Concoction is nothing else but a thickning of that juice which already sticks to any part of the Animals body by the good digestion that heat makes in it And Assimilation is the effect of Concoction for this juice being used in the same manner as the first juice was that made the part wherto this is to be joyn'd it cannot chuse but become like it in substance And then there being no other substance between it is of it self united to it without any further help Hitherto this action belongs to Nutrition But if on the one side the heat and spirituality of the blood and on the other side the due temper and disposition of the part be such as the bloud is greedily suck'd into the part which therby swells to make room for it and will not let it go away but turns it into a like substance as it self is and is greater in quantity then what is consumed and decayes continually by transpiration then this action is called likewise Augmentation Which Galen explicates by a sport the boys of Ionia used who were accustom'd to fill a bladder with wind and when they could force no more into it they could rub the bladder and after rubbing of it they found it capable of receiving new breath and so they would proceed on till their bladder were as full as by use they knew it could be made Now saith he nature doth the like by filling our flesh and other parts with bloud that is to say it stretches the fibers but she hath over and above a power which the boys had not namely to make the fibers as strong after they are stretched to their utmost extension as they were before they were extended whence it happens that she can extend them again as well as at the first and this without end as far as concerns that part The reason wherof is because she extends them by means of a liquor which is of the same nature as that wherof they were made at first and from thence it followes that by concoction that liquour settles in the parts of the fibers which have most need and so makes those parts as great in the length they are extended to as they were in their shortness before they were drawn out Whereby the whole part of the Animal wherin this happens grows greater and the like being done in every part as well as in any one single one the whole Animal becomes bigger and is in such sort augmented Out of all which discourse we may collect that in the essential composition of Living Creatures there may peradventure be a phisical possibility for them to continue always without decay and so become immortals even in their bodies if all hurtful accidents coming from without might be prevented For seeing that a man besides the encrease which he makes of himself can also impart to his children a vertue by which they are able to do the like and to give again to theirs as much as they receiv'd from their Fathers 't is clear that what makes him die is no more the want of any radical power in him to encrease or nourish himself then in fire it is the want of power to burn which makes it go out But it must be some accidental want which Gallen attributes chiefly to the driness of our bones and sinews c. as you may in him see more at large For driness with density alows not easie admittance to moysture and therfore it causes the heat which is in the dry body either to evaporate or to be extinguish'd and want of heat is that from whence the failing of life proceeds which he thinks cannot be prevented by any art or industry And herein God hath express'd his great mercy and goodness towards us For seeing that by the corruption of our own nature we are so immers'd in flesh and blood as we should for ever delight to wallow in their mire without raising our thoughts at any time above that low and brutal condition he hath engaged us by a happy necessity to think of and provide for a nobler and far more excellent state of living that will never change or end In pursuance of which inevitable ordinance Man as if he were grown weary and out of love with this life and scorn'd any Term in his farm here since he cannot purchase the Fee-simple of it hastens on his death by his unwary and rash use of meats which poyson his blood and then his infected blood passing through his whole body must needs in like manner taint it all at once For the redress of which mischief the assistance of physick is made use of and that passing likewise the same way purifies the blood and recovers the corruption occasion'd by the peccant humour or other whiles gathering it together it thrusts and carries out that evil guest by the passages contriv'd by nature to disburden the body of unprofitable or hurtful supersluites CHAP. XXVII Of the motions of Sence and of the Sensible Qualities in general and in particular of those which belong to Touch Tast and Smelling HAving thus brought on the course of Nature as high as Living Creatures whose chief species or division is those that have sense and having declared the operations which are common to the whole tribe of them which includes both Plants and Animals 't is now time we take a particular view of those whose action and passion is the reason why that chief portion of life is termed sensitive I mean the Senses and the qualities by which the outward world comes into the living creature through his senses Which when we shall have gone through we shall scarcely have left any qualities among bodies to plead for a spiritual manner of being or working that is for a selfentity an instantaneous operation which kind of things and properties vulgar Philosophy is very earnest to attribute to our senses with what reason and upon what ground let us now consider These qualities are reduced to five several heads answerable to so many different wayes wherby we receive notice of the bodies that are without us And accordingly they constitute a like number of different Senses of every one of which we will discourse particularly when we have examined the natures of the qualities that affect them But now all the consideration we shall need to have of them is only this That it is manifest the organs in us by which sensible qualites work upon us are corporeal and made of the like ingredients as the rest of our body is and therfore must of necessity be liable to suffer evil and receive good as all other bodies do from those active qualities which make and mar all things within the limits of Nature By which terms of Evil and Good I mean those effects that are averse or conformable to the particular nature of any thing and therby tend to the preservation or destruction of that individual Now we receiving from our senses the knowledge
from the thick basis of the heart towards the little tip or cone of it the second go cross or round-ways about the ventricles within the heart and the third are transversal or thwart ones Next we are to remember that the heart is fix'd to the body by its base and hangs loose at the cone Now then the fibers being of the nature of such things as will swell and grow thicker by being moisten'd and consequently shrink up in length and grow shorter in proportion to their swelling thicker as you may observe in a loose-wrought hempen rope it must of necessity follow that when the bloud falls into the heart which is of a kind of spungy substance the fibers being therwith moist'ned will presently swell in roundness and shrink in length Next we are to note that there is a double motion in the heart the one of opening which is call'd Diastole the other of shutting which is term'd Systole And although Dr. Harvey seems to allow the opening of the heart to be no motion but rather a relenting from motion nevertheless me thinks 't is manifest that it is not only a compleat motion but in a manner the greater motion of the two though indeed the less sensible because it is perform'd by little and little for in it the heart is drawn by violence from its natural position which must be as it is of all heavy things that by which it approaches most to the center of gravity and such a position we see it gains by the shutting of it Now to declare how both these motions are effected we are to consider how at the end of the Systole the heart is voided and cleansed of all the bloud that was in it whence it follows that the weight of the bloud which is in the auricles pressing upon the valvulas or doors that open inwards makes its way by little and little into the ventricles of the heart where it must necessarily swell the fibers and they being swelled must needs draw the heart into a roundish and capacious figure which the more it is done the more blood comes in and with greater violence The following effect of which must be that the weight of the blood joyn'd to the weight of the heart it self and particularly of the conus or tip which is more solid and heavy in proportion to its quantitity then the rest of the heart must necessarily set the heart into the natural motion of descending according to its gravity which consequently is perform'd by a lively jerk wherby it comes to pass that the tip of our heart as it were springs up towards our breast the bloud is spurted out by other valvulae that open outwards which are aptly disposed to be open'd upon such a motion and convey it to the arteries In the course of which motion we may note how the figure of our heart contributes to its springing up towards our breast for the line of distance between the basis and the tip being longer on that side towards the back then on the other towards the breast it must happen that when the heart shuts and straightens it self and thereby extends it self to its length the tip will but out forwards towards the breast Against this doctrine of the motion and of the Systole and Diastole of the heart it may be objected that beasts hearts do not hang like a mans heart straight downwards but rather horizantally and therfore this motion of gravity cannot have place in them nevertheless we are sure they beat and open and shut regularly Besides if there were no other cause but this of gravity for the motion of a mans heart it would follow that one who were set upon his head or hung by his heels could not have the motion of his heart which posture nevertheless we see men remain in for a pretty while without any extreme prejudice But these difficulties are easily answer'd For first whether beasts hearts lie directly horizontally or whether the basis be fast'ned somwhat higher then the tip reaches and so makes their heart hang inclining downwards still the motion of gravity hath its effect in them As we may perceive in the heart of a viper lying upon a plate and in any other thing that of it self swells up and straight again shrinks down in which we cannot doubt but that the gravity fighting against the heat makes the elevated parts fall as the heat makes them rise And as for the latter 't is evident that men cannot stay long in that posture without violent accidents and in any little while we see the bloud comes into their face and other parts which naturally are situated higher but by this position become lower then the heart and much time is not required to have them quite disorder'd and suffocated the bloud passing through the heart with too much quickness and not receiving due concoction there and falling thence in too great abundance into places that cannot with conveniency entertain it But you will insist and ask Whether in that posture the heart moves or no and how And to speak by guesse in a thing I have not yet made experiences enough to be throughly inform'd in I conceive without any great scruple that it doth move And that it happens thus That the heart hanging somewhat loose must needs tumble over and the tip of it lean downwards some way or other and so lie in part like the heart of a beast though not so conveniently accommodated and then the heat which makes the viscous bloud that is in the substance of the heart to ferment wil not fail of raising it up wherupon the weight of that side of the heart that is lifted up will presently press it down And thus by the alternative operations of these causes the heart will be made to open and shut it self as much as is necessary for admitting and thrusting out that little and disorderly coming bloud which makes its course through it for that little space wherin the man continues in that position Now from these effects wrought in the heart by the moistning of the fibers two other effects proceed One is that the bloud is push'd out of every corner of the heart with an impetuousness or velocity The other is that by this notion the spirits which are in the ventricles of the heart and in the bloud that is even then heated there are more and deeper press'd into the substance of the heart so that you see the heart imbibes fresh vigour and is strengthened with new spirits whiles it seems to reject that which should strengthen it Again two other effects follow this violent ejection of the bloud out of the heart One is that for the present the heart is entirely cleans'd of all remainders of bloud none being permitted to fall back to annoy it The other is that the heart finding it self dry the fibers relent presently into their natural position and extension and the valvulae that open inwards fall flat
extracted like a quintessence out of the whole mass is reser'd in convenient receptacles or vessels till there be use of it and is the matter or seed of which a new Animal is to be made in whom will appear the effect of all the specifical virtues drawn by the bloud in its iterated courses by its circular motion through all the several parts of the parents body Whence it follows that if any part be wanting in the body wherof this seed is made or be superabundant in it whose virtue is not in the rest of the body the vertue of that part cannot be in the bloud or will be too strong in the bloud and by consequence it cannot be at all or it will be too much in the seed And the effect proceeding from the seed that is the young Animal will come into the world savouring of that origine unless the Mother's seed supply or temper what the Father 's was defective or superabundant in or contrariwise the Father's correct the errours of the Mother's But peradventure the Reader will tell us that such a specifical virtue cannot be gotten by concoction of the blood or by any petended impression in it unless some little particles of the nourished part remain in the blood and return back with it according to that maxim of Geber Quod non ingreditur non immutat no body can change another unless it enter into it and mixing it self with it become one with it And that so in effect by this explication we fall back into the opinion which we rejected To this I answer that the difference is very great between that opinion and ours as will appear evidently if you observe the two following assertions of theirs First they affirm that a living creature is made mâ—erly by the assembling together of similar parts which were hidden in those bodies from whence they are extracted in generation wheras we say that bloud coming to a part to irrigate it is by its passage through it and some little stay in it and by its frequent returns thither at length transmuted into the nature of that part and therby the specifical vertues of every part grow greater and are more diffused and extended Secondly they say that the Embryon is actually formed in the seed though in such little parts as it cannot be discerned till each part have enlarged and increased it self by drawing to it from the circumstant bodies more substance of their own nature But we say that there is one Homogenal substance made of the blood which hath been in all parts of the body and this is the seed which contains not in it any figure of the Animal from which it is refined or of the Animal into which it hath a capacity to be turned by the addition of other substances though it have in it the vertues of all the parts it hath often run through By which term of specifike vertues I hope we have said enough in sundry places of this discourse to keep men from conceiving that we mean any such inconceivable quality as modern Philosophers too frequently talk of when they know not what they say or think nor can give any account of But that it is such degrees and numbers of rare and dense parts mingled together as constitute a mixed body of such a temper and nature which degrees and proportions of rare and dense parts and their mixture together and incorporating into one Homogeneal substance is the effect resulting from the operations of the exteriour agent that cuts imbibes kneads and boyls it to such a temper Which exteriour agent in this case is each several part of the Animals body that this juice or blood runs through and that hath a particular temper belonging to it resulting out of such a proportion of rare and dense parts as we have even now spoken of and can no more be with-held from communicating its temper to the bloud that first soaks into it and soon after drains away again from it according as other succeeding parts of bloud drive it on then a mineral channel can chuse but communicate its vertue to a stream of water that runs through it and is continually grating off some of the substance of the Mineral earth and dissolving it into it self But to go on with our intended discourse The seed thus imbued with the specifical vertues of all the several parts of the parents body meeting in a fit receptacle the other parents seed and being there duly concocted becomes first a heart Which heart in this tender beginning of a new Animal contains the several virtues of all the parts that afterwards will grow out of it and be in the future Animal in the same manner as the heart of a complete Animal contains in it the specificke virtues of all the several parts of its own body by reason of the bloods continual resorting to it in a circle from all parts of its body and its being nourished by that juice to supply the continual consumption which the extreme heat of it must needs continually occasion in its own substance wherby the heart becoms in a manner the Compendium or abridgment of the whole Animal Now this heart in the growing Embryon being of the nature of fire as on the one side it streams out its hot parts so on the other it sucks oyl or fewel to nourish it self out of the adjacent moist parts which matter aggregated to it being sent abroad together with the other hot parts that steam from it both of them together stay and settle as soon as they are out of the reach of that violent heat that would not permit them to thicken or rest And there they grow into such a substance as is capable to be made of such a mixture and are linked to the heart by some of those strings that steam out from it for those steams likewise harden as we shew'd more particularly when we discours'd of the tender stalks of plants and in a word this becoms some other part of the Animal Which thus encreases by order one part being made after another till the whole living creature be completely framed So that now you see how mainly their opinion differs from ours since they say that there is actually in the seed a complete living creature for what else is a living creature but bones in such parts nerves in such others bloud and humours contain'd in such and such places all as in a living creature All which they say But we make the seed to be nothing else but one mixed body of one homogeneal nature throughout consisting of such a multiplicity of rare and dense parts so ballanced and proportioned in number and magnitude of those parts which are evenly shuffled and alike mingled in every little parcel of the whole substance in such sort that the operation of nature upon this seed may in a long time and with a due process bring out such figures situation and qualities as fluidity consisence
it swells according to the encrease of the Moon which whether it be true or no there can be no doubt but that it being of a substance which is full of skins and strings is capable of being stretch'd and of swelling upon light occasions and of falling or sinking again upon as light as being easily penetrable by vapours and liquors whose nature it is to swell and to extend that which they enter into Out of which it follows that it must be the nature of the Nerves to do the like and indeed so much the more by how much more dry they are than the brain for we see that to a certain measure drier things are more capable of extention by the ingression of wet than moist things are because these are not capable of receiving much more wet into them These things being premised let us imagine that the brain being first swell'd afterwards contracts it self and it must of necessity follow that seeing the Nerves are all open towards the brain though their concavities cannot be discern'd the spirits and moisture in the brain must needs be press'd into the Nerves which being already stored with spirits sufficiently to the proportion of their hard skins this addition will make them swell and grow hard as a Balloon doth which being competently full of air hath nevertheless more air press'd into it Since therfore the Masters of Anatomy teach us that in every muscle there is a nerve which is spread into a number of little branches along that muscle it must follow that if these little branches be swollen the flesh likewise of that muscle must also needs be swollen Now the muscle having both its ends fastned the one in a greater bone the other in a lesser and there being least resistance on that part where the bone is lesser and more movable the swelling of the muscle cannot choose but draw the little bone towards the great one and by consequence move that little bone and this is that which Philosophers usually call Voluntary motion For since our knowledg remains in the brain whatever is done by knowledg must be done by the brain and most of what the brain works for the common service of the living creature proceeds also from knowledg that is from the motion of fansy which we have express'd This matter being thus far declared we may now enter upon the explication of certain effects which peradventure might have challeng'd room in the precedent Chapter but indeed could not well be handled without first supposing this last discourse and it is what is meant by those powers that are call'd Natural Faculties which however in their particulars they be manifold in a living creature yet whenever any of them is resolved it appears to be compounded of some of these five to wit the Attractive the Retentive the Secretive the Concoctive and the Expulsive faculty Of which the Attractive the Secretive and the Concoctive seem not to belong to the nervs for though we may conceive that the part of the Animal turns it self towards the thing which it attracts nevertheless that very turning seems not to be done by vertue of the muscles and nervs but rather in a natural way as the motion of the heart is perform'd in such sort as we have formerly declared As for example if the stomach when it is greedy of meat draws it self up towards the throat it seems rather to be a kind of dryness and wrapping such as we see in bladders or leather either by fire or cold which make them shrivel up and grow hard than a true faculty of the living creature to seek after meat Nor need we extend our discourse any further about these three faculties seeing that we have already declared in common how attraction drying and mixture of active bodies with passive ones is perform'd which needs but applying to these particulars to explicate fully their nature As for example if the Kidneys draw the matter of Urine to them out of the Veinet it may be by any of the following three manners to wit either by draught by wet or by steam For if the serous parts that are in the blood which runs in the Veins touch some dry parts conformable to their nature tending towards the Kidneys they will infallibly adhere more to those dry parts than to the rest of the blood Which if they do in so great a quantity that they reach to other further parts more dry than these they will leave the first parts to go to the second and thus by little and little will draw a line of Urine from the blood if the blood abound with it and the nearer it comes to the Kidneys the stronger still the attraction will be The like will happen if the serosity which is in the blood touch some part weted with a like serosity or where such hath lately passed For as we see water will run more easily upon a wet part of a board or a stone than on a dry one so you cannot doubt but that if the serous part which is mix'd with the blood light upon a current of its own nature it will stick more to that than to the current of the blood and so part from the blood to go that way which the current of its own nature goes Besides it cannot be doubted but that from the Kidnyes and from the passages between the Kidneyes and the Veins in which the blood is convey'd there arises a steam whose nature is to incorporate it self with serous matter out of whose body it hath been extracted This steam therfore flying still to the serous blood which passes by must of necessity precipitate as I may say the serous parts of the blood or rather must filter them out of their main stock and so will make them run in that current from which it self flows And thus you see how Attraction and Secretion are made for the drawing of the serosity without drawing the blood is the parting of the Urine from the blood And this example of the Kidneys operation may be apply'd to the attractions of all the other parts Now the Concoctive faculty which is the last of the three we took together consists of two parts one is as it were a drying of the humour which is to be concocted the other is a mingling the substance of the vessel in which the humour is concocted with the humour it self For as if you boyl divers kinds of liquors in brass pans the pans will taint the liquor with the quality of the brass and therfore Physicians forbid the use of such in the boiling of several medicines so much more in a living creatures body there can be no doubt but that the vessel in which any humour is concocted gives a tincture therto Now concoction consisting in these two 't is evident what the concoctive vertue is to wit heat and the specifical property of vessel which by heat is mingled with the humour There remain yet the
had never come into his fantasie accompanied with other circumstances than of play or of warmth and therfore hunger which calls only the species of meat out of the memory into the fantasy would never bring the Deer thither for remedy of that passion And that which often happens to those men in whom the fantasie only works is not much unlike to this among whom I have seen some frentick persons that if they be perswaded they are tyed and cannot stir from the place where they are will lye still and make great complaints for their imprisonment and not go a step to reach any meat or drink that should lie in sight near them though they were never so much pressed with hunger or thirst The reason is evident for the apprehension of being tyed is so strong in their fantasie that their fantasie can send no spirits into other parts of their body wherby to cause motion And thus the Deer was beholding to the Tyger's fantasie not to his discourse of moral honesty for his life The like of this Tyger and Deer is to be seen every day in the Tower of London where a little Dog that was bred with a Lion from his birth is so familiar and bold with him that they not only sleep together but somtimes the Dog will be angry with him and bite him which the Lion never resents from him though any other Dog that is put to him he presently tears in pieces And thus we plainly see how it comes about that beasts may have strange aversions from things which are of an annoying or destructive nature to them even at the first sight of them and again may have great likings of other things in a manner contrary to their nature without needing to allow them reason wherby to discourse and judge what is hurtful to them or to instruct the Tyger we have spoken of or Androdus's Lion the duties of friendship and gratitude The Longing marks which are oftentimes seen in children and remain with them all their life seem to be an off-spring of the same root or cause but in truth they proceed from another though of kin to this for the operation of the seed is pass'd when these Longing marks are imprinted the child being then already form'd and quickn'd and they seem to be made suddenly as by the print of a seal Therfore to render the cause of them let us consider another sympathy which is more plain and common We see that the laughing of one man will set another on laughing that sees him laugh though he know not the cause why the first man laughs and the like we see in yawning and stretching which breed the like effect in the looker on I have heard of a man that seeing a roasted Pig after our English fashion with the mouth gaping could not shut his own mouth as long as he look'd upon the Pigs and of another that when he saw any man make a certain motion with his hand could not choose but he must make the same so that being a Tyler by his Trade and having one hand imploy'd with holding his tools while he held himself with the other upon the eav's of a house he was mending a man standing below on the ground made that sign or motion to him wherupon he quited his holdfast to imitate that motion and fell down in danger of breaking his neck All these effects proceed out of the action of the seen object upon the fantasie of the looker on which making the picture or likeness of its own action in the others fantasie makes his spirits run to the same parts and consequenty move the same members that is do the same actions And hence it is that when we hear one speak with love and tenderness of an absent person we are also inclined to love that person though we never saw nor heard of him before and that whatever a good Oratour delivers well that is with a semblance of passion agreeable to his words raises of its own nature like affection in the hearers aod that generally men learn and imitate without design the customs and manners of the company they much haunt To apply this to our intent 't is easie to conceive that although the child in the mothers wombe can neither see nor hear what the mother doth nevertheless there cannot pass any great or violent motion in the mothers body wherof some effect doth not reach to the child which is then one continuate piece with her and the proper effect of motion or trembling in one body being to produce a like motion or trembling in another as we see in that ordinary example of tuned strings wherof one is moved at the striking of the other by reason of the stroke given to the air which finding a movable easily moved with a motion of the same tenour communicates motion to it it follows that the fantasie of the child being as it were well tuned to the fantasie of the mother and the mothers fantasie making a special and very quick motion in her own whole body as we see sudden passions do this motion or trembling of the mother must needs cause the like motion and trembling in the child even to the very swiftness of the mothers motion Now as we see when one blushes the blood comes into his face so the blood runs in the mother to a certain place where she is strucken by the thing long'd for and the like hap'ning to the child the violence of that sudden motion dyes the mark or print of the thing in the tender skin of it the blood in some measure piercing the skin and not returning wholly into its natural course which effect is not permanent in the mother because her skin being harder doth not receive the blood into it but sends it back again without receiving a tincture from it Far more easie is it to discover the secret cause of many antipathies or sympathies which are seen in children and endure with them the greatest part if not the whole term of their life without any apparent ground for them As some do not love Cheese others Garlick others Ducks others divers other kinds of meat which their parents loved well and yet in token that this aversion is natural to them and not arising from some dislike accidentally taken and imprinted in their fantasie they will be much harmed if they chance to eat any such meat though by the much disguising it they neither know nor so much as suspect they have done so The story of the Lady Hennage who was of the Bed-chamber to the late Queen Elizabeth that had her cheek blister'd by laying a Rose upon it whiles she was asleep to try if her antipathy against that flower were so great as she used to pretend is famous in the Court of England A Kinsman of mine whiles he was a Child had like to have died of drought before his Nurse came to understand that he had an antipathy against Beer
that every action of thine be it never so slight is mainly mischievous or be it never so bedeckt with those specious considerations which the wise men of the world judg important is foolish absurd and unworthy of a man unworthy of one that understands and acknowledges thy dignity if in it there be any speck or through it there appear any spark of those mean and flat motives which with a false byas draw any way aside from attaining that happiness we expect in thee That happiness ought to be the end and mark we level at that the rule and model of all our actions that the measure of every circumstance of every atome of whatever we bestow so precious a thing upon as the employment of thee is But we must not so slightly pass over the intenseness and vehemence of that Felicity which thou my Soul shalt injoy when thou art sever'd from thy benuming compartner I see evidently that thou dost not survive a simple dull essence but art replenish'd with a vast incomprehensible extent of riches delight within thy self I see that golden chain which here by long discourses fills huge volumes of Books and dives into the Hidden natures of several Bodies all in thee resumed into one circle or link which contains in it self the large scope of whatever screwing discourse can reach to I see it comprehend and master the whole world of Bodies I see every particular nature as it were imbossed out to the life in thy celestial garment I see every solitary substance rank'd in its due place and order not crush'd or throng'd by the multitude of its fellows but each of them in its full extent in the full propriety of every part and effect of it and distinguish'd into more divisions than ever nature sever'd it into In thee I see an infinite multitude enjoy place enough I see that neither height nor profundity nor longitude nor latitude are able to exempt themselvs from thy defused powers they faddom all they comprehend all they master all they inrich thee with the stock of all and thou thy self art all and somwhat more than all and yet now but one of all I see that every one of this all in thee encreases the strength by which thou know'st any other of the same all al encreases the knowledg of all by a multiplication beyond the skill of Arithmetick being in its kind absolutely infinite by having a nature incapable of being either infinite or finite I see again that those things which have not knowledg are situated in the lowest and meanest rank of creatures and are in no wise comparable to those which know I see there is no pleasure at all no happiness no felicity but by and in knowledg Experience teaches me how the purer and nobler race of mankind adores in their hearts this idol of knowledg and scorns whatever else they seem to court and be fond of And I see that this excess or Sea of knowledg which is in thee grows not by the succession of one thought after another but it is like a full swoln Ocean never ebing on any coast but equally pushing at all its bounds and tumbling out its flowing waves on every side and into every creek so that every where it makes high tide Or like a pure Sun which from all parts of it shoots its radiant beams with a like extremity of violence And I see likewise that this admirable knowledg is not begotten and conserv'd in thee by the accidentary help of defective causes but rooted in thy self and steep'd in thy own essence like an unextinguishable sourse of a perpetual streaming fire or the living head of an everruning spring beholding to none out of thy self save only to thy Almighty Creator and begging of none but being in thy self all that of which thou should'st beg This then my Soul being thy lot and such a height of pleasure being reserv'd for thee such an extremity of felicity within a short space attending thee can any degenerate thought ever gain strength enough to shake the evidence which these considerations implant and rivet in thee Can any dull oblivion deface this so lively and so beautiful image or any length of time draw in thy memory a veil between it and thy present attention Can any perversity so distort thy straight eys that thou should'st not look alwaies fix'd on this Mark and level thy aim directly at this White How is it possible that thou canst brook to live and not expire presently therby to ingulf thy self and be throughly imbibed with such an overflowing bliss Why dost thou not break the walls and chains of thy flesh and blood and leap into this glorious liberty Here Stoicks you are to use your swords Upon these considerations you may justifie the letting out the blood which by your discourses you seem so prodigal of To die upon these terms is not to part with that which you fondly call happy life feeding your selvs and flattering your hearts with empty words but rather it is to plunge your selvs into a felicity you were never able to imagine or frame to your misguided thoughts any scantling of But nature pulls me by the ear and warns me from being so wrongful to her as to conceive that so wise a governess should to no advantage condemn mankind to so long a banishment as the ordinary extent of his dull life wearisom pilgrimage here under the Sun reaches to Can we imagine she would allow him so much lazy time to effect nothing in Or can we suspect she intends him no further advantage than what an abortive child arrives to in his mothers womb For whatever the nets and toils of discourse can circle in all that he who but once knows that himself is can attain to as fully as he that is enrich'd with the Science of all things in the world For the connexion of things is so linked together that proceeding from any one you reach the knowledg of many and from many you cannot 〈◊〉 of attaining all So that a Separated Soul which but knows her self cannot choose but know her Body too and from her Body she cannot miss in proceeding from the causes of them both as far as immediate causes proceed from others over them and as little can she be ignorant of all the effects of those causes she reaches to And thus all that huge masse of knowleg and happ ness which we have consider'd in our last reflection amounts to no more than the silliest Soul buried in warm blood can and will infallibly attain to when its time comes We 〈◊〉 then assure our selvs that just nature hath provided and 〈◊〉 a greater measure of such felicity for longer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much greater as may well be worth the pains and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so miserable and tedious a passage as here my Soul 〈◊〉 â—gglest through For certainly if the dull percussion which by natures institution hammers out a spiritual Soul from gross 〈◊〉