an Organical body every thing that giveth it life and causes the vital actions is to be judged to be the Soul which is the perfection of the whole Furthermore seeing that they can no other way know the essence they leaving the obscurity of essence do pass unto the proper functions of it which are more manifest and they attain knowledge from the differences of the Soul so they define the Soul to be life as from the proper functions of it and from the differences of life they make certain kinds of the Soul and so they comprehend in their mind three differences of living things namely Natural Sensitive and Intelligent because that some bodies do live by the benefit of sole Nature others have Sence others are induced with Reason and Understanding as if Sence and Reason were not aswell natural and have their foundations in the very essence of Nature which thing Hippocrates expresses manifestly by a luculent testimony in his first Book de diata And these differences of living things are not to be ascribed to their functions faculties sciences gifts and interior signatures but rather to the Essence of the Soul Here you may see the calamity of Aristotle and Galen which are fallen and do cast themselves headlong into very foul and unfortunate errours by their subtilty for they do attribute that to the faculties and functions of the Soul which are to be attributed to the very Essence But they may say that that which is natural in Plants is a Soul from which we say that Plants are animated though they be not animals and that Sensitive faculty which governs and directs brute Beasts is also a Soul which doth not only make them animated but also animals Lastly there is none which will say that the Intellective faculty of man is not a Soul These Souls are so severed and distracted that neither the Intelligent Soul of Man is a Sensitive Soul nor the Sensitive Soul of a Beast is a Natural Soul So that Man is not Beast nor Beast is a Plant otherwise there would be great confusion of the kinds and natures of things To whom I answer with Hippocrates Of what kind the sciences and gifts of the natural spirits of the Soul of the hot Fire are there are such like signatures or sealings exprest in the bodies and the whole ornature or comeliness of the whole body is contained in the anatomy that is in the Soul for the Soul is the cause or beginning of the organical body for from this the body is caused by the vertue and power of it the elements and principles are mixed augmented and changed from spiritual into bodies having their figures magnitude colours and such paintings that is signatures agreeable to the Soul which make much for the absolving of the pre-ordinated functions and offices Hippocrates doth illustrate the unity of the Soul by an excellent testimony in his Book de diaeta saith he Male and Female may consist together and each one constitute other and he addeth this reason because the same Soul is in all living bodies but the body of them all do differ Therefore the Soul is the like as well in a greater as a less that is in an infant as one come to years for it is not altered neither by Nature or Necessity but the body is never the same either by Nature or Necessity Now it is separated from all otherwise it were commix'd Here he calleth the Soul the Root and the vital beginning because this thing is common to both Sexes in all kinds of animals therefore they may consist together Again the Male and Female are rooted in the same root and mutually propagate themselves for the Souls which are vital beginnings and the radical tinctures of things are stable and perpetual not subjected to mixtion therefore they persist the same and altogether like themselves The natural description of the Soul whether they be in less Individual things that is in weaker and unfirmer or in greater that is in more stronger and firmer The unity of the Soul being thus demonstrated I call the Soul Vitalspirits the Chorionium of Paracelsus the Powers of Hippocrates Spiritual and Vital powers Tinctures Vital qualities which being dispersed through the whole anatomy of the living body nevertheless they are concentred and united in the more principal parts which communicate true essence to the body The Essence of this Soul though it be obscure and unknown of Aristotle and Gallen nevertheless it is perspicuous and manifest enough to us for by the industry of the workman it is subjected to the eye which we call the Native liquor the Radical moisture the mystery the mean of the Soul the golden vigour of the Soul the flowr of the Soul and the efficacy of the spirit in the elements which we call Jupiter in heaven Juno in the air Neptune in the water and in each of the parts of these the Ancients have called it by divers names of the Gods PART II. CHAP. I. Of the Original of Forms THe most have supposed Heaven to be the Father of all things which are generated upon Earth and the Earth to be the Mother They called the Heaven the Father because the Water falling from thence supplies the place of Seed they call the Earth the Mother because it receiveth it after the manner of a Mother and brings forth For the same cause we find the Moon called of many after Mankind because it is affirmed to have the Dominion over the humours and doth perform a manly work in the administration thereof Which thing Tertullian and Cornelius Severus profess which Charisius cites the Epithete of Phoebus being adduced from the Male kind he saith Now the fiery Stars did shine in the Heaven O Phoebus the succeeder with thy Brothers Horses In the secrets of the Hebrews which they call Cabalistical all the vertues of the Stars and the heavenly images are received and contained in the body of the Moon from which afterward the species of things fruits animal sand all new things which are in power to be generated by the several elements are immitted into the inferiour matter and genital seed Aristotle and other which imitate him deduce the forms and first substances of all things from heaven Galen derived the specifical form or essential property of every thing from a certain congress mixtion and temperature of the elements These are the famous doubts which obscure very much the knowledge of natural things from this fountain there is derived an overthrow which hath corrupted all Philosophy and begot obscurity and transplantation by the Laws and confuse administration of mixtion In whose steps must we now insist whom shall we trust shall we trust ancient Writers as Aristotle and Galen Unto these Aristotelians methinks I hear Moses speak who many years before the history of the created World following the Eternal God and instructed in all kind of things said that God had put a natural power or vertue in the created
therein are privily contained CHAP. III. Of the Beginnings of Bodies and their Original Differences and Properties PHilosophers do greatly dissent in the handling of the Principles and every one almost led by his own Opinion doth bring his own beginnings Some do consist in Reason only and are not grounded in Nature they admit no demonstrations from the light of Nature Those which hold these imaginary beginnings are conversed in the Knowledge and Inquisition of the Essential Causes they are drawn by a blind and a terminary endeavour upward and downward they admit a dissolute and futile or vain confusion of things wavering this way and that way without sinews and joynts they stick in all things as if they were but beginners they hold nothing which is ratified nothing that is comprehended and nothing that is fixed and sure But they ever stand in that place and in doubt from which they may be moved with a light moment which daily Experience not only in Philosophy but also in Physicks doth testifie and approve But according to these fine Philosophers and Physicians if it please God some beginnings are of Philosophy some of Physick and where the Philosopher endeth there the Physician beginneth Aristole the chief of the Peripatetical Family or Sect made three beginnings of Nature two Essential as he calleth them Namely the Matter and the Form and one Accidental namely Privation which beginnings seeing they do alone comprehend them in mind and abstract them from the very Essence of the thing and do not explain what the Matter of a natural thing is nevertheless they would be thought to explain and lay open the Knowledge of the Matter Let me define them The Matter is of which a thing is made The Form is by which a thing is made Privation is the absence of the Form But yet it remaineth unexplained altogether what the true real and essential beginnings of Nature are All the Spagirical Philosophers have made a Matter and confessed there was a Form and that a new Form was forthwith induced the old being abolished and deprived where closely the necessity of Privation is included But while they imagine of these in their mind they consider the true subjects of Nature Wherefore whosoever is instructed with these imaginary beginnings will never come to the Bath of Diana wherefore he need not fear the punishments of Acteon Galen held that the Elements adorned with their Qualities were the Foundations of Nature Hermes ter maximus the Father of the Phlosophers taught that all things were generated of three things he explains the terminary number calling them Spirit Soul and Body though he doth not expresly shew what he meaneth by Spirit Soul and Body yet our Paracelsus hath so expounded them no less artificially than naturaly in his Book de Naturarerum The Spirit is Mercury the Soul is Sulphur the Body is Salt The mean betwixt the Spirit and the Body of which Hermes speaks is the Soul so that the mean betwixt Mercury and Salt is Sulphur which unites conjoyns and couples diverse things and compounds them into one substance of a Body Now we will seek forth the Original differences and properties of these three these are they which have wearied and astonied the Wits of many Philosophers our beginnings of our Paracelsus have true Foundations in Nature Sulphur Salt and Mercury are the issues and off-spring of the Seeds In the first framing of creatures it was needful that the Seeds should have their Foundations in others seeing they were gone from the Fountain of Unity If the images of the Seeds that is the Seeds themselves should be dispersed it was also convenient for the images of the Elements that is for the beginnings to imitate Nature So the Essence Existence Life and Act of all things are the Elements that is the Seeds which are beginnings but yet not common or general beginnings For the more full understanding of this thing in the first place the difference of Bodies is to be observed Some Bodies are more nigh their beginnings namely the Seeds and Vital beginnings Others have gone further from them as the mix'd Elements Those which are more nigh by reason of the likeness of their Nature are called Heavenly Bodies Spiritual and Vital and constant Vegetable Bodies in which the constant property of every body is apprehended These are called of Paracelsus Mercury Sulphur and Salt Not that they are altogether like to the vulgar Salt Sulphur and Mercury in Substance but in Essence Actions and Properties and as much as those perfect individuals in their kind do differ amongst themselves so much do these Vital beginnings differ in Essence Actions and Properties Those which are more remote from the Seeds are called Earthly Crass Mixt Dead and Unfixt Bodies these are the common Elements commixed with the beginnings which do exhibit or propound before our senses one similar substance of the Bodies by the virtue of mixtion The beginnings which we name first of the two are formal and natural Bodies but yet spiritual they are Spirits yet corporeal so that in some sort they are means betwixt the corporeal and incorporeal Nature The latter are bonds of visible and invisible things of temporal and eternal corruptible and incorruptible of superiour and inferiour therefore they ought to manifest the properties of the superiour and inferiour Nature So that they purely and exquisitely do not represent the conditions of either of them He which knows not these bonds hath not learned the power of life because he hath only exercised the anatomy of death Aristotle and Galen coupled death and life together and they would have attributed things belonging to dead things without qualities to the living things they both laboured for one end Furthermore in these spirits and spiritual Bodies the properties of all natural actions do bear sway and all separations digestions and concoctions in Nature are absolved and perfected by the benefit of Salt Sulphur and Mercury and not by the benefit or ministery of Heat and Humidity The temperament of all the parts are not integrated or compounded from the mixtion of Heat Cold and Driness but from the mixtion of Salt Sulphur and Mercury amongst themselves and with the Elements which agree in the Sciences and Predestinations of the foresaid beginnings and root or ground And this is the temperament of Nature Nature it self and the towardness or good disposition of things produced from the Sciences and Signatures of the beginnings for the properties of the actions which are contemplated and beheld in the natural parts as of Attraction Retention Separation Digestion and Evacuation we deprehend them to be in the anatomy of Salt Sulphur and Mercury even as the Sulphur of the Loadstone attracteth iron and worn Amber attracteth straw oftentimes also we deprehend it to be in outward things And though these three beginnings of Bodies seem to have their forces united in Nature yet they reserve the properties without hurt and confusion The office and property
of Salt is to congeal Bodies and to make them solid and firm from hence is the hardness of the Adamant and the solidness of Gold which Aristotle and Galen ascribe to Cold. The office of Sulphur is being of a fat and clammy substance to temperate the foresaid congelation with a benign commixtion lest that the mechanical Spirits being bound and girded with the solidness and commixt proportion of Salt should commit unjust losses of their actions and offices The office of Mercury is to repair and cherish by continual moistning those which hasten unto driness and age and to make the mixtion of them to be of a sluid and moveable substance for this necessity Mercury is adjoyned to Salt and Sulphur but more sparingly and in a less measure in the Vital beginning the Elements are in the Vital sulphur the First Matter and the Balm and these three Bodies Salt Sulphur and Mercury that is the Balm makes and compounds the Domestical principles or beginnings like unto themselves from the Elements so that it requires the common and latter Elements as external Vestments These three by whose ministery or benefit all things are connext and do conspire together are the Bonds of the corporeal continuity of all Bodies Sometimes Hippocrates designs these spiritual Bodies by the name of the Soul as when he saith that the Soul of Man is united to the Soul and that by a Physical liberty Those three beginnings of Bodies in which the faculty of every beginning doth manifestly shew it self are adorned of Philosophers by the name of Spirits These means in Nature and mean Bonds that is the three beginnings of Bodies seeing they agree most highly with the Architectonical spirits and roots or seminary beginnings of things they are named of Philosophers by the name of the First Matter Now follows the tractate of the Causes and Cures of Diseases The general and special Explication of all Diseases Astral and Material or of all Elementated and Hereditary Diseases from the Book of Nature the Book of Philosophical and Physical truth with the Opinions of Ancient Writers added as Hippocrates Galen and Celsus and others In the particular curing of Diseases it is handled of the mysteries of Cures of the brevity of the Signs of the secrets of the Remedies And first the old Precepts of Galen and of others are brought and afterward it is demonstrated by the Experience of Paracelsus Thurniserus and of Excellent new Writers and Philosophers and the Medicines for all the Diseases from anatomy and the signed art as well simple Remedies as compound by shewing the work Man the Microcosmus or little World out of the Macrocosm or great World containeth in him the anatomy of health and sanity In Man are threefold Diseases Namely 1 From Fire and Air. Which two Elements generate and infect the Spirit of man from whence there are Diseases in man which they call Epidemical or Astral Diseases 2 From Water and Earth These two Elements cause the Tartar and the â—tone and all Tartaâ—ous Diseases which â—â—â— many in man 3 From the seed of Parents and they contain in them 4 courses 1 The 4 courses of the Elements from whence all sharp Diseases arise 2 The 7 courses of the Planets from whence the Chronical Diseases arise which ensure as long as the couse of the Planet 3 4 courses of the humours from whence are Salts and that of divers Tasts 4 Courses of the qualities from whence the complexions are The Microcosmus man hath not been only created according to the Macrocosm but also made subject to Diseases and Death as in the book of Theophrastus of the Astral Diseases so also of the Invisible Diseases as also of the falling Sickness as also of the Meteors and that part is called Astronomy read the books of Theophrastus of the Tartareous Diseases The old Physicians have writ nothing of these things neither knew they any thing of them if they knew any thing it was not much Saturn Hath Dominion in the Milt Jupiter Hath Dominion in the Liver Mars Hath Dominion in the Gall Sol Hath Dominion in the Heart Venus Hath Dominion in the Reins Mercury Hath Dominion in the Lungs Luna Hath Dominion in the Brain Bloud Phlegm Choler Melancholy Is Savory Sweet Bitter Sowr Salt The Galenists call the Salts Humours when as they are Salts and of divers Tasts and qualities Of these Galen writ Hot and moist Cold and moist Hot and dry Cold and dry But Theophrastus from the light of Nature found forth that all beginnings consist in Salt Sulphur and Mercury In these three the substance of all creatures consists and is conserved to the Predestinated term or limit as Paracelsus in his book de tribus Principiis and in his book Paramid Philosoph de quatuor Elementis which four Ements do arise from three beginnings Of Generation Mixtion and Transplantation The solid and firm ground of Nature being laid and the truth and Nature of the Principles being found and established and confirmed and the original differences and degrees of Forms being set down we come to the engendring of Diseases And first it is needful to prepose the Generation of natural things and the Laws and grounds of mixtion and Transplantation And then we will shew whether the beginnings of generation be spiritual or corporeal Again it is behoveful to consider whether Animals Minerals and Vegetables are generated after the same manner for those that know not the Laws and Foundations of Generations Mixtions and Transplantations and those which do not consider the Powers and Vertues and Courses of the Spirits they persist in a great Errour that bodies are only of bodies Veâ—ily they cannot tell how to free themselves in the Inquisition of Diseases which are from the bodies from whence it comes to pass that many proclaim divers Diseases to be incurable Concerning the Foundation or ground of Generation Three things are required necessary to the administration of every Generation First the Elements and Matrices Secondly Seeds Stars First Matter or Soul Thirdly the beginnings of bodies All which though divers yet they are contained in the least portion of the matter which is altogether similar as appeareth by the testimony of the sense and so they command us to worship the Divinity of Nature neither are they confusedly or rashly comprehended but they are instructed with a Vital and most forcible Power or Vertue and with an infallible science It will bring much light to our contemplations if we explain the offices of these There are more common offices of the Elements the Matrices or Receptacles and they obtain the name of the matter they are the offices of the seeds the first matter or stars Furthermore they are called fruitful because they are the Bonds of visible and invisible things and because they contain in them the Laws of Motions the Predestination of Times and the Laws of Generations Mixtions and Transplantations as in the efficient agent cause from which all actions proceed
reasons to shew how much the peace and welfare is concerned therein by R. T. No necessity of Reformation of the bublick Doctrine of the Church of England by J. Pearson D. D. An Answer to Dr. Burges's Word by way of Postscript in vindication of no necessity of Reformation of the publick Doctrine of the Church of England by Dr. Pearson Dr. Daniel Featly revived proving that the Protestant Church and not the Catholick is the onely visible and true Church in a Manual preserved from the hands of the Plunderers with a succinct history of his life and death published by John Featly Chaplain to His Majesty The Scotch Covenant condemned being a full answer to Mr. Douglas his Sermon preached at the Kings Coronation in Scotland wherein His Sacred Majesty is vindicated by a Loyal and Orthodox hand The Royal Prerogative vindicated in the converted Recusants convinced by Scripture Reasons Fathers and Councils that the Oath of Abjuration compared with those of Allegiance and Supremacy containeth nothing but what may be taken by every pious Christian and lawful subjects with divers other things annexed in relation to the Kings Supremacy by J. Cragg a learned piece A Manual of Miscellaneous Meditations Apothegms Observations Characters and Essayes worthy the consideration of all by R. R. Christs gracious intention for peace and mercy towards sinners in a Sermon at St. Pauls before the Lord Major and Aldermen by R. Parr Minister at Camberwell in Surrey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God made Man a Tract proving the Nativity of our Saviour to be on the 25. of December by the learned J. Selden The Works of that Reverend Prelate Joseph Hall late Bishop of Norwich collected into one Volume being the third Tome in Folio The sinners Remembrancer or a serious warning to the wicked to prevent their destruction and hasten their reformation to which is added Christs gracious intention for peace and mercy towards sinners by Rich. Parr D. D. Rector of Bermondsey in Southwark Divine Meditations upon the Grand and Lesser Festivals commanded to be observed in the Church of England by Act of Parliament whereunto is subjoyned A Meditation upon the Murther of King Charles the first on Jan. 30 1648. and a Commemoration of the Martyrdom of the late William Land Archbishop of Canterbury by Edmund Gayton The Reformed Presbyterian humbly offering to the consideration of all pious and peaceable spirits several Arguments for Obedience to the Act of Uniformity as the way to Unity and endeavouring to demonstrate by clear inferences from Scripture c. from the writings of Mr. Paul Bains Mr. Hildersham Mr. Baxter Mr. Robert Bolton and other learned Divines that there is nothing required by the Act of Uniformity that is forbidden by the Law of God by R. Littler Observations Censures and Confutations of notorious Errours in Mr. Hobs's Leviathan and other his Books to which are annexed Occasional Animadversions on some writings of the Socinians and such Hereticks of the same opinions with him by William Lucy Bishop of S. Davis A Tract worth the perusal of all learned men in which the Church of England is defended Admirable and learned Treatises of Occult Sciences in Philosophy Magick Astrology Geomancy Chymistry Physiognomy and Chiromancy MAgick and Astrology vindicated by H. Warren Lux Veritatis Judicial Astrology vindicated and Demonology confuted by W. Ramsey Gent. An Introduction to the Teutonick Philosophy being a determination of the Original of the Soul by C. Hotham Fellow of Peter-house in Cambridge Cornelius Agrippa his fourth Book of Occult Philosophy or Geomancy Magical Elements of Peter de Abano the nature of spirits made English by R. Turner Paracelsus Occult Philosophy of the mysteries of Nature and his secret Alchimy An Astrological Discourse with Mathematical Demonstrations proving the influence of the Planets and fixed Stars upon Elementary Bodies by Sir Christ Heydon Merlinus Anglicus Junior The English Merlin revived or a Prediction upon the affairs of Christendom for the year 1644 by W. Lilly England's Prophetical Merlin foretelling to all Nations of Europe till 1663. the actions depending upon the Influences of the Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter 1642. by W. Lilly The Worlds Catastrophe or Europes many mutations until 1666. by W. Lilly An Astrological Prediction of the Occurrences in England part in the years 1648 1649 1650. by W. Lilly Annus tenebrosus or the dark Year or Astrological Judgements upon two Lunary Eclipses and one admirable Eclipse of the Sun in England An easie and familiar way whereby to judge the effects depending on Eclipses by W. Lilly Supernatural Sights and Apparitions seen in London June 50. 1644 by W. Lilly as also all his Works in one Volume Catastrophe Magnatum an Ephemerides for the Year 1652. by N. Culpepper Teratologia or a discovery of Gods Wonders manifested by bloody rain and waters by J. S. Chiromancy or the art of divining by the Lines engraven in the hand of man by Dame Nature in 198. Genitures with a learned Discourse of the soul of the world by G. Wharton Esq The admired Piece of Physiognomy Chiromancy Metoposcopy the symmetrical proportion and signal moles of the body the Interpretation of Dreams to which is added the Art of Memory illustrated with Figures by R. Sanders Folio The no less exquisite then admirable Work Theatrum Chemmicum Britannicum containing several Poetical pieces of our famous English Philosophers who have written Hermetick mysteries in their own ancient Languages faithfully collected in one Volume with Annotations thereon by the indefatigable industry of Elias Ashmole Esq illustrated with Figures The way to Bliss in three Books a very learned Treatise of the Philosophers-stone made publick by Elias Ashmole Esq Themis Aurea the Laws of the Fraternity of the Rosie Cross in which the occult secrets of their Philosophical Notions are brought to light written by Count Mayerus and now Englished by T. H. Natures Secrets or the admirable and wonderful History of the generation of Meteors describing the temperatures of the Elements the heighths magnitudes and influences of the Stars the causes of Comets Earthquakes Deluges Epidemical Diseases and Prodigies of precedent times with presages of the Weather and descriptions of the Weather-glass by T. Wilsford Blagrave's admirable Ephemerides for the Years 1659 and 1660. Euclids Elements in fifteen Books in English compleated by Mr. Barrow of Cambridge Excellent Treatises in the Mathematicks Geometry of Arithmetick Surveying and other Arts or Mechanicks THe incomparable Treatise of Tactometâ—ia seu Tetagmenometria or the Geometry of Regulars practically proposed after a new and most expedious manner together with the Natural or Vulgar by way of mensural Comparison and in the Solids not onely in respect of magnitude or dimension but also of gravity or ponderosity according to any metal assigned together with useful experiments of measures and weights observations on Gauging useful for those that are practised in the Art Metrical by T. Wybard Tectonicon shewing the exact measuring of all manner of Lands Squares
more diligently searched their work-houses or mines Wherefore Aristotle hath truly delivered that life is contained by heat and that neither Animals nor Plants could live without heat Again he defining Death he opposed not cold as a contrary to heat but extinction which is a privation of heat To which also Hippocrates ascribeth all the actions of the whole Animals he also affirmed that all and most diverse faculties are absolved and perfected by the benefit of this heat at fit seasons and places Philosophers searching the nature of this heat they have fallen into strange errours in that they did not distinguish the ethereal and celestial heat from the elementary heat which is in all things rising from the mixtion and temperature of the Elements but this is fruitless and void or a companion or adjunct-embassadour of the thing compound But the natural or vital heat is altogether alienated from the conditions of the Elements whereupon they called it Celestial and altogether Divine Again any man may easily distinguish and discern the vital heat from the elementary heat in Plants and cold animals as in the Poppy the Lettuce the Mandrake and the Serpent which being exceeding cold in their temperature it is certain that they do not live by this but by sole vital spirits and heat Again they brought it into controversie whether heat which is the worker of life be a substance or an accident Lastly after much contention of words they concluded it to be an accident but yet altogether celestial and divine as the light or the heat of the Sun is and every other virtue or power conveyed from the Heavens unto the prepared body They also affirm that that nature or form which consists in the matter by the mediation of the spirits or heat to be altogether one substance and that wholly celestial and divine not participating at all of the Elements The later is beaten upon and vulgar amongst the more secret Philosophers but they have not received the first But because Philosophers do intreat of vital heat they do not consider it as an accident but they comprehend together the in-bred spirits and the radical matter that is the native humidity in which the heat is seated under the name and appellation of heat for truly every thing may be found forth by it self The cause of this errour is because they have not known the original of forms which thing we wil demonstrate and explain more amply and copiously in the Chapter Of the original and differences of Forms The The divers names of Vital Heat more profound Philosophers have called this Vital Heat the Internal Sun the Internal Element and the Mineral Sun in which all the grounds of Nature are contained Arnoldus de Villa nova in his book of Conserving youth and deferring old age the third chap. he consirmeth it in express words saying That which hath not an equal is the Mineral Sun And wise men have compared the prepared body to the natural heat and sound youth for which similitude the wise men have used to call this heat by the name of an Animal for vital Sulphur and radical humidity is the store-house of all Nature for by the onely power of it all the cures of all diseases may be accomplished Galen being adduced by the notable and wonderful power of the actions in the second book of his Art unto Glauco he calleth the native Heat the Substance of the faculties and vertues which thing he doubted much in another place concerning the substance of Nature and the Soul Aristotle in the second book of the Generations of Animals the third chap. ascribeth all the faculties of all natural things to this vital heat in these words There is something in the sense of all things which causes the seed to be fruitful namely that which is called vital heat not fire for it is not any such faculty but the spirit which is contained in the seed or foamy body and the nature which is in that spirit in proportion is correspondent to the element of Stars Plato which came nigher to the shut gates of Nature called this heat or spirit the Defence of the form which heat is incident in Animals and Plants from the original He also writes that from this universal spirit of the World which alone consociates and conjoyns the soul to the World and contains the virtues that it was thereby caused and conserved for it comprehends the The Seed of every thing and the power of Procreating seminal reasons and hidden proprieties of all Procreants it filleth all and it is diffused through all and it is propagated into all Animals Plants and Metalls and these as it were of the green wind of Sulphur Concerning the native or first-begor Humidity there First-begot Humidity is required an accurate distinction of the Humours in every natural body for the attaining of the true knowledge thereof seeing that there is one humour Elementary another Alimentary another Native or first-begot and that there is much difference of them For the Elementary and Alimentary humidity do differ much from the Native and first begot humidity in the substance essence and nature The Elementary humidity is a waterish humour by which as it were with glew the dissentient and repugnant Earthly parts of the body do cohere and are united and this is common to all things which are generated by the commixtion of the concreated Elements The Alimentary is that which is attracted spiritually The spirit are â—o 〈◊〉 ed for diâ—â—erence or distinction from vapours or mists which are called spirits of the mechanical Spirits existing in the parts of the body and is exhibited or communicated to the body for nourishment or aliment which humidity all Individual things namely Vegetables and Minerals both greater and less which lie occult in the Centre of the earth attract untill they come to the predestinated limit or tearm of their continuance Afterwards the Planet ceaseth Every nutrition or nourishment is spiritual or it is made by the spirits From hence is the dewish moistening of the Microcosm and forsaketh the compound as the Philosophers affirm in these the Spirit ought neither to serve for sence or motion The Native or Inbred moisture which is also called the Vital moisture is called of the Philosophers the quintessence which may be extracted from all living roots There inhereth a matter representing Oil which is the subject of Heat and Spirits it is also indissolvable from which natural spirits and vital heat floweth as forth of a seminary and perfuseth the whole living body from which also the strength and firmness of the parts arise This fat humour which is very like Oil is not fat with Of the Microcosm which we see many parts of the body covered but it is other fat very much different and aery which flyeth the sight of the eye nevertheless it may be distinguished by art and industry and this is the Original both of spirits and
diffused abroad very much it begins to decay and corupt and so the dry and cold matter is left which is held to be the last of all For the vital spirits whose force is fiery do consume nutriments and aliments hourly so that there is need of continual restitution mixtion and composition therefore it is most truly said of Hippocrates I find saith he that we are nourished from those things of which we consist and that by them generation and nutrition is continued From hence Aliment is named of Paracelsus seed because in all aliments there is the Balsam of the animal Whether doth Gaeln make Hippocrates the chief in his folly or no Let us I pray you pardon Galen for he is ignorant of the Spagirical art and hath never attained unto the secrets of Hippocrates whereby it is come to pass that he hath left the Essence of Nature untouched and uncomprehended As likewise he was ignorant of the forms of things and therefore he could not obtain the forms of things from their bodies For the confirmation of this namely that Hippocrates understood by the name of Fire Nature it self we may bring the testimonies of other Philosophers lest that we be thought to depend on the authority and judgment of one man alone though that the testimony of Hippocrates being an excellent Philosopher might abundantly suffice us Paracelsus also in his book writ of the Generation of Natural things so also in his book de Electro he calleth the Soul or Nature by the name of Fire with whom Fernelius Alanus consents in his Sayings which he hath consecrated to posterity he calleth Nature by the name of Fire of Wisdom Alexander a Suchten calleth Nature by the name of Living Fire Raimundus Lullius calleth Nature the Living Fire of Nature so also he calleth Living Fire by the name of Nature Geber the Prince of Philosophers calls this Fire of Nature the Incombustible Sulphur Paracelsus in his first book of the Secrets of Creation calleth this Fire by the name of Middle Nature and forthwith in the same place he annexeth some few things and calls it the Nature of Viridity or Greenness for this is the blessed and happy Greenness which makes all things bud This is the Green Lion of the Physicochemists to the which Paracelsus ascribes all the cures of all diseases in his book de tincturaphysicorum The ancient Author in the Apocalyps of the Spirit of the secret world amongst the rest he affirmeth this celestial spirit the Heaven to exist in a waterish body more than perfect and clarified he affirmeth this to be the inferious Heaven whose sparkle is the Alcool of wine which is spirit water and fire This is that which is so much commended of Paracelsus in his writings as also of other great Philosophers of notable wits affirming thus The Fire and Azoth are sufficient for thee which are the great mysteries of Nature as Paracelsus speaks in his Archidoxes In this place I have communicated and opened the gates of Nature by these which are said very benignly I might also bring more without envy but that it is a caution in the laws of Philosophy That there be some tedious things left for the Scholars Concerning the cited place of Hippocrates Hippocrates explains himself in his first book de diaeta which may fully certifie what he meaneth by the name of Fire for saith he either Fire hath distinguished in the generation of Man three circuits diverse in faculties yet conspiring both in vardly and outwardly by a mutual society which have circuits in the cavities which are workhouses of the humours That is in the Bowels which serve for nutrition They relate the power motion and maturity of the Moon but those which absolve the resolutions outwardly where the more solid members consist do imitate the properties of the Stars which do consist in the midst that is in the heart they contain the nature of most forcible fire which is present without and within through all the parts and hath dominion over them all and it in secret silence is not perceived by sight nor feeling In this fire that is in the Stars the soul of this middle revolution understanding prudence augmentation motion diminution transmutation sleep watchings are secretly contained The spirits being there mechanical workers are ascending spiritual bodies and they are the immediate instruments of the actions and have roots In the same book he hath described the faculties and sciences of this Divine Nature Hippocrates saith that Nature is the governour of men this causes the attractions of the elements the mixtions of the parts dispensations conspiâ—ations of those which agree the expulsion of those which disagree This is that which expells which attracts which gives and receives and which proportionateth less things for less places but greater things for greater places and this it doth by altered and well-tempered mixtion Furthermore Orpheus calls Nature as it were a thing adorn'd with the Laws of the Fates which word Hippocrates uses for there is a Law or Reason grounded in the essence of Nature and it is that essence which impells moves and governs all things and because it is in bred it perfects the decrees more sorcibly Because of the diverse in comprehensible gifts of Nature Hippocrates said that Nature was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is taught or instructed of none This is the Light of Nature this is the Predestination of Paracelsus in which he deservedly glories that he knew it wholly and perfectly I say this Nature is the Vegetable secret of Nature the vigour or efficacy of the name the fruitful vertue of the light which is of a perfect body the bright force of Sulphur the hidden virtue of the Heaven the most pure laâ—p the fire of truth which cannot be attained the ensigns of a living form the flower of Nature the house of tincture and the noble branch CHAP. VII Of the Soul What the Soul is and the substance of it ALL living bodies inasmuch as they live whether they be contained in the bosom of the Elements and live obscurely or they live manifestly I say all these are compounded of three parts namely Soul Sâ—irit and Body The Body and Spirit may in some sort be sought forth by sense but the Soul and the essence of it seeing it flies sense is obsecurely and too darkly known for it is no obvious or easie thing to attain thereunto Wherefore the understanding must apprehend it from the operations functions and effects arising from thence conspicuous and objected unto the sense even as every occult cause is to be enquired and sought forth These are Aristotelical and Galenical opinions taken from the same ground They endeavour to proportionate the anatomy of Troy by Geometrical partitions and figures but in vain Thus they define the Soul The Soul is the beginning and cause of the functions of a living body Or the Soul is the perfection of an Organical body Seeing that every living body is forthwith
The beginnings of bodies are destinated to properties and actions and they bear sway with the wonderful Power or Vertue of the qualities or properties These are the Laws of the Generation of natural things that the seeds and stars do come forth of the Fountains and Deeps and dark places into light and out of the Iliadum into the Worlds anatomy the Principles of the Bodies being constituted and assumed at defined and set times and by the renovation of the Individuals and production of bodies conserve the property of the spirits This renovation of bodies is a Generation whose Foundation confists in the seed In this Lithurgy and action of seeds and stars visible things are made and generated from invisible things corporeal things from incorporeal things by the vertue and power of the immortal and vital science bearing sway in Nature which science he handleth above in the sixth Chapter of his Philosophy We said that it was the light of Nature and the predestination of Paracelsus By the power and work of it the Elements are made thus and thus that is either Mineral or Vegetable or Animal Elements for there is in Nature a Vegetable Mineral and an Animal Earth and there is a Vegetable Mineral and Animal Water the like of the Air and of the Fire And by it the beginnings of the bodies agreeable to the offices of the seeds and stars are extant and come forth So colours smells tasts heat cold moistness driness quantity number confirmation all vital qualities and other signatures do proceed in the mechanical process of Generation Because no Generation can be perfected without Mixtion we will forthwith intreat of it Mixtion is the Instrument of the seed proceeding unto Generation by whose ministery the Elements and the beginnings of bodies which agree with the seeds and domestical things as Animals united to Animals Minerals to Minerals Vegetables to Vegetables so emulate the unity of the seeds which are their examples The foundation of Mixtion is the vital beginning instructed with an effective science the form the idaea the seed the star by whose power and infallible science divine offices of mixtion are administred This is that especial star or seed which we have demonstrated to be the Foundation or ground of all Generations The Term or bound and subjects of mixtions are the Elements and beginnings of bodies produced from aliments by vertue and science of the mechanical spirits for the mixtion is made when bodies are constituted of incorporeal things but yet altogether spiritual bodies The Laws of mixtion are three ways considered The first is the mixtion of the Elements amongst themselves The second is the mixtion of the Elements with the principles or beginnings The third is the mixtion of the principles amongst themselves and of all them together for if they ought to exhibit one similar substance of a body unto the senses then there ought to be three beginnings and each one mixt Again the manner of Mixtion is threefold for either a perfect is mixt with a perfect or a corruptible or impure with a corruptible or a perfect with a corruptible The mixtion happeneth far otherwise if a perfect be mixt with a perfect that is a pure with a pure than if an impure or corruptible be mixt with an impure or pure for the beginnings elements and foundations of bodies are twofold they are either perfect or the first that is the immediate receptacles of the seeds which are the nighest to the seeds as are the beginnings of bodies or they are corruptible or superadded that is which are more remote from the seeds and the stars as are the Elements which bear the name of a Matter how much therefore the subjects of mixtion differ amongst themselves so much the unions terms or limits and continuance do differ for pure permixt with pure things that is which are more remote from the impurity of the Elements have a longer time of digestion and comem later to their dissolution as are Gold Siver precious Stones which are meer individual principles altogether perfect and separated from the external impurities of the Elements The impure hasten quickly to corruption some of them sooner some later according to the analogy and proportion of the subjects The Elements and beginnings of Animals have times of their continuance very much distinct from the Elements and principles of Minerals and Vegetables and these Minerals and Vegetables do differ much from the procreations of the superiour Globe that is from the fruits of the superiour Elements We will handle more largely of corruptible things Foundations Elements and Beginnings and of the mixtion of them with Pure in the Generation of Diseases for they contain the anatomy of Diseases and Death Seeing therefore there be divers manners of Generations by reason of the Elements and Seeds so that in some the differences of the Sex is altogether neglected as in Minerals and Metals In some the Rudiments or beginnings of the sex do appear obscurely as in Vegetables In some they appear manifestly by a perfect separation of the Individuals and their properties expressed as in Animals These manners of Generations being rightly explained do make much for the right understanding of the Generation of Diseases we will explain all in order beginning with the Minerals In the Generation of Minerals which is very hard to be understood of those which cannot apprehend the unaccustomed phrases of Philosophers first there is to be observed the connexion of those things which are required to Generation There is a twofold connexion the first of principles and principles the second of principles with elements Secondly we must observe that this Generation of Minerals is of Consanguinity with Nature for there is no Generation neither of Vegetables nor Animals so nigh the Fountains of Nature neither do approch so nigh the Fountains of Unity as the Generation of Minerals though some Minerals have their admixt impurities for Minerals are the Off-spring and Issue of the seeds the Off-spring and Children of the stars and seeds lying hidden in the Element of Water which Issue have all the gifts of their Parents the sciences signatures and properties thereof by an hereditary right and they possesse them inviolated furthermore the Minerals have most effective Balm and they possesse almost a solid and homogeneous Matter and they have peirced the Vital principle that is the whole substance of the Matter and proportionated it unto themselves So the star or seed in this kind of Minerals hath perfected some perfect Individuals not only according to their substance but according to the vertues of Nature which being adorned and fenced in with the abundance and purity of Balm they are not deprived of their strength in many years neither are they corrupted with any external injuries for example Mercury of which Paracelsus speaks is a perpetual Moon neither can it be corrupted by any violence or injury by reason of the firmness and perfection of the Balm existing in the Mercury
do voluntarily rise out of the Earth nor are submitted by the industry and labour of man but the seeds having attained a fit matrix they proceed unto the Generation of perfect Animals where they perfect the animals complementally The Laws and Foundations of Generations and Mixtions being demonstrated and the spiritual beginnings of Generations being explained and also the manners and differences of the Generations of Vegetables Minerals and Animals being adduced and inferred it remaineth that we handle of Transplantation superadded to Generation which happeneth to all the orders of Generation for those which put the light of Generation and Transplantation before things unknown in Philosophy and the art of Medicines the difference being rightly understood they prepare for us not any passage and entrance unto any vulgar Philosophy and art of Medicine insisting in qualities but unto Philosophy grounded on the Laws of Nature Certainly none can understand the death of things and the dissolution of the Soul from the Body which knows not throughly this difference and if he know not the death of things and the dissolution of the Soul from the Body that Physician will never attain unto the preparations of medicines for how shall he separate things from life which hath neither known life nor death and attributes the functions of life unto dead things what shall I say of the knowledge of Diseases Those which absolve this difference by qualities will never see how death comes to life or how by the Laws of Nature the dissolution of the Soul and Body happens But that we may come to the matter we say that Transplantation is a symptom of Generation but this is not to be understood in general of every Transplantation but in particular for Transplantation is considered Transplantation is twofold two ways for either it is subject to the will of man or it depends of Nature alone That which is subject to the industry and labour of man is perfected either by seed or cutting In this Transplantation whether it be effected by material seeds or incision two things are to be considered Times and Place It is behoveful to observe times in the Transplantation which is to be perfected by the ministery of hands because there are defined and set Periods in which the force of the seminal flowr appears in Plants and Vegetables for unless the flourishing and vigour of the flowr were transplanted by the time all labour were frustrate and Generation were in vain So some material seeds of Plants have their flourishings and vigour of the seminal flowr in the beginning of the Spring some in the midst some in the end some in Summer some in Autumn There is the same reason of trees which also have divers times of their flourishing and seminal vigour of the matter as the Quince-tree and the Damsin-trees are transplanted very seasonably after Winter the Cherry-trees and Almond-trees about Winter Mulberry-trees before the Springs Equinoctial It is also convenient that there be places fit for the Transplantations done by mans labour for except these subjects of mans Transplantations shall find a fit matrix the Transplantation will be frustrate and in vain whether it be done by incision or by seed Therefore it is behoveful to observe such places in our Transplantations as Nature affecteth and in which places Nature will bring forth freely and planteously fruits of this or that kind for every ground doth not bring forth all fruits some fruits Spring pleasantly in funny places some in shadowed places which Nature he observeth thus such like and such Plants being transplanted our Ladiesgloves love little Hillocks the Poplar the Willows and Arsemart love the Waters and Mercuries Fingers and Melilot as we have explained in the Generation of Vegetables We will apply this first Generation of Transplantation fitly in the difference of the Generation of Diseases The other kind of Transplantation is that which proceeds from Nature alone or it is that which is caused by the more effective tinctures of the Elements neither is it subject to mans sense For the right understanding of this Transplantation it is behoveful to explain the roots or tinctures of things which help both for Generation and Transplantation though the roots or effective tinctures the efficient causes of Transplantations have not been explained at any time of any Philosopher but they have adumbrated or over-shadowed them by figures metaphors and allegories And these tinctures are twofold either perfect and first or else corruptible and superadded The perfect and first Roots of things are Stars Seeds Roots of Transplantations and of the Philosophers they are called the tinctures of the Elements The seeds or roots of Transplantation shew the cause of death and dissolution The seeds or stars of Generation are explained both in Philosophy and in the difference of the Generation of natural things now we will handle of the Stars Seeds and Roots of Transplantation For we say that every Generation by the superadded Transplantation is removed and displaced from the degree of dignity whereby the Seeds Stars and Roots of Generation are lesse able to manifest their gifts and in-bred sciences for every transplanted Generation that is Transplantation of spirits doth not change unto the better but unto worse and the properties and gifts of every transplanted Generation namely of the spirits are much weakned by the superadded impressions and concurring Stars of Transplantation The tinctures of the Elements Stars Seeds and Roots of Transplantation or Impressions which cause Transplantation are the Being or Essence of poison which especially is found forth and appeareth in Minerals as in Arsenick Sulphur Vitriol Mercury Antimony and in Saturn In Vegetables as the Nettle Woolf-bane Hemlock and the Poppy But it is circumspectly to be observed that Transplantation in regard of the tinctures is twofold namely the universal and the particular The universal Transplantation is that which extends together unto all natural things by Gods curse for there is nothing free from Transplantation in the whole Nature of things but it hath impurities admixt and adjoyned unto the veins guests and tinctures of the Elements and unto the Stars Seeds and Roots of Transplantation for the Stars themselves as Job witnesseth are not free from this Transplantation neither Gold Silver or Gemms are excepted from this Transplantation though they seem to carry an anatomy of soundness or purity Paracelsus in Chirurgiamajore 2 Book cap. 8. of his 3 Tractate saith that Gold by his Nature hath Realgar or being of poison which is separated from her by Antimony for if that Gold wanted Realgar or poison as Paracelsus speaks the Spagirical Philosophers would not so strictly command that before the preparation of potable Gold that the body of Gold should be separated from poison and impurities So amongst Vegetables every body hath poison and those which be called alimental of Physicians That Vegetable which cannot be rightly separated neither by artificial or natural concoction of the Ventricle is the cause of many
by a certain excellent motion of the mind and he entitled it by the name of an Idea in his Timeus where we read it thus written It is meet that we confess that this Matter is spiritual which is the same still without beginning that is which is compounded of no preexistent matter and it is without corruption that is which is resolved into no other matter which receives nothing from others neither doth it proceed to another which cannot be perceived by Sight or any other sense though Understanding doth apprehend it as it were by accident There is another Matter of the same name and like unto it but yet it may be perceived by sense and it is generated and it is ever in motion as also it is in place whereupon afterwards it doth as it were vanish This is comprehensible by opinion and sense In like manner Plato did affirm universal Ideae or Notions and an universal beginning from which new forms might be produced though the forms of all do perish But here some may object wherefore we do attribute the force of an efficient and a formal cause to the same thing for whatsoever hath the force of an efficient cause hath not the force of a formal as an immanent effect We answer that though the notion of an efficient cause be attributed to the First Matter as an interiour form yet sometimes the form receiveth the notion of an efficient cause as Aristotle witnesseth Acroasi Physica where he saith that the form is the efficient cause of the natural operations and actions But if some shall as yet gain-say and urge the argument more we will answer to this that we place the causes in the First Matter and not the First Matter in the causes It is more meet to apply the names to the things than the things to the names Even as mechanical Artists have certain material Rules which they do not use but altogether straight but sometimes they use those which are somewhat crookt by reason of the matter of which they are about to frame material workmanship often they are constrained to use a Rule somewhat crookt of which figure was the Rule of Lesbia which Aristotle relates in the 10. chap. of his Ethicks which Rule was made of Lead that it might be bended according to the figure or shape of the stones So that still it is not convenient to accommodate the Matter to the Rule but sometimes the Rule to the Matter as Zabarella affirms After the same manner we must make a treatise of the Matter in a more sound Philosophy by reason of the singularity preeminence and majesty of the same that it may appear clearly as it were at mid-day we will examine what difference is betwixt the First Matter of the Philosophers and the Peripateticks The Peripateticks affirm that the First Matter was formless and had an aptitude to receive any form of a natural body But the more secret Philosophers which have peirced into the inmost closet of Nature they confess that the First Matter contains all forms in it and that all forms of all natural bodies are deduced forth of the bosom of it as forth of a rich store-house and that it communicates life to all lifeless things and actions and faculties Therefore seeing the case stands thus it is not pertinent to the First Matter to receive forms which needs none for it possesseth the actions but rather it belongs to the Elements which are in the place of the Second matter This the Philosophers call the Secundary Cause because it is requisite for the form as for the end they call it the Cause sine qua non because without it nothing can be made The Philosophers call it a being in power in the doctrine of the causes or principles because that afterwards it is diduced and brought to perfection and act by the agent But our First Matter and interiour form doth inform perfect and determine this matter or secundary cause whereupon it is called the Informing Act and Perfection This form doth constitute and determine the Second Matter in a certain proper degree of being so that it gives unto it essence and actual existence From hence it is called the Constitutive and Specifical Essence for it separates and distinguishes one thing from another primarily and essentially hereupon it is called the Difference But that I may contract the sails for I will dispatch in few words The Peripateticks call the First Matter a mere passive principle or beginning and they annex a reason because it suffereth and subjecteth it self to be prepared and informed no otherwise than if Wax should be informed and figured sometime with the shape of a Dog sometime of a Lion Which description agreeth to the simple common and absolute Elements and not unto the First Matter of the Philosophers seeing that our First Matter respecteth the Compound actively and not passively Therefore the reasons being collected and alleged The Elements are vestiments of the Principles the Principles are the vestiments of the First Matter or Form we affirm that the First Matter of the Philosophers is the interiour form the beginning of life the fountain of motion and actions the author of fruitfulness the governour of generations transplantations and of all natural actions by whose means and benefit the repugnant and contrary Elements are united by the concordant law of Mixtion Again the said Elements being corrupted and destroyed at the finished times nevertheless there remaineth in this Matter the beginning of life the root and form of the thing in such power that it excelleth the common qualities of the Elements CHAP. V. Of the Native or In-bred Heat THose which are little conversant in Philosophy and cannot as yet apprehend the unaccustomed manner of speaking of the Philosophers they altogether contend about the Name if that the name of the thing be suppressed forthwith they suppose that the thing it self is quite overthrown For the removing of this opinion all those are to be inferred which make something for the perspicuity and facility of the excellent and noble thing Amongst the rest first of all In-bred and Native Heat offers it self unto our consideration as also Spirits and first-begot Humidity and Nature which are of a more lofty consideration It is a constant and ratified sentence amongst the Philosophers that all living things live because of the heat included in it and by the benefit of it they attract aliment and do perfect it and therewith are nourished and augmented and do procreate their like Furthermore living creatures by the benefit of this heat are affected with sense and motion and by how much these works or creatures are more perfect by so much they have a more abundant force and substance of this heat The living bodies of this inferiour Globe are divided into three orders Animals Vegetables and Minerals though many have denied life to be in any Mineral notwithstanding they have shewn manifest signs of life unto those which have
inbred and Native heat It is also the first substance which they call the First-begotten moisture for it is the first and common to all living things in which the spirit perfused with heat primarily and by it self consists so that neither of them can endure long without the help and vertue of this humour for there is such an agreeable conspiring harmony and continual affinity amongst them so that they work mutually neither can any of them effect any thing being destitute and deprived of the help of the rest The Radical matter is as it were the Original and nourishment of the Heat for the heat is sustained by the benefit of it This Heat is as the principal efficient cause the Humidity is subjected to the heat in the place of the matter and suffereth more from which we may at the first behold as it were in a glass that the Native heat is the Radical moisture perfused every where with inbred spirits and heat And this is the whole substance of the sounder Galenists as they call them of the which we have sufficiently spoke Now it followeth that we handle of Nature CHAP. VI. Of Nature PLutarch a grave and learned man saith that the knowledge of truth is so amiable and delectable that our very being and act of living was given unto us for the knowledge of the truth Seeing therefore that it is elsewhere firm and stable but especially in Philosophy it is judged to be ratified firm constant and stable therefore I say it is to be weighed more deeply in our judgments lest that we be thought only to follow the shadow of Nature the image of light being left behind our backs and also lest that the inquisition of truth being posthibited we do fall into errours which cannot be avoided and so make our selves unwotthy of our life and office Certainly if we consider Aristotles Philosophy and the difference of the Nature of things and examine this well in a Philosophical ballance Aristotelians will seem unto us to be like Children which hold nuts in their hands but yet they are ever busie about the shells and never taste the kernel First we will bring the definition of Nature into light that it may throughly be understood of us Nature is the beginning of motion and of rest in that Aristotle in the second Book of Physical auscultations cap. 1. Josephus Michaelis in his Chemical apolygy p. 21. The Nature of every thing is nothing but the Commandement of God by which all things are that they are and do that they are commanded to do At his bâ—ck the Elements observe the prescribed Law and the Heaven and Earth do obev The substance and essence of Nature is inbred heat thing in which it is primarily and by it self and not by accident What doth he mean by this definition of Nature for it makes nothing for the knowledge of the very substance of Nature For though thou say unto me that Nature is the beginning of motion or that which moveth all things nevertheless it remaineth as yet unexplained and defined what the substance of Nature and what the essence of the Movent is from whence all actions proceed which are comprehended under Motion But these are the subtilties of the Peripateticks by which they bring counterfeits unto others but let us let them pass lest we be thought to contend with shades and ghosts and let us convert our speech to those which have searched forth the very essence of Nature and have contemplated the very truth thereof and have as it were handled it in their hands and seen it with their eyes with whom we profess that the substance and essence of Nature is Native and Inbred heat which before we have described It hath conformed and augmented Animals Vegetables and Minerals from the beginning and as it were nourish the cause of all natural effects Therefore Nature as likewise inbred heat comprehends three things namely Radical moisture Spirits and Heat All these ate generated of one seed and at one generation This is that Nature in which the seminary causes of things are secretly contained In which the Philosophy of the Platonicks triumphs Aristotle and Galen and their Sectators which writ the precepts of Natural Philosophy doubted not that there was a certain Nature with us and that well known and that which all conclude to be the vulgar principle of Philosophy which neither ought nor can be demonstrated which only we comprehend in mind and understanding Galen brings Hippocrates to confirm this in the ninth Book of the Opinions of Hippocrates and Plato Hippocrates durst not affirm what the substance of Nature is in the conforming and governing of us and that it was the workman and cause of us But Galen durst in his Book of Diet where he saith that Fire Hippocrates understands by the name of Fire Nature it self can move all things generally and that Water can nourish all things and that these two things are sufficient for all things and for themselves but neither of them separately is sufficient for it self or others in which words he manifestly declares the essence of Nature and the substance thereof in that he signified Nature by the name of Fire which moveth all things universally He calleth the essence and substance of Nature Water which nourisheth all things wholly for it is received from the more profound Philosophers that all natural bodies are nourished by this natural Balsam though not pure but mixed with diverse impurities so all nutriments are spiritual and humid after the similitude of seeds which in the beginnings of generations must be spiritual and humid But he expresseth his mind more plainly by much in these words These two are sufficient both for all others and for themselves but separately they are neither sufficient for themselves or others What meaneth he almost by this divine Oracle but that these two Fire and Water that is Nature and Essence to constitute all natural things from which they have their name But separately they are neither sufficient for themselves nor others that is neither Fire without Water nor Water without Fire or otherwise neither Nature without Essence nor Essence or substance without Nature can subsist And this is that which the Philosophers call the hot and humid temperament of all things Namely to continue in their state though perchance that one thing amongst the rest do prolong the life for many years So that many have supposed that it was not able to continue or consist seeing that continually without intermission of time the humour is consumed by the force of the Heat so that in a short time the Heat remaineth single in the place of the hot and moist temperament and at last it is brought to a hot and dry temperament Again the humour being consumed and wasted and the Heat being destitute of aliment by little and little it fadeth away and driness altogether succeeds and also the heat being dis-jected and cast forth of it and
Mercury is called the Renewer and Restorer of mans body So also the Antimony of all the Waters is the best Cordial in which so great power and vertue of Balm is occultly contained so that it is able to cure all desperate and deplored Diseases as well sharp Diseases as Chronical What shall I say of Vitriol which alone is able to cure the fourth part of all Diseases and to root out altogether all Tartareous Diseases I let passe Sulphur indued with infinite properties and Sal-niter which helpeth and cureth the greatest Diseases beyond our expectation so also I let passe Sol and Luna Margarits and Corals and other Individuals of this kind The Minerals demonstrate their Vital qualities with such a vertue of their actions and they demonstrate the differences of the Vital qualities that is of the first qualities from which all actions proceed from them Paracelsus fetches seeds which are Vigent and bear sway in the Treasures of the Elements for to administer the Worlds province and that they might come forth into aspect they do unite with the Spirits but yet with such Spirits as of which bodies may be constituted and compounded And this Wedlock or Union is the connexion of the seeds and principles Afterward when as they have found forth fit Matrices and Receptacles for every Element bringeth forth the Fruits not in his own proper place but in a strange or unusual place they admit rather the company of visible bodies than of compound and mixt bodies Then the Elements constitute not the common bodies but the bodies proper unto the Minerals In like manner the principles of bodies that is Mineral Sulphur Mineral Salt and Mineral Mercury do constitute Mineral Fire and Mineral Air Earth and Water and this is the union or connexion of the Elements and Principles These being absolved and perfected they produce all Congelations Colours Signatures which are Vegetive in the seeds stars or Vital principles thereof and they demonstrate Metals or Minerals very nigh unto Metals In our Astral Philosophy it it said that there is a corporeal Second part cap. 2. life in all things which lie hidden in the Centre of the Elements which life is subject to the wills of workmen by wonderful Providence and Wisdom of God For the mechanical Spirits or Soul hath made a firm and constant union or connexion with the body but yet not with the external Crasse and last bodies which are altogether unvalid and unfirm but with the internal aed sâ—irituâ—l bodies which are destinated unto properties Furthermore those which have their Roots fixt in the Centre of the Elements live obscurely be cause they are not distracted with the offices and varieties of actions neither serve they for sense and motion But those which live obscurely have a common Hermophrodites seed agreeing with many Spirits that is the Nature of all things living obscurely and lying hidden in the Centre of the Elements is so framed that they participate something of all kinds of their kind and for the Harmony Society and Constellation of their Nature they most easily conspire These things are illustrated and made more plain by examples Alexander a Suchlen in a certain Querâ—itanui against Anon p. â—4 Treatise of Antimony writes that he found in one Root of Antimony not only three united principles the Roots of Minerals but also Gold Silver Mars Jupiter Saturn except Venus So from Venus and Mars Vitriol is drawn by art from Metal Mineral is drawn and contraiwise This is that which Severinus Davus pag. 124 saith by the great power of Nature we have wondred and admired in the seed of the Minerals not only the unexpressed variety of the Sex but also the united principles of the Individuals and Spirits in one and the same seed These are the mysteries and secrets and wonderful things of God placed in the Majesty of Nature Let these suffice concerning the Generation of the Element of Water Now we proceed to the Generation of the Element of Earth and we will intreat of Vegetables All Vegetables are those which have Roots fixt and fastened into the Earth and are sustained by a Vegetive Soul Furthermore Plato called the Plants Animated or Vegetables There are especial differences of Generations in regard of the Elements and of the seeds The seeds and stars are ever the same in Nature Virtue and Essence but the Elements differ much amongst themselves in subtileness and moveableness as the Element of Water is more subtile and moveable than the Earth so the fruits and things generated from it are more subtile moveable valid or firm and more excellent than the fruits or things begot from the Earth From hence it is that the seeds of Vegetables have a clammy soft crass body in respect of the Minerals and Animals whose seeds are more spiritual and subtile bodies Concerning the manner of Generation of Vegetables those which proceed of their own accord without mans industry have almost the same manner of their Generation with the Minerals for the seeds of Vegetables rise forth of the Matrix of the Earth and at first unite with the Spirits and so constitute their principles Vegetable Salt Vegetable Sulphur begot Vegetable Mercury Vegetable Water and Vegetable Fire Earth and Air. But this is to be observed which is most worthy to be noted that the fruits or effects of every Element retain and reserve the properties nature and conditions of the Matrix in which they lie hidden from the beginning and they never depose them So Paracelsus in his third book 2 Chap. of degrees brought this difference he made the fruits or the effects of the Earth to be of the first degree the fruits of the Air to be of the second the fruits of the Water to be of the third to the fruits of the Fire he ascribeth the fourth degree where he adjoyneth these words he laboureth in vain whosoever he be which would get the quintessence out of Earthly things which is like to that which is got forth of Air. In like manner that quintessence which is from the Air cannot be compared to that which is brought forth of the Water upon this Sentence so it is to be judged of the fourth Element Concerning the extracting of the quintessence forth of the herb Chelondine it is not that thou labour to attain the quintessence of Gold by the quintessence of Chelondine though there be more secret in Balmemint Chelondine and Valerian than in the rest only so far proceeds the degree that the secret may excel in many parts so that in every degree one Element exists higher than another wherefore it is to be observed in things made of Earth whether the Chelondine excel the Balmmint and whether the Balmmint excel the Valerian so likewise it is to be judged of the three other Elements The spontaney or free Generation of the Vegetables cometh nighest unto Nature and is almost like the Generation of Minerals excepting that the seed of the Minerals according to their
Plantation are not subjected to the wills of men neither do they conserve perpetuity as the Vegetables by propagation of Individuals The seeds of Vegetables are twofold The Astral seeds which are only subject to Nature Secondly Mineral seeds which are subject to the sense and will of man as of Barley Wheat Oats and other pulse which spring not but by Industry and good Husbandry In Plants there be divers manners of propagation but in Minerals at least there is but one manner and it is spontaney or of free accord caused by no labour of man Some Vegetables are propagated by mans Industry and Husbandry by material seeds or grains either round or three cornered or long c. Some Vegetables are propagated by Graffs as Vines some by Branches or Boughs as Willows very many from Roots pulled up There are divers times of the springing and rising of these seeds whether astral or material Some spring in Summer some in the Spring some in Autumn some in the beginnning middle or end of the Spring or Summer or Autumn some spring in Cancer or in Libra or in Virgo or in Leo and then come forthâ—nto the sight or aspect of men He will admire the confluence of Nature which marketh the springing and budding of Plants at the rising and setting of certain Stars There are also certain fit places required in the Generation of Vegetables as the Poplar tree and the Willow and Arsmart love the Waters the Trifoil Ragwort the Coslip and Melilot the Origan and the herb Groundpinn love the mountains of which Virgil in his 1 book of his Georgicks writes thus here will good Corn rise there will Grapes spring plenteously and in another place good Apples will grow and flourishing Grasse And again in the second of his Georgicks he saith every ground cannot bring forth all fruits The Willows spring at the waters side the Alder-trees in the foggy Fens the barren wild Ash-trees grow on stony mountains the Sea shores are most pleasant with Mirtles our Ladygloves affect hillocks the Yew-tree loves the Northwind and cold of the Air and he addeth the cause in the second of his Georgicks for surely it is only Nature This is by reason of the temperament and friendly conspiration of superiour and inferiour things for the seeds having an in-bred knowledge do all Fructifie as Seasons and in their places for the constitution of the air is otherwise about the waters or flouds than in the valleys in which the Sun-beams by their great power cannot peirce and temperate the turbulent and crasse air The constitution of the air about little mountains is divers from that about great mountains for the conspiration of the superiour and inferiour things is chiefly to be considered in the Generations of the inferiour Globe if that the prevarications of the confluences and the dearth of Corn bring great defect There are three especial differences of Generations in this inferiour Globe of Minerals Vegetables and Animals In the Element of Water four kinds of fruits appear Salts Minerals Gemms and Stones by one name called Minerals There are only two kinds of fruits from the Element of Earth Plants and Trees called Vegetables which being explained we will descend to the Generation of Animals The vital principle of the Nature of Animals is grounded in a certain Radical matter namely in animal Balsam in Suphur and vital Liquor which two namely the vital Principle or native Heat and radical moisture or first-begot moisture have made a constant and firm Wedlock or Union as we have demonstrated in our Philosophy de calore native This first matter of Animals though in spiritual subtileness it excel the Balsam of Vegetables and Minerals neither is it grounded in a matter subject to the wills and judgment of man nevertheless it hath most effective tinctures in it in which as though in mechanical spirits the knowledge of the anatomy of all the parts of the animal are secretly contained for the least dram of the seed contains the anatomy of the whole kind because the mechanical spirits and Principles of the bodies are taken from the Dimensions and Straitness of bodies that is the First matter or stars of animals is not subjected to Geometrical Demonstrations Here the Aristotelians contend that this seminal matter is only contained in the anatomy of the Testicles Hippocrates saith that seed is derived from the most strong and forcible Root of the whole animal he testifieth it by this note because so little matter being evacuated there are made very great mutations and great losse of the strength in the body There is nothing in the body more strong than the animal Balsam or vital Sulphur Hereupon Paracelsus in his book de sagaci Philosophia calls this Radical matter the quintessence of Lmibicagaster From hence the Philosophers called the seed of Animals the viridity of Nature and the flowr of strength though we deny not but that the crude and imperfect matter which is in place for a covering wherewith the mechanical spirits and principles of Generation are invested is perfected and digested and brought unto maturity by the perfecting of the members of Generation otherwise Generation were frustrate and in vain not by the inconstancy of the mechanical spirits and vital principle but by the imperfection and debility of the bodies This is the true original of seed and the Nature in Animals From these it appeareth that the seed the Animal Balsam is not only contained in the Testicles or Brain or Sperm of the marrow but that it is diffused through the whole body that is through the whole anatomy of the Animal and it is the vital Liquor the Radical matter the First matter for these vertues and faculties which have flown forth of the whole body especially out of the principal parts together with the spirits do inhere and remain in that matter of the seed being prepared and perfected in the Testicles and are as it were the mistresses or workers of procreation Aristotle contends by many reasons that he might shew that women neither have seed nor do emit or send forth any in the Venereal act But the contrary may be taught especially by this reason because women have Testicles and Vessels for seed all which if Nature did not make them in vain as it makes nothing in vain have likewise a faculty of generating seed attributed them which is the cause thereof The truth of this matter is proved by the testimony of sense for it is seen in women which have longer refrained from coiture that their seed would flow about the Vessels being cut as well as in men but in the Testicles there is a more crass and perfect seed because women will confess that by dreams their seed is sent forth with no less pleasure than in coiture In widdows and those which have longer abstained from Venery by dreams and by tickling of the privities abundant and crass seed will burst forth This is not only confirmed by the whole
testimony of the senses but humane nature doth abundantly confirm this unto those which know it From hennce it is collected that the seed of woman concurs unto Generation because a woman afflicted or pained with the falling Sickness Stone or Gout in the Legs brings forth Children affected with those Hereditary Diseases Lastly because the Child is very often like the Mother which things the Mothers bloud cannot effect but the seed which is diffused from her Furthermore neither the seed of the man nor of the woman can effect any thing by it self being solitary in a perfect Generation but the conflux and true mixtion of both seeds are required unto perfect Generation for the mixtion being frustrate Generation decays The motion of Generation in perfect animals in which there is a perfect distinction of the Sex of male and female is a wise and provident Nature of things inciting and stirring them up sometime to the propagation of Generation lest that the whole kind should decay and it hath injected or put lust as a prick into them both from the heat of the seed and it hath given a pleasantness or wonderful desire of coiture unto the privities that they might bring their seed into one otherwise they would be altogether unprofitable which concurring and rightly conspiring the seed of the male and the female received in the womb are mixt with a mutual embracing for spiritual things are agreeable and do conspire and arise from one and the same Root and they have the same gifts for like do congratulate and delight to be with like and domestical things with domestical things having the same faculties or sciences and signatures After that they be mixt the womb contains them most closely and hideth them in her bosoms holding it so closely on every side that it suffers no space to be empty within and also it contracts and girds in it self and doth so straiten or compress and shut the mouth of it that is it doth so much rejoyce in the friendly guest received so that it will not open at all But the mouth of the neck of the womb namely the outward mouth sometimes lies open unto the privities The womb hath two mouths which thing Cribatius demonstrates 23 Aphorism and 6 book for the seeds being permixt and conceived in the womb there is the same force and the same nature in them both And because the mechanical spirits and Radical tinctures have brought with them the abundant store of vital heat as the motion of these spirits shall forthwith appear though it be obscure so the offices of the heart and arteries will forthwith appear and by their vital pulse attract aery and spiritual aliment through the hidden ways or passages according unto the science and power of the mechanical spirits for all things do appear unto Nature as Hippocrates witnesseth Furthermore the more small or pure and hot parts of the seed and those which more participate of spirits or spiritual tinctures do fly inwardly into the midst of the whole mass but the more Crass or Earthly parts of the seed do compass and go about those spiritual spirits from which the mechanical spirits do produce the membranes which wrap the Child These are the first Rudiments or Grounds of Generation of Animals But here Galen Fernel and other Aristotelians contend with Hippocrates and contradict him in that in his book de locis in homine he compared the nature of the seed to a simple uniform circle in which any man can neither find beginning or end and that so far forth as it pertains to the varieties of corporeal parts subsisting in act in the seed But surely the Aristotelians say this spirit having faculties and being the instrument of Nature frams three Jewels like pellucide drops of water in the midst of the animal which make immediately for themselves certain Rudiments and beginnings of the three principal members Heart Liver and Brain They have not considered and marked the mechanical Lythargy of Generation and the artificious administration of the seed neither have they understood the power of science from which all things arise But they have feigned corporeal Rudiments or beginnings of the parts in the seed especially of the principal members which being separated by the heat at length they manifest and demonstrate members whose beginnings they had obtained Hippocrates in his book de locis in homine in the beginning hath Confirmed and Established this his Opinion saying that he found nothing in the body to which he might ascribe beginning or ending for if he described a circle who can find beginning or ending Furthermore seeing the nature of the seed is altogether spiritual and hath such nutriment with it unto the matrices we ought to imagine that there be dissimilar parts in the seed so that the body of the Brain should be one and the body of the Heart another and the body of the Liver another but we must think that this multitude of parts in the progress of time rose from the same seed and not from the mass or multitude of bodies but from the variety of the gifts means powers and faculties in which the mechanical spirits excell The faculty of the mechanical spirits is so great that if they had the science or faculty of the Heart they would make and conform a heart from the attracted aliment if of the Brain they would make a Brain if they had the faculty of the Liver from the same aliment they would make a Liver flesh veins bones sinews arteries eyes ears and all members which are needful for the constitution of an Animal and this they would do in a right order and at set times That is theperfect science of the seeds and stars full of power which they say bear sway in Nature and all creatures confess the same In this science all signatures as well interiour as exteriour of the whole animal are contained This is the light of Nature and the Predestination so often reiterated of Paracelsus But now afterwards all the parts of the whole Animal shall be dissolved and separated in a legitimous and convenient order more solid and abundant aliment is required neither do hidden passages suffice Again the membranes waxing crass and thick daily in which the Child is wrapped forthwith in these membraâ—es veins and arteries are framed by the Navel which are fastened to the womb and subminister and convey spirits and aliments unto the Child untill every part be conformed and wholly perfected and consummated The Aliment attracted is spiritual even as all Vegetables and Minerals are nourished with most subtile spirits in which there is animal Balm agreeable to mans Nature Hereupon aliment of Paracelsus is called seed with which that of Hippocrates agrees We are nourished of the same from which we consist In this animal Balm are the Elements and the three beginnings of bodies Salt Sulphur and Mercury as we have demonstrated in our Philosophy But here a most gross untruth of the
most grievous Diseases Whereupon with Paracelsus and other true Physicians this being of poison is celebrated to be almost the most noble amongst other beings of Diseases Of which being of poison and more common cause of Diseases we will more largely handle in the differences concerning the Generation of Diseases This general Transplantation contains in it a spiritual Transplantation in regard of the tinctures which bear sway in all the Elements The spiritual Transplantation is twofold The first is the Transplantation of Individuals The second is of the kinds The Transplantation of the Individuals is in which the utmost Signatures are only changed as Colours Smells Tastes Magnitude Figure c. yet this transplantation is not to be read so that it be not made with the superadded tinctures of the Elements but by Seeds Stars and Roots of the same kind as Vegetables with Vegetables Minerals with Minerals c. Seeing there be many seeds in Vegetables in which the Sciences and predestnated gifts of many Individuals are conjoyned which by the judgment of the sense do seem to differ in some sort in kind it is no marvel if that they pass into new Familes by a light moment Severinus p. 141. as if Watercresses be transplanted into Mint Rape into Radish the herb Imperatoria into Angelica This Transplantation is neither to be ascribed to the tinctures of the Elements nor being of Poison but to the Star Seed or Root of Mint Radish Angelica and to the Roots of Watercresses Rape and the herb Imperatoria by the perfect mixtion of the Individuals superadded In this Transplantation the power of the Root and his family or kind remaineth and sheweth certain signs though it be very much changed The Generation of Gemms is a Transplantation of this kind which are produced from the first and common Root of Metalls the Stars Seeds or Roots superadded and concurring So from the Roots of Lead the Adamant is transplanted from the Roots of Gold is the Saphirus transplanted from the Roots of Copper is the Smaragdus transplanted from the Roots of Iron is Berill transplanted c. Those which are spoke of the Stars Seeds and Roots of Transplantation namely those which manifest the anatomy of death and dissolution are not to be understood of the Transplantation of the Individuals but of the general Transplantation and of the kinds nevertheless the general Transplantation is also to be referred unto the Transplantation of Individuals for no natural body or which is produced of four Elements wants impurities or being of poison The Transplantation of perfect animals pertains also unto this Transplantation of Individuals for it is above said that a woman is a transplanted man for in the Generation of perfect animals if the Star Seed and tincture of the Menstruum concur and be indued with a strong power all the seed shall be adorned with properties and parts in the Menstruum If that the Star or Seed of the Male shall domineer it produces the Male and mans Members But here an Inquisition may be made how it comes to pass how Hermophradites are generated having both Male and Female members The answer is that if the Stars and Seeds of the Male as well as of the Menstruum shall be equal in vertue in the mechanical process of Generation Hermophradites are generated for that seed or star doth sometime predominate and hath the nature of the one forthwith it abounds with propension to beget man forthwith to beget woman That Transplantation which rises from the congress of animals of divers kinds is often barren neither can there be a natural Transplantation unless their seeds conspire with exceeding great Society and Consent for animals do difficultly admit Transplantation which are separated by the perfect distinction of the Sex Hither is referred the Generation of Minerals which hath as a Companion of Generation Transplantation adjoyned nigh the nature of an Hermophradite with Balm The Fruits of the superiour Globe are also obnoxious to this Transplantation and that if they be perfected at the same time and have conspired by the Society of the beams as Snow and Rain and there are made Transplantations of the bodies of the Fruits namely the qualities of the bodies being altered by violence frequency aboundance and diuturnity The Transplantation of the kind is where not only the external signatures but also the internal are changed and thereby the Root and First Matter This Transplantation proceeds from most valid and effective tinctures and only adheres to the Individuals of things that is to the beginnings of bodies Again it hath possest the very Root of the thing so that there is no further hope that these first Transplantations may be mended The tinctures of the Elements are proper unto this Transplantation and it differs in nothing from the general Transplantation of things but that the Transplantation of the kind may be caused by more valid and effective tinctures of the Elements but the general Transplantation is caused by more light tinctures The Transplantation of the kind and mutation of the Root appears in the Tare and in the Darnel in which Transplantation the Root of the Wheat is transplanted by the tinctures of the Elements into a calamitous chance Hither pertains Antimony and Anarchisite Sol and Luna It is to be observed that those tinctures of the Elements are not altogether disagreeable from the thing to whom they are superadded but in some sort they conspire with them though they endeavour for dissolution and make divers deceits against life for if they had not some affinity with the Roots Stars and First Matter of things they could not be mixed and so the Counsel and intent not only of Generation but also of Transplantation shall be anihilated and frustrate A true and Philosophical Explanation of all Diseases both Astral and Material Acute and Chronical CHAP. I. Of the Beginnings of Diseases GAlen and his imitators have made the grounds of Philosophy to be the Elements and Qualities adjoyned unto them and the Principles of the art of Physick to be the Humours These grounds and principles being laid of Philosophy and Physicks they make an easie compendious way unto the top of them without any labour and sweat But yet concerning the Spirits of Diseases both Galen and his Sectators are silent The power and force of which rise immediately The Reciprocal Nature of the Spirits is to be noted for the Material Diseases for Bodies are produced from Spirits and again Bodies are resolved into Spirits and the Beginnings of Material Diseases are spiritual that is vaporous which afterward end in Coagulation which in the curing is to be reduced into the First Matter that is into a vaporous substance from Spirits Winds and Vapours as Hippocrates testifieth in his book de flatibus where he professeth that all Diseases as well Astral as Material Acute as Chronical rise from Spirits Winds and Vapours Here we must have respect unto the Philosophy in which we have distinguished
the University of things into two Globes the Superiour and the Inferiour The superiour contains the Fire and the Air The inferiour contains the Water and the Earth The Properties of the Elements being considered we may more easily search forth the Nature and Properties of the Spirits for the Seeds and Stars of all the Elements do somewhat imitate the Nature and Poperties of their Matrix If first we consider the Fire we shall deprehend the most forcible impressions of the Element of Heaven as also most vehement impressions of the Element of Heaven as also most vehement impressions in regard of the power of operation unless they be tempered with the confluence of more benign and less violent Elements Water temperates the Element of Fire the next unto it â—â— Air and the Earth hath the lowest place CHAP. II. Of the Spirits and Stars of the Elements THe Elements are twofold Spiritual as Fire and Air and Corporal as Water and Earth Of these all natural things are compounded and are resolved into them again and from these they do not only receive life and being but also they receive nourishment from them for the conservation of life wherefore it is truly said of Hippocrates We are nourished by the same of which we are compounded though not actually yet potentially for all our aliment which we receive from the Elements is conveyed to the mechanical spirits of our bodies by which it is transmutated into the substance of our Balsam Nutriment is twofold by reason of the Elements Spiritual and Corporal The Fire and the Air do yield us spiritual nourishment The Water and the Earth yield us Corporal This nutriment whether it be spiritual or corporal contains in it three Principles and animal Balsam for the bodies of all the Elements consist of Salt Sulphur and Mercury Our first-begot spirit or in-bred heat or vital Balsam useth this spiritual aliment and it requires the resolutions and fruits of the Celestial and Aery seeds which are conjoyned by great necessity and this spirit doth not only receive alteration and refrigeration from this aliment but Substance Body and Nutriment yet such as is agreeable unto it In the Doctrine of Transplantation we have demonstrated that in all the Elements and first pure seeds of things there are permixt and implanted tinctures or roots or stars the Authors of Transplantations which induce and bring the anatomy of Diseases and Death into the Common-wealth of life whatsoever therefore receiveth and sucketh life and aliments from the Elements doth therewith receive Diseases for all aliments are seeds but yet permixt with impurities From these we collect that there are four stars or spirits of Health in the Elements so also stars or spirits of Diseases lurk and are closely contained in the Elements And these are in the Macrocosm In the Microcosin also there are four stars of Health and four of Diseases Paracelsus lib. 1. Param de origine Morb. cap. 369 ex tribus primis cap. 2. CHAP. III. Of the visible Stars of the Firmament COncerning that which the Astrologers say that the good and bad fortune of men doth depend on the fortunate or malignant aspect or position of the stars we will not stand on it neither do we reject or approve of their fictions and writings concerning Nativities or of the fore-deeming Astrology in this place Seeing we consider the nature aswell of fixt stars as of erring stars and by what means they cherish and conserve these inferiour bodies and how they bring and endeavour corruption and destruction to the resolved stars and spirits of the Diseases The stars of the Firmament which are the most perfect bodies and are represented by a visible form are contained in the other Elements in vertue and vital power for we see the Golden chain of Homer and the Society of the invisible nature with the visible and we deprehend it in the conspiration of the stars as well of Health as of Diseases In the superiour Globe we see the Fire of the Heathen Baths or Waters hot by Nature and we find the same poperties in the stars of the Heaven or Firmament and they are by so much more forcible by how much there is the greater difference of these Elements In the inferiour Globe we see Crystal and stones to be cold by Nature likewise we see some visible stars having the same property The Loadstone hath an attractive faculty the like attractive faculty is in many stars by influences These operations of the stars are not to be ascribed to the Heat or Cold of the stars but they are contained in the faculties and sciences of their principles of which they consist Concerning the offices of the visible stars they are created of God for signs and seasons that they may make day and night and that they may distinguish the times not that they confer any thing to the heat pulchritude nature and properties of Man or fruits of the Earth or Water as many Astrologers do trisle but that the Sun and the Stars should be as instruments of digestion even as our material Fire and our Vulcan for without the visible stars we cannot live seeing that the heat and cold and digestion and maturity of natural things which we use in our Meat and Drink are caused from them The more principle visible stars are seven Sol Luna Saturn Jupiter Mars Venus Mercury so likewise there are seven orders of the fixt stars of which every one is referred to a principal star so that some stars are Saturnine some Jovial some Martial some Mercurial some Solar some Venereal some Lunar which at the accomplished and decreed times do either produce many fruits of Soundness or of Diseases CHAP. IV. Of the Being of Stars A Being is a thing or substance which hath power to govern change and affect our bodies Paracelsus in param de entibus Morb. he reckoneth five kinds of these Beings 1. The Being of the Star 2. The Being of Poison 3. The Bâ—ing of Nature 4. The Being of Spirits that is of Enchanters 5. The Being of God These five Beings are five Originals or Causes of Diseases of which Causes every one hath full and perfect power of procreating all Diseases so that according to the Beings or Causes there are five kinds of the Plague five kinds of the Dropsie five of the Jaundies five kinds of Fevers and so of every Disease there are five kinds and not one kind of every Disease as Physicians have fasly perswaded themselves hitherto seeing that every Being is able to engender all the Diseases and as in the inferiour Globe of Water and Earth we see the fruits which generate the Stone the Tartar the Sand the Gout the Pining and the Dropsie so in the superiour Globe some stars have the same Properties and corrupting tinctures and seeds of Diseases and are able to produce all Diseases which thing Hermes Trismegistus the Father of the first sacred Philosophy testifies when as he saith It is true and no
lie it is certain and most true that that which is below is as that which is above and that which is above is as that which is below This saying of Hermes is not only to be understood of the Conspiration and Harmony or Conflux and Consent of the First and uncorrupted Matter or of the stars of Generation in both the Globes but also of the Conspiration of the superadded tinctures and stars of Transplantation The Holy Ghost confirms this Hermes his concord of the superiour and inferiour things and as well of the first perfect Nature as of the corruptible and superadded Nature by John in the Apocalyp where it is writ that Apoc. â— the star of Wormwood fell upon the Waters and made the Waters bitter for the Destruction of man Furthermore this star and other like in properties are The Transplantation of Water and Earth deprehended to be in the superiour sphere â—â—ars of the Firmament So also the properties of Arsenick Colocynthis Devils Milk and Scammony and all the properties of things and of superadded tinctures according to the sentence of Hermes and Doctrine of the holy Ghost are found to be in the superiour Globe and visible stars which properties are hidden in the bodies of the inferiour Globe We were ever happy Astronomers Philosophers and Physicians if we knew that concordance of Hermes then we could truly interpret that which God spake by Moses That they were for signs which thing we see with half shut eyes these Concordances being not known Certainly many Physicians do neither believe nor do grant that from the stars of the four Elements as from universal causes of all Diseases as well spiritual as material acute as chronical all Diseases do rise seeing that the stars are such clear beautiful and lucid bodies which do absolve and finish a certain Course From hence it appears that they only read the Writings of the Heathen and that they have lost the great book of Nature and the book of Philosophy and art of Physick and that they have not read the Bible from which as from a Fountain all Wisdom floweth for if they had read the Bible with judgment they would have found it in express words writ in Job that the stars before God are not pure but contaminated with impurities and tinctures superadded wherefore as the Earth for the fall and prevarication of the first man was Cursed and filled with thorns and briers even so the superior bodies the like spiritually which the inferiours receive corporally which Hermes and all real Astrologers confirmed by Experience do affirm CHAP. V. Of the Being of Poison in the Visible Stars SEeing that in the visible stars of the Firmament there are found not onely the form of the Wheat but of Darnel and not only the Nature and Properties of Gold and Silver Balmmint and Rose but of Arsenick Woofsbane and Poppy it follows necessarily that the Being of Poison is contained in the Being of the stars though it differ from the being of poison in the inferiour bodies because it is in the stars spiritually but in the inferiour bodies corporally for Paracelsus in his book de ente Astr cap. 9. writes that there do not more poisons exist in the Earth than do in the stars when as he says all the kinds of poisons which the fruits of the inferiour Globe of the Earth and Water do shew unto us are likewise contained the stars of the Firmament And furthermore he saith of those exalted stars poisoned with impurities and resolved seeds that they can produce all Diseases which these inferiour bodies by the being of their poison can produce for the original and cause of all Diseases is the being of poison and all Diseases are generated from poison Wherefore Physicians perswade themselves that all Diseases as well spiritual as corporal have their original and beginning from the spiritual or corporal being of poison The being of poison is rightly distinguished for the difference of the superiour and inferiour bodies into the spiritual in regard of the superiour and corporal in regard of the inferiour bodies We have said in our Philosophy that no Element doth bring forth fruits in his own proper place but in a strange place and that the fruits of the Firmament were absolved and perfected in the Air for as the fruits of Sanity flowing from the Firmament are absolved in the Air so also the stars of the Firmament do lay down the fruits of Diseases and Death in the bosom of the air that there they may attain the predestinated term and perfection But seeing that the necessity of the air is so great to all living creatures that they cannot want it for a moment It comes to pass that not only brute Animals do attract corrupt and infected air by breathing but also men for the aliment of the Microcosm as of the superiour Globe is altogether invisible and spiritual Hippocrates in his book de flatibus shews the unresistible necessity of this aliment The necessity of breathing is so great to all mortal creatures that though man abstain from all other things so that he neither eat nor drink yet he may live two or three days or moe but if any man have the passages stopped by which breath enters into the body he dies in less than a moment of an hour Again men may cease from other labours but there is no rest or ceasing from breathing granted to any Paracelsus in his book de ente Astror cap. 7. calls the Air a great Mystery but yet for some analogy or similitude for by the air he understands the stars of the air which give life unto all things And it is truly said of Paracelsus in the same Treatise cap. 7. that all bodies and Elements are preserved by the air but not by the air alone but by seeds and stars for all aliments and nutriments are seeds but mixt with impurities Neither is the air alone as far as it is an Element infected with poisonsome properties but that great Mystery from the resolution of the poisonful tinctures is Transplanted and transmutated which gives aliment to the vital Balm So that this aliment being received and the great Mystery being Transplanted and transmutated the animal and vital Balm is also infected whereupon follows the Transplantation of the body into a calamitous chance Although this aliment be invisible and want external signatures by which they make differences of the aliments of the inferiour Globe as Taste Solidness Crasness Tenuity Clamminess Heat Easie or Hard Digestion yet it is not destitute of the interiour signatures for the spirits and resolutions of fruits of the superiour Globe are neither sweet nor sowr bitter nor sharp white nor black and very often admit or receive stinking smells In this aliment four qualities as the qualities or faculties of some poisons exist and triumph which neither by taste nor smell or any manifest qualities shew and manifest their occult qualities But pernicious resolutions are
onely deprehended and known from the affects CHAP. VI. Of the differences of Stars namely of the Benign the Mean and the Extreme hurtful IF the inferiour bodies be as the superiour which is confirmed by the Testimony of the Holy Ghost and of Hermes then all the stars in the Firmament do contain in them the anatomy of Diseases and Death but many are found forth whose resolutions are wholsome for in the inferiour Globe Nature hath set before our eyes Gold Silver Gemms Balmmint Roses Violets Betony Wheat Barley Wine Milk withall which Nature refreshes the vital spirits continually as with food and aliment Again we see the herbs and medicamental simple bodies Lettice Cassia Rheubarb Polypody or Oakfern Vinegar Agarick the herb Trinity Arsemart Cuckowpitle and others of that kind Lastly some do shew poison manifestly as Arsenick Wolf-bane Poppy Hemlock Antimony Vittiol Mercury Scammony Devils Milk Colocynth all which resist mans Nature and intend present death As the inferiour Globle yields unto us three Orders of all fruits of the Earth and Water common to things and kinds namely that some are wholsome unto men and necessary for life as is said of Wheat and Wine Some are indifferent and mean as is said of Cassia of Lettice Polypody and Rheubarb Some are altogether contrary to mans Nature as Arsenick Hemlock Woolf-bane Even so we distinguish all the stars in the visible Heaven into three Orders First some stars have the anatomy of Soundness whose resolutions are necessary for the health of Animals and they have also the sincere conditions of Nutriment neither is there any poisonful property found in them by sense or effect These stars answer in the inferiour Globe to Gold Silver Gemms Balmmint Rose Wheat Wine Milk Secondly some stars have tinctures and medicamental properties but yet lighter admixt in their exaltations and their resolutions which rise at the several times of the year and are frequent These stars in the inferiour Globe agree with Lettice Cassia Cuckowpintle Arsemart Agarick and others of this kind Thirdly some stars in the resolutions of the seeds shew the poisonful properties of Arsenick Auripigmentum Sulphur Woolf-bane Libberdsbane by manifest testimonies of the effects These stars in the inferiour sphere have these nigh and of affinity with them namely Mercury Antimony Arsenick Sulphur Woolfbane Scammony Ellebor the herb Devils Milk Colocynth c. From these it is manifest that natural things and fruits of the Elements as well of the superiour as of the inferiour sphere are divided into three Orders Into those which are benign and friendly unto mans Nature and into those which are indifferent and mean and lastly into those which are extreme hurtful and bring present death and destruction as all fruits of aliments and resolutions of seeds whether they be alimentary or medicamentary or extreme hurtful CHAP. VII Of the differences of Stars of which some Benign some Malicious THough it be not our purpose to handle of the differences of stars in this place and to explain their Nature and properties in particular Seeing that it belongs rather to Astronomy and Astrology notwithstanding seeing that this knowledge of stars in this Doctrine is especially required we will briefly say somewhat of it The first of all we must consider which Planets are benign which are malicious and hurtful and this of erring stars Concerning the fixt stars we have distributed them into seven Orders cap. 1. of this Treatise and that in regard of the Planets and dominant stars to whom the fixt stars do as it were serve and imitate the Nature of their dominant Planets That the benignity and clemency as on the contrary the malignity of the Planets might be made manifest we have divided the erring Stars or Planets into two kinds The clement or benign and the malignant The benign or clement Planets are the Sun Jupiter Venus Mercurius The malicious or malignant are Mars and Saturn The indifferent Planet is the Moon After the same manner the signs of the Zodiack are to be explained which the Planets or erring Stars illustrate and illuminate and for the Nature of the guests the Houses or Guesthouses are made friendly or malignant Notwithstanding for the most part they shew and exercise their malice in their proper houses as Saturn in Aquarius Capricorn and Libra which is the house of exaltation So Mars in Aries Scorpio and in Capricorn which is the house of exaltation It is to be observed that there are four triplicities of the Stars in the Zodiack and there are three signs attributed to every Planet which are indued either with good or malignant qualities by reason of the quality of their Planet Again those signs in the Zodiack are twofold in regard of the Elements Some are fiery and aery Some watery and earthly Saturn hath a triplicity in the fiery and aery signs Mars in the watery and earthly signs so that Saturn and Mars are thought to comprehend the whole necessity of things by their malignity for the Moon and Venus which otherwise are numbred amongst the benign and mild Planets when they are in the ends of Saturn or Mars they are made partakers of their malignity so that they are deprived of their good and friendly Nature unto men and take upon them the unfriendly Nature and malignant to their inseriours for these signs which are very much Saturnal and too much Martial are hurtful and unfriendly spirits naturally to the spirit so that we say the Signs or Planets are infortunate and contrary to mans Nature by Saturn or Mars unless they be in their Houses or Kingdoms that is either when they are there or have their Aspect thither either in Opposite or Quadrate We call the Opposite Aspect that which is betwixt those which are distant very far amongst themselves We call the Quadrate Aspect that when as one is distant from another the fourth part of the Heaven that is it is distant the third space of the signs and then the confluence doth somewhat mitigate the malice of Mars so Jupiter doth temperate the malignity of Saturn and bruises his poisonful glass The Aspect of Saturn or Mars unto the Moon exists every where ill and malignant And thus much of the Nature Property and Difference of the erring stars Now concerning the fixt stars and especially the signs All are not indued with poisonful and malignant properties manifestly but use and experience hath observed four namely Piscis Aquarius Scorpio and Cancer these are also malignant Pleiades Hyades the Constellations of Pisces which represent stupefactive somniferous Poppies and the Mandrakes tinctures as also the Sulphureous and Vitriol tinctures In like manner Bootes and Vrsae have the poisonful properties of Aquarius so also of Scorpio and Cancer The Satuâ—nine and Martial stars obtain the poisonful properties but more forcible and grievous of Auâ—ipigmental spirits Arsenick Armonial and Sulphureal spirits The revolutions or circular motions of these stars are made with great Eclipses and Conjunctions Hippocrates lib. Epidem
the passages of the Urine in subtileness because it is transmutated from volatility and spirituality into a Corporeal substance The office of the Lungs was to attract Air and Spirit and to make convenient spirit for the arteries and to communicate it unto them for nourishment when as the Tartar sticks in the pipes the Lungs are hindered whereby they are less able to undergo their Functions as they should from hence many Diseases are generated as the Asthma the Cough the impediment of Breathing or difficulty of Breathing the Hectick Fever and the Phthisis and other Diseases from which Tartar all the Diseases of the Lungs are generated The Brain hath a proper Ventricle in which the mechanical spirits are which are the Authors of Attractionâ— Retentions Separations Coagulations Digestions Diâ—tributions and Expulsions As the Ventricle properâ—y so called is the Corrupter and Destroyer of all Diseases in that it doth not rightly execute his Functions so the imbecility of the Ventricles is the cause of many most grievous Diseases of which ancient Writeâ—s never make mention Furthermore it is a great thing to know the spirit from whence all the actions of the Ventricles proceed If the spirit be infirm the members also being infirm corrupt and perish When the nutriment is conveyed to the Ventricle of the Brain the mechanical spirits of the Brain separate the pure from the impure and give the pure to the Brain for nourishment but expell the impure through the emunctory places as the nostrils so without the Brain in the place of the Ventricle Tartar is begot from whence rises the Phrensie Out-raging Madness and other kinds of Madness which Diseases the old Writers have ascribed to bloud and other humours The Generation of the Stone and the Sand in the Reins is the same The Heart attracteth his own nutriment and separates the impure from the pure the excrement is that in which the Tartar lies hidden The Heart lies hidden in his case from which it expells excrement The nutriment of the Heart is the most subtile the excrement is like to a drop of clear water Now then the Tartar being coagulated by the spirit of Salt in the case of the Heart forthwith the Tartar is begot from which Generation of Tartar many Diseases are begot as the Cardialgiâ— the trembling of the Heart and other Diseases which the Galenists do badly ascribe to the humours of melancholy and choler In the Gall also as in other excrements the Tartar of humours is found as likewise the matter of Stones if it be seâ—arated and not expelled the Tartar is begot in the Gaâ—l from the which Compressions Vomitings Cholick Passions and Suffusions of the Gall are caused In the cure of these Diseases it is to be respected especially unto the Tartar and little Stones that by dissolution they be reduced into their First Matter and be consumed not unto yellow or câ—lfish choler for all the Diseases of the Gall almost are generated from Tartar The Tartar or little Stones in the Gall expell the choler and cast it forth into the Ventricle or Intestines sometime into the Liver from whence arise the kinds of the Jaundies for every Jaundies which is not removed by medicaments appropriated and convenient got and made from Vegetables hath a familiarity and similitude with the Tartar and unless the Tartar be dissolved and reduced to his matter all health is dispersed The paroxism of the Stone causes Contractures Putrefactions Cholick Passions so also the paroxism of the Tartar or Stone in the Bladder brings with it the Jaundies of the Gall Cholick Passions Contractures Compressions the Vomitings of the Heart-strings and weakness and imbecility of the Ventricle So in the Spleen or place of the Ventricle there is begot a Tartar which begets Opilations or Obsâ—uctions and the Quartan for this reason the Galenists say that the Quartan is incurable because they know not the Tartar but they say that the cause of it is melancholy or adust choler and they endeavour in vain to expell it through the Belly the Tartar remaining CHAP. XXI Of the Tartar of the Bloud Flesh and Marrow THere are Ventricles in the Bloud Flesh and Marrow and all the parts of the body which are nourished where there is a Ventricle there is a fire of digestion and a separation of pure from impure where there is a separation of impureness from the pure substance there is also excrement and where there is excrement there is also Tartar either alone or else commixt with other excrements for through the whole anatomy of the body and in all the parts of it excrement is two wayes considered it is either Sulphur or it is Salt for in every aliment three things are be considered Mercury which is nutriment Sulphur which is avoided and expelled through the Belly and Salt which is expelled by Urine As those excrements first in the Ventricle are coporal so the excrements of the other parts are volatile and spiritual for after the separation of the Ventricle sâ—iritual and volatile excrements coagulate in all the parts of the body It is an established and confirmed sentence of all Philosophers that the nature of bodies and spirits is reciprocal that bodies are resolved into spirits and spirits are transmutated into bodies furthermore Flesh Bloud and Marrow have their Ventricle and Digestion Separation Excrement and Tartar Nature expells the excrement of bloud by sweat it expells the excrements of the Flesh by Urine from whence the Urine of Bloud is as Paracelsus The driness of the bones consumes the excrement of Marrow whatsoever remaineth comes and is conveyed unto the ligaments and concavities of the bones The nutriments of Bloud Flesh and Marrow are altogether spiritual and invisible but the excrements are visible and yet they are the most subtile of all the parts in the body In the attraction of nutriment of Bloud the excrement and Tartar was also spiritual and invisible as in the distilled and circulated spirit of Wine but yet it separates both the volatile and spiritual excrement in that they are excrements whether Sulphur or Salt by a most exquisite digestion of the bloud therefore the Tartar of the bloud is subtile but it is coagulated by the spirit of Salt and is resolved and reduced by the same There is a twofold Tartar of the bloud flesh and marrow either coagulated or resolved The Tartar is begot of the Element of Water whether it be from meat and drink and therefore obnoxious to coagulation and resolution when the excrement of Tartar is not expelled forth of the veins it becometh like to a corn of sand or like to the grain Rice so also without the veins and pores such like grains of Tartar are begot though they encline more to resolution notwithstanding if they remain longer under the power of the spirit of Salt they increase into a corporeal coagulation The filth or flegm of bloud is the excrement of it if that filth be more crass and be not
is the inferiour heaven the root and very essence of life called of Fernelius the implanted spirits for the body and substance of the reins attract nothing those which follow are included in a Parenthesis for it is said in Philosophy that the actions do not proceed from the parts and bodies but from the faculties inherent in the parts when the glew is separated from some part then presently it causes an insensibleness and a privation of motion from whence there rises either an Apoplexy or Paralysis for in the glew there is a sensitive and motive faculty and not in the members The kinds of diseases from the defect of it are the Apoplexy and the Paralysis of the tongue and the members c. The lethargy and the torture of the mouth Paracelsus de pest tract 3. cap. 1. saith that the gutta is begot of Martial poison so likewise de gutta part 4. fol. 154. saith that the gutta â—ises from the conjunction of the stars and poison from the disjunction The poison is accended from the fire of the Microcosm In the same Treatise he saith that plegm is only an excrement of the brain but the Apoplexy is not an excrement but a most subtile thing from the stars of the Firmament so in the same place fol. 148. The gutta in the Microcosm is a lightning in the Macrocosm for as the lightning melteth Iron the substance or body of the Iron yet remaining so the gutta melteth the brain not corporally but spiritually for it depriveth it of all sense and motion and also the heart and lungs as when wax is melted by fire and compact into a mass the parts remaining whole It smiteth from the crown of the head the exteriour members hands and feer and it burneth and consumeth the sensitive and motive faculty thereof so when it smites the tongue there follows a privation of speech yet the substance of the tongue remains but not the essence thereof for the essence thereof is a spiritual Paralysis which manifestly demonstrates the spiritual and astral essence of the disease whiles that the spirits do work against the spirits when the lightning of the Microcosm smites the Lungs there follows a suffocation The Lungs do not want an attractive sensitive and motive faculty so man is suffocated of the smoak of the lightning which we more often see to The lightning of Salt and Sulphur consists of two contraries it is accended from the water of the Macrocosm corporally but from the water of the Microcosm spiritually for the heaven in the Microcosm is spiritual be in the Macrocosm so when it smites the brain it melts the brain and deprives it of all sense and motion and then the danger of death is certain And thus concerning the Heart Liver and Eyes Chap. 6. de origine morb ex tribus substantiis lib. 1. paramir also the 3. book paramir de origine morbor aurium ex Mercurio tract 6. fol. 186. The Apoplexy What the Apoplexy is properly ought not to be called an Apoplexy but from the fundament of the medicine Cachymical and sublimated Mercury as Auripigmentum is the cause of it But how can Mercury be the cause of the Apoplexy when as Paracel saith that it is a kind of gutta but the cause of gutta is a lightning the cause of the lightning is Sulphur and Salt as two contraries in the Academy of Nature by a favour and Patronizing of the community thereof The Apoplexy rises from seed or one or four Elements or from fire and water and sulphur salt and mercury many things are here united which sense cannot discern as are the seminal roots of bodies called principles and elements in which all things are conserved The sign of the Apoplexy is froth and a suffocation Signs with a contraction The signs of the Paralysis are the The difference of the Apoplexy and Paralysis alteration of a member and a stupefaction of a part The difference of the Apoplexy and Paralysis is this The Apoplexy respects the principal members and whole body The Paralysis doth not hurt the principal members but only the four exteriour members and less principal parts as hands and feet The Apoplexy for the most part possesses the left side and vicinity of the heart for which I can find no other reason than because the extreme poison fights against the chief vertue and most strong fire of the heart as Hippocrates witnesseth when a lightning of the Microcosm Paracol defens lib. 3. parag 7 de gutta The sign of the Apoplexy from the brain The sign of the Apoplexy from the heart smites one of the more principal members it is hardly to be cured and restored for it is almost an incurable chronical disease Hippocrates affirmeth lib. 2. Aphoris 42. that a strong Apoplexy can no wayes be cured but a weak one may easily be cured for the heaven of the Microcosm is destroyed and all the concordance and harmony is violated But when it smiteth the less principal members then the disease though by Nature chronical is curable In the cure of the Apoplexy mundificative and clarificative medicines which mundifie and clarifie the balm the spirits and all the Elements are to be administred The cure of the Apoplexy is twofold internal and The Cure external The internal cure is that which is made by strengthning medicines The external is perfected by balms The internal cure is made by the essence of Gold Pearls Antimony Gemms Corals Stones the oil of the Crany with the spirit of Vitriol in the water of the Lillies of the Vallies by the Mercury of Gold and aurified spirits of Vitriol by the oil of Silver the oil of Sulphur and the oil of Sulphur and the balm of Sulphur The external cure is made by the balm of Bevers stones and of the Marigold of the Lillies of the Vallies Serpentine Elenum and Amber Paracelsus in his cures writes that he restored one having the Paralysis only by essence of Antimony A mystery in the Apoplexy is the solution of Pearls or oil of Pearls If any be deprived of his speech pour five or six drops upon the tongue and the power of speech will be restored so that he may speak by this means He cured many having the Apoplexy He said that the magistery of Pearls was to be administred to the apoplectick in the very paroxism without any delay he cured many by this means external remedies being applyed â„ž a little piece of the fresh Bevers stone and put it upon his tongue or under his tongue and as soon as the stone is hot the sick will be able to speak The Galenists give the same medicines in the Apoplexy and Falling-sickness A preservation from the Apoplexy Receive equally of each of these namely of Saunders either Citrin or Red and Sugar and mix them Prepare the true Essence of Gold aforesaid thus â„ž strong oil of Spanish salt well rectified by Alembeck therein dissolve Gold which hath
place of the Liver and afterward it is strained for a crass and incocted matter could not do this The Salt of Alume causes a blew colour The Dropsie in the Liver is caused from the Apostem viz. if pricking be felt in the right side not that the air undergoes the Apostem but because the air and circumjacent mass effects the Apostem the Liver is not putrified in death but makes cuttings when it begins to be cut or to have clifts death follows those clifts Lib. 1. param de origine morbor ex tribus substantits and cap. 4. tract 3. cap. 6. The Dropsie is a passion in the Liver caused from an alumish tartar by resolution of the proper nature so also somewhat black and crass Urine in the Dropsie signifies the resolution of the principal members or bowels so that death is eminent or present Thurnens in herbario sol 49. c. First remove the obstruction of the Liver by resolving Cure and consuming the obstructing cause All the obstructions of the Liver are removed by the essence of the common Mercury and Antimony Paracels l. 2. de viribus membrorum cap. 6. So also the spirit of Salt and common Vitriol Besides the opening Remedies give viz. the fat of Yew applyed to the Liver hot in a linen cloth The essence of Time cures all diseases of the Liver Paracels de rebus naturalibus cap. 7. sub titulo sulphuris saith that the obstructions of the Liver are abolished by these Take of the syrup of the roots of cicha in the morning with a fasting stomach but do not take it at night for so the obstructions would be augmented or take the syrup of the roots according to Fernelius Ale with Betony tempered cureth the obstructed Liver The subtilty of Camphora and Sulphur opens the obstruction of the Liver Thurnens in Pisone lib. 4. cap. 7. saith that baths open the obstructions Read Rulandus and Sheuriterus where you may see these hot confections remove the obstructions of the Liver and water betwixt the skin namely Dialacca Diacurcuma and Diacatholicum so also opening and apertive trochiskes viz. made of Rheubarb Liverwort The essence of Schordion is very good for the ill-affected Liver lib. 2. de viribus memb cap. 6. and Myrrh by long continuance the Liver begins to putrifie which putrifaction is cured by the water of the stone Eat-flesh Thurnens lib. 4. cap. 7. The stone cabrates cures the tumours of the Spleen and Liver Barth Anglus lib. 6. cap. 18. Read Galen de arte curativa lib. 2. cap. 6. Phrisius in speculo part 4. lib. 2. tractat 3. cap. 3. There must be a preparation of Silver administred to the debilitated and weakned Liver which Paracelsus delivers tract 5. praeparationum lib. 1. fol 50. Paracels lib. 1. param de curatione hydropis cap. 4. de origine morbor ex tribus principiis teaches that resolved Salt expels and corroborates nature namely that it may separate the pure from the impure as also that the resolved Salt in the body consumes by the vertue of Mercury In the cure of the Dropsie the oil or essence of Iron is very effective for it exsiccates the superfluites of the body and openeth the obstructions and corroborates the bowels Paracels cured the Dropsie by the Diaphoretick or Precipitated Gold of life The oil of common salt is a secret in the Dropsie a few drops being taken of it every morning Black Hellebor otherwise dangerous and to be feared is made very profitable and for good use by the spirit of wine and oil of Anise and may be given safely â—o Children for the Dropsie and all melancholick affâ—cts The Salt of Antimony given in wine is the great secret of the Dropsie so also Mercury being prepared to loosen the essence of Sulphur the Suphur of Gold that is the spirit of Gold the tincture of Corals the liquor of the Cedar the oil of Wormwood Read Theophrastus in his book de tempore The Philosophers stone cures all the kinds of the Dropsie Theophrast de tinctur a physic cap. 6. The oil of Vitriol in the water of Garden Endive the spirit or quintessence of Vitriol from Copper in Aqua vitae are effective The Ascites is cured by water out of the stone called Asâ—ites Eat-flesh so by the water of Vitriol Thurnens in pisone lib. 7. cap. 7. 9. Theophrast Paracelsus lib. 4. parag sub titulo de undimia tractat 5. lib. 1. praeparationum under the title of de Jove seustanno saith take of purged tinn â„¥ and of Antimony â„¥ ij let them be reverberated for the space of 24. hours extract from this matter a tincture and let the dosis be half a spoonful The Tympanites is cured by waters drawn forth of Tympanites Sulphur Pitch and Musk so also by the Barberry-tree the Bay-tree and Diamasonium the field Mint and thamarantha Thurnens in pisone lib. 4. cap. 7. lib. 5. cap. 24. 25. The Anasarca is cured by the essence of Sulphur Anasarca Theophrast as also by the essence of Corals and oil of Antimony let the drink of him that hath the Dropsie be well-water mixt with the spirit of Vitriol this water exsiccates much the water of him that hath the Dropsie The secret of Mercury of life cures all the kinds of the Dropsie being rectified and compounded in Aqua vitae and being administred it expels the peccant matter by sweat Read Alexander Benedict lib. 141. through the whole book So Barthol Anglus lib. 7. cap. 51. where he writes de sublimatione cheiri seu antimonii ex nigredine in albedineâ—â— saith that the sublimation of Antimony taken in wine of life cures all the affects of the Liver by freeing it from putrifaction and corruption so that it Paracels de virilus membror lib. â— cap. 6. may separate the pure from the impure and transmutate the impure chyle and make good bloud from which no disease rises and it renovates and restores the pure bloud by regenerating and transplanting the whole body and by removing all filthiness and Leprie The liquor of Kali or Mercury is a great secret of the Liver and Dropsie lib. 2. de viribus membror cap. 6. Paracelsus Secret Mercurius vitae aforesaid is thus prepared â„ž well purged Quicksilver sublime it from Salt Peter calcind Vitriol and Alume calcind take of what sublimeth only that which lyeth on the Caput mort which will be red as Cinaber sublime that red again by it self then dissolve it in an Aqua Regis made with Vitriol Tartar and Salarmoniac being dissolved distill off the Aqua Regis from it and the Mercury remaining sublime again so will it be white and crystaline and is Mercury Essencificate Take of that Mercury Essencificate and good Mineral Antimony ana grind them well together and distill the fat oil or Butter of Anâ—imony Take all that distilleth put it in a small glass Cucurbite and in Balneo abstract its fleme till the remaining
suffocation of the Matrix or Strangling of the womb Take the Fig of the flesh put Theophrast tract 2. cap. 4. it upon the coals and make that a smoak ascend through womens privity unto the Matrix Paracels lib. de Ictero cap. 3. fol. 356. saith that the liquor of the herb Dogs tongue and the secret of the water of Balmmint are very available Thomas Muffetus in his Epistle 279. perchance fol. 179. saith thou hast a singular remedy Take the mossiness of the Wallnut and dry them bruise them into powder and let there be given of it with two drops of the oyl of Amber I never found any medicine more excellent then this for this affect For the falling down of the Matrix take such a ball as children use to play with in Medows or gardens and rowl it or cover it with new melted wax which hath a string fastened to it somewhat strongly with which ball rowlâ—d in wax after the Matrix is inclosed and thrust in you must stop the fundament lest it fall down again in the next place take Balmmint Cumin Mint Crispa the red Mugwort Wormwood and red roses put them together in a bag and let them be boiled in distilled Vinegar of wine and put them hot in the fundament administer also the oyl of Mirâ—h and the spirit of Turpentine drops 4. in the water Nicotiana or Tabacus CHAP. XXXII Of the Arthritis Chiragra Gonagra and Podagra PAracelsus takes Podagra generally for every pain existing in the joynts of the bones or glew of the The Podagra is a disease which affects the less foot body The Podagra is a disease or being of tartar or a disease of Mineral salt or sour liquor Under tartar all the spirits of salt are comprehended And as the nature shall be of common salt sal gemmae and sal maris or sal alcali and of the salts of Vinegar Barbery and Acacia So the pains of the Podagra shall be and their signs shall vary The tinctures of salts are sour bitter salt and sharp and of the nature of Sulphur Pearl Niter Alume Medlar Nettle and Arsemart but amongst these the tincture of Niter and common salt produce most grievous and sharp pains The pains of salts of Pearls and Sulphur are more vehement than those of the spirits of the Alumish nature and sal gemmae Sour Alumish Styptical and Barberizated tinctures are the authors of coldness and frigidity The Sulphur and tinctures of the nature of Cuccopintle mixt with the spirits of Arsenick do cause redness heat inflammations and pulses This is it which Paracels sayeth namely that the Podagra is a Sulphur ascended and kindled in the glew also he saith that it is a coldness kindled in the glew of the body for Narcotical and cold tinctures being kindled with digestion and circulation present an adulterated Image of heat But how do these tinctures of salts come into the Anatomy of the body two ways or by two means 1. Either by a hereditary means or from meat and drink Seeing that the first matter of tartar is contained in the parent which as yet is not coagulated but spiritual and astral and as yet it exists strong and infects the balm and root of mans nature by vital and forcible impression and it comes to pass by hereditary transplantation that when the first rudiments or principles of the roots are implanted from the original that such Podagraes should arise because they are fostered in the most vehement and forcible element The Podagra is generated from the weak ventricle which separateth not rightly and hotter Liver if the matter of the urine be not â—ightly separated The Podagra is generated from meat and drink for the mechanical spirits of the ventricle cannot separate all the seeds of diseases from the aliments therefore there remains impurities which are conveyed to the glew of the body after a spiritual and vaporous manner together with the aliments And not only impurities tending unto resolution but also tartareous excrements destined unto coagulation the separation being frustrate produce corporeal stony cloddy or massie diseases diseases of the nature of Tophus Pitch neither is it difficult for the seeds of those diseases seeing they be resolved spiritual vaporous and permixt with the vapours of the aliments to peirce every way Seeing therefore such like seeds are contained in the Anatomy of the bloud and are resolved and flow with the seeds and persist or stay in the glew or balm of the hands and feet they make some manifest Sev. p. 271. marks in their passage before they come unto the matrices according unto the analogy or similitude of the spirits and purity of the glew or balm in the members by which they pass for if the vehemencie of the spirits be very great and tinctures very sharp terminating in an excrementitious coagulation and if the balsame or glew of the thighs and arms be infected or corrupted with consentany impurities or impurities of the same kind which are agglutinated about the membranes of the bones then are felt doloriferous fluxes in those places importing a calamity hanging over the suspected or infected parts The generation of the contracture is almost alike which appears in the veterated Podagras The resolution of the tartareous spirits sometime vexes the patients in the Arthritis which are driven and agitated through all the members upward and downward The cure consists in the cure of the Arthritis Concerning the cause of the Arthritis read Paracels tract 2. de malis ex tartaro cap. 2. The particular cure of it is made with the essence of Walwort the oyl of Juniper and the oyl of Hartstongue f. 271. In the cure of the Podagra there must be made a destruction The Cure abolishing consumption and resolution of the tartareous matter and that by resolving medicaments These three viz. dissolving mitigating and corroborating medicaments admit mixtion and may be absolved and comprised in one and the same medicament Paracels lib. 2. de vita long a cap. 1. saith that in the beginning all the matter of the Podagra is to be purged with a perfect and sufficient purgation and this may be made by the secret of Corals whereby the Flux of the Podagra is expell'd so that there is no place left for this assailing evil There is such vertue and force in this secret of Coral which is from the essence of Gold that it is impossible to be deprehended of a Physician but by purgation This purgation may be made six or seven ways according to the veteratness hardness or nature of the Podagra This Secret of Coral is nothing else but fixt Diaphoretical Mercury which emulates the virtues of Gold In the pains of the Podagra anoint the affected place with the oyl of Juniper and the pain will instantly be removed Against the Podagra in the beginning of the disease use the spirit of Vitriol For I have seen one troubled with this disease for
vinegar of roses and appropriated water When the impostumes burst forth let there be a plaister laid to made of Figs and fruits of Alkeck equally of them being bruised together so forthwith they will burst forth for poyson attracts poyson when the impostums burst and the poyson peirces unto the heart they are not poyson but are made poyson by reason of the Antipathy even as all antipathetical things if they be conjoyned degenerate into poyson The external sign of it is beheld from a line drawn from the centre of the Apostem unto the Heart Let inverted grapes if they be green be bruised if dry then macerate them in wine or distilled Vinegar and let them be put in and taken forth twice or thrice these grapes extract poyson from men and women which are far gon in the Ague and recover them again This secret and specifical virtue of this simple may worthily make us admire in regard of the efficacy of it against the symptoms of the Plague let him use in the constipation of the belly the extract of Rhubarbarum or Lysimachium let the poorer sort drink of the leaves of Lysimachium Those which have a Disentery or diarrhaea joyned with the Plague let them take in the morning noon and night of Crocus Martis in the extract of yellow Galingale untill the perfect cure Those which are exceeding hot let them take a linnen cloth and dip it in the water of Roses Vitriol and juyce of Fengreek and put it to the pulses and as soon as it is dryed up let him dip it in again for it extinguisheth the most vehement heat Quercitanus in his answer to Anbertus fol. 21. there is made a most commendable medicament of the true preparation of the liquor of the Cedar for the affects of the Plague CHAP. XXXIV Of the Leprie and the causes of it PAracels lib. 2. paramir de origine morbor ex tribus substantiis Cap. 4. saith that the Lepry is begot from exalted and sublimated Mercury by vertue of the native heat So in the 5 chap. saith that the The Lepry is an affection of the skin that is a deep and scaly roughness together with Itching caused from melancholy lying under the skin Leprosie and the Lepry and all the kinds of it are caused and generated from Salt Lib. 3. paramir de origine morbor ex tartaro tract 5. saith that the Lepry hath a liquor permixt with tartar whereupon the Paroxisme happeneth Lib. 1. de tartaro tract 4. The Lepry is nothing but a putrefaction from putrefacted seed because they are not loosened though they should eat of Ellebore and this is a principal sign of the Lepry that they are not moved with laxatives and when the urine demonstrates putrefaction by a stink it is a sign of the Lepry But these seem contrary when they are considered more accurately there is no dissention or contrariety for they are derived from one and the same fountain The Lepry is generated from the sublimation of Mercury even as in sublimation Mercury penetrates through all the pores and most narrow clifts of the glass so the liqnor of Mercury or matter of the Lepry penetrates through the superiour and inferiour parts of the body and appears in the skin with scales and filthiness The Lepry is begot of salt viz. the destruction which nature expell's outwardly hath a tartareous liquor commixed for the exulceration of the skin is manifest in the Lepry The Lepry is generated from putrefacted Sperm that is from inbred corrupted balsame from whence there follows the corruption and putrefaction of the whole body There are four Species of the Lepry the Leonina the Elephantasia the Alopecia and the Morphea lib. 2. de vita longa he makes six Species viz. Leonina The Eâ—ephant asis or the Leonâ—â—asis is a filthy and contagious Cachexia corrupting the whole body especially Corroding and Deturpating the face Elephantia Alopecia Thyra Morphaea and the Vndimia lib. 6. paragr he makes four Species of the Lepry according unto the four Elements as also he makes seven Leprys of the seven principal members The divisions and species of the Lepry though they seem to differ somewhat amongst themselves yet they are all grounded and conspire in one root but they differ in signs lib. 6. paragr de cura Leprae he divideth the Lepry into two Species and in the cure of the Lepry he saith there are two species of the Lepry viz. râ—d and white The white Lepry is so called by reason of the white cure the red is so called by reason of the red cure These are the signs of the white Lepry the white colour of the skin the stinking breath of the mouth the hoarsnesse of the voice and the dregs of the excrements are correspondent to the stinking breath of the mouth These are the signs of the red Lepry the ulceration of the skin the Serpigo with an itching and he puâ—tula The cause of the Lepry whether white or red is the destruction of Salt or balsame in the Microcosm The destruction proceeds from the being of poyson from poyson also putrefaction proceeds from whence all the species of the Lepry are The old writers said that The Cure the Lepry was incurable because they knew not the tartar Paracels lib. 3. paramir tract 5. shews the process and means of curing the Lepry and it is twofold 1. is of the preserving from putrefaction the 2. is of the cure of the Lepry Those which pertain unto conservation are the extractions of Antimony the essence of blood which is extracted from the heart vein the liquor of Pearls and Corals the specifical of the grains of Juniper balmmint Succory and Valerian Part. 5. fol. 273. The flowers of Antimony preserve the leprous from putrefaction ℈ s of them being taken once a week Those which pertain unto the cure are the vertues of Gold Minerals and Manna Turpentine and Silver with his kind Lib. 2. de vita longa cap. 3. Every cure of the Lepry is to be made by the regeneration as the transmutation of metals The regeneration of the white Lepry is to be made by the tincture of Silver and the regeneration of the red Lepry is to be effected by Gold as the Spagirians speak In the same chap. we affirm that the red Lepry may be cured by the Mercury of Gold the white may be cured by the Mercury of Silver Lib. 6. Archidox We have seen this in Lead and Antimony which they call the mine of it that they will cure the Lepry Leprosie Alopecia so also all scabs and scars Leonina Elephantia Thyriasis The magistery of Lead doth not effect this Lib. 2. Archidox de renevatione The first being of Antimony effects the same in the regeneration and transmutation of imperfect bodies which the first essence of Gold doth effect Furthermore by pains and industry all desperate and chronical diseases are cured the Lepry and his kinds by philosophical transplantation which in our Philosophy is called
regeneration of which we have spoke in the sixth Chapter CHAP. XXXV Of Lues Venerea and the causes THe Lues Venerea is that which is got Lues Venerea is a poysonful and contagious cachexia of the body accompanied with a hot distemperature of the same of the Leprous which in the exaltation of Venery is polluted and infected with a Whore because she had the bubo and because her menstruum began to flow forth in the time of coition from which the French Pocks are begot and proceed which hath invaded all Europe especially Germany This disease is very well known to men and women Paracels lib. 2. de origine morbor ex tribus principiis cap. 4. saith that the French Pocks is generated from the sublimation of Mercury which is altogether poysonful and penetrates and exulcerates the skin by a corroding violence In another place he saith that it is generated from corrupt blood and that truly for the poyson of Lues Venerea presently causes putrefaction from putrefaction there proceeds the corrosive being of poyson or the sublimation of Mercury or the separation of salt Concerning the signs of it read more in Paracel in his book de morbo Gallico Read also Julius Palmarius in his seventh book de morbis contagiosis lib. 1. 3. de Lue Venerea The Cure Paracel lib. 2. de vita longa Cap. 8. And in the kinds of Morbus Gallicus you mâ—y observe a purgation a cure and an observation of which these few are to be noted First purge the infected with the Pocks with Xeniotenium that is with â—â—â—â—cury prepared for the French Pocks whereby the cause of the disease is expell'd together with the peccant matter The Dosis and the quantity of this medicament is to be observed in regard of the patient Furthermore if the Pocks stick on the skin outwardly or if the pain of the joynts be more grievous anoint the body with the oyl which is extracted from Realgar or fixed Arsnick and the patient will soon be well and restored The Mercury of Gold is a most excellent remedy against the French Pocks So also common Mercury Theophrastus in lib. de morb Gallico and in his book de principiis cap. 6. So also it is cured by Diaphoretical Gold three grains of it being given in Pills Laudanum Mercuriale doth cure it It is also cured by the liquor of the Cedar Theophr in lib. de temperatur a tract 3. It is also cured by the oyl of Mercury Theophrast de signis Zodiaci in his preface It may be cured also by the Philosophers stone de tinct phys cap. 6. The spirit or yellow oyl of Fuligo cures Morbus Gallicus though it were in the extreme degree The said Laudanum Mercuriale which radically cureth the French Pocks â„ž Quicksilver well purged sublime it from Vitriol and Salt Peter ana what sublimeth red and lyeth upon the Caput mort grind well with as much sublimed Alume then sublime the red Mercury from the Alume take it out and sublime it again by it self so will it be free from any ill tast Grind it small put it on a bolt-head and pour thereon a well prepared spirit of wine digest them 40 days so will it become an oyl separate the spirit of wine from it in gentle Balneo and the remaining Mercury distill in sand with strong fire there will ascend a white juice which with that that sticks on the side of the glass distill over by force of fire again then will it be a heavy oily substance sweet of cast a universal medicine in the Plague and total extirpation of Morbus Gallicus CHAP. XXXVI Of Feavers and their causes WE have demonstrated in the general A Feaver is a hot distemperature of mans body sensibly hurting the actions thereof explication of diseases how impurities at the first Sulphureous nitrosities are carried through the whole body by a vaporous substance for there are such sulphureous nitrosities to be found aboundantly in the aliments which the separation and expulsion being frustrate at the set time and the flowers of nitrosul phureous roots they beget Fevers hâ—rrours heat rigour thirst head-ach such roots are contained in the Anatomy of all the parts of the body as intestines ventricle veins of the mesenterium liver milt reins glew or balm blood flesh and wheresoever there is made separation and digestion or the ventricle which we have demonstrated to be in all these parts The seed will still emulate the subtilty of the places elements liquor of the Cedar and mechanical substances which is of a sulphureous tincture mixt with Niter The seeds of Auripigmentum Mars Woolfsbane produce the Fever Auripigmental seeds produce a perfect inflammation with a Fever The circuits of the paroxisms of Feavers consist not in kind but in degrees because some seeds are more mature and ripe then others and nigher to resolution for in the fermentation of the seeds or resolution of the roots the circuits are numbred and the constant and firm decrees of the time are consummated which are inscribed salts They take their ordained stations either first second thiro or fift which being instant the proportion and continuity of the progress being conserved they execute their functions and offices Therefore after the first off-spring or resolution the first officâ—rs being consumed and spent the superficies and tinctures likewise corrupted if the second be nigh the superficies continuated or the tinctures be destined unto the term of maturity in the space of 24 hours if they can make the elements and principles of bodies which they are united to fit unto resolution in such a space they demonstrate quotidian circuits tertian quartan quintan sextan and monthly circuits of the year by the same reason the proportions of the circuits shall be observed as what like the proportion of the first is unto the second such like shall be proportion of the second to the third and of the fourth to the fift and so forward Oftentimes the circuits of paroxisms are transplanted by external impressions and that is when the tinctures of the interiour and more potent stars have conspired which conspiring admit equivocal generations because the roots of Feavers emitting from thence are Hermophroditical So the tertian degenerate into the quartan and quotidian and the quartan into the quintan again the erratical degenerate into the quartan Feavera nd the intermitting into the continual contra The Seminal tinctures of the impurities of Feavers are Homogeneous and Heterogeneous the Homogeneous are equally mature and by continuation of time are conserved in the resolutions of the fruits as in the burning Feaver Hectick Feaver Pleurifie Prunella and Plague and such like diseases The Heterogeneneous are those which contain the tinctures which are to be effected by the flourishing of the fruits some of them are nigher to maturity some more remote from hence it comes to pass that the mature parts doe fiorish for to day to morrow or the third day in which the lots of