Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	great_a	king_n	see_v	2,740	5	3.6171	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A18903	A true and admirable historie, of a mayden of Confolens, in the prouince of Poictiers that for the space of three yeeres and more hath liued, and yet doth, vvithout receiuing either meate or drinke. Of whom, his Maiestie in person hath had the view, and, (by his commaund) his best and chiefest phisitians, haue tryed all meanes, to find, whether this fast & abstinence be by deceit or no. In this historie is also discoursed, whether a man may liue many dayes, moneths or yeeres, without receiuing any sustenance. Published by the Kings especiall priuiledge.; Abstinens Confolentanea. English	Citois, François, 1572-1652.; Munday, Anthony, 1553-1633.; Coeffeteau, Nicolas, 1574-1623, attributed name.	1603 (1603)	STC 5326; ESTC S118585	35,171	122

of wood to be burned among others Lib. 11. Cap. 54. he was found aliue As for Plinie he is not perswaded that thorowe lack of eating a man should be compeld to yeeld too death at the seauenth dayes end Diogenes Laertius reciteth by the testemonie of Dicearchus that Pytha●or as the cheefe maister of abstinence continued fortie dayes together without drinking by whose doctrine also Apollonius Thyaneus learned by a long vse and custome to endure fasting for many dayes Lib. 7. Cap. 18. Plinie assures vs that drought or thirst may be surmounted by a constant perseuerance and that the Romaine noble Knight Iulius Viator hauing had warning by Phisitians in his younger yeares not to drinke any water at all by reason of a certaine indisposition in him leaning to the dropsie he turned the custome of nature in such sort as he passed his age without drinking Fresh yet in our memory and all Fraunce hath seene the same in the person of my Lord Marquesse of Pisani who is a man of such merit as the King himselfe imployes his seruice in matters of great importaunce There are many bookes of deuoute enstructions which doo recounte meruailes of diuers frequent and voluntarie abstinences as of P. Alcantara a Monke in Spayne and that for eight dayes and more in euerie moneth But beyond all others there is an historie very famous of a certaine Maiden named Catharine being in the soyle of Colherberg who hath bin knowne to liue seauen yeares together without drinking or eating any thing whatsoeuer She was carefully tended by Henry Smetius at this present Professour in Heildeberge and Ioh● Iac. Theod. Phisitians The 24. of Nouember 1584. by the commandement of Iohn Casimir Counte Palatine and since also to the same effect foure Matrones were appointed to keepe her companie as well by night as by day who with the Phisitians haue also acknowledged this abstinence to be most true Three yeares after this historie was traduced into French Printed at Francford by Iohn VVechel in the yeare 1587. with an aduertisement in the end that the Maiden as yet then liued in that manner without drinking eating sleeping or deliuering any excrements Besides all these Ioubert concerning this argument hath set downe such pregnant necessary reasons as I cannot thinke that any one needs to make doubt thereof Neuerthelesse being my selfe afterward to discourse on the same subiect I happened being in a Booke-sellers shop letting mine eyes wander ouer the bookes to be presented at my very entrance with a litle book bearing in the fore-head this title Fieri non posse vt quis sine cibo et pot● plures dies et annos transigat At the same instant I tooke the Booke which in regard it was written by I. Haruet a Doctour of Phisick and of the same condition with vs and as we are I read it very seriouslie frō one end to the other But comming to the place where he argues on the negligence of the Authours of so Pag. 74 many notable examples who he saith haue bin somewhat deceiued by the inueterate beleefe of this extraordinarie fasting I thought it good that he should be satisfied in this poynt and passed my promise thereon in the name of our Maide of Confolans albeit during so many moneths yeares I could not giue my selfe to consider all het actions and motions neuerthelesse it is very likelie by that which is sayd in all places of her concerning the three yeares fast now in question And yet such as haue seene her naked as vve haue done haue thought no otherwise if she be not changed since the last time I saw her which was in the month of Iuly last 1602. Some say that she is now a little more full of flesh yet she hath neuer receiued any foode at all that could possibly be knowne Beside this truth ought to receiue credit generally by the faithfull report of so many persons of honour and good qualitie who for trials sake haue kept her in their houses among their Maides children some for three others for foure months and more If any one be further desirous and would willingly see her hee hath free libertie the Maiden herselfe will not contradict what other proofes hee or any can make of her But in my mind Ioubert would haue receiued no meane contentment by the sight of an accident so strange for if to so many pertinent reasons hee could haue had but an eye-experience he should not haue had now perhaps Haruet for his aduersarie VVho being in the humor to combat against both sence and reason it may be it would then be the harder for him to vndergoe the demonstrations of Ioubert for they are vnderpropped with principles soundly assured and drawn from the oracles euen of the great Dictatour of Nature Lib de vita et mor. et resp Aristotle instructs vs that all kinds of creatures haue in them a certaine naturall heat which is combined to the soule with so strict a bond as the one cannot be without the other and that those creatures while they liue haue this hea● but death comming they are cold immediatly And Lib. ● de gen an Cap. 3. in another place there is saith hee in the seed of all creatures the thing that causeth facunditie and that is it which we call heat And further he saith in the earth and in the waters the creatures and plants doe ingender because in the earth there is a moisture in the moisture is a spirit and in this great substance is the animall heat to the end that all things should be somewhat full of soule Thus dooth he hold that all things are made by heat and that all functions are performed thereby Lib. ● ad Glauc Lib. ● de vsu par Galen is also of the same oppinion and saith that heat is either the substance of the faculties or at least the chiefe and most necessarie instrument of them It is no maruell then if Haruet thinks it to be strange that Ioubert saith according to Aristotle that life dependeth vpon heat only For that it must needes be so life is nothing els but an abiding or attendance of the soule with the heat according to the same Aristotles iudgment Lib. de resp and we cannot in this obscuritie of things find any more assured instance of this present life then by the functions thereof of all vvhich heat as the especiall instrument and without other meanes is the authour the cause motiue and effecter And Ioubert to no small purpose hath defined life by heat in that Aristotle hath consigned death by the extinctiō of the same heat for Ioubert groundeth on this axiome that of two contraries the consequents are contraries And Galen himselfe 1. De san tu who holdeth death to arriue then when heat being weakned and broken by frequent action becomes faint and that the temper of the elementary qualities which are in vs being out of square

comes to yeeld it selfe vnder the tirannie of one alone giues therby reasonably to vnderstand that the course of life keeps it selfe for so long time as naturall heat dooth aboundantly disperse it selfe with the radicall humour and that the elementarie qualities doe hold a good simpathie among them selues in their harmony kind accord which wee call temperature And therefore it is blamelesse to define life by these two causes that is to say heat and temperature because it behooueth to take the definition by the cause which is most neere Now heat is the most neere instrument of the soule the temper next that of naturall heat which disposeth and accommodates it to diuers actions Then this causall definition is well deriued from the chiefe and principall occasion of life which heere wee haue alleaged by the authoritic of Aristotle Neuerthelesse Haruet goes after another fashion he defines the life of man to be an action of the reasonable soule produced into the bodie of man but this definition is not subtile enough For first formost life is no action at all of the soule otherwise it should be the soule that liueth and not the body but life is an abiding as hath bin said or an vnion of the soule with the body according as Aristotle describeth in another of his bookes wherof soone 8. Metaph. after proceedeth action Heere I add that the actions of life beeing to vnderstand to smell to mooue and to nourish if life be an action then it were an action of an action which is most absurd Or els if life be an action of the reasonable soule in so much then as shee is reasonable the corporal parts should then be driuen to performe they● operations as receiuing foode for nourishment to beget her like onely by reason and the intellect not by any naturall sence But peraduenture Haruet hauing drawn his definition from others hath read that life is an act of the reasonable soule which word of act he hath conuerted into action Or act is that which the Greeks call E●telecheia which is a perfection efficacie and moouing power of it selfe far enough differing from that which they call Ergon And so one may to some purpose define life an act of the soule in the body that is to say a power vertue of the soule by the vnion thereof with the body VVhence is casie to be vnderstood that taking life generally it should rather be imputed to naturall heat as to the organe of the soule then vnto reason in case notwithstanding that this heat still abides alwaies vnited with the radicall moisture which although that day by day it be consumed by this heate yet neuerthelesse nature prouideth a subrogation daily of new which she borrows from the nouritures we receiue as it hath bin said already heeretofore But Haruet imagineth that these nourishments serue yet to another vse which is saith he to relieue fortifie the spirits the which I●ubert hath omitted as if vnder this name of radicall moisture we should comprehend onely moisture by it selfe not the spirits likewise And what is he who will denie that the spirits are not restored strengthened both by eating and drinking Yee haue in very truth great store of things heere chawed and eaten vnprofitably and to little purpose And of abounding that vvhich he proposeth against Hippocrates in the 14. Aphorisme of his 2. Booke is altogether paradoxicall to wit that hee in whom heate is most languishing hath the more neede of nourishment which hee proues by the example of a forty-yeeres aged man who saith he receiueth more food then any infant of two or three dayes in whom notwithstanding there is an aduantage of this heat according to Hippocrates himselfe Behold in my iudgement an argument very feeble if one should bring in all that he failes in if also we should oppose the organs of the twaine the one against the other For to the end that vnder this word Infant no cauillation may be couered I call all them Infants which are vnder 14. yeeres of age in the same maner as the Greekes do vnderstand this word Paidi● They I say that according to the proportion of their maw or little belly doe take more foode then men of middle perfect age as well by reason of the power of the facultie which seethes or boiles the foode whence proceedeth a speedie riddance thereof as by their frequent exercises during the which time good store of their substance glides it selfe thorow the pores into the skinne to the end I may be silent also in the two necessities alleaged by Hippocrates that infants haue of eating to wit for nourishing to giue encreasing to the bodie Now the strength of the facultie which boiles the meate in our stomack depends much vppon temperature and moderation but that is when it is excited and prouoked on by the heat natural which although that after one food is digested shee introduceth not then of herselfe any other nouriture as saith Haruet neuerthelesse because that this first is thus digested by heate there growes incontinently a feeling of penurie and want of foode at the mouth of the ventricle which we call hunger For this cause Ioubert referres only to heate as the principall agent the quantitie of those foodes which we take immediatly after and they are ruled by the appetite of hunger The facilitie of supporting Com. 2. Apho. 13. hunger saith Galen makes it selfe knowne thus when any one hath no appetite at all and yet neuerthelesse he feeles no endamagement or defect VVhich Haruet thus brings in that such as are restored from sicknesse haue a good appetite and yet notwithstanding no such meates are then giuen them as their appetite doth desire but when aduise is giuen for restoring of the powers it beho●es also to haue regard to the 〈…〉 of the naturall heate 〈…〉 is not to be any way iniuried but still supported This is thus done because that the temperature beeing not yet thorowlie reseated the naturall faculties feele themselues as yet to be diseased the organes cannot boile the foodes receiued in too great a quantity Now Ioubert in his demonstration purposed to speake of the healthfull not of the sick or else of them which are neither And therefore he concluds that olde men haue not need of meate often because they doo not desire or appetite often principally considering that they haue colde bodies whereto Haruet in no wise will agree for he saith that all the action of mixed bodies comes from the qualitie which winnes the vpper hand in the assembling of the elements So is it in liuing bodies heate ruleth ouer the other qualities of which heate all action hath his originall and not of colde I willingly admit the proposition with Aristotle so farre foorth as to mixte things inanimate or without soule which know the simple formes of the elements for their principles But in animate bodies hauing soules which haue a forme