries being adjoyned for this cause perhaps and that especially the Arteries do accompany veins thorowout the whole Body
there was need of a greater moment and necessity And so that neither is the Pulse any more to discuss or puffe away the smoakie Vapours of the venal than of the arterial Bloud not of this more than of that but it meerly especially serveth besides the framing enlightning and continuation of the vital Spirit to prepare the arterial bloud in to an exspiration without a dead Head which thing indeed is altogether requisite to nature Not indeed to chase away smoakie vapours bred by heat although no smoakie vapour doth properly exhale out of moyst Bodies but rather to hinder least by the ordinary endeavour of heat vapours which they undistinctly call smoaks should be bred Or by speaking more properly least vapours departing out of the venal Bloud the other part of the venal Bloud being thickned should cause a totall destruction To which end behold that the finger being pained hot and wounded presently an unwonted Pulse doth bewray it self in that place because the Air is hindred from entrance unto the bloud there chased out of the veins and detained in the lips of the wound And there is a fear least the bloud should grow together and harden into corrupt matter But corrupt matter or Pus being made that fear is diminished because it stops in the deed For before the wound a hidden Pulse straightway a violent one ariseth in the same place even before heat or a presupposed smoakiness were present In like manner also as soon as any night doth invade the inward membranes the Artery doth presently after a wonderfull manner wax hard throughout the whole man and brings forth a hard extended shaken Pulse yea and a Pulse like a Saw But by no meanes as the Schooles think that the Arterie is dried that it may foreshew in the heart and open to a Physitian the quality and nature of the part affected which is ridiculous for nature doth every where intentionally employ it self in the ripenings promoting or removing of Causes but never at all in uttering or setting forth the pathological or sumptomaticall Signes the diagnostical or discernable signes or prognostical or foreshewing signes For these are signes by accident and to be noted and observed by the Physitian besides the intent of nature For if in the progress of nature a thing conringent or happening be drawn into our knowledge that is unto it by accident and wholly forreign which the Stars excepted doth work nothing with an incent of foreshewing But whatsoever it doth that is by a Command which is the natural endowed property thereof The Artery therefore doth not produce a hard Pulse for that it self is made more withered and dry because there should never be any hope after the dryness of the membrane of a softer Pulse as neither of a re-moystning of the part once dried up Old Age it self being dry or withered and without juyce is a witness Neither lastly doth the Pipe or Trumpet of the Artery wax hard for a sign but for the cause end and meanes of another intent to wit if the lesson of the Schooles be true that the Arteries do beat to the end that they may draw Air which refresheth or cooleth the heart Surely if they were alwayes mindful of that their own Doctrine as they ought the Arteries should at least by that hardness of extention more fitly breath-in Air Seeing otherwise a soft Artery doth by attracting fall down it creeping and being watery slides on it self and so that its mouth which in the hardness gapeth in the looseness is closed Therefore a hardned Pulse doth betoken a contracted Artery but not one that is dryed up For if the Pulse should be uttered to this end that the defect and quality of the parts should be bewrayed Surely in an Apoplexie there should be a most soft Pulse because the Brain being wholly a marrowie part shall be concluded to be offended which at the same time is alwayes hard and strong So also the breaking of a Bone should make the hardest Pulse of all And corrupt matter being now made the Pulse should be more great and frequent than while it is making Because the fore-going labour hath brought forth a want of Spirit and the present corrupt matter or putrefaction doth want a speedy discussion Likewise in an enflamed tumour or a Phelgmone the contraction of the Pulse should be more fit or due and far more manifest than the dilating thereof which things seeing in the truth of the deed they are not so the Schools must needs have erred in the ends of the Pulses And moreover the Coat of the Artery at the coming of sweat however it was before harder it again waxeth soft to wit seeing there was a greater necessity of expelling smoakiness than of attracting Air. I say the Artery ought to be both spreading and more hard with a frequent pressing together but not to fall down with a great Pulse more slowly after the manner of waters At length in affects of the Lungs the neighbouring cords being on every side filled with so many veins arteries and gristles the Pulse is loose and watery and in the vomiting of corrupt matter with some kinde of intermission The Lungs I say being opportunely importunate in its own expulsions of smoakiness should want a most hard extended and strong Pulse Whether perhaps is the double Coat of the Artery now besmeared with a future sweat Doth it hitherto wax moist with a strange moisture or else is it void of moisture whether it doth retake its hardness after the hour of sweat and shall almost recompence at pleasure it s own driness by a successive or coursary softness For how full of weakness are the medicinal speculations of the Schools For truly in the aforesaid affects of the Lungs a most loose Artery and watery Pulse do plainly shew unto us that breathing is given for the service of the breast For nature is conscious that there would be no need of a provoked Pulse as neither of an extended Artery when as breathing hath undertaken its office first for the breast and consequently or secondarily for the rest of the body by that very thing is shewn us that the use of breathing was chiefly appointed for another end and over another part than for and over that which the Pulse is As oft therefore as there is need of very much aire for the blood dispersed thorow the Veins to volatize that which threatneth to be hardned so oft doth the Artery strain extend and contract it self but is not dryed But that air is attracted not for the nourishment of the Spirits or the expulsing of smoaky vapours But altogether that as that which is in it self the seperater of the waters from the waters it may adde a spur to the Ferment of the last Digestion that after the performance of its offices it may expell the whole nutritious liquor without any residing remainder of it Therefore the in-breathed air is serviceable to this Ferment not for cooling or refreshment
not for the food of the spirits as neither for the Bellowes of smoakie vapours For otherwise the looseness of the Artery is uncapable to breath-in sufficient air But the future and prepared swear seeing it is already in it self volatise and presently flowes forth in manner of a Latex or Liquor it doth not require very much labour nor hardening of the Artery for the strength decaying the Pulse is watery before it be creeping Because nature being weakned doth not any longer meditate of great labour but an Apoplectical Pulse is the chief and most hard of the Pulses by far and especially a little before death The Schools will have that to come to pass because there should be the same and an individual necessity and end of the Pulse and breathing As they say the heart will recompence the defect of breathing But the swooning of Virgins in the affects of the womb whose breath is stopt and their strength strong for from thence they do for the most part rise again have their Pulses very small for a reproof of the foregoing Doctrine So likewise the Pulse of those that are diseased in the Lungs is watery and feeble for whom notwithstanding nature ought to be diligent in supplying the penury of breathing But why in an Apoplexy the Pulse is hard and great we must search it from the nature of a disease which I will at sometime profesly touch at in a Book and that of the disease of the Stone Now for the neernesse of the matter I will explain two Aphorisms The first whereof is While Pus or corrupt matter is made the labour and pain is greater than when the Pus is made Every Aposteme ending into corrupt matter doth necessarily contain a sharpnesse which forceth the Venal blood into a clotty Lump And therefore it is afterwards uncapable of transpiration Wherefore nature moveth every stone and stirs up the Arteries and breathing that the Ferments by aire may hinder such an effect And at length she profiting nothing ceaseth from that endeavour For the venal bloud is troublesome to nature not only as it waxeth clotty but as it containeth some forreign thing for else an Aposteme should not be made for it is the property of sharpness to coagulate or curdle every immediate nourishable thing from hence corrupt pus ariseth Therefore Hippocrates spake more rightly than Galen Diseases are not hot or cold c. but soure sharp bitter and brackish For a wound as soon as it feeleth corruption its lips do swell and corrupt Pus is made unless a more violent force do compel a worse thing or the thin matter sanies to wax duggy or curdy But the corrupt pus is called by Idiots A good digestion of a wound that is more rightly to be reckoned a less evil but if the wound be new and fenced by Ballam from corruption corrupt pus happens not thereto But when a sharpnesse the token of putrefaction doth contract or draw the Bottom or Lips of the wound together corrupt matter is made For worms are oft-times plainly to be seen in wounds by reason of corruption In Kitchins if fleshes do begin to corrupt their broaths do wax foure Wherfore every vulnerary or wound potion ought to contain in it a hidden Alcali and indeed a volatile one if it ought to resist the accidents that sprang from the corruption of tartness In as much as every Alcali doth slay all sharpnesse which it toucheth For so indeed the stone of Crabs is a provoker of Urine and vulnerary which is manifest enough For it being steeped in Wine doth after a dayes time savour of a Lixivium The other Aphorisme saith Bellies are by nature hotter in Winter than in Summer Truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sounds or imports hollownesses not bellies It is a suppositive Aphorisme not agreeable to its neighbour ones nor agreeable to the Genius of the old man In the first place It is false Again for in Winter I eat hot things likewise I do not drink cold things yet after food I am cold within none whereof I feel in Summer For in tangible things I take the touching to be Judge The Schools excuse themselves and say That the outward cold drives our heat inward whence there is a more plentifull digestion First of all I have sufficiently taught elsewhere that digestion is not from heat And then after meat cold is more felt within in Winter than in Summer I confess indeed That all heat is from the vital spirit of the Arterial blood If therefore by cold the spirit be driven inward with the Arterial bloud there shall be perill of choaking and the Pulse should give a token if smoakinesses that are to be expelled do import the use of the Pulse Likewise the Pulse should be greater and swifter in Winter than in Summer If the supposition of the Schools be true But the consequent is false therefore also the supposition But if they will have heat to fly inward alone without the Spirit Now they shall against their wills admit that the same accident doth wander through subjects At length which way should heat go inward unto its own fountain And indeed should that be done generally in all at Winter For whether a sound heart which by reason of the abundance of heat and fear of smoakie vapours should beat from a continual necessity shall not be able by reason of Winter to provide it self of a sufficiency of heat or why doth it not rather cease in beating than that it should by reason of an ordinary want repeat or renew the heat dismissed from it The Schools after their manner leap over these things with a light foot for they say That a greater quantity of nourishment is consumed in Winter than in Summer by reason of the abundance of heat And again they divine a more plentiful heat to be in Winter from a want of the more nourishment For the same thing and that in the same respect should be the cause and effect of the same thing The father and the son before and after in respect of themselves But I blame the air which as oft as it is colder is also nearer to its own natural quality and a more potent seperater of the waters And so by how much the air is colder it doth the more volatilize the venal bloud into a Gas No otherwise than was said concerning Sailers Otherwise the dreams of the Schools do vanish as to the heat of hollow places and Wells by an instrument meting out the qualities of the encompassing air And likewise as concerning the belly of man if it live in a somewhat luke-warm Stew But the instruments of sense cannot exactly distinguish the moments of heat where there is a six-months interval because they themselves remain subject to the alterations of seasons Therefore also the application of sensible objects to the instrument of sense is at a different station deceitful Also stomacks seem more hot in Winter because we want the more nourishment
Neither is it a wonder because we therefore drink more liberally in Summer but we are more speedily nourished with drink than with meats Therefore the use of the Pulses are 1. That the venal bloud may through the Partition be transported into the least bosom 2. That therein and in its dependent Arteries the spirit of life may be made of the Arterial bloud 3. That of venal blood may be made a yellow arterial blood 4. That it may be informed by the mind of man Indeed the Arteries are the stomack of the heart as the sucking veins are the Kitchin of the Liver 5. That there may be a continuation of the vital Light throughout the whole body 6. The Blas of the Pulses is for the framing of heat but not of cold 7. That the venal bloud being dispersed into the habit of the body for nourishment may be made wholly capable to be breathed thorow the pores without a Post-hume or Future remembrance of a dreg 8. But breathing hath for its aim only this last use of the Pulse At length I also adde this That there is not an Animal spirit in nature Because the change which the vital spirit receives in the Brain is not unto a formal transmutation but is a perfective degree to the appointment of it self Indeed the in-bred spirit doth intend of a vital influx to generate its own like to it self and that in all the particular shops of the senses and giveth to it the seal of its own instrument For so the Optick or Seeing spirit doth not taste yet they do not therefore both differ in the particular kind although in their own offices For in the vitality or liveliness of the heart it is at once quickned by the mind and is made the universal instrument of that life CHAP. XXV Endemicks or things proper to the People of the Countrey where they live 1. The Schools have stated whence it was to be begun 2. That the encompassing air is not breathed into the Arteries 3. It implyeth that the air doth inspire at every turn and that smoakie vapours are expelled 4. The mutual unsufferableness is demonstrated 5. It would thence follow that the artery is not lifted up but that it may fall down 6. The end manner and possibility of air attracted by the pulses should cease 7. That Endemical things are drawn by breathing 8. That vapours are not drawn inward by Ointments 9. It s own generative vertue is wanting to the vital spirit 10. The humane Load-stone of Paracelsus is a fiction 11. That no smoakiness is to be granted in the heart and Arteries 12. That the whole knowledge of the Schools by signs or tokens is polluted 13. The progress of Endemical things IT is not sufficient to say That the Mines of Veins do belch forth the wild Gas of a hurtful Arsenick and a metallick malignity Fens a stinking vapour breachy Rivers and Shores a diseasie mist and a contagion of the soil putrifying by continuance But by coming nearer the suitings of causes do every where give understanding to those that search diligently but neglect to the ignorant or unskilful For without doubt man was to dwell in the air to be thorowly washed round about with the air yea and to be fed and to be subjected to the violent tyranny of its impressions and to the interchangeable courses of its successive changes whereby the air is the continual seperater of the waters Therefore the air is promiscuously drawn thorow the mouth and nostrils into the Lungs in its chiefest part But whether the air and by consequence also an Endemical Being be drawn inward by the encompassing aire through the Arteries the Schools affirm it But I as the first being supported with the much authority of reasons and the great authority of truth have doubted of it By consequence also That Oyntments applyed to the places of Pulses that they may be drawn inward are made vold First of all These Propositions do resist themselves The aire is drawn through the skin into the Arteries And the depression of the Pulses is to drive away smoaky vapours successively raised up by the heart Because if continual smoakinesses are stirred up by continual heat and the heart doth uncessantly labour with the Arteries for the expelling of those Surely there shall be no room nor space of motion for the attraction of the air from without to within For if there be a successive continual and uncessant expulsion of the Pulses from the center of the heart by the Arteries of necessity also the whole Channel of the Arteries shall by a continual thred from the heart even unto the skin be filled with a smoaky vapour of the expulsing of which smoakiness seeing there should be a greater necessity than of attracting air for fire is most speedily extinguished by smoaks but doth not so soon consume the whole through extream want of cooling or refreshment there is no leisure for the attraction of the air And moreover the Pulse being stirred the attracted air and that in the least space of delay should be besmeared being involved in smoakiness so also the aire in the smallest branches of the Arteries that it should rather increase the use of expulsion than satisfie the cooling refreshment of the heart Therefore the supposition of smoaky vapours standing the air is in no wise drawn by the Arteries from without to within and so the Schools do unadvisedly dictate their own and yet do subscribe to each other And moreover it follows from the same supposition that the Artery is not lifted up by it self and primarily but that it is only principally elevated that it may fall down next that by that endeavour it may shake of the fardle and drive away the fear of choaking seeing that should be the chief end of the Pulses but the other which is that of cooling refreshment is in respect of the former a secondary end Again If the Arteries should suck the air inwards to what end I pray should that be done seeing the sucking of the more crude endemical air should rather hurt than profit For not for the cooling refreshment of the heart seeing all the Pulses should scarce allure the smallest thing from the air by the least and utmost mouths of the Arteries which being the more swift in drawing should not straightway afterwards be expulsed by the depression of the Artery yea it should so most speedily in that very moment be co-united with the smoaky vapour and made hot by the Arterial bloud that the heart should not feel in it self any cooling or refreshment thereby Especially seeing the air should not by one only attraction proceed that way from the skin to the heart but by a manifold depression of the Artery coming between it should wax so hot in the way that it should deceive all hope of cooling refreshment Wherefore if the Arteries should allure the air from without the elevation of the Artery should of necessity alwayes far exceed its depression
nature disorderly touch the limits of the heart we straightway feel the numbers of beatings and the defects of intermitting storms But if an ordinary framing of smoakinesses should be in the heart how should they be seperated from the vital Spirit and by what trench should they remain divided from each other How should the expulsion of smoakie vapours be possible which should not also abundantly power forth the vital Spirit most intimately co-mixed with themselves And so as the Schooles have nothing of pure Doctrine do they also suffer no unpolluted thing no undefiled thing without an excrementitious and dungie smoakiness do they think that the essential offices of life do indifferently belong as well to a smoakie vapour as to the Spirit of life And so hitherto also to be co-mixed How should the depression of the Arterie thus far tend unto a good end and that appointed by the Creator which together with the smoakiness should also puffe out the vital Spirit thorowly mingled with it And so shall it forthwith bring death and destruction How had not that Vmpire of things most highly to be honoured even from mans Creation made death by the contraction of his Pulses Last of all if a smoakie vapour should be the Musical measure of the Pulses as they will have them what should be that seperater who should compel the smoakie vapours rather to depart into the habit of the flesh from without than thorow the chief Arteries with a straight line into the head Or if a co-mingled smoakiness doth indifferently hasten with the vital Spirit into the bosoms of the Brain why do they not continually disturb the Family-government of the Senses what if the pressing together of the Arterie be dedicated to the expulsion of smoakie vapours for since the Arteries are thumped sidewayes so also thus far they do bestow Spirit and vital Powers on the places thorow which they passe therefore that way also they should mutually expell smoakinesses which surely should be more pernicious to all the Bowels than to the Arteries themselves because these are judged to be refreshed by fresh Air but not the Bowels If therefore they will have smoakie vapours expelled by the pressing of the Arteries together let them first shew us that smoakie vapours cannot be otherwise purged than by the last or utmost mouths of the Arteries and that with the continual safety of the Spirit that is thorowly mixt with the smoakinesses Truly the Schooles do support their defiled Doctrine by a smoakie vapour and by a blinde perswasion of sluggishness do subscribe their Genius unto Galen Seeing therefore they have been ignorant of the matter heat residence content and circle of the Urine but have passed by the efficient cause of Pulses but have fled back chiefly to heats and colds and have neglected their true ends the whole significative knowledge of healing hath remained polluted Therefore the Schools are prophesied of as it were from a three-legged stool as well in the knowledge of Diseases as in the progress and end of the same which thing I shall hereafter much more plentifully prove Therefore Endemical things do affect or stir all things whereby and which way they enter to wit the Head Breast and the Dependants on these And by how much they do prevail by so much do they operate and effect For some do imprint a spot or defilement on the part and afterwards depart Such as are misty or clowdy things stinking things things putrified by continuance c. But some do enter in the shape of a smoak and are breathed into Minerals which are again divers wayes coagulated within For some are spewed-forth spittings if they are not hurtfull But others do for terme of life toughly adhere on the walls of the pipes of the Lungs and do exercise their tyranny for their entertainment Of this sort is whatsoever doth fume out of the veins of Minerals wherefore also the Fume of Minerals by reason of its malignity an Arsenical poyson have become Sunonymalls or things of one name to wit the Arsenick and smoakie vapour and smoak of Metalls fall together or agree in one Whence are hoarsnesses tremblings of the heart faintings Asthmas Pleurisies Inflammations of the Lungs Coffs spittings of Bloud Consumptions Imposthumes full of matter c. In the mean time it is not manifest that Endemicks or things proper to people in the Countrey where they live are drawn by the Arteries neither that the same are immediately affected But if Mercury doth bring forth tremblings that at least is impertinent to the Arteries Neither also do they therefore tremble into whom Mercury is driven by Ointments But they are bladdered in the mouth throat the Uvula falls down and their teeth are ulcerated do shake or are loose and wax black their head swells and they spit stinking things greatly Also Guilders Diggers and Seperaters of Mercury because they do inspire a deadly poyson into the head and Sinnewy parts they do work or effect Endemicks in us as much as they can CHAP. XXVI The Spirit of Life 1. The Doctrine of the Antients concerning a threefold Spirit 2. They have stated whence we must begin 3. The spirit of wine doth contain onely two Chymical Beginnings flexible at the pleasure of the Artificer 4. Vital spirit out of spirit of wine 5. How drunkennesse comes 6. How the spirit of wine and Aqua vitae or Water of life do differ 7. Whatsoever is stilled onely by fire doth go back from the virtues of its former composed body 8. The ferment or leaven of the stomack and of bread differs 9. The Plurality of ferments 10. Gas being unknown hath brought forth many absurdities in the distinction of things 11. The soul is in the Arterial bloud and not in the venal bloud 12. The Venal blood is without a spirit of the Liver 13. Drunkennesse 14. The progresse of the vital spirit through its offices 15. The declared disposition of the spirit it self 16. What things are by sense reckoned to be one are severed or discerned in their effects 17. From whence the spirit of life is Balsamical 18. The spirit of Aqua vitae only by touching looseth its oylinesse 19. It is presently made a Salt 20. The whole venal blood is turned into a Salt 21. Of the life of the vital spirit 22. The light is now and then extinguished in the matter of the spirit 23. There are as many particular kinds of sublunary lights as there are of vital lights 24. The definition of the vital spirit 25. The heat of life is not the Constituter of its own moisture 26. That heat is an adjacent to life 27. The undistinction of the Schools of the effects of heat and of a ferment 28. Whence heat is Escharotical or the maker of an Eschar in us 29. Whether the animal Spirit be distinct from the vital I Have discoursed already before of the Archeus as it were the Vulcan in the seed and after what manner he may dispose
of all things as well in generation as in the transmutations of meats throughout the course of life which office doth properly respect the inbred or implanted spirit But now how and whence the spirit floating in the Arteries may be constituted by occasion of the Blas of man already described consequently I have undertaken to explain in this path their Office and Properties The Schools teach That nourishments are first changed into Chyle and then into digested juice and venal bloud and so that a certain naturall spirit is made in the Liver which afterward by a repeated digestion of the heart is changed into vital and at length is in the Brain made animal or sensitive so as that the natural spirit is ordained for nourishing of the parts but the vital for the preserving of the same and the animal for the functions of sense motion and the soul But I think it hath been far otherwise Phylosophized and farther proceeded For they had known out of Hippocrates That a certain spirit is that thing which causeth violence or maketh the assaults But it was not sufficient to know that there is a certain Spirit to have told by what instruments it should be made or what it might act unlesse they should explain also the disposition substance and properties of the same together with the manner of its making I have elsewhere delivered That of any plant and fruit a ferment being applyed Aqua vitae or a water of life may be made which thing seeing it is commonly known while out of Grains Hydromel or Water and Honey and juices it frameth a water of life The Proposition needs no demonstration But Aqua vitae is a volatile Liquor Oylie as it is wholly enflamed and wholly Salt as being sharp biting as being detained the longer in the mouth it burns the upper skin of the gums and lips and is one and the same simple thing and so it containeth two only and not the three Chymical Beginnings So indeed That according to the will of the Artificer the whole Aqua vitae may be made Salt or Oyl that is That those Beginnings are not Beginnings not constant things but changeable at the will of man But the Wine as to its Winie part contains a spirit answering to Aqua vitae For this is searched through the Arteries of the stomack unto the head without the maturities of other shops So that if more wine be in the stomack than is meet drunkennesse follows as the spirit of the wine doth flow more largely into the head than that by a fit space or interval it can be changed by an individuating humane limitation For from hence the changing and likewise the operation of the ferment is manifest Notwithstanding in Wine that spirit is milder than Aqua vitae which is drawn forth by distillation which thing appears from the like in Oyl of Olives For the Oyl which they call Oyl of Tiles or Bricks or Olem Phylosophorum being distilled doth far differ from the Oylinesse which is drawn out of simple Oyl by digestion only with the circulated Salt of Paracelsus for that circulated Salt is seperated the same in vertue and weight after it hath divided the oyl of Olives into its diversities of parts For a sweet and twofold Oyl is seperated out of oyl of Olives even as a most sweet spirit out of wine being far severed from the tartnesse of Aqua vitae Whence I have learned by consequence That whatsoever is distilled only by fire doth far recede from the vertues of the composed body But in us although meat doth putrifie after its own manner to wit if that putrefaction be a mean of transchanging a thing into a thing yet in our digestions by that putrefaction I speak of the action of the ferment of the stomack Aqua vitae is not extracted out of Potherbs Graines Apples or Pulses For truly the intention of nature is not then to procreate an Aqua vitae and there is one ferment in us whereby things are resolved into Chyle and another whereby things do send forth an Aqua vitae or a water of Life out of themselves For while herbs do putrifie in water through a ferment the stalk stumps or stocks and leaves do remain whole in their antient figure and hardness for the extraction of Aqua vitae which being eaten by us are turned into Chyle and loose their first face Wherefore I have comprehended as many varieties of putrefactions and as many dungs of one bread different in the particular kind as there are particular kinds of living creatures nourished by bread Yea further far more ferments of bread because bread doth putrifie as yet by more means as well of its own accord as from an appointment But what is spoken of bread as much is said of other meats The Schools indeed knew That nothing doth profit us which should not contain a Beginning or Essay of life in its root and so therefore they do admit of the air for the increase of spirit being deceiued by the Lessons of Poets who call them Vitall airs to wit they would have in the venal bloud a spirit of the Liver naturally actually to be and to glister like air For they thought it to be a vapour being ignorant that a vapour is never made an uncoagulable Gas an air sky or wild exhalation but that it alwayes remains water Therefore they thought a vapour exhaling from the venal bloud hunted outwards even as out of a certain luke-warm Liquor should be that spirit of the venal bloud whence vital spirit should be materially framed But surely the venal bloud as long as it flowes in the vessels of the Mesenterie and Port vein is void of spirit Wherefore it being also called out by laaxtive Medicines it is voided forth stinking without any notable token of weaknesse which comes not so to passe if it hath once well touched at the hollow vein Because then the venal bloud is Homogeneally or after one and the same kind sealed in its entrance that it may be made the bloud of the Artery and spirit and therefore it is in the Holy Scriptures indifferently with the Arterial blood called a Red spirit in which the Soul inhabits Although that be properly understood of the Arterial bloud Because the Scripture is there speaking of men stabbed or slain whose venal bloud is poured out together with their arterial bloud I shall at sometime teach concerning digestions that whatsoever is made or composed in the stomack that doth wax soure there by a ferment also Sugar it self not indeed with a sournesse or sharpness of Vinegar Oyl of unripe Olives Citron or Vitriol but by its own like ferment and with a specifical sowrenesse although it symbolizeth or coagreeth with other sowre things in that which is sowre Yet the sharpnesse is diverse from them all by an internall power And that sowreness of meats is perfectly volatile Neither doth that hinder that the Chyle in Youths doth assume the
they have attributed all things to heats and colds being by degrees wearied by the re-acting of Patients should be extinguished which two Maxims of Aristotle having more place in the Mathematicks than in nature have deceived the Schools which thing I shall elsewhere abundantly prove In returning to our purpose I conclude that the Gaul and the Liver do perfect their own offices not indeed by a corporeal co-touching congress or co-mingling of themselves nor lastly by embracing or receiving within their own bosom But the Gaul dismisseth its own Fermental Blas into the bowels and the Liver his into the veins of the Mesentery which actions although unaccustomed in the Schools I will demonstrate in its place Furthermore the Schools stand amazed why windes cannot passe thorow the Coats of the intestines in wringings of the Bowels while notwithstanding so great a glut of Liquor is every day abundantly snatched into the meseraick veins and yet Pores are not seen in the intestine thorow which so much Liquor may daily hasten into the veins yea neither indeed although after death the Bowel being swollen with winde is strongly and even unto its bursture pressed together Truly as oft as by heats and colds figures and similitudes of artificial things which are of the Schools Instruments and sacred Anchor they do not attain the thing they presently fly to miracles or at least to the hidden Mysteries of things being frighted away by the greatness or unwontedness of the astonished matter they with the sloath of a narrow search acquiesce in the admiring of hidden properties Paracelsus for the framing of Medicinal Vitriol out of Brasse bids old or decayed Salt to be hanged up in a Brasse Kettle of hot water in the bladder of a Swine and so that the whole Salt will presently be dissolved wherewith he dids the Plates of Brasse to be anointed and promiseth that Vitriol will be bred in the Air. I was indeed as yet in my young beginnings yet I knew from Phylosophy that Salt could not be resolved into Water in its own weight without its substantial transmutation yet on the other hand the authority of Paracelsus perswaded the contrary to wit That without the adjoyning of water for else the Bladder should be in vain the salt should melt into water Wherefore I being a young Beginner decreed to try the rash monstrous assertion of so great a man But presently by a slow or gentle heat I found the water in the Kettle to be not much less salt than that which was in the Bladder whose neck was tied fast to the handle of the Kettle appearing above the water from whence I knew that the water did pierce within and without the Bladder to wit That the Bladder was passable by Salt and hot water but not by air For seventy seven parts of rain water do resolve twenty three parts of dryed salt But whereas one of the seventy seven parts of the water flies away a crust of salt swims on the brine Therefore Paracelsus doth vainly command by a Bladder those things which are commodiously done without it And that besides the supposition of a falshood hitherto Therefore I observed that a Bladder is Porie in a degree of heat but not in the heat of our family-administration Hence therefore I gathered that throughout the Conduit of the Veins the Bowels do abound with more and very small Pores than elsewhere to which Pores others should answer being passable throughout the Conduit of the veins Therefore the Cream doth pass thorow the bowels partly by its imbibing of them even as Salt water doth a Bladder and partly by a proper sucking of Sympathy thorow the aforesaid Pores open indeed in our life time even as also in heat waters do pierce a Bladder but shut in the time of death But wind is not imbibed by the Bowels by moistening neither is it sucked by the Veins and therefore neither doth it for this cause pierce the Bowels And that especially because it wanteth the drawings of agreement and a motive Blas whereby the wind the severer of things to be drawn may be drawn and doth resist The Veins therefore that are dispersed between the double Coat of the stomack do want the aforesaid Pores but the porous ones with which outer Coat they being encompassed do sweat thorow them the elementary venal bloud And so the proper Kitchin or Digestion of the stomack is from without to within But the Kitchin which is made universal in its hollowness is there also wholly composed and enclosed And that least the digestion of them both should breed confusion Indeed there is a twofold Cook in the Stomack one from the Spleen and the other being proper to it self sends forth divers digestions Moreover the sharp ferment in the Stomack dissolves the meats into juice but the ferment of the Gaul by saleing the sour Chyle doth seperate the juice for venal bloud and from thence doth with-draw the Liquor Latex Urine Sweat Dung being yellow and liquid and the parts of a thicker Ballast Neither therefore is Digestion in the Stomack a formal transmutation of meats For example for Magisterials among Chymists do indeed melt the body of a thing and do open it with a seperating of some certain dregs also Yet they do not therefore include a transmutation of it even as neither doth Salt being resolved differ substantially from it self being dried Because the same seminal Archeus is as yet on both sides chief Ruler So neither in an egge is there a formall transmutation although at the time of nourishing heat the yolk doth melt and contract a stink but they are onely material disposures required unto a formal transmutation resulting at length from thence again Neither is the Digestion of the Gaul in respect of the lively Cream as yet reckoned a formall transmutation although in respect of excrements it doth formally transchange For the unlike parts of the Cream of which an elementary application is not intended for them do putrifie through a dungie ferment and are deprived of their middle life as also of an Archeus But there is onely pretended a transmutation of the Homogeneal Cream as also an enjoyment of the same Therefore meats are not truly and essentially changed unlesse when the venal bloud is made in one part and the dung in the other part is fully become putrified Also the bowel deputed for the making of venal bloud cannot be at leisure for preparing of yellow dungs in the Ileos and Colon And the dung differs from the eaten meat essentially but it must not be believed to be putrified in a few hours by heat onely the which neither is it turned by heat into a certain kind of Cream but by the proper ferments of the Kitchins Therefore the meat is not yet fully transchanged unless when its own Archeus being subdued our vital one is introduced with a full vassallizing of the former For so wine is wholly changed into Vinegar Quick-silver wholly into Gold an Egge
the proportion of the dregs and sharpness But red French Wines unless they shall keep their Lee and the which they therefore say is the Mother or Nurse they dissolve their own Tincture and drink it up together with their own sourness and therefore those of two years old become discoloured unless they are exceeding generous For truly the tincture of Wines is a certain separable Body But generous red Wines because they do more slowly wax sour or sharp they are kept for many years But those bearing a little white unless they are severed from the Lee they presently grow weak For the Lee being taken away when their sourish part doth not finde an object which it may dissolve the Wine remains in its own former State Therefore Tartar is no longer Wine or Lee but a neither thing constituted of them both But that the thing is on this wise it plainly appeareth because more Tartar is dissolved in ten ounces of Rain-water than in two hundred ounces of Wine however it be stirred by boyling To wit by reason of the sharpness of the Wine whereby the Tartar was coagulated Lastly six ounces of Salt of Tartar do dissolve seven ounces of crude Tartar because the Lixivium or lye of that Salt doth drink up the sharpness of the Tartar But that Tartar doth consist of the Lee of Wine and not of Wine onely Printers do prove who do prepare the Lee of Wine or Tartar to be a suitable Ink for them And both of these in distilling do belch forth altogether the like Odour and the like Oyl But Tartar is not dissolved in cold water because the Lee of the Wine doth so compass the Salt in the Tartar that cold water cannot the more fully dissolve it by piercing Therefore seeing the Nativity of Tartar doth not elsewhere consist than in winy juyces actually consisting of Spirit of Wine and lightly waxing soure by reason of the flight of the Spirit inward Let the Schools of Paracelsus from hence know how badly the Speculation of Tartar doth suit even with those Diseases for whose sake it was invented For truly our Stone is by no meanes solved in boyling waters because Tartar is rather to be reckoned among the number of Salts or juyces coagulated with Salt than among Stones CHAP. XXXI The rash invention of Tartar in Diseases 1. No Disease doth arise from Tartar 2. Galen is unsavoury about the matter of the Disease of the Stone 3. Galen was often deceived herein 4. He thought the Stone to be hardened in us by the Element of fire in the middle of the Vrine 5. Some ignorances of the same man 6. A neutral Judge is called for 7. The drowsiness of the Humorists unexcusable 8. An explaining of the thing granted 9. Paracelsus came nearer unto the nature of Stones 10. But he also slid in stumbling 11. Paracelsus recanteth 12. His rashness brake forth from the ambition of a Monarchy 13. Blockishness is the Companion of ambition 14. The nodding unconstancie of Paracelsus 15. He was deceived by the Metaphor of a Microcosme or little World 16. His hidden boasting 17. The like boldness of Aristotle 18. That the Metaphor of a Microcosme differs from the truth 19. Paracelsus hath not sufficiently trusted to his invention of Tartar 20. Two ignorances of the same man are demonstrated 21. The Rise of hereditary Diseases 22. The Schools have erred in both extreams 23. The Phylosophy of Paracelsus concerning Tartar is rustical or rude 24. His errour is proved 25. The incongruities of Paracelsus 26. Paracelsus was ignorant of a formal transmutation of things 27. He blockishly proceeds SEEING that Tartar hath first entred into Medicine for the consideration of the Stone I have finished a Treatise touching the Disease of the Stone and I have shewen in print that Tartar is a stranger unto the nature of the Disease of the Stone Now at length I will make manifest that plainly no Disease doth arise from Tartar but that the meditation thereof in Diseases is vain Galen had known a man to be grieved with Stones and Sands in his Reins and Bladder but he knew not to what cause he might ascribe so great a hardness in us at length I found that not any thing can be condensed or co-thickned except one onely excrement which I call muck or snivel but he names it Phlegm or a waterishness And when he discerned the Stone to grow in the remote and so in the ultimate Coasts of utterance and did think that nothing had access thither besides his own humours he boldly affirmed that the same thing doth happen in the Urine and therefore that the Stone cannot otherwise be constituted than from a watery Phlegm VVhich thing because he marked with the Element of water and watery properties therefore that it ought to grow together at the water-pipes in us The Invention smiled on him especially because a Stone being brought into the Bladder there was a continual voyding of muck together with Urine Therefore he thought that our fire because he believed it to be one of the four Elements which do concur unto the constitution of us was necessary for the hardening of the matter of the Stone and that the Phlegm should dry up even in the middle of the waters seeing he knew no other operators in nature besides heat and cold For he knew not that all things did at sometime arise out of nothing now at length that from a necessitated continuation in nature all things afterwards should flow forth from a certain Genealogy of Seeds but not that from a casual conflux of Elements and by the virtue of supervening heat and cold they are so fitly adorned with vital powers Neither considered he that those first qualities at the most and utmost could not generate or contribute any thing unto a new Being but onely occasionally to promote or fore-flow the vital dispositions of seeds in their own simplicity but not as the Elements should be combined Surely it grieveth me for his pains and that all posterity of sick folks doth hitherto pay the punishment of its own credulity because he never deservedly measured or of himself once desired the Causes of the Disease of the Stone as otherwise he ought before he erected a method of healing So his Soul is made the Chamber-maid of his own desires and he feigneth plausible reasons to himself according to the appetite of disturbance which removed it from its place to a consent of himself Therefore a strange Judge is called unto the Reasons found out by us least being credulous we worship our own fictions and love them as it were Sons and pledge for the same against equity as Parents Therefore let the fire the sieve of Reasons be that Judge But the art of the fire was not yet known in Galens time but it was hidden among privy Counsellers under an Oath in the silence of Pythagoras For Galen never law even the distillation of Roses Therefore in so great a want of knowledge his
ambition unto the chiefdome of healing might happily be excusable if he had once at least boyled the snivel coming out of the nostrils or out of a stony Bladder in Urine under a luke-warmth most like to ours or had by it self dried it without Urine For he had undoubtedly found that Phlegm which he supposed to be hardened in us unto the consistence of a Stone never or any where by any degree of heat wholly to become a Stone no snivel or muscilage ever to be hardened unless otherwise great with Child with the Seed of a Stone but to be constrained into a light and brickle Tophus or Sand-stone or to be again resolved like Glew For so it had behooved the Monarch of Medicine to have proceeded and not to have exposed himself as a laughing-stock in time among his coequals of posterity and of a wiped nose because he being content with so wan a devise concerning Diseases had filled huge volumes concerning the griefs of the sick their life and healing Indeed I do not deny but that any Muscilage doth now and then become a Stone but I constantly deny that that comes to passe in as much as it is slimy or snivelly but onely if it be great with young of a stony or Rockie seed For the more brickle stones do not consist of a pure and transparent Liquor but of a Clayie and Muscilaginous one wherefore the whole muckie and phlegmatick Doctrine of Galen hath been dried up in a seminated or seedied Stone hath remained barren in the Schools without an Ear and fruit and hath there grown sick under the Chair and as brickle being even now presently scattered into powder shall vanish away Indeed the following Ages being more prone to believe than diligently to search have followed the flock of their Predecessors going not in the way wherein they were to go but wherein it had been gone and through the ignorances of their Ancestors under the conduct of sloath the easie Schools do hitherto subscribe to so great ignorance Wherefore Paracelsus aspiring to the new Monarchy of Elias the Artist to come not resting in the luke-warm and drowsie Dreams of snorters seeking more firm principles of Stones finally admiring amongst his diligent searches the Tartar of Wine he conceived and nourished great hope in his minde thinking every Stone as well in the great Universe as in the little World to be meer Tartar And then through a rashness of boldness his Progress began to affirm that every Body doth extract its own solidity with the same coagulation of Tartar that those which he had said before to come upon things from the curse now he may recant that they were from the beginning by the appointment of the seeds He afterwards withdrawing this his own intent of Tartar and that ingenious enough plentifully collected that even as Tartar was a Stone of Wine a Metaphorical Stone I say because resolveable in waters So that the Stone in man should be hardened out of meats and drinks by a co-like curdling For so he supposing that he had the sure Beginnings of the Stone believed that he held the Hare by the eares His boldness pleased him and being thereby raised with a hope of Monarchy he begun to commend in many Volumes and glosses or compendious expositions almost all Diseases unto his Tartar so that he believed the Plague also to arise from Tartar Moreover so great was the consequent of this prosperous and easie invention that he thereby promised himself the Monarchship in healing But when he had sufficiently well weighed that the Elements Complexions and humours failed nor that they were sufficient for Diseases and so the true cause of a Disease not yet to have been made known in the Schools and the which he did promise to himself to have unfolded together with Tartar at length that he might establish the causes of Diseases he affirmed that all solid things were either meer Tartar or that they did contain for a great part of them the same for our destruction As if the vast Goodness in the Obiect of Creation being solicitous of a Disease had likewise gaped greedily after our Diseases The labour of Paracelsus and his emulation of finding out the cause of a Disease are to be gratified by us who knowing the vain trifles and shameful sloaths of the Schools wholly contended for the publick good And I shall believe if he had been more negligent of ambition that through the most bountiful Grace of God he had come unto the true fundamentals of healing But as ambition is swelling and alwayes hanging on others wills or Judgements therefore God doth alwayes suffers ambition to float into uncertainty Therefore Paracelsus being unconstant could never satisfie himself by the invention of Tartar wherefore he runs sometimes unto Complexions and then to the Stars but then to his three first things and calls upon the Elements themselves that he might confirm the causes of Diseases For sometimes he accuseth Chrystal in the fourth degree of heat as the off-spring of the fire but then as being the Daughter of water he saith it is hardened by the greatest cold And then he affirmeth that a great heap of Glasse burnt up by a continual fire and diminished into pieces doth passe over into a Beryl having forgotten his Tartar and being addicted to the first Complexions of qualities through Elementary Degrees he affirms the Beryl to be the off-spring of Heaven and of a deeper fire Being unmindful that he had seen in his own Helvetian Rocks Ice to lay knit together by great cold perhaps for a thousand yeers yet not to be Chrystal but to remain Ice as from the beginning Therefore he was not yet at quiet in full rest to have tied up the eyes and credulity of his followers in Tartarers and to have framed to himself a glorious name as being confident he fleeth unto another the last Anchor of his hope To wit he translated the Metaphor of a Microcosme into the truth it self Willing that we should express every way and fully the whole Universe exactly or as to the square and in very deed to contain it in all the differences of Earths Mountains Fountains Stones Mines Plants Fishes Birds four-footed Beasts creeping things also of the Stars with all the properties motions Tempests Diseases Defects and interchangeable courses of the same Asserting that unless we do fully and fundamentally know and believe this thing knowingly quick-sightedly distinctly most certainly most profoundly and most properly in every created thing we are unfit for to exercise Phylosophy to practise Medicine or to dispute against their suppositions And moreover he saith that this undoubted particle and optick Science is easier to be learned by ten fold than unwholesome Latine By which Elogie or commendation he is thought amongst his own to have shined exceedingly in the knowledge of these things who by a late testimony of the World hath onely vanquished uncurable Diseases So also Aristotle aspiring unto the sameliness
of name of the Philosopher despised the contradicters of his own and indeed false beginnings no otherwise than as Necromancers do require to be credited without demonstration Let eternal prayse and glory be to my Lord in all Benediction who hath formed us not after the Image of the most impure VVorld but after the figure of his own divine Image therefore hath he adopted us for the Sons of Election and co-heirs of his glory through grace Surely the condition of that similitude were to be grieved at and too much to be pitied which had hitherto subjected us under the Law of all calamities from our Creation even till now and that before sin we should onely be the engravement of so abjected a thing as if the VVorld had been framed for it self but not for us as the ultimate end but we for the VVorld whose Images indeed onely we should be to wit we ought to be made stony that we may represent Stones and Rocks And so we should all of right be altogether stony leprous c. For indeed seeing we are by Creation that which we are and a Stone should be made in us that we may represent Rocks Now death and a Disease were in us before that we departed out of the right way or fell Let Heresies depart For neither do we all suffer the falling evill neither do they who labour with it have it that sometimes we may represent Thunder or the Earth-quake or an unknown Lorinde of the Air its unconstancy But now if there were at least the least truth hereof verily he who suffers dammages according to Justice ought also to perceive the profits of the Microcosme even so that especially we ought to fly Seeing it is more rational for us sooner to shew our selves Birds than great Stones or storms of the Air or water Therefore let allegorical and moral senses depart out of nature Nature throughly handles Beings as they do in very deed and act subsist in a substantial entity and do flow forth from the root of a seed even unto the conclusion of the Tragedy neither doth it admit of any other interpretation than by being made and being in essence from ordained causes I observe also that Paracelsus Tartar being invented and introduced into Diseases hath not yet stood secure enough for truly he immingles Tartar also in the first Beginnings of our constitution and so neither doth he require the Seeds of things themselves out of Tartar but he will have Tartar to be radically intimately and most thorowly immirgled with the Seeds whereby he may finde out the Seminary of Hereditary Diseases Of which mixture he being at length forgetful calleth it ridiculous He saith that a VVoman having conceived by the Seed of man it doth separate snatch lay up Tartar into it self and that the Seed being as it were anatomized doth constitute it self the flattering Heir of that Tartar On the contrary that the Spirit of Wine is never so refined by possible circulations as that it doth not as yet contain its own Tartar in it As if Tartar were the chief Root of the Universe or an immediate Companion thereunto But I know if any forreign thing be materially in the Seed generation doth never follow Next that the Seed of Adam being materially prepared in Paradise had not generated a more perfect off-spring than that which afterwards after the fall was made in him Cain and Abel do especially prove that thing At length if Tartar should so intimately grow in Seeds that after many years from generation it should cause hereditary Diseases by materially separating it self from the whole surely that Tartar should not so soon be separable by the Magnet or attraction of a VVoman seeing if any thing be separated from the seed it is a Gas diametrically opposite unto Tartar For if the womb should separate any thing from the seed that should happen by drawing but such is the condition of drawing things that they draw for themselves and unto themselves and then cease but if the womb shall extract for separation sake there shall now be no fear of an hereditary evill because the womb hath a power of serving that which is hurtfull Lastly although Diseases shall come by degrees into the place of exercise yet they were never materially thorowly mixed with the Seed after the manner of Tartar that not Tartar not a gowty Chalk fore-existed in the Seed but that Diseases derived from the Parents do lay hid in manner of a Character in the middle life of the Archeus whose Seal doth at length under its own maturity of dayes break forth and frameth a Body fit for it self and so is made the Archeus of a Disease together with every requisite property of the Seeds For a Disease also is a natural constitution proceeding from the Seed consisting of an Archeus as the efficient cause It hath otherwise rustically been thought in the Schools that Diseasie Bodies do materially conflux unto the Generation of hereditary defects It also contains an Idiotism to exclude a Disease out of the number of natural Agents and corporal Beings seeing the matter also which they say is diseasifying is now and then obvious to the finger if it be thorowly viewed by the eyes If therefore a Disease be now reckoned among the Beings of Nature why should it not be established by a necessity of its own seed It is rude Phylosophy that Tartar had been from the beginning in the seed and that after thirty whole years it should begin the first principles of a Cream and should meditate of an Increase and as it were a particular Republique for it self and that wholly without the direction of the seed God made not death nor therefore hath he connexed Tartar unto seeds as the matter of Diseases For if so stupid errours should happen unto the seminal Archeus the Ruler of Nature hath already forsaken the Rains of the same and mankinde shall shortly go to ruine Also that saying of Paracelsus is absurd that not so much as the Spirit of Wine doth want its own Tartar For although it should be circulated for the space of an Age yet it shall never in very deed separate any Tartar For Paracelsus who never saw or found that Tartar of the Spirit of VVine will therefore be credited in his own good belief no otherwise than as elsewhere where he thinketh that water as oft as it hath ceased to be seen doth wholly depart into nothing and that something is created anew For it doth not follow a Salt is made out of the Spirit of vvine it receives a coagulation in the Salt of Tartar therefore the Spirit of vvine doth contain Tartar Because although every coagulated thing should be Tartar which it is not yet those Bodies do not contain those things which at length are made of them To wit Milk is made of Grasse of Milk Arterial Bloud and from hence the seed of man yet Grasse doth not contain a man in it self as neither
undigestions as they do contain strange or forreign things But they do not therefore materially contain Duelech in them altbough they do occasionally destroy digestion do imprint a rockie middle life whence the enfeebled vegetative faculty of man puts on that wild inclination But that makes nothing for the Author of Tartars For truly it is a far different thing to be made stony occasionally from a stonifying virtue of the middle life of things imprintingly and sealingly introduced into the Archeus and to be made to have the stone from Tartar melted and resolved in waters which at length in the period of dayes may re-assume its former coagulation in the drinker For this latter to be in Nature I deny but the former I affirm to be among ordinary effects But as concerning Strumaes or Kings-Evil-swellings in the Neck and swelling pimples in the face many think that they proceed from mineral waters being drunk also Paracelsus from the use of waters of an evil juyce or disposition But I could wish according to the mans own Doctrine that he may shew by the fire those evil juyces in waters whose property it is to be coagulated onely in our last digestion nor elsewhere than about the neck or throat-bone But I know that he never found in waters such a Tartar Therefore he may be condemned by his own Law wherein he gives a caution that none is to be believed but so far as he is able to demonstrate that thing by the fire I confess indeed that there is in the water a middle life whose property it is to stir up the Archeus and to infect it in the exchanging of good nourishment but not of a forreign Tartar existing in it materially into a Rockie hardness But unto Strumaes a matter is required which by the property of its own Archeus may be bred to stop up our jawes and as it were to strangle us and that without the tast of astriction or an earthly sharpness or harshness for otherwise this tast sticking fast in the bosom of the matter being ripened by the first digestion dieth and which being transchanged into nourishment and retaining the antient virtues of the middle life performs its power more about the throat than elsewhere which power being left to it by an heredicary right in nourishments and from hence in the venal bloud doth convert the nearest nourishment of solid Bodies into a Rockie excrement which goes unto the throat by a strangling faculty of the directer And I narrowly examining that thing in Germany have found Mushromes to be strong in the aforesaid poyson of strangling and that those do often grow out of the Root of a Fountain the Fir-tree and Pine-trees in steep Rocks toward the North where black Agarick an Heir of the same crime is often in the Trunk or Stem I have learned therefore that the whole Leffas or Planty juyce of the Earth is there defiled with a Mushromy disposition Therefore I have believed that hard swellings of the Neck are bred by the use of Herbs and waters which have drunk in this sort of Leffas Furthermore that an Archeal power of the middle life in things doth beget Strumaes but not a reviving ill juycy Tartar of the water the thing it self doth speak For otherwise a Struma should bewray it self no lesse in the bottom of the Belly and Liver nor more slowly than in the throat For River or ill juicy waters do not respect the throat nor should promise so great hardness Not surely should the hard swelling of the neck or throat dissolve by an astrictive and earthy Remedy whereby I have many times seen very great Strumaes or hard swellings of the Neck to have vanished away in one onely month and the strangling suddenly brought on people by a poysonous Mushrome to be cured which Remedy is on this wise Take of Sea-Sponge burnt up into a Coal 3 ounces of the bone of the Fish Sepia burnt long Pepper Ginger Pellitory of Spain Gauls Sal gemmae calcined Egg-shels of each 1 ounce mix them with the stilled water of the aforesaid Spongei and let it be dried up by degrees Take of this Powder half a dram with half an ounce of Sugar the Moon decreasing that it being melted by degrees may be swallowed Or make a Lincture or Lohoch It shall also disperse Botium or the swelling pimpâ—â— in the face Others for want of the Sponge did take the hairy excrescency growing on wild Rose-Trees very like to the outward Rhine of the Chesnut rough and briery or hairy the powder of which alone they did use succesfully Likewise I have used an unction in Strumaes and Schirrus's Of Oyl of Bay not adulterated by Hogs-grease 8 ounces of Olibanum Mastich Gum Arabick Rosin of the Fir-tree of each 3 ounces distil them then distil them again with Pot-Ashes If therefore the hard swelling of the Neck or a hard Scirrhus elsewhere should grow together from a forreign Tartar it should rather wax hard by hot Remedies neither should it be so easily dissolved Therefore the Struma is a defect of the Archeus the transchanger and not through the coagulation of Tartar even as concerning Duelech or the stone in man I have more clearly and abundantly demonstrated For the Archeus transchangeth every masse subjected unto him unless being overcome by a more powerful middle life he shall give place Therefore the Strama is of good venal bloud on which a strangling power of the middle life is felt And Botium or the swelling pimple of the face a remedy being taken perisheth which is not for dissolving a Rockie matter if it were of Tartar brought over thither otherwise it is altogether impossible that Tartar if there should be any should conceive a breathing hole of our life be made lively be co-sitted to the members and be admitted inwards unto the last digestion conceive a ferment of the Arterial bloud but to be discussed or blown away by an unsensible transpiration as also Schirrhus's bred of vital venal bloud the aforesaid Remedy being administred But besides the contention is not about the Asses shadow for truly it is not all one to have denied Tartar to be materially in meats and drinks and likewise to remain throughout the shops of the digestions and therefore at length to be coagulated in miserable men and it is far remote from thence to admit of a thing in us to be transchanged out of a good Cream Chyle or venal bloud into an evil one by virtue of the middle life transplanting the directions of the Archeus For as there is one order of generation so also is there every where another of fore-caution and healing Therefore there is no foundation truth appearance or necessity of tartarizing For which way doth it conduce to devise Tartar to be the stubborn Prince of coagulations which oweth his Birth to a fiction For truly the dispositions coagulations and resolutions of things do depend on their own Seeds Duelech is made no lesse of the purest
phlegm of Elements and the constitutive humours of us For the phlegm which about the beginning of a pose doth rain down out of the Nostrils watery as they say and thin after some dayes is made thicker and yellow because it is thickned by a daily cocture of heat As if perhaps for full forty years without the corruption of it self the Scull being empty it had exspected a thickning as its chiefest good nor otherwise being more thin should it finde chinks enough for utterance These dreams do not deserve reproof by Argument unless by a serious credulity they had translated the method of healing into the destruction of mortalls I confess indeed that at the time of my young beginnings I believed that snivel if it arose not from one of the four Humours at leastwise that it was an excrement of the digestion of the brain But afterwards through a more liberal diligent search I declining from the Schools began to observe that in Summer I seldom cleanse my Nose but in Winter very often Notwithstanding in either station I through the Grace of God do enjoy a brain and its fruitfulnesses or operations alike strong at both seasons For I moreover considered that my Winter venal bloud is alike lively with that which I make or digest in Summer For the life according to the holy Scriptures is placed in the Arterial bloud and that the digestion as well of my brain as of my other parts is alike wholesom because compleat which things should not be on such a manner if the brain should daily draw out at least four ounces of an excrement and therefore sixteen ounces of venal bloud for the onely nourishment of it self and the abundance of so great a quantity of phlegm to wit besides that which hath remained in the nourished Body for a pledge of nourishment which ounces it should otherwise in Summer leave in the venal bloud Or if they do suppose that to be made by a more exact digestion of the brain or if they had rather to have the brain by reason of the injury of a Winter Air to be badly disposed and which way soever it be taken the snivel must needs be caused at least from some indisposition therefore not from the abundance of phlegm and so from the vice of the Liver as neither from a more exquisite separation of vvinter phlegm and the neglect of Summer phlegm Neither in the next place doth that indisposition happen through the vice of the brain as not of the venal bloud For that resisteth the position proposed Therefore that very thing doth spring from elsewhere For if those superfluities should remain in the venal bloud or brain in Summer-time which are otherwise expelled in Winter a place should be wanting for the entertainment of the phlegm which was collected in the whole Summer Hence I lay it down for a position that the snivel of the nostrils is more watery and plentiful and therefore there is a continual cleansing of the same in winter but not in Summer whence it followes that that thing is caused by reason of an untemperate Station which if it doth occasionally hurt the digestion of the brain that shall be either throughout the whole brain or in its lower plain whereby the cold strikes If it be offensive throughout the whole brain all the functions of the brain should be hurt together with it the imagination the discourse c. which is false For it should denote a superiority of the encompassing Air over the Spirit the Fountain and Ruler of all Functions And then the snivel ought to be made and to descend from all the intimate connexed and least particles of the brain and not onely from those which may immediately be shaken by the entring Air. Whence it is manifest that snivel is onely an excrement of the lower parts of the brain degenerated from the totality or wholeness of its nourishment before it could nourish But that it is not an excrement surviving from the last digestion which they affirm to be dispersed in manner of a dew by the least pieces into the solid parts For this also doth equally exhale in manner of a vapour no lesse from the brain than from the whole Body If therefore snivel be naturally stirred up by external occasional causes and hurtful seasons and hath its effective cause about the plain of the brain which way it toucheth the Air but not from cold for that would sound that the brain were conquered overcome and its powers as it were extinct therefore the matter of snivel which I shall teach in its place to be the matter of the Liquor Latex and also of nourishment is converted for a good and ordinary end which conversion of that matter seeing it is natural is extended as it were a Coat of Mail on the part stricken by cold And seeing the matter is vitiated through the injury of the Air surely it doth not adhere but doth distil a continual drop of water Therefore I call this effective power of snivel the Keeper which thing to have thus now supposed let it be sufficient Furthermore the the excrements of the Paunch and Bladder are indeed the superfluities of the whole Body and of the parts wherein they are made and do grow they being superfluous and unprofitable from within themselves But sweat and an unsensible eflux are superfluities now made in the last digestion and expelled after the utmost discharging of their ends But snivel is of a neither kinde For it is made by the Keeper onely provoked indeed but he is that which that he may defend and oversmear the part doth thus change the more crude juyce and also the venal bloud and that changing of the same is plainly natural ordained to a good end as long as it ariseth from a well appointed keeper Truly I do also greatly wonder at the drowsiness of the Schools for so many Ages That because they saw the snivel to distil thorow the Nostrils therefore they suddenly by an undoubted Statute decreed that the same was nothing else besides the excrement of the brain yea whatsoever is thrust forth by spitting and cough because the likeness of Colours deceived their eyes they dictated it to be nothing but a descending excrement of the brain For neither have they once by the way enquired If it be an excrement of the brain therefore it ought to be the remainder of the last digestion when indeed the Arterial bloud after that it is made a nourishable humour and distributed in manner of a dew throughout the equal masse of the brain should not indeed be consumed in the same place although now first being assimilated to the substance of the brain and being expelled should depart thorow the pores without any remainder of it self by an unsensible transpiration but altogether by a diverse or strange kinde of defilement after that it had put on the condition of a spermatick muckiness for we are nourished of those things whereof we consist the
that the period of motions and of those unfoldings and the variety of Agents is therefore to be attributed to a re-acting of the Patients To wit even as while an external luke-warmth bringing up Eggs unto a Chick for neither of them doth re-suffer reciprocally For neither doth the vital Spirit in an Egg any way re-suffer any thing by the luke-warmth as neither that luke-warmth by the vital Spirit of the Egg. Hitherto tendeth that which I have proved before To wit that altering things do not act by contrariety Therefore their Patients do not fight in defending themselves nor re-act by contrariety That maxim also is false That every Agent doth of necessity act in an instant and that its action is retarded or fore-slowed onely by a resistance and re-acting of the Patient Because in all particular seeds their own and certain period of continuances and dispositions is essentially included For the falshood of that maxim hath flowed from hence that the Schools being deluded by Aristotle have thought that the fire is to be compared unto other Agents the which when they saw to be any where almost in a moment they believed that the same thing was likewise to be wrested unto other Agents Through occasion whereof I must now speak of irregular and differently inclined Agents In the first place it is manifest that the fire doth suffer or undergoe nothing at all by the re-acting of a combustible object For otherwise a small quantity of fire should be sufficient for the burning of the whole Universe if it were capable of burning which could not be done if the combustible matter should re-act even but never so little Truly a River suffers nothing if a staffe shall swim on the same and as yet lesse doth the fire suffer if it burn Saguntum or if Gun-powder be fired In Nature also no seminal Beginning suffereth by the matter into which it works Because it disposeth of the same without re-acting even as it hath begun plainly to appear in denied contraries Moreover that the falshood of the aforesaid maxim may be the more beheld take notice that all particular seeds have their own periods and moments appointed by the Creator wherein they do promote their course unto a ripeness For Conies Dogs Birds Men Horses Elephants do nourish within perfect and bring forth their own Young at their appointed termes of time Not indeed that the seminal matter in a man is rawer colder and more rebellious than the seed of a Cat But God hath set the bounds of every one of them according to his own good pleasure the reason whereof to enquire into belongs not unto mans judgement For if the disposition of a seminal matter be of a longer labour that proceeds not by reason of its resistance or strugling strength as neither from the weakness wearisomness idleness or disturbance of passions of the Agent For truly every Being in Nature operates without labour and passion and therefore without cessation rest intermittency and trouble Seeing indeed all particular things are made by reason of the communicating of a Ferment and limitation of appointment For all particular things do purely operate by a reflexion of their own appointment according to the ordaining will of their Creator For so Christians were to philosophize But in local motion motive virtues and so also in the exercise of Science Mathematical the maxims of Aristotle are indeed serviceable the which by a violent Command and unfitly the Schools have introduced into nature For if moyst or wet Wood be not so obediently burnt up as dry that doth not therefore come to passe through a re-acting of the wood or with a suffering of the fire For although the wood should cease from all combustion the fire should not therefore suffer more by the wood than by Gold which is not to be burnt yea if in wet wood as such there should be a certain operative resistance to wit a re-acting surely water should also longer and more strongly resist fire than the Rosin of Wood or of a coal But the consequence is false For the water doth most swiftly and first of all fly away out of wet Wood before the fire enflames the Rosin of the Wood Therefore the slowness in wet Wood doth not argue a re-action of the matter or strength of the suffering Wood But the fire follows its own laws of appointments whereby it separates first the more volatile things and next in order things lesse swift of flight For so although the fire be subdued by wet Rosin which by it self otherwise had presently been in a flame with the same fire yet by reason of the aforesaid lawes it patiently expects the torture of the fire and a departure of that water Iron also being placed between stubble and fire hinders indeed the enflaming or burning up of the stubble but there is not therefore any re-action of the Iron on the fire or suffering of the fire by the Iron which thing surely hath not been narrowly enough searched into by the Schools For although these their maxims have place in corporeal actions wherein the Agent of necessity cherisheth and toucheth its own object and thus far inspireth its own virtue into the same yet that is altogether impertinent in Agents which do act on things placed under them which are far separated in place For truly besides the actions of the Heavens which are carried by influence in-beaming and motion without the touching of an Agent but by a Blas onely do disperse the Seminaries of their own virtues Sublunary things are not properly deprived of a Blas Because fermental Odours do produce most active and seminal effects and do transchange in nature their object by their own perfume and do draw it after them into their protection Likewise also a radial or beaming action doth concur into nature For the Elks hoof is thus said by its touching to preserve the heart and head from danger yet the Seat of the evil is not in the finger as neither is there a passing from bound to bound Neither is the Hoof therefore diminished of its strength by acting but rather is confirmed as also the Load-stone is comforted by the communication of Iron For a clear sign that an Agent suffers not a whit by reaction in seminal or beaming actions and by consequence that neither doth the Patient therefore re-act Therefore Medicines against the pain of the Head or Amulets or preserving Pomanders have a Blas whereby they do constrain objects to obey them like the Heavens and they act onely by their own and not on a strange and nearer object And they draw out their deserts or worthy virtues without all corporal eflux motion passion or weakening I know indeed that the Schools do not bear these things but that they refer these effects into vapours lifted up from the womb or the least toe because they are such who have sunk themselves in the Clay of a dreggy Minerva or wit But if a Maid which hath the
Mother doth perfectly see all things at least but on one side or on the other half onely she also seeth onely half the Needle which she holdeth or presseth with her fingers however she may turn her eyes and head She may see I say many folks being collected into a Company but even to her Girdle or half-sided ones onely shall perhaps then the vapours be divided in halfes the Apple of the Eye nevertheless appearing entire can these vapours I say permit her to see and discern many things together but all things apart in the one or other half onely But an incorporeal Blas of government hath been neglected by the Schools which acteth without a corporeal eflux even as the Moon makes the Sea to swell For in the strangling of the womb they complain as long as they are partakers or Mistresses of talk of the stretching out of the spaces between their Ribs and they think that the Girdle they are girt with is tied to their Ribs or that a staffe is extended from their neather parts unto their Throat c. Consider I pray with me oh ye Schools that there is in us a double motive power and decline from this your thred-bare maxim To wiâ— That the action of the same power is hurt whereby the sound one is exercised For truly there is in us a voluntary Blas and the Blas it self of the parts as elsewhere concerning Convulsions Take ye notice That at least in this place if voluntary motion be natural the will also suffers nothing from the muscles moved by it self yea neither from the muscles refusing to be moved Nor in the next place therefore that there is a weariness of the faculty but onely of the Body or Organs Lastly that the muscles being moved by an importunate Blas of the parts there is not a wearisomness of the parts although the pain be heightned and they do not feel their own weariness because convulsive motions being stirred up by the Blas of the parts are made by a faculty which becomes mad and for this cause they are scarce felt or perceived For neither doth that prove because moysture in Wood or an interposing of a coal between the flame and Roâ—â—n of the intrinsecal Wood do foreslow the action of the fire that it may not the more swiftly consume the Wood with its devouring For truly Impediments do not act properly as neither do they re-act but they do purely and simply suffer They do indeed some way limit the very action of the fire or do seclude the same as it were uncapable partitions and no more For it is proper and natural to fire first to consume water and the more light discussable things into vapours before it in burning do enflame Oily things At length after Oily things to consume the fat which hath more fixedly remained in the coal But neither doth the water re-act against the fire or doth the fire suffer For whether water be in the Wood or not the fire doth alwayes act univocally or singly and according to the appointment of its own nature acteth freely and in such a manner as that it convinceth the aforesaid maxim of falshood Also Gold Talck Marble c. do not re-act on the fire although they are not consumed or wasted by the fire For the manifest incapacity of these hinders it by reason whereof the fire doth not act on those by an ordinary burning or enflaming For truly the fire intends to enlighten those Bodies in themselves dark so as that they may be after some sort made clear or shining bright the which at length it obtains in making them fiery Because the fire endeavours to pierce all things with its own form The which while inflameable things do not sustain without their own ruine therefore in burning they are enflamed and being consumed do depart Neither also doth the fire pretend to enlighten stones and mettals in a moment according as otherwise to the aforesaid Maxim but the fire suits it self in its own nature of acting according to the limitation of every object And so it is perpetually true that every natural Agent acteth and is received after the manner of its own object receiving Therefore the primary action of the fire is to produce in its object a fire like it self wherein some objects do burn under the intention of fire but others do persist and expect the last intent of the fire So that if some things are not combustible at leastwise the fire acteth into them as much as it can to make them fiery In like manner also the light suffers not any thing although at one onely instant it dart it self from the Sun from far on the Earth or although it be not sent thorow through a thick mean hindering it Truly the light suffers nothing by a thick or dark Body whether it shall passe thorow that Body or not For it alwayes attaineth its own intent which is to enlighten whether in the mean time an Impediment doth interpose or not for the resistance or repelling of objected Impediments are not in manner of a re-acting because Agents re-suffer nothing but they are of a meer incapacity Therefore it is plainly indifferent and by accident unto those Agents whether fixed Bodies are enlightned only by the fire and are pierced by the light or not For these things are even after the same manner as the Leaven of Meal in respect of the powder of Glass For the Leaven suffers nothing although the incapacity of the Glass doth hinder whereby the Leaven doth work the lesse For at least there is no re-acting where there is no action These things about the denial of re-acting strife hatred and war between the Agent or doer and patient or sufferer to wit which kinde of action alone the Schools have acknowledged I will add also other new ones I have said in the Book of Fevers that a poysonous excrement in Fevers is included in the Midriffs producing drowsie sleeps doatages c. Therefore it is an anodynous or sleepifying and mad poyson Likewise in Falling-sicknesses that there is an unsensitive befooling and mad poyson afflicting for a space being enstalled in the Midriffs In hypochondrial madnesses that there is a furious poyson or that which doates with jesting or merriment In giddiness of the Head a whirling poyson In the Apoplexie that which takes away sense and motion Lastly in swooning a stupefactive or sleepy poyson a dispersive of the Spirits And hence presently taking away sense and motion But seeing the Schools do not extend themselves beyond a rudeness they have thought that the occasional matters of these Diseases is the matter whereof of Diseases and that it is brought thorow the Veins and Arteries from beneath upwards unto the Brain which thing nevertheless I have refuted for the exposition of that Aphorisme If in a continual Fever after yellow Vrines watery ones shall presently succeed they denote dotages to come by reason as Galen will have it of Choler snatched into
feeble keeper doth easily faint at any adverse things brought against him such as are smoaks or fumes and the Gas of minerals mettals and strong Chymical Waters the which indeed do so hurt the very power of the Bowel that for the future it ceaseth not to bring forth continual phlegms from its own nourishments The presence whereof constraineth such artificers to struggle with a continual Asthma Cough and spitting forth by reaching In the next place an Asthma is partly dry and partly moist to wit which by reason of receiving Endemicks drawn by a slender supping or snuffing up doth affect the tender Lungs and that doth not but by some endemical injuries offered or otherwise sink under an inordinacy of life and is exasperated Lastly a Scirrhus or hard swelling in the skin the Dropsie c. although they bring forth the affect of difficult Breathing yet seeing they are burthened with a strange weight they are not the Asthma But the jaundise by a poyson proper to it produceth a dry Asthma Last of all those Remedies are due to a dry Asthma which are for an inveterate Falling-sickness But great comforters and restoratives as well in respect of the Lungs as of the Keeper art required for a moist Asthma Now I will add my own observations concerning the Cough by reason of the nearness or affinity of an Asthma and the cruelties of a Catarrh For I am wont to be taken with a stuffing in the head or Pose because my head is weakned and doth suffer an unequal strength through the injuries of distillations But I have understood my pose to be as oft as the wandring keeper had dashed snivel about or within the Ethmoides or spongie or straining bone The pose therefore arising if in the same evening I shall breath into my nostrils a sneezing powder of black Helebour and Sugar of equal quantity on the morning following I am for the most part better But if I shall do that to an inveterate pose it doth not so easily depart Yea I have profited so much by that sneezing powder that now I could endure the evening air without hurt wherefore neither doth a foolish person according to the Poets vainly stand in need of Helebour For although there are very many vomitive Medicines yet Helebour seemeth peculiarly to profit the Head Therefore the shivel doth at first drop down like salt water through the nostrils and Jawes on the same side if not on both sides whereon the soongie bone is beset but the jaws hardly bearing the unaccustomed snivel are wont thereby together with the adjacent parts to wax red and become swollen with inflamation And the snivel waxeth thick and yellow as if that which is stuffed into the spongy bone did instead of a ferment continually infect the â—â—â—ivel falling down Indeed the wandring keeper perceiving the Enemy dashed on him doth first endeavour to wash him off with thin snivel I being about to speak of the Cough have begun with the pose because this if it be strong doth stir up and fore go the Cough and that I have alwaies observed Therefore in the first dayes of the pose a certain dry small Cough with an itching of the rough Artery doth molest and sometimes causeth hoarsness but oft-times a tickling only in the wind-pipe one or two fingers below the chin If there be carelesness of a Remedy yellow tough and much snivel is wiped off yea and by an easie Cough knocked out There was hope thereupon that in a short time the affect would be loosed of its own accord Neglect increaseth and the external injury is urgent In the mean time the pipe or channel unto the instrument of smelling or spongy bone is wholly stopt up with a strange guest Thence a plentiful and glewie snivel is powred thorow the nostrills otherwise wide or open enough straightway after a like snivel is expelled by a Cough But that this is generated in the Lungs but not that it drops down from the Head into the rough Artery I have already convinced concerning Rheums and I add that although all of what sort is detained within the wind-pipe and the more near branches thereof be cast forth in the morning by the Cough and that afterwards the breath is free yea I being attentive from the region of sight that the tongue is often suppressed contemplated whether the lest muckiness doth threaten a falling into the jaws and be dispatched by spitting with reaching nevertheless I presently thereupon certainly found that a snorting in the wind-pipe and tingling out of the Breast is under-heard and a saffrony and tough snivel follows after by intervals yea by how much the more I shall Cough by so much my labour is the more apt to Cough and I am the more constrained to Cough For I have certainly found a daily generating of the same snivel in the Lungs Secondly that my pose doth hurt and take away not only my smelling but also my tasting although distinguished or seperated in a peculiar Organ So as now and then I could not taste a Clove I learned therefore by my malady that the defect was not only conversant about the Organ of smelling or in the stuffed bone but also that I felt a blemish propagated into the neighbouring Brain whence the tastive Sinews were made companions of the contagion wherefore I further discerned that the Brain being thus defiled by the borrowed blemish did infect its own keeper which afterwards affecteth the other neighour-keeper with its weakness wherefore a Cough is thus oft-times bred by a pose and that Cough according to the tenour of this pose is extended promoted and continued Yet the same injury doth oft-times by a like action at once affect as well the keeper of the brain as that of the wind-pipe But that the Brain doth immediately infect the Lungs into this blemish by the action of government this might be a reason to me because the aforesaid man of sixty yeers old if he had offended his mind with a more fervent contemplation and had made half the night restless presently without offence of the keeper he found a snorting to arise and phlegms to be ingendred in him which would not be stayed in growing unless the disquietness of his mind being first appeased by sleep For it belongs to a family-authority if the Duumvirate be able badly to season the Head Lungs and other parts that the Head doth snatch the parts beneath it into its own client-ship or protection I have likewise also observed this that as oft as the Cough did proceed from a pose so often remedies which do cure the pose do also heal the Cough and such a Cough is easily known by a slow small Fever a more coloured Urine and then the propagation of snivel is more continual For that is the Fever of a Head ill disposed and communicating its own grief unto inferiour parts For there is a prerogative of the Head in this that although the Cough shall happen upon a pose
yet they are both ended together and then although thou shalt cleanse thy nostrills wholly of all snivel yet the Cough arising snivel doth forth with flow abundantly out of the nostrils Therefore there is a great co-resemblance of action between the Head and the Lungs not indeed that the Head doth lay up its own portions or conditions into the Lungs but as at the hurting of the smelling the brain takesaway together with it the tasting also So also it wrests the Lungs into the union of it self because both Bowels are of one nourishment also both keepers do generate a co-like snivel of the same as a vassal bewails the chance or fortune of his Prince Then in the next place there is the more striâ—â— necessity to the Head with the Lungs because both Bowels do conspire in the government of the Keeper readily seeming for the same end These things are thus to be pressed from the root that the cure may be directed unto the roots unto the antecedent that is to the freeing of the spongy bone For truly the cough being sprung from the action of government whatsoever Cough is in the Lungs by accident ceaseth the pose being removed A coughing person if he sit the snivel doth the less snort in the wind-pipe his breath is more free and his expectorating more easie for hence is the name of orthopnea or upright breathing with difficulty when as otherwise if snivel should distil from above into the wind-pipe it should hasten downwards rather in sitting than in laying which is false therefore also the antecedent For if it should fall down from the Head into the Lungs it should descend with less trouble and should be more easily received in the Lungs as long as at the beginning of the pose it is exspunged in manner of water It should then I say easily full up the Lungs and by its quantity intercept the breath but at the beginning of a pose there is yet no Cough and next no difficulty of Breathing therefore there is no falling down of snivel out of the Head into the Lungs in a Cough But as touching a Cough which is made by the proper malady of the Lungs and not from the pose I have already treated before But as to that which concerns Remedies first of all soporiferous or sleep-causing things do ease the Cough and the pose as they do also appease a Pleurisie from sumptomatical affects And I conquer the Cough with those Remedies wherewith I do the Pleurisie There are also in the next place other Coughs never arising from a pose but from a corruption of contagion of the air also from an unseasonable impression of the greatest cold and the Lungs are offended in their strengthening or liveliness no otherwise than as is the wandring keeper before the door But the excrement which hath overflown longer than was meet about the utmost parts or ends of the rough artery is hardened and moreover affords a difficult breathing And the Lungs being weary of this guest do shew forth tokens of their wearisomness by spitting out of the vitiated excrement by reaching And if that excrement be not chased away by Coughs or inwardly it ends into a mattery imposthume and consumption But a sitting life hath oft-times brought this evil wherefore I have alwaies perswaded unto exercises which provoke difficulty of Breathing whereby excrements may be expectorated or cast out of the Breast and the over-flowing by force of the air may be hindered surely no otherwise than as havens of the Sea do require waters flowing on their back which do wash off Sand from thence For otherwise the filth subsisting the Lungs cannot choose but sustain a hurting of their liveliness bring forth many and divers spittles according to the disposition of the blemish received Such Coughs have an adhering and strange filth and do successively beget another which afterwards do end into difficulties of Breathing Asthmaes gnawings of the vessels and of the substance of the bowel Many of these defects because they witness a weakness of the vital strength in the bowel are difficultly restored and less in old age But an Asthma sprung from thence hath as many floud-gates of air shut as there are little mouths dedicated to breathing And this is the difference of degrees in a greater and less straightness of Breathing But the filths or spittles which do bewray themselves in these affects are not so much the original causes of the Cough as they bear the relation of a product for new Coughs continually For they grow alwaies anew for them because a hateful guest being within doth not cease to stir up new filths from the last digestion Indeed such is the negligence of this bowel and the command of external things over the wandring keeper But the Remedies which do as well cure the Falling-sickness of the Lungs or dry Asthma as those which cure a moist one ought to be renewers and to arise unto the largness of a general kind Because they are such which ought to contain a restoring of the weakness contracted To wit these are the greater Secrets of Paracelsus of which elsewhere And likewise which do Sympathetically overcome every Disease For Arcanum's do by an every way purifying take away any Diseases but seeing they do not infuse new strength into the vitiated part as neither do take away the evil impression of the implanted spirit surely the lost strength is not after any sort to be restored but by Sympathetical Remedies But that some fruit may be cropped from what hath been said before I will relate one example out of ordinary and domestical ones A certain old man did Snort after a wonderful manner so that he seemed sometimes to sing sometimes also to snort with his weasand that he being oftimes raised upright all night was also compelled to sleep in sitting and he uttered less noyse and fewer Phlegms sitting than laying his Physitians therefore refreshed him with Meat-broaths perfectly boyled with a more strong and plentiful nourishment least he should fail of much Spitting out by reaching or should suffer a Consumption of the Lungs which they said was threatned Yet he felt himself better under fastings and in time of Lent then presently after Easter But his Physitians did accuse sometimes the North-wind but then the Rain but not his much juicie and more strong nourishments But I went occasionally to see the man and when I seriously minded all things in my Power I presently shewed that that generation of Phlegms had its domestical or homebred cause in the Lungs but not that it did slide down from above into the Lungs or that his Lungs did languish with a secondary passion And moreover as the generating of Phlegm was made in the Lungs it self so also the plenty or abundance thereof did not proceed from an increase of a diseasifying cause but rather from the abounding of good and much juycie nourishment So as that evil would most certainly come from whence others divined good
take notice by the way That the Sweat of dying Persons is not so much the Liquor Latex in its own nature as a resolved Alimentary or nourishable Dew over which Death commandeth which is manifest for preseutly the Habit of the body falleth even as also in swooning And that Sweat hath wonderful Virtues of mortifying the Hemeroides or Piles and possesseth Excrescences Furthermore that the Sweat is not carried by Heat in the shew of a Vapour is manifest For seeing a Vapour doth occupy a hundred-fold more Room than Water the body should swell in Sweating a hundred-fold more than otherwise its propert extent is For there is not an empty place under the Skin which may receive a Vapour also a Kettle of Hot water hath no Vapour within it and that which it sends sorth it exhales only from the supersicies Therefore a Vapour doth not roue under the Skin but is driven forth only in the shape of a Liquor Sweat therefore is the Liquor Latex materially shaving off or washing away the filth from the Kitchins of the parts through which it is brought and therefore for the most part strongly smelling and that in Diseased persons more then in Healthy ones And so also in a Crâ—â—s or Judicial sign it oft-times finisheth Diseases as it brings forth with it filths according to its ordinary Scope The Schools have admired the dissections of dead 〈…〉 they have not yet looked into the Anatomy of Sweat by Digestious Smoakinesses Vapours Elections Admixtures Resolvings or Expulsions The scope of the Latex was more intimate For seeing the Eye had need of liquor that its Eyelid might be moved without hurt and the Tongue wanted Spittle to temper the chewed Meats with moisture but it should be absurd for the whole Food to be moistened by the Mass of venal bloud therefore the Latex is brought by the Veins whence the Spittle Tears c. should be made for while in Squinancies and the disgraceful Salivation of Mercury more Spittle than is meet flows forth the Paunch is made dryer then it self Therefore the Latex wanders unhurtfully in the Mass of the venal bloud is brought unto fit places readily hearkening unto the distributive faculty The which indeed if at any time it shall snatch the Salt of the Brain with it as in the pose yet the Latex is not hurtful in its own nature neither must that be blamed for a fault which is unseasonably joyned to it being guiltless through accident Likewise although it being observant doth abound in diseases blows up Oedematous legs that happens by chance for nature by a general endeavour brings forth a hateful Guest to her self and stuffs it with Excrements which she desireth to drive away I find a Sheet in a most cold night to be in the morning bent and congealed by the night blast the fourfold quantity of whose water at least hath also exhaled And the blast of Air in Summer dayes is no less but much more stinking Therefore some ounees of an unsavory liquor are puffed out from the Lungs alone But that water is not the Excrement of the Lungs as neither the matter of venal Bloud resolved wherefore it is setched out of the Latex whether it be sent thither by the distributive power of the Archeus or at length the Lungs do allure the same unto themselves at least wise it is continually supplyed and the ministry which elsewhere the Glandules or Kernels do perform this same service the substance of the Lungs performeth And so it is as it were the scope of the Humour Latex to restrain by its moisture that the Lungs do not chap through the dryness of attracted Air. It is also an abuse to Teach that the Latex is in the beginning of a Pose crude or raw and uncocted and that in the number of dayes it is thickned by heat about the end of the digested Ripeness For it being once expelled it expecteth not to be cocted as neither the coagulation of it self that it may grow together neither could the Humour Latex from the beginning of a Pose ever have expected a thickning of it self in an idle or void Scul Therefore the Ignorance of the Humor Latex hath stirred up many Dreams in healing in Catarrhs and Oedemaes to wit the Legs being over night swollen reteining a small pit of the pressing Finger and vanishing away in the morning is thought to be Phlegm turned into venal bloud by a nights digestion An ignorance therefore of the serviceable Humour Latex hath brought forth the fables of a supposed Rhenmatism But if they had once come to a reckoning with themselves they had seen to wit that over-night both Legs were loaded perhaps with four Pound weight of Oedema or Phlegmatish Tumour But it had been as they say a more crude Phlegmatick bloud seeing the Legs are not known by the Schools to be sinks of Phlegm neither is there therefore a reason why Phlegm should rather fall down into the Legs than any other of the threor emaining Humours or than that Phlegm should fall down into the Belly Thighs Loyns c. Truly a just dispensing of Proportion should daily require perhaps 40 Pounds for the expence of unripe bloud to be consumed throughout the whole Body Basins and Champer-pots are in one only night filled with Spittles and the Bed-cloaths together with the Shirts do drop with moisture the which unless they are fetched from the Latex and not from the Mass of lively venal bloud whatsoever things are believed concerning Meats digestions and making of bloud do fall to the ground together For Arithmetick it self and the Ballance of weight do delude paultry Physicians in their Fictions of Phlegm but what ingenious man will ever believe that Spittle Tears Sweats and besides plenty of Urine is to be fetched from the very inheritance of the bloud without a present dammage of life especially because the same doth remain even for long Terms of time For let us feign a small Supper the Stomach and Pylorus to have well performed their office but a plentiful Salivation in a fierce squinancy and exquisite Inflam tions of the Almonds of the Throat Surely that more thick and continual Muckiness doth not flow down out of the Brain the passage of the Jaws being now obstructed and much less doth it aseend out of the Stomach which is empty and under the stopping up of the Jaws therefore let Spittle be the ordinary workmanship of the Tongue and Jaws the matter whereof is fetched from the Latex the which according to the variety of its Ferment doth change with divers Masks to wit Spittles are watery Snivelly Salt Sharp Bitter and tough like a thred A daily plenty of the Liquor Latex was therefore necessary in the Veins and a ready obedience thereof unto the call of the Archeus For although the Latex be unapt for nourishing yet is it fit or convenient for its uses For meats might be reduced into juyce without drinks which thing Mice and Grass-hoppers teach unless
digestion which thing if it be rightly considered it will now plainly appear that a Cautery is not to be imprinted for the purging out of a malignant humour neither that a bad or evil humour doth exist but only for the diminishing of the abundance of Blood and so from a beholding of an exesse of a good humor only Whence it follows that it is not convenient for Young Folks not for those that are become lean again not for such as are brought low by any disease as neither for those that live orderly and least of all for religious abstashing Persons But they have not yet distinguished whether corrupt pus in an issue be only of the venal Blood or of one of the four feigned humours or indeed of a co-mixture of the four If the first should be true then the Pus should not be from an ill humour but from the best of the four humours and so an Issue shall be made void and the best Pus or the effect of an Issue shall be worst of all feeing it was not but the corruptive of the best of all But if they had rather devise to wit that the Blood is not at first evil but becomes evil while it is seperated from its other fellows At leastwise the three remaining ones shall in that severing be as yet more bad than the bloud and upon every event an Issue shall not be made but for an evil end that it might corrupt the good and guiltless Blood But if they will have the corrupt Pus to be made of the four humours being co-mixt then a Cautery errs in its end seeing a Cautery prevails not to purge out hurtful humours but to corrupt the good ones which are by nature not erring sent daily unto it self for Nourishment In the next place a Cautery shall not be to be reckoned as a preventing of a Catarrh or else the matter of a Catarrhe should not be a vapour nor also Phlegm but venal Blood it self which the Issue in it self corrupteth For corrupt pus is not made of Phlegm but only of venal Blood as hath been sufficiently instructed in the Schools Therefore by the essence of corrupt pus being well searched into in its matter efficient cause the ends of Cauteries the purgings out of Catarrhs and evil humours do cease For indeed any sumptom of wounds being taken away in Cauteries and a supposed health it must needs be that a loosing or seuering of that which held together doth produce snotty matter in the Issue and that that doth not flow from elsewhere but that it is generated in the part it self Also the Archeus daily dispenseth so much of the venal Blood to the parts proportionally as they have need of for their own nourishment Therefore the Pus or corrupt matter is venal Blood vitiated in that part wherein the Wound is and an effect of digestion vitiated in the same place Therefore to have vitiated the entireness continuation or holding together and digestion of the parts next to have converted the venal Blood into corrupt Snotty matter is reputed the very same thing in the Schools as to have gone to prevent Catarrhs or Rheums or thorow the hole of a Cautery to have extracted from the Head from whence they originally fetch all Rheums an excrementous humor which otherwise had threatned to fall down on a noble part whether in the mean time there be an agreement between the Head and the Wounded part or not for it is all one so the Skin be deteined Wounded whether that excrementous humour be Blood or be made snotty pus or liquid Sanies is all one so by the thred-bare words of Catarrhe prevention derivation revulsion and an Issue the world be circumvented For I behold a small Infant of a Year old now breeding Teeth and to suffer a Fever froath of the Mouth and Spittle without ceasing And aâ—â—ength that there are wringings of the Bowels and Stools of Yellow-Green-coloured excrements At least that Tooth is a part of the Head wherefore the Flux shall be a Rheum of the Head But what consent is there of a Tooth about to break forth or a swollen Gum with a Bowel Or what power thereof is there of begetting or sending away that Catarrhe out of the Stomack of a little Infant unto his Head And from thence into the Ileos By what right shall a vapour dropped or stilled out of the Stomack be made Cankered Choler in the Head Hath perhaps the shop of Choler now wandred from the beginning of Life unto the Head Could a Cautery if an Infant were for undergoing it suck unto it a leeky Flux into it self And by a few small drops of corrupt matter recompence or Ballance the leeky Choler of some pounds Why doth the Stomack of a small Infant frame a Catarrhe by reason of the pain of his Tooth Why is it sent into a Bowell and not unto the paining Tooth Doth not the reader yet see that a Flux is not a Rheum But that the Archeus wheresoever yee will have it being enraged is ready in the Bowels to transchange the nourishable juyce into excrements which by the Schools are reckoned Choler Phlegme c. If therefore the Flux be not a Rheume and the Archeus being wroth can transchange any thing into a troublesom Liquor if the Gum be but afflicted shall not he be able on every side to unload himself by the appointed emunctories And not to wait for the Skin to be opened by a Caustick Alass hath cruel dullness caused the Schools to be cruel towards their mortal kinsfolks For neither do they consider that in Women and those that are somewhat fat or gross there is in the fleshly membrane about the ordinary places of a Cautery a meer grease to the thickness of two fingers at least for which persons notwithstanding the more frequent Cauteries and those the more profitable ones are perswaded wherefore also the bottom of the Issue shall scarce be in the middle of the grease therefore there is not a passage whereby the evil banished feigned humour of a Rheume may rush down out of the Brain or between the Scull and Skin thorow the middle of the fat But what is that solitary humour in the next place which for its offence being banished from the sending part descending thorow the Substance of the grease unmixed doth degenerate into corrupt Pus If it be an exhalation of vapours out of the Stomack why shall it not be more frequent to younger and hot Stomacks than to weak old and cold ones In what sort shall that water that droppeth out of a vapour put on the form of Snotty matter How shall it hasten thorow the Brain Coats and Scull to find a hole made by a Cautery that it may flow down thither only and be purged Why doth not the vapour fly first an hundred times into the Air before it reach to the place appointed it by the alluring Cautery How shall the Water which climbeth
these Three Things and that nothing besides remained For in so great Novelty he being unconstant knew not unto what side he might throw himself For now and then he denieth the Elements to be Bodies but he calls them void and empty Wombs Places and Seates of Bodies But that all Bodies are nothing but the Three first Things but not Elements But elsewhere he having followed the flock of his Predecessors teacheth That the Elements do remain in all particular Bodies are therein to be found and that they are thence drawn out safe So that their Essences and Bodies do remain in the mixt Body being onely heaped together by mixture Certainly aswel in the Three first Things as in a Fifth Essence it is at this day no lesse emptily subscribed to Paracelsus than it hitherto hath been to the Fables of the Elements Mixtures and Complexions For they began in the late Age by plausible novelties to have belief and Names given to the Invention of Paracelsus without a diligent search Although I have seen read or heard of none hitherto who hath been able and much lesse hath boldly attempted equally to separate the Three first Things out of Bodies Wherefore I state this Proposition The first Three Things are a late Invention contrary to the truth of Nature and of a Thing The first Position Although that the Three first Things are in part drawn out of some Bodies by the Fire yet that is not done by a Separation of the same fore-existing but as by a Trans-mutation made by the Fire they are there generated as it were new Beings and there is made that which there was not before The Second A branch of a Tree of one pound growing as yet green will scarce yield a Drachm of Oyle which about October or the Eighth Moneth waxing wooddie will yeeld about seven Drachms of Oyle And at length in the Twelfth Moneth called February after will give almost two Ounces of Oyle and fivefold more of Coal and Ashes than before in the Sixth Moneth called August The Third That those Things which were not in as constitutive from the beginning cannot be the first Things but they themselves are made and exchanged into each other as later Things to be made to a likenesse and which are to arise from the directions of Seeds The Fourth Elementary Water is made Oyle in Vegetables Animals and Sulphurs Likewise all Oyle with its adiunct is easily reduced into Water But the first Principles of other things cannot be exchanged into each other or cease to be that which they were before The Fifth Some Bodies do not contain the Three Things but are content onely with one alone or with two The Sixth There are some Bodies from whence the Three Things were never separated by skilful workmanships hitherto used the which do alwayes by a suitable weight weigh equal with the body from whence they are drawn The Seventh Some Bodies are altogether Unchangeable and Inseparable and not containing a Duality or twofoldnesse It is profitable for me a little more exactly to explain these things for the sake of young beginners who do easily subscribe to other mens devises For First of all Woods contain Water and Oyle not a Coal which was not in them but is produced by Art neither was it in them except â—aterialy potentially remotely neither could it ever be made from thence but by the 〈…〉 In the next place a Coal unlesse it burn with a manifest fire it is never in the least changed so far is it that it should be turned into Ashes or Salt In a Coal indeed some fatnesse burns the which is immediately and materially reduced into a Gas never to be seen This Gas doth at length pass over into Water but as long as it is a Gas and is separated from its concrete Body or Coal it is not Sulphur for it is wasted away and trans-changed by burning not Salt or Mercury for those should not return into an uncoagulable Gas but should return into Mercury and Salt if they were the first and constant beginnings of things therefore some other thing out of or besides those three But besides neither is the whole Ashes which remaineth of the Coale a Salt because the Lixivial or Lyee Salt being taken away that which remaines cannot be calcined by any fire as neither be turned into Salt Sulphur and Mercury But if it be by additions turned into Salt it is a sign that it is made but that it is not a Salt and so that a Principle should be born Therefore Salt in the Ashes ariseth not by extraction or separation the other two being wasted away by the fire but by a trans-changing into a new Being which was not before For whatsoever is framed of that thing is not in that thing For so blood and bones of divers general kindes and species were in the bread For neither doth Marble contain Glasse although of Marble with an adjunct Glasse be made For it is one thing to dispute of those Three Things as the total matter of things and those actually constituting a thing and far another thing that the Tree is in the Seed or a Fish-bone or Grisle in the Bread For a Hide or Wood are not a stone although they are in some springs stonified For in things trans-changed the end differs from it self in the beginning of motion at least in the particular kind I have elsewhere also demonstrated that a fixed Alcali or Lixivial Salt hath not fore existed in Vegetables but that it is fixed in burning Wherefore the doctrine of the first Things doth not satisfie because it doth not onely compel Nature under violent Rules but that if they are the first Things and do obtain the desert of making to begin they ought to be stable which thing was not hid even from Aristotle neither can one be changed into another For if Wood doth consist of Salt Oyle Water and Ashes if Salt be prepared not of Ashes by the Salt it self of the Ashes Also if every distilled Oyle be to be changed into a Salt as also into Water by things adjoyned and there be so great unconstancy of those Three Things and they might therefore also be made by the fire in the separation and destruction of the composed Body We must needs in Bodies establish one first and last material real beginning which is the Water but not the three things because they are those which are the off-springs of the feeds of Bodies composed of water And then there is another motive and effective Principle which is an Essential seed or the very Archeal Essence of the seed differing from the form of a thing because this hath not a rational respect of making to begin because it is that which it self is generated by generating as the scope of generation which is by degrees brought through by passable dispositions unto the perfection of a Being together with the end of generation These are the two Principles as also the Causes of all
that Nature cannot pierce unto a dividing where there is no knot or diversity of kind I admit indeed that Mercury through a composition of transmutation 〈◊〉 a marrying of the Sulphurs of Mettals becomes a Mettal and that this is destroyaâ—â—e by reason of the doubleness of its Sulphur notwithstanding the Mercury of that Mettal remains undestroyable Hence Paracelsus in the aforesaid Vexation Although thou shalt destroy a Mettal ten thousand times yet it shall alwayes rise again the far more perfect by its destructions And in his Archidoxals in the Book of the separation of Elements in the Chap. of Mettals Every one of the Elements in the shew of the Oyle of a mettallick destruction may be again reduced into its former white and malleable Mettal except the Element of fire which containeth the Tincture or Sulphur Therefore although the Mercurial part in Mettals and so also in the Body of Mercury it self doth by reason of adjuncts receive the masks of Vitriol Oyle Salt or Water they are nothing but the jugglings of the eyes Because it alwayes returns Mercury from thence because it is alwayes therein according to its Nature and all its Properties Therefore I hold with the Principles of the more abstruse or hidden Philosophy if Mercury should be divideable into Heterogeneal parts the Art of Chymistry should not be true and the Mercury it self should be unfit for work or operation For unless I had seen Mercury so subsisting I should deny the Art to be true For Nature cannot destroy the Seed which cannot dye nor be separated from its own matter Neither can it dye through the sublunary engines of this World Likewise it is more easie to frame or make Gold than to destroy it So also it is easier for Nature to compose Mercury than to destroy it As many therefore as do promise the separations of Gold or Mercury and yet do not know how to make or compose Gold in a wealthy quantity seeing they know not that which is far more easie let them believe also that they do not know that which is as yet far more difficult Therefore Bacon inquiring into the first matter of the Art and running thorow all the Bodies of the World denies Gold and Silver to be the matter of the Art because the reducement of the same into Sulphur and Argent vive is plainly impossible from whence the Son of the fire so much in love of the Philosophers is made Lastly unto the third I say That those things which are not subject unto death separation or change are at least wise subject or lyable to a term or end I grant that to be true if we understand it of the dissolution of the World and the fire of Hell in the finishing of the World of which I have nothing to say Otherwise the aforesaid affirmation contains an idiotism For a term or bound doth naturally operate nothing but the operation is finished by the agent in the very term or bound unto which But such an agent faileth about undissolveable things In the next place neither time nor duration doth operate any thing by it self but only the middle dispositions of moveable things happening in time do operate Therefore whatsoever doth not hearken to the dispositions of changeable things much less doth it hearken unto time or term of continuance which term is included in changeable things only but not in things unchangeable If now metallick Mercury the most noble I say of Bodies of the most constant union doth wholly want all Sulphur it is lawful to consider this Law of the three first things to have failed like a broken chain Therefore that other Bodies are not the three first things but altogether one only material beginning readily serving for the divers appointments ends scopes and necessities of Seeds and playing various supposionalities or supposed parts Those three things therefore are not the first things where they are found but are made by the dissolving of the fire and their matter is not espoused according to a principiating of Salt Sulphur and Mercury but according to the ends of Seeds Neither indeed are they beginnings but subordinate means to the last life In the next place I know that out of sand flints and stones that are not limy Sulphur or Mercury can never be drawn For their Seeds were content with a stonyfying coagulation of water without an appointment of fatnesses or Mercuries But stones which may be calcined do attain the nature of salt and tartness of lime But that very thing is a transchanging into a new Generation promoted by the fire but not an extraction drawing forth or separation of the thing contained Which thing the Chymical School before me hath been ignorant of The which I prove Because I have known how to reduce a great or rocky stone and all stones into a meer salt of equal weight with its own great or small stone wholly without all Sulphur or Mercury and so whatsoever is lost in burning of a rocky stone let it be rather that of salt than of three things But because that unity of the composed body doth respect a way unto its first reducement into the Element of water neither is the operation obvious to every one therefore we have been wont by a general way of speaking among Chymists to speak of things under the name of the three things to wit of Salt Sulphur and Mercury Not indeed that I think those to be the principles of things but because they are separated by the fire out of most things we use their Etymology to distinguish the diversity of kinds of composed Bodies The same thing happens to a stone which befals a coal for unless both are burnt in an open fire they are never changed into lime or ashes And although a coal doth by a fan or stirrer up yeeld a flame and thus far whatsoever perisheth of a coal is of Sulphur yet seeing nothing is enflamed or enlightened in a stone let it belong rather to Salt than to Sulphur Therefore while a small stone gemme great stone or sand are artificially reduced into a Salt that Salt by reason of the every way Homogeniety of it self which is left it by the fire cannot send forth or contain a Sulphur or be drawn into divers parts In the next place if glass be made by the fire of ashes and sand there is not an extraction of glass out of ashes but a fabrick and new generation of artificial skill For all Bodies seeing they derive their matter immediately from the Element of water being espoused by vertue of the Seeds truly let the Sulphur be the act of the Seed but the salt is bred in the composed body from a voluntary inclination of the Water yet being changed by the disposition of the Seminal Sulphur Those two beings therefore do immediately proceed from the two Principles of Bodies but the Mercury of things is nothing but meer Water not as yet sufficiently ripened by the disposition of the Seed
and inclination of the material beginning And that is thus ordained by the profession or study of Nature that by reason of the watrie Principle being as yet not fully changed a growth out of its element and a co-placing with its mother may by an agreeing resemblance be the more fitly granted Therefore I do not admit of the Three first Things to be the constitutives of Bodies as niether universal things Which thing indeed is proper to my austereness who am not wont to frame universal Maxims from any particular thing But let him do that that will I had rather be distinct that I may the more distinctly understand For I have found for the most part that those Three Things do not proceed from Bodies out of which they are thought to be drawn unless a third trans-mutative thing being adjoyned or by composition which is rather to be attributed to the happening or supervening seed and to the trans-mutation thereby bred but not unto the first things existing within as the necessary immediate and universal Principles of Nature out of which and into which Bodies may be again resolved For they cannot give us sure credit that they are in a Body before their separation even as they are pressed out by the fire and much lesse that they fore-existed before a Body whose parts they seem to have been It is also manifest that many things are changed by Distilling neither that they are so and as much in their composed diversity of kind even as while they are made by the Fire Which thing is manifestly the one onely Example of Tartar For truly in destilling sixteen ounces of the best Tartar scarce one onely ounce of Water is drawn forth but of Salt at the most two ounces and a half the rest is wholly Oyle that is of sixteen there are almost thirteen oylie parts Yet Tartar is not crude neither doth it act as an oylie Being neither doth it burn as the bark of the Birch-tree but hath the nature of a sharp Salt wherefore by distillation the nature of a sharp Salt is changed into Oyle And then again if the Salt of Tartar be of its own accord made a Lixivium and Oyl be joyned to it indeed a Wash-ball will be thereby made which being distilled shall be accounted for the most part Water and shall cease to be the former Oyle and shall be changed into another thing For what is more clear than this handy-craft operation whereby it plainly appears that the Fire is the maker of the first Things and so that they neither are in themselves the first Things neither that they do fore-exist such is the composed Body as they are separated from thence by the Fire For truly there is not a naked separation of unlike things but a transchanging of the concrete Body by the Fire according to the activity which the Heterogeneal parts do finish among themselves But surely if those Three Things should be in all particular Bodies so that no Body could be void of them yea if all of those Three should keep their ancient disposition the Salt I say should never be made Mercury neither this likewise be made Sulphur c. Then indeed Paracelsus had apparently thought that every Body is originally composed of Salt Sulphur and Mercury But seeing there is an undoubted successive change of things through things and the least parts of Things even as also through the passages of a threefold Life those successive changes cannot denote a same linesse of the three nor of constant things whose very race it self is altogether unconstant and the perseverance thereof unstable For forthwith after Paracelsus every one almost hath subscribed to his Invention and none durst to pierce into the condition of those three things they were astonished at the sight of Heterogeneal things which are often extracted by the fire whence they being as it were fed with Lotus or a feigned Tree they suffered themselves to be misled whither Paracelsus called them But let Paracelsus learn that while Venal blood is made of Food there doth happen indeed a separation of the pure from the impure but none of the three things For as oft as a Being passeth through the last Life into a new Life the lump indeed is changed into a juyce with a dividing of the Heterogeneal parts by an extinguishment of the form and properties of the middle Life yet not into or unto the three first things but there is a proceeding unto a radical destruction with an ultimate or utmost annihilating of the former Life under which at length they draw a new Seed for a new generation For that is the way of the recourse or going back of the Night of Hippocrates unto the Day of Orpheus At leastwise it is perpetually true that those three things are never separated without the Fire and so before the art of the Fire flourished abroad those things were unknown to the Ancients And seeing that Fire and a degree thereof is wanting which is the Separator in us and whatsoever through a degree of our heat is blown away out of us doth tend unto a Dead Head or Caput Mortuum unless it be prevented by a Blas and Ferment even as I have taught above concerning the Blas of man surely the original of Diseases cannot any way be imputed unto any one or more of those Three Things I deny in the next place that Salt Sulphur and Mercury are the universal Principles of Bodies Because they neither existed before the composition of Bodies nor flowed together to the making of a mixture neither lastly by a natural resolving of Bodies into the Term of their last Life have they ever appeared in Nature but onely are brought by the Art of the fire and that onely out of some Bodies as the Seeds of things are cloathed with a material Principle of Water and are strengthened by the efficacy of their own Efficient they assume the properties partly of Salt and partly of Oyle but the Mercury of Bodies is nothing but a part of the Water being not yet great with Child by a sufficient ripeness of the Efficient Seed Therefore they do no where exist by themselves do no where obtain the Virtues of principiating Because they have not their own Natures Conditions Properties from an interchangable course whereby they might fore-exist but partly from a disposition of the Seeds flowing down into the properties of the concrete Body and partly from the digestion of the Fire and burning obtained in time of their separation For truly it is manifest that they are made reciprocally of each other by a mutual transmutation They are therefore the Last things but not the First however they may be taken For all Vegetables as long as they are not wooddy do contain a spirit of Wine as a spirit of Wine is drawn out of them they being opened by their Ferment But out of the same matter now made Wood an Aqua Vitae or Water of Life is no longer extracted
the giddiness of the head Doatages Asthmaes bastard Pleurisies the Convulsion Cramp the Disease of the standing of the Yard the Tympany furies of the Wombe yea and of the falling Sickness with some other affects divided in their particular kind do without controversie owe their beginnings unto windy blasts and vapours wherefore also they by an equal right enlarging the Catalogue brought down their searches unto the Book of Hippocrates Peri Phusiâ—n or concerning natural things That old man hath so altogether consecrated all Diseases to flatus's or windy blasts that he hath promiscuously confounded winds with the principles of life Therefore the more fruitful wits of the Schools began to search not so much into the nature and properties of windinesses as the suppositions of windy blasts being granted and yeelded to further to superstruct and build the nature and causes of almost all Diseases and to dedicate them to windy blasts vapours and exhalations climbing from beneath upwards or being thrust head-long downwards But when as they were not able wholly to deliver themselves out of straits nor that the edifice of so great a moment could stand firm because it was supported by no foundation of a more solide enquiry it was as it were the thred of an enterprise broken asunder by too much twisting Truly Hippocrates constrained a flatus into a predicament whether they should be partakers of life or death or at length of destruction and should contain the causes thereof or should be stirred up from Heaven by the Blas of the Stars and so should promise causal necessities of the heavenly circle or at length they should obey a sublunary or voluntary Law to wit he left it wholly undecided And so he left a broken method And that stood because there was not yet so great a necessity experience frequency and stubbornness of Diseases For it was not as yet known that the vital spirit had conceived the light of life which was that of the sensitive soul and that they were the immediate seats of the forms of soulified Creatures and so that they did contain the crasis or temperature of the whole Essence For none then had learned that the matter of that Gas the Water and so none had as yet dreamed that the vital spirit did differ from the wind of the World in the whole Element For truly the Schools had easily fallen down into this ditch of windy blasts and had stubbornly there remained but that they acknowledged the succours of purging Medicines and blood-letting in winds to be vain and foresaw that they should be in vain without the aid of both those succours Galen indeed had seen that Oyles and fatnesses did by degrees exhale through fire therefore he thought that winds also are awakened in us through a melted fatness or the inordinacy of the digestions because he was he who was not able to distinguish the Air or wind from an exhalation from a vapour and from a windy blast The Galenical School I say hath not hitherto known the difference between a windy Gas which is meerly Air that is a wind moved up and down by the Blas of the Stars a fat Gas a dry Gas which is called a sublimed one a fuliginous or smoaky or endemical Gas and a wild Gas or an unrestrainable one which cannot be compelled into a visible Body Wherefore the obscurity of the darkness of natural things hath remained unexcusable among those that are ignorant of the Art of the Fire The which doth instruct us in what degree watry Bodies or in what degree and order every fatness may flie away in the next place by what separation or by what Ferment Bodies may depart from each other may putrifie what all particular Bodies may carry with them by resolving in the next place by what means the Crases of Seeds and properties of a composed Body may shew themselves Lastly by what endeavour all of whatsoever is in us may be disposed into transpiration without a separation of parts They had heard indeed winds in the belly and then unhurtful rumblings and painful wringings they took notice of to be in the stomack and Colon but in Winter a plurality of winds wherefore they dreamed of an icy Phlegme in the bowels and hot Remedies to be applyed to cold Diseases Wherein the Schools do at first infold or ensnare themselves while they deliver the original of vapours and windinesses and do intend to cure and put these to flight by contrary Remedies as they call them For they contradict themselves in their principles or beginnings mean and manner For if windinesses in us are vapours or exhalations in us Surely there will follow upon the administring of hot Remedies against winds a greater exciting of pains and flatus's and stretching out of parts because vapours must needs be increased and torments be multiplyed as well by reason of stretchings out as the sharpness of the winds And that thing the Art of distilling doth prove throughout the whole Paracelsus although a Potentate of the Art of the Fire was not free from the storm of winds Because he was he which was ignorant of the nature of winds and of the Air that the matter of vapours of flatus's is a watry Gas that their efficient causes manners means as also matter is water got with child by a Seed Because he was he who plainly despised the authorities of Philosophy and endeavoured to bind nature under his own idiotism he was also forsaken God so permitting it by the light of nature who maketh such endeavours every where void Also no man ever attaineth unto Wisdom who hath thought to have come thereunto by himself For Paracelsus doth every where constantly perswade that we ought to feel the Diseases and defects of all things because we are hitherto every way an extract of the whole universe That we ought to express the universe as it were the Parent of a Son For so he will have us to contain winds and their varieties our wringings of the bowels also to answer unto the tempests of the Air. But I will not depart even a nails breadth from the famous Image of God that we do resemble the Macrocosme or great World rather than God in his Image For I believe that I am not a man that I might undergo Diseases and so resemble Pirke Olam or Holam Hapiroud but rather I know that I do undergo Diseases that I might shew a depraved and mortal nature but that I am a man for no other end than that according to the good pleasure of God I may represent his lively Image That man therefore divides the wringings of the bowels into four parts according unto the four accustomed hinges of the winds Whereof the Northern one he first of all placeth in the loyns whose wind in its colick should blow against the Navil But in the Navil he placeth the Southern one which in its colick should blow Diametrically on the back So also he hath disposed the Eastern one in the
when I was a Youth dying within a week of a Volvulus or an Iliack passion offered eighty thousand Flandrian pounds to him that should cure him having sent his Coach-men or swift Riders every way The Physitians of Antwerp then by the decree of the Schools with a lofty look accused the bowel to be rouled inwards and to be inwrithed as it were with a Gordian knot their remote ignorances providing a Remedy by way of excuse but not for the sick man But Anatomy discovered their Deceit and gross ignorance For hard dung was found in the slender gut to have stuck sixteen fingers above the blind gut and much loose ballast to have swumme through the Ileon from above For it is a rare thing for dungs to harden in the slender gut Wherefore I afterwards suffered none to perish of the Disease ill called Volvulus To wit I gave some leadden Musquet bullets to drink that by their weight alone they might drive forward that hard excrement For by how much the more and bigger bullets are drawn down by so much the safer and swifter cure follows so the sick party doth stand walk or beeled with the bottom of his belly as it were raised upright Now moreover I will declare a history of flatus's although a sordid one Indeed all windiness is in the stomack and bowels Even as winds are only in the Air but not beneath the water and earth Indeed the nativity of a windy blast doth fore-require a certain stomatical sharpness and yet not an ordinary fermental one Which thing because it is not elsewhere found than in the aforesaid places a flatus also is no where else generated Even as shall hereafter be manifested In the next place every flatus is raised up either from meats not yet digested or from the cream or from the dung of meats or from the seedy nourishment of the bowels degenerating There is therefore a four-fold internal flatus in us a fifth is external that of a Tympany which is enclosed without the intestine One is natural and requisite or ordinary But a seventh is poysonsom in the habit of the Body But none of them is a vapour or watery exhalation because that is that which of its own accord and from its proper consistence doth presently and easily return into water In the next place no flatus is air or wind seeing the wind or air is not of the composition of concrete Bodies even as I have longly and largely proved Therefore it remaineth that every flatus in us is a wild Gas stirred up among the digestions from meats drinks and excrements One therefore is in the stomack and is called belching and it is unsavory sower brackish burntish stinking or specifical I call that of unconcocted meat a specifical flatus for so Garlick Radish and the like do afford their own savours in belching But an unsavory and sower flatus is a belching of the cream indeed digested but stirred up through an impotency or weaknesse of the stomack But a brackish flatus such as is in inordinate appetite and a burntish one are made of meats well nigh degenerated into a dungy disposition There is therefore also another flatus stirred up in the slender bowels through the vice of the ferment of the Gaul and it is either unsavory sharp sower bitter dungy cadaverous or stinking according to the variety of the matter and the power of the gauly ferment This flatus is called a Fart neither doth it ever ascend through the Pylorus into the stomack The which if it be stincking or burntish doth denote the ferment of the dung to be fore-ripe and lifted up into a strange harvest There are moreover two other flatus's in us One is plainly heteroclite or of a differing kind being detained and bred as well in the bowels as in the whole habit of the Body For from a poysonous and dungy forreign ferment a certain windy blast ariseth in the last digestion of the similar parts To wit while a poyson being taken dead carcases become swollen and are blown up for a sower or sharp corruption entereth into fleshes after a heteroclital or degenerate manner and the solide part dies and indeed the implanted vital spirit is extinguished and the part is affected with the poyson of the Venome whence is a dungie deadly Flatus abominable to our nature And so the immediate or spermatick nourishment of the solid parts is changed into a wild Gas and the whole body swelleth or a part is peculiarly affected There is also another unsavoury Flatus in the Ileon to wit natural and a certain profitable product indeed therefore ordinary and natural And seeing it is made in most and those oppressed with much hunger I conclude with my self that that unsavoury Flatus was bred of the very immediate nourishment of that bowel it self being well disposed For otherwise it should be impossible in Caeliack passions and other dissolvings of the belly that so suddain and swift expulsions of excrements should be made if the Ileon being shut in its emptiness and falling down with the continuation of a natural Flatus should not after some sort gape perpetually That thing I say the Schooles have never diligently searched into Whereunto I will also add greater perplexities to wit unless the Ileon do alwaies naturally and moderately swell with wind For otherwise in the first place the endeavours of some fibers in the bowels seemed to be in vain if the Ileon doth not meanly swell with a continual Flatus For a boy who suffered a monstrous burstnesse in his Navil for his Navil was wholly clear or shining as it were with a thin upper skin to the largeness of half the palm of ones hand for this plainly monstrous child as oft as he underwent the gripes or wringings did afford us the storm of the Ileon to be beheld So that that bowel as if it had boyled up when he walked up and down did seem to be twisted and pulled together And that especially as oft as new torments or gripes did molest him Which things seeing thty were in such a manner in time of paines I would also contemplate of what sort the family administration of the bowels might be in time of health And then I observed that there was plainly another successive motion whereby the bowels did exercise themselves For as oft as any thing was sent through the Body from above unto the fundament for it was in the consistence of a more liquid syrupe and obscurely yellow the bowel contracted it self with its own athwart or transverse Fibers as though it were wholly closed that way and did drive down the excrement beneath it self For this was made by a successive contracture of the transverse fibers no otherwise than as a fidler opens finger after finger and looseth the former Even so that it did indeed drive forward the Excrement together with the Flatus but this did forthwith return unto its antient place Surely a thing worthy of great admiration
so as it doth if it boyle in Water Yet in an equal degree of the fire its laxative part would in like manner fly away Therefore others think that the crudity in Asarum is the effector of its loosening but these do neglect pot-herbs which are more crude than Asarum But that Hellebore is not to be ripened by boyling if Vomiting be to arise from crudity They boyl Scammony in soure things that they may mittigate it but the common sort of Physitians have already known that Scammony is thus gelded so as that if it be exposed unto the sharp vapor of Sulphur it is plainly deprived of its virtue and so much of the Scammony doth depart as it shall draw of the sharpness But I being willing from a fatherly affection to correct the furious force of Medicines do understand that the ancient faculties or virtues of things ought to remain and to be turned inward in their root or to be transchanged under their own simplicity into other endowments or qualities privily lurking in the same place under the Poyson their keeper or to be bred a new by reason of an added perfection After which manner Coloquintida turns its laxative and destructive quality inwards and a resolving faculty springs up from the bottom being a greater or singular curer of Cronical or long continuing Diseases For Paracelsus laudably attempted that thing in his tincture of the Lile of Antimony yet was he silent or knew not that the same thing was to be done in all Poysons of living Creatures and Vegetables whatsoever by their own circulated Salt For truly all the Poyson of those perisheth if they shall return into their first Beings This Hinge not the Schooles but Physitians chosen of God whom the Almighty hath chosen from their Mothers Womb in time to come shall know and he shall make a difference of the Sheep from the Goats Simples therefore of great powers or virtues are not to be gelded nor mortified but to be bettered by Art by reason of the extracting of hidden faculties or by a suspension or setting aside of the poysonsomeness or by a substituting of one endowment in the roome of another by commanding specifical adjuncts These things are for those to whom it hath not been granted to taste the power of the greater circulated Salt For some things do by adjuncts wax milde their cruelty being laid aside do become neutral to wit through virtues being partakingly assumed on both sides Neither therefore may we borrow these adjuncts from the received Dispensatories of the Shops which do not teach a bettering or even corrections but a destruction of things or surely they afford nothing but correctingmockeries For Example Marquess Charles Spinelli late General of the Genoans when as he had walked late on foot about the City having thorowly viewed all the Walls commanded the Physitians to be called and said unto them that he had sometimes laboured with the Falling-sickness and was cured by me and that now and then he as yet felt a giddiness in his Head since he had come out of Aquitane into Liguria or Genoa by crossing the Sea A circle of Physitians next morning gives him a scruple of white Hellebore to drink and for a correction thereof added as much of Annise-seed presently after half an hour he Vomiteth and afterwards he invokes the aid of me being absent and accuseth his Murderers saying Helmonti mio voi me lo dicesti gli Medici t'ucciderano Oh my friend Helmont thou toldst me this that these Physitians will kill thee He was silent and after two hours his Stomack being first contracted and then having a convulsion throughout his whole body he dies the Physitians seek excuses and the Earth covered their fault For so the Confections of the Schooles throughout their Dispensatories do carry many foolish correctives into the fardle with them Opiates have not things especially adjoyned unto them but laxatives for the most part Ginger Mace Annise and whatsoever things might cure wringings of the bowels from a later effect of loosening Medicines Fie with how unpunished a liberty doth ignorance rage on mortals How little do they understand their own Hippocrates If those things are taken away which is meet that is which hurt and burden the sick feels himself better and doth easily bear it For seeing those things which hurt within do now and then scarce weigh a dram every purge which is directed for health ought to be an evacuation either unperceivable or at leastwise exceeding moderate and that with a restoring of the strength or faculties For this is that which the sick do easily bear with profit or help The Correctories therefore of Medicines are unprofitable patcheries and a weight described by the Schooles without the knowledge of things and so destructive at least to the Medicines if not together also to the sick This part of Medicine requires a diligent and expert Secretary of Nature Because in that part the most ample riches of Medicines and guilded houshold-stuffe of Glaura is found The Schooles had in times past learned of our Philosophers that most excellent virtues do inhabite in Simples over which destructive poysons were appointed chief Keepers thereupon their rashnesse succeded which co-mingled express Poysons and manifest Corrosives with Antidotes hoping that by the goodness and quantity of adjuncts the malignity of the Poyson was to be overcome as if it were convenient for health for a pestilentious Glove to be brought unto guests into a chamber filled with healthy aire For I do not here accuse the Viper in Triacle without which to wit this hotch-potch of Simples is as it were dead For the flesh of Vipers is in it self unhurtful and without Poyson yea an Antidote against Poyson But little balls prepared thereof in the boyling do leave all their state in the Pottage which the raw flesh did keep I complain in this place of Arsenical things which are Magistrally as they call it put into an Antidote For the Schooles by reason of the rashness of boldness or self-confidence presume to deserve credit and to have placed the glory of Studies in the Authority of their possession Neither is it alwayes that even the most excellent virtues do abide or dwell about destructive Poysons in the same subject so as that these are covered over by Poysons For Arsenick and Orpiment c. How much soever they may be fixed and dulcified or made sweet yet they are never to be taken inwardly however others shall otherwise perswade They onely prevaile without and do kill and tame other Poysons of Ulcers if they themselves have been first subdued The corrections therefore of Medicines are without the knowledge of properties parts and agreements For what doth a spice Ballance in respect of a Poyson If the whole body of man being strong and full of life doth presently faint or fall down at the stroke of the tooth of a Viper Shall Wolfes-bane wax mild through the admixing of the clove Shall Coloquintida cease to
thirst remaining safe For that thirst doth proceed as a forraign excrement doth cause the nourishable juice of the stomack to melt For truly while I describe my feelings or perceivances I am not so much besides my self as that I shall deny the excess of an external heat to burn and cause a wound or ulcer or that cold excelling doth mortifie as if it did burn But in the Dream proposed I onely perceived them as they are serviceable to the speculation of healing Therefore the examples of excessive heat and cold are like a sword but not to be referred among the occasional and internal causes of diseases to be considered by a Physitian If indeed according to the speculations of Medicine health is expected by the removal of those wherefore the speculation of external and antecedent Causes is not curative but onely now and then significative and directive For a wound being once inflicted although the sword be taken away the wound is not healed neither is the fire to be taken from the hearth although it hath at sometime burnt or scorched some-body in the same place For truly the causes of Diseases are inward as they are connexed occasions therefore the consideration and removal of those is truly medicinal But the Schools when they saw the fire to burn its objects likewise also cold to mortifie and destroy and so the body of man by those external qualities excelling to be diversly disturbed they for that cause thought that Effects which should have heat adjoyned unto them were raised up by fire and in this respect that in Feavers two Elements did strive in us whereof the Water should alwaies obtain the former part of the victory but the Fire the latter part thereof to wit that the Fire did cause Erisipelas's the Prune or burning coal the accute or Persian fire the burning Feaver c. That it did likewise harden by drying or exsiccation of Schirrus's Stones Bones and Knots They have also decreed Remedies beseeming such rules by contrarieties not knowing after what sort the spirit of life may stir up heats and colds without fire or icy cold because neither from the Elements of our body or from feigned humours But they have on both sides neglected the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or violent assailant of Hippocrates Even as I have sometime by one example of a thorn thrust into the finger demonstrated wherein the Heat Pain Inflamation Feaver do not efficiently proceed from the fire of the thorn but because the sensitive Spirit doth grievously bear the forreign thorn So indeed heat and cold are accidents impertinent to the nature of a Feaver even as in the Liver are felt its heats because in the same place there are its thorns and the heat is not the cause but the effect of the thorn And therefore the alterations which do happen in the vital Family-admistration and do cease in dead carcases do not depend on the fire or icyness of the body or humours but on the Beginnings of life Yea if the Schools had touched at the matter as it is they had found that natural artificial Baths c. do not dry and burn us up but rather moisten us unless their heats are inordinate and of daily continuance yea neither then indeed otherwise than because more is consumed than is received doth the body accidentally wither At length I presently after the first qualities perceived the theevish adulteries of Merchants wherewith they load defile estrange and substitutively dissemble foreign Medicines or Drugs who have no need of my Doctrine because they are such as are not moved with the fear of Hell I presently after perceived two distinct Savours at least of things if not sometimes three or four one to wit whereby things are sharp bitter salt c. but the other which is called specifical being appropriated to the seed The first therefore I perceived to be the dignities and offices of Salts not indeed of Salts separated from the three first things or as they say drawn from corporeal Beginnings but of Salts glistening in their composed body But the other of the savours I perceived to be the seminal nature of Odours performing or at least unfolding the office of Forms in concrete bodies for Salts as being most sensible do first offer themselves to the taste whereunto therefore Hippocrates hath attributed the knowledges of diseases to wit bitter salt sharp and brackish pointing forth diseases But heats and colds he rather understood to be subsequent affects or passions than diseases But I do ascribe their judgement to the taste by reason of the aforesaid tastable qualities wherein for the most part a more profound power or faculty sits and containing the seminal and efficient cause But not that therefore the judgement concerning diseases doth belong to the tongue and the pallate but I name it the taste by reason of the tastable qualities Otherwise it is the feeling wherewithal the Instruments are strongly endowed whose sensitive force by an approximation of touching makes the signs of friendship or enmity about the hidden thing perceiveable After this manner therefore I perceived that it is the offices of the salts exceeding in force which do unfold the vertues of the subordinate forms of their concrete body and carry them unto the Archeus as it were their object whereon they act Therefore I perceived that Cures as well by Mediciues as by Nature are made by an appeasing of the disturbed Archeus and the removal of the seminal and diseasie character produced by the Archeus This indeed I have perceived to be the nearest safest and highest or chiefest curing But that which succeedeth by the help of secrets is busied about the taking away of the product And therefore I have perceived that Arcanum's do operate as Salts Indeed such cures do happen by removing of that which is hurtfull and by adding that which is defectuous for else those things which do hinder increases or appropriations have rather a regard unto prevention than unto curing it self but hurtfull things are taken away by resolving cleansing exhaling or expelling which properties are agreeable unto Salts But the removals of that which is hurtfull are not duly wrought by poisonous melting and putrifactive things as neither by the withdrawings of the venal blood and life But the adding of that which is deficient I have perceived not to be done by a proper means and therefore that we go back or decline by little and little through great want of the Tree of Life the which be it spoken of the vital faculties but not of the want of the venal blood which is restored by the kitchins But I have perceived that Nature doth voluntarily rise again and repair some of her defects if she shall be made to sit up after her prostrating To which end also balsamical and tinging things do help I perceived also that in the stomack is bred a soure salt partly volatile and partly fixed But that both are afterwards changed by their
ferments of the bowels which being enslaved by snatched ferments do often and successively measure their Original To wit of a mummial ferment is made the salt of the venal blood which is to rectifie or govern our family-administration but if in the kidney it be made diuretical it is now made an Urinary salt I perceived therefore that those things are onely and truly provokers sf urine which have a faculty of increasing the urinary salt and which do make it an easie client unto themselves In the next place I perceived that not onely in the dispositive ferments of the organs but besides by reason of Magnum Oportet or the necessary remainder of the middle life in Simples themselves that there are their properties of propagating and changing salts For some things have more gross salts and those unfit for receiving the ferment of the stomack and therefore they remain unconquered Others in the next place there are which by a hostile property are contrary to the vital powers and so they enter not but for troublesome ends into the Inns of Life I perceived that the volatile salt of the spirit of Vitriol did from a ready obedience in the first action of dissolution pass into a meer Alume For if the body of Mercury shall coagulate into a white powder although it reserve nothing of the matter or vertues of Mercury for that declareth the former weight of Mercury yet it passeth into a meer Alume But if the sharpness of Vitriol shall finde in the stomack a muscilage meeting with it it melts the same neither yet therefore doth it become Aluminous So that I perceived one and the same salt to be diversly transchanged by the thing connexed with it I perceived therefore that there were some salts which would cleanse away the filths in the stomack before they were subdued by its ferment but others which did slowly open their saltnesses and that not but after another digestion and seeing they did now manifest that thing that they were diuretical and diaphoretical or sudoriferous salts so also that then they would successfully free the veins of their obstructers I moreover perceived that there are salts which do not finde their disposition but at the time of dunging and they are sharp and colical or those which are opposite to these and are connexed in oily essences But the chiefest and most successfull of salts is that which reacheth unto the utmost bound and subtility in Nature which passeth thorow all things and in acting doth alone remain immutable and the which doth at pleasure through a ready obedience resolve other things and melts and makes volatile all rebellious matter even as hot water doth snow I by and by perceived specifical savours to wit of Mace Saffron c. to be as properties or as the shop of the ultimate forms uttered by salts excelling in strength Not indeed that these savours were the proper vertue of that form but rather the fermental putrifaction of that seed proceeding unto that ultimate form For truly a savour as such is a solitary quality unprofitable for healing a witness of the putrifying of its ferment by continuance a co-operator of curing as it disposeth the Archeus as a messenger that it may descend into the knowledge of a hidden property For unless things shall smile on the Archeus by savour and odour they are not admitted within Yea purging Medicines being in their first look without savour as are Turbith Hermodactiles Jallop Mercury Stibium c. as being masked with much Sugar yet if they are taken again they cause horrour and abomination There is therefore one taste of the tongue and another in the stomack as it were the utmost part of the Archeus Therefore stomatical savours which are acceptable do denote that there is in the thing a bountiful life a-kin to ours Wherefore a Cat is more delighted with the smell of putrified and stinking fish than of Cinnamon So indeed we do oft-times well perceive that poysons are occult or hidden by reason of their specifical savour and odour horrid to our Midriffs In like manner as oft as a pleasing taste appears in a poyson I have perceived that under the same Simple there lurketh a great secret the which the poyson being repelled is born and ordained for difficult effects I afterwards perceived that besides specifical savours and the gratefulness benevolence or horrors of these there was a certain formal property issuing forth yet unperceivable by the tongue and to be comprehended by the Archeus alone The Schools are amazed when they come unto occult qualities as they do therefore call them For when they cannot ascribe their trifles to heats colds and the begged complexions of these Writers indeed do lay aside their pen and Physitians do lift up their shoulder and eye-browes because they accuse that property to be known to them in the effect but unknown in the cause and they excuse themselves of this ignorance because the searching into those properties is impossible for mans understanding the which they else had already long since enquired into As if they should say We Schools are able to determine of as much as the mind of man can search We therefore decree that no powers of things can be understood or searched into by man but those which are the first qualities of the Elements or to arise from these We confess therefore that the formal faculties are occult because unpossible to be known Certainly the Schools are exceeding clayie or earthy watery airy cloudy and fiery how ignorant do they shew themselves of their own objects and how unlike to the exercise or practice which they profess For they have enslaved their wits to sluggishness that nothing may be more acceptable unto them than to have inclined to excuse their excuses in the ignorance and impossibility of nature wherewith every one vails his own in particular For at first when the Antients saw any Disease to be cured by a specifical and appropriated Remedy they were amazed as it were at the miracle of an unwonted thing But afterwards the Schools thought it satisfaction enough to have banished their blockishnesses into a general ignorance For neither although they had distinguished causes from the elementary qualities unto them known had they therefore spoken any thing undefiled and without suffusion of the sight For whoever hath more searched out the cause of moistness in the water or of heat in the fire by a reason from a former cause than of drawing Iron in the Load-stone The elementary qualities therefore are as hidden as any other Truly in this were the Schools blinded because they have proceeded against the Doctrine of the Gospel For primitive Truth willeth that we know the Tree by its Fruits but the Schools will that the Fruit ought to be known by the Tree I will therefore shew by the Fruits in what manner we must come unto the knowledge of the Tree First of all therefore for the knowing of occult causes a certain
so a small vein being burst had caused a difficult breathing and did also dissemble a Dropsie But when as the rupture of the vein being more rent had poured forth its Blood it choaked the man A certain Dropsical Man and but one onely being seen by me shewed a black and stinking Bubble in the hollow of his Liver Barth-Cabrollius an Anatomist of Mount-Pellier Saith that he cured very many Dropsical Persons by Incision made in the very Navill it self standing out and that in both sexes But surely if the errour had been in the Liver it could not have issued forth with the water through the Navil or that the Liver being mortally defiled should admit of a restoring Which thing the Schooles will not admit of Wherefore I remember that I have restored above two thousand Dropsical Persons also whose Urine did now wax-blackish with Bloodinesse and who had scarce made a spoon-ful of water in one night whose Liver if it had had but even a mean and not a mortal fault I consess I had not Cured them I have seen also that they whose Liver hath been notably wounded have escaped who although they thenceforth fore-perceived the Storms of the Aire yet not the Dropsie I have seen moreover those whose last day a slow Fever had closed in whose Liver small Stones had grown yet they had not shewn a Dropsie It is a familiar thing for the Liver of Oxen to abound with small Stones although they are continually fed with grasse Whence at leastwise I have learned that Grass-roots do never remove the obstructions of the Liver The Schooles will say to these things the Dropsie indeed is not made from a visible corrupting or obstruction of the Liver as neither from the Salt of the feigned Jamenous-alume as otherwise hath seemed to Paracelsus but from a meer cold and moist Distemperature thereof for so a large Flux of Blood because it brings the aforesaid distemperature it causeth the Dropsie But this is wholly prattle old Wives Fables and vain sounds For first of all I have sufficiently demonstrated the nullities of mixtures and temperatures not any more to be repeated 2. I have seen many all the venal Blood of whom a Consumption had exhausted so as that scarce two ounces had remained when their Heart Lungs and Liver were plucked out but their Liver was of a yellowish Colour because it was without Blood yet there was no cold and moist distemper in these Livers as neither a Dropsie the Supposed son of its feigned Mother 3. If much Flux of Blood should generate cold and moist distemperatures surely the Schooles do not affirm that thing to be done but by the reason of a withdrawing of the vital Spirit which alone is the cause of our heat But the defect whereof seeing it includes a privation it cannot induce a positive Being such as a cold and moist distemperature and Dropsie should be 4. And likewise seeing they will have contraries to be contained under the same general kinde our vital heat which they will have to answer to the Element of the Stars cannot have an Elementary cold contrary unto it 5. A notable Flux of Blood doth of necessity cause cold And therefore if a cold distemperature arisen from a Flux of Blood should be of necessity the mother of the Dropsie at every notable flux of blood the Dropsie should of necessity be present But the consequent is false Therefore also the Antecedent 6. And moreover seeing cold from a flux of blood becomes universal there is no reason why the Abdomen should be rather loaden with water than the Breast whither to wit the Aire being continually breathed in doth increase the cold 7. If the Dropsie be the son of that distemperature in the Liver Whence therefore is there an uncessant thirst 8. If the Expulsion of water into the Abdomen be an action of a distempered Liver Why doth not the Liver use the same its own expulsive action while the Veines do swell with Urine they being intercepted by a destructive Stone 9. Likewise the Blood of Dropsical Persons even as also the Urine should be exceeding watery if the Dropsie should be from a cold distemperature of the Liver But the Urine should not be so reddish and Bloody 10. In the next place between a Dropsie and cold distemperature arisen from a flux of blood a positive cause being a third from a cold should of necessity interpose Which the Schooles do hitherto name because of a non-being there is no search made 11. Neither also do such distemperatures produce thirst together with a Salt Water in the Abdomen seeing they do not thirst who do plentifully detain a salt Urine throughout all their veins in the Stone which stops up the Reines on both sides 12. If the Dropsie be from a cold distemper Then a Dropsie should never be expected after a Fever or wringing of the Bowels if there be not a branded confusion of causes And in vain do they flee unto a cold distemperature for a Dropsie the which should equally proceed even from opposite causes 13. Every old and decrepite Person should now nourish the necessity of a Dropsie 14. A cold distemper seeing in its root it is like to Death extinguishment old Age and privation every Dropsie should contain a necessary despaire of health even as such a distemperature denies a restauration 15. If the Liver be the Liver and not the Lungs by reason of its Elementary co-tempering as the Schooles say and so from one only Seed all the Elements do proceed and wander hither and thither confused that they may be the constitutives of appointed Organs therefore the Liver receding from its natural temperature shall cease to be the Liver and shall be the Kidney Lungs or Milt 16. At leastwise a Member struck with a Palsey should not be wasted but should be after some sort swollen with a Dropsie 17. At length if the Venal Blood be resolved into four or again into three Humours from whence it is either naturally composed or they are in it being applyed unto or co-mixed in the subject of the Blood The Blood shall never be able to be changed into a Dropsical water Seeing this is not any Humour of the constitutives of the Blood Yet I have seen a country-man out of whom all the water was taken by a Borer in twelve hours space for he being become my Opposite Scoffed at me But the morrow morning being swollen with the former Lumpe of his Belly he died For the Dropsie increased not by degrees even as it had increased from its beginning but it presently hastened and proceeded unto an extream extension For I observed that his Flesh and Blood being melted into Water had made their retreat to the neather part of his Belly For in that one only day he had descended into extream Leannesse Therefore his Flesh and Blood shall now wander into an Hydropical or fifth Humour through the cold distemperature of his Liver I could perhaps pardon
the Essence as to other Bruite Beasts he had called that Serpent a Scholastical and speaking rational Animal The not unlike to which appeared to B. Anthony in the Wilderness For first there came to meet him a fourfooted Monster the which when it had begun to speak it spake imperfectly and avoided or ran away And afterwards another which in the Form of a Satyr did perfectly speak the Dialect of the Country For neither must we judge that Monster to have been the Devil because he is he who never requires Prayers to be made unto God for him and therefore by the Church it is called an Animal or sensitive living Creature from the same Authority whereby Paul the first of Hermites was Reckoned among the number of Saints but it is not called a Devil or Spirit and it is Decyphered by B. Jeroms by its tokens borrowed from B. Anthony Therefore Adam might speak to the Serpent no otherwise than as Anthony to the Satyr The present Text therefore of Genesis hath hitherto had no Arch-heretick since Origen and Athiests because it shews a true and literal History Last of all I will add some things as it were by way of impertinency For indeed I have said that Fishes do Generate indeed but not by way of Sexual Copulation although they have Genital Instruments First of all I think that there is an Univocal or single Generation of Fishes bringing forth Eggs Therefore I shall say enough by the example of one Fish For neither were it meet for me narrowly to search into Fishes which are under the Waters by their species or particular kinds There is a certain Fish in stony Waters a devourer of Flesh and easily the most swift of Fishes called by our Country-men a Trout For nigh a little River or Brook where Tyber Perpendicularly falls from a high Rock he is seen to ascend the whole height of the Rock in a straight line five hundred foot at least therefore he swimmeth threefold swifter against the Gulf than the steep Water doth fall downwards First of all here the Opinion of the Schools is false to wit That the Water doth alwayes fall down in a Circular Figure For there is seen a certain small drop of Water with a Spire or Point behind and the Spire is the more sharp backwards by how much the higher it falls And that thing the resistance of the Air convinceth of For although they will have the Water to Imitate a Circle because the Sphere is the most Capacious of Figures for the same Reason of its greatness it most difficulty cleaveth the Air the which therefore hinders the speed of its fall Furthermore the Female Trout her Eggs growing big within her feels the Membrane of her Secundine to be broken and to cleave asunder by Degrees wherein the Eggs are entertained as in a purse and presently she voids her Eggs and layes them up in the Sandy bottom yea the very Imagination of the Trout destroyes her Eggs For if the Water hath onely a Stony bottom as I have perceived in our Springs or Wells that are Cemented with Chalk the Eggs do not fructifie but if the bottom be strewed with Sand the Eggs do bring forth But the Male Trout besprinckles the Eggs being brought forth with his Seed and that Seed layes upon the Eggs without like a Spiders Web And at length the Eggs being thus fenced they passe over into little Fishes In this Species therefore there is not a Carnal Copulation and the Copulation should be void the which within indeed should not touch at so much as the thousandth part of the Eggs. In the next place neither is there an annexed Seed seen laying on the Eggs and therefore neither is the Seed of the Male of the Constitutive part of Fishes Although Eggs that are destitute of the covering of Seed do never become Vital For it is seen that Fishes have in this thing almost kept the shadowy Image designed for Humane Generation before the fall But as there is an innumerable Fertility of Fishes bringing forth Eggs so also a possession of long Life although the long Life be so easily attained yet it doth most toughly adhere And moreover many seem to grow for their whole Life time For by how much the farther they depart from the Copulation of the Flesh by so much the more fruitful they are and of a longer Life So in the Lake of Lemane a Trout doth oft-times ascend unto an hundred pound A Pike also by a sign hung on him is noted to have lived unto three hundred years and to have grown unto an amazing bigness and then neither as yet to have dyed but by a violent Death An Eele in the Rivers of Lire nigh the Village Rumst being sent to Bruxells unto the Emperour Charls the fifth is observed to have been 17 foot in length Worms in the Silk-worm by a Famous Example after a Death or sleep of two Months do Degenerate into Butter-flies They Figure out a shadow of the Resurrection for because they never go together or Copulate before they rise again changed neither hath the Female conceived besides an inspired Chaos while as the Male being plainly without blood and the whole Female is melted into her own Eggs. That Worm by its own will as by its own Funerall co-weavingly encloseth it self in the Bombast it represents the Image of the Death and Resurrection of the Faithful while as being a winged Bird it flies out from thence being before not instructed to flie neither doth it afterwards stand in need of food For we are taught by the abject Creeping things of how much esteem it is with God to have abstained from Copulation throughout our whole Youth and Man-hood Moreover also if thou shalt look more fully into the matter that very wrapping being the Masculine Seed doth adhere to the yolk without almost after the manner of Fishes notwithstanding a Chick is Materially formed out of the yolke alone however the Aristotelicks may grin to the contrary and that thing after 12. dayes from thence it hath listed me to behold and prove against Idiots by breaking the Egg daily Truly the Curde of a Cock adhering to the yolke doth by Degrees melt and is thorowly mixed with the putrifying white the Chick in the mean time forming it self of the yolke For from thence I have learned that the Curdy Seed of the Cock doth breath indeed a Spirit the stirrer up but not the former or framer of Life And that thing a Coney with the Tail of a Dormouse hath more plainly confirmed unto us At least-wise there is a fruitful multitude of Fishes and a prosperous Benediction thereof and a less necessity of things requisite for bringing forth a long continuance of Life and a constant and easie Endurance of Cold and Hunger Nimbleness also and swiftness of Motion lastly they bring forth without Pain which thing Beasts that do admit of a Copulation of the Male do not likewise do and so they unfold
Testimony of Jesus Syrach being hitherto an obscure one yet a most true one comes to be considered Whereby he would have all Rivers by consequence also Fountains to proceed and issue from the Sea and at last to finish their Courses into the Sea Truly Syrach hath hitherto left a disquieted or dubious Posterity of Phylosophers to wit in what manner the Waters do contend upwards from the Sea Seeing that the Earth every where constituting a Lip of the Sea hath retained the Victory because it hath restrained it by a Superiority of Scituation But it is not yet therefore sufficiently manifest how the Sea seeing there is an off-scouring of heaped-up waters into the lowest Valley of the Earth should besides be able to ascend to the highest Rocks and there to stir up Fountains Certainly the Rules of the Art of drawing Water are here silent if the Sctipture be to be observed as it ought to be done Therefore some neglect this place as un-touched but others undertake to explain it with a Moderation To wit that Rivers being indeed allured out of the Sea in manner of a Vapour should at length by Rains Snows and Showrs an interjected tragedy of a masked transmutation require or return to the Sea But this is to contend that all Fountains have arose from Rain or at least-wise from condensed or co-thickned air And then they unjustly command that not any Vapour is fetched from the Earth but from the Sea alone or the holy Scripture shall in vain affirm that Rivers are begged only from the Sea and not likewise from the Face of the Earth not to be separated in manner of a Vapour Which Straits when as they seemed to many to be irreconcileable or not to be shaken off they by chance drave and dashed a certain Author of the Fountains of the Spaw against the Rock For although I shall dissemble any thing that is of Mans weakness in the same yet Christian Piety in an honest man doth not suffer publique Blasphemy to pass over un admonished of The which Author therefore I beseech to indulge my Liberty Aristotle he saith would have all Fountains and Rivers to be bred of Air resolved into Water He had not read I believe although he were Plato's Schollar that those four River of Paradise in Phaedo issued forth from the Command of God Why I pray thee if thou sayest that great Rivers are even at this day also bred only by a constriction of the Air have they not also Phaedo being read and Nature moreover being a Virgin issued from the same Constriction forthwith after the Creation And he who believed the World to be from Eternity to have left Phaedo neglected nor to have expected any condensing of Air unless perhaps he doated before Goropius Becanus That those four Rivers were nothing else but the Ocean sending forth Rivers into the four Coasts of the World in which Sense also the Syrachian Preacher saith That all Waters do come from the Sea and again that having passed their Course they render themselves unto the Sea which Words do thus sound in the Schooles Goropius doated and Plato before him if he said that the Ocean did disperse four Rivers into the Coasts of the World without any co-thickning of Air in which same sense notwithstanding the Preacher hath affirmed it Therefore in the same sense Ecclesiastes or the Preacher doated But is not yet enough said is not I say the Interpretation of the holy Scriptures as yet plain enough Therefore we must of necessity first of all set before our Eyes the Diversity and Pavements of Soyles in the Earth For elsewhere a Black-earth abounding with Muds and Filths a Clayie White-clayie Fat Barren Fenny Metally Sandy Stony-Earth and adorned with a various Comeliness is presented to our Sight according to the tempera ture of the Soyle and Heaven the Influences of the Stars and Suiting of Showrs because indeed they are Fruits but not an Elemenr The which first Soyle of Nature if thou shalt Pounce thou shalt in most places discover great or rockie Stones again Mettals or Mineral Iuices but in some places a Sand and that here yellow elsewhere ashie there skie-coulered next a little greenish according to the changeable and many-form dis-junction of the lurking Spirit for Nature is subject to the Soyle and the appointment of the subterraneous Archeus received from the creating Word Indeed in the Cup and most rich Storehouse of the Elements do lay hid Reasons or Respects being entertained from the Beginning durable for Ages they being the knowledge of things that are afterwards to be in their time they being instructed for the uses of ungrateful Man and patiently expecting from the Creation of the World the compleat Digestions of things and the fulness or maturity of Times or Seasons and the which an Architectonical or Master-working Chaos being the impetuous or forcible Chaos the Spirit I say limited to our necessities and filled with the Idea's of things which are to be in process of time doth asist Furthermore of Soyls there is not every where a like depth For in some places much depth of Sand but elsewhere very much of Earth doth occur But straightway under the Soyle or bottom of the Sand there is another for the mostpart rockie or stonie For that is by our Country-men called Keybergh whereon a race of Rocks being supported here the more wealthy ranks of Mettals and in the next place of Minerals have their Inns And at length under a long and much unlikeness of Sand under the Rudiments of Rocks that Sand that Sand I say being most bright offers it self being void of a metallick Quality and a strange Defilement which Sand I say is the last Soyle and unpenetrable yet oft-times plain to be seen in the superficies of the Earth For therefore Nature indulging her own liberty laughs at our Laws and despiseth the Bolts of Predicaments by an univocal or single Soyle That last Ground or Soyle of Nature our Country-men name the Quellem but the French Sable Bovillant the which a Spade or Mattock hath not hitherto passed thorow Because how much Sand soever and how much Water thou shalt empty out from thence yet presently others do fly unto it with an uncessant and swift course for the supplying of the former Defect From thence therefore I conclude That the aforesaid Soyle as it is the last in order of Nature doth so continue even unto the Center unless perhaps the neathermost doth hold or possess some miles of the heart of the earth It followes from thence that that Sand is the matter of the earth not subject unto successive change but is a perpetual and constant Sieve whereby Nature doth strain thorow her uncessant Treasures of Waters and most clear Fountains for the communion of the Universe In this Soyle I say there is a vital Vigour of the boyling-up Water For as long as the Waters are conversant in the same Ground or Soyle they are lively being
be by force pressed together in an Iron-pipe of one Ell long that it can scarce fill up the space of five fingers the which afterwards in its enlargement casts out a Bullet like a Hand-gun it being driven with fire which thing verily should not happen if Air being pressed togethre could through the coldness of the Iron be made Water CHAP. XCVI A Third Paradox 1. Concerning a Diet. 2. Seeds from what things they are free 3. A proof 4. The best Fountaines which where and of what sort they are 5. Rivers from sharpish Springs 6. A happy keeper of Fountaines 7. Fountaines generating a Stone From whence are Rocks in Banks 8. Many Fountaines do make a plurality of Minerals 9. From an invisible thing is made a visible thing 10. A hungry or eating Salt is an Hermophrodite 11. A twofold Excrement in us 12. What Tartar is 13. A manifold hungry Salt 14. How the best Vitriol is made 15. Another best Vitriol 16. Iron is not changed in Fountaines of Brass 17. A third Vitriol 18. A fourth Vitriol 19. There is not a hungry sharpness of Vegetables 20. The Salt of Sulphur is fixed 21. That there is a hungry Salt of Fountaines 22. Why a natural Salt is more noble than an artificial one The Error of some 23. The Manna of Alume 24. From whence the matter of Vitriol is 25. An error of neglect Vitriol is in other Mettals VVE now approaching nearer unto the Fountains of the Spaw it is convenient first of all to re-assume what hath been spoken To wit That Mettals small Stones Rocky-Stones Sulphurs Salts and so the whole rank of Minerals do find their Seeds in the Matrix or Womb of the Waters which contain the Reasons Gifts Knowledges Progresses Appointments Offices and Durations of the same The which while they have expected the sufficiently digested seasons of their Original or Birth they break forth under the Day with the Waters their Wombs which do lay up by little and little their Youngs accustomed to the Air in the Earth no otherwise than as the Earth doth also expose its own Family of Vegetables into the strange Womb of the Air. Therefore Seeds now issuing out of the dark Womb of the Water which the Voice of the Word hath there deposited as durable unto the end even as they are the more nigh in their beginning therefore also the more noble Indeed Nature Essence Existence Gift Knowledge Duration Appointment were at first connexed in the root of the Seeds which afterwards by the unfolding of their Gifts and necessity of their Functions being by degrees drawn asunder into a plurality do become subject unto disorder From whence it is that an Oracle containeth it self in the admirable testimony of Hippocrates Numbers being increased to wit that in generating Proportions are diminished and likewise that Proportions in decrease being increased Numbers are diminished From whence it is undoubtedly manifest that by how much a Body shall be nearer unto its first and seminal Beings whether in Nature or by Art by so much it is more Powerfull Noble and Famous Wherefore Seeds entring into the World are at the first free from the Dimensions of Colours Savours yea and from the dimensions of Quantities For Example sake The same Humane seed doth sometimes beget a simple sometimes a manifold Young received onely through a simplicity numerousness of places and so it is not as yet in its first Moments subject unto the command of Numbers and Quantities From hence indeed it comes to pass that in the highest Rocks far from dregs and among rockie-stones and sand sharp Fountaines do arise which are more excellent than all others but being so called not because they bear a tartness before them for they are without savour but because they are healers like unto sharp things therefore they are more noble than sharpish things by how much they are more grateful and potent containing the seed of an eating or hungry Salt which is as yet free from the unfolding of Savours For those Fountaines have joyned in a friendly league with our Nature because they are drawn in with the sweetness of the pallate of the drinkers and an intimate good will of the Stomack although in the greatest quantity But through the refreshment of Nature they do so most nearly imitate that universal Medicine Moly Homericum to wit by defending of health and propagating of the vital Powers that they have seemed to have ascended as it were unto the top of Medicine Such a Fountain Paracelsus would have to spring up in Veltin a little Village of Helvetia in his Book of Tartarous Diseases as he believed that the whole compass of the World did scarce contain such another in a Valley for in the highest Rocks there are many For truly Danubius the Rhene the River Rhoan Saw Po c. do obtain such a Fountain in their first Spring I will add more What if the President of the Heavenly Host shall be appointed chief keeper of the Den of Garganus it shall not be from the matter to believe that there is a certain happy Keeper prefixed unto these kind of Fountains no otherwise than as Antiquity placed their Demie-gods turning or tossing their Pots in the beginning of a River However it be those Fountains are nearest unto the Womb of darkness and are well furnished with the first Beginning of hungry Salts On the contrary there are other Fountains wherewith a stonifying juyce is co-mixed the which through the Waters sliding down by degrees do here and there sow great Stones and Flints as well in their bottom as in the sides of their Paunch and through the blind conduits of Veins rocks in their Banks For the River Mose shall be for an Example for this River doth from his rise longly and largly with his brim imbibing a stonifying juyce strew the little Hills from hence even as far as Visetum Which juice being now wasted and having finished its appointment Mose afterwards doth not behold Rocks For it is not a simple Stone but here it scatters Coals there mines of Iron and as yet nearer sulphurous Fire-stones according to the over-flowing of its banks but elsewhere he shews forth Veins of Lead either unmixt or well mixt with an Hermophroditical birth according to the original of his Fountains Which dispensation of Mines by a Trival Line Adeptists do distinguish into their soils of Peroledes or Pavements Moreover it is doubted why Fountains may be called sharp and from whence that tartness is to be derived I will briefly shew it For all the Seeds of Salts as we have said are scituated in the Waters Yet they have not as yet put on a Savour but when they have found the convenient Principles of Bodies and due Wombs of the Earth For then and not before they express a Saltness and cloath themselves with Salt For here they break forth into an Alum there into a Seay Fountainous Salt but elsewhere into a Nitre c. Wherefore it is
to be noted That a certain Hermaphroditical Salt of Mettals doth exist the which for want of a Name began in Deed and in Name to be called An hungry or sharpish Salt Indeed it is a general one and accommodable unto all Mettals and therefore if it pleaseth thee not to account it the first and as it were the remotest matter of the same at least-wise it is the secondary matter of Mettals and co-natural to all Mettals whatsoever That Salt therefore being void of a strange co-mixture is sharp and acceptable to our Body in a due quantity because it cleanseth away and consumeth altogether every Humour which is not Vital and which is Tartarous For there is a two-fold Excrement in us One there is of ours which is subject unto putrefaction and stink But there is another of things which being a Traitor perfects its Tragedy by an hostile coagulation and by a general Etimology is called Tartar A sharpish Salt therefore is now and then considered like an Embryo in order to a Mettal Also often times as it were a solitary Individual but not as yet compleated in its Ordination I will explain the thing by the example of Vitriol or Chalcanthum For the best for Medicine is according to an imitation of Nature artificially made of Copper and therefore that is by far the best which is composed of Copper alone without earthly filths and a mixture of forreign things the whidh notwithstanding cannot flow together in the Wombs of Nature But it is made after this manner First Sulphur is cast upon the melted Brass until the flame hath consumed the whole but the Brass being straightway poured forth is infused in Rain-water from whence it waxeth green And that thing is so often repeated until all the brass shall pass as being pierced into the Water At length the Water being exhaled thou hast thy Vitriol For that which before was Copper now moreover from Sulphur hath attained a Salt Secondly The most excellent Vitriol growes naturally in Mines wherein Nature hath brought forth that hungry Salt corroding a fertile Vein of Brass and being dissolved in the liquor of a licking Fountain which 〈…〉 Cauldrons do boyl into Vitriol The Cyprian Hungarian Romane is praised 〈…〉 means that which in its examination hath contributed the most of Brass 〈…〉 juyce of that Vitriol is thought to change Iron into Brass Indeed Metall 〈…〉 â—carce acknowledging the delusion because it consumes the place of Iron the 〈…〉 Atomes of Brass should supply it Noâ— taking notice that as Brasse renders dissolved Silver beholdable and corporeal which else in Aqua Fortis is invisible So that it is the property of Iron to manifest the Brass dissolved in the Vitriol by snatching it unto it self and also that by the same Act the Iron it self is dissolved and doth vanish away in the Fountain Fountains are my Witnesses For truly Vitriolated Waters do become far more poor than themselves in Copper after that they have received the Iron the benefit of the recovered Brass Wherefore also â—eed out of the Fountain where and as oft as a continual inundation of new Brass out of he Gulfe faileth after another manner the supposed transmutation of the Iron doth not happen Thirdly in the next place Vitriol is made by Art of a Brassy-Fire-stone or Marcasite being begot with childe by Sulphur Indeed the Sulphur being abstracted from thence a sharp or acide Salt doth in a coursary number of daies by degrees resolve the remaining Brassy-Body being exposed to the Air in its marrowes or inmost parts the which 〈…〉 the same sharpness of resolution doth dissolve a certain Brassy matter into it self 〈…〉 the which being through the help of Water drawn out from thence being also presently boyled is made Vitriol And so that whatsoever at the first turn resisted the gnawing of the hungry Salt the burning of the Sulphur being repeated doth wholly at last yeild and becomes into a Vitriol Lastly in the Fourth place the hungry Salt is co-bred being grown together in the Fire-Stone the which by a co-burning and resolving brings a certain Brassy matter with it from thence and is made Vitriol From whence it is manifest First That a hungry Salt although it be sharp yet doth very much differ from any other sharpness as much as the Vitriol differs from the Rust or Verdigrease which is made by the Air of Vinegar and so also by the Salt of the Vinegar being conceived within Secondly That although the Sulphur be wholly fat and inflamable yet in the piercing of the Brass it leaves a certain acide Salt half fixed which else flies away in time of burning and by the Campane is constrained into a juice Thirdly That the sharp hungry Salt of Fountaines born in the Bowels of the Earth is the Salt of any Sulphur embryonated or not perfected Yet that it is by so much the more noble than an Artificial Salt fetcht out of Sulphur by how much it is nearer to its first Being and unto the Seeds of the Illiad or Womb of Darkness As is read above Therefore thou shalt acknowledge that they do far wander who esteem of the natural endowments of the Fountains of the Spaw from the properties of contained Minerals even as they have now proceeded into their last matter For truly it is manifest from what hath been said above that the hungry Salts of Sulphur do most far differ from the property of Sulphur And moreover which is more that the Artificial hungry Salt of Sulphur doth as much differ from that which is natural as this embryonated Salt is nearer in its Root unto its first Seeds They erre I say in the whole circumference who compare the hungry Salts of Lead with Lead which is hugely distinct there from For there is a very strange similitude of the perfect Salts to wit of Alume Nitre Vitriol and of the same not perfect It is manifest by an Example For the hungry Salt of Alume which is sweeter than any Sugar it is called the Manna of Alume knowes no astriction being like unto its first Being Fourthly Seeing therefore the most excellent Vitriol is materially nothing else but the embryonated hungry Salt of Sulphur which hath gnawn out a certain part of the Brass but the Salt of the more base Vitriol is drawn from a perfect Sulphur we being therefore led by the proportion of things have passed over the same Etymology of Vitriol unto all the co-like Dissolutions of Mettals which by others who write of the Fountains of the Spaw I do not find as yet recorded For truly Vitriol is dayly made of any Mettal except Gold as well in the progress of Art as of Nature To wit as a metallick Liquor a coagulable Vitriol I say is effected from a Mettal and the Wedlock of a 〈…〉 or eating Salt CHAP. XCVII A fourth Paradox 1. Things contained in the Water of the Spaw according to the Opinion of others 2. The Falshood of their Positions is proved 3.
far more hard than those and in its Mine more separated from the mouth should refuse the inbred foot-step of dryness and a conceived hardness and then that it shall give up its name for a Clientship unto those Remedies And therefore whatsoever thing resisting the second and third qualities shall not obey a Medicine that being as it were untamed with the Elke and as it were Monstrous being harder than a Club and Fatal is Assigned to the Catalogue of uncurable Diseases From whence we may understand that the whole Method of curing the Stones doth stand committed not unto a perfect but onely unto a dissembled healing For truly they have earnestly laboured hitherto in nothing but in excluding the Stone already made but they have in no wise gone to prevent it in the making as neither hath any thing been consulted of for the rooting out of the impression or ready inclination to the Stone Therefore the curing of the relapses of the threatning stones hath remained imperfect As if by reason of that other Diseases cryed Triumph because that Providence being sufficient for all ends should seem to have dealt more liberally with them but that for the one Treacherous Lurker the Stone as having Hostilely and Traiterously entred it had refused Remedies But now I will give you the Decrees of Juniours by their Ranks or Orders And first indeed it shall not be for a Vice to have declined from their appointed Rules when as even hitherto we observe their Aids to be for the most part uncertain and do experience nothing but a feeble help and seeing our purpose is concerning the Life and safety of our Neighbours For if other Arts do profit dayly there is no reason as if the Virtue of our Mind were barren in us why the Rules of Predecessours should deter us from a further search into the truth and should thrust us into despair For by the onely Decree of Aristotle That we must not dispute against him that denies Principles Phylosophy being brought into obscurity hath so remained For if we following the Flock of those that went before us not because we must go so but because it hath been so gone must not command likewise neither must we be servants to the most free gifts of judgement The Fire therefore which is the finder out of Arts doth perfectly teach those of Hermes School by Mechanical and manifest workmanships That the Original of the Stone doth not consist of the matter and efficient cause assigned For neither for that reason is it a wonder that the causes being not sufficiently known improvident and unlike counsels have been hitherto described for this grief As to what therefore concerns its material Cause that is a certain Stonifying juice for for want of a true word of expression it is so called by me so intimately besprinkled on very many Liquours that it may seem to be well nigh Natural unto the same neither is it otherwise subject unto a Divorce than for that Cause of Calaâ—â—ties that it may render us perpetually mindful of our thousand-fold frailty Therefore it is not a muckie Snivel not Phlegm In the next place we do not think that any Excrement or Putrifyable thing of ours hath suggested a matter for the Stone but it is an Excrement of things a Traytor we have called it Tartar perfecting its Tragedy within by a Hostile Coagulation the which when it is not rightly separated in the Sheaths Dedicated unto the separation of an Excrement surely it creeps inwards as being mixt with the Natural and Vital Juices But it being at length called back unto examination because it is plainly unfit and uneffectual for Assimilation and the information of the Soul it either goes forth together with the Urine as it were repenting of its conceived Treason or if it shall the more subtilly marry the Vital nourishment it more inwardly or fully enters and presently after the time of its Digestion brings forth the dissociable affects of its own Family in us and Monstrous Conditions and Ensigns plainly Tyrannical whereunto Nature being at length trodden under foot is compelled to hearken All which things shall appear even by one onely and that not a Forreign Example For it is easie to be seen that every one of us being also very well constituted or in a very good frame of Body do send forth a Healthy Yellow Coloured clear Urine void of Sediment and Muckiness the which if it doth also happen to be the longer kept even in a clear Glass yet the space of some hours afterwards being passed we from thenceforth call it a Stony Urine because on every side above and beneath throughout the whole Jurisdiction of the Urine the Urinal is infected with a thin sand adhering to its sides oh what more plainly than the Tartar of Wine hath given the name of a Coagulable otherwise a Forreign excrement in us notwithstanding neither was there therefore any presence of a more grosse visible Lee nor were there any Testimonies of heat present especially while that Sand became Conspicuous For truly the Urin had already long before waxed cold before it had consulted of Coagulating But yet there is on both sides the like Reason Essence Cause and Property of the Stone arisen in us with that which of the same Identity and material subject is Coagulated abroad in the Urine about the Urinal I will add further that some detain their Urine for honesties sake for some hours without any appearance of Sands the which Urine notwithstanding being received in a Glass hath without all doubt separated its Stone in an equal time From hence therefore at least-wise it follows that the sliminess of matter is not for the material Cause of the Stone truly it consists in the Race or off-spring of a more hidden and therefore of a deeper search in Nature than that we should think its Natural Generation to be enclosed in sliminesses and the first qualities alone For whatsoever things are made in Nature we must reckon them to be made from a necessity and Flux of a Seed The Seeds therefore of Stones do lay hidden in the Juices until at length the Flux of the Seed being ripened the last Ordination or end of the same breaks forth into Act. Therefore we have taught above that the Stone owes it Family unto nought but a Stonifiable Juice after the Similitude of Fountains in the greater world And therefore they Err who contend that a Juice doth arise in the most clear and transparent Waters being furnished with a Stonifying Power as not seeing so being ignorant that a Stone doth arise in Phlegmatick Clayinesses and Muckinesses For truly that is not to savour any thing beyond Sense nor beyond Rusticks Wherefore an Analysis or solution by the fire is to be undertaken the which indeed as it proposeth a disclosure of Bodies so a certain Conjuncture of the same before our Eyes and promiseth a Man more certainty in his Study than the vain Dreamed Doctrine which from
Ferments as many Varieties of Putrefactions and as many Dungs of one Bread as there are particular Kindes of Animals nourished by Bread Yea and moreover there are more Ferments for the Corruption of Bread because also Bread doth putrifie after many manners as well of its own accord as through the Odour of Places and Impressions of Agents And that which is said of Bread the same thing may be understood of other Foods The Schooles taking notice also that nothings will profit us but that which in its Root containeth the Flourish of Life therefore also they would that the Spirit of the Liver being actually natural should glisten in the Venal Blood like an Air And they have thought it to be a Vapour and therefore also they have confounded it with an Exhalation Not knowing that a Vapour is Water but that it is not a Gas a wild Spirit an uncoagulable Air and Skie Therefore they have thought that a Vapour exhaling out of the out-chased venal Blood even as elsewhere it breaths out of any lukewarm Liquors was that Spirit of the venal Blood from whence the vital Spirit should afterwards be materially framed Of which I have elsewhere profesly spoken For indeed whatsoever defcendeth into an healthy Stomack if it be concocted by the Ferment of the Spleen it waxeth sharp through the fermental and specifical Sharpness of our Species And Superfluities being first sequestred from thence it is at length turned into venal Blood Which Blood after the Bound of its Digestion is transferred into the Heart and is made Arterial Blood which in the holy Scriptures is called A ruddy or red Spirit wherein the Soul inhabiteth For it is made fit to pass over into Vital Spirit and the remainder thereof to undergo the last Digestion of the solid parts and at length without that its residence to exhale into the Air Therefore also for that very Cause it ought to be volatile and to have assumed the Disposition of a Spirit in the Heart Furthermore that Sharpness of the Stomack by Virtue of the ferment of the Gaul is converted into a Salt even as elsewhere concerning Digestions And the Actual Saltness is separated with the Urin and Sweats because it became Excrementitious But the Mass of the venal Blood it self seeing it cannot pass over into Spirit but by the Vital Ferment of the Heart I say there is made a substantial Derivation or Translation of the Venal Blood into Arterial Blood and of the Arterial Blood into Spirit wholly throughout the whole without any residence and separation of heterogeneal Parts because the Excrements are first withdrawn from thence and the Substance of the Heart is restless being continually busied about this Office of Transmutation that it may uncessantly effect Arterial Blood out of the Venal Blood and of this vital Spirit So that a certain natural Spirit doth not fore-exist in the venal Blood from whence as it were of the matter whereof vital Spirit may be made But the whole venal Blood it self if there shall be need is made Arterial Blood and from thence â—ital Spirit Therefore the making of Venal Blood in the Liver and the making of Arterial Blood in the Heart do differ For one is a true transmutation of the Chyle into venal Blood and the generating of a new Being But the other is an extenuating of the Venal Blood into a volatile Arterial Blood and into a Vital Air For venal Blood is made with a thickning of it self and with a Separation of the liquid Excrement or Urin. But the Vital Spirit is made with a melting of that which is thickned and an Aiery extenuation thereof to wit whereunto the Arterial Blood affords a Degree or Mean I confess indeed that the Spirit of Wine is snatched as a Spirit into the Arteries as a certain simple Symbolizing and previously disposed thing that it may easily passover into vital Spirit but the Schooles do from hence conclude nothing for their Spirit of the Liver Therefore let the venal Blood be the Spirit of the Liver it self coagulated and the fore-existing Matter of the Vital Spirits Which Spirit indeed hath the Nature together with the Power of a Body that it may be Spiritualized Therefore even as from the Ferment of the Heart the venal Blood is made arterial Blood and a volatile Spirit So in the Arteries as it were in the Stomack of the Heart and the Ferment of the Heart being drawn the Arterial Blood it self passeth over into the Common-wealth of Spirits Yea the secondary Humours also or the immediate Nourishments of the solid Parts are by degrees made Volatile least they should leave a remaining Residence behind them but they make an egress with a total transpitation of themselves The Heart therefore by its Ferment frameth arterial Blood out of venal Blood the which by the same endeavour it so fits and extenuates that moreover so much of vital Spirits is made out of the arterial Blood in the Arteries as it were in its Stomack as the Grosness and resisting Substance of the arterial Blood in so small a space wherein it is agitated or wrought in the Arteries permits to be made And there is well nigh a single Action while the venal Blood passeth over into arterial Blood and the Arterial Blood into Spirit Because they differ not in their Shops and likewise in the Degrees of Digestion Extenuation and Subtilizing For as much of arterial Blood is bred of venal Blood and as much of vital Spirits is made out of the arterial Blood by the same Feâ—ment of the Heart as is needful for every one of them and the Faculties of concocting are able to make Neither is it sufficient also to have known that the venal Blood doth ascend into arterial Blood but that the arterial Blood passeth over partly into vital Spirit and partly departeth into the Nourishment of the solid Parts Also that at length of vital Spirit it is made animal and the which receiveth an ultimated or utmost Determination in its Nerves so indeed that it is made visive or visible Spirit in the optick Nerves or Sinews of Sight but being exorbitant from thence and being derived into the Tongue it should be plainly unprofitable for tasting even as also the Aanimal Spirits the Authors of touching are unfit for Motion and those of this for them But moreover it behoves us to have known the Marrow of the vital Spirit For indeed of the Sharpe Chyle partly venal Blood and partly a Urin and sweat is made But that excrementous Saltness of the Urin is a volatile and Salt Spirit the which being co-fermented with Earth at length a Salta-peter is formed wherefore that Salt Spirit is excrementous The venal Blood indeed by Distillation shews unto us also a saltish Spirit plainly volatile not any thing distinguishable in Smell as neither in Tast from the Spirit of the Urin Yet essentially different in this that the Spirit of the Salt of Venal Blood cureth the Falling-sickness but the
on in opposition to the Scripture CHAP. CXIII The Tabernacle in the Sun THe Schools deny the Sun to be fervently hot For they will that they also should herein be believed without demonstration Because they think that a man is generated by a man and the Sun And therefore that it becomes Nature least if the Sun should be of a fervent heat he should consume himself his Inn and all neighbouring things into hot Embers For seeing he is of a huge bigness and also heats afar of why should he not commit a cruel outrage if he should be fervently hot in himself For how should he generate a man and also all sublunary things As if first of all the Sun being exceeding hot the substance of the Heavens should therefore be burnable And that it should not be more meet to admit the Sun to be hot without nourishment than to deny all the Senses to wit that the effect doth exist being produced by no proper Cause To deny I say heat indeed which makes hot with so great a force and at so great a distance Chiefly because according to the proportion whereby we do the more approach unto the direct beams of the Sun by so much we meet with the greater heat I believe this fear of the Schools to be vain because the Light was made by the Word which contracted the whole Light into two Globes That the Sun should be the Light of the Day and the Moon of the Night The lightsome Globe of Sun is said to exceed the Diameter of the Earth and Water 160. times Out of which Globe of the Sun the beams of Light are dispersed as well above as beneath himself on the whole Universe And they most thorowly enlighten all traseparent bodies but dark or thick bodies in their superficies onely But I have shewn that the beams of the Sun being united by a Glasse are true fire shining in its properties For whether the beams are united or not that is to the Sun by accident And therefore if the beams of Light being connexed are true fire and do burn the Sun also as the very Center of the connexed beams shall of necessity be most exceeding hot For the Fire of the Sun persisteth without nourishment by the command of God Also seeing the fire in the middle of the crest wherein the Sun-beams are united subsisteth without nourishment Kitchin fire only bears before it a Light subsisting by it self without the intervening of the Sun Yet in that thing being different from the Sun that it ought to be nourished that it may subsist But the Sun because he is of a heavenly Nature wants not food because he is void of Usuries and appointed of God that he may thus burn The Sun therefore is a most fervent fire the principal Center in Nature of created Lights Peradventure when at sometimes dayes shall be at their full and the harvest of things shall be ripe the watery vision of the Heavens the Waters I say which are above the Heavens through a divine virtue shall assume a ferment and the seed of a combâ—â—â—ble matter and it shall rain fire from Heaven and the Stars shall fall For the Sun by the command of God breaking open the floodgates and bolts of his Globe shall burn the Heavens as well those which are nigh as those which are very far of and shall consume the World into hot embers For the Heavens shall be changed shall wax old and shall at sometimes melt like wax And the Stars shall fall down on the Earth not indeed whole because they are for the most part bigger than the Globe of the Earth but the parts of the Stars that are burnt shall make an Abyss of fire upon the Center Therefore the Sun is a fire in himself and being nigh but by how much further his beams are dispersed throughout the Universe they shall give the more apt nourishing warmths unto the seeds of things because the Sun doth suggest onely a general and common Light which is fit for exciting and promoting the seeds of things and for this cause it is vital But not that it conferreth Life and that which gives Essence to the seeds of things In Caire of Aegypt Eggs are nourished by the fire of a furnace and Chickens are abundantly bred without the nourishing of any Hen yet the fire of the furnace neither gives nor hath a seminal virtue neither doth it burn the Eggs nor because it nourisheth doth it cease to be burningly hot in its Fountain So the beams of the Sun being dispersed throughout the Universe are no longer fire but a simple Light Kitchin fire therefore doth after some sort dispose it self according to an emulation of the Sun To wit it enflames burns and consumes things that are near it but from far it onely heats and at a very far distance onely shines Yea neither is it reckoned true fire unless it be hot in the highest degree unless it centrically stick fast with its connexed beams in the crest of Light But it differs in nobleness from the Light of the Sun that it is not of the first created things not of an heavenly disposition not subsisting without fewels nor therefore is it universal The Almighty therefore as he hath created the Sun a singular thing so he hath created as it were one only Sun in every species of sensitive Creatures which should suffice even unto the end of the World and should propagate them thenceforward not indeed being hot in the highest degree but that it subsisting by the poynts of dispersed beams may not cover to ascend unto further moments of degrees Therefore in the smallestminutes of specifical Lights a formal Light of species or particular kinds is restrained by a Divine virtue which hath tied up every species unto a particular moment of Lights general indeed in respect of the Sun yet made individual by the co-ordination of my Lord For the Sun of Species's shall endure for ever no otherwise than as the Species themselves shall But because it doth not subsist but in individuals therefore the sun of Species is daily slidable in individuals even at every Moment unless it be nourished as it were by a continual fewel Therefore the light of Life hath some similitude with the Sun and a part agreeable unto Kitchin fire To wit in this that our Sun ought to have vital Spirits for an uncessant Fewel and those capable of an administring to a depending Light that is to follow â—â—ot indeed that the Spirits do in themselves and of themselves heat any more than the beams of the Sun the which the light of the Sun being withdrawn do presently die from heat and light Nevertheless they bear a mutual resemblance with the Sun because they seem to propagate an enflaming and subsist centrally in the heart For when the Schools took notice that the heart did voluntarily and of it self hasten into a cold dead Carcass and that the Spirits being dissolved or spent it indeed
and Herbs are far less Arcanums than those aforesaid Lastly the volatile Salts of Herbs and Stones do shew forth a precise particularity neither do they reach unto the efficacy of Universal Medicines But his Corollate the which one alone is purgative by Stool cures the Ulcers of the Lungs Bladder Wind-pipe Kidneys by purging so that it also utterly roots out the Gowt Indeed it is the Mercury of the Vulgar from which the Liquor Alkahest hath been once distilled and it resides in the bottom coagulated and powderable being not any thing inâ—reased or diminished in its weight From which Powder the Water of the Whites of Eggs is to be cohobated until it hath attained the colour of â—oral I praise the Lord of things in an Abject or lowly Spirit because he reveals his Secrets unto the little Ones of this World and doth alwayes govern the Stern least these his benefits should fall into the hands of the unworthy I have therefore discerned that the Secrets of Paracelsus do take away Diseases but that they reach not unto the Root of long Life I have also discerned that Mineral Remedies unto whatsoever the highest degree they are brought yet that they are unfit for yielding Nourishment unto the first constitutive Parts because they reserve the middle Life of the concrete Bodies from whence they were extracted For for that cause they never wholly lay aside a mineral Disposition Yea and therefore they depart from the tenour of long Life Yea neither shall I ever be easily induced to believe that the Phylosophers Stone can vitally be united with us by reason of its exceeding immutable substance which is incredibly fixed against the tortures of the Fire being undissolvably homogeneal or simple in kind that is by reason of its every way impossibility of separation destruction and digestion so far is it from conducing to long Life Histories subscribe unto me that none who obtained that Stone enjoyed a long Life but that a short Life hath befalleâ— many by reason of the dangers undergone in labouring But moreover neither let Hucksters hope that Meats which do mightily nourish will perform long Life For although they may afford strength unto those that are upon recovery yet they afterwards weaken them being nourished The which Caesar also testifies For the more tender Meats are easily consumed breed tender Flesh and suffumigate or smoakiâ—e the vital Powers through their more greatly adust savour But the Studies of Physitians are buisied about the delights of the Kitchâ—â— which they name the Dietary Part for they have been misled into errour by thinking that if Food of good Juice and tender being administred in a due dose doth profit those upon recovery they have thought also that the more strong Persons being manifoldly nourished with the same Food shall be raised up into the highest increase of strength For there is not a process made in seeding as in Arithmetick where ten Pounds lift up nine and by donsequence a hundred Pounds ninety But he that eats very much and drinks abundantly shall not therefore become stronger than he that shall live more moderately For truly Nature keeps noâ— so much the proportions of Numbers as the proportions of the Powers of things alterable according to the Power of their own Blas However it is at least-wise it succeeds with Physitians according to their desire Because plenty of venal Blood breeds Excrements Physitians are called for and so they command the rules of Food at least-wise to profit themselves and they shorten the Life in those that live medicinally and miserably CHAP. CXVI The Mountain of the Lord. VVHo shall ascend into the Mountain of the Lord Or who shall stand in his holy Place He that is innocent in his Hands and of a clean Heart who hath not betaken his Soul to Vanity nor hath sworn in deceit to his Neighbour this Man shall receive the blessing from the Lord and mercy from God his Saviour The Words sound Eternal blessedness It is so Notwithstanding nothing hinders but that that figural and typical Speech may also unfold its Truth according to the Letter seeing it must needs be that the Type doth co-answer to the thing signified by the Type Truly I have alwayes observed that almost all the Mysteries of God were celebrated in mountains For Abraham was commanded to ascend a Mountain and there to sacrifice his only begotten Son for a Figure of the Sacrifice that was to be offered in Mount Calvary God commanded Moses to ascend up into a Mountain that he might talk with him and he gave him the Law And Moses talked with him face to face for the space of forty dayes and nights In Mount Horeb the Lord was transfigured c. All which things might have been done in the Desart and the God of Armies could have encompassed Moses with Lightning and Fire as well in a Plain as in a Mountain that no Mortal might have approached thereunto but a Mountain was alwayes chosen from a priviledge And the blessing from the Lord is promised in ascending unto the Mountain of the Lord For the Lord could have signified his Precepts unto Moses in a shorter space neither was there need of forty continual Dayes and Nights but that also delay might by its weight for delay in natural things is required for a just or due Efficacy of the maturities of things denote some hidden Mystery For naturally I understand that in Mountaines wanting an endemical malignity there is not only a most pure Air far remote from Dreg and Corruption commonly seperated from Errours and Defects and by reason of Colds most refined from all defilement but also that there is the Place from whence through the continuation of its Magnal there is a most dispatched in-beaming of the heavenly Bodies or Influences because a drinking in of a most pure Skie For I remembred that one Morning I being fasting felt in the Alpes the sweetness of an inbreathed Air the which I never before nor after felt in all my Life For it is certain that the Almighty hath not framed so great a Bunch in Nature in vain And it is certain that all the Riches of the World are issued out of Mountains And then the best Fountains and most famous Rivers are conversant with us out of Mountains by reason of their steepness In the next place all Nations which are the inhabitants of Mountains are of an hardier Body and of a more vigorous or flourishing Life than those who inhabit pleasant Fields Which Effects do manifest their Causes because a more sweet and purer Air is there in-breathed and every Gas being deprived of its Filths returns into the pure matter of Water But that God lifts up so great an Earth or the very face of the Earth into an heap or hath built so many great or rocky Stones upon the same or hath conjoyned it into one rocky Stone nor yet hath enriched it with any Mineral in which respect he might seem to have collected so
of the Disease of the STONE And likewise of sence or feeling Sensation pain unsensibility benummednesse motion unmoveablenesse Even as of Diseases of this sort the Leprosie Falling-Evil Apoplexy Palsie Convulsion Coma c. All things being new and paradoxal hitherto A Treatise profitable as well for a natural Philosopher and Physitian as for an Alchymist but most profitable for the Sick John Baptista van Helmont of Bruxels being the Author A TREATISE Of the Disease of the STONE PETRIFICATION Or the Making of a STONE CHAP. I. 1. THe Schooles of Medicine did already doubt before Paracelsus 2. The opininion of the Antients concerning the causes of making of a Stone 3. A sounder doctrine of Paracelsus 4 The flux of seeds for a Stone 5. The disposition of Minerals from the Creation of the World 6. What the Trival-line is 7. What the Flinty Mountain is 8. From whence the diversity of Stones is 9. The powder of the Adamant is alwayes yellow 10. Great or rocky stones and small stones how they differ 11. The seed of a stone wherein it exceeds a vegetable seed 12. Stonifying in a man and why a stone growes to the Tooth 13. Some remarkable things 14. Why some Insects do not become a stone but the more perfect Animals sometimes altogether 15. That the form is not introduced from the power of the matter 16. After what manner a man is made a stone 17. Nothing of a rocky stone is common with the stone in a man 18. The Duelech of Paracelsus 19. The praise of wild Carrot-seed c. THe more refined Physitians of the late past age were silently astonished at the Doctrine of the Schooles concerning the Elements Temperaments and Humours which was so unfortunate and un-obedient to their own positions For neither could they satisfie themselves with a quaternary of humours for all Diseases Wherefore it was most exceeding easie for Paracelsus who by a most excelling testimony of Medicines had drawn all Germany into the admiration of himself to perswade those that already doubted of the fiction of his Tartar that Tartar traiteroufly entring out of meates and drinkes was the true cause of any disease whatsoever which thought of his begat Credit and hath now fixed so stable a Root that there is not almost any one who doth not flee unto the Tartar of Parabelsus I did owe indeed a singular Treatise unto Tartar who was readily prepared for the History of the Stone but that I had abundantly written thereof among the Beginnings of Naturall Philosophy and therefore I had left that Volume maimed if I had from thence transferred the Treatise of Tartar hither For truly the Original integrity of Nature being there placed within the matter the Archeus and the Life or Form together with seminal Beginnings hitherto unheard of the Ferments also the Authors of any kind of transmutations whatsoever being newly discovered but the Elements Qualities Complexions and the fight strife contrarieties and victories of these being rejected Also the fictions of Humours and Catarrhs being banished out of Nature and Medicinal consideration At length Flatus's Tartars and the three first principles of the Chymists being excepted out of the place of exercise of Diseases and then I by degrees declining from things Speculative unto Discourses handling Affects have explained the defects and successive alterations of Nature and have pithily manifested to the World the true cause of Diseases hitherto unheard of Therefore the Stone being as a Monster bred at home in our own House I have named this Book as it were on Outlaw and now the errour of Tartar borrowed from Paracelsus being forsaken I now come unto Petrification or the making of a Stone unknown to the Schooles For indeed the Antients giving vp their Names to Aristotle do according to the principles of this man as yet think that all Stones and Minerals without distinction are made most especially of earth by the mediation of heat and cold as external workmen yet with some additament of the three other Elements Notwithstanding since the weight of the rocky Stone exceeded the weight of Water they from thence conjectured that the Earth might be the proper matter of all Minerals And although they doubted in the weight of Gold and knew neverthelesse that a Mathematical demonstration which is stronger than any Syllogism was to be fetcht from its weight yet in the mean time they could not believe having neglected their own dimensions that Gold was Earth many times piercing it self And now they distrusted their owne positions much more seeing they determined Gold to be composed not of Earth alone which is more ponderous than the other three Elements but of the other more light ones being mixed in a just or equal measure and proportion Therefore as destitute of counsel they hung the diligent search of its weight upon the nail and Controversies being laid aside they being as it were oppressed with drowsinesse were content with saying that mettals being as it were frozen with cold because they did again flow through the torture of the fire and the superfluity of water being dryed up but the ayr and fire being well nigh excluded remained as it were withered Thus the dry Phylosophy of Aristotle hath reported hereof But they proved their position as I have said For Mettals as they imagine flow all abroad through a contrary heat As if indeed a frozen work could not melt but by the service of the Bellows Or that earth should be capable of melting by fire And again at its pleasure could require the countenance of earth as oft as it should feel cold Are the Schooles so unmindfull of themselves in that they not so long since said that the Element of water is of it self vehemently cold and slackly moist and so that Mettals ought to be congealed not from earth but from Water But that the earth of it self is vehemently dry and slackly cold and so ignorant of congealing so that from hence it followes if Mettals in their chief part are earth they shall never be able to flow or be frozen up seeing that they shall be able to be at the most but remisly cold Neither by a heightned heat shall earth be ever able to be converted into water or a watery substance while it melted in the mettal For truly they grant unto the earth an intense or heightned dryth which cannot but be fortified by the fire but not destroyed thereby In like manner neither can the remiss or slack cold of the most strong earth convert this earth while by the force of the fire it should be dissolved into water again into earth Because they believe the remiss qualities of the Elements not to have so much activity as that they can break the intense qualities of another Element For with the same foot of stupidity wherewith they began they proceed to say that great and small stones are earth hardned and as it were withered with heat The which they prove by Potters earth which
whether that water which contains in it the salt of Embryonated Sulphur and keeps with it the gnawn vein of Copper doth distill or drop by it self or be boyled by fire into the consistence of Vitriol or in the next place be elsewhere coagulated of its own accord that no way distinguisheth of its kind or goodness for truly it looseth nothing hereof in boyling For when the watery liquor hath in boyiing sufficiently exhaled the residue is at length afterwards of its own accord coagulated in the cold But the diversity of veins alone varies the price of Vitriol for nigh Antwerp while the Sulphur is melted out of the fire-stone the rest is exposed under the open air and as to the greater part of it doth by little and little melt for by the scorching and smoaky fumes of the Sulphur it conceiveth a rust which is known by the residing salt and through rain flowes down into the ditches So also the neighbouring Eburians do prepare their Vitriol from a richer vein Elsewhere indeed there is a vein of the very Copper it self being rich in the coagulated salt of Sulphur and it drops flowes abroad and is coagulated of its own accord which otherwise is washed off or dissolved by the moistness of the neighbouring fountain The difference therefore of the goodness consists in the purity of the salt but not in the wealthiness and plenteousness of the Copper for I speak not as a Merchant but as a Physitian it differs also by reason of the co-mixture of a certain forreigner to wit if in the fire-stone or vein of Copper a vein of Lead be co-mixed which is frequently obvious or perhaps there be present a malignant participation of Arsenick for Arsenick because it for the most part ensnares and accompanies mettals hence by a usual name it is called the Fume of mettals And so that which otherwise would be a lawful Vitriol is made hurtful in healing But the Azure or sky-colour of Vitriol is for the most part preferred before the green colour perhaps because that more pleaseth the eyes at leastwise by a most easie business the Be-juglers of Simples do of green Vitriol dissemble an Azure colour therein But moreover the Chalcitis or red Vitriol the Mysy Sory and Black of the Greeks have at this day perished as unprofitable distinctions of the veins of Copper For the Greeks are only Alphabetaties and in respect of the Germanes a sluggish generation whatsoever the antient ones have published to posterity concerning the matter of mettals But there are some who with Paracelsus commend and extol that Vitriol in healing which is accounted the most rich in the plenty of Copper and so they prefer that before all which is composed out of the Copper it self Some therefore sprinkle Sulphur on bright-burning or melted Copper and so by great labour procure the green rust thereof c. But Paracelsus prepares the best Vitriol in healing by plates of Copper being spread abroad through cementing them with common Salt and Sulphur The more modern ones being from hence seduced do repeatingly distill the thin plates of Copper by the spirit of common Sulphur or Vitriol until they are plainly black and brickle the which at length they melt in water and it becomes of a sky-colour the which in boyling is thickned and a Vitriol growes together in the cold For so indeed that is at this day adulterated which is set to sale for Cyprus Vitriol By the leave of Paracelsus I know and certainly find that Vitriol made of Copper is far more sluggish in healing than the common Vitriol which wants the suspition of Miscellanie or Hotch-Potch things And so that the spirit thereof is nothing but a meer Mineral Vinegar deprived of the vapour of Coppery Sulphur For I have certainly found that the Vitriol made of Copper is far more poor than that which is dig'd out of its Mineral vein Likewise that digged Vitriol wherein there is very much Copper is slower than the common sort in healing and distilling For I have distilled Vitriol that was prepared by art being of an Azure colour and in no wise to be distinguished by the sight from Cyprus Vitriol and it yielded a little sluggish acide spirit and all its spirit by and by ceased within a few hours and all its remaining body abode condensed into a black Feces or dreg and restored its Copper unto me according to my wish For truly Copper is a compleat metral not easily to be destroyed or returning back unto its own Principles So that although it be diminished through the cruelty of sire yet whatsoever thereof shall fly away is as yet a true mettal for the reasons above alledged Truly among Metallick veins there is none with the like difficulty brought unto the perfection of a Mettal as is Copper it self the which George Agricola testifieth for truly it requires to be re-cocted at least nine times before Copper issue from thence whereas the while the veins of other Mettals pour out their treasure at the first melting The vein of Copper therefore attains its perfection by a sequestration of the parts mixed with it from its nativity But these parts are those which are as yet fast bound unto their own first Being from whence it therefore the Copper being now perfect refuseth and as stubbornly as it can resists a dissolution of its body and by consequence neither can there a perfect Medicinal Vitriol be had from thence which may have a vertue from the Sulphur of Venus because this is not separable from the Copper unless by an every way destruction of the Metallick Body even as I have before taught Those parts therefore of the Copper vein which are far remote from a Metallick nature and which are the nearer to their first Being do afford a medicinal vertue unto Vitriol which is denied unto Calcanthuns or Vitriol artificially made For the common and base or cheap Vitriol doth breath forth its exhalation but in a full eight days space at least However it may be urged with the most ardent flames of a Reverbery By how much therefore freer the vein is from a forreign Malignity and shall be nearer to the first Being of Venus to wit the farther off from the Metallick constitution of Copper by so much the salt thereof which is bred in it of its own free accord and co-melted with it doth produce the more unblamable Vitriol and affords the richer spirits and those most fit for healing But the unusual manner of distilling it is this Take of common Vitriol that is not suspected of a forreign Malignity let it melt by boyling it in a large earthen Pot and let it be boyled even to a dryness The Pot being broken let the Vitriol that is now hardened like a stone be beaten into a pouder But let the distillation be made by at least six Retorts at once and let those Retorts be of glass For all stonie ones are Porous because all earth retains pores For that after
readily burnt But let us suppose dead flesh to be first made lukewarm and to be in the same degree of heat no otherwise than if it did live yet it is not therefore easily scorched or burnt nor after the same manner wherein live-flesh is Therefore the aforesaid evasion hath no place Wherefore seeing that from the agent of a single degree of heat divers operations do happen in the same subject of flesh being distinct only in life Therefore it must needs be that the life is the only cause of that diversity which is to say that the life is the proper agent of Sennsation in Sesitive Creatures and that the life is such a cause which besides hath a power of making burnings or scorchings in live bodies and in the matter of Medicine yea also of resisting or not Wherefore I find Life to be the first or chief and immediate Efficient of Sense and pain For truly the force of fire being received and introduced into a dead Carcase is not to be felt yea neither properly is it a Scorching or burning one such as is in live bodies but rather a roasting and parching one For in live bodies the liquor of flesh is through an indignation of the Sensitive Soul most speedily converted into a sharp liquor and substantially transchanged the which in dead bodies is not subject unto a vital transmutation And so by boyling and frying it parcheth and roasteth fleshes between the Fibers For flesh that is dead suffers by degrees the which other bodies not sensitive do suffer after a single manner from the fire But in live bodies even boyling water presently produceth bladders and then the solid part is swiftly contâ—acted and burns Therefore that action of scorching or burning in live and and sensitive bodies is made efficiently by the Life it self but by the fire effectively by way of an active occasional and external mean To wit the life it self feeling the rigour of the fire sharpens its own liquor and transchangeth it into a bladdering one and afterwards into an Escharrotick liquor And as much indeed as is snatched by the fire so much afterwards is by a disposition that is left corrupted because it is dead But because of sensible things known by Sense touching is the chief Judge therefore a demonstration hath scarce place and the history and root of pain by its causes hath hitherto remained neglected Therefore I will repeat some things which in so great a Paradox I wrote before in a more contracted speech Wherefore for the searching into the proper agent in pain I have considered that Frogwort Smallage Scarwort c. do not embladder in a dead Carcase yet they embladder live flesh I judged therefore that in the very sensitive soul the difference of this act consisted and not primasily in the Scarwort Because it is that which embladders only so far as by a biting more sharp than is meet it thus molests the Sensitive spirits the which that they may mitigate blunt or extinguish the perceived sharpness the soul rageth in them and therefore resolveth the proper vital substance of the members into a corrosive liquor even as elsewhere concerning the Plague wherefore the sensitive Soul it self as it is the immediate sensitive substance so it is the efficiently effective cause of the bladder But the Scarwort which operates nothing in a dead Carcase is the effective occasional external and excitative cause By reason whereof the Schools being astonished have taught that Medicines are wholly sluggish and as it were dead unless they are first prepared by our heat as it were by a Cook and being stirred up are sharpned thereby The which thing surely wants not its own perplexities For they have determined of that very thing as Medicines being assumed or applied should not forthwith display their faculties on us like fire but as they should have need of a certain space of time wherein they might produce their own effects by foregoing dispositions notwithstanding if a space be required that an altetation may made which is the effect of the medicine Surely that not any thing proves the action of a Medicine otherwise necessary to be from our heat that the Medicine may obtain the gift of its own nativity or a liberty of acting the which it obtained safe full and free to it self by Creation But as I have said it operates after another manner yea oft-times a far other thing in live bodies than otherwise in dead or unsensitive ones And so the effects of Medicines are not wrought unless they are first duly applied and afterwards by a more exact appropriation they do imprint their power on us to wit that from thence a disposition may arise which the sensitive soul stirs up by its own judgement and afterwards also unfolds and perfects For the Schools have erred in Medicinal affairs because they have beheld external and occasional causes for principal and vital ones Therefore they have neglected to connex in live bodies and in cures themselves things effected unto their proper efficients by the due journeys of degrees Wherefore be it a foolish thing that Pepper Vinegar c. ought to borrow their activities and gifts received for acting from our heat As if one only heat should be the primary cause of so many-form effects Because in very deed that a thing may act on us it hath no need of another forreign thing out of it self for this purpose but as primarily so it without delay presently uncloaths its faculties by the moments of dispositions if it be duly applyed even as I have demonstrated at large as well concerning the action of Government as in the Treatise that heat doth not digest in sensitive Creatutes But because the sensitive Soul which the Schools shamefully confound with heat applyeth the received faculties and from thence frameth a certain new action proper to it self and wholly vital Therefore the faculties which the Sensitive soul receiveth from the medicine are the effective and occasional causes only and it might if it would pass by and neglect the same The which is manifest in the more strong persons who digest laxative medicines even violent ones without trouble and drink being in vain as if they were foods And likewise in dying persons unto whom indeed there is an application of Medicines but not an appropriation to wit by reason of a neglect and defect of the sensitive power For in the more strong folks an exciting heat is not wanting and yet thâ—re is no effect For otherwise the vertues of a Medicine are presently received and do pâ—oceed by degrees more and more and then those powers being received into the sensitive Soul this sensitive Soul presently behaves it self well or ill toward them If well then it useth its own Objects for the cherishment of their powers or for the vanquishment of that which is hurtful But if amiss now the sensitive life carries it self foolishly furiously angrily vexingly c. And it spreads the seminal Idea's of these
to their mind hurting most actions The top of the matter is that they call the Genus or general kind of the thing defined or the essence of a Fever not any kind of heat whatsoever but that which shall be besides nature and which shall hurt in its own degree And so seeing that heat is essential to a Fever that it ought chiefly to be so unseperable from a Fever that a Fever cannot be mentally conceived but that that heat is an individual companion thereunto First of all Camp Fevers have newly objected themselves the which happen without thirst and a manifest heat That is they finish their tragedy without heat from the beginning even unto the end of life If they say that these Fevers were unknown to the Antients nor therefore to be comprehended under the definition I at least conclude from thence that neither can these Fevers therefore be Fevers or that the essence of Fevers are not of necessity tied up to heat but only by accident And then again that the definition of Fevers from of old delivered and even till this day observed in the Schooles is not suitable to the nature of a Fever And thirdly that whosoever shall at the beginnings of Fevers feel cold pithily to pierce him for some houres may notwithstanding not perswade himself that a Fever is begun or present with him but some other affect hitherto unnamed For although he be shaken with vehement cold his teeth do shake and his lips look wan by reason of cold yet that he may perswade himself by those deformities that those beginnings of Fevers are not the beginnings of Fevers for neither is he extinct by a true Fever who dies in such beginnings the which for the most part comes to passe in intermitting Fevers Let him believe it that will for I am not wont to call to me any other judge concerning contingent things known by sense besides touching For I am so stupide that I stand to nought but the judgment of the senses concerning sensible objects But Physitians which are the more tough in the opinion of the Antients privily escape into lurking places that they may defend those things which are perceived by Galen for some will have it that cold or rigour are not the beginnings of Fevers but the beginnings of the fit But Galen himself casts down these men saying We understand first by the name of a Paroxismus or fit the worst part of the whole fit which soundeth that the fit and the Fever are Sunonymalls But come on then if cold bespeak the beginning of the fit and not of the Fever at leastwise the fit shewes the Fever approaching and so the beginning of a fit shall of necessity be the beginning of a Fever Others therefore had rather their eyes being opened not to see not to perceive wherefore they say that in very deed no true but a dissembling cold and a deceitfull allurement of the senses is felt in the beginning of a Fever and while they are externally cold they will have it that they are internally in a raging heat and are burnt with true heat although they perceive otherwise But such doatages any one will easily hisse out of the middle of the Country For a most intense or heightned cold besigeth their innermost parts for some houres For in so manifest and undoubted an History of cold which is that of the deed and sense they produce an argument wan enough there is they say a great heat within although not to be perceived because they are pressed with continual thirst the which as it is chiefly the betokener of drynesse yet this thirst in live bodies presupposeth an heat equal to it self And so thirst deserveth more Authourity than sense or feeling But they know not that this thirst proceeds not from heat as neither from drynesse even as it otherwise happens in natural thirst For therefore that neither is it appeased by drink being administred The which ought regularly to be done if that thirst did arise from drynesse or heat The thirst therefore is deceitfull but not the cold For the thirst ariseth from an excrement which badly affecteth that sensitive faculty and the organ thereof and deludes it no otherwise than as if great drynesse had suddenly come unto it For the sharp distillation of Sulphur which in it self is most dry and a corrosive is wont to mitigate that deceitfull thirst no otherwise than as water quencheth fire But at least wise our adversaries will not grant that dryth is taken away by the most dry remedies but not rather by the drinking of moist and cold things But why is it not lawfull by a like reason to divine that cold in the beginning of Fevers is from an unconquered drowsie affect Since the Schooles determine that the drowsie evil doth no lesse proceed from unvanquished cold than thirst from drynesse Neither doth that hinder that the drowsie evil is not present with all that have a Fever For it is suficient and brings the greater confusion that in some that have Fevers there is a frequent drowsinesse But at length whither will they escape if in the vigour of Fevers which is the hottest station of Fevers they grant not so great thirst to be as in the beginning thereof yet that the more inward parts do then according to sense especially burn with much perplexity wherefore if thirst bewray heat and the betokening hereof be unseperable from heat so as that those who tremble by reason of cold are neverthelesse said to burn the greatest thirst ought to presse under the hottest season of Fevers But they deny that what therefore will they do being taken in their own net Therefore they largely erre as many as give their judgments concerning the native roots of things from accidents following by accident It is therefore the part of deadly ignorance badly to have defined a Fever if they shall cure a Fever according to its definition Yea we must treat against them by the Law of Cornelius concerning privie Murtherers who obstinately badly cure those who have committed their life unto them because that through the guilt of whom so many ten thousands of millions are so unhappily killed And indeed if a Fever or Feverish heat for these two are in the Schooles Sunonymalls or of one and the same name ought to be kindled first in the heart nor yet that the matter of Fevers which they say doth proceed from one of the four humours being putrified consisteth in the bosomes of the heart therefore the heat or Fâ—ver is not kindled at first in a Feverish matter and putrefaction is vainely enquired into that they may finde out the intimate and immediate cause of heat besides nature And by consequence the definition of a Fever from thence falls to the ground Yea it followes from thence that a Fever doth not primarily intimately and immediatly exist in its own matter from whence it is caused as they will have it materially and originally but in
oft-times seem presently to be eased and also to be cured yet cutting of a vein cannot but be disallowed seeing that Feverish persons are more successfully cured without the same For however at the first or repeated cuttings of a vein the cruelty of Fevers shall oft-times slacken Surely that doth no otherwise happen than because the Archeus much abhorreth a sudden emptying of the strength and an undue cooling and so neglects to expell the Feverish matter and to perform his office But they who seem to be cured by blood-letting surely they suffer a relapse at least they obtain a more lingering and less firm health which Assertion the Turks do prove and a great part of the world who with me are ignotant of the opening of a vein because it is that which God is no where read to have instituted or approved of yea not so much as to have made mention thereof But as to what belongs unto the first scope of a co-betokeming sign which is called Cooling Truly the letting out of the blood cooleth by no other title than as it filcheth from the vital heat But not that it obtains a coolifying and positive power In which respect at least such a cooling ought to be hurtful Why I pray in a Hectick Fever do they not open a vein Doth not that Fever want cooling or doth it cease to be a Fever But blood is wanting in Hecttick Fevers wherefore through defect of blood and strength there is an easie Judgement of hurt brought by Phlebotomy which otherwise the more strong faculties do cover In the year 1641. Novemb. 8. the body of Prince Ferdinand brother to the King of Spain and Cardinal of â—oledo was dissected who being molested with a Tertian ague for 89 dayes dyed at 32. years of age For his heart liver and lungs being lifted up and so the veins and arteries being dissected scarce a spoonful of blood flowed into the hollow of his breast Indeed he shewed a liver plainly bloodless but a heart flaggy like a purse For but two dayes before his death he had eaten more if it had been granted unto him He was indeed by the cuttings of a vein purges and leeches so exhausted as I have said yet the Tertian ceased not to observe the order of its intention and remission What therefore hath so great an evacuation of blood profited or what hath that cooling plainly done unless that those evacuaters were vain which could not take away so much as a point of the Fevers Is that the method of healing which makes a Physitian whom the Almighty hath created and commanded to be honoured by reason of the necessity of him If that method knows not how to cure a Tertian ague in a young man to what end shall it conduce Is that the art whereof the infirm and unhealthy person stands in need I wish and wish again that that good Prince had not made use of it who when the returning from Cortracum was saluted by the Senate of Bruxells recovering from the agony of death by reason of the diminishments of his blood and strength then walked in good health about his Chamber Physitians therefore abhor to expose their feverish persons to the encountring of cold things to wit whereby they might presently and abundantly experience the vertue of cooling things by a manifest token because they put not much trust in their own rules of Heats and Coolers For since it is already manifest that the whole heat in a Fever is that of the very vital spirit it self it follows also that the cooling which is made by cutting of a vein is meerly that of the vital spirit and together also an exhausting of the blood and an impoverishment thereof For if a Fever be to be cured as a distemper by cutting of a vein as a cooling remedy Alas the contrary is manifest by the exhausting of all the blood out of the Prince the Infanto of Spain In whom as yet but the day before his death the Tertian Ague kept its fits â—o great cooling not hindering it and if others intens a curing even in a Quotidian only by cold which they writ to be kindled of putrified Phlegm at leastwise that cooling should be far more easily obtained by exposing the sick half naked unto the blowing of the North or West wind or by hanging him up in water or a deep well until he should testifie that he were sufficiently cooled For so they should prefently and abundantly perfect a cure if their conscious ignorance did not within condemn their own feverish essence of heat Therefore a Fever is not a naked Tempest of heat but an occasional vitiated matter is present for the expelling whereof the Archeus being as it were wroth doth by accident inflame himself The which as long as it shall be neglected in the Schools the curings of Fevers will be rash destructive and conjâ—ctural therefore none shall owe any thing worthy of giving thanks unto Physitians seeing they are cured by the voluntary goodness of nature and I wish they were not put back by Physitians But unto the argument of curing by sudden cold the Schools will answer that there is a perilous departure from one extream unto another By which excuse of their ignorance they stop the mouth of the people as if they spake something worthy of credit not taking notice that they therein contradict themselves while as they praise and prefer the cutting of a vein before laxative medicines chiefly for that end because it presently and abundantly succours by cooling and therefore they have given it the surname of a speedy and universal succour For they constrain their own impotency founded in ignorance unto the will of a Maxim badly understood and worse applied For truly it is not be doubted but that it is lawful presently to cut the halter of him that is hanged that he who was deprived of air may enjoy it as soon as may be Likewise that it is lawful presently to place him that is drowned in a steep scituation that he may cast back the water out of his lungs That it is lawful I say to draw any one presently to the bank and that it is lawful presently to free a wound from its indisposition and to close it with a scar For so very many wounds are closed in one only day because a solution of that which held together wants nothing besides a re-uniting of it self That it is lawful presently to repose a broken or diplaced bone Likewise that it is lawful in the Falling Sickness Swooning Fainting Cramp to recall the weak as soon as one can presently to loosen the detainments of excrements and presently to stop the excessive flux of womens issues For neither must we think that nature rejoyceth in her own destruction and that from an healthy state she indeed le ts in sudden death but refuseth a remedy which may suddenly repell a disease otherwise she should not do that which in things possible is most exceeding
black Choler and jesting or merry ones from blood Surely otherwise we should all of us be daily jocound doaters or deprived of blood For feverish doarages are especially fetcht out of a feverish matter creeping into the shops of dreams and not from elsewhere But not that it forsakes the body that it may enter into the mind And likewise a doating delusion should never happen in a burning Fever in a Synochus or continual Fevers but alwayes in Quartanes and black Cholery Diseases Truly a Doatage is already from the very Beginning of Fevers To wit where the Fever and the Cause of the Doatage are jointy in the Root For the malice being encreased and the Organs weakened by little and little the Doatage or Delusion ascends unto the maturity of its own perfection So in Wine and also in some Simples yea and likewise in feverish Excrements a hidden Doatage is covered neither doth it bewray it self unlesse the power thereof shall ascend into a Constitutive mixture At leastwise all things do by the same Royal wax according to the Genius of their own malice Rage on the Organs of the Phantasie even as elsewhere concerning Madnesses The Seed therefore of the doating Delusion lurked from the Beginning in the feverish matter which at length is promoted unto its due malignity If therefore Madnesses differ in their matter and efficient cause That is in their whole Species and Being Surely the Falling-sicknesse and Madnesse do much farther differ from each other and do more differ in a forreign Seed than that one onely black Choler being exorbitant in its Seats should bring forth both Even as elsewhere concerning the Dunmvirate Madnesses I will say in one word are all nourished by the arteries and in the Inn of the Hypochondrial or Midriffes According to that saying In whom a vein beats strongly in the Midriffs those are estranged in their mind Therefore also they oft-times want an exciting disturbance before they relapse into a Mania or bruitish madness Because this is bred by a perturbation very like unto that CHAP. VII The Succours of Physitians are weighed 1. Of what sort the Succours of Physitians are 2. The vanity of the same 3. The hurt of local Medicines and their feigned derivation 4. The water in Vesicatories was meer venal blood 5. An Objection solved 6. A Vesicatory or embladdering Medicine is more cruel than the letting forth of blood 7. To what end Vesicatories were devised 8. A Clyster why hostile to the bowels 9. A Clyster never reacheth unto the gut Ileon 10. Laxatives in a Clyster are the more sharp being hurtful as purging things are but less hurtful 11. A poyson hurts to have taken it inwards by whatsoever title and entrance 12. That Fevers are never drawn out by Clysters 13. They therefore hinder long life 14. A Clyster how it names Physitians 15. A fore-knowledge from the use of Clysters 16. It is a blockish thing to nourish by Clysters 17. A conjecture 18. The common sort of Physitians are taken notice of I have determined to examine the common Succours before I determine of the nature of Fevers But those are Scarifications openings of the Fundament-Veins Vesicatories and others of that sort and they all concut unto the diminishments of the blood strength and body And the which therefore have already been sufficiently condemned under universal Succours They are indeed foolish aids about the superficies of the body when as the Central parts labour and are besieged and the which not being freed from the enemy it is vain and hurtful whatsoever is attempted by the gestures of such Apes Surely it is a vain rudiment of hope to be willing by consequence to remove the root out of its place by taking away the guiltless blood from the skin which thing Prince Infanto the Cardinal by his exhausted veins the Circuite of his Tertian Ague nevertheless remaining hath confirmed to Anatomists with a mournful spectacle And likewise a Paracenthesis or opening of the belly nigh the navil in the dropsie ought long since to have extinguished the like kind of hope For there it is plainly an easie thing to draw out waters from the nigh Center and daily to draw from the fruit a part of the water at pleasure But in vain because not any thing of the root departs And so incision nigh the navil doth only protract life for a few dayes But let Vesicatories or embladdering Medicines be alwayes exceeding hurtful and devised by the wicked spirit Moloch For the water dropping continually from thence is nothing but venal blood transchanged For while any one scorcheth his hand or leg the fire calls not the whey of the blood unto the burned place Neither doth that water lurk in any other place and waiting to run to it with loosened rains while the skin should be at sometimes scorched The water should be deaf at the call of the fire neither should nature obey a commander from without What if a water swims on the blood which they call Choler surely that floats not as being separated from the blood except after its Coagulation or Corruption Embladderers therefore intend this but not Preservation and Healing That salt water therefore is not but is made it is not separated I say from the Blood but the Blood thereof is transchanged into water very like unto the Dropsie Flux and the like defects By so much therefore are Vesicatories fuller of danger than the cutting of a vein Because this is stopped at pleasure but that not the which after the cuttings of a vein and vain Butcheries of the body is at length dreamed of for the hinderances of a Feverish Coma and so for the adulterating of a latter effect For they rejoyce to awaken the sleepy or deep drowsie sick by reason of the pain of so many Ulcers And however thou considerest of the matter it is a cruel torture of Butchers For neither is the drowsie sick ill at ease because he sleepeth But he sleepeth because he is ill at ease And so to hinder the sleep is not profitable But that only prevaileth to take away the root of drowsiness They therefore who suspend the sleep only by pains do cruelly drive the sick headlong into death For they flatter the people in being cruel toward the sick party In the mean time they persevere in the office of a cruel and unfaithful Mercenary Helper For if the drowsie feverish person sleep or being pulled be daily awakened such stupid allurements perform not the least thing in Fevers Wherefore I am wont to give my remedies in at the mouth and food at set hours nor to regard whether he shall sleep or not I say that antient saying with the Apostles If Laxarus sleep therefore he shall be healed For the tortures brought on him that hath a Fever have never profited any one But as to what pertains to Clysters it is a frequent and shameful aid of Physitians I at leastwise in times past never perswaded and described Clysters
which cures every Fever at one only potion But an Hectick Fever within the course of the Moon or in a months space For it being taken in at the mouth cures the Cancer Wolf and any eating malignant Ulcer whether external or internal and likewise the Dropsie Asthma and any Chronical disease For it alone perfects the desires of Physitians as well in Physical as Chyrurgical defects The description thereof is as well in his book of the Death of things as in his great Chyrurgery and I will somewhat more manifestly declare it Take of the powder of Johannes de Vigo being prepared with thy own hand for otherwise it is adulterated by Minium being admixed with it even as also any sort of Chymical Medicine whatsoever which is set to sale is full of deceit This Powder the Element of fire extracted from the Vitriol of Venus or Copper being poured on it is to be five times cohobated with Aqua Regis by increasing the fire about the end for it is plainly fixed And it is a powder exceeding Corrosive The which afterwards let it be ten times cohobated with Aqua vitae most exactly refined and renewed at every turn until it hath brought away with it all the Corrosion And then that powder is sweet like Sugar And therefore the spirit of Wine is there called Saltaberi or Tabarzet which sounds Sugar Not because it is sweet in it self but it takes away the cortosive spirits with it self so that the remaining powder shines in its own sweetness and not borrowed from elsewhere For besides that the fire of Vitriol is sweet the very Sulphur of the Mercury being then turned inside out is of the greatest sweetness That powder is fixed and it is called Horizontal gold For I have delivered a Secret unto a few which ennobles a Physitian But to have prepared that Secret is for the first turn of great labour and the direction thereof depends on the hand of him unto whom all honour is due because he reveals such Secrets unto his little ones which the world knows not and therefore hath a low esteem of them There is also the Purging Remedy Diuceltatesson which radically cures the Gout no less than Fevers And it is called his Corralline Secret which is prepared of the Essence of Horizontal gold after this manner From the common Mercury sold in Shops abstract thou the Liquor Alkahest whereof he makes mention in his second Book of the strength or faculties of the Members in the Chap. Concerning the Liver The which is done in a quarter of an hour For saith Raymund my friends standing about me and the King being present I coagulated Quicksilver and none besides the King knew the manner how In which Coagulation that is singular that the liquor Alkahest being the same in number weight and activity prevails as much in the thousandth action as it did at the first because it acteth without a re-acting of the Patient The Mercury therefore being thus coagulated without any remainder of the Coagulater make thereof a fine powder and distill thou five times from that powder the water distilled from the whites of eggs and the Sulphur of the Mercury which by its aforesaid coagulation was drawn outwards will be made red like Coral And although the water of the Whites of Eggs may stirk yet that powder is sweet fixed enduring all the fire of the bellowes neither doth it perish in the examination of Lead yet it is spoiled of its medicinal vertue while it is reduced into a white mettal But it is for the most part given in the quantity of eight grains because it purgeth the body of man as long as it is defective and not perfectly sound It heals also the Ulcers of the Bladder Wind-pipe and Throat But since it belongs not to every Physitian to go to Corinth neither is it lawfull to prophane the Secrets of God who would remain the Dispenser hereof it hath been sufficient for me to have manifested the Theorie of Medicine That by praying seeking and knocking they may attain knowledge from whence every good gift descendeth Notwithstanding there are some particular Remedies of Fevers which although they ascend not unto the universal ampleness of general kinds yet they for the most part give satisfaction in Fevers Of which sort are the salts of Cephalical things or things for the head and likewise of Marioram Rosemary Sage Rue and the like not thinking that these salts are the Alcalies or Lixivial ones of their ashes but volatile salts and those which contain the whole Crasis or constitutive temperature of the Simples For they are famous Diaphoreticks and somewhat temperate ones The which if they are drunk in Wine or Vinegar at a due station to wit upon a fasting stomack and before the fit of intermitting Fevers or at any time of continual Fevers and sweat be procured they shall never expose a faithful Physitian to a mock Cease thou also to wonder that I propose Fevers to be cured without all evacuation if I perswade transpiration and sweats For I have also seen Fevers to be frequently cured by Simples bound on the body with the great disgrace of Physitians Lastly I will also say this that I have safely cured an hundred Quartanes by an Emplaster without a Relapse although Aurumnal ones Therefore in the Family of feverish Species's such particular remedies do oft-times reach to the top of an universal remedy Seek and ye shall find so that Medicine be not for gain For if your intention be Mercy from Charity Truth and Light descending from the Father of Lights shall meet you in the journey To whom be a rendering of Honour for ever CHAP. XV. An Answer unto Reproaches 1. An Argument against the Contemners of Sciences 2. Answers unto the Reproaches of the Galenists 3. The Chymical Medicines of the shops are adalterated 4. Corrosives wax mild by the fire 5. An Objection concerning the smaleness of the Dose 6. The dignity of Mercury and Stibium or Antimony 7. A most rare Arcanum of Volatile Salt 8. All things cry for revenge against the Galenist the Despiser of Chymistry 9. The Original of the Apothecaries shop 10. An Objection concerning the solving of Pearls and Coralls 11. After what manner things dissolving are separated from things dissolved in the stomack 12. What to Precipitate may signifie in Chymical preparations 13. A censure of some Writers of Chymistry 14. A repeated Objection privy escapes unto the more soft Tophus's or small stones of living Creatures 15. Of what sort the action of Gemms on us may be 16. What there may be in a more tender stone which operates its powder remaining safe 17. Mechanical proofs 18. Proofs from their own weapons 19. A certain wonderful and almost infinite re-acting of the Patient without a transchangeative passion of its Essence 20. An explaining it by handicraft operation 21. What Bodies being apparently dissolved may suffer in us 22. A danger unknown to the Schools 23. A Secret involved first
be grieved at that nothing of these remedies is handed forth to Mortals which is not most miserably adulterated At leastwise I will declare for those that are ingenious That the spirit of the salt of Tartar if it shall dissolve Unicorns-horn Silver Quick-silver the stones of Crabs or some one of those Simples it cures not only a Fever but also many diseases sufficiently But not that I hope that Silver Quick-silver or others of like sort are to pass thorow into the veins It is sufficient for me that that spirit of the Alcali salt being by these bodies reduced into a volatile and coagulable salt and reduced in the shop of the stomack unto the rule of the meats passeth thorow it into the Meseraick veins at least being carried that way by the Urine and by passing thorow them licketh and resolveth the filths there grown through a forreign power assumed to themselves Surely I could willingly communicate many and more easie remedies of like sort if the drowsiness and sluggishness of Physitians had not affrighted my pen who gape only after gain and expose the life of mortal men under the trustiness and desire of lucre of the Apothecary and his wife But as to a Quartane Ague I am wont to drive that away by an Emplaster composed of a few resolving and cleansing Simples neither hath it ever deceived me except that in fat or gross persons the obediences thereof are the slower An Impertinency The Authour desires to see that Humourist who had equalized Air unto Water in weighing that he might connex the Galenists their equal temperature ad pondus or according to weight to wit how much air is to be taken for a pound of water that they may be equalized in weight Another The Air is neither light nor heavy because it is without weight and therefore neither can it be weighed nor equalized Therefore the Doctrine of Galen is destitute of the greatest and chiefest hope of complexions because it hath a liberty of lying boastings A PASSIVE DECEIVING AND IGNORANCE OF THE SCHOOLES THE HUMOURISTS The which if they shall henceforth defend shall cover with a stubborn malice God also being wroth will discover the same in the now imminent age for the profit of the Christian World and the Confusion of the obstinat The PREFACE to the READER I Had written in an unwonted Style concerning Fevers and when the little Book returned unto me I scarce understood the same by reason of its gross and innumerable faults yet presently afterwards however plainly vitious it was for that Cause within a few weeks it began to be desired Whence I judged if a faulty Book had been worthy the Press and much desired that by a stronger right it earnestly required another Edition not only that it might come forth amended which would bewray the blemishes and ignorances committed against me and so by a singular Doctrine would as nearly and intimately as might be weigh the life of Mortals whereunto none as yet hitherto had attempted to answer but more peculiarly that the Unheard-of Doctrine thereof chiefly true although unexpected might the more strongly be confirmed Therefore I was constrained to over-add the Commission of my own Coyn whereby it might on every side be firmly defended from the Humourists the Pages of the Schools of Galen and my Haters and might not suffer the truth delivered to be troden under foot wherefore I have added Reasons whereby I have shewn the vanity and falsehood of the device of Humours whereby Physitians from a destructive foundation have circumvented the whole world have fatted the places of burial have destroyed Families have made Widdows and Orphans by many ten thousands and so have brought themselves into the merriments of Kitchins and Comedies Paracelsus indeed attempted to hiss out the Fallacies of Humours and he hath at this day his Followers almost every where amongst the most learned men yet never any before me that I know of hath professly attempted to untie this Knot Therefore if any one hath heretofore threatned to bend his Quill against my Book of Fevers because he took it injurionsly that I have not only overthrown the two Universal Bulwarks of Medicine but especially that I have demonstrated That no laxative Medicine hath ever hitherto drawn out electively this Humour before that yea that all and every of Purging Medicines were an hostile poyson to the Life Perhaps he will now lay aside his Pen when he shall see the same Opinion to be more strongly confirmed To wit That the existence of both Cholers and of Phlegm is impossible in nature that the trifling Complexions and Diseases diligently taught and believed to arise from thence are supported by false Principles And by consequence that the method of Healing instituted according to the distemperatures of Humours is deceitful meer dreams old wives Fables and trifling toyes For I ought to treat roundly sincerely and candidly as oft as I have determined to write of God Truth the Life and publick Good of Mortals I implore him for my witness as also my Judge herein Who is the Way the Truth and veriest Life it self of mortal men I have therefore willingly exposed this diligent search of Truth and attained victory under his Protection and Bedewing Fare ye well my mortal Companions I wish ill to all your prosperous affairs Because I persectly teach the Truth A PASSIVE DECEIVING AND IGNORANCE OF THE SCHOOLES THE HUMOURISTS CHAP. I. That the four Humours of the Galenists are feigned 1. IT is answered by going to meet those who shall be willing to begin to write against the book of Fevers 2. The received opinion of the Schools is supposed 3. That it is false whatsoever hath been hitherto diligently taught concerning the Elements degrees mixtures discords and diseases hitherto 4. That heat it no where but from light motion life and an altering Blas 5. The limitations of moisturds and drynesses 6. The relation of a disease unto health of what sort it is 7. The remedies of diseases from whence 8. The unconstancy of Paracelsus even as also of Galen 9. That a return from a privation is not granted according to the Schools the which notwithstanding do every where dash against this rule 10. They fail in proving a quaternary of humours 11. The two pillars of humours are broken 12. Many things among simples have only two diversities 13. A miserable reasoning from a similitude for the number of humours 14. The Schooles stumble in the light 15. The maske of a sophistical argument is discovered 16. The similitude from herbs is opposed to the similitude from milk 17. In like manner the urine ought to be put for a fifth humour 18. The perplexity of the Schools 19. A conuincing argument against humours 20. An argument from a position supposed 21. From a sufficient enumeration of shops 22. From an imposibility 23. From an absurdity 24. Reasons sixteen in number 25. Against the positition concerning phlegm 26. From inâ—plicite blasphemy 27. From
being suited to the Element of fire and at another time to the Whey of the Milk And far more shamefully do they undistinctly liken both of these to the Gaul Therefore four Humours shall equally be made of any meat under one act and the same shop of sanguification because they are immediatly principally and simply and always intended by the Liver or they are made in unlike places and moments Not indeed in unlike ones because so there should not be constitutive parts of one and the same blood But if in like places and moments Why while urine and choler are made at once is not one individually mixed with the other even as also gaul with the urine Why in the next place is the urine never bitter if gaul be always comixed with it whereby it is tinged as they say Why when the gaul is broken in a fish can none however the more exact washing take away that bitternesse And after another manner one onely smal drop of gaul should defile a whole bucker of urine with bitternesse Who in the next place is that so exact Seperater which was able to seperate the watery Choler from the urine but could not materially seperate all the urine from the blood Wherefore at length is not that Choler or gaul of the blood snatcht together with the urine to the kidneys which a total absence of its bitternesse proveth if Choler be believed to be throwly mixed with the blood above the Liver Let us therefore consider how choler being made by the Liver in the Liver shall come down unto the little bag of the gaul In what place sanguification is wrought Whether about the Port-vein and hollow of the Liver Or indeed in the very body of the Liver Or lastly in the very hollow vein above the Liver But in whichsoever of these places that choler is made at leastwise there is not from thence a vein of return for choler unto the little blader of the Gaul For it ought to proceed from the Liver unto the Gaul by a retrograde motion and uncertaine passages of conveighance Why at least wise have both those choler 's remayning in the masse of the blood their own excrements and seperated Innes But phlegme and the blood want excrments For if both of them are made beneath the Liver what seperater therefore seperates them And which why Since they being generated at once in the same place are perfectly mixed with the urine But if the Gawl and also black choler be made together with the act of sanguification in a most swift passage thorow the smal and slender little branches of the veines extended into the Liver I pray let young beginners be mindfull of the flendernesse of those little branches or veines which is scarce sufficient for the transmitting of the vrine and so that they should require a momentary transmutation of the urine blood and the other three humours to be made by the Creame This matter I have elsewhere profesly explained in a full treatise concerning a sixfold digestion And in the 16. brief head in particular That Choler is not made of meates And in the 17. That the Gawl is a bowel in forme of a liquour and the necessary balsame of life but in no wise an excrement In the 25. The curious opinion of the Schooles concerning the Gaul is unfolded In the 26. That nature had been more carefull for the Gaul than for phlegme In the 27. That the seperation of the urine and of the wheyinesse of blood differs in the whole essence from the seperation of the wheyinesse out of Milâ— In the 30. How much Gaul imports beyond every disposition of an excrement In the 31. Why birds might want urine and a kidney but not a Gaul In the 35. That the excrements of the kidneys and belly have indeed the colour of Gaul but not that they are therefore tinged with the Gaul and much lesse with choler In the 36. After what manner the dung excludes a comixture of the Gaul In the 37. That excrements may seem Gauly which are no way Gauly and therefore that these things have been rashly passed by by the Schooles Also that a leeky liquour is not of the Gaul the history of a Cock proveth and some following experiments in the Chap. of the Pylorus Sec. 24. The which that I may not here with a tediousnesse repeate the curious Reader shall enquire and he shall finde them in the places cited For if the Liver generateth both Cholers and Phlegm together with the blood why doth it despise and lay aside a great part of them for an excrement but reserve the rest in the blood when as otherwise of simple and homogeneal blood there either ought to be no duality of any of its particular parts or there should be the same necessary duality no less of Phlegm and Blood than of both the cholers Neither doth reason otherwise suffer that the same singular Cream of the meats should be daily and alwayes and equally divided into six parts to wit into blood both Choler 's retained in the blood and again into both the excrementitious Cholers and those shut up within their own entertaining places at length into phlegm especially when as the gaul differs from the liquor swimming on the blood let out of the veins in its whole property Unto which six humours if thou shalt add the Urine now seven humours shall ordinarily be framed of one only Cream and the supposed device of a quaternary of Elements and the necessity of that fiction perisheth Therefore if these are made by one only act of one liver in a direct and ordinary course of Ordination at once why doth it generate those things as necessary out of the homogeneal liquor of the Cream whereof there is no way a need for a Being as neither for a Well-Being But if they are for nourishing why doth it rather sequester both Cholers into their own sheaths and the chief Mansions of Constitution than Phlegm to wit the which they blush not to confess to be a defectuous liquor cold and so a partaker of death errour and a vital want But they will have Phlegm to be laid up in the vein and to be re-cocted into blood Therefore it is not as yet This Something being as yet crude undigested and uncocted not yet a true particular Humour and not yet a constitutive one of the bloud seeing it is as yet deficient no otherwise then as the juyce of unripe Grapes cannot be called Wine For if Phlegm answer to water even as they also liken the blood unto air one ought to be as perfect in it self as the other and as equally necessary if there are four Elementary Humours equally necessary for the composition and successive Alteration of us Surely that thing contains a Mockery that a Humour failing of its appointment should be ordinarily changed into another Humour As if the Water had not its own Perfection Ordination Order and Constitution but were naturally brought into
air from the scope proposed by the Creator But I have elsewhere shewn in our Physicks that Water can never by Art or Nature be changed into Air nor likewise this into Water If therefore Phlegm resemble Water because it containeth it and Blood Air the adopting of any Phlegm into blood shall never be able to subsist And by consequence it is a feigned thing whatsoever hath hitherto been diligently caught concerning the union of Humours and Elements their Likeness Commixture Complexion and Necessity yea if phlegme be not as yet mature and through an over-hasty swiftness of time it be only in the way unto bloud and therefore left in the veins and mixed with the blood that it may be perfected and at length may nourish now not only the Liver shall be the shop of the blood but any Pipe of the veins shall have the nature of a bowel and because it containeth its properties and offices it should be preferred before the Liver in sanguifying and in the perfecting of the blood Yea neither should Phlegm be essentially a separated Humour from the blood no otherwise than as a sour grape differs not essentially from a ripe one Therefore by the same title the whole Chyle of the stomack shall be Phlegm Again since Phlegm is attributed unto old age defect and imperfection therefore also nearer to death then Choler and hence also more an enemy to nature the workman of things had seemed to be the more severe who had left such an enemy to be suitaably mixed with the bloud throughout all the veins and had not designed a receptacle for it He I say who madâ— not death had from the beginning coupled the necessities of a defect unto humane nature In the next place since that being granted Sanguification should not be the proper office of the Liver and the Liver shall be able to operate more perfectly and more at a far distance in the windings of the hollow Vein than near in its own house unless the Schools had rather to attribute Sanguification independently to the veins Finally if Phlegm differs not but only in maturity it is not an Humour essentially distinct from the blood and by consequence the Quaternary of Humours passeth into a Ternary And then as Galen witnesseth more of phlegm by two-fold is daily made which he proveth by a Tertian Ague than of Choler How much Phlegm therefore shall not be made in healthy persons and those perfectly digesting And how much of phlegm shall not be daily generated in the more cold bodies if Humours are made according to the dispositions of Complexions Yea from thence it follows that every digestion is alwayes of necessity and naturally defectuous and vitious Because nature shall never attain the end and purpose of nature If phlegm be naturally generated as a fourth Humour of the blood After another manner phlegm ought to fail in temperate bodies together with both the Cholers Why I pray is blood abounding turned into Fat since it is far more easily as they say concerning the Drawers forth of Choler changed into Choler and loads nature with a less weight than Choler which so obediently obeys a calling Solutive Medicine But why doth he that lives soberly in a temperate complexion as they call it daily lay up both the Cholers into their own Receptacles Doth it not rather from thence plainly appear that the Gaul and Spleen are nourished by some other thing and by a vital liquour than that which being banished from the blood hath attained the conditions of an excrement But go to yet what is that Humour in the Gout which is troublesome with so cruel a pain I indeed have elsewhere on purpose proved That it is a sharpness Wherefore also according to the institutions of the Schools it is cold and therefore different from Choler and Fire Yet in the Gout which they call the Hot one for by how much the sharper it is by so much also the more cruel they complain of most sharp pain and heat Therefore Choler either shall be sharp nor any longer bitter or the Schools have forgotten a fifth Humour Let the same equal Judgement be in the Colick and wringing of the bowels In the Erisipelas also or Anthonies fire the Humour is sharp because it is that which waxeth mild by soapie Remedies Therefore Choler or Gaul is not bitter And then in Caustical and Escarrhotical affects namely in the burning Coal Persian fire c. there is a Caustick or burning Salt of the condition of Alcalies but not a bitter one Even as neither in the Cancer Wolf all running cancrous Ulcers and those causing the greatest pains For the salt which gnawes is no way bitter Wherefore effects that are most fiery in us deride the vain device of Choler Especially seeing they who imitate the nature of Fire are not the Clients of a Cholerick Humour Therefore if according to the admonishment of the Word of Truth The Tree be to be judged of by his fruits but every thing by its Works and Properties I see not from what Use End Necessity or Rashness they have feigned yellow Choler to be fiery For there was no necessity like a Fable to feign three daily and domestick constitutive Humours of us that is without which we cannot live which never were in the nature of a thing or do suggest any necessity of themselves But what or what sort of bowel shall separate both the superfluous Cholers from the choice blood of the veins The Reins indeed separate the Urine for the Bladder Shall therefore both Cholers want their own Separater Or shall excrementous Choler go of its own accord unto its own sinks For there is not so great a necessity of the Urine as well in its Being as in its Separater as there is of both Cholers if both the Cholers are simply necessary as to their Being For truly Birds could commodiously want Urine Why therefore was nature less careful that she might make a bowel for the expurging of Choler than she was for the ejecting of Urine Shall therefore the Chest of the Gaul and Spleen perhaps strongly attract both the Cholers unto themselves without the aid of a Separater Yea seeing Sanguification is a Simple single action and of a natural scope surely one only Liver could not produce four Humours at once out of an Homogeneal liquor diverse from each other in their whole Element and separate two only as hurtful far off from each other Otherwise if the Liver should be sufficient for the separating of its own Liquors it had separated the Urine by a stronger right and had made the necessity of the Kidneys altogether vain In the next place if it doth not sequester all the Choler out of the blood not so much as in the most temperate strength nature shall alwayes of necessity offend even in the abounding of both Cholers in the excess of heat for the forming of Choler and of Cold also for Phlegm and likewise shall contiaually offend
or is joyned to water perisheth and is reduced into nothing For if the Schools had brought the vital spirit or sky-le air instead of fire they might have seemed worthy of pardon But they had rather become foolish in the dream of Epimenides than not to have found an Humour like unto fire that according to lying conceptions a quaternary of Humours might arise For for air they have feigned a priviledged Humour which should not be excrementitious after the manner of its two companions And therefore they now and then call these nourishing ones yet for the most part superfluous ones if not also liquid dungs But profitable ones especially in that respect not indeed as if they do nourish the spermatick parts besides the Cases of the Gaul-chest and Spleen but at least they are most miserable members which are constrained to be fed only with excrements and to yield to the priviledge of the kidneys But they note a ridiculous profit of yellow Choler that it spurs up the fundament and urine when as in the mean time pale urines are more incontinent than tinged ones Yea the belly of those that have the jaundise which they say is deprived of Choler by reason of a thy excrements is ordinarily loose enough But seeing the three Humours which are feigned to be in the blood differ not from themselves being rejected but only in the infamy of supersluity the radical moisture it self could not but be nourished by excrements if both the Cholers and phlegm were for nourishing But that a plenty of Choler which they say is daily may after some sort be supposed There is at least every other day in a Tertian ague a large quantity cast up by vomit also besides its daily consuming which they say is necessary for nourishing Yea the plenty of this feigned Choler more cleerly appears in the jaundise which they define only from a stoppage of the Chest of the Gaul So that then th◠urine is nothing but meer Gaul and the whole habit of the body and also the internal parts the most inward and the most outward to be Gauly The which since they are accounted nothing besides Gaul it being no longer ejected through the paunch Hence it is discerned that threefold more of Choler at least is daily generated than of blood being connexed of the three other Humours together They being badly mindful that sixfold more of tincture departs through a jaundisie urine alone than otherwise in an healthy person the belly and urine do utter together whence at least it followes that the jaundise is not the obstruction of the Gaul alone as they think For the orifice of the Gaul being shut presently the Gaul say they exceeds the whole blood in quantity For neither is a leeky and cankery tincture such as frequently proceedeth out of the stomach very frequent in the jaundise Moreover they say that phlegm is carried with the blood thorow the veins and at length changed into blood So that they constitute the proper shop of the blood and its promiscuous efficient as well in the veins as in the Liver But at leastwise a quaternary of Humours fagleth if yellow Choler differs out from black that only in the thickning of re-coction and if phlegm differs not from blood but but 〈◊〉 in a lukewarmth and cherishing For roasted flesh is not wont to be distinguished from raw in kind wherefore neither should phlegm dissagree from blood but only in its maturity as unripe Apples do from ripe ones But they could never shew phlegm in the veins except fibers which seperate themselves in warm water by cutting of a vein and so neither do they begin to be or to be seen before the death of the blood For as long as the blood is profitable for nourishing of the parts the more solid part thereof was undistinct from the rest of its body Because it was a true and entire composure For that thing is one every side obvious in the frame of nature For since nature acteth for ends known unto her Authour one-part always more readily receiveth the impressions of the Archeus than another For the end of the venal blood was a nourishing of the solid members And therefore it by little and little breaths after and attaines the degrees of solidity The blood therefore as soon as it is perfected in the Liver it assumeth in its more mature and more spermatick part white fibers or threds and the beginnings of a desired homogeneal curd which at first it had not in the veins of the mesentery as is manifest in those have the bloody flux Indeed it is therefore the best and most-perfect part of the blood which the Schools call phlegm and the which I know to be akin to a more solid and spermatick constitution The Schools I say name phlegm the daughter of crudity old age and defects even in a child a youth and a man For I dissent also in this from the Schools because for the proving of phlegm they offer nothing but snivel meer filths and liquid dungs to be beheld such as is oftentimes cast forth by vomit the kitchin of the belly being defective For oft-times that which is shaved of by a cruel draught as also the snivel of the nostrils and that which is spit out by reaching from any vice of the lungs whatsoever are the meer phlegm of the Schools which filths indeed are prepared by diseasifying causes through the errours of the last digestion And so great is the dulness of the Schools that with their own Galen they condemn the food of sinewes membranes tendons c. Because they think them to be the mothers of phlegm Neither do they heed that the similar parts and those of the first constitution are of a spermatick or seedy nature and those altogether by an undistinct confusion they call phlegmatick ones As being ignorant or at leastwise unmindfull that we are most nearly or immediately nourished by the same things whereof we consist And so if the homogeneral similar parts and those of the first constitution are condemned by the Humourists as phlegmy Surely one of these two must needs be true Either that the Schools know not now to distinguish phlegm from a secondary and spermatick Humour or plainly that there is no phlegm at all in the blood And that that which they have supposed to be phlegm in the blood is the beginning and foundation of the secondary and immediate nourishment of the solid members Now I must speak of yellow Choler which is supposed to be in urines with the admiration and grosse ignorance of fore-past ages CHAP. IV. The signification of the urine according to the Antients 1. The division of Urines 2. No unfit observation of Paracelsus 3. The Authours aime 4. It hath been erred hitherto in judgment concerning the circle of the urine 5. From whence the circle in the urine is 6. A childish opinion of Galen 7. It is proved that Gaul is not in the urine 8. The unconsiderateness
Tragedy of the world would again be hidden at leastwise I suppose that there will be other far more horrible Plagues than ever heretofore and against which all Antidotes will be vain For truly our Plague at this day doth not affect bruit beasts But in the last dreggishness 〈…〉 they shall destroy wild beasts also yea fishes and trees and there shall be Plagues but not an ordinary Plague otherwise this should be an uncertain sign of the future destruction For there shall be Plagues from the hand of God from the powring out of the Vials as the Revelation hath it But against those Plagues there is not to be a Buckler in Nature I promised therefore unto my self before I attempted to write these things that the Plague that was curable even unto that face of times and a true remedy thereof was to be fetched out of the Grave of Hippocrates or rather from above from the Father of Lights I will declare what I have learned for the profit of Posterity CHAP. III. The Heaven is free from as also innocent of our Contagion or Infection NOt the least comfort hath appeared unto the Soul that is earnestly desirous of knowledge or unto the miserable and forsaken sick from the writings of the Antients First of all it is of Faith that the Stars are for signs times or seasons daies and years nor that man can any way alienate the offices of the Stars or decline them unto other scopes That the Heavens are the works of the Lords hands that God created not Death and therefore that neither doth the Heaven contain Death a disease poyson discords corruptions or the effective cause of these For truly they are ordained not for the cause but for the signs of future things and only for the changing of seasons or Meteors and for the succession of daies and years The office therefore of the Heavens is not to generate evils to cause poysons to disperse or influx them to sow wars and to stir up deaths Because the heaven cannot exceed the bounds of its own appointment the heavens declare the glory of God for whose honour and the uses of ungrateful humanity it was created And therefore it rather contains in it life light joy peace and health with an orderly and continued motion no curse is read to have been communicated to the heaven after the transgression of Adam nor execration to be infused into it as neither a spot to have been sprinkled thereon The earth indeed brings forth thistles and thorns because under the Moon is the Copy-hold of the Devil and Death because of sinners the Empire of discords and interchanges The earth hath become a Step-mother unto us she is therefore the vale of miseries being great with-child of the corruption and fardle of sinners because it hath pleased God that there should be no other way unto rest but by tribulations yea it behoved Christ to suffer and so to enter into glory not indeed anothers but his own because he was willing to take on him the form of a servant I belive the Word of God but in no wise the vanities of the Sooth-sayers of Heaven and I judge that they who write that the Plague doth arise from the heaven do stumble as being hitherto deceived with the errours of the Gentiles The Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth the handy-works of the Lord The Heavens therefore shew a sweet or bitter thing to come but they do not cause that sweet or bitter yea neither is it lawful for us to call bitter things evils for God hath directed all things to a good end Therefore the heaven declares future things unto us but doth not cause them and the stars are only unto us for the signs of things to come and therefore there shall be signs in the Sun Moon and Stars The Stars also cause the successive alterations of seasons in the ayr waters and earth only by a native Blas From whence the changes and ripenesses as well in fruits as in the body of man especially in a sick one do consequently depend I understand also that the stars are in this respect for times or seasons unto us by their motive and alterative Blas For neither therefore are the Heavens Sorcerers or the Cocters of poysons the incensers of wars c. I knowingly consider them to be altogether as the alterers of successive interchanges in Elementary qualities as to the interchangeable courses of Stations Wherefore it happens that the sick aâ—e diversly altered in the promotion and maturity of seeds conceived in them because our vital faculties do stir up every their own Blas according to the rule or square of the most general motion of the stars not indeed as of violent leaders but of foregoing or accompanying ones For the Book of the Revelation doth not attribute even any the least punishing power unto the Heavens but the same to be distributed by God among the Angels and the which therefore are called smiting and ministring spirits performing the commands of the Judge Therefore I shall not easily believe that the Plague owes its original unto the importunate or unseasonable changes of times the which also Eudoxus according to Fernelius perceived And I cannot be induced by any reason to believe that the Heavens do give growth form figure virtues or any thing else which proceedeth from the Being of seeds For the Herb was potent in a flourishing seed even before the stars were born so that although there should be no stars yet every seed by the power of the Word is of it self naturally for producing of its own constituted body and against the will of the stars and stations of the year yea and of climates many seeds and forreign fruits are produced by Art Wherefore the Epidemicks of Hippocrates illustrated with the Commentary of Galen do also contain very many things unworthy the name of the Author not only because it attributes diseases to the stations or seasons of the year and not every one to their own seeds and divers infirmities to one root that is unto the first qualities of the ayr and so coupleth divers effects with unjust causes but because they contain very many absurdities of trifles For I am wont in this thing to compare Judiciary Astrologers unto Empericks who having gotten an oyntment powder or any other medicine extoll the same to be prevalent well nigh for all diseases and also for many other So many of those being not content with the shewing or betokening message of the Stars constrain them to be the workmen Deasters and absolute Patrons of all fortune and misfortune to be conscious or witness-bearers and the workers of life and death to come Lastly to be the Councellors and Judges of thoughts and questions asked If therefore they do not contain death wars poysons nor the Plague verily neither shall they be able to rain down such scourges upon us seeing they cannot give those things which they have not do not contain
is not more hurtful then the Plague yet they beware of and defend themselves from wild beasts England also hath hitherto wanted the proper name of the Pâ—st and the which from times past it nameth Plaga the Plague or stroake As to what pertains to the causes thereof the Greeks first and afterwards the Arabians and whosoever have dedicated themselves to either of these two do collect the Pest or Plague into two causes The first whereof they name Catarctical or fore-going causes but the latter connexed conjoyned containing and immediately accompanying ones and indeed when they saw the body of man by its individuals and places of its habitations to differ in great variety they devised a universal cause for the plague to wit they being seduced by Astrologers blamed the heaven that by its hurtful light and motion it be sprinkles the air with a cruel gore the poyson whereof they have therefore named an Epidemical or universal one and alâ—â—hugh they saw diseases infamous in contagion to arise through occasion of Pools or Lakes Caves poysonous soils Minerals Filths Mountains the natural moistnesses of the earth of a valley or sink or privy from whence divers puâ—refactions sprang yet they never esteemed the disposition of these diseases â—â— be the Pestilence but by a separated name they called them Endemical ones which distinction presently laid every doubt asleep and they themselvâ— have snorted in this deep sleep being glad that they had banished their own ignorance unto the heavens for a universal â—ault and they thought themselves secure not any thing distrusting that the heaven could vindicate it self from blame but them of ignorance They likewise separated the dead and those that were about to die in detesting their obediences that it might not be heard of neither that they might accuse the carelesness and ignorance of Physitians Especially when as the chief Physitian always runs away forsaking his own sick Patient iâ— his despairing of life Wherefore they call the Diviners of the stars together for their aid that seeing the world defends the errours of these men they may defame the heaven with a conjoyned accusation of a fault that it defiles the air and water with the consumptive poyson of an abstracted light But Paracelsus being much more bold than his Predecessors would have the heaven to be really infected with our contagion to note our sins with a pen of iron and unwillingly to receive them therefore to be a revenger and to stir up deaths But that the Plague is a meer wound that it is darted from heaven that the stars by wounding and in running do us hurt and that these wounds are made only in three places and not in more as not knowing that these are our emunctory places to wit behind the ears under the arm-pits and in the groyn In another place also he appoints not three buâ— four plagues according to the number of the Elements that every one of them are to be vanquished by a four-fold and much different remedy But elsewhere he also deviseth a fifth plague being sent into us by Gnomes Sylphs Nymphs Satyrs Hobgoblins Gyants or Faunes because perhaps he supposed these to be a fifth Element Moreover he being entreated by the City of Stertzing for a choice Antidote against the poyson of the Pest forsaking his former staâ—ry and Elementated remedies in the end wholly trusted to a drink of Triacle Myrrhe Butter but root Terra Sigillata Sperma ceti the herb Asclepias Pimpernell Valerian and Camphor with the best Aqua vitae to wit through inconsiderateness he as unmindful being snatcht away into a hundred confusions of simples by him many times and seriously detested but a little before In the next place neither do those things agree together that he elsewhere hath often not any thing distinguished the Element of fire from the heaven and nevertheless that he hath delivered four plagues distinct in their original cause and remedies the which he had dedicated unto one heaven which in another place he would have to be the only Author of the Pestilence He willeth also that Christal Aâ—â—es and likewise Gemms are bred in the air and do fall down from heaven the which he as unmindful of himself nameth the fâ—â—its of the water as willing Christal to be nothing but meer ice constrained by cold At length the Pest seeing it is a malady of the heaven and of the fourth degree yet he saith that the tincture of Gemms is the best solidative medicine of that wound and so also that a remedy of the second degree should cure the plague of the fourth degree I also pity the vain â—iresomeness about remedies which among a thousand Alchymists scarce one prepares For it is a frivolous thing to compose so many books and at length to have run back unto remedies which are scarce to be gotten in a popular disease and every where obvious For it is a frivolous thing in a wandring plague to nourish a whole Country with the fleshes of the Stork which flies away about Autumn or with a Lyons Tongue hung on the body For all such things discover ignorant boasting but not a common charity in so miserable a grief For neither hath Hippocrates chased away the plague out of Greece by such remedies For otherwise the poor man if the plague should be put to flight by precious remedies and victuals should with the despairing of his life the unequality of Fortune much bewailing and just grief ponder God to be a respecter of persons and remedies to be denied unto him I therefore shall never believe that God in Nature was less careful in curing the poor man than the rich For the history of Lazarus and the rich Glutton doth wonderfully comfort the poor Lastly Paracelsus hath set forth books of a plague generated by Pythonesses and Hobgoblins By Hobgoblins I say Satyrs c. which he denieth to bâ— evil spirits which he maketh coequal unto Witches in generating of the plague Yet hath he neglected to add remedies for such a pestilence as though the title of the Monarch of Secrets being presumptuous on himself it had been sufficient for him not to have â—rod in the footsteps of those that went before him and to have stirred up very much smoak and little fire and to have exposed the memory of himself â—nto laughter For his books of the Plague of Tartars of Minerals c. do contain much of prattle but little of trusty aid CHAP. VI. The Pest divided THe Paramire of Paracelsus is totally employed in perswading that every disease without exception and by name the Pestilence is in its whole species five-fold to wit being distinct in its causes original properties and remedies But the first kind he calls a Natural Being originally proceeding from elementated fruits and this plague he hath described in his books of the plague and pestilentialness wherein he is there his own Interpreter But since it is manifest that the fruits which the Schools have believed to
the air water or earth that that can neither be a disease in it self nor the containing cause thereof Yea whatsoever is marked with the name of antecedent causes is nothing but the occasional cause causing nothing by it self but by accident nor any thing without an appropriation received in us Wherefore they neither betoken nor desire nor prescribe a cure but only a caution or flight The occasions therefore of the Plague are to be considered as the occasions of diseases being sometime entertained do passe into the order of causes First of all therefore I have already sufficiently taught that the Pest is not sent down from the Heavens And seeing every effect is the fruit or product of its own and not of anothers tree therefore every cause produceth its own and not anothers effect therefore the Pest hath a specifical proper and not a forreign cause For neither may we distinguish of Plagues by their accidents concomitants or signates because they are those which flow immediately from the diversity of subjects because they diversly vary after the manner and nature of the receiver according to the custom of the Beings of nature Wherefore also the Pest consisting of matter form essence a seed and properties requires also to have its own and one onely species seeing the very essence it self of things or defects is most near to individuals But if it either happen from without or be generated within that is all one seeing from thence the Plague is now constituted Again if it do the more swiftly or slowly defile its issue be the more violent and speedy do invade diverse parts or diversly disquiet the body yet that doth not therefore change the species of the poyson For they are only the signs of quantiry co-mixture of a ferment appropriation and incidency on the parts receiving Otherwise the internal and formal poyson of the Pest and that which conteins the thingliness thereof is 〈◊〉 â—ys singular in every individual Because the essence or Being of things consisteth in the simplicity of their own species as there is the same essence of fire on both sides whether it be great or little whether quiet or driven with the bellows or lastly whether the flame shall be red yellow green or sky-coloured Therefore the remote crude and first occasional matter of the pestilence is an air putrified through continuance or rather a hoary putrified Gas which putrefaction of the air according to the experience of the fire which Adeptists promise hath not as yet the 8200. part of its own seminal body The which thou shalt the more easily comprehend if thou considerest a hoary putrified vessel and hogs-head of wine now exhausted without any weight of it self to corrupt new and old wines infused in the hogs-head For I have treated in my discourses of natural Phylosophy concerning the nature of a ferment putrifying by contmuance and after what sort vegetables do arise from an incorporeal and putrified seed that from hence the progeny of the Pest may be the more distinctly made manifest Moreover I have shewn that the earth is the mother of putrefaction through continuance that we may know that popular Plagues do draw their first occasional matter from an earthquake and from the consequences of camps and siedges For therefore as much as the earth differs from the heaven so much also is the occasional matter of the Pâ—st remote from the Heaven But I call this first matter that incorporeal hoary puâ—rified poyson existing in the Gas of the earth And so I substitute this poyson as theremoâ—e matter under another more near poyson which disposeth the matter of the Archeus whereby he may the more easily assent and conceive in himself a pestilent terrour that at length a formal pestilential essence may suddenly come upon the previous dispositions hereof But besides if I must duely Phylosophize concerning the infections of the Air I ought of necessity to repeate the Anatomy thereof from the fore assayed doctrine of the elements in my treatise of natural of Phylosophy The air therefore in it self is one of the first-born elements being transparent and void as well of lightnesse as weight unchangeable and perpetual being endowed with natural cold unlesse it be hindered by the strength of scituations and things co mixed with it but being every where filled with pores and for this cause suffering an extension or pressing together of it self The porosities whereof are either filled with vapours and forreign exhalations or remayning in their integrity they plainly gape being void of a body the which I have elsewhere demonstrated in the treatise of a necessary Vacuum For in very deed if the air were without pores that are empty of every body vapours could not be lifted up without a penetration of bodies But since a most manifest enlargement and com-pression of the air is granted as I have elsewhere fully demonstrated an emptinesse also is of necessity granted For such porosities in the air are as it were wombs wherein the vapours the fruits of the water are again resolved into the last simplicity of waters from whence they proceeded and are spoyled of any signatures of their former seeds whatsoever But those effluxes in the air are forreign â—y accident and various according to the disposition of the concrete body from whence they exhaled First of all they are the vapours of pure and simple water and then of the waters of the salt sea which season the rain with their vaporous brine and for that cause preserâ—e it from corruption For otherwise by reason of the societies of diverse exhalations being admixed with it rain waters would of necessity putrifie and stink no lesse than clouds in mountains and most miâ—â—s The poysons therefore of the air being drawn in are partly entertained in manner of a vapour in its porosities and do partly defile the very body of the air without a corporeal mixture even as glasse conceiveth odours which defilement hath of right the name of an impression I have an house in a plain field being rich on its South-side in a wood of oakes but on the north it respecteth pleasant meadows moreover toward both the mansions of the Sun it hath hils that are fruitful in corn But linnen cloaths being there washed and â—â—nced in the fountain being hung up in the loft look most neatly white while the North wind blows and here and there also from east to west or on the other hand from west to east But the south-winde only blowing and the southerly windowes being opened they are notably yellow with a clayie colour For from the numerous oakes a tinging vapour is belched forth into the air and I have learned that this vapour is breathed in by us as also drunk up by the linnen And also thus from Groves of oakes after the Summer solstice an hidden vapour doth exhale which inâ—ecteth an unwonted countenance and neck with a frequent itching pustule or wheale and afterwards they becoâ—â— plainly visible in the
divert himself But that the Archeus being terrified and a run-away and returning as half in a rage is made so hostile unto the parts his Clients over which he alone is president the confirmation thereof is not elsewhere to be fetched than that a thorn is thrust into the finger which by the fat or grease of an Haâ—e is safely expelled without discommodities as that remedy asswageth the fury of the Archeus which thorn doth otherwise stir up a great Tragedy of fury For the Archeus brings forth a poyson in his Clients by his own fury the which otherwise a simple small wound would willingly be ignorant of Conceive thou how unlike is the wound of phlebotomy and the sting of a Bee And likewise the stroak of phlebotomy that is clean how far doth it differ from the prick of unclean phlebotomy It s no wonder therefore that the seat where the image of the conceived terrour and piercing of the combined image of fury shall first happen is hostilely disturbed is furiously scorched yet oftentimes poysonous tempests are transmitted and chased unto the more outward habit of the body by the implanted spirit of life unto places I say whither the Latex or liquor of the veins tendeth of its own free accord in time of health or they are dismissed unto the external habit of the body And therefore whatsoever is to be done in the Pest that is to be cured with speed For sometimes the image of the Pest is cloathed only with the inflowing spirit and then medicines that provoke sweat do readily succour But where the inhering and in-bred Archeus conceiveth the image of his terrour and fury in the solid parts unless he presently resign up and lay aside the conceived image unto and in the spermatick nourishment I have called that corrupt nourishment the Tartar of the blood and produce a tumour there is danger least it presently pass over into the very substance of the solid parts which contains an unexcusable detriment of death And therefore that the plague may not take up for it self a tough Inn within the body we must procure that the pestilent image do not long float within but that the whole houshold-stuff be allured forth and fall out by sweat For the Carline Thistle is said to have been in times past shewn unto an Emperour by an Angel for the plague of his Army perhaps therefore called Angel-Thistle because the first rise of the image of the Pest stirs up drowsie evils loathings a Fever vomiting and head-aches about the stomach but the herb Ixia or Chamilion drives away sleep and much more deep drowsinesses against Nature and therefore they hope that the extraction of fresh Carline Thistle should not be unfruitful for the plague that is newly begun The End A TABLE Of many of the Chief things contained in this Book The rest being referred to the Contents of the CHAPTERS A. WHat Accidents properly are to what serving c. 131 9. c. Acheldamah consumes a dâ—ad carcasse in one day 671. 54. Adam not cursed 654. A demonstration of his fall 659. What he generated after sin 663. 17. Why he and his posterity Bearded 666. Adam's lust arose from a natural property of the apple 668. No motion of lust in Adam before his fall 682. 85. Of Adam's understanding 711. The Praise of Agnus Castus 707. 52. What kind of knowledge in the apple 665. Air not reducible into water 60. 12 76 41. Air the reducer of bodies into water 68. 26. Air the seperater of the waters 71. 4 152 19. Air is exceeding cold and dry Ibid. 76. 40. 1120. Air acts on the water without a reaction 76. 41. A vacuity in the air proved by a manual 82. 4 7 1126. It s magnal or sheath 85. 20 692 12. It is imprinted with the seal of formes c. 133 18. c. What office it bears in minerals Ibid. 20. How it joyns to the vital spirit 183. 37. Air seperates sulphurs 184. 45. It Volaâ—izeth the blood 186. 187 56. Air not capable of a vital light 189. It doth not nourish the vital spirit 190. 9. How the Alkahest of Paracelsus operates on bodies 65 7 105 6 104 27 479 43 787. it is compared to the fire mentioned in Macchabes 108. 28. It s operation on a Coal Ibid. It s Aenigmatical description 115 28. The Revealer of the proportion of light c. 146. 89. The operation of the liquor Alkahest one the Cedar 811. Aloes hurt by washing 463. 39. Alcalies reduced into a meer simple water 106. 12. How alcalies are made 183. 38. The Common-wealth of Alcalies 184. 40. Alcalies why fit for wound drinkes 186. 53 294 21. Amber drawes the virtue from vitriol without touching it 764. 22. Amber becomes a Zenexton against the Plague 767. 37 787 1146. Amulets act by influence 330 19. 481 An Amulet against the Plague 767. 37. Antimony in its form better than in its principles 788. 153 Antimony observes an Influence 773. 63. How a sweet Anodine workes 918. No Animal spirit in nature 187. 58. A good Angel never appears Bearded 661. 37. Anasarcha by what produced 513. It s cure 521. The Apoplexy hitherto unknown 906 998 Its rise 917 Its seat 915 Apple takes away warts 154 Apostemes how made 186. 52 290 6 Aqua Fortis c. 96. 14 Aqua Vitae see spirit of wine  How Arcanum's do operate 473. 15 164 15 Arcanum'â— cure all Diseases 524 Arcanum's never go into nourishment 577 Arcanum's iâ— some sort exceed the powers of nature 753 Arsenick though never so well preparâ—â— is not to be inwardly administred 466. 52. It is fixed by co-melting with salt-peter 105. 10 The Arterial spirit of life is of the nature of a Gas. 110. 40 Arterial blood exhales without a Capâ—t mortuum 182. 34 By what 185. 40 How an Arterie becomes hard 185. 48 The Arteries do not atract air 190 Arteries attract spirit of wine but no juicy things 203. 41 The Archeus its constitutive parts 35. 4  110 41 Its seat 430 287 28 What it is in the beginning of Generation 133  18 142 60 The manner of its operating 142 61 c. Its defects 549 Archeus sensible of death 553 Archeus receiving of evils the cause of our hurt 1127 Archeus hath an imaginâ—tion of its own differing from the mind 1128 Aroph of Paracelsus 709. 53 878 879 Aristotles four constitutive causes of things condemned 18. 3 Astrology natural why preferred before the stellar astrology 26. 9 Its supports or props vain 126. 46 c. Condemned by an experiment 127. 48 By a review of the attributes they give to the Planets Ibid. 50 Astronomy slighted 12. 5 Ascites what 508. 524 Asarum by boyling lays down its vomitive force 172. 45 The difference of Ascarides from worms 221  83 Its cure Ibid. Asthmawhat 260. 40 356 What the Asthma consists of 360. 27 Froâ— whence the Ashma ariseth 261. 42 â— twofold Asthma 357. 9 358. 368. 68 The Asthma is
all things soon putrifie under the Equinoctial 141 54 What preserves against putrefaction 152 16 19 What solely promotes it 152 192 Pyrotechny commended 45. 11 What the Pylorus is 222 Of his Government 223 Of his Blas ibid. Of the diseases he stirs up 224 10 Of his shuâ—ting and opening 225 16 A sense of appetite in the Pylorus demonstrated 226 20 His rage and restauration ibid. The use of the Pylorus 228 With observations thereon ibid. The vice of the Pylorus cured 227 22 The four hot seeds usually pacifie the Pylorus 301 21 Q QVartans cured by odorous oyntments 114 17 By an Emplaister 988 1011 Seat of a Quartane 778 Examination of a Quartane 963 Quartane not cured by Physitians 307 57 812 Quick-silver truly prepared cures the Pox. 1094 What the Quellem is And where 94 5689 6 Its greatness 690 14 A Question propounded to all the learned 167,32 No such thing as a Quint-Essence 407 44. 414 79 R. WHat rain is 71 10 73 21 79 12 Of the Rain-bow 87 1. c. Of the radical moisture of the Schools 726 Radical moisture explained 729 Reason condemned 15. c. It is in bruit beasts 20 34 It makes a man unstable 21 40 VVhen reason faileth 715 Reason not â—t he Image of God 268 30 79 The Relâ—llum of Paracelsus 75 36 What it is 66 25 Powerful remedies are not of a foody substance 582 Remedies against Inchantments 605 The Reins do not stir up lust 305 42 How the Reins change the colour of the stone 248 28 Of the Revelation of several persons 1092 The Reins do not cause fatness 308 59 The errours of Physitians as touching rheums 432 15 Rie meal makes durable morter 247 Roses preserve their fragrant putrefaction 414 79 S. SAlt of Tartar volatilized perfects dissolutions 1002 1011 It abstergâ—th 1032 From whence is the first beginning of Salts 694 The vital Being is Salt 193 19 The various properties of Salts 473 22 Salt of venal blood cures the Falling Sickness 195 16 What the chiefest of all is 473 24 How Salt ariseth in Urine 842 The operations of Simple Salts 476 31. 480 The Gas of Salts is nothing but water 109 37 Volatile Salts their vertues 991 Hermaphroditical Salt of Metals 694 Sand not transmutable save only by the artificial hellish fire 52 14 The Sea less than the boyling Sand 690 14 What the true Sea is ibid It hath its motion in it self ibid. Saphire its power in the Plague 765 34 Why Church-men wear Saphirs 766 36 Why Saturns kingdoms are wished for 303 32 The Mercury of Saturn c. 478 40 Its distillation ibid. Against the Contemners of Science 989 The Schools ignorant of the diseases that arise in the sixth digestion 219 The Schools condemned of ignorance and sloath 474 28 c. Of blasphemy 145 78 The errour of the Schools about the first Mover 176 Scorpions produced from Bazil 13 113 Scurvy unknown to the Antients 109 When it first appeared 1092 How seeds issue from the invisible world 935 Seminal beginnings are from an Idea 436 Seeds act as appointed 164 16 No seminal disposition in the soul of man bâ—fore the fall 662 11 The four lesser hot seeds commended 427 75 The proportion of seed in a body is the 8200. th part 106 12 1125 How seeds are made 13 12 The difference betwixt a seed and ferment ibid. Hot seeds are of an easie conception 143 66 Seeds in their Original void of savour and colour 693. 2 Of Sense and Sensation 895 The Sensitive soul not generated by the mind 662 10 It differs from the mind 334 The knitting of the sensitive soul with the mind 251 The seat of the sensitive soul 283 284 285 It remains always in the vital Archeus of the stomack 286 18. 288 32 The sensitive soul is a vital light ibid. 20 Of the power of the sensitive soul when impregnated with the mind 354 13 14 In simples there is a perfect cure of all diseases 467 5 The natural power of some simples 307 54 The quality of the first sin 654 8 Sin hath nâ—â— immediately caused death 655 Â 656 Whence the continuation of original sin ibid. 28 Of the difference between actual and original sin 658 47 Why sleep was sent in before sin 563 Sleep not from a defect 337 1 When sleep is made 339 12 Snow on the mountains melts not 73 15 Soul of man not generated from his parent 662 12 Soul created by God 663 Its retreat in our first parents 664 A Treatise of the soul 342 Of the immortality of the soul 346 The seat of the soul not in the heart 292 13 Some defects of the stomack cured by sweat 1113 The ferment of the stomack to be regarded 453 22 c. Why though still moist yet putrifies not 479 Â 48 Twelve properties of the stomack 560 Some diseases inhabit in the life of the stomack 561 The stomack hath not its ferment in it self 267 11 Sharpness not the vital Ferment of the stostomack 208 131 What it is 210 29 The stomach doth not coct first for it self 216 52 The stomach first sensible of any defect 285 13 14 287 26 The stomach of the liver 20â— 20 The stomach of the gaul ibid Sobriety commended 452 16 Seat of diseases in the sensitive soul confirmed 559 The seat of the sensitive soul 555 Of specifical savours 473 25 Two savours one of the tongue the other of the stomach 474 27 Spleen the maker of seed 305 42 The scituation of the Spleen 540 It is the fountain of Idea's 606 Against black choler in the spleen 964 1056 The defect of the spleen is the cause of the Strangury in old people 1061 A double ferment in the spleen 1055 The spleen inspires a digestive ferment into the stomack 298 The spleen most enriched with Arteries ibid. Of the stomack of the spleen 299 13 Of the external spleen of an Infant 306 49 How the soul thinks intellectualy 23 48 It is substantial 144 70 Its power when freed from corporeal contagion 144 75 What the sensitive soul is 145 82 Soul acts in the body per nutum 780 97 784 The soul generates Entities 785 131 Soul sits in the Duumvirate 301 22 Sharpness is the specifical mean in the stomack 115 34 It dâ—ffers from all other sharpnesses 193 10 Stones and Rocks reducible into their equal weight of Salt 411 65 Whence the Strangury in old people is 855 624 What the Stars shew forth c. 122 21 How they operate 121 14 How they necessitate 123 30 The difference betwixt the Planets and the fixed Stars 125 40 How a wise man rules over them 126 46 The Stone in man not made by the intention of nature 250 5 Of the causes of the stone according to the Antients 705 1 Of their Intentions to cure and by what ibid. Their despair ibid. Why they have erred in the cure 706 12 708 Heat of the reins not the cause of the stone 707 An example
whose hands't shall come this Book to view See that your hearts are simple to the pure No filthinesse true wisdom can endure The milky way must be the paper here And th'Inke Nectar from th' Olympick sphere And then 't may open unto you a path For finding that which long been hiden hath For there 's a way by Simples for to cure Unto Simplicity the nearest sure If not Antiquity at Scriptures note Solomon for ' n example may be brought The Author opes a gate in that Divine Chapter that treats â—'th power of medicine And not a little of Moses Câ—â—â—lism He hinteth at that in of Magnetism So truly doth the Saviour report That to the carkasâ— Eagles do resort In former time thy younger learning years Thou as a tender heart yet void of fears People that had the plagues infection Didst visit and by them wert spew'd upon Some breathing forth their life within thy arms Unto thy grief because thou then their harms Wert not so able to repair untill Thou hadst attain'd a great Adeptist skill For thou by Revelation dost show What Co-us us'd two thousand years ago All which supposed I can freely wink At some mistakes whereby thine eye did blink As to Religion because thou wert Honest upright sincere and sound in heart For if the folly of them thou hadst seen As other things deâ—y'd by thee they 'd been And if in Nature thou art ought mistaken Thy many truths are not to be forsaken For why ye Schools ye cannot neither dare ye Deny but that humanum est errare Until the minds perfection in the Light Which he believ'd yet would not claim it quite And so his candour is to be commended In not assuming what God had not ended Yet know that where one truth is you among In Helmonts breast there lodged ten for one And that not taken up by hear-say trust As ye are wont but stamped by the Iust For Reason Dialectical he saith Must vail the Bonnet unto light in faith Sith Reason savours of an earthly soil Dies with the sense our Parents did beguil And therefore Logick may no longer center Within mens minds as Sciences Inventer And Nat'ralists must needs go to the wall As those of Athâ—â—s in the daies of Paul Since that four El'ments Humors and Complexions Are proved plain to be but childish fictions Which Ethnicans by phansie blind misled Have rashly plac'd in seeds and ferments sted This is some liquor pour'd out of his bottle A deadly draught for those of Aristotle Astrol'gers also will be soon undon Since Herm's and Venus circle with the Sun And since the Planets common Ordination Was to stir up a Blas for seasons station And since the Heavens can no forms bestow To th' Prince of life all creatures do them owe. Ye Theologians look what will befal ye Since man is not defin'd by Rationale But by a Spirit and Intellectual light Now every one may see by his own sight And living waters out 's own Cistern drink Need not â—ew Cisterns that do leak and chink Nor tug with pains to dig for earthly Wells The Spring 's within him as Christ in him dwells Nor run to Temples that are made with hands Himself 's the Temple if he contrite stands And cause a New-birth is requir'd of all Since brutal coupling entred by the fall And so your follow'rs can't be reputed Christians by birth nay but must be transmuted And since the mind of man may be compâ—eated In this lifes time as sin and self 's defeated Since Char'ty not to dwell by many's known In those that with the letter up are blown For as from mud or dung ascends a stink So Pride from Leathing sents up like a sink He did refuse to be a Canon great Least as saith B. he peoples sins should eat What will protracting crafty Lawyers doe Since Christ against them hath denounc'd a woe He would not bâ— a Professor of the Law Enough for man to keep 's own self in awe And what will come of Atheists since 't is true That there 's a Power Eternal who in â—â—e Of fallen Angels did mans Soul ereate In mortal body an immortal state To live in h's hand in weal or woe as they His call of Grace shall or shall not obey What of curst Hypocrites who in deceit Take up Profession for a Cloak and Cheat Better for Sodom and Gomorrah than For such when Christ doth come the world to fan But stop my Genius run not out too far Although thy shackles much unloosed are And vitals subtil while thou tell'st the story Of what concerns mans good and God his glory Least Prince of th' Air like Poets Pegasus Prevail to make thy wit ridiculous By mounting thee too high upon his wing Of fleshly pride and Aeolus thee fling Down from the quiet Region of his skie In the Icarian waters for to die Or whirl thee higher in his stormy hail And sting thy conscience with the Dragons tail For if an inch be given so they tell It is not safe for one to take an ell Wherefore retreat in time of thy accord Least thou incur the anger of the Lord And throw thy self along down at his feet After the Author thou shalt once more greet I b'lieve thou wert a Medel-master made By the Creator of the Root and Blade Of healing virt's the Father of lights I sing Whence every good gift doth descend and spring Thou livedst well and in the Belgick Nation Wert a tall Cedar in thy Generation A good memorial thou hast left behind Of what in daies now coming men shall find Writ in Christ's Bosom and in Natures spread As they are worthy in those books to read Thou diedst in peace in Anno forty four I doubt not but thou liv'st for evermore My friend is also gone yet I survive Lord grant that to thine honour I may live And as my life thou gayâ—st me for a prey When in a gloomy and despairing day I thought I should have died without the fight Of thy Love-tokens and thy face so bright So I intreâ—r upon my prostrare knee That I thy way and Cross may never flee Than turn a new unto Apostasie Or thee dishonour raâ—ker let me die Than to depart again out of thy fear Better wild horses me in pieces tear If the remembrance dwell not in me rife Of thy great goodness pity of my life But as large mercy is to me extended So what is faulty may be fully mended That perfect righteousness may cloath my back And I to sound thy praises will not slack In life or death or suffering by the world Who in transgression up and down are hurl'd And Topheâ—s pit shall surely help to fill If they in time repent not of their ill But as he did for 's en'mies pardon cry So do all Chrictian hearts and so do I. O holy holy holy holy God! Whos 's Name 's exalted in th' Ascendant Jod My self doth tremble and my flesh doth quake While I the King of Saints my Subject make I dread thee Lord I dread thy Sov'raign fame I love thee so I can't express the same My Spirit 's on site and my heart doth flame With a desire to sanctifie thy Name My Soul is melted and my heart is broke In feeling of the force of thy Love-stroke Father I thank thee that thou didst enable Me to convey the dish from Helmontâ— Table And if some crums or drops have fell beside 'T was what a careful servant might be tide It being weighty full of divers fare If none should over-fall or flow 't were rare A Corydon I h'd rather some me deem Than t' use dark-phrases that would not be-seem Rather a Tautologian be dained Than to the meanest leave words unexplained Rather a home-spun Patcher wanting Art Than th' Authors meaning willingly pervert And if his tongue could speak out of the dust Hee 'd justifie this Translate all almost For though his learned Art I don't comprize Yet in the Root our Spirits harmonize The Dish lest somewhat of its crums and drops As it was carried through the Printing Shops Yet what the Press hath nipt off by the way It here returns again by this survey ERRATA IN the Authors Dedication to the Word Pag. 2 lin 6 read except In the Translators premonition P 2 l 35 r and is p 3 l 19 dele other In the Preface to the Reader P 11 l 46 r Eternally p 12 l 28 r the work p 13 l 35 r world In the Poeticall Prophesie P 1 l 4 r spiting P 14 of the Book l 10 r knowingly ibid. l 28 r vain ibid. r give p 17 l 37 r it with p 7 l 32 r Nuns p 34 l 55 r first 〈…〉 p 57 l 25 〈◊〉 as r is p 295 l 2 r 〈◊〉 p 298 l 60 r Watchman p 407 l 28 r whereof they are said to have been the p 477 l 26 r vital p 504 l 31 r it is p 518 l 50 r this is â—oheaped p 535 l 41 r efficacy p 537 l 38 r Plato p 519 l 28 r 〈◊〉 p 575 l 5 r But be sides p 577 l 61 r Lile p 515 l 18 r anothers cherry p 621 l 53 r 〈…〉 710 l 30 r the God p 739. l 28 r Mols p 741 l 22 for any r and. p 825 in the Title of the disease of the Stone r root p 838 l 55 r by p. 1073 l 13 r voice p 1150 l 12 r worms ibid. l 44 after terrible dele and. p 1157 l 1 r the plague Medicine Aesculapius Hippocrates Pandora Latine Er Greek Ro Hebr. Res Errours Eccles 1. 11. On Psal 140. 143. 1. The essentiall Form 2. The Vitall Form 3. The substantial Form 4. The formall substance N Lib. 14. De Civitate Dei Cap. 17. Lib. 4. Contra Jul cap. 10. Lib. of Marriages 12. Flesh of Sin cap. 24. Lib. 5. Cont Jul. cap. 15. Lib. 5. Cont. Jul. cap. 12. * Of his Testament Chap. 26. * The signs of a true Physitian * Bernard
are desirous to learn I will willingly reach forth my hand For Paracelsus as the first so laughed at humours after an Helvetian manner that he mocked the Galenical also the Arabian Physitians with the surname of Humourists Notwithstanding he himself being oftimes unconstant slides unto humours and complexions as not being as yet sufficiently grounded in his own positions In the mean time the Galenical Schools would now and then have the four granted qualities of Elements to be opposed as solitary distempers and for the most part again they have feigned distempers to be banished with the abundance of the like humours And whenas they gloried that they held the Hare by the ears they being deluded with the easiness of the fiction first became a laughing stock because they defiled the faculty of healing with absurdities Being first of all unmindfull of their own discipline that there is not granted an immediate return from the privation of a Forme unto an habite yet have they through a rash perswasion affirmed that flesh is constituted of four humours and that this flesh is again to be resolved into the same four For they decree that the Chyle is framed of the meats being indeed homogeneal or simple in kind in the stomach the which notwithstanding the excrements of the belly being seperated should alwayes be made four humours besides the urine by the one only action of sanguification but never one only two three five or more And that thing they have thus determined of as being rashly misled by a quaternary of Elements From whence at least wise it followes that this fourfould re-dividing of one Chyle doth not derive it self from the diverse varieties of meats but that it altogether essentially dependeth on the very proper perfect act of sanguification Which thing wants not its own absurdity To wit that of one natural act there should be a fourfold scope essentially differing But the Quaternion of Elements being already elsewhere cast out with the combating concourse of the same that fourfoldnesse of Humours hath indeed been supposed and subscribed unto but not yet proved hitherto For for the furnishing of so great and so pernicious fables the Schools have been snatcht away by two swelling arguments the which if thou shalt but a little presse they will pour forth a stinking vapour but not the juice of truth The first whereof is fetcht from four Elements that they may constraine the blood against its will under a quaternary or fourfold number of Humours unto the obedience of three only Elements existing although the blood it self be materially made of one of them only As if every one of them which they believe to arise from the wedlock of the Elements ought therefore of necessity to have four Heterogeneal or different kind of parts agreeable to as many their own Elements Surely I have elsewhere every way shewn that some bodies have nothing of a diversity not so much as in salt Sulphur and Mercury but that others do at length produce only two diversities of kinds for neither is there a stronger reason why a flint may be reduced into one only and at at least a similar salt than the blood can of necessity be seperated into four Humours For from hence it is made manifest that the reason of a feigned Quaternary of Elements is from a former cause in respect of a Quaternery of Humours in the blood and no where else But the second and chief argument of the Schools for a Quaternary of Humours is not a certain formall reasoning but a naked and miserable inference established by a similitude or like thing For they say In Milk there is found Whey Cheese and Butter That is three distinct things Therefore of necessity in the blood there shall be alwayes and constitutively four because they observe four diverse things or parts in the venal blood of some persons the which indeed the soul the Chambermaide of the desires hath by much labour and the helpes of fiction divided into four diversities For they oft-times take notice of the water swimming upon the blood and because it is yellow and somewhat pale they therefore name it yellow choler or gaul although it be not bitter and wanteth the essential property of the gaul But the sediment thereof about the bottom being sometimes the more weighty and black they cal black choler but in the midle space they note red blood wherein while they observe white fibers or threds the Mothers of a gellyie coagulation they have called those Phlegm For the vein of the ham of maides being cut those fibers appear in lukewarm water like unto spiders webs which they have called Phlegm But first it had behoved them to have discerned that the unfit similitude of Milk and blood doth teach or urge nothing Because the water swimming one the blood is not the fatnesse of Cream swimming on the Milk wherefore either the agent or matter is unlike or both And therefore in so great an unlikeness of both that a necessity of Humours in the blood is not rightly founded For the carelesse Schools do not take notice that a diversity of kind is bred in the blood after that it hath disposed it self unto corruption that is soon to come thereunto Therefore that Hetrogeneity accuseth indeed an unlikenesse of contents made in death but in no wise therefore a necessary connexion of lively Humours For what will they say of that blood which wholly wants all whey Or the which being uniformly coagulated throughout its whole is red Which is a frequent thing after many sweats and abstinence from drink Shall therefore the Whey swimming upon the blood the urine and sweat left in the blood be Sunonymals with choler and gaule And something that is one with the very essence of the blood I indeed have hitherto seen in herbs on only clarified juice as likewise I acknowledge one onely blood the constitutive Humour of us To wit I professe a simple sanguification and one only action of one Liver and a single Chyme or concocted juice to be made of an undistinct Creame or Chyle and by one onely ferment of the stomach which sanguification or making of blood I know to be a meer formal transchanging of nourishments but in no wise only an applying together of Heterogeneal parts alone For neither although part of the chyle be turned into urine is an unlikenesse of the agent the Liver to be blamed but only the uncapacity of the receiver For neither therefore have they dared to embrace the urine for a fifth Humour For although a part of the urine materially remaineth in the blood yet it is not of the nature of the blood even as Whey in Milk is after another manner an essential part of the Milk The water therefore swimming above which they confesse to be sweat Whey and a remainder of the urine and so believe it to be wholly excrementous they shamefully compare sometimes to the Buttery part and that which swims on the Milk