to the sides of the ventricles and consequently new bloud drops in So that in conclusion we see the motion of the heart depends originally of its fibers irrigated by the blood and not from the force of the vapour as Monsieur des Cartes supposes This motion of the heart drives the blood which is warm'd and spiritualiz'd by being boyl'd in this furnace through due passages into the arteries whence it runs into the veins and is a main cause of making and nourishing other parts as the Liver the Lungs the Brains and whatsoever else depends of those veins and arteries through which the bloud goes Which being ever freshly heated and receiving the tincture of the hearts nature by passing through the heart wherever it stayes and curdles it grows into a substance of a nature conformable to the heart though every one of such substances be of exceeding different conditions in themselves the very grossest excrements not being excluded from some participation of that nature But if you desire to follow the blood all along every step in its progress from the heart round about the body till it return back again to its center Dr. Harvey who most acutely teaches this doctrine must be your guide He will shew you how it issues from the heart by the Arteries from whence it goes on warming the flesh til it arrive to some of the extremities of the body and against it is grown so cool by long absence from the fountain of its heart and by evaporating its own stock of spirits without any new supply that it hath need of being warmed anew it findes it self return'd back again to the Heart and is there heated again which return is made by the Veins as its going forwards is perform'd only by the Arteries And were it not for this continual circulation of the blood and this new heating it in its proper caldron the Heart it could not be avoided but that the extreme parts of the body would soon grow cold and die For flesh being of it self of a cold nature as is apparent in dead flesh and being kept warm meerly by the blood that bedews it and the bloud likewise being of a nature that soon grows cold and congeals unless it be preserv'd in due temper by actual heat working upon it how can we imagine that they two singly without any other assistance should keep one another warm especially in those parts that are far distant from the heart by only being together Surely we must allow the blood which is a substance fit for motion to have recourse back to the heart where only it can be supply'd with new heat and spirits and from thence be driven out again by its pulses or strokes which are its shuttings And as fast as it flies out like a reeking thick steam which rises from perfumed water falling upon a heated pan that which is next before it must flie yet further on to make way for it and newt arterial blood stil issuing forth at every pulse it must still drive on what issued thence the last precedent pulse and that part must press on what is next before it And thus it fares with the whole mass of blood which having no other course but in the body must at length run round and by new vessels which are the veins return back to the place from whence it issued first and by that time it comes thither it is grown cool and thick needs a vigorous restauration of spirits and a new rarifying that then it may warm the flesh it passes again through without which it would suddenly grow stone cold As is manifest if by tying or cutting the arteries you intercept the blood which is to nourish any part for then that part grows presently cold and benum'd But referring the particulars of this doctrine to Dr. Harvey who hath both invented and perfected it our task in hand calls upon us to declare in common the residue of motions that all Living Creatures agree in How Generation is perform'd we have determin'd in the past discourse Our next consideration then ought to be of Nutrition and Augmentation Between which there is very little difference in the nature of their actions and the difference of their names is grounded more upon the different result in the period of them then upon the thing it self as will by and by appear Thus then is the progress of this matter As soon as a living creature is formed it endeavours straight to augment it self and employs it self only about that the parts of it being yet too young and tender to perform the other functions which nature hath produced them for That is to say the Living Creature at its first production is in such a state and condition that it is able to do nothing else but by means of the great heat in it to turn into its own substance the abundance of moysture that overflows it They who are curious in this matter tell us that the performance of this work consists in five actions which they call Attraction Adhesion Concoction Assimulation and Unition The nature of Atraction we have already declared when we explicated how the heart and the root sends juice into the other parts of the Animal or Plant for they abounding in themselves with inward heat and besides that much other circumstant heat working likewise upon them it cannot be otherwise but that they must needs suck and draw into them the moisture that is about them As for Adhesion the nature of that is likewise explicated when we shew'd how such parts as are moist but especially aerial or oily ones such as are made by the operation of a soft and continual heat are catching and easily stick to any body they happen to touch and how a little part of moysture between two dry parts joyns them together Upon which occasion it is to be noted that parts of the same kind joyn best together and therfore the powder of glass is used to ciment broken glass withal as we have touch'd somwhere above and the powder of marble to ciment marble with and so of other bodies In like manner Alchimists find no better expedient to extract a small proportion of silver mixed with a great one of gold then to put more silver to it nor any more effectual way to get out the heart or tincture or spirits of any thing they distil or make an extract of then to infuse its own flegme upon it and to water it with that Now whether the reason of this be that continuity because it is an unity must be firmest between parts that are most conformable to one another and consequently nearest one among themselves or whether it be for some other hidden cause belongs not to this place to discourse but in fine so it is And the adhesion is strongest of such parts as are most conformable to that which needs encrease and nourishment and that is made up by the other three actions Of which
of necessity be more humid and figurable then that of an ordinary plant and the Artificer which works and moulds it must be more active Wherfore we must suppose that the mass of which an Animal is to be made must be actually liquid and the fire that works upon it must be so powerful that of its own nature it may be able to convert this liquid matter into such breaths and steams as we see use to rise from water when the Sun or fire works upon it Yet if the mass were altogether as liquid as water it would vanish away by heat boyling it and be dried up therfore it must be of such a convenient temper that although in some of its parts it be fluid and apt to run yet by others it must be held together as we see that unctuous things for the most part are which will swell by heat but not fly away So then if we imagine a great heat to be imprison'd in such a liquor and that it seeks by boyling to break out but that the solidness and viscousness of the substance will not permit it to evaporate it cannot chuse but comport it self in some such sort as we see butter or oyl in a frying-pan over the fire when it rises in bubbles but much more efficaciously For their body is not strong enough to keep in the heat and therfore those bubbles fall again wheras if it were those bubbles would rise higher and higher and stretch themselvs longer and longer as when the Soap-boylers boyl a strong unctuous lye into Soap and every one of them would be as it were a little brook wherof the channel would be the enclosing substance and the inward smoak that extends it might be compared to the water of it as when a glass is blown out by fire and air into a long figure Now we may remember how we have said where we treated of the Production and Resolution of Mixed bodies that there are two sorts of liquid substantial parts which by the operation of fire are sent out of the body it works upon the watery and the oyly parts For thouh there appear somtimes some very subtile and Ethereal parts of a third kind wich are the Aquae Ardentes or borning spirits yet in such a close distilling of circulation as this is they are not sever'd by themselvs but accompany the rest and especially the watery parts which are of a nature that the rising Ethereal spirits easily mingle with and extend themselves in it wherby the water becomes more efficacious and the spiritt less fugitive Of these liquid parts which the fire sends away the watry ones are the first as being the easiest to be raised the oyly parts rise more difficultly and therfore come last And in the same manner it happens in this emission of brooks the watry and oyly steams will each of them fly into different reservs and if there arrive to them abundance of their own quality each of them must make a substance of its own nature by by setling in a convenient place and by due concoction Which substance after it is made and confirm'd if more humidity and heat press it will again break forth into other little channels But when the watry and oyly parts are boyl'd away there remain yet behind other more solid and fixed parts and more strongly incorporated with fire then either of these which yet cannot drie up into a fiery salt because a continual accession of humour keeps them always flowing and so they become like a cauldron of boyling fire Which must propagate it self as wide as either of the other since the activity of it must needs be greater then theirs as being the source of motion to them and that there wants not humidity for it to extend it self by And thus you see three roots of three divers plants all in the same plant proceeding by natural resolution from one primitive source Wherof that which is most watry is fittest to fabricate the body and common outside of the triformed plant since water is the most figurable principle in nature and most susceptible of multiplication and by its cold is easiest to be hardned and therfore fittest to resist the injuries of enemy-bodies that may infest it The oily parts are fittest for the continuance and solidity of the plant for we see that viscuosity and oyliness hold together the parts where they abound and they are slowly wasted by fire but conserve and are an aliment to the fire that consumes them The parts of the third kind are fittest for the conservation of heat which though in them it be too violent yet is necessary for working upon other parts and maintaining a due temper in them And thus we have armed our plant with three sorts of rivers or brooks to run through him with as many different streams the one of a gentle balsamike oyle another of streaming fire and the third of a con-natural and cooler water to irrigate and temper him The streams of water as we have said must run through the whole fabrick of this triformed plant and because it is not a simple water but warm in a good degree and as it were a middle substance betwixt water and air by reason of the ardent volatile spirit that is with it 't is of a fit nature to swell as air doth and yet withall to resist violence in a convenient degree as water doth Therfore if from its source nature sends abundance into any one part that part must swell and grow thicker and shorter and so must be contracted that way which nature has order'd it Whence we perceive a means by which nature may draw any part of the outward fabrick which way soever she is pleased by set instruments for such an effect But when there is no motion or but little in these pipes the standing stream that is in a very little though long channel must needs be troubled in its whole body if any one part of it be press'd upon so as to receive therby any impression and therfore whatever is done upon it though at the very furthest end of it makes a commotion and sends an impression up to its very source Which appearing by our former d scourse to be the origine of particular and accasional motion 't is obvious to conceive how it is apt to be moved and wrought by such an impression to set on foot the begining of any motion which by natures providence is convenient for the plant when such an impression is made upon it And thus you see this plant hath the virtue both of sense or feeling that is of being moved and effected by extern objects lightly striking upon it as also of moving it self to or from such an object according as nature shall have ordain'd Which in sum is that This Plant is a Sensitive Creature composed of three sources the Heart the Brain and the Liver whose off-springs are the Arteries the Nervs and the Veins which are fil'd with Vital
that when it is full it compresses itself by a quick and strong motion to expel that which is in it and that when it is empty it returns to its natural dilatation figure and situation by the ceasing of that agents working which caused its motion Wherby it appears to be of such a fibrous substance as hath a proper motion of its own Thirdly I see not how this motion can be proportional For the heart must needs open and be dilated much faster then it can be shut and shrunk together there being no cause put to shut and bring it to its utmost period of shrinking other then the going out of the vapour wherby it becomes empty which vapour not being forced by any thing but its own inclination may peradventure at first when there is abundance of it swell and stretch the heart forcibly out but after the first impulse and breach of some part of it out of the Cavern that enclosed it there is nothing to drive out the rest which must therfore steam very leasurely out Fourthly what should hinder the blood from coming in before the heart be quite-empty and shrunk to its lowest pitch For as soon as the vapour yeelds within new blood may fall in from without and so keep the heart continually dilated without ever suffering it to be perfectly and compleatly shut Fifthly the heart of a Viper layd upon a plate in a warm place will beat four and twenty houres and much longer if it be carefully taken out of its body and the weather warm and moyst and it is clear that this is without succession of blood to cause the pulses of it Likewise the several members of living creatures will stir for sometime after they are parted from their bodies and in them we can suspect no such cause of motion Sixthly Mounsir des Cartes his opinion the heart should be hardest when it is fullest and the eruption of the steam out of it should be strongest at the beginning wheras experience shews that it is softest when it is at the point of being full and hardest when it is at the point of being empty and the motion strongest towards the end Seventhly in Mounsir des Cartes his way there is no agent or force strong enough to make blood gush out of the heart For if it be the steam only that opens the doors nothing but it will go out and the blood will still remain behind since it lies lower then the steam and further from the issue that lets it out but Dr. Harvey findes by experience and teaches how to make this experience that when a wound is made in the heart blood will gush out by spurts at every shooting of the heart And lastly if Mounsir des Cartes his supposition were true the arteries would receive nothing but steams wheras it is evident that the chief filler of them is blood Therfore we must enquire after another cause of this primary motion of a sensitive creature in the beatings of its heart Wherin we shall not be obliged to look far for seeing we find this motion and these pulsations in the heart when it is separated from the body we may boldly and safely conclude that it must of necessity be caused by somthing that is within the heart it self And what can that be else but heat or spirits imprison'd in a tough viscous bloud which it cannot so presently break through to get out and yet can stir within it and lift it up The like of which motion may be observ'd in the heaving up and sinking down again of lose mould thrown into a pit intoe which much ordure hath been emptied The same cause of h at in the earth makes mountains and sands to be cast up in the very sea So in frying when the pan is full of meat the bubbles rise and fall at the edges Treacle and such strong compounded substances whiles they ferment lift themselvs up and sink down again after the same manner as the Vipers heart doth as also do the bubbles of Barm and most of Wine And short ends of Lute strings baked in a juicy pie will at the opening of it move in such sort as they who are ignorant of the feat will think there are Magots in it and a hot loaf in which quick-silver is enclosed will not only move thus but will also leap about and skip from one place to another like the head or limb of an Animal very full of spirits newly cut off from its whole body And that this is the true cause of the hearts motion appears evidently First because this virtue of moving is in every part of the heart as you will plainly see if you cut out into several pieces a heart that conservs its motion long after it is out of the Animals belly for every piece will move as Dr. Harvey assures us by experience and I my self have often seen upon occasion of making the great antidote in which Vipers hearts is a principal ingredient Secondly the same is seen in the auricles and the rest of the heart whose motions are several though so near together that they can hardly be distinguished Thirdly Dr. Harvey seems to affirm that the blood which is in the ears of the heart hath such a motion of it self precedent to the motion of the ears it is in and that this virtue remains in it for a little space after the ears are dead Fourthly in touching a heart which had newly left moving with his finger weted with warm spittle it began to move again as testifying that heat and moisture made this motion Fifthly if you touch the Vipers heart over with vineger with spirit of wine with sharp white-wine or with any piercing liquor it presently dyes for the acuteness of such substances pierces through the viscous bloud and makes way for the heat to get out But this first mover of an Animal must have somthing from without to stir it up else the heat would lie in it as if it were dead and in time would become absolutely so In Eggs you see this exteriour mover in the warmth of the Hens hatching them And in Embryons it is the warmth of the mothers womb But when in either of them the heart is completely form'd and enclosed in the breast much heat is likewise enclosed there in all the parts near about the heart partly made by the heart it self and partly caused by the outward heat which helped also to make that in the heart and then although the warmth of the hen or of the mothers womb forsake the heart yet this stirs up the native heat within the heart and keeps it in motion and makes it feed still upon new fewel as fast as that which it works upon decayes But to express more particularly how this motion is effected We are to note that the heart hath in its ventrickles three sorts of fibers The first go long ways or are straight ones on the sides of the ventricles
in part the other defect Hope on the other side is in such sort defective from joy that nevertheless it hath a kind of constancy and moderate quantity and regularity in its motion and therefore is accounted to be the least hurtful of all the passions and that which more prolongs mans life And thus you see how those motions which we call passions are engender'd in the heart and what they are Let us then in the next place consider what will follow in the rest of the body out of these varieties of Passions once rais'd in the heart and sent into the brain 'T is evident that according to the nature and quality of these motions the heart must needs in every one of them void out of it self into the arteries a greater or lesser quantity of blood and that in divers fashions and the arteries which lie fittest to receive these sudden egestions of blood are those which go into the brain which course being directly upwards we cannot doubt but that it is the hottest and subtilest part of the blood and the fullest of spirits that flies that way These spirits then running a long and perplexed journey up and down in the brain by various meanders and anfractuosities are there mingled with the humid steam of the brain it self and therwith cooled and come at last to smoak at liberty in the hollow ventricles of the brain by reeking out of the little arterial branches that weave the plexus choroides or net we spoke of erewhile and they being now grown heavy fall by their natural course into that part or process of the brain which is called medulla spinalis or the marrow of the back-bone which being beset by the nervs that run through the body it cannot happen otherwise but that these thick'ned and descending spirits must either fall themselvs into those nervs or else press into them other spirits which are before them that without such new force to drive them violently forwards would have slided down more leisurely Now this motion being downwards and meeting with no obstacle till it arrive to its utmost period that way the lowest nervs are those which naturally feel the communication of these spirits first But 't is true if the flowing tide of them be great and plentiful all the other nerves will also be so suddenly fill'd upon the filling of the lowermost that the succession of their swellings will hardly be perceptible as a sudden and violent inundation of water seems to rise on the sides of the channel as it doth at at the Mill-dam though reason assures us it must begin there because there it is first stop't On the contrary side if the spirits be few they may be in such a proportion as to fill only the lower nervs and to communicate little of themselvs to any of the others And this is the case in the passion of fear which being stored with fewer spirits than any other passion that causes a motion in the body it moves the leggs most and so carries the animal that is afraid with violence from the object that affrights him Although in truth it is a faint hope of escaping mingled with fear which begets this motion for when fear is single and at its height it stops all motion by contracting the spirits and thence is called Stupor as well as grief for the same reason And accordingly we see extreme cowards in the extremity of their fear have not the courage to run away no more than to defend or help themselvs by any other motions But if there be more abundance of spirits then the upper parts are also moved as well as the leggs whose motion contributes to defence but the brain it self and the senses which are in the head being the first in the course of this floud of spirits that is sent from the heart to the head 't is impossible but that some part of them should be press'd into the nervs of those senses and so will make the animal vigilant and attentive to the cause of its fear or grief But if the fear be so great that it contracts all the spirits and quite hinders their motion as in the case we touch'd above then it leaves also the nervs of the senses destitute of spirits and so by too strong apprehension of a danger the animal neither sees nor apprehends it but as easily precipitates it self into it as it happens to avoid it being meerly govern'd by chance and may peradventure seem valiant through extremity of fear And thus you see in common how all the natural operations of the body follow by natural consequence out of the passions of the mind without needing to attribute discourse or reason either to men or beasts to perform them Although at first sight some of them may appear to those that look not into their principles and true causes to flow from a source of intelligence wheras 't is evident by what we have laid open they all proceed from the due ranging and ordering of quantitative parts so or so proportioned by rarity and density And there is no doubt but who would follow this search deeply might certainly retrive the reasons of all those external motions which we see use to accompany the several passions in Men and Beasts But for our intent we have said enough to shew by what kind of order and course of nature they may be effected without confining our selves over scrupulously to every cincumstance that we have touch'd and to give a hint wherby others that will make this inquiry their task may compile an intire and well grounded and intelligible doctrine of this matter Only we will add one advertisment more which is that these external motions caused by passion are of two kinds for some of them are as it were the beginnings of the actions which nature intends to have follow out of the passions that cause them but others are only bare signs of passions that produce them and are made by the connexion of parts unnecessary for the main action that is to follow out of the passion with other parts that by the passion are necessarily moved As for example when an hungry mans mouth waters at the sight of good meat it is a kind of beginning of eating or of preparation for eating for when we eat nature draws a moisture into our mouth to humectate our meat and convey the tast of it into the nervs of the tongue which are to make report of it to the brain but when we laugh the motion of our face aims at no further end and follows only by the connexion of those muscles which draw the face in such a sort to some inward parts that are moved by the passion out of which laughing proceeds But we must not leave this subject without some mention of the Diaphragma into which the other branch of those nervs that are called of the sixth conjugation comes for the first branch we have said goes into the heart and carries
driness and the like which by much mixstion and consequent alteration may in the end become such as constitute a living creature of such a kind And thus it appears that although other substances and liquors and steams are from time to time mingled with the seed and then with the heart and afterwards with the other parts as they grow on and encrease yet the main virtue of the ensuing Animal is first in the seed and afterwards in the heart Whence the reason is evident why both defects and excrescences pass somtimes from the parents to the children to wit when nothing supplies the defect or corrects the exorbitancy Rather after this which we have said the difficulty will appear greater in that such accidents are not always hereditary from the parents but happen only now and then some rare times But the same grounds we have laid wil likewise solve this objection For seeing that the heart of the Animal from whence the seed receives its proper nature as we have declared is impregnated with the specifick virtue of each several part of the body it cannot be doubted but that the heart will supply for any defect hapned in another part after it hath been imbued with that virtue and is grown to a firmness and vigorous consistence with that virtue moulded and deeply imbibed into the very substance of it And although the heart should be tincted from its first origine with an undue virtue from some part as it seems to have been in the mother of those daughters that had two thumbs upon one hand yet it is not necessary that all the off-spring of that parent should be formed after that model for the other partners seed may be more efficacious and predominant in the geniture over the faulty seed of the other parent and then it will supply for and correct the others deviation from the general rule of nature Which seems to be the cause of that womans male children for in them the fathers seed being strongest all their fingers imitated the regularity of their Fathers wheras the daughters whose sex implies that the fathers seed was less active carried upon some of theirs the resemblance of their mothers irregularity And in confirmation of this doctrine we daily see that the Children of Parents who have any of their noble parts much and long distempred wherby there must be a great distemper in the bloud which is made and concocted by their assistance seldom fail of having strong inclinations to the distempers and diseases that either of their parents were violently subject to Scarce any Father or Mother dyes of the Consumption of the Lungs but their children inherit that disease in some measure the like is of the Stone the like of the Gout the like of diseases of the brain and of sundry others when they infested the parents with any notable eminency For the bloud coming continually to the heart from such ill-affected parts by its circulation through the whole body must needs in process of time alter and change the temper of the heart and then both the heart gives a tainted impression to the blood that must be boyl'd into seed and the parts themselvs communicate their debilites and distempers to it so that it is no wonder if the seed partake of such depraved qualities since it is a maxime among Physicians that subsequent concoctions can never amend or repair the faults of the precedent ones Having waded thus far into this matter and all experience agreeing that the whole Animal is not formed at once I conceive there can be no great difficulty in determining what part of it is first generated which we have already said to be the heart but peradventure the Reader may expect some more particular and immediate proof of it 'T is evident that all the motions and changes we have observ'd in the Egg and in the Doe proceed from heat and t is as certain that heat is greatest in the centre of it from whence it disperses it self to less and less It must then necessarily follow that the part in which heat most abounds and which is the interiour fountain of it from whence as from a stock of their own all the other parts derive theirs must be formed first and the others successively after it according as they partake more or less of this heat which is the Architect that moulds and frames them all Undoubtedly this can be none other but the heart whose motion and manner of working evidently appears in the twinckling of the first red spot which is the first change in the Egg and in the first matter of other living creatures Yet I do not intend to say that the heart is perfectly framed and compleatly made up with all its parts and instruments before any other part be begun to be made but only the most vertuous part and as it were the marrow of it which servs as a shop or hot forge to mold spirits in from whence they are dispers'd abroad to form and nourish other parts that stand in need of them to that effect The shootings or little red strings that stream out from it must surely be arteries through which the bloud issuing from the heart and there made and imbued with the nature of the seed runs till encountering with fit matter it engrosses it self into brain liver lights c. From the brain chiefly grows the marrow and by consequent the bones containing it which seem to be originally but the outward part of the marrow baked and hardned into a strong crust by the great heat that is kept in as also the sinews which are the next principal bodies of strength after the bones The marrow being very hot dries the bones and yet with its actual moisture it humects and nourishes them too in some sort The spirits that are sent from the brain do the like to the sinews And lastly the arteries and veins by their bloud cherish and bedew the flesh And thus the whole living creature is begun framed and made up CHAP. XXV How a Plant or Animal câ—mes to that figure it hath BUt before we go any further and search into the operations of this Animal a wonderful effect calls our consideration to it which is how a Plant or Animal comes by the figure it hath both in the whole and in every part of it Aristotle after he had beaten his thoughts as far as he could upon this question pronounced that this effect could not possibly be wrought by the virtue of the first qualities but that it sprung from a more divine origine And most of the contemplatours of Nature since him seem to agree that no cause can be render'd of it but that it is to be refer'd merely to the specifical nature of the thing Neither do we intend to derogate from either of these causes since both Divine Providence is eminently shown in contriving all circumstances necessary for this work and likewise the first temperament that is
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
Retentive and the Expulsive faculties to be discoursed of wherof one kind is manifestly belonging to the voluntary motion which we have declared namely that retension and that expulsion which we ordinarily make of the gross excrements either of meat or drink or of other humours either from our head or stomach or Lungs for it is manifestly done partly by taking in of wind and partly by compressing of some parts and opening of others as Galen shews in his curious book de usu partium Another kind of Retention and Expulsion in which we have no sense when it is made or if we have it is of a thing done in us without our will though peradventure we may voluntarily advance it is made by the swelling of fibers in certain parts through the confluence of humours to them as in our stomach it happens by the drink and the juice of the meat that is in it which swelling closes up the passages by which the contained substance should go out as the moistening of the strings and mouth of a purse almost shuts it till in some for example the stomach after a meal the humour being attenuated by little and little gets out subtilely and so leaving less weight in the stomach the bag which weighs down lower than the nearer Orifice at which the digested meat issues rises a little And this rising of it is also further'd by the wrinkling up and shortning of the upper part of the stomach which still returns into its natural corrugation as the masse of liquid meat leavs soaking it which it doth by degrees still as more and more goes out and so what remains fills less place and reaches not so high in the stomach And thus at length the residue and thicker substance of the meat after the thinnest is got out in steam and the midling part is boil'd over in liquor comes to presse and gravitate wholly upon the Orifice of the stomach which being then help'd by the figure and lying of the rest of the stomach and its strings and mouth relaxing by having the juice which swell'd them squeez'd out of them it opens it self and gives way to that which lay so heavy upon it to tumble out In others for example in a woman with child the enclosed substance retain'd first by such a course of nature as we have set down breaks it self a passage by force and opens the orifice at which it is to go out by violence when all circumstances are ripe according to natures institution But yet there is the expulsion made by Physick that requires a little declaration 'T is of five kinds Vomiting Purging by Stool by Urine Sweating and Salivation every one of which seems to consist of two parts namely the Disposition of the Thing to be purged and the Motion of the Nervs or Fibers for the expulsion As for example when the Physician gives a Purge it works two things one is to make some certain humour more liquid and purgeable than the rest the other is to make the stomach or belly suck or vent this humour For the first the property of the Purge must be to precipitate that humour out of the rest of the blood or if it be thick to dissolve it that it may run easily For the second it ordinarily heats the stomach and by that means causes it to suck out of the veins and so to draw from all parts of the body Besides this it ordinarily fills the belly with wind which occasions those gripings men feel when they take physick and is cause of the guts discharging those humours which otherwise they would retain The like of this happens in Salivation for the humours are by the same means brought to the stomach and thence sublimed up to be spitten out as we see in those who taking Mercury into their body either in substance or in smoak or by application do vent cold humours from any part the Mercury rising from all the body up to the mouth of the patient as to the helm of a sublimatory and the like some say of Tobacco As for Vomiting it is in a manner wholly the operation of the fibers provoked by the feelling of some inconvenient body which makes the stomack wrinkle it self and work and strive to cast out what offends it Sweating seems to be caus'd by the heating of some nitrous body in the stomach which being of subtile parts is by heat dispersed from the middle to the circumference and carries with it light humours which turn into water as they come out into the air And thus you see in general and as much as concerns us to declare what the Natural Faculties are and this according to Galen's own mind who affirms that these faculties follow the complexion or temper of parts of a mans body Having explicated how Voluntary motion proceeds from the brain our next work ought to be to examine what it is that such an object as we brought by means of the senses into the brain from without contributes to make the brain apply it self to work such voluntary motion To which purpose we will go a step or two back to meet the object at its entrance into the sense and from thence accompany it in all its journey and motions onwards The object which strikes at the senses dore and getting in mingles it self with the spirits it finds there is either conform and agreeable to the nature and temper of those spirits or it is not that is to say in short it is either pleasing or displeasing to the living creature Or it may be a third kind which being neither of these we may term indifferent In which sort soever the obect affects the sense the spirits carry it immediately to the brain unless some distemper or strong thought or other accident hinder them Now if the object be of the third kind that is be indifferent as soon as it has strucken the brain it rebounds to the circle of the memory and there being speedily join'd to others of its own nature it finds them annex'd to some pleasing or displeasing thing or it doth not if not in beasts it serves to little use and in men it remains there till it be call'd for but if either in its own nature it be pleasing or displeasing or afterwards in the memory it be-became join'd to some pleasing or annoying fellowship presently the heart is sensible of it For the heart being join'd to the brain by straight and large nervs full of strong spirits which ascend from the heart 't is impossible but that it must have some communication with those motions which pass in the brain upon which the heart or rather the spirits about it is either dilated or compressed And these motions may be either totally of one kind or moderated and allay'd by the mixture of its contrary if of the former sort one of them we call Joy the other Grief which continue about the heart and peradventure oppress it if they be
Spirits with Animal Spirits and with Bloud and by these the Animal is heated nourished and made partaker of Sense and Motion Now refering the Particular motions of Living Creatures to another time we may observe that both kinds of them as well Vegetables as Animals agree in the nature of sustaining themselvs in the three common actions of generation nutrition and augmentation which are the begining the progress and the conserving of life To which three we may add the not so much action as passion of Death and of Sickness or decay which is the way to death CHAP. XXIV A more particular survey of the generation of Animals in which is discover'd what part of the Animal is first generated TO begin then with examining how Living Creatures are in gender'd our main question shall be Whether they be framed entirely at once or successively one part after another And if this latter way which part first Upon the discussion of which all that concerns generation will be explicated as much as concerns our purpose in hand To deduce this from its origine we may remember how our Masters tell us that when any living creature is past the heat of its augmentation or growing the superfluous nourishment settles it self in some appointed place of the body to serve for the production of some other Now it is evident that this superfluity comes from all parts of the body and may be said to contain in it after some sort the perfection of the whole living creature Be it how it will 't is manifest that the living creature is made of this superfluous moysture of the parent which according to the opinion of some being compounded of several parts derived from the several limbs of the parent those parts when they come to be fermented in convenient heat and moysture take their posture and situation according to the posture and disposition of parts that the living creature had from whence they issued and then they growing daily greater and solider the effects of moysture and heat at length become such a creature as that was from whence they had their origine Which an accident that I remember seems much to confirm It was of a Cat that had 't is tail cut off when it was very young which Cat hapning afterwards to have young ones half the kitlings proved without tails and the other half had them in an ordinary manner as if nature could supply but on one partners side not on both And another particular that I saw when I was at Argiers makes to this purpose which was a woman that having two thumbs upon the left hand four daughters that she had all resembled her in the same accident and so did a little child a girl of her eldest daughters but none of her sons Whiles I was there I had a particular curiosity to see them all and though it be not easily permited to Christans to speak familiarly with Mahometan women yet the condition I was in there and the civillity of the Basha gave me the opportunity of full view and discourse with them And the old woman told me that her mother and grandmother had been in the same manner But for them it rests upon her credit the others I saw my self But the opinion which these accidents seem to support though at the first view it seems smoothly to satisfie our inquiry and fairly to compass the making of a living creature yet looking further into it we shall find it fall exceeding short of its promising and meet with such difficulties as it cannot overcome For first let us cast about how this compound of several parts that servs for the generation of a new living creature can be gather'd from every part and member of the parent so to carry with it in little the complete nature of it The meaning hereof must be that this superfluous aliment either passes through all and every little part and particle of the parents body and in its passage receives somthing from them or else that it receives only from all similiar and great parts The former seems impossible for how can one imagine that such juice should circulate the whole body of an Animal and visit every atome of it and retire to the reserve where it is kept for generation and no part of it remain absolutely behind sticking to the flesh or bones that it bedews but that still some part returns back from every part of the Animal Besides consider those parts that are most remote from the channels which convey this juyce how when they are fuller of nourishment then they need the juyce which overflows from them comes to the next part and setling there and serving it for its due nourishment drives back into the channel that which was betwixt the channel and it self so that here there is no return at all from some of the remote parts and much of that juyce which is rejected never went far from the channel it self We may therfore safely conclude that 't is impossible every little part of the whole body should remit somthing impregnated and imbued with the nature of it But then you may peradventure say that every similiar part doth If so I would ask how it is possible that by fermentation only every part should regularly go to a determinate place to make that kind of Animal in which every similiar part is diffused to so great an extent How should the nature of flesh here become broad there round and take just the figure of the part it is to cover How should a bone here be hollow there be blady and in another part take the form of a rib and those many figures which we see of bones And the like we might ask of every other similiar part as of the veins and the rest Again seeing it must of necessity happen that at one time more is remitted from one part then from another how comes it to pass that in the collection the due proportion of nature is so punctually observed Shall we say that this is done by some cunning artificer whose work it is to set all these parts in their due posture which Aristotle attributes to the seed of the male But this is impossible for all this diversity of work is to be done at one time and in the same occasions which can no more be effected by one agent then multiplicity can immediately proceed from unity But besides that there can be no agent to dispose of the parts when they are gather'd 't is evident that a sensitive creature may be made without any such gathering of parts beforehand from another of the same kind for else how could vermine breed out of living bodies or out of corruption How could Rats come to fill ships into which never any were brought How could Frogs be ingendred in the air Eels of dewy turfs or of mud Toads of Ducks Fishs of Herns and the like To the same purpose when one species or kind of Animal