and real union wâ—th him that every fine thought or fancy that steals into their mind they may look upon as a pledge of the Divine savor and a siâ—gular illumination from God imitating in this the madness of Elionora Meliorina a Gentlewoman of Mantua who being fully perswaded she was married to a king would kneel down and talk with him as if he had been there present with his retinue and if she had by chance found a piece of glasse in a muck-hill light upon an oyster shell piece of tin or any such like thing that would glister in the Sun-shine she would say it was a jewel sent from her Lord and husband and upon this account fild her cabinet full of such trash In like manner those inspired Melancholists stuff their heads and writings with every flaring fancy that Melancholy suggests to them as if it were a precious Truth bestowed upon them by the holy Spirit and with a devotional reverence they entertain the unexpected Paroxysmes of their own natural distemper as if it were the power and presence of God himself in their Souls 43. This disease many of your Chymists and several Theosophists in my judgement seem very obnoxious to who dictate their own conceits and fancies so magisterially and imperiously as if they were indeed Authentick messengers from God Almighty But that they are but Counterfeits that is Enthusiasts no infallible illuminated men the gross fopperies they let drop in their writings will sufficiently demonstrate to all that are not smitten in some measure with the like Lunacy with themselves I shall instance in some few things concealing the names of the Authors because they are so sacred to some 44. Listen therefore attentively for I shall relate very great mysteries The vertues of the Planets doe not ascend but descend Experience teaches as much viz. That of Venus or Copper is not made Mars or Iron but of Mars is made Venus as being an inferior sphere So also Iupiter or Tinne is easily changed into Mercury or Quick-silver because Iupiter is the second from the firmament and Mercury the second from the Earth Saturn is the first from the heaven and Luna the first from the Earth Sol mixeth it self with all but is never bettered by his Inferiours Now know that there is a great agreement betwixt Saturn or Lead and Luna or Silver Iupiter and Mercury Mars and Venus because in the midst of these Sol is placed What can it be but the heaving of the Hypochondria that lifts up the mind to such high comparisons from a supposition so false and foolish But I have observed generally of Chymists and Theosophists as of severall other men more palpably mad that their thoughts are carryed much to Astrology it being a fancyfull study built upon very sleight grounds and indeed I do not question but a relique of the ancient superstition and Idolatry amongst the rude Heathens which either their own Melancholy or something worse instructed them in There are other pretty conceits in these Writers concerning those heavenly Bodies as That the Starres and Planets the Moon not excepted are of the same quality with precious stones that glister here on the earth and that though they act nothing yet they are of that nature as that the wandring Spirits of the air see in them as in a looking-glasse things to come and thereby are inabled to prophecy That the Starres are made of the Sun and yet that the Sun enlightens them That our eyes have their originall from the Starres and that that is the reason why we can see the Starres That our eyes work or act upon all they see as well as what they see acts on them That also is a very speciall mysterie for an inspired man to utter That there is onely Evening and Morning under the Sun That the Starres kindle heat in this world every where for generation and that the difference of Starres makes the difference of Creatures That were the heat of the Sun taken away he were one light with God That all is Gods self That a mans self is God if he live holily That God is nothing but an hearty Loving friendly Seeing good Smelling well Tâ—sting kindly Feeling amorous Kissing c. Nor the Spirit say I that inspires this mystery any thing but Melancholy and Sanguine That God the Father is of himself a dale of darknesse were it not for the light of his Sonne That God could not quell Lucifers rebellion because the battle was not betwixt God and a beast or God and a man but betwixt God and God Lucifer being so great a share of his own essence That Nature is the Body of God nay God the Father who is also the World and whatsoever is any way sensible or perceptible That the Starre-powers are Nature and the Starre-circle the mother of all things from which all is subsists and moves That the Waters of this world are mad which makes them rave and run up and down so as they do in the channels of the Earth That the blew Orb is the waters above the Firmament That there be two kinds of Fires the one cold and the other hot and that Death is a cold fire That Adam was an Hermaphrodite That the Fire would not burn nor there have been any darknesse but for Adams fall That it is a very suspicable matter that Saturn before the fall was where Mercury and Mercury where Saturn is That there are Three souls in a man Animall Angelicall and Divine and that after Death the Animal Soul is in the grave the Angelicall in Abrahams bosome and the Divine soul in Paradise That God has eyes eares nose and other corporeall parts That every thing has sense imagination and a fiduciall Knowledge of God in it Metals Meteors and Plants not excepted That this earth at last shall be calcined into Crystall That at the center of the earth is the Fire of hell which is caused and kindled by the Primum mobile and influences of the Starres That the Artick pole draws waters by the Axeltree which after they are entered in break forth again by the Axeltree of the Antartick That the Moon as well as the Starres are made of a lesse pure kind of fire mixed with air That the pure Blood in man answers to the Element of fire in the great world his heart to the Earth his Mouth to the Artick pole and the opposite Orifice to the Antartick pole That the proper seat of the Mind or Understanding is in the mouth of the Stomack or about the Splene That Earthquakes and Thunders are not from naturall causes but made by Angels or Devils That there were no Rain-bowes before Noahs flood That the Moon is of a conglaciated substance having a cold light of her own whereby the light of the Sun which she receives and casts on us becomes so cool 45. Hitherto our Collections have been promiscuous what follows is out of Paracelsus onely as for example That the variety of the
parts of water among themselves But their grand fault is that they do not say the World is Animate But is not yours far greater Anthroposophus that gives so ridiculous unproportionable account of that Tenet The whole World is an Animal say you whose flesh is the earth whose bloud is the water the air the outward refreshing spirit in which it breathâ— the interstellar skies his vitall waters the Stars his sensitive fire But are not you a meer Animal your self to say so For it is as irrationall and incredible as if you should tell us a tale of a Beast whose bloud and flesh put together bears not so great a proportion to the rest of the more fluid parts of the Animal suppose his vitall and animal spirits as a mite in a cheese to the whole globe of the earth And beside this how shall this water which you call bloud be refreshed by the air that is warmer then it And then those waters which you place in the outmost parts towards his dappled or spotted skin the coelum stellatum what over-pâ—oportionated plenty of them is there there In so much that this creature you make a diseased Animall from its first birth and ever labouring with an Anasarca Lastly how unproperly is the air said to be the outward refreshing spirit of this Animal when it is ever in the very midst of it And how rashly is the Flux and Reflux of the Sea assimilated to the pulse when the pulse is from the heart not the brain but the flux and reflux of the Sea from the Moon not the Sun which they that be more discreetly phantasticall then your self do call Cor Mundi Wherefore Anthroposophus your phansies to sober men will seem as vain and puerile as those of idle children that imagine the fortuitous postures of spaul and snivell on plaster-walls to bear the form of mens or dogs faces or of Lyons and what not And yet see the supine stupidity and senslesnesse of this mans judgement that he triumphs so in this figment of his as so rare and excellent a truth that Aristotles Philosophy must be groundlesse superstition and Popery in respect of it this the primevall truth of the creation when as it is a thousand times more froth then His is vomit My friend Anthroposophus is this to appear for the truth as you professe in a day of necessity Certainly she 'll be well holpe at a dead lift if she find no better champions then your self Verily Philalethes if you be no better in your Book then in your Preface to the Reader you have abused Moses his Text beyond measure For your Principles will have neither heaven nor earth in them head nor foot reason nor sense They will be things extra intellectum and extra sensum meer vagrant imaginations seated in your own subsultorious skip-jack phansie onely But what they are we shall now begin to examine according to the number of pages Anthroposophia Theomagica SECT II. 1. Mastix makes himself merry with Eugenius his rash assertion that all Souls at their entrance into the body have an explicite knowledge of things 22. And that after a whole Springs experience he had found out those two known principles of Aristotle Matter and Privation His absurd hope of seeing Substances 3. The vanity of Devotion without purification of the mind That Aristotle agrees with Moses in acknowledging the World to be framed by a knowing Principle 4. Life alwayes accompanied with a naturall warmth 5. Eugenius his fond mistake as if either the Divine Light or Ideas could be kept out any space of time from shining in the opakest matter 6. The little fruit of that rarity of Doctour Marci in making the figure of a Plant suddenly rise up in a glasse 7. Eugenius his naturall Idea which he affirms to be a subtile invisible fire no Idea at all 8. His vain boasting of himself as if he were more knowing amd communicative then any that has wrote before him 9. His tearming the Darknesse or the first Matter the fuliginous spawn of Nature 10. His inconstancy in creating and uncreating this Matter 11. The horrible confused Qualme he fancies in the moist Matter at the creation of the world Heat and Siceitie the two active qualities in the Principle of Light assisting by their Mid-wifry Observation 1. Pag. 2. l. 11. So have all souls before their entrance c. But hear you me Mr. Anthroposophus are you in good earnest that all Souls before their entrance into the body have an explicite methodicall knowledge and would you venture to lose your wit so much by imprisoning your self in so dark a dungeon as to be able to write no better sense in your Preface to the Reader But I 'll excuse him it may be he was riding before his entrance into the body on some Theomagicall jade or other that stumbled and flung him into a mysticall quagmire against his will where he was so soused and doused and bedaubed and dirtyed face and eyes and all that he could never since the midwife raked him out all wet and dropping like a drown'd mouse once see clearly what was sense and what non-sense to this very day Wherefore we will set the saddle on the right Horse and his Theomagick Nag shall bear the blame of the miscarriage Observation 2. Pag. 3. Lin. 3. I took to task the fruits of one Spring c. Here Anthroposophus is turned Herbalist for one whole Spring damned to the grasse and fields like Nebuchadnezzar when he went on all four among the Beasts But see how slow this Snail amongst the herbs is in finding out the truth when he confesses it was the work of one whole Spring to find out That the Earth or seeds of flowers are nothing like the flowers There 's not any old Garden-weeder in all London but without a pair of spectacles will discover that in four minutes which he has been a full fourth part of a year about But certainly he intends a great deal of pomp and ceremony that will not take up such a Conclusion as this viz. That things that are produced in Nature are out of something in Nature which is not like the things produced but upon the full experience and meditation of one entire Spring And now after this whole Springs meditation and experience he is forced to turn about to him whom he so disdainfully flies and confesse two of the three principles of the Aristotelean Physicks viz. Matâ—er and Privation that homo is ex non homine arbor ex non arbore c. But this Matter he sayes and it is the wisest word he has spoken yet he knows not what it is But presently blots his credit again with a new piece of folly intimating he will finde it out by experience Which is as good sense as if he should say he would see it when his eyes are out For it is alike easie to see visibles without eyes as to see invisibles with eyes But he
represents the grosse carnall parts The element of the water answers to the bloud for in it the pulse of the great world beats this most men call the flux and reflux but they know not the true cause of it The air is the outward refreshing spirit where this vast creature breathes though invisibly yet not insensibly The interstellar skies are his vitall ethereall waters and the starres his animal sensuall fire Now to passe my censure on this rare Zoographicall piece I tell thee if thy brains were so confusedly scattered as thy fancy is here thou wert a dead man Philalethes all the Chymistrie in the world could not recover thee Thou art so unitive a soul Phil. and such a clicker at the slightest shadows of similitude that thou wouldst not stick to match chalk and cheese together I perceive and mussiâ—ate a marriage betwixt an Apple and an Oyster Even those proverbiall dissimilitudes have something of similitude in them will you then take them for similes that haâ—e so monstrous a disproportion and dissimilitude But you are such a Sophister that you can make any thing good Let 's try â—he Earth must represent the flesh because they noth be grosse so is chalk and cheese or an Apple and an Oyster But what think you of the Moon is not that as much green cheese as the Earth is flesh what think you of Venus of Mercury and the rest of the Planets which they that know any thing in Nature know to be as much flesh as the Earth is that is to be dark and opake as well as she What! is this flesh of the world then torn apieces and thrown about scattered here and there like the disjoynted limbs of dragg'd Hippolytus Go to Phil. where are you now with your fine knacks and similitudes But to the next Analogie The element of water answers to the bloud Why For in it is the pulse of the great world But didst thou ever feel the pulse of the Moon And yet is not there water too thou little sleepy heedlesse Endymion The bloud is restagnant there I warrant you and hath no pulse So that the man with the thornâ— on his back lives in a very unwholesome region But to keep to our own station here upon Earth Dost thou know what thou sayest when thou venturest to name that monosyllable Pulse dost thou know the causes and the laws of it Tell me my little Philosophaster where is there in the earth or out of the earth in this World-Animalâ—of â—of thine that which will answer to the heart and the systole and diastole thereof to make this pulse And besides this there is wanting rarefaction and universall diffusion of the stroke at once These are in the pulse of a true Animal but are not to be found in the Flux of the sea For it is not in all places at once nor is the water rarefied where it is Now my pretty Parabolist what is there left to make your similitude good for a pulse in your great Animal more then when you spill your pottage or shog a milk-bowl But believe it Eugenius thou wilt never make sense of this Flux and Reflux till thou calm thy fancy so much as to be able to read Des-Cartes But to tell us it is thus from an inward form more Aristotelico is to tell us no more then that it is the nature of the Beast or to make Latine words by adding onely the termination bus as hosibus and shoosibus as Sir Kenhelm Digby hath with wit and judgement applied the comparison in like case But now to put the bloud flesh and bones together of your World-Animal I say they bear not so great a proportion to the more fluid parts viz. the vitall and animal spirits thereof as a mite in a cheese to the whole globe of the Earth So that if thou hadst any fancy or judgement in thee thy similitude would appear to thine own self outragiously ugly and disproportionable and above all measure ridiculous Nor do not think to shuffle it off by demanding If there be so little earth to tell thee where it is wanting For I onely say that if the world be an Animal there will be much bloud and flesh wanting Philalethes for so great a Beast Nor do not you think to blind my eyes with your own Tobacco smoke I take none my self Eugenius For to that over ordinary experiment I answer two things First that as you took upon the parts of the body of a true Animal in the same extension that they now actually are not how they may be altered by rarefaction so you are also look upon the parts of your World-Animal as they are de facto extended not how they may be by rarefaction And thus your Argument from Tobacco will vanish into smoke But if you will change the present condition of any lesser Animal by burning it and turing many of the grosse parts into more thin and fluid you destroy the ground of your comparison betwixt the World Animal and it for you take away the flesh of your lesser Animal thus burnt And besides the proportion betwixt the vapour or thinner parts extension to the remaining ashes is not yet so big as of the thin parts of the World-Animal in respect of its solid parts by many thousand and thousand millions Nay I shall speak within compasse if I say as I said before that there is a greater disproportion then betwixt the globe of the Earth and a mite in a cheese This is plainly true to any that understands common sense For the Earth in respect of the World is but as an indivisible point Adde to all this that if you will rarefie the Tobacco or Hercules body by fire I will take the same advantage and say that the water and many parts of the earth may be also rarefied by fire and then reckon onely upon the remaining ashes of this globe and what is turned into vapour must be added to the more fluid parts of the World-Animal to increase that over-proportion So that thou hast answered most wretchedly and pitifully every way poor Anthroposophus But besides In the second place When any thing is burnt as for example your Tobacco I say it takes up then no more room then it did before Because Rarefaction and Condensation is made per modum spongiae as a sponge is distended by the coming in and contracted again by the going out of the water it had imbib'd But the Aristotelicâ—ll wayâ— which is yours O profound Magicus that hast the luck to pick out the best of that Philosophy implies I say grosse contradictions which thou câ—nst not but understand if thou canst distinguish corporeall from incorporeall Beings Thy way of Rarefaction and Condensation O Eugenius must needs imply pâ—netration of dimensions or something as incongruous as every lad in our Universities at a year or two standing at least is able to demonstrate to thee But if thou thinkest it hard that so little a body
flies off hence and is in quest after a Substance which he smels out like a nosegay in Natures bosome which Substance he hopes to see by Art Why Eugenius are you so sharp sighted that you can see Substances A kind of Philosophick Hog he can see the wind too I warrant you But how can you hope to see that Substance when Nature onely exposes it as you say to her own vitall celestiall breath And tell what this Breath is and do not amaze us with strange words or else keep your breath to your self to cool your pottage Observation 3. Pag. 4. Here a fit of devotion has taken him and I am neither so irreligious nor uncivill as to interrupt him But now Sir you have done I hope it will not be any offence to addresse my discourse to you again And it will not be unseasonable to tell you that Truth is not to be had of God Almighty for an old song no nor yet for a new one And that no man is to measure his wisdome by his devotion but by his humility and purity of mind and unprejudicate reason nor that any man is wiser by making others seem more contemptibly foolish as your juvenility has thought good to deal with poor Aristotle his Orthodox Disciples all this time Nay and that you may not take Sanctuary at Moses his Text let me also tell you that before you prove any thing thence you ought first to make good that Scripture is intended for naturall Philosophy as well as a divine life But we need not arm our selves so well yet for from the fourth page to the eight page nothing is said but that God from a knowing Principle made the World Which Aristotle also seems to assert while he is so frequent in telling the ends of naturall things which could not be sense unlesse he supposed that Nature was guided by a knowing Principle which is to acknowledge a God after the best manner And that subtil Philosopher Iulius Scaliger uses no contemptible arguments to prove that Aristotles Philosophy furnisheth us also with the knowledge of a Trinity in God so that Anthroposophus is very unkind and uncivill to so good a Master Observation 4. Pages 8. and 9. What an Aristotelean would dispatch in a word or two viz. that Life is alwayes accompanied with a naturall warmth he is mysteriously fumbling out and drayling on to the length of almost two whole pages Observation 5. Pag. 9. Lin. 10. The divine light pierced the bosome of the matter c. This compared with what is at the bottome of the fourth page we see that this rare philosopher tells us that the Matter is an horrible empty darknesse And me thinks his description is an hideous empty fancie and conveys not so much to the understanding as Aristotles description of the Matter which he would describe to be The first subject out of which every thing is This latter is more clean and sober the other more slabby and fantasticall And to call it Primitive waters is but yet metaphors and poetry For you do not mean waters such as we wash our hands in But they must be waters and dark that you may bring in the conceit of the light shining in them that like as in rivers and pools the images of trees birds and clouds and stars and what not may be seen in them And this must help us to conceive that upon the breaking through of the light the divine Idea's shone in the waters and that the holy Spirit not being able to see till then by looking then upon those images framed the matter into form But I pray you tell me Mr. Anthroposophus that would be so wise as if you stood by while God made the World doe not you think that God can now see in the dark or behold his own Idea's in the depth of the Earth You 'l say you doe not mean this Natural light but a divine light If so was ever the matter so stâ—ff and clammy dark as to be able to keep it out So that the divine Idea's shone in the Water so soon as God was and the Spiritus Opifex could see to begin his work ab omni retro aeternitate And it could never be dark in your blind sense Is it not so Anthroposophus Observation 6. Lin. 25. Si plantam quasi momento nasâ—i c. If Anthroposophus had such a device as this in a glasse what a fine gew-gaw would it be for the lad What fine sport would he make with his companions He would make them believe then that he was a Conjurer indeed But what other use there would be of it Anthroposophus truly I do not know For it would not state one controversie in Philosophy more then what may be done without it For whether there be any such things as rationes seminales or whether these forms visible arise from heat which is motion and the conspiracy of fitted particles is as well and safely determined from your experiments of one spring as from this strange whim-wham in a glasse But weak stomachs and weak wits long most after rarities Observation 7. Pag. 10. Lin. 4. Two-fold Idea divine natural c. Anthroposophus Your natural Idea is but an idea of your own brain For it is no more an idea then a sheath is a knife or the spittle that wets the seal is the sealâ— or the grease the saw or the water the Grindle-stone But you must strike betwixt this and the divine Idâ—a or else you will misse of your natural one And so will be forced to do that of penury which he did of choise and for brevity sake divide your Text into one part But your quotation of Moses here neer the bottom of the page is either nothing to your natural Idea or if you mean it of the divine is no new notion but nimmed out of Philo the Iew. And yet in the beginning of the following page you magnify your self as one that concerning this primitive supernatural part of the Creation as you call it though you have not said so much as you can say by far as being a Nip-crust or Niggard of your precious speculations yet you have produced not a little new Observation 8. Pag. 11. Lin. 5. Some Authors c. And the reason why the world is beholding to this Gentleman more then to any for new discoveries of mighty truths is that whereas some Authors have not searched so deeply into the Center of Nature and others not willing to publish such spiritual mysteries this new Writer is the onely man that is both deeply seen into the Center of Nature and as willing also to publish these spiritual mysteries So that he goes beyond them all O brave Anthroposophus What a fine man would you fain appear to the World In the residue of this page Anthroposophus his phansie is pudled so and jumbled in the Limbus or Huddle of the Matter that he cannot distinguish betwixt God and the Creature
For he knows not whether the Chaos be created or uncreated How much wiser are you now then Aristotle Mr. Eugenius that made the world Eternal If you can admit this by the rule of proportion you might swallow the greatest Gudgeon in Aristotle without kecking or straining Observation 9. Pag. 12. Lin. 11. Fuliginous spawn of Nature A rare expression This Magicician has turned Nature into a Fish by his Art Surely such dreams float in his swimmering Brains as in the Prophets who tells us so Authentick stories of his delicious Albebut Observation 10. Lin. 12. The created Matter Before the Matter was in an hazard of not being created but of being of it self eternal Certainly Eugenius you abound with leasure that can thus create and uncreate doe and undoe because the day is long enough Observation 11. Lin. 21. A horrible confused qualm c. Here Nature like a child-bearing woman has a qualm comes over her stomach and Eugenius like a man-midwife stands by very officiously to see what will become of it Let her alone Eugenius it is but a qualm some cold raw rhewme Margret will escape welâ— enough Especially if her two Handmaids Heat and Siccity which you mention do but help with their Aquavitae bottles What a rare mode or way of Creation has Eugenius set out Certainly it cannot but satisfie any unreasonable man if there be any men without reason and I begin to suspect there is for Eugenius his sake such as feed as savourly on the pure milk of fansie as the Philosophers Asse on Sow-thistles SECT III. 12. He asserts that there was a vast portion of light in the Extract from the Chaos which surrounded the whole earth 13. He compares Ptolemees Heavens to a rumbling confused Labyrinth 14. He calls the Firmament Cribrum Naturae 15. Affirmes that the light before the fourth day equally possest the whole creation 16. That the Night peeps out like a baffled Giant when the Sun is down 17. That the shadow of the Earth is Natures black bagg 18. He prays to be delivered from the dark Tincture which at last by the Protochymist shall be expeld beyond the Creation 19. He allows onely two Elements Earth and Water â—0 He speakes of Water and Fire which is Apuleius his Psyche and Cupid of their bedding together 21. Cites an obscure Aphorisme out of Sendivow 22. Affirmes that the Air is the Magicians baâ—k doore 23. And our animal Oyl the fuell of the vital and sensual fire in us Observation 12. Pag. 13. THis page is spent in extracting from the Chaosâ— a thin spiritual celestial substance to make the Caelum Empyreum of and the Body of Angels and by the by to be in stead of a Sun for the first day But then in the second Extraction was extracted the agill air filling all betwixt the Masse and the Coelum Empyreum But here I have so hedged you in Mr. Anthroposophus that you will hardly extricate your self in this question The Empyreal substance encompassing allâ— how could there be Morning aud Evening till the fourth day for the mass was alike illuminated round about at once And for your interstellar water you do but fancy it implyed in Moses text can never prove that he drives at any thing higher in the letter thereof than those hanging bottles of water the clouds Observation 13. Pag. 14. Lin. 12. A rumbling confused Labyrinth 'T is only Erratum Typographicum I suppose you mean a rumbling Wheel-barrow in allusion to your Wheel-work and Epicycles aforementioned But why small diminutive Epicycles Eugenius you are so profound a Magician that you are no Astronomer at all The bignesse of them is as strong a presumption against them as any thing they are too big to be true Observation 14. Lin. 26. This is Cribrum Naturae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I warrant you The very sive that Iupiter himself pisses through as Aristophanes sports it in his Comedies Observation 15. Pag. 15. Lin. 20. Equally possest the whole Creature Therefore again I ask thee O Eugenius how could there be Evening and Morning the light being all over equally dispersed Observation 16. Lin. 29. Like a baffled Gyant Poetical Eugenius Is this to â—ay the sober and sound principles of Truth and Philosophy Observation 17. Pag. 16. Lin. 1. A Black Bag. I tell thee Eugenius Thy phansie is snapt in this female Black-bag as an unwary Retiarius in a Net Do's Madam Nature wear her Black-bag in her middle parts for the Earth is the Center of the World or on her head as other matrons doe That Philalethes may seem a great and profound Student indeed he will not take notice whether a black-bag be furniture for Ladies heads or their haunches Well! let him injoy the glory of his affected rusticity and ignorance Observation 18. Lin. 5. Good Lord deliver us How the man is frighted into devotion by the smut and griminesse of his own imagination Observation 19. Lin. 15. Earth and water c. Concurrunt element a ut Materia ergo duo sufficiunt says Cardan â—Tis no new-sprung truth if true Mr. Eugenius But seeing that AEthereal vigour and celestial heat with the substance thereof For coelum pervadit omnia is in all things and the air excluded from few or no living Creatures if we would severely tug with you Mr. Anthroposophus you will endanger the taking of the foil Observation 20. Pag. 18. Lin. 22. Both in the same bed Why did you ever sneak in Eugenius and take them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the very act 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Lawyers speak This is but poeticall pomp in prose And Ovid Philosophizes better in verse where speaking of heat and moisture he expresses himself apertly and significantly Quippe ubi temperiem sumpsere humorque calorque Concipiunt ab his generantur cuncta duobus Observation 21. Lin. 27. Spiritus aquae invisibilis congelatus melior est quà m terra Vniversa Now as you are Philalethes tell me truly if you understand any determinate and usefull sense of this saying If you do why do you not explain it if you do not for ought you know it may be onely a charm to fox fishes And I pray you Philalethes make triall of the experiment Observation 22. Pag. 19. Lin. 29. It is the Magicians Back-doore Here I cannot but take notice at the great affectation of Philalethes to appear to be deeply seen in Magick But I suppose if he were well searched he would be found no Witch nor all his Back-door of air worth the winde of an ordinary mans back-doore Observation 23. Pag. 20. Lin. 2. The air is our Animal oil the fuell of the vitall Now Eugenius you are so good natured as to give Aristotle one of his two elements again that you wrested from him If this be our animall oil and fuell of the vitall it is plain our animall and vitall spirits are from the air and that the air is one element amongst the rest And your moist
as a pipe of Tobacco should be multiplied into so very much superficies above what it had before go to those that beat out leaf gold and understand there how the superficies of the same body may be to wonder increased And beside I could demonstrate to thee that a body whose basis thou shouldst imagine at the center of the Earth and top as farre above the starry Heaven as it is from thence to the Earth without any condensation used thereunto is but equal to a body that will he within the boll of a Tobacco-pipe Where art thou now thou miserable Philosophaster But to the next Analogie The aire is the outward refreshing spirit where this vast Creaure breaths Two things I here object to shew the ineptnesse and incongruity of this comparison The one is taken from the office of respiration which is to refresh by way of refrigerating or cooling Is not the main end of the lungs to cool the bloud before it enter into the left ventricle of the heart But thou art so Magical thou knowst none of these sober and usefull mysteries of Nature All that thou answerest to this is That we are refresh'd by heat as well as by coolnesse Why then is that generall sufficient to make up your analogie or similitude This is as well fancied as it is reasoned when men conclude affirmatively in the second figure There are laws in fancy too Philalethes and I shall shew thee anon how ridiculous thou hast made thy self by transgressing them If thou meanest by refresh'd to be cheared or restored onely and what ever do's this must be ground enough to fancy a respiration then thou breathest in thy cawdle when thou eatest it and hast spoyled that conceit of his that said he never would drink sack whilst he breathed for if sack do in any sense refresh and comfort a man it seems he breaths while he drinks I tell thee in the Homologi termini of similitudes there ought to be something in some sort peculiar and restrained or else it is flat ridiculous and non-sense The other objection was taken from the situation of this aire that is to he the matter of Respiration in this great Animal What a wild difference is there in this The aire that an ordinary Animal breaths in is external the aire of this World-Animal internall so that it is rather wind in the guts then aire for the lungs and therefore we may well adde the Colick to the Anasarca Is the wind-Colick an outward refreshing spirit or an inward griping pain Being thou hast no guts in thy brains I suspect thy brains have slipt down into thy guts whither thy tongue should follow to be able to speak sense Answer now like an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O thou man of Magick He answers and the point and sting of all the sense of his answer is in the tail of it pag. 29. lin 11. and it is their outward refreshing spirit He means the Earths and the Waters O feeble sting O foolish answer This onely reaches so farre as to save the Earth alive from my jugulating objection The globe of Earth and Water indeed may be still an Animal for all that objection But thou saidst the whole World was an Animal What is the whole world an Animal because the Earth is one O bundle of simples to return thee thine own parcell of ware again for it belongs not to me this is as well argued as if thou shouldest say That a cheese is an Animal because there is one living mite in it But that this Earth neither is a breathing Animal is plain enough For what respiration what attraction and reddition of aire is there in it There may be indeed something answering to sweating and perspiration nothing to respiration my good Philalethes But to shew thee thy folly I will follow thy liberty and impudently pronounce that a pair of bellows is an Animal Why is it not It has a nose to breathe through that 's plain the two handles are the two eares the leather the lungs and that which is the most seemly analogie of all the two holes in the back-side are the two eyes as like the eyes in the fore-side of a Crab as ever thou seest any thing in thy life Look thee Phil. are they not You 'll say The analogie of the nose is indeed as plain as the nose on a mans face But how can the handles be eares when they stand one behind another whereas the eares of Animals stand one on one side and the other on the other side of the head And then how can the leather be lungs they being the very outside of its body Or those two holes eyes They have neither the situation as being placed behind nor office of eyes Answer me all these objections O Mastix I can fully answer them O Magicus This is an Animal drawn out according to thine own skill and principles The leather sayst thou must be no lungs because it is without Why then the aire must be no aire for thy World-Animal to breath because it is within And if thou canst dispense with within and without much more mayst thou with before and behind or behind and on the sides So the eares and lungs of this Animal hold good against thee still Now to preserve my monsters eyes against this Harpy that would scratch them out They are no eyes say you because they have not the situation of eyes But I told thee before thou makest nothing of situation But they have not the office of eyes Why They can see as much as the eyes of thy World-Animal for ought thou knowest I but this Bellows-Animal breaths at these eyes And have not I shewed thee thy World-Animal breaths in his guts But I will make it plain to thee that those two holes are eyes For they are two as the two eyes are and transmit the thin air through them as the eyes do the pure light So that they agree gainly well in the generall As your Respiration in the World-Animal in refreshing though by heat when in others it is by cold Fie on thee for a Zoographicall Bungler These Bellows thou seest is not my Animal but thine and the learned shall no longer call that instrument by that vulgar name of a pair of Bellows but Tom Vaughans Animal So famous shalt thou grow for thy conceited foolery The interstellar skies are his vitall ethereall waters Here I object O Eugenius that there is an over-proportionated plenty of those waters in thy World-Animal and that thus thou hast distended the skin of thy Animal God knows how many millions of miles off from the flesh O prodigious Anasarca But what dost thou answer here viz. That I say that the body which we see betwixt the starres namely the interstellar waters is excessive in proportion No I do not say so but that they are too excessive in proportion to be the fluid parts of a World-Animal But however as if I had said so he
little Mastigia Observation 23. Here I have you fast Philalethes for all your wrigling For if our vitall and animal spirits which are as much a part of us as any other part of our body is be fed and nourished by the Aire then the Aire is an Element of our body But here he would fain save himself by saying that the Aire is rather a Compound then an Element but let any man judge how much more it is compounded then the Earth and then Water which nourisheth by drinking as well as the Aire can do by breathing Observation 24. Page 59. line 1. How can darknesse be called a Masse c. No it cannot Nor a thin vaporous matter neither Thy blindnesse cannot distinguish Abstracts from Concrets Thy soul sits in the dark Philalethes and nibbles on words as a mouse in a hole on cheese â—arings But to slight thy injudicious cavil at Masse and to fall to the Matter I charged thee here to have spoke such stuff as implies a Contradiction Thou saidest that this Masse be it black or white dark or bright that 's nothing to the Controversie here did contain in a farre less compass all that was after extracted I say this implies a Contradiction But you answer this is nothing but Rarefaction and Condensation according to the common notion of the Schools I but that Notion it self implies a Contradiction for in Rarefaction and Condensation there is the generation or deperdition of no new Matter but all matter hath impenetrable dimensions Therefore if that large expansion of the heavens lay within the compass of the Mass that matter occupyed the same space that the masse did and so dimensions lay in dimensions and thus that which is impenetrable was penetrated which is a contradiction What thou alledgest of the rarefaction of water into clouds or vapours is nothing to the purpose For these clouds and vapours are not one continued substance but are the particles of the water put upon motion and playing at some distance one from another but do really take up no more place then before Observation 26. To say nothing at thy fond cavil at words in the former Observationâ— and thy false accusation that I called thee dog for I would not dishonour Diogenesâ—o â—o much as to call thee so and leaving it to the censure of the world how plain and reall thy principles are I am come now to my 26 Observation on the 23 page of thy Anthroposophia where thou tellest us That there is a threefold Earth viz. Elementary Celestiall Spirituall Now let us see what an excellent layer of the fundamentalls of Science thou wilâ— prove thy self And here he begins to divide before he defines Thou shouldest fiâ—st have told us what Earth is in generall before thou divide it This is like a creature with a cloven foot and never a head But when thou didst venture to define these Members where was thy Logick Ought not every definition nay ought not every Precept of Art to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but I will not vex thy head with these severities The Magnet is the second member the object of this 26 Observation Here you say I condemn this Magnet but I do not offer to confute it But I answer I have as substantially confuted it as merrily but thou dost not take notice of it I have intimated that this precept of art is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nay that it is plainly false For it affirms that which hath no discovery by reason or experience viz. That there is a certain earth which you call the Magnet that will draw all things to it at what distance so ever Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi So farre am I from approving thy Magnet O Magicus Nor do the pages thou here citest of which I give a favourable censure prove any such thing Let the Reader peruse them and judge Indeed certain operations of the Soul are highly and Hyperbolically there set out by thee but the Magnet came dropping in at the latter end of the story I gave no allowance to that I will not have my soul so ill taught as to attract metall out of mens purses at any distance whatsoever Page 64. line 12. Didst thou ever hear or know that I was a pick-pocket If I had had the least suspicion of thee that thou werâ— so I would not have called thee so for it had been an unmercifull jest But if thou wert as full of candour and urbanity as I deem thee clear of that crime thou wouldst not have interpreted it malice but mirth For such jests as these are not uncivill nor abusive to the person when the materiality of them are plainly and confessedly incompatible to the party on whom they are â—ast Observation 27. Page 65. line 14. Prethee why a Galileo's tube were there more Galileo's then one Certainly Phil. thou dost not look through a Galileo's glasse but through a multiplying glasse that seest in my English more Galileos then one Go thy wayes for the oddest correctour of English that ever I met with in all my dayes Observation 28. Page 67. line 1. For I fear God The devils also believe and tremble But do'st thou love God my Philalethes If thou didst thou wouldst love thy brother also But shall I tell thee truly what I fear Truly I fear that thou hast no such precious medicine to publish which thou makest so nice of and that thou dost onely make Religion a cover for thine ignorance But let me tell thee this sober truth That Temperance will prevent more diseases by farre then thy medicine is like to cure and Christian Love would relieve more by many thousands then thy Philosophers stone that should convert baser mettals into gold There is gold enough in the world and all necessaries else for outward happiness but the generations of men make themselves miserable by neglecting the inward This is palpably true and it would astonish a man to see how they run madding after the noise of every pompous difficulty and how stupid and sottish they are to those things which God has more universally put in their power and which would if they made use of them redound to their more generall and effectuall good Observation 29. So doth S. Iohn prophesie too But Magicus is too wise to understand him S. Iohn tells us of a new Heaven and of a new Earth Here Magicus having recourse to his Chymistrie in the height of his imagination prefigures to himself not onely Crystalline Heavens but also a Vitrifide Earth But I consulting with Scripture and with the simplicity of mine own plain Spirit think of a new Heaven and a new Earth wherein righteousnessâ— He 's for an Eden with flowry walks and pleasant trees I am for a Paradise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where Virtue Wisdome and good Order meet As the Chaldeâ— Oracles describe it He is for a pure clear place I place my happinesse in a clear and pure mind
make a Cavil Put on thy spectacles and see if there be any comma before of in my Book If you understood common sense you could not but understand that my meaning is this That you tax the Peripateticks for fancying God to have made the world as a Carpenter makes houses of stone and timber Now pitifull Caviller But to the point I say this is a false taxation Eugenius For the parts of the world according to the Peripateticks own doctrine are set in this order they are from an inward principle of motion and their own proper qualities so that they do as the stones and trees are said to have done at the musick of Orpheus and Amphion move of themselves But the stone and timber in the work of a Carpenter do not move themselves into their places they ought to be for the building up of an house But you answer two things to this First that the parts of the world do not move themselves Secondly that if they do then they have infusion of life To the first Why do's not any part of the earth move it self downward if it be in an higher place then is naturall to it and the aire and fire upward c. and this from an inward principle of motion Nay is not the very definition of Nature Principium motûs quietis c. wherefore we see plainly that according to the Aristoteleans all to the very concave of the Moon have an inward principle of motion And for the Heavens themselves the most sober and cautious of the Peripateticks hold them to be moved from an inward Principle their Forma informans as they call it So that though they do not allow life infused into the world yet they allow an inward principle of motion in naturall bodies which is their Substantiall Forms by virtue whereof they are ranged in this order as we see or at least according to which they are thus ranged and ordered And this is not so dead a businesse as the Carpenters building with stone and timber But in the second place you say That if they have this motion from an inward principle then they have also infusion of life But do not you see plainly that according to the mind of the more sober Peripateticks they have motion from an inward Principle Therefore you should have been so farre from taxing them to look upon God as a Carpenter that you should have concluded rather that they held infusion of life Pag. 24. Lin. 1. Thou hast abused me basely Verily if that were true I should be very forrie for it For I would not willingly abuse any man living of what condition soevâ—r But the thing has happened unluckily I read thy Book I knew not thy person nor thy name nor thy nature further then it was exprest in thy Book which did not represent it so ill as now I find it If I had thought my Galenical purge had met with such a constitution I should have tempered it more carefully For I delight not in the vexation of any man The truth is my scope in writing that Book was laudable and honest and such as might become a very good Christian and my mirth and pleasantnesse of mind much and reall but the sharpnesse of my style personated and Aristotelicall and therefore being but affected and fictitious I felt it not there was no corrosion at all but all that was unkind in it if you will call that passion unkindnesse was a certain light indignation that I bore and ever do bear against magnificent folly And there being no name to your Book I thought I had the opportunity of doing it with the least offence as meeting with the thing disjoyned and singled from the person But I verâ—ly think I should not have medled at all if you had spared your incivilities to Des-Carters whose worth and skill-in naturall Philosophy be it fate or judgement that constrains me to it let the world judge I cannot but honour and admire He is rayled at but not confuted by any that I see in his naturall Philosophy and that 's the thing I magnifie him for Though his Metaphysicks have wit and strength enough too and he hath made them good against his opposers Line 21. And assure thy self I will persecute thee so long as there is ink or paper in England Assuredly thou wilt not Philalethes For why I am dead already taken in thy trap and tortured to death will not this suffice thee I am dead and thou thy self but mortall wilt thou entertain immortall enmity against me But how canst thou persecute me being dead Wilt thou raise my soul up O Magicus by thy Necromancy and then combate with me over my grave I hope thou art but in jest Eugenius If thou beest not I must tell thee in good earnest thy present bitternesse will make thee Magus-like as well as thy former boasting O thou confounded and undone thing how hast thou shamed thy self Thy vizard is fallen off and thy sanctimonious clothing torn from about thee even as it was with the Apes and Monkies that being attired like men and wearing vizards over their faces did daunce and cringe and kisse and do all the gestures of men so artificially becomingly that the Countrey people took them to be a lesser size of humane race till a waggish fellow that had more wit then the rest dropt a few nuts amongst them for which they fell a scrambling so earnestly that they tore off their vizards and to the great laughter of the spectatours show'd what manner of creatures they were O Magicus do not dissemble before me For thou dost not know with what eyes I behold thee Were it not better for thee and all the world beside to make it their businesse to be really and fully possest of those things that are undoubtedly good and Christian nay indeed if they be had in the right Principle are the very buds and branches of the tree of Paradise the limbs and members of the Divine nature such as are meeknesse patience and humility discretion freedome from self-interest chastity temperance equity and the like is it not better to seek after these things then to strain at high words and uncertain flatuous notions that do but puff up the mind and make it seem full to it self when it is distended with nothing but unwholsome wind Is not this very true my dear Philalethes SECT IV. The Confutation of Eugenius his World-Animal from the unmercifull disproportion and ugly dissimilitude of the parts thereof compared with a true Animal reinforced and invincibly confirmed Pag. 24. WE are now come to that rare piece of Zoography of thine the world drawn out in the shape of an Animal But let 's view the whole draught as it lies in your book because you make such a foul noise about it in your answer Your words are these Besides the texture of the Vniverse clearly discovers its Animation The Earth which is the visible naturall Basis of it