for your service Isodicastes You are unreasonably modest thus to diminish yourself Athanasius And as immoderate in your overvaluation of my Capacity to expresse my affection to Learning and Learned Men otherwise than only by the content I take in their conversation But let us leave this formality of Complements to young Courtiers as savouring of lesse plainnesse and freedom than ought to be amongst the Votaries of Truth and Science when they meet together And give me leave to enquire of you for it seems you came but lately thence somwhat concerning the state of Learning now in England I have been told of great Discoveries made by men of your Faculty there in Anatomy Diseases and their waies of Cure Far different from the Principles and Doctrine of the Antients I have heard also that the Mathematicks are in high reputation among you and have received much if not of improvement yet of illustration from the happy industry of some in our Universities Pray therefore let it not be troublesome to you to give us some hints of the particulars wherein the Wits of our Nation have of late been so highly beneficiall to the Commonweal of Philosophy Athanasius Sir you have laid a command upon me which is impossible for me to obey without shamefully betraying my own ignorance and by a disadvantageous representation of them much disparaging the noble successes of those Heroicall Wits among our Country-men who have addicted themselves to the Reformation and Augmentation of Arts and Sciences and made a greater Progresse in that glorious design than many ages before them could aspire to notwithstanding all their large hopes specious promises and manifold attempts Neverthelesse being your command I shall strive to yeeld obedience to it so far forth at least as to recount to you in brief what upon the suddain I can call to mind of the most considerable Novelties in Naturall Philosophy Medicine the Optiques Astronomy and Geometry found out by the ingeny and labours of men now living in England as yet in the prime of their strength and years In the Colledge of Physicians in London which without offence to any thing but their own Modesty I may pronounce to be the most eminent Society of men for Learning Judgement and Industry that is now or at any time hath been in the whole World you may behold Solomons House in reality Some there are who constantly imploy themselves in dissecting Animals of all kinds as well living as dead and faithfully recording all singularities that occur to their observation both in the severall species and individualls That so they may come to know what is perfectly naturall what preternatural what rare and monstrous among the parts of them And also what resemblance there is betwixt the Conformation of the parts in the body of Man and those in the bodies of other Animals ordained by Nature to the same or like and equivalent uses So that it will be hard for any man to bring thither any Fish Bird or Insect whose Emtrails these genuine Sons of Democritus are not already intimately acquainted with or at least which they will not with admirable dexterity and skill anatomize without confusion of the smallest Organ and instantly explore the proper office of each Organical part by remarking the Figure Substance Vessells and situation of it And I have some reason to put you in hope that ere long you may see a Collection of most of the Anatomical Experiments that these Men have made in the bodies of Beasts Birds Fishes and Insects of various sorts together with the Figure of each and all its principle Organs expressed to the life in Copper-Cuts and an exact account as well of the Analogy as Dissimilitude that is betwixt them and others of consimilar uses in Man the grand Rule or Prototype to all inferior Creatures Which is a Method certainly of inestimable use towards the complement of Natural History and the only way to perfect that Comparative Anatomy whose defect the Lord St. Alban so much complained of in our Art Others there are who daily investigate arguments to confirm and advance that incomparable invention of Doctor Harvey the Circulation of the Blood And have already brought the Doctrine thereof to so high a degree of perfection that it is not only admitted and admired by all the Schools in Europe but the advancers of it also are able to solve most of the difficult phaenomena in Pathology only by that Hypothesis And frequently effect such Cures by having respect thereunto in their intentions and prescripts as well in Cronique as Acute Diseases as could not be hoped from any other ground-work or supposition formerly laid At least not with equall correspondence to the true method of Healing which ought to be deduced from Principles of the greatest evidence and certainty in Nature among which certainly this of the Circulation is the chiefest And though I deny not but the like Cures may have been performed by Physicians who never dream't of any such thing as the continual motion of the blood from the heart by the Arteries to the outward parts of the body and thence back again by the veins into the heart but rested in the Antique opinion of a difference betwixt Arterial and Venal blood both as to substance and uses Yet I may safely affirm that the Remedies used by them wrought the effects aimed at by waies altogether accidental and beside the direct scope of those who gave them And to do a cure only by Accident you well know is much below the ambition of a Rational Physician who ought to have a firm and well-grounded Theory of the Faculties and Virtues proper to each particular Instrument he is to make use of in rectifying the disordered Oeconomy of nature in mans body For my own part I speak ingenuously I am so well satisfied of the Verity of this Harvean Circulation and have so seriously considered the great advantages that may be made of it in order to the ennobling the Art of Medicine by reducing the maxims of it from obscure and conjectural to evident and demonstrative And by accommodating the same to the explanation of most of the Apparences in Pathology That I have had some thoughts of undertaking to justify all the Aphorisms of Hippocrates which concern the Nature and Sanation of Diseases by reasons and considerations deduced meerly from this one Fountain the Hypothesis of the Circulation of the blood And if my troubles had not deprived me of leisure I had ere this made some progress in that enterprise But I have digressed and ask your pardon for it There are moreover among the members of this venerable Society who pursuing the hint some few years since given them by Iacobus Mullerus a German in an Academical exercise of the nature of Animal and Voluntary Motion have gone far toward the explication of the reasons and manner of the Motions of the Muscles by the principles of Mechanicks An enterprise of great difficulty and long
desiderated as leading us to understand the Geometry observed by the Creator in the fabrick of the Microcosme and the verification of Anatomical assertions by demonstrations Mathematical The same persons likewise have demonstrated that we goe because we fall i. e. that each step we advance is but a shifting the body to a fresh Centre of Gravity And our Rest but a remaining or fixing of it upon the same As also that in progression the Head of a man is moved through more of space than his feet by almost one part of four in respect of its greater distance from the Centre of the Earth which indeed was toucht and only toucht upon by that prodigie of Mathematical subtleties Galileo in his Second Dialogue de Mundo There are also of these Miners of Nature who have found out more probable and commodious Uses for the Glandules or fatty Kernells scituate in divers parts of mans body than were assigned unto them by all antecedent Anatomists For whereas Those generally conceived them to have been intended by Nature to no nobler an end than either for the Imbibition or dreining of superfluous humours inundating the parts adjacent to them Or for the susteining of Veins Arteries and Nerves in their progresse from part to part These have discovered that some Glandules serve for the preparation of the Succus Nutritius or juice that nourisheth the whole body That others are official to the sequestration of some lesse profitable and disagreeable parts of the same nutritive juice or Vital Nectar And that a third sort of them are ordained for reduction of those same lesse profitable parts after their separation or streining back again into the masse of blood by the small veins that are contiguous to them And among these likewise there is one A person of singular note for his Universal Learning and indefatigable industry in Disquisition who aiming to promote the certainty of these New Tenents 1. That according to the Anatomical observations of Ioh. Pecquet a young Physician of Diepp in Normandy the Chylus is convey'd from the stomach by the Venae Lacteae or Milky Veins into a certain Receptacle or common promptuary scituate at the bottom of the Mesentery and thence transmitted upwards by a conduit running all along on the inside of the Spine of the back to the subclavian veins and so delivered into the right Ventricle of the heart there to be turned into blood 2. That the Liver is not the immediate instrument of Sanguification but inservient only to the sequestration of the Cholerick parts of the blood and the conveying the same into the Gall to be thence excluded into the Duts 3. That there is no Anastomosis or mutual Inosculation betwixt the small branches of the Vena Portae and those of the Vena Cava in the substance of the Liver as was generally believed from the infancy of Physick till of late years when this Gentleman was so happy as to evince the contrary by ocular demonstration 4. That there are certain thin slender and transparent Vessells for the most part accompaning the veins especially in the liver named Vasa Lymphatica by Thomas Bartholinus who seems first to have discovered them and Lymphe-ducts by others since containing a clear liquor like water which they exonerate into the common Receptacle of the Chyle newly mentioned to the end that being again infused together with so much of the Chyle as enters the veins into the blood it may both prevent the Coagulation of it and also in respect of its predisposition to Volatility associating it self to the Vital spirits in the Heart and Arteries promote the Mication or boyling motion of the blood And 5. That the solid parts of the body are not in the general nourished by the blood which He conceives to be only the fewel of the Vital Flame or Heat and in regard of its great Volatility and harsh and grating nature more likely to prey upon and consume than feed and repair the substance of the solid parts but by the sweeter and more unctuous part of the Chylus drawn up by the mediation of the Nerves especially those of the sixth Conjugation called the Recurrent Nerves into the brain and there elaborated and afterward transmitted by the Nerves to all parts of the body This worthy Person I say aiming to promote the certainty of these recent Opinions hath collected illustrated and disposed them into one Systeme Hoping thereby to declare their mutual Consistence as well each with other as with the demonstrative doctrine of the Circulation of the blood And at the same time put an end to all disputes concerning the Milky veins the use of the Spleen of the Capsulae Atrabilariae or Renes succenturiati Deputy Kidnies as Casserius Placentinus called them and sundry other Difficulties in Anatomy But whether or no he hath attained to the full pitch of his hopes in that design you will be best able to judge when you have read and examined the weight of his experiments and discourses delivered in his excellent Book de Anatomia Hepatis In the mean time give me leave to advertise you that his modesty is so great as that he expresly professes his own want of full satisfaction concerning the truth of sundry particulars therein contained And therefore presents them to the World as positions not of apodictical evidence but great probability and worthy to be embraced only till time shall have brought more credible ones to light Furthermore among these Merchants for light we have some so excellently well skilled in all sorts of Medical Simples that they know not only the names but the faces also and virtues of most of the Plants in Europe And can besides that give you a better account of the American druggs than Piso Margravius and others notwithstanding the large volumes they have compiled concerning that subject They likewise so well understand all Fossilia and the several kinds of Minerals pretious Stones Salts concreted juices and other subterranean productions That even Lapidaries and Miners come to learn of them We have others who enquire into the mysteries of Refiners Belfounders and all others that deal in Metals Others who search out the frauds and sophistications of Wine-Coopers and Vintners in the brewing feeding stumming and adulterating of Wines Others who can inform you exactly of the severall hurtfull Arts of Brewers Bakers Butchers Poulterers and Cooks All which are of very great detriment to the health of men though the danger be commonly undiscerned And were the civil Magistrate but half so careful to reform as these Doctors have been in detecting those publick abuses the Citty of London would soon find by happy experience that Physicians are both as willing and able to preserve health as to restore it In a word there is nothing escapes their examination which may any way concern the safety of mans life or the knowlege whereof can conduce to make themselves every way accomplisht in their Profession And as for Chymistry which I
it reasonable that an Incorporeal should be conjoyned to a Corporeal But suppose you really cannot conceive it reasonable must it therefore be unreasonable when so many and so eminent Philosophers have understood and allowed the reasonableness of this Conjunction What think you in the first place of Plato Aristotle and all their sectators who unanimously held the Anima Mundi or Universal Soul and that being diffused through all parts of the Universe it associateth and mixeth itself with all things and totam intus agitat molem And then what think you of those words of the great Hermes quoted by Lactantius when discoursing of the Nature of Man and how he was Created by God he saith Ac idem ex utraque natura immortali putà ac mortali unam hominis naturam texebat ipsum quadamtenus immortalem quadamtenus mortalem faciens ac eundem accipiens in medio quasi interstitio heinc divinae immortalisque illeinc mortalis obnoxiaeque mutationi naturae constituit ut in omnia intuens omnia miraretur And thus Trismegistus from whence it came that Man was esteemed as it were the Horizon of the Universe in whom Supreme natures are joyned to the most Low and the Heavenly to the Earthy and this with admirable correspondency and as beseems the perfection of the Universe because since there are some Natures purely Incorporeal and Immortal and others purely Corporeal and Mortal that these Extremes might not be without a Mean nothing seems more congruous than that there should be a certain sort of third Natures so mixed and compound of both the others as to be Incorporeal and Immortal on one part and Corporeal and Mortal on the other Again whereas you imagine it absurd that natures so extremely different should concur to constitute one Composition I beseech you Lucretius are not Heat and Cold white and black as different each from other as Immortal and Mortal and yet you see they are often conjoyned together so as that a Middle or Third nature doth result from their union as in particular warme from Heat and Cold and Grey or browne from white and black Nay there seems so much the less repugnancy betwixt Immortal and Mortal Incorporeal and Corporeal natures by how much they are the less Different and Incompossible because they are only as it were Disparate among themselves and capable of conserving a whole nature but Heat and Cold Whiteness and Blackness are absolute Contraries and cannot consist together without reciprocal destruction or maintain a durable Union And thus much for the First part of your Demand viz the Possibility of a Conjunction betwixt an Incorporeal and a Corporeal Nature As for the remainder viz what is the Common Medium Cement or Glew by which two such different natures are married and united into one Compositum I Answer that I conceive it to be the Blood especially the spiritual and most elaborate or refined part thereof according to that ancient opinion of Critias Sentire maximè proprium esse Animae atqe hoc inesse propter sanguinis naturam commemorated by Aristotle though with dissent in the 2 Ch. of his 1. Book de Anima and with the testimony of sundry admirable Experiments both revived and asserted by our perspicacious Contryman Dr. Harvey in his Exercitations concerning the Generation of Animals For since the visible observations of the Manner and process of Nature in the production of the Chicken in and from the Egg doe assure that the Blood is the part of the body which is first generated nourished and moved and that the Soul is Excited and as it were Enkindled first from the blood doubtless the blood is that in which the operations vegetative and sensitive do first manifest themselves that in which the vital Heat the primary and immediate instrument of the Soul especially as to Animation is innate and congenial that which is the Common Vinculum or Caement of the Soul and body and that by the mediation whereof as a vehicle the Soul doth transmit her conserving and invigorating influence into all parts of the body Nay considering that the Blood by perpetual Circulation doth flow like a river of Living water round the body penetrating into and irrigating the substance of all the parts and at the same time communicating to them both Heat and Life and that the Heart is framed for no other end but that by perpetual pulsation together with the concurrence of the veins and arteries it may receive this blood and againe propell it into all the body I say these things duely considered it can be but a Paradox at most to affirme that the Soul having its first and perhaps principal residence in the Blood may very well be conceived to be in respect thereof Tota in toto and tota in qualibet parte And lastly concerning the Manner of this Conjunction of the Soul and body by the Mediation of this vital Nectat the Blood it is not necessary with the Vulgar to imagine that they should mutually touch and by hooks take reciprocall hold each of other in order to Cohaesion and constant Union for that is competent only to Corporeals but that Incorporeals should be conjoyned either one to another or to Corporeals no more is required but an Intimate Praesence which is yet a kind of Contact and so may serve in stead of mutual Apprehension and Continency So that this special Manner of Praesence is that and only that by which an Incorporeal Entity may be united to a Corporeal And now I have explained those difficulties concerning the Conjunction of the Soul and Body the one an Incorporeal and Immortal Being the other Corporeal and Mortal which you seemed to think in-explicable I expect you should be as good as your promise no longer to oppose me but hereafter concurr with me in opinion that The Soul is an Immortal substance and that its Immortality is not only credible by Faith or upon Authority Divine but also Demonstrable by Reason or the Light of Nature Lucretius You may remember Sr I told you in the beginning that though I am an Epicurean in many things concerning Bodies yet as a Christian I detest and utterly renounce the doctrine of that Sect concerning Mens Souls and that I askt your permission to interrupt you sometimes in your discourses by intermixing such Doubts and Objections as seemed to render the Demonstration of the Souls Immortality by meet Reason exceeding difficult if not altogether impossible to this end only that I might the more fully experiment the strength of your Arguments to the Contrary So that notwithstanding all my Contradiction you ought to believe me still as strongly perswaded of the truth of what you have asserted as if I had acted your part and undertaken the assertion of the same myself my diffidence being not of the Souls Incorruptibility but of the possibility of its Demonstration by you or any man else And now though you have brought I confess most excellent Arguments to