of the Principle And that they may adorn the four Elements with qualities they attribute to every one one the highest quality but another a slack one and the Schooles command nature to obey their fictions Therefore they say that the Air is slackly bot because they will have it neer to the seigned Element of fire that is or because it borroweth that slack quality of its Neighbour and it changeth its proper and native disposure at the pleasure of its Neighbour and that impertinently while the speech is of native properties Or because it hath that quality of its own disposition and although slack therefore notwithstanding it shall also have such a Neighbour which thing is alike impertinent and naught And that they may prove the moderate heat of the Air they carry on the like foolish invention of an Antiporistasis or a compassing about of the contrary To wit that the Air in its uppermost part is hot by reason of a nearness of the fire and so they seign not an essential heat but a begged and improper one by accident and that nigh the Earth it is likewise hot from the reflexion of the Sun-beams Which heat is for a little space a stranger by accident and therefore a seigned property of the Air. But they will have the middle Region of the Air to be wonderful cold by reason of an Antiperistasis To wit because both parts of the hot air doth compass it about Whose like they say doth happen to deep wells they being cold in Summer and luke-warm all the Winter But I wonder at the deep or profound benummednesses of the Schooles and the drowsie distemper of the auntients 1. Because from this their whole Structure it appeareth that the air is generally cold but not meanly hot 2. For truly the fire is not an Element in nature and much lesse is it under the hollow of the Moon neither therefore can it make hot the uppermost part of the Air except by a Dream 3. For if the Air be hot by it self and of its Elementary property then is it alwayes and every where hot even in deep Wells 4. But if it be hot through any other thing proper of familiar unto it which makes it hot then besides that it should have something besides it self mixt with it from whence the Elementary simplicity of its own Body should cease it should also alwayes and every where actually be hot or lastly should be hot by reason of something applied to it acting by accident Which thing is impertinent as often as the thing to be proved is taken as concerning essential things Therefore if the Air be not by it self hot it must needes be cold by it self Since those two do subsequently exclude each other in nature 5. If the fire be never cold or moyst and the water be never dry so the Air can never be lesser than intensively or most moyst and slackly hot if the Schooles speak truth 6. They would have that to be the middle Region of the Air which is scarce distant half a mile from us being unmindeful of their own Doctrine To wit that the Diameter of the Air exceedes the Diameter of the Water ten fold but that this is greater than the Diameter of the Earth two fold which fiction being granted the Semi-diameter of the Air should be deeper than 570000 miles Therefore half a mile should be as nothing in respect of the middle Air. Oh ye Schooles I pray you awake For if the Air should of its own accord and of its own nature be hot by what cause at length should it be cold in its middle part For is it because its Neighbour on both sides is hot But then the Air would not propose to it self wrathfulness but rather joy from the agreeableness of its neere nature For why doth the Air put off its natural property because it did on both sides touch the luke-warm Air agreeable to it self For how shall luke-warm powred on luke-warm wax cold because it doth finde luke-warmness on both sides Or if cold be placed between two Colds shall it therefore wax hot in its middle I cannot sufficiently wonder at the unpolished rudeness of the Schooles who deliver the Doctrine of Antiperistasis which desireth so great credulity not judgement For although that fiction should please us while the Air is hot about the Earth but certainly it could by no meanes in the Winter seasons For truly neither then indeed is that middle Region of the Air adorned with a native heat 9. It is a wonder I say that such absurd falsehood and Doctrine hath not yet breathed out of the Alps. And so hence it is manifest that the Peripateticks do even from a study of obstinacy teach known falsehoods least they should not swear in the words of Aristotle or that no judgement at all is left them that they may ingeniously perform their office and that they may think they have done enough if they follow the herds of those that went before them Therefore Antiperistasis is a dream of his who when he knew not the least thing in nature yet would seem to have known all things and to be worshipped for a Standard-defender by the Schooles his followers But because Aristotle fleeth to the heat of Wells in Winter for the demonstration of an Antiperistasis that shall straightway fall to the ground through the instrument whereby we measure the just temperature of the encompassing Air Wherein we see by handicraft-demonstration that the Air in deep Wells and Cellers is stable in the same point of heat whether it shall please us to measure it in Winter or lastly in the greatest heats of Summer 10. But it being granted that there were not an equall temperature in Wells but yet surely it would be a foolish thing for the Air otherwise naturally moderately hot sometimes to be cold sometimes again to be hot as it were through despight by reason of the applied alteration of the encompassing air 11. The holy Scriptures declare the Snow to be colder than the water because Snow is water in which the utmost power of cold is imprinted and the Air to exceed the Snow in coldness hence it is read He that spreads abroad the Snow and the Wooll that the Wheat may be kept safe under the Snow from the cruelty of the cold Air as it were under a woolly Covering For we see by handicraft operation that a member almost frozen together waxeth hot again under the Snow and is preserved from putrifaction or blasting because else the Air would straightway proceed wholly to congeal it or if it be suddenly brought to the fire it dieth by reason of the hasty action of another extream Therefore this is to have gone thorow meanes if it be to go from the cold air thorow Snow water and then into a slack luke-warmness Therefore Snow is lesse cold than air 12. But why to the moystness of the water do they implore its thickness for moystening which is a ridiculous
as it were the sheath of the Earth nigh the Poles is deeper than under the compass of the Sun for if Lucifer or the Day-star being willing to place his seat over the North may be understood to have been guilty of pride Truly if he were not higher in the same place that should not be imputed as a signe of arrogancy especially since in the places where the holy Scriptures were written the Pole-star hath alwayes seemed very neere to the Horizon neither doth the Heaven there promise any thing of height as to sight But in our Horizon I have seen the whole Body of the Sun to have given a shadow on the pin of the Diall a little after the ninth houre in the fourth moneth called June but in the morning I have seen the whole Body of the Sun above the Horizon about the fourth houre for it did not as vet cast a shadow by reason of the thickness of the Air and Vapours Therefore the shorâest night is onely of seven houres at the most but in the Winter Solstice the Sun ariseth â5 minutes before the eighth but sets 27 minutes before the fourth Therefore the shorest day is at least 7 houres and 42 minutes But it dârogates or takes away from the roundness of the Sphere to have more of light than darkness At length modern or late made Navigations have seen the Sun under the North for a moneths space before that the perfect roundness of the Heaven had suffered that thing CHAP. XI The Air. 1. The Dreams of the Schooles concerning the maystness of Air. 2. A foolish or unsavory objection 3. They preâuppose impossibilities 4. The Air is never made Water through a condensing of its parts 5. They beg the Principle 6. A ridicuâous thing of the Schooles concerning the ââtive heat of the Air. 7. The old Wives fiction of an Antiperâstâsiâââ compassing about of the contrary 8. The deep stupiditâââ of the Schooles are discovered 9. Arguments 10. Another alike stâpidity 11. That the Air is colder than Snow 12. An Exhortation of the Authour unto young beginners A Mathematicall demonstration that the Air and Water are primigeâiall or first-born Elements and ever unchangeable by cold or heat into each other THE Schooles with their Aristotle do hitherto endow the Air with eight degrees that is to be most moyst but to be hot unto four degrees or to a mean but they give the greatest coldness to the water with a slack or mean moystness And so they command the Air to be twice as moystas the water for that because the Air by its pressing together and conjoyning doth generate the water But I pray you what other thing is that than to have sold Dreams for truth For if the Air be co-thickned the moysture thereof shall be also more thick greater and more palpable in water than it was before in Air seeing that condensing cannot make a new essential form nor is it a principle of generations what other thing is that than impertinently to trifle At least the water should not be but Air co-thickned in the moysture to ten fold or rather to an hundred fold and more active and therefore and straightway it should moysten more and stronger than the Air by a hundred fold So far as it that therefore the water should be lesse moyst than the Air. But if a naked condensing doth dispose the Air to a new form seeing the same disposition of the inward efficient is the necessary cause of that thing generated it must needs be that the same doth remain in the thing produced and so if the Air co-thickned be water there shall now be but two Elements to wit Water and Earth Whiles the water shall be as moyst as while it was being at first Air to wit wherein the condensing alone came which is a co-uniting of parts but not a formall transchanging of a thing into a thing For truly the form every way re-bounding from the moysture of the Air being condensed into an hundred fold it shall be even moyster and shall more moysten by an hundred fold than the auntient Air. But surely the water doth not moysten by reason of thickness for otherwise the Earth should hitherto more moysten because moysture onely doth moysten and not thickness For else Quick-silver should more moysten the wooll or hand than water For whatsoever doth more moysten that it self is also more moyst and on the other hand whatsoever in an Elementary nature is moyster that likewise doth more moysten Nature laughs to require belief of things known by reason of sense from a Dream and even till now to teach the shameful devises of Airstotle for truth But the Schooles will say we must thus teach it for a Maxim That by reason whereof every thing is such that thing it self is more such as though that for the honour of a Maxim we must belie God! But the water is not moyst but for the Air therefore the Air ought to be moyster than the water But they shall sweat more than enough before they will prove the subsumption or second Proposition but the Air is neither moyst nor hot in it self and whatsoever of moysture there is in it that is a stranged contained in it never touching at the nature of Air although vapours may be contained in the porinesses or hollow places of the Air. For what doth it belong to the nature of Glasse if it shall inclose water within it For I shall teach by and by that it is impossible for Air and water to be changed into each other And so by absurdities the Schooles do wholly suppose impossible speculations For it also contains an absurd and impossible thing that Air condensed should be made water and be the perpetual matter of Fountains For there hath been Air pressed together by some in an Iron Pipe of one ell almost the breadth of fifteen fingers which afterwards in its driving our hath like a hand-gun discharged with Gunpowder sent a Bullet thorow a Board or Plank Which thing verily could not be done if the air by pressing together might by force be brought into water Especially because that experiment did no lesse succeed in the deepest cold of winter than in the heat of Summer What if therefore the Air being pressed together by force in a Pipe and cold season be not changed into water by what authority shall the Schooles confirm their fictions touching the co-thickning of the Air for the springing up or over-flowing and the continuance of Fountains For Cold hath not the Beginnings Causes and properties of generating in nature Yea no moysture at all is found in the aforesaid Pipe and moreover wet Leather in the end of a Hand-Pistoll drieth presently It is also a ridiculous thing to prove the Air to be moyst by the original of Fountains and likewise to prove the rise of Fountains from the supposed moysture of the Air. Both Arguments of the Schooles is from the scarcity of truth and a childish begging
water pressed together into the room of one part where Gold is framed of water Wherefore so far is it that the piercing of dimensions becomes impossible seeing that nothing is more natural or home-bred to nature than to co-thicken the body of the water but indeed although there may something appear in the water like to the three first things yet also there is no hope that they should be rent asunder from each other because in the every way simplicity of the water an adequate or suitable Sulphur is after a certain sort hidden which cannot be seperated from the other two but they all do accompany together Those are not the three true Principles which are abstracted or seperated onely by the Imagination The water therefore since it doth on every side vary off-Springs according to the diversity of their seedes thus so many kindes of Earths Mineralls Salts Liquors Stones Plants living Creatures and Meteors do rise up in their particular kindes from the blast or inspiration of the seedes For the water putrifies by continuance in the Earth is made the juyce of the Earth Gums Oyl Rosin Wood Berries c. and that which of late was nothing but water materially now burns and sends forth a fume or smoak Not indeed that that fume is air but is either a vapour or a drie exhalation and a new fruit of the water not yet appointed to be wholly turned by its seed It is proved For the Body of the air cannot make a shadow in the air but whatsoever doth exhale out of a live Coal doth make a shadow in the Sun For since the air hath a limited consistence and thickness and that agreeable to its own simpleness it followes that whatsoever is thicker than the air that is not air Moreover that which being made thin by the heat of the fire doth now exhale is as yet thicker than the air and so for that cause makes a shadow surely that shall become far more thick in the cold and shall be made visible in Clouds Whatsoever exhalations therefore do from the Earth climbe upward and are joyned in Clouds for this cause also those Clouds do stink no otherwise than as water doth under the Aequinoctial line and there the Ferment and Seed of their Concretion or growing together being consumed they are turned into pure water no otherwise than the water is after it hath escaped and overcome the bounds of its putrefaction which it had conceived under the line The dew therefore is a Cloud belonging to the Spring not yet stinking falling down before it can touch the place of cold So a mist or fogg is a stinking Cloud not as yet refined through the putrefaction of its Ferment because as many as have passed over the Alps with me have known how greatly Clouds taken hold of with the hand do stink but the Rain-water collected thence how sweet and without savour it is and almost incorruptible For when any thing doth exhale whether it be in the shew of water or Oil or smoak or mists or of an exhalation although indeed it brings not away with it the seedes of the Concrete or composed Body at leastwise it carries the Ferments upward which that they may be fully abolished from thence and that the remaining matter may return into water it behooves that they be first lifted up into a subtile or fine Gas in the kitchin of the most cold air and that they passe over into another higher Region and do assume a condition in the shape of the least motes or Atomes And that the Ferments do there die as well through the cold of the place as the fineness of the Atomes as it were by choaking and extinguishing For cold is therefore a principle not indeed of life but of extinguishment To wit as it doth sub-divide the parts of the Atomes as yet by more subtilizing them even as I have above taught And so that Woods are also the sooner consumed by fire under cold as if they were driven by a blast From which necessity verily that place was from the beginning alwayes chilled with continuall cold Because the Authour of nature least he might seem to have been wanting to the necessities of his Creature hath every where fitted ordinations according to necessities Therefore cold is naturall and home-bred to that place but not from the succeeding Chymera of an Antiperistasis Indeed the matter of fruits being brought thither must needes return into their first Being and the infections of the Ferments are therefore first to be removed by the mortifications sub-divisions subtilizings piercings choakings and extinguishings of the cold The Air therefore is the place where all things being brought thither are consumed and do return into their former Element of water For in the Earth and water although Bodies sprung up from seedes do by little and little putrifie and depart into a juyce yet they are not so nearly reduced into the off-spring of simple water as neither into a Gas For Bodies that are enfeebled or consumed do straight way in the Earth draw another putrifaction through continuance a ferment and Seed Whence they flee to second Marriages and are again anew increased into succeeding fruits But the fire the death of all things doth want seedes being subjected to the will of the Artificer it consumeth all seminall things but brings over their combustible matters into a Gas. Paracelsus affirms that three Beginnings are so united in all particular principles that one cannot wholly be freed from the other by any help of art But saving the authority of the man our Handicraft-operation containing his secret Samech hath affirmed that which is contrary to his assertion by the Spirit of Wine being turned into an un-savoury water And so neither can that man cover his ignorance Indeed the Spirit of Wine being wholly capable of burning made void of Phlegme or watery moysture and Oil it alwayes for the one half of it passeth into a simple un-savoury and Elementary water by a touching of the Salt of Tartar on it Again the same thing is made by repetition as to the other part For that man was ignorant of the thingliness of a Gas to wit my Invention and next of the properties of cold in the Air yea he thought that the vapour of the water was plainly annihilated which sottishness of that his proper form of speech is least of all to be winked at in so great a Distiller Especially because he would have the Elements to be seperable from feigned Elements rather than the three first things Wherefore from the dissection of the water delivered it now sufficiently appeares that the simple water is not crude or raw and that fire doth not take away the crudity from it which it hath not Because the whole action of the fire is not into the water but into that which is co-mixed with it by accident Galen according to his manner transcribing Diascorides word for word and being willing to measure the Elementary
silent concerning the Equinoctial Line and its wonderfull properties that a Canon being discharged on one side of the Stone not any noyse or trembling should be heard on the other side thereof the which therefore is called a mute one So also we must needes consider that there are side folding-doores or Gates of Peroledes in the Air because the windes going forth for the most part with a side motion are also by the Blas of the Stars agreeably carried a crosse their bounds From the aforesaid Doctrine of Gas I at length object against my self If the water be frozen by cold into snowes Hail and Ice then the water shall not be dissolved by cold into Gas if of a uniform Agent and Patient there ought to be the same action and effect Where I must seriously note That the Water freezeth it self but is not frozen efficiently by another For although cold may be hitherto thought to congeal yet that is onely occasionally not effectively The water therefore after the sense of its measure perceives the cold of the air not indeed a certain absence or privation of heat even as I have already demonstrated by an ordinary example in Helvetia but as a positive cause in a naturall quality For truly first of all it is without doubt and is manifest by the sight that the cold Air doth by degrees consume Water Snow and Ice yet these two more slowly and the other more swiftly In the next place it is easie to be seen that whatsoever the Air thus privily steales away that presently for that very cause passeth over into an invisible Gas If therefore the cold of the Air should harden water into Ice a further action of the Air would also the Ice being now made continually cease but the consequent is false therefore also the Antecedent For the Sulphur of the water doth easily wax dry and is divided by the cold wherefore the Mercury and Salt of the water perceiving the frost of the Air that would seperate the Waters from the Waters and that they ought to suffer the extension and drying up of their Sulphur and so an alltogether violent impression of the seperater and that they do desire to remain as they are Hence the whole water at once doth arm it self by a Crust that it may resist the seperater Which thing indeed it could not accomplish but that also some part of the Sulphur hath already suffered an extenuating of it self and so also in this respect the Ice doth swim upon the water But that the Sulphur of the water although it was extenuated in the Ice yet hath not laid aside the nature of water is proved by handicraft-operation Fill a glassen and great Bottle with pieces of Ice but let the neck be shut with a Hermes Seal by the melting of the glasse in the same place Then let this Bottle be put in a balance the weight thereof being laid in the contrary Scale and thou shalt see that the water after the Ice is melted shall be weightier by almost an eighth part than it self being Ice Which thing since it may be a thousand times done by the same water reserving alwayes the same weight it cannot be said that any part thereof was turned into air For such is the continuance and constancy of the Elements that although the water departs into a vapour into Gas into Ice yea into composed bodies yet the auntient water alwayes materially remaineth in some place masked by ferments and seedes coming upon it and else-where onely by the importunities of the first qualities made to differ in the Relolleum of Paracellus that is without a seed But from what hath been said before Some remarkable things do arise 1. That the water hath a certain kinde of sense or feeling and so that all Beings do after some sort partake of life Come let us worship the King by whom all things live 2. Seeing that the water doth not incrust it self in the fabrick of a vapour therefore a vapour as well in the cause as in the manner is more acceptable to the water than a Gas is And that thing doth argue in the water something like to choice 3. And that therefore a vapour doth sooner return into water than into Gas 4. That the changing of water into a vapour is in respect of the seperater oblique or crooked and as it were by accident but that Gas consisteth of a proper appointment of the air whereby the air doth seperate the waters from the waters 5. That the air is far more cold in it self than the water 6. That it is dry by it self 7. That the unity or connexion of entire parts is as acceptable to nature as the dividing of the same is to things opposite 8. That the fabrick of Gas shall afford another intimate principle to the water since it hath not a compositive beginning or part that is the cause of some small difference of kinde besides that which is touched by heat in the rise of a vapour 9. That all created things by how much the more simple they are by so much the more of the same kinde yet an every way most simple homogeniety or sameliness of kinde is not found in bodies 10. That the Sulphur of the water being extenuated in the Ice is the cause of smoothness in congealed things but not the enclosing of a forreign air because alwayes and every where water doth exclude the Wedlock of air 11. That the cold and dryness of the air can act nothing else into the water but to extenuate its Sulphur But that the congealing or hardening it self is an action proper to the water whereby it puts a stop to the seperater 12. That the air acts upon the water without the re-acting of this and the suffering of the air since it is appointed by divine right the seperater of the waters 13. That even in unsensible naturall things re-action differeth from resistance For truly there is no re-action of the water on the air and yet the water is with a resistance 14. That the Schooles have erred because they have dictated every action of nature to be made with a re-acting of the Patient and a suffering of the agent 15. That the changing of Gas into air is impossible 1. For otherwise the air should alwayes increase into a huge body and by consequence all water had long since failed 2. Because besides that which I have elsewhere demonstrated that the air can by no meanes return again into water the same thing is manifest from the but now aforesaid particulars 3. For truly it is proper to water to suffer by air and not likewise to re-act on the air Therefore air being once made by water should alwayes remain air seeing a returning agent is wanting which may turn air into water 4. But for air by it self to return into water opposeth a generall Maxim That every thing as much as in it lies doth desire to remain in it self 5. Especially because air
and connexion Whither when the light of the Stars shall descend the folding-doores do open and shut themselves Therefore let the Key-keeper of the folding-doores be the motion of the Stars Which also moveth the Peroledes or Pavements of the Air. Therefore all heat is not made by fore-existing fire or light nor doth cold shew a naked absence of heat But the motive Blas of the Stars is a pulsive or beating power or virtue in respect of their Journey through places and according to their aspects Which circumstances in the Stars do cause the first qualities on these inferiour bodies no otherwise than bashfulness anger feat c. do stir up cold and heat in men And that thing the Stars have by the gift of Creation The Winde according to Hypocrates is a flowing Water of the Air but I defining it by its causes say that the Winde is a flowing Air mooved by the Blas of the Stars And that for a naturall winde but otherwise it is often granted to an evill Spirit that even without a Blas he should stir up windes or increase a tempestuous Blas Therefore the Air unless it have a Blas remains quiet nor hath it the principle of motion from it self but it comes to it from elsewhere Therefore the motive Blas stirreth up Windes Tempests over-flowing of Waters by running thorow the divers Peroledes of the Air sometimes upwards sometimes downwards across long-wayes side-wayes into all the Coasts of the Earth although the Elements have no need of motion yet mans necessity requireth that motion But seeing nothing was for mooving of it self except the Archeus granted to seedes it hath well pleased the Eternall to place in the Stars a flatuous violent motive force not much unlike to the Command of his mouth So that Blas is for a testimony to us that God of his excelling goodness hath made the Elements and Stars for us by measuring out bounds of these according to our Commodities Blas therefore mooveth not so much by light beames and motion as motion but as the Stars have come down unto certain places whereunto these Stars do owe their offices Therefore there are stable properties in those places but if they are not stable that happens in respect of other Stars brought with them by an analogicall or proportionable motion for the interchangeable courses of continuance Blas therefore as a Masculine thing in the Stars is the generall beginning of motion it seemes no lesse to respect the Earth than the Air and Water For the Moon according to the holy Scriptures ruleth the night as the Sun doth the day although the Moon for her own half runs not under the night For the Globe of the Earth is divided into four parts into two accesses or flowings and recesses or ebbings of the Ocean daily And it spends almost 28 houres therein and so much the lesse by how much the Sun and Moon shall in the mean time depart from or draw near to each other Blas therefore stirs up also a raging heat in the waters the winde being still But the alterative Blas consisteth in the producing of heat and cold and that especially with the changings of the windes But the Stars neither have nor give moysture or dryth of themselves For neither is moysture to be considered in nature as naked quality without a matter and therefore neither is it brought down from the Stars unto us For all moysture is from the water which was before the Stars were born Therefore Paracelsus erreth who saith that rains snow c. are so the fruits of the Stars that they are boyled to a ripeness in the Stars as it were in bottles Dryness also was in the air the seperater of the waters before the Stars nor is it to be considered without a body in manner of a quality But heat and cold are rather qualities abstracted from a body Therefore there are onely two great Lights and therefore two onely qualities of them are spread into the air from whence all Meteors are stirred or mooved For the heat of life is the property of the Sun but cold of the other Star Also the other Stars have given their names or honours to these two Lights As often therefore as the Stars of the nature of the Moon are brought thorow places of the Sun a luke-warmth is made in the air but if Stars of the nature of the Sun do run down under the same places heat is made according to which qualities of the air the Gas of the air is also diversly altered Hence indeed Blas heats after the same manner thorow the soils of the air therefore Gas also is either detained in its pavements or soils or is brought downward to us So as that the atomes of Gas being invisible through their too much smallness loosing their constriction and excess of cold do again fall together or decay into the smallest drops and hasten downwards But if indeed the luke-warmth doth affect the lower Peroledes when Gas being provoked by Blas wandereth downwards Summer Snowes are made Surely Gas being grown together through frost a luke-warmth presently arising it is melted and rusheth headlong downwards For the Mercurie of the water resolveth its Salt and the Sulphur doth as it were rowl up these two And so they fall down into rain But if indeed that thing happens in the upper Perolede the drops descending are frozen in the middle cold pavements and so they are cast down headlong into Snow and Hails But if luke-warmth do bear sway thorow some continuall Peroledes of the air daily rains do accompany it Hence also it appeares that an unequall Blas in divers soils of the air doth bring forth divers effects For oftentimes the lowermost Peroledes are luke-warm and the day is plainly clowdy and there are very many Clouds But else the second and the third Perolede are luke-warm the lower being cold whence are Snowes And so the other Troop of Meteors is caused unto us Therefore I am now confident that by Gas materially and by Blas operatively and motively their causes and manner do more clearly appear than heretofore they have done From whence Astrologers and Physitians shall be able from a founder ground to presage of some things In the mean time I leave the matters of presages untouched which God by his ministring Spirits hath laid up among his signes of good or ill Onely I will relate what Fryer Stephen of Lusignan the last of the Family of the Kings of Cyprus of the Order of S. Dominick in his description of Cyprus printed at Paris in the year 1580 page 212 rehearseth in French to this purpose About the end of the year an Earthquake happened at Famagusta which continued eight dayes But afterwards raging or Whirle-windes arose passing over the Island and entring into the Market-place of Famagusta for there by beating down a great Pallace they presently take away very many Houses with some Men. So that if some Marriners had not by the chance of
so to be pressed together that the whole Arterie should wholly rush or fall down on it self perhaps therefore it is not unjustly cloathed with a double and harder coat For the discontinuance of that light is the cause that in one moment every chief faculty of the Brain in those that are hanged doth perish But not that the Spirit had so quickly vanished from the Brain Again if a pulsative motion should not be made a deadly cold would straightway arise and we should be more cold than a Frog So that although many things do live in the Winter time without breathing under the Clay yet not without a pulse Also the Ferment of the left bosome doth transchange its own arterial bloud not without a slow delay and would send it thorow the Body every way too slowly and therefore it should not satisfie the importunate necessities of the Spirits For let us feign a Bottle seasoned with an Odour but to be filled with Liquor up to its half For that Liquor shall scarce snatch the Odour of the Bottle but if it be shaken together that Odour also doth presently insinuate it self through the least parts of the Liquor So indeed is the vitall Ferment of the left bosom presently given to the Arterial bloud by the motion of the heart and doth compel it also to a hasty obedience of its own Impression For light is easily kindled by light and therefore also the Arteriall bloud being now quickned it easily snatcheth to it the light of that Sunny Lamp and is brought into a Skyie or Aiery off-spring Therefore the Blas of the heart is the Fewel of the vitall Spirit and consequently of its heat but the Spirit being thus enlivened is the mover of the heart almost neglected in the Schooles Also by consequence that motion is made for a necessary heat in Sunny constituted Animals and for the framing of Spirit in them Therefore I may not believe that the Pulse is appointed for a requisite cooling refreshment of the heart For truly things that have life do not war under the deadly Ensigns of cold neither do they intend or hearken to cold but onely do meditate on vitall things Indeed cold in us is a token because a Companion of death And therefore whatsoever it should attempt in the Fountain of life it should intend a taking away of life as also it should be destructive to our Monarchy so far is it that cold should be for necessity and co-temperaments sake For without a Pulse heat is not over-much kindled but straightway also life remaining heat dies For the Schooles being deceived do thus judge they thinking Elementary fire to be for the composition of Bodies and that fire in its heightned degree without which its fire ceaseth to be fire doth consist in the heart and that indeed Kitchin fire seeing else a ridiculous fire is to be far fetched from the concave of the Moon otherwise it should not by a loosed Bridle slide downwards safe at the pleasure of inferiour Bodies and contrary to its own disposition thorow so many colds of the Air unto the ordinary constitution of Simples And so if the Schooles had instead of radicall heat understood a fire feigned to be under the circle of the Moon they should improperly say that the same doth onely subsist in us as it were the Torch of radicall moysture Seeing else they dream that the fiery Element which they rashly feign doth alike unwisely live without a necessity and consuming of nourishment Therefore the Schooles do understand that there is in the heart a kindled Kitchinary and smoakie fire and that it is hot in a great degree and so that unless it be tempered by a continuall blast of new Air and all the smoakiness raised up by this fire be fanned out there is danger of choaking burning up and enflaming For so false authorities do bring forth false positions and through the ignorance of causes the speculations of healing have perished Truly in my judgement the Schooles ought at least to have remembred that the very blowing of the Bellowes doth not refresh or cool the fire but rather enflame it Neither do I see by what reason the motion of living Creatures may be the cause of their cooling refreshment In the next place I know that fire is in no wise to be joyned to the other Elements being divided by their least parts but that in an instant it is exstinguished I know also that its impossible that fire should be able to exist which is not truly fire and hot in the highest degree And so that if nature should attempt refreshment or cooling by a Pulse its endeavour should be foolish vain and impossible Whence a horrible thing followes that God in the ends proposed to himself hath actually erred Therefore let the Schooles repent But besides there ought to be a speedy transmutation of venall bloud into arteriall bloud and of this into vitall Spirit least that after faintings and tremblings of the heart under which are made most speedy divisions and scatterings of those Spirits so that the little pits of the small Pox or measills before not to be beheld do straightway appear as it were a necessitated death do invade Therefore aid was not to be fetched from far and to be deferred which his speedily required Indeed this is the reason why in a Fever the Pulse is swifter but not an expelling of smoakiness nor a greediness of cooling refreshment For truly let a Thorn be put in the loose or fleshy top of the finger there is presently a hard strong and more swift pulse but afterwards for the increase of the Pulse there is every where presently an increase of heat but not of cold and indeed as well before as without the births of smoakie vapours And then at the beginnings of intermitting Fevers after some houres and as long as the cold is delayed the Pulse is little slow deep or depressed yet putrefaction is kindled if the Schooles have spoken truth and therefore also the present smoakie vapour in the Schooles is the cause of the fit and they do thirst greatly in their cold and vomit up yellow choler Therefore also there ought to be a most frequent pressing together of the Pulse and the whole Pulse to be most exceeding swift Especially because many dying in those Fevers do perish in the cold a little before the Feverish fit through a great want of the Spirits and being as it were choaked But in troublesome heats also in an Erisipelas the burning Coal or Fever the Persick fire c. the vitall Spirit being incensed and as it were provoked to anger by the diseasifying cause waxeth exceeding hot as appeareth in the aforesaid locall also burning Inflammations whereas otherwise a temperate lightsome kindling doth on every side shine forth under a vitall Harmony yea that a little before death or sounding the horny membrane of the Eye is seen to be deprived of light the fire being not before in a burning
pulsive or driving Blas But wind being shut up doth cause the less pain so long as it is quiet So every pulsive Remedy should of necessity increase the pains of the wringings or gripes and so nature sheweth that we must abstain from things that do drive or force windiness But they strongly meditate that in carminatives there is the force of a whip But are flatus's like unto cattel For do they acknowledge that they and their carminatives are to be set in the place of a suitable Pestil or that perhaps carminatives have the same virtue like a voice which drives away cattel and that windy blasts in the Body do hearken unto the exhortation of enchanting Poets or Singers I know indeed from hence that the Schools are ignorant of the force property causes and manner as well of the gripings or wringings as of the Remedies For winds are not to be driven away and secondly not to be dispersed For this is impossible but that contains a childish Fiction Neither also by an honest man are flatus's to be restrained by any Verse or Song a religious Etymology whereof doth notwithstanding hitherto remain in the Schools A windy blast is not inwardly stirred up in the Wombe because the Wombe is destitute of a flatulent matter and its digestion is not fit for creating of flatus's but outwardly Air scarce enters into the Wombe because it is that which least it should suffer a vacuum or emptiness in its membrane it falleth down wholly moist and flaggy and so of its own accord a passage for the breathing Air is prevented unless it be by force cast into it by an instrument In the next place neither do external winds borrow a force from the mouth that they may enter into unwonted regions and that they may strongly thump the Pleura grown to the ribs but that between this and the Muscles between the ribs they may stir up a flatulent Pleurisie and presently after tear the Pleura from the ribs and frame a true inflamation of the Pleurisie Because there is no way for Air thither yea if it should reach thither it hath not a Blas behind which might be of any damage And by which way it had entred for therefore before it had hurt it had expired Neither also are flatus's made internally in those parts the matter whereof and the efficient cause hindering it It is also like an old Wives Fiction that an external wind or blast of Air doth pierce thorow the skin however so pory it be even as also the fleshy Membrane and also the Muscles under it According to the shameful reason of Physitians wherein they say He hath lately contracted wind whence his parts are ill affected For I have oftentimes with my own blushing heard this cause to be assigned almost to all Diseases from the head even to the ankle The distemperature of the Air is accused for the vices of the head eyes ears teeth Oasand for hoarsnesses coughs likewise for all defluxions unconcoctions feavers and so the Air hath been accounted a Pandora's box And that not only by the touching of cold as an outward cause but as a windy blast hath been drawn inwards and there unduely detained Of which things elsewhere But now our speech is of our and those internal windy blasts I grant indeed that an unwonted cold as a guards-man of Death doth indeed affect some noble part or servile one as it disturbs the last digestion thereof whence excrements pains yea and Aposthems of the similiar parts do diversly follow But in these the faculty of the cold is only an outward occasional cause which shews a prevention not likewise a cure or quality of a Remedy Therefore let the trifles of the Schools bid farewel But besides that any Physitian may rightly perform his office he shall know first what wind is and then what is a windy blast from whence it is made why it causeth pain and then the Remedy shall be easie unto him Indeed the cause of flatus's being known we must take heed least their concrete or composure be turned into a Gas But a Gas which hath been once made prepareth an easie way or passage for it self But if not and if the bowel where it is beneath it be stopped with a more hard obstacle this is to be loosed But where there is no excrement as a partition and yet the wringings do proceed shall not those things be vain which drive away winds and foolish which disperse them For truly not the windy blasts but the matter from whence the bowels are drawn together and the bowels themselves do generate windinesses is to be brushed away The cure I say may not be converted unto the flatus produced but unto the cause producing it I see therefore that the Remedies of Dill Caraway Anise Cummin wild Carrot seed c. were found out not by the Schools who are ignorant of the causes of wringings of the bowels but that they were made known from Divine compassion to little ones and poor ones from whom the Schools have begged them as also many other experiments from thence For truly the original essence matter property process and history of flatus's have lain hid to the Schools In the next place neither is the Volvulus Iliack passion or that of a barbarous name miserere mei any twisting or writhing together and extravagancy of the lesser bowel For besides that it should be a perpetual and of necessity a relapsing evil Anatomy resists it which shewes the bowel to be cloathed with the mesentery to wit with an external cloathing with a third garment and upper skinny one and it being fast tyed to the loynes by that mesentery to hang or bend forwards Therefore that bond being once burst asunder and the society of the mesentery despised there is no hope for the future of reducing the bowels into their former case from which they had freed themselves by breaking Prison And so the evil being by a strong fortune restored should of necessity presently return and should alwayes afterwards rush into a worse state Again throughout the whole tract of the bowel there should henceforeward be no nourishment with the Veins and no attraction of chyle for life when as nevertheless in the mean time that Disease gives place to an easie Remedy For if besides its wonted circles the bowel should be co-writhed who should be that mover or who that tormenter For from without it hath none and fears none which bowel is covered with a smooth caule and simple bladder of the Abdomen or bottom of the belly Also if it be stopped up by an internal excrement for this nor the other can happen unto it now the gut Ileon is stopped wherein excrements are not yet wont to be hardned by an unwonted dung but not co-writhed not dissolved without the case of the mesentery And so the Schools being amazed that Disease hath been unknown in its causes and manner For I remember that Thomas Balbani of Antwerp
most inward Beginning of Life and to be incorporated in us neither therefore that occasional Causes can be the connexed and constitutive Causes of Diseases for truly those Causes do as yet remain after life and yet Diseases cease But we must in no wise indulge Christians who are thorowly instructed by the Scriptures that they have even until now esteemed it for an honour to have delivered their minds bound unto the hurtful stupidities of Heathens They took notice indeed that there was that affinity of some Diseases with us that they were so connexed unto our Body in respect of an occasional matter that they could scarce be divided from a consent of the mind or be seperated from a hurt action as in Wounds instrumentary Diseases those deprived of the strength of Seeds For the Haw upon the Coat Cornea is that which immediately hurteth the sight as also the Stone doth without a medium stop up the passage of the Urine But the obstruction flowing from thence is a relation and Being of Reason the which as it acteth nothing so neither hath it the reason nor consideration of a Disease in Nature Nevertheless the Modern Schooles had rather to commit the Essences of Diseases unto Elementary discords than that they would confess the Bodies of Nature to bespeak nothing else besides a connexion of both constitutive Causes to them unknown For that reason miserable mortals have hitherto groaned under this burden of blindness expecting Cure from those who were fully ignorant of the constitutive Causes of Diseases Wherefore seeing a Disease ought to contain its own efficient Cause and its own matter within it self Hence it easily appears that hunger although like a very sharp Disease it kills in very few dayes yet is not a Disease because it doth not consist of Diseasie Causes whether it be considered as a sorrowful sense of the number of Symptomes or next as it consisteth of real defects Because for as much as the soure ferment of the Stomack even as in the Treatise concerning Digestions wanting an Object whereon it may act yet cannot therefore take rest it attempts by resolving the secondary humour and immediate nourishment of the Stomack for the Archeus is as well in hunger as in fullnesse the cause not onely of a Disease but of Health it self But a want of the matter of Food bespeakes a privation but not a Disease Wherefore we must altogether exactly note that Hunger although it doth cruelly slay as if it were a Disease yet that it is not a Disease in that respect to wit because the Archeus is in no wise diseasie in hunger From whence it ought to be clearly manifest that every Disease doth primarily and essentially respect its efficient Archeus For that cause it was rightly decreed by Hippocrates to the carelesnesse of the Schooles that hot cold moist or dry not indeed as such and concrete or composed are not Diseases or the causes of these but sharp bitter salt brackish c. For peradventure in the age of Hippocrates the occasional cause was not yet distinguished from a true Disease Indeed he knew a twofold excrement to be in us One indeed natural and ordinary and so ours but the other a diseasie one from its mother errour and a hostile propagation and the which we Christians know to have proceeded from the vigour of sin For when the oldman had distinguished this by forreign savours he supposed that if it were not a Disease it self at leastwise it was the adequate or suitable occasion of Diseases not yet then distinguished from a Disease The removal whereof at least should open both the folding doors of Healing But it is matter of amazement that he whom the Schooles do boast to follow as their Captain they have skipped over this his Text through sluggishness as also another Standard-defender of the same Captain wherein he hath declared that every motion unto a Disease Death and Health is efficiently made by the Spirit which maketh an assault And likewise wherein he saith that Natures themselves are the Physitianesses of Diseases and by consequence the makers also of Diseases if that assaulting spirit by its disturbance doth work all things whatsoever are done or made in living Bodies Indeed the Schooles have passed by many such things which did deserve to be accounted like Oracles because they being deluded and bewitched by four feigned Humors being traduced by the deep shipwrack of sleepiness drousiness and sluggishness have neglected the liquors which he himself nameth secondary ones as if a Disease might not be as equally possible in those as in the four feigned primary humours Therefore have they also neglected the Diseases arising from the retents or things retained of Digestions and transplantations because also they have been utterly ignorant of the Digestions and Fermentations themselves even as I have taught in its place Alas How penurious a knowledge hath graced Physitians hitherto whom otherwise if they had been true Physitians the most High had commanded to be honoured For they have considered a Disease to flow forth as an accident produced by its Agent a diseasifying matter wherein therefore that its own efficient is they have in the enterance been ignorant and the patient which they say is the Body of Man First of all They do not distinguish the Agent from the Matter which is most intimate hereunto Secondly Then They deny a Disease to be material because it is that which they suppose to be a meer Quality Thirdly Neither do they distinguish provoking Occasions from the internal Efficient because with Aristotle they suppose every Efficient Cause to be External Fourthly They separate the constitutive Causes from the thing constituted Fifthly They know not the Chain of Efficient Causes with their Products Sixthly They for the most part confound Occasional Causes with their Diseases and Symptomes Seventhly They somtimes look upon a Disease as a Disposition skirmishing between the Orders of Causes and the Body of Man Eighthly They had rather have that very later disposition arisen as they say from the fight of Causes to be a Disease the which to wit should immediately so they say hurt the actions whether in the mean time it be contrary unto a vital action or indeed it be the effect of that contrariety which shall offend the functions But I do not heed the hurtings of Functions for the Essence of a Disease but the operative disturbances extended on the Archeus do I contemplate of in Diseases For he doth often die without a sense of action being hurt who indeed suddainly falls down being in the mean time long diseasie or he that perisheth only by a defect of Nature Wherefore also I reckon it among other impertinencies to have tied up the Essence of Diseases unto the hurtings of the functions seeing that is accidental and latter to Diseases but not alwayes a concomitant Yea truly because a voluntary restoring of the enfeebled faculties doth follow health hence the Schooles have measured the Essence
as is the Falling-sicknesse the Gout Madnesse c. Truly in all these things there is a manifest Errour of the Schooles which teach That whole Nature is governed by a Ruler or a created Understanding not erring knowing all ends and for the sake of these acting after a most excellent manner For truly it is not to be doubted but that a Wound might be healed or closed without the Tumor Pain corrupt Pus and Inflammation of its Lips But that a Thorn may be drawn out of the Finger with greater brevity than that the Finger should therefore arise into a corrupt mattery Aposteme For the fat or grease of an Hare being annointed on it doth extract the Thorne in one Night Meanes are not wanting to the Archeus whereby he might perform that very thing safely and quickly even as he doth in some of his own accord but that our Archeus is subject to any kind of Passions as if he did conceive childish indignations from the least hurting of the Body No wonder therefore that the sublunary being of Nature by no means subjecting it self to Justice doth yeeld to or fall under its own inordinate Passions When as also the whole man whereof the intellectuall mind is President doth exceed the path of right Reason in many things At length that is remarkable that in the works of Art the efficient Cause is alwaies without and the Schools being deceived through the errour thereof have not known that in natural and substantial generations the Agent is internal For therefore they have banished the efficient Cause as external in the catalogue of natural Causes Yea it hath been unknown that both the Causes of natural things being connexed as I have demonstrated in its place doth not differ from its Effect but in the priority of flowing which thing hath deceived as many as have similitudinously contemplated of Nature by artificial things For neither have they been elsewhere more blinded than while they have introduced that incongruity of their own speculation into Diseases For they have not onely made artificial things like unto seminal speculatively but also in endeavouring to cure they have through a great confusion of falshoods bespattered the whole practice of healing with contrarieties For they have thought that to produce and to generate are altogether the same while in the mean time a generater bespeaks that he brings forth something from his own substance but he produceth who onely couples active things with passive although he contribute nothing of his own He maketh or doeth also who acteth any thing how he listeth Furthermore I also oft-times admire that while the Schools do constitute the benefit of healing in the removal of Causes after what sort they could place distemperatures within the rank of Diseases seeing the hot and most known of diseases doth both suddenly and of its own accord slide into cold and we are able presently to remove the intemperance of heat at pleasure without helping of the Fevers And then seeing they have never received the vital Cause which is the impulsive one in Diseases for the efficient Cause of Diseases they have determined of removing nothing but the occasional Cause For the Archeus although he be the true and immediate Cause as well according to the matter the which he brings vitiated and that out of his own bosome as also according to a seminal and efficient Idea yet the Archeus doth not shew the removal of himself But the Schools do act contrarily while they attempt their Cures by blood-letting purgatives and next by every means fortifying Life But upon what ground they do that they themselves shall see Moreover in Diseases Nature is standing sitting and laying Nature standing doth her self cure her own Diseases from a voluntary goodness as wholsome Fevers And likewise a Quartane which is cured by the proper guidance of Nature but not by the helps of the Schools And Nature standing can also presently walk the which belongs onely to Health But Nature sitting although she be able of her own accord to stand and at length to walk yet she is constrained to arise before she stands and therefore she ariseth with the more difficulty But if she attempt to arise by inordinate remedies she is prostrated from her seat and lays on the ground and being not a little shaken thereby is pained and sometimes dies of her fall Yea also while many that they may not be sick or ill at ease do make use of counsels or advices which do for the most part hasten old age and death and oft-times also deprive them of life But Nature laying along can never rise of her self as the Leprosie falling Evil Asthma Stone Dropsie c. Yea neither is it sufficient for her to arise for if the nerves or sinews are not confirmed they do easily relapse Furthermore Hippocrates will have a Physitian to be onely the Minister or Servant of Nature but Natures themselves to be their own onely Physitiannesses and that thing he thus commanded in his age When as otherwise a Physitian is the Patron and Master of Nature being prostrated which kinde of Physitian if the old man had not as yet acknowledged surely much less the succeeding heathenish Schools even unto this day Last of all dead carcasses are dissected which is done to excuse their excuses in sins for after a thousand years Anatomy the Moderns do scarce either the better know Diseases or the more successfully expel them They rejoyce indeed that they have found an imminent mark of any corruption in a part which covers their unfaithfull Aids or Succours with the Buckler of impossibility So indeed the world is deceived with a lofty brow For neither was that corruption there before the space of two days although the place might be pained long before So far is it from excusing the Physitian which is seasonably sent for that it rather lays open the fault of the same who to wit had seasonably or in due time dispersed the accused excrement For nothing of the parts containing is destroyed in live Bodies but it is first deprived of the commerce of Life And besides neither can it long be deprived of the Balsame of Life nor a mortisied part wait many houres in the lukewarmth of the Body which doth not likewise speedily putrifie stink and draw the whole Body into its own conspiracy Therefore from thence it is manifest that the corruption which is obvious in the Dissected dead Carcass was made but a few hours before and began but a few dayes before Death For corrupt mattery Imposthumes which are stirred up by malignant assemblies in the Lungs do indeed contain the Seeds of Diseases but the mortifying of Internal parts doth not many paces precede the day of Death One onely thing is at leastwise to be admired that the Schooles indeed have acknowledged a Spermatical or seedy nourishment whereby we are immediately nourished because it is that which they divide into four secondary humours yet that they have not
to be hot in the third degree In the mean time as being unmindful of these they hand forth Steel divers wayes vexed to drink I wish the World had known with what vain succours they do disturbe Women how earnestly they labour in unstoppings throughout the whole Christian World and how much the Schooles are busied that they may derive the errours of their ignorance on the omissions of others For they enjoyn a strict obedience of diet the which command if they shall not obey in all things even but once to a very smell they cry out that they have laboured and endeavoured in vain In the mean time the strang or inordinate lustings of a Woman with Child although they have discerned that they are in vain attempted by their Purgations yet while they are destitute of better Remedies they do never theless every where administer Purgations in curings of the Womb. The stranglings thereof also the cruel spectacles of Death they endeavour to withstand by stinking things applyed to the Nostrills others do present Theriaca or Triacle to the smell but most do violently thrust the Conserve of Rue with Castoreum in at the Mouth Being ignorant at least-wise how much the sweetness of Sugar doth stir up the sleepified fury of the Womb. Lastly in so great an Agony a conjectural healing is hoped for by stinking and sweet-smelling things being applyed unto diverse places Ah cruel wickedness that would pacifie the furious or mad raging Womb by a phantastical or imaginatory revulsion Vaiâ are the counsels and helps of Physitians which are administred without a knowing of the immediate Causes For they know not how to apply a finger in the easing of the Malady and they leave the whole burden on the Womens Shoulders until they being strangled do voluntarily give of or die or by a strong fortune do return unto themselves the circle of fury being measured or passed over Frequent Visiters the while do exhaust their Purses and Strength Most kind Jesus who when living on the Earth barest so great a care of Widows and Virgins and now alone administring the Monarch-ship of Heaven and Earth have pity on Physitians that hereafter they may take a meet care of the more harmeless and miserable Sex and may search after due Remedies Bend their Minds that they may not refuse to learn and that under a blessed Unisone of Harmony we may all alike meditate the one thing altogether necessary which is to fulfil thy most lovely Will by worshipping thee with an annihilating of our own will into the supercelestial Ocean of thy sanctifying Will. Amen ah I wish Amen CHAP. LXXXIII The Magnetick or Attractive Power or Faculty AS concerning an Action locally at a distance Wines do suggest a demonstration unto us For every kind of Wine although it be bred out of co-bordering Provinces and likewise more timely blossoming elsewhere Yet it is troubled while our Country Vine flowreth neither doth such a disturbance cease as long as the Flower shall not fall off from our Vine which thing surely happens either from a common motive Cause of the Vine and Wine or from a particular disposition of the Vine the which indeed troubles the Wine and doth shake it up and down with a confused tempest Or likewise because the Wine it self doth thus trouble it self of its own free accord by reason of the Flowers of the Vine Of both the which latter if there be a fore-touched conformity consent cogrieving or congratulation At least-wise that cannot but be done by an action at a distance To wit if the Wine be troubled in a Cellar under ground whereunto no Vine perhaps is near for some Miles neither is there any discourse of the air under the Earth with the Flower of the absent Vine But if they will accuse a common Cause for such an Effect they must either run back to the Stars which cannot be controuled by our pleasures and liberties of Boldness or I say we return to a confession of an Action at a distance To wit that some one and the same and as yet unknown Spirit the Mover doth govern the absent Wine and the Vine which is at a far distance and makes them to talk and suffer together But as to what concerns the Power of the Stars I am unwilling as neither dare I according to my own liberty to extend the Forces Powers or Bounds of the Stars beyond or besides the authority of the sacred Text which saith it being pronounced from a divine Testimony That the Stars shall be unto us for Signs Seasons Dayes and Years By which rule a Power is never attributed to the Stars that Wine bred in a forreign Soile and brought unto us from far doth disturb move or render it self confused For the Vine had at some time received a Power of increasing and multiplying it self before the Stars were born And Vegetables were before the Stars and the imagined influx of these Wherefore also they cannot be things conjoyned in Essence one whereof could consist without the other Yea the Vine in some places flowreth more timely and in rainy or the more cold years our Vine flowreth more slowly whose Flower and Stages of flourishing the Wine doth notwithstanding imitate and so neither doth it respect the Stars that it should disturb it self at their beck In the next place neither doth the Wine hearken unto the flourishing or blossoming of any kind of Capers but of the Vine alone And therefore we must not flee unto an universal Cause the general or universal ruling air of worldly successive change to wit we may rather run back unto impossibilities and absurdities than unto the most near commerces of Resemblance and Unity although hitherto unpassable by the Schooles Moreover that thing doth as yet far more manifestly appear in Ales or Beers When in times past our Ancestours had seen that of Barley after whatsoever manner it was boyled nothing but an empty Ptisana or Barley-broath or also a Pulpe was cooked they meditated that the Barley first ought to bud which then they call Malt and next they nakedly boyled their Ales imitating Wines Wherein first of all some remarkable things do meet in one To wit there is stirred up in Barley a vegetable Bud the which when the Barley is dryed doth afterwards die and looseth the hope of growing and so much the more by its changing into Meal and afterwards by an after boyling it despaires of a growing Virtue yet these things nothing hindring it retains the winey and intoxicating Spirit of Aquavitae the which notwithstanding it doth not yet actually possess But at length in number of dayes it attaineth it by virtue of a Ferment To wit in the one only bosome of one Grain one only Spirit is made famous with diverse Powers and one Power is gelded another being left Which thing indeed doth as yet more wonderfully shine forth When as the Ale or Beer of Malt disturbs it self while the Barley flowreth no otherwise than as
drying of Clay that is made by heat Learn ye therefore oh ye Schooles of me an unprofitable and the least of young Beginners that heat is through occasion of the loines but not the occasion of the stone or of the adhering sand That is the stone is not from heat but heat from the stone even as heat ariseth in the finger from a Thorne being thrust into it but the Thorne is not there made by heat For ye have heard the wailings of the Strangury or piâsing by drops but not of heat in the stone of the Bladder even as otherwise ye have heard complaints of heat in the Disease of the stone of the Kidnies wherefore if heat were the efficient cause of the stone there would be far greater complaints in the stone of the Bladder Because this stone by reason of its greater hardnesse should also be the of-spring of a greater heat and drying than that of the Reines And the rather because that doth almost continually swim in the Latex or urinal Liquor whereas the Kidney doth not any thing detain the trans-sliding uâine Surely the stone of the Bladder should have need of a violent heat For the diseased complain of a sharpnesse burning heat and pain But these things are not felt in the nest of the Stone even as in the Nut of the Yard Therefore Children have known how to distinguish of the sense and place of sharpnesse and pain but not the Schooles But moreover although the urine may seem biting and sharp as if there were the burning of fire as in the Strangury yet being voided it is not any thing more hot or sharper to the tast or more salt than it was wont or is meet to be There is an apparent burning and tartnesse of the urine not indeed from a true heat or any sharpnesse of the urine but onely by reason of the forreignnesse of some certain small quantity of sharpnesse through a Ferment being co-mixed therewith which thing the Strangury teacheth being contracted by new Ales and those as yet fermenting from a sharpnesse Therefore Macc or Saffron being taken for they must be sharp and hot Medicines yea reaching to the very place if they ought to help and therefore by their odour testifying their presence in the urine the aforesaid burning heat for the most part ceaseth For it is a Philosophical truth that the stone increaseth by the same causes whereby it ariseth and so on the other hand But stones being joined to our Chamber-pots do confirm that the stone is naturally made and at leastwise without an actual heat of the Chamber-pot and encompassing Ayr or that heat is not required unto its constitution therefore the stone is made and increased materially of the urine but not of a vital muscilage nor that it doth require heat for its efficient cause and much lesse an excesse of the same heat For the mucky snivel doth not appear rejected or cast forth unlesse the stone be first present in the Bladder and so the cause as slow should have come after its effect For I have observed that if any one did pisse through a thick Towel and found not a muscilage herein yet but a few houres after that time his urine being strained thorow and filtred into a clean Glass had yielded a thin and red sand equally adhering thereunto neither also had it fallen down more plentifully about the bottome than it stuck about the sides of the Glasse And that thing had thus happened in a cold encompassing Ayr. Wherefore even from thence any one ought to be more assured that that sand had not gone forth with the urine in the beginning of his making water because it was not yet bred neither that it was actually in the urine For otherwise it had stood detained in the Towel however thin it had been like the atomes of Potters earth Or if the Towel being not thick enough had deceived him yet at least it had presently rushed unto the bottome in the likenesse of sand or a settlement neither had it affixed it self in its making in so great a grain and with so great a distance of equality to the sides of the Vessel Because it had wanted a glew whereby it might have been able to glew it self thereunto In the next place seeing that sand wants a glew throughout its whole Superficies except in that part wherein it adheres to the Chamberpot or Urinal it is sufficiently manifest that at one and the same instant wherein that sand was made it was likewise also glewed thereunto For from thence any one ought to be the more assured if he had ever toughly laboured in a diligent searching out of the truth that since that sand applyed it self to the Glasse of its owne free accord that it was also generated far after the making water to wit in the immediate instant before its affixing but that it being affixed however the most small it was in it self it afterwards encreased by additions Which effects indeed as they are wrought by a common nature growing or glistening in the urine and not from a particular atome of sand which affixed it self to the Vessel Hence also it equally departed and that at once out of the whole urine For from this so ordinary and daily handicraft Operation if the love of Health were cordially seated in the Schooles they ought for some Ages before now to have known nor indeed from an argument drawn from a Similitude and far fetcht but altogether from the Identity or same linesse of the urine and stony sand it self that for as much as that sand had grown together from the matter of the urine to wit of the same matter from whence the stone also was and that indeed though a muscilage of the matter and heat of the place were absent for the pewter Chamberpot stands in the cold encompassing ayr and likewise without the suspition of the affect of the stone or an infirmity of the pisser for also any the unblamed urine of healthy persons generates this sand and applyes it self to the urine therefore the sand and stone in us proceeds from stony causes to wit the same from which the urine becomes of a sandy grain in the Glasse without us being also healthy persons Which thing being by me seen I seriously sighed and certainly knew that the Schooles had erred in the knowledge of the cause and that they do even to this day stumble in curing of the Stone the which notwithstanding they rashly assume to themselves and presume of I greatly bewailed the stupidities and false devices of so many Ages and more that the unhappy Obediences strict Clientships paines and deaths of the sick the untimely destructions of Families and lastly the spoyles of Widows and Orphans had happened under unfaithful an ignorant helpers who deceived the World with the name of Phisitians For then I knew in good earnest that I knew nothing who had learned my princiciples from such as knew nothing I therefore disdaining the
disposition it uncloathing it s own Coagulum or runnet constraines the same vapour into an earth and both their forces being conjoyned a new creature is made which is the nativity of Duelech But moreover the Schooles insisting on their own principles of heates prescribe that the Patient must not lay on his back also that his loynes are to be anoynted with cooling oyntments yea that a plate of lead is to be locally borne upon them They command a bed of wool instead of a bed of feathers least his reines should wax hot And moreover between the bed cloathes and the bed they spread a hide of leather For indeed the Schooles are busied only about subduing of the effect and have respect only unto the product or effect but in no wise unto the cause not so much as to the occasional one For by watching diligently over trifles they successiuely subscribe unto each other without any observance of help And so they seriously dream waking that they may flatter the sick For neither are stones bred because the loynes are hot but the loynes are hot because stones are bred They therefore chuse wool or flocks before feathers by reason they say of the heat of these As being ignorantt that feathers do lesse heat than wool by reason of their exact exclusion of aire which thing the sense of touching may judge of In the next place it being granted that the feather should more heat the body laying upon it and that is wrapped in feathers than wool Yet all that ceaseth if a sheet interpose between the feathers or wool For truly the heat which issues out of the feathers or wool is not the very heat of these simple substances but the reflex heat of the party laying thereon and being received in the feathers or wool For it being from thence layd aside in the middle of the bed returnes through the sheet not indeed stronger than it self was before but being almost suitably co-tempered with the same importance of heat wherein the body it self is prevalent But the very glassen instrument that was framed for the measuring of the temperature of the encompassing aire visibly determineth this controversy whereof in our elementary principles Neither doth it argue to the contrary that he that hath the stone in his reines feels himself hotter in a feather bed than in a flock bed For that happens not by reason of the greater heat of the feathers but fitly because the patient is sunk deeper in the feather bed but he layes only on the top of the flock bed and the cooling aire blowes on him from the sides Will the Schooles thus never distinguish of any thing from its foundation Cause and Roote And with rustick wits will they alwayes savour of the heathenish opinion of heat and cold I intreat you for the love of God wherein every one when this life is finished with him can desire that he may be beheld cast away stubbornesse presumption and sloath and do not despise a better doctrine CHAP. VI. The Womb of Duelech 1. Why the womb of the stone is to be sought into 2. The bladder also generates a stone of another condition than the kidney 3. Prognosticks or presages 4. Heate doth not coagulate any thing in urines 5. Another necessity of the womb 6. The scituation of this womb 7. A handicraft operation 8. Observations had from thence 9. The extension of this womb is conjectured of 10. The reason of wonderfull events in those that have the stone in their reines 11. From whence there is a relapse in the stone of the reines 12. The stone of the reines hearkens unto meteours 13. The manner in making thereof 14. The urine why it is troublous or foule 15. The paine of the stone of the reines is from a contracture 16. They are deceived in the cause who bring the straightnesse of the Ureter as for the fiercenesse of paine 17. The ignorance of the womb hath caused a neglect of the cure 18. A fabulous perswasion of the Schooles 19. Another necessity of relapses 20. The cleering up of a certaine doubt 21 A history of a mad man 22. The seperation of the urine from the venall blood 23. The disorderly generation of a strange stone THe seed matter and processe of making the stone in man being already made manifest and the urine being known in its contents as it is the seminary vessel bringing down the seed of the stone yet there hath not as yet been enough spoken For truly one kidney being safe and sound the other only is oftentimes stony It is not sufficient therefore to have accused the common Beginning of the urine and therefore this is the more powerfully to be imagined that every generated Being presupposeth a certaine womb from whence to wit the product it self doth now and then obtaine no sluggish disposition For it is of necessity that there be places wherein things may be made before they are bred and that as well from the priority of places as of motions For the urine is already materially in the liver yea and in the mesentery veines before it be in the kindeys Nether could the reines by a seperation sequester the urine from the venall blood unlesse the urine and the blood where now the while really distinct But if it be urine before it come down to the kidney or unto the sucking veines it must needs be also that the stone is after some sort prepared before it come unto the Innes of the reines For if the dung begins to be prepared even from the beginning of the gut Duodenum why shall not the same thing happen to the urine Wherefore it hath seemed to me that neither also could the urine performe the reason or office of the womb of the stone and much lesse the Reines themselves so great is the hasty passage of the urine thorow them as it were through Syringes wherefore it hath behoved me first to give heed unto the womb of this monstrous ofspring especially because the Schooles have even hitherto skipt over this top of knowledge as being content with the judgment of the vulgar nor being wise beyond the country folk who behold only the reines and bladder But surely the mine or womb doth euery way cause a great diversity of the thing that is to be born if it for the most part conteines the fruitfullnesses and barrennesses of generation For if nature be subject to the Soyle certainly nature cannot but be in a womb especially if she stonify in one of the kidneys the other remaining safe And that thing is chiefly to be contemplated of from the same and in the same matter of the stone and urine of one seed From the womb therefore and not from elsewhere is the cause of the far fetcht infirmity to be required For the bladder also and the same urine in number procreates a Duelech of another condition than that which is made in the kidney or at leastwise which was never made before
From hence it is that Fevers do about their end provoke voluntary sweats And a Crisis or judicial sign which is terminated by sweats is most exceeding wholesome and by consequence also sudoriferous Remedies But they fled together unto Putrefaction that they might find the cause from whence they might confirm first cold and presently afterwards heat They therefore assume that Horse-dung which is actually cold doth voluntarily wax hot by reason of putrefaction But how blockishly do they on both sides deceive the credulous world For Cowes-dung of the same nourishments hath better putrified and been digested than Horse-dung yet it waxeth not hot Also the dung of an Horse which is fed with grass or Fetches waxeth not hot even as while he is fed with grain yet that hath putrefied no less than this They have not known therefore that heat follows the eaten grain but not the nature of Putrefaction Therefore they foolishly transfer a feverish heat unto humours putrified in a Fever from the heat of the dung not yet putrefying The Schools thefore have not known that by how much the nearer Horse-dung is unto a beginning-putrefaction by so much the more it is deprived of all heat And neither therefore shall the same dung ever putrifie if it be spread broad But only while as be ing moist it is contracted into an heap no otherwise than as Hay or Flowers if they are pressed together being moist are inflamed before putrefaction They have been ignorant I say that dung waxeth hot by its own spirits of salt being pressed together Again although dung do wax hot in the making of Putrefaction yet all heat ceaseth before the Putrefaction begun is in its being made And so the heat of the dung squares not with a feverish matter if the putrefied matter as they say layes hid long before in Receptacles and indeed in a Quartane always and very long Yea neither is the degree of the heat of dung suitable that it may be dispersed from its putrefied center even unto the soals of the feet but that it should first burn up the center of the body where that putrefied humour should overflow Therefore the example of dung is plainly impertinent to Fevers and so much the rather because they do not teach that Cold is before Heat in time And moreover in nature Putrefaction no where causeth heat and much less in vital things For in a putrefying body Cold must needs be if it be spoyled of life which life in us is the fountain of heat For in the interposing dayes of intermitting Fevers we complain not of heat or Cold molests us when as notwithstanding they suppose the humours to be putrefied Therefore if Heat and Cold do causally succeed in that which is putrefied and Cold be always before Heat in the comming of Fevers Cold is more native to a putrefied matter than Heat For therefore we measure the long continuance of the Disease by the duration of cold in an Ague or Fever but not by heat At length I have shewn that all feverish heat is wholly from the Archeus and therefore that it ceaseth before death when as notwithstanding Cold and Putrefaction do the more prevail It implies also that the heat of a Fever should be from a putrefied matter and that it should be first kindled in the heart it self from whence the Putrefaction is banished In the next place Heat is not kindled in dung from the Putrefaction it self For if it be daily be-sprinkled with the new urine of a horse it will not so much as wax hot in a years time But it is certain that urine doth not preserve from putrefaction but more truly that it should increase it For they should more truly have drawn heats out of Baths or Lime But they were rather ignorant of the Causes of these Heats Wherefore they have judged it a more easie matter to have accused the putrefaction of one horse-dung Neither was there any reason why they should horrow the essence of a Fever rather from heat than from cold and other symptomes Seeing they are the alike and fellow accidents of Fevers Therefore they have alwayes endeavoured to beat down the accidents of the Product because they have been ignorant of the roots But since it is now manifest that material things are the matter it self after what manner will they cure who convert the whole hinge of healing only unto heats At leastwise the similitude of horse-dung and of a feverish heat ascribed unto putrefaction hath fallen For dung when it begins never so little to putrifie it puts off heat And as long as it can be hot Artificers extract Salt-peter from thence But if it shall wax cold they leave it to Countrey Folks as unprofitable for themselves But the Schools accuse the Putrefaction or Corruption of Humours and indeed of one and the same Humour as well for Cold as for Heat and both in a heightned degree And by consequence that one and the same thing should immediately effect two Opposites out of it self Therefore it must needs be that either of these two is by it self but the other by accident If therefore Cold be the Off-spring of Putrefaction by it self it cannot in any wise essentially include heat but only by accident But if Heat be the son of Putrefaction by it self verily neither then should a Fever begin from Cold. Nevertheless it is clear enough from the aforesaid particulars that the Schools do suppose Putrefaction to be the essence of Fevers But Heat and Cold to be accidents accompanying the Putrefaction Wherefore Galen saith When blood putrifies Choler is made which Text if they shall admit of that Choler shall be putrified in its own birth or not If putrified it should cause a Tertian but not a Sunochus or putrified burning Fever Let the Schools therefore know that the blood is never putrified in the veins but that the vein it self also putrifies as in a Gangrene and in Mortifications And so they beg the principle who let forth the blood lest it should putrifie in the veins Like-wise they who affirm a Sunochus to arise from the blood of the veins being putrified And also they who say that the blood while it purrifies is turned into Choler The which particulars I thus prove The veins retain their blood fluid even in a dead carcase by the consent of all Anatomy but the blood being chased out of the veins straightway grows together into a clot But the coagulation of the blood is only a beginning of Corruption and way of separation of the whole Therefore if a vein preserves its blood from corruption in a dead carcase much more doth it do that in live bodies It being an argument from the less to the greater Forreign excrements indeed putrifie in the veins to wit they being the Retents as well of their own as of another digestion as concerning digestions elsewhere but the blood never Because it is that which according to the Scriptures is the seat and
the intestine or inward hope and rules of death diseases as also of health Which things notwithstanding have not stood believed God the Creatour so permitting it as the ordained principles of nature but by the inbred hatred and suggestion of the Divel and through a continued sluggishnesse of the schooles in subscribing Against all which one only argument ought to suffice to wit that I have removed the fire out of the number of Elements yea and the account of substances and have demonstred a co-mixture of Elements requisite for the constitution of bodies which are believed to be mixt to be impossible So as that none of a sound mind can or ought henceforward to admit of a necessitated equality of Humours with the Elements For the fallacy of Humours as well as of Elements hath been the more hidden or obscure and lesse passable in the people but that it hath been consented to by Learned and judicious men is to be had in compassion due to ones neighbour the which as it blowes away the credulities of the people so it accuseth the dulnesse of the Schools and their constant sluggishnesse or carelessnesse of diligently searching But because the mad toy of a Catarrhe hath likewise wondrously afflicted the world and I having often searched with my self into the occasions to wit from what fountain so great an hereditary blindnesse of the Schools and so inveterate an obstinacy in affirming might proceed at length I knew that the Ignorance of both the erring or wandring Ceepers had given an occasion of sliding into the miserabled and subscribed a confession of Humours falling down For truly any one being oft-times by the more cold aire suddenly stricken in his throat neck teeth or shoulders he also as credulous supposeth according to the assertions of Physitians that believed Humours do flow down unto the places smitten with cold When as otherwise cold as in its own nature it is repercussive should rather divert the fall of Humours from it self which are thought to be subservient to a Catarrh or rheum But much blood-letting and frequency of a solutive medicine at this day as they diminish the strength of the parts and dismisse it being diminished on posterity so it s no wonder indeed that the parts being smitten by the indrawing of an unjust aire or otherwise with an excelling injury of cold and being before weakened do easily suffer in the proper functions of their offices and digestions to wit that they do make manifest degenerate products as the cause of the malady bred in the same place but not defluxing thither from elswhere Although in the mean time those strange products have nothing common with the four supposed Humours and much lesse do they convince of a future flowing down of these The falshood whereof notwithstanding is of so great moment that the position of the asserted Humours cannot but include a dullnesse and unconsiderateness of the Schools in their own principles of healing with a most destructive abuse unto mortals of necessity Because that from thence the art of healing adisease health the necessity of life and at length of death do follow The which therefore I in this place for the benefit of my decieved neighbours will the second time more cleely explain But at first I will retake the position of the Schools wherein they feign the blood to be composed of four diverse and con-nexed Humours For we see after the contusion or bruising of a member first a swelling followes which presently for the most part looks red and afterward is changed of an Azure colour straightway after it looks black and blew afterwards it is black and last of all it waxeth yellow and is largly dispersed into Circles Therefore according to the Humourists that blood first passeth over into black Choler and this at length into yellow Choler And so the more liquid Humour should the more stubbornly resist and black Choler should be of a far more easie dispersing than yellow Choler And so black Choler should not be made of Yellow but plainly a after retrograde manner this should be changed into yellow Choler which is against the will of Galen who never knew black Choler to be returned into yellow But rather he writeth that all the blood doth by its alienations immediately and naturally contend into yellow Choler Hitherto hath the unheard of doctrine of Fevers in the Chap. of solutive medicines regard To wit where I have shewn that the blood of the veins is through its corruption diversly transchanged according to the poyson of the solutive medicines For truly that thing happeneth in bruises and blood being chased out of the veins and by degrees made destitute of the fellowship of life doth by little and little also hearken as well to the affects of the parts as to the various corruptions of the blood But not that the variety of dead excrements or unlikenesse of corruption can or ought to testifie a composition of the blood Yea truly the Schools suppose for the institutions of medicine that yellow Choler is one of the four constitutive Humours of the blood to wit a gawly and bitter one and therefore that that Yellow and bitterish Humour which is sometimes rejected by vomit is Choler it selfe yea Gaul it self and essentially co-incident in identity or samelinesse with the aforesaid Choler and original Gaul both which they contend to be daily framed out of the meats at the constitution of the blood To wit Choler for the composition of the blood but Gawl to be banished as an excrement under the Liver into its own sheath that it may from thence go forth through the filths of the paunch But that which is rejected by vomit is yellow bitter sometimes Leeky and of a cankered colour From hence indeed they prove that that very original Choler which swims on the blood that is let out of the veins ought will they nill they to be naturally bitter and Gauly and again on the other hand with a scantinesse of truth that the constitutive Choler of the blood ought of necessity to be bitter And moreover although that bitter excrement and which is rejected by vomit doth altogether differ from the Choler left in the blood after its separation from thence by reason as they say of its abundance excesse and meernesse attained in seperating yet in the essential and actual truth of the thing they will have it to be the same to wit as well that which is rejected by vomit and that which is as yet left for the composition and requisite integrity of the blood as that third which redounding from the daily food is brought unto the little bag of the Gaul and from thence they say to be carried forth for the tinging of the excrements as well of the belly as bladder The which to wit they seriously affirm to be one and the same Choler and meer single yellow Choler and Choler I say to be one only Humour in its root of the four constitutive
age but not that there is any conjoyned material cause of a man besides his body it self which is the very product of generation to wit from a material cause and seminal internal efficient which things have hitherto been vailed from the Schools and so they have reputed the internal occasional causes of diseases to be the immediate and conjoyned ones being as yet plainly distinct from the disease produced Wherefore that is also next to be repeated in this place which I have taught in my discourses of Natural Phylosophy to wit that there are six digestions in us For in the three former that there are their own Retents and their own excrements the which seeing every one of them are in themselves and in their own Regions troublesom yea by a co-inâolding and extravagancy they have become hateful they degenerate into things transmitted and transchanged and do from thence induce divers diseases occasionally But in the fourth and fifth digestion I have shewn that not any perceiveable excrement is admitted But in the sixth digession which is that of things transchanged that very many voluntary dungs do through the errour of the vegetative faculty offer themselves Moreover that some are transmitted from some other place as also that not a few do degenerate through a violent command of things suscepted or undergone which things have been hitherto unknown by the Schools and therefore also have been neglected and the which therefore have wanted a proper name and the diseasie effects of these have been ridiculously translated and adjudged unto the four feigned humours of the Liver Wherefore although I as the first have expelled the diseasifying causes of Tartar yet least I should seem to make new all things from animosity I will here call these filths the Tartar of the blood although by an improper Etymology because for want of a true name Such excrements therefore whether they are brought into the habit of the body from elsewhere or next made under transchanging by a proper errour of the faculties or lastly through a violent command of external things being there degenerated I name them the Tartar of the blood ãâ¦ã that in very deed they are Tartars in the matter and manner of the Tartar of Wine but because of good nourishment being now defiled that which before was fruitful and vital hath afterwards become hostile And these things I have therefore fore-admonished of that ye may know that the Tartar of the blood is the product of the plague and that that is easily made from efficient pestilential causes And moreover it is not yet sufficient to have said that the Tartar of the blood is the product of the Pest but besides I ought to prefix the place thereof For I will by and by teach that the Plague is a poyson of terrour and therefore I have noted that the Seat or primitive Nest thereof is in the Hypochondrial or Midriffs to wit where the first conception of humane terrour is whether it happen from external disturbances or next of its own accord from the motions of things conceived Wherefore there are present in the plague vomiting doatage headach c. the which in its own place I have decyphered in the Commonwealth of the Spleen Therefore if the Schools had put this Tartar of the blood for a conjoyned cause we had as yet notwithstanding been differing from each other as that which with them had been a connexed cause is with me a product of the plague for the Pestinvades us after an irregular manner neither is it s conjoyned matter a certain solid body or visible liquor as neither therefore any putrefaction plainly to be seen but only a Gas separated and degenerated from the substance of the Archeus But whatsoever visible thing offers it self as vitiated in the Plague is not of the matter of the plague it self nor of the matter whereof but it is either the occasional matter of which before or it is the product or off-spring wherein the plague sits as it were in a nest Wherefore the Carbunole Bubo or Escharre are not the original matter of the Pest but the effect and product which the Pest âath prepared to it self For the plague is for the most part so cruel and swift that as soon as it is introduced into the Archeus it cannot omit but that it subjecteth some part of the nourishable humour unto its tyranny and dwells therein Wherefore if the putrified humour should be the immediate cause of the plague truly it had been putrified before it had putrified To wit seeing the Pest it self prepares that vitious product for it self which the Schools call humours they being as yet undefined For Fernelius would be a little more quick-sighted than the Schools and therefore he knew that the plague was not bred or did conâist of the putrefaction of four seigned humours as neither of the heat of the air or of the cold thereof but of a certain poyson the Foster-child of hidden causes Again we must take notice that when the ãâã of the blood or dross of the last digestion being vitiated hath received a pestileââââment it hath a priviledge of exhaling through the pores no less than other transchanged excrements without any residence left behind it or remaining dead-head So the Chymists call the dreg which remains after distillation to wit if the humours shall be alimentary but not if the substance it self of the solid parts be scorched into an Escharre or Carbuncle for so the much more hard dungs of the Lues Venerea being as it were equal to bones the counsel of resolving being snatched to them do wholly vanish But although the Tartar of the blood doth also rejoyce in the aforesaid prerogative as oft as it is banished as infamous out of the family-administration of life yet while it is transchanged into a corrupt mattery or thin sanious poyson it gnaws the skin into the shape of an Escharre before that it can sweat thorow the pores in manner of a vapour And that indeed by reason of the imprinted blemish of a strange ferment whereby it degenerated into a formal transmutation But if indeed the Tartar of the blood shall draw the odour of the ferment but is not yet transchanged Glandules Buboes c. are made which are oftentimes ended by a plentiful Flux of sweat without opening of the skin whereas the other aforesaid products cannot obtain that and almost all these are by the Schools banished into Catarrhs The whole Tartar of the blood therefore is indeed bred at home but it is a Bastard which is intruded by force destruction and errour But since the remedies of Nature are subject unto so many Courts of digestions and bodies of so eminent an excellency do possess a violence and strength of acting and likewise have filths admixed with them or difficult bolts truly the art of the fire is never sufficiently esteemed which now and then graduates one Simple to that height that it persecutes with revenge all the excrementitious
not the causes of natural things 6. The Form is not the Act. 7. A false Maxim of Aristotle 8. He erreth in the attributes of the Form 9. He knew not the true efficient cause 10. The Father is not the efficient cause of the Son 11. There are two onely causes in Nature 12. The End hath no reason of a cause in nature 13. That the three beginnings of Bodies of Paracelsus have not the nature of causes 14. Whence the definition of any sort soever of natural things is to be required 15. The definition of a Horse 16. The division of sublnnary bodies among the Auntients is dangerous or destructive 17. The definition of Animalls Plants and Mineralls 18. The name of Subject sounds improperly in Philosophy why 't is to be called a co-worker 19. Things without life that are produced how they receive their ends 20. Why the seminal Power is attributed to the Earth 21. That there is not a conjunction of the Elements 22. The Principles of the Chymists have not the power of principiating 23. That there are two onely Principles or beginnings of Bodies to wit that from which and by which 24. What the Ferment or Leaven of things is 25. What are Ferments in their kinde 26. What is immediately in places 27. The Ferments of the Air and water 28. There is onely a speculative distinction of the Ferment and efficient cause 29. The Ferment is the original of some seeds 30. The principiating Ferment of what sort it is and where 31. Ferments are immediately in places in things themselves as if in places 32. The name of matter is speculative but that of water is practical 33. What the inward efficient cause is 34. A false Maxim of Aristotle 35. The efficient cause in natural things is explained 36. Fire is not of the number of seminal efficient causes as it hath deceived the Aristotelicks neither is the influence of the Heavens among the number of efficients 37. The diversity of the efficient and effective cause 38. The wit of Aristotle is ambitious and idle 39. A false Maxim of Aristotle 40. Aristotle was more able in the Mathematicks or learning by de monstration than in Nature 41. How great hath been the ignorance of the Schooles in natural things hitherto 42. Aristotle is in the things of natural Philosophy ridiculous and to himself contradictory I Come into a forsaken house to re-melt the dross that is to be swept out by me Most things are to be searched into and those things to be taught which are unknown those things which have been ill delivered are to be overthrown what are unclean are to be wiped off and what things are false are to be cast away but all and every thing duly to be confirmed But let it be sufficient to have forewarned thee of these things to withdraw wearisomness if happily new and Paradoxall things do more trouble than true things delight The knowledge of Nature is onely taken from that which is in act and in the thing it self for it is that which no where consisteth in feigned Meditations Indeed the whole composure of Nature is individual in very deed in act and fastned in any Body except the number of abstracted Spirits Lastly and chiefly I seriously admonish that as often as I speak of the causes of Natural things these things are not at all to be taken for the Elements or for the Heaven because they supernaturally began with the Title of Creation and to this day do also constantly remain the same which they were from the beginning Therefore I understand the causes of natural things to presuppose a Being subject to change And although the Bodies of the Elements have come under Nature yet their speculation is of another manner of unfolding and another kinde of Philosophy For they who before me have thought that to all Generations or Births of Bodies four Elementsdo co-mix have beheld the Elements after the heathenish manner have tried by their lies or devises to marry the Elements obey them Therefore every natural Body requireth no other than corporeall beginnings for the most part subject to change and succeeding course of dayes but Nature doth not consist of an undetermined hyle or matter and an impossible one neither hath it need of such a Principle as neither of privation but order and life are in the efficient cause of necessity And every thing is empty void dead and slow unless it hath been constituted or sometimes be constituted by a vitall or seminal Principle present with it And moreover those Lawes should rush down together unless there were a certain order in things which did interpose which might incline proper things to the support or necessities of the common good Aristotle hath declared four constitutive causes of things which have made also their own Authour ignorant of Nature For in the first place he confoundeth the Principle with the material cause to wit calling the first cause an undetermined or unlimited matter or a corporeal subjected heap wanting a formall limitation And then he confoundeth the other cause even the inward Essence or form of a thing with another of his Principles Next the third which is external he calleth the efficient cause and at length the fourth he nameth the end to wit unto which every thing is directed But this cause in the minde of the efficient he would have to be the first of the three former causes and so natural things not onely to be principiated or made to begin by the Being of Reason and mental but also as if they were inanimate things they did lie hid through the end in the minde of the efficient cause But if therefore he doth badly search into natural causes he hath far worse appointed a supernatural end in the minde of the first mover in the room of a natural cause or he requireth a mentall conceit of the end in things without life Truly I who have not been accustomed through the floath of consenting to serve others enterprizes without foreweighing them have very much found that the three latter causes in natural knowledge are false yea and hurtful But the first of the four I will by and by shew to be fabulous For first of all since every cause according to nature and succession of dayes is before its thing caused Surely the form of the thing composed cannot be the cause of the thing produced but rather the last perfect act of generation and the veriest essence and perfection it self of the thing generated for the attaining whereof all other things are directed Therefore I meditate the form to be rather as an effect than as a cause of the thing Yea more For the Form seeing it is the end of generation is not meerly the act of generation but of the thing generated and rather a power that may be attained in generation but the matter or subject of generation as it is in act so also its act is an inward worker or
power is an accident and no accident or quality can be a partaker of a Body but on the contrary a Body is a partaker of accidents 4. That souls do not differ but in respect of that body which at length he calleth meer heat notwithstanding that all Souls are a power partaking of a heavenly Body therefore Souls do not differ in respect of that Body in which he hath said they all do agree or if there be any difference between Souls let it be in respect of the matter of a Body or of an unnamed Client or retainer being neglected by and plainly unknown to Aristotle And so in so great a dress of words he hath spoken nothing but trifles 5. If Souls do differ onely for that bodies sake the act shall be now limited by the power the Species or particular kinde by the matter not by the form 6. The Seed contains the cause of fruitfulness it is a Childish and triflous thing because the Seed ceaseth to be Seed if it be without the cause of fruitfulness 7. Every power of the Soul is a partaker of some other body than those which are called the Elements Yet he would have the bodies of all soulified or living Creatures to be of necessity mixt of non but actual Elements 8. The Seed is not fruitful but by heat As though Fishes were not more fruitfull than four footed Beasts and as though Fishes were not actually cold 9. He knew not another moderate heat from live Coals which nourisheth Eggs even unto a Chick And he knowes not that all heat is in one onely most special kinde of quality being distinguished onely by degree 10. He is ignorant that heat onely makes hot by it self and that it should make fruitful by accident And therefore although that heat be the principle of motion and the power of the Soul that is Nature by it self yet as it should make the Seeds fruitful by accident it should be the beginning of motion by accident Therefore in respect of the same Nature it should be a beginning by it self and by accident or with relation to the same Nature it should be Nature and not Nature 11. He confoundeth the quality of heats with the spirit and air of the froathy Seed which notwithstanding do differ no lesse than in predicaments 12. Heat is the spirit of the froathy body and the nature which is in that spirit is heat Therefore the spirit shall be in the spirit 13. Nature is in that spirit and that spirit is not nature defined by Aristotle for the subject of natural Philosophy yet that spirit is the Principle of motion in the Seed and of life in living Creatures and he much more strictly denies the froathy body of the Seed to be of the account of nature as though the seed of things were a froath and not the more inward invisible kernel in a corporeal seed but that onely the power of Souls which with him is nothing but heat were nature 14. Because every power of the Soul is encompassed with heat he excludes out of the account of nature any other bodies and accidents 15. That power of Souls for whose sake Souls do differ is onely heat not indeed a fiery one but agreeing in proportion with the Element of the Stars that is it hath not been understood by Aristotle nor is it to be any way to be understood by the Schooles how heat doth agree with a body with an Element what agreement there can be between such various dependants of predicaments 16. He denieth this power of Souls to be of the race of Elements That plural number rejecteth not onely one Element but by reason of the strength of negatives all Elements 17. Every power of the Soul is a meer heat not indeed answering to the heat of the Element of the Stars but altogether to the Element it self 18. For truly he acknowledgeth no other heat than that of fire nor any other Element of fire than that which is of the kitchin because he distinguisheth Elementary heat from the Element of the Stars yet by his own authority he hath inclosed fire that is not of the kitchin between the Heaven and the Air. 19. At length as oft as he was positively to tell what nature was the privy shifter saith sometimes that it is the power of the Soul sometimes the fruitfulness of the Seed and at last he neither perceived nor ever knew what the heat not fiery was and makes a fifth Element of the Firmament of the Stars after he hath cast away the other four by denying them Therefore he runs about in denying by far fetched speeches and least he should be laid hold on he denyeth nature to be of the race of Elements As if it were enough to have said there is a Chymera or certain fabulous Monster not of the Elements but of the fifth Element of the Stars It is not a body not an accident but a heat answering to the Element of the Heavens not to the heat of the same 20. And he would not say that indeed these things are so bur that they seem to him to be so Seeing that according to the same man many things may seem to be which yet are not 21. And if thou wilt not believe it go to see or expect it for ever 22. As though the whole action of nature were made by heat 23. Also that Mettalls which elsewhere he writeth to be co-thickned or condensed by their own cold because they do abound with heat should now be out of nature 24. And as though the seeds of Vegetables because they are not froathy should not be endowed with fruitfulnesses or should not contain nature in themselves 25. Therefore he denieth the heat of living Creatures actually hot to be Elementary the which notwithstanding I shall at sometime in its own place prove to be true being unmindeful of his own maxim that the cause is of the same particular kinde with its thing caused He knowes not I say that our heat doth make any other things to be hot by a naked Elementary heat And likewise that since not onely Elementary heat which he placeth in the sublunary fire distinct from the common or kitchin fire but also the kitchin fire do heat us in a degree fitted to us Therefore they ought to be of one and the same species or particular kinde 26. At length he rashly affirmeth that nature or the power of the Soul or seminal truths are nothing besides that heavenly heat 27. Therefore he acknowledgeth heat actually cold in Fishes to be the cause of fruitfulness seeing it distributes from every power of the Soul For that is to have sold trifles instead of Phylosophy And as oft as he feareth his toyes are not saleable he provokes us to the Element of the Stars after that he had provoked us it seemes by one affirmative and many trifles of denyalls to the proportion of the Element of the Stars Surely it is a shame for Christians
to be a Bird a thousand dispositions do succeed each other in the way and all of them to be external and accidentary to the Seed neither that in the mean time it ceaseth to hasten to the aims of its appointment For the figure of the yolk of the Egge together with accidentary dispositions succeeding each other do passe over it indeed yet there is not a new generation of the form of that puttified Egge present at every disposure of the putrifaction Indeed one onely vitall form of the Chick being excepted there comes to it no other which by degrees is stirred up by foregoing dispositions and at length the ripeness of dispositions being attained floweth into it For neither when the Bird dyeth is there a certain essential form and generation of the dead Carcase Because all generation in nature is enclosed in an essential form which a dead Carcase wanteth even as also a seed and an Archeus the Governour as shall be shewed in its place Even as the essence begins him with the Vulcan of the Seed and the same essence continues with the product or thing generated so the same product failing the same essence perisheth But the essence perishing the form the Governour or President thereof also goes to ruine For the Vulcan or Master-Workman forsaking the body the flesh heart veins c. do begin to putrifie for that they are now deprived of the vital Balsam their leader For under life the flesh and the bone c. were distinguished In its particular kinde and proper form the flesh was flesh and was formally severed from the bone in which form in the dead Carcase they do forthwith appear And so through death no form or essential thingliness comes upon the dead Carcase in the whole or in any particular parts Onely that which was vitall is seperated Therefore let it be an erroneous thing That the corruption of one thing is the generation of another Because the corruption of life happens onely through the quenching of the vitall Balsam or form therefore without a new generation of a Creature Therefore no privation happens in things that have life and so neither can privation there have the force of a Principle Seeing that from the seed even unto the vitall being there is but one progress promotion and ripeness about the end whereof the form is given Therefore also generation doth reciprocally or cursarily happen without any corruption as often as the matter being now brought to the ripeness of its appointment by the seminal Vulcan hath obtained a form coming to it from elsewhere Yea that Vulcan through the departure of life departs flies away and vanisheth without any corrupting of it self no otherwise than as light perisheth without the corrupting of it self Indeed life vanisheth after the manner of light perishing And the Vulcan seeing it is a certain vitall Air fleeth away Both of them without the corruption of themselves and the body which is deprived of life properly for that very cause is not corrupted although through the failing of the vitall Balsam corruption doth soon succeed Which thing sufficiently appeareth in Mummies and also in Vegetables which being dry and deprived of life are kept for uses yea they do very often drive away all corruption So far of is it that their life perishing for that very cause they should be corrupted Therefore death in things that have life is not the corruption of their own life as neither of that which lives but the extinguishing of life And although in some things the corruption of the body may follow truly that is to life and the body by accident which thing is manifest For truly dead Carcases are preserved from corruption by art Therefore now Aristotle confounds privation with corruption and doth not distinguish his own Principle non ens or a non-being from the Being corruption Lastly the forms of things are not subject to corruption and therefore neither are they corrupted but annihilated or brought to nothing Wherefore neither can the withdrawing or the extinguishing of the form include any corruption on behalf of the form Furthermore I have hated Metaphors or figurative Translations of words from their proper signification to another in the History of nature and Family of essential things because they are those things which have introduced the errours of the Schooles brawls of disputing and religious Worship given to Aristotle But besides if Aristotle be unskilful in nature and ignorant of all natural Philosphy truly Galen hath hitherto every where manifested a greater ignorance For first of all I will make it manifest that there is not a quaternary or a fourfold kinde of Elements nor a congress or conjunction of these for bodies which are believed to be mixt much less a strife or fighting of qualities or Complexions or for the Causes of Diseases And so that neither doth the Treatise of the Elements properly belong to Medicine Truly I finde Galen diligent in opinions and a boasting Writer without judgement or discretion For neither hath he better perceived of Nature Diseases Causes and defects than of the decrees of Hipocrates and Plato For I profess I have twice read over those Volumes of Galen with attention but I have found the poverty and undistinct ignorance of Galen to fight with his rashness For truly those Books do touch at nothing lesse than the Doctrine of Hipocrates or Plato Neither also hath Hipocrates any thing common with Plato And so that I have not found any one who hath judged them worthy of a Commentary as neither to have been written concerning the preserving of health This one thing is alway to be found in Galen that the names of Authours being suppressed he hath willingly snatched the Inventions of others to himself a man wholly scanty or very poor in judgement as oft as he hath expressed the conceptions of his own judgement I ought to declare these things concerning the two Standard-Defenders of natural Philosophy that the Schooles may abstain from worshipping these Masters CHAP. VIII The Elements 1. The Doctrine of the Elements in healing is wholly impertinent and so that in Galen such a heap of those Books is ridiculous 2. The vain opinions of the Schooles concerning the Elements 3. The true beginnings of naturall Science are delivered 4. Six conclusions out of the holy Scriptures 5. That there are onely three Elements 6. The Content of the Heavens 7. That there are two first-born Elements 8. That Fire is not an Element 9. The Errour of Paracelsus touching the matter of the Heaven 10. A Quaternary of Elements for the mixtures of Bodies and for Diseases falls to the ground 11. A Proposition that all things which are believed to be mixt are materially of water onely with a mechanicall or handicraft demonstration 12. What the Elementall and Virgin Earth is 13. From whence the two Elements may be called the first-born 14. An objection from artificial things 15. The force of the artificial fire of Hell 16. Another
the foundation of nature by which all waters are strained thorow that all of them may keep a Communion among each other from the beginning of the Creation unto the end and from the Superficies or upper part of the Earth even to its Center And moreover the water detained in this Soil of Sand is perhaps actually greater by a thousand fold than the whole heap of Seas and Rivers floating on the Superficies of the Earth And that is easily verified by supposing the whole superficies of the Earth also to be covered with waters to the depth of 600 paces Therefore it followes respect being had to the Diameter of the Earth that there is easily a thousand times more water under than upon the Earth For truly dry Sand drinks up at least about a fourfold quantity of water in the same extension of place yet I will not have it that although the Quellem be the last ground or Soil to the Digger that all subjected grounds are every where to be found by order For the aforesaid Sand which sometimes overwhelms it self perhaps to a thousand paces beneath the Horizon elsewhere boils up with speed under the open Air yea and oft-times in the top of Mountains Of which thing the Schooles with their Aristotle being ignorant do toughly hold that all true springs do owe the cause of their continuance from the Air co-thickned into water when as notwithstanding they cannot maintain that thing because in the tops of the highest Mountains springs do oft-times leap forth where another Mountain of the like height is not neer nor a water-Channel extended on either side to this Therefore they hold their peace with a lofty look and are silent at the unwonted miracle of the thing Surely as long as waters do wander in the living and vitall Soil of the Earth and are detained in the Sand Quellem so long I say they are not constrained to bring forth by the water drawing lawes of Scituations No otherwise than as the bloud while it is nourished with life in the veins so long also it knowes not above and beneath and it is as well in the fore-head as in the feet But at the very moment wherein it once falls out of the veins or the waters do disgorge themselves out of the Quellem they cease not to flow down by obeying the lawes of Scituations Therefore the Sea in its own ground doth sup up the received waters in the sieve of the Virgin-Sand For so according to the wise man however all waters do flow into the Sea yet it never re-gorgeth them again Because by one onely thread there is a continuall passage out of the Virgin-Sand into Springs Streams Rivers and the Sea to moysten the Earth and appointed to enrich it with Mineralls Whither again the waters being driven they are supt up partly by the Quellem and partly do snatch the Air. So indeed doth the Universe distribute its waters and lay them aside for divers fruits And therefore I have meditated with admiration that the Almighty hath set before him the necessities of ungrateful immortal men as the aims of things I return to the Earth I have found for certain that the original Earth doth no where of its own accord concur to the mixtures of fruits slide thereto by chance nor that it is assumed by nature nor is found to have assumed the works of nature or art And therefore the reason of mixtures waxeth lean the number of Elements Qualities and Temperaments ceaseth and so they are lying fopperies which have been hitherto stifly and ignorantly garnished out by the Schooles For of a man Wood c. be it dust or ashes that is left by the fire yet Earth is never drawn out for else our burying places would soon swell Therefore the Earth is at least the remaining wombe but not the Mother Which if it should sometimes have a conflux unto fruits or mixt bodies it would either abide in the same and so by the solution of art or nature would sometimes be found or should return from thence which is false or plainly should be taken to the mixt Body and in it should cease to be Earth being already changed into another thing and so should be elsewhere diminished which I will straightway shew to be alike false or by the death or dissolution of the thing should return again into earth and there should be a daily and repeated returning of one and the same Element from a privation to a habit Or if this should not return into earth it should remain changed into fruits and so the whole Earth had long since gone into fruits and nature had lost her constancy and had mocked the first aims of the Creator or the earth had returned from the dissolved mixt body into another Element the impertinency whereof ceaseth For truly it is not natural to water or air to turn another Element into its own substance From hence I will straightway demonstrate that never one drop of water is turned into air or likewise air changed into water Which changes notwithstanding do appear lesse labour some than of the earth into water or into air And therefore if nature hath not as yet attempted the more easie transmutations after what sort shall it presume on the more difficult ones For otherwise the earth should be âupt up and brought to nothing by Elements that are so much more large co-touching with it and more active But the Father of the Universe being a lover of Concord hateth discord and brawlings and chiefly in the Elements which that they might be the stable props of nature he hath not created the same fighting ones For he hath also directed the Elements to their appointed ends and lawes of continuance to wit that he may bring forth and nourish his own fruits for his own honour and the use of man Notwithstanding neither the honour of God nor mans necessity did any where or any way require the battels devourings strifes of the Elements their trampling on each other as neither the exchanging or nourishing of one by the other Nor lastly that at the end of an Element to increase it self by covetousness hunger luxury or necessity with the destruction of anomer For neither are they guilty of the fault of coverousness or hatred as neither do they desire to be nourished Last of all neither have the Elements obtained an Archeus a kitchin or properties for that transchanging Therefore the whole Doctrine of the Schooles concerning the elementary War is an old Wives fable Therefore the earth is never taken or of its own accord doth materially run out of it self into the constitution of bodies And there is by right made no mixture in nature which can firmly grow together under the unity of the natural composed form unless it be between juyces and spirits On the contrary no pulverous or powder all co-mixture doth tend to generation but there is onely an apposition or applying presently of its own accord and again
the air which is contrary to his supposition for seeing the air is of the same heat about A and about D the Liquor B C shall also necessarily take rest Because the quality of the air which encompasseth is the moving cause of the water B. C. acting with an equall strength and giving an equall tenour Now through the supposition of that which is false I will demonstrate what may follow upon his ignorance Let I say the water B. C. according to his observation be changed into air In the first place this observation cannot be admitted without rarefying caused by heat Nor can that rarefying be granted without an increase of place beside the heat And the increase of place cannot subsist without the enlarging or breaking of the Vessel Because he confesseth the Glasse to be exactly shut with a continuation of the Glasse without ruine or poriness 2. A transchanging of the water into air cannot be granted without co-thickning and restraining and restraint is not given without the addition of parts by pressing together actually within the same space or magnitude Which ought altogether to be named a condensing of the air which in this place cannot be made but by cold alone which supposeth the air to turn into water therefore not the water into air Since therefore neither heat nor cold can turn water into air much lesse shall that which is temperate do that For that this doth not beget an alteration in those Elements Likewise air is not turned into water because this conversion cannot be admitted being made by rarefaction because the rarefying of the air doth not happen in this place without the mediation of heat But Heer will have it that the air is co-thickned into water by cold Therefore water shall not be generated of air by heat 2. That transchanging of air into water cannot be admitted but by condensing and restraining which cannot happen in a Glasse perfectly shut but by cold Which agent upon the air being shut up within A and D should change it into water according to the supposition of Heer For so water had been increased by generation in Vessels perfectly shut Which contradicteth his own words This pretious Liquor perished it is no more it hath ceased to be and that indeed in the raging winter Therefore since neither heat nor cold can co-thicken air into water much lesse shall that do it which is temperate Therefore never It is a wonder therefore why it hath not hindered the drying up of the Liquor in Vessels Since according to his own prattle those should be onely buried under the Snow that they might be filled with water Now there shall not hereafter be need of rain if the Cave being perfectly shut and cold continual Cisterns should be made And likewise when the water should over-weigh the air that water shall fall into the bottom of a great Vessel very closely shut from whence as oft as one would list the water should be drawn out And so that Vessel should be changed into a winter Fountain For as Heer saith The Vessel was very closely shut it wanted little holes neither had it need of opening as well for the entrance as the transpiration of the air But if a new air might afterwards enter the same way and by the same meanes whereby the water that was changed into air the Glasse being shut flew out Hereafter therefore sweet water shall not be wanting to Marriners in a Ship if by the cold of the night the air growes together by drops into water Venice and Antwerp shall frame Fountains in the belly of a Brasse Cock which in the Pinacle of the Temple sheweth the windes For by the night-cold the air shall weep being turned into water And although the Pipe be moyst to those that play on Flutes that is not from the air Otherwise Organ-Pipes also should be moyst within which is false For the air utters the sound or tune and the salt vapour drops water out of the Pipe They having pressed air of one ell together in a gun to the space of 14 fingers even in the cold of winter and so far is it that the air so pressed together in excelling cold was changed into water that it cast out a leaden Bullet thorow an Oken Plank more strongly than a hand-Gun or Pistollet Now I will proceed to prove that thing by positive Reasons Because an applied esteem or thinking hath on every side overshadowed the Schooles with a manifold absurdity CHAP. XI The Essay of a Meteor 1. A vapour raised from the heat of water differs from that which is made by cold 2. That Air is not made of water 3. That air can neither by art or nature be brought into water 4. That the Air doth not subsist without an actuall vacuum or emptiness 5. It is proved by Handicraft operation that the subtilizing or rarefying of Art however exact or fine it be is nothing but a sifting 6. By handy operation the same thing is shewen in the sifting or making of leaf-Gold 7. The water is examined by three proportionable things and the Doctrine of necessity in the highest degrees of cold of the middle Region of the Air is delivered 8. The likeness of Mercury with water 9. The nature of Mercury 10. The rashness of antient Chymists concerning Mercury 11. That earth and water are never made one thing by any co-mixture 12. How art exceedes nature 13. The Earth is properly the fruit of the two primary Elements 14. A neere Reason of an uncapacity in Mercury of being destroyed 15. Aquae fortesses do not operate upon the Center of Mercury 16. Nor the Spirit of Sea-salt upon the body of it 17. The inward Sulphur of Mercury 18. How water may give a weight more weighty than it self 19. After what manner there is an ordinary piercing of Bodies in the way of nature 20. In the way of nature there are not the three first things although in its own simpleness there is a conceivable difference of kinde which is to receive the Seedes 21. Smoak is meer water 22. Why Clouds do stink 23. What the Dew is 24. What a mist is 25. Wherefore it behooved the Air in the middle Region of the Air to be cold 26. In this cold all seeds seperated by Atomes or Motes do die and therefore the water returns into the simplicity of its own Element but in Earth and Water if things are spoiled of their seed they do not return unto that simplicity but do conceive a new seed 27. By Handicraft operation the errour of Paracelsus is laid open 28. The errour of the Galenists about the savours of things Elementated 29. What the Gas of the water is 30. The unconstancy of Paracelsus concerning the seperation of Elements from Elements IT is already sufficiently manifest that the water by the force of heat is lifted up in manner of a vapour which vapour nevertheless is nothing but water made thin and remains as before and therefore being
Degrees of Simples he hath not attempted it by the discretion of his Tongue and so he divined that more of the fire had concurred to a mixture where he found the more sharpness and bitterness Which thing the Schooles even till now hold as authenticall although Opium being bitter hinders it although Flammula or Scarrewort the Glasse being close shut layeth aside its tartness as also Water-Pepper and the like And what things are moyst do burn or sting but dried things do binde Neither shall the Galenists easily finde out a way whereby they may bring fire for water-Pepper under dirt For it hath been unknown in the Schooles that all properties not onely those which they call occult or hidden but also that any other properties do flow out of the lap of seeds and all those which it pleaseth the Schooles themselves also to call formall ones Surely I do experience four Elementary qualities to be as in the outward bark of things the second qualities to be more dangerous or destructive but the most inward ones to be immediately pressed in the Archeus Yet all of them to be from the bosom of the seede and forms But no quality to come forth from the first matter as neither from the Wedlock of the Elements because they are both feigned Mothers But because the water which is brought into a vapour by cold is of another condition than a vapour raised by heat therefore by the Licence of a Paradox for want of a name I have called that vapour Gas being not far severed from the Chaos of the ââuntients In the mean time it is sufficient for me to know that Gas is a far more subtile or fine thing than a vapour mist or distilled Oylinesses although as yet it be many times thicker than Air. But Gas it self materially taken is water as yet masked with the Ferment of composed Bodies Moreover Paracelsus was altogether earnest in seperating four Elements out of Earth Water Air and Fire and so from his very own Elements which seperation notwithstanding he denieth to be from the three first things possible as if those three first things were more simple and before the Elements Being unmindefull of the Doctrine many times repeated by him To wit that every kinde of Body doth consist onely of three principles but not of Elements because Elements were not bodies but places and empty wombs of bodies or principles void of all body For although the Elements are among us commonly not believed to be undefiled yet Paracelsus calls them so the which he teacheth are by art to be seperated from pollutions But this description receiveth the air in one Glasse common water in another but the Earth either of the Garden or the Field in a third and at length the flame of the fire in a fourth But he shuts the Vessels with Hermes's Seal by melting of the neck And the water for a moneth continually to boyl in its Vessel As though that thing could possibly be done and the Glasse not the sooner leap asunder especially because he commands the water to be shut up without air unto the highest brim of the Vessel and the Glasse to be melted to wit with the water Lastly he conceives a flame in the Glasse and in the very moment wherein it ceaseth it is no more fire but an aiery smoak nor is the fire a substance Last of all nor can the fire be detained within the compass of the Vessel In another place he denieth any Element of fire besides the Heaven but now he calls the fire the Gas of the thing burnt up And he exalts these his trifles for causes of great moment the which notwithstanding he dared not to name Because the doubtful man hath exposed his Dreams to the World in hope of deserving thereby the name of the Monarch of Secrets CHAP. XIII The Gas of the Water 1. The Gas of the water differs from a Vapour 2. A Demonstration from Creation 3. That the Air in Genesis is signified by the Heaven 4. That in the Firmament is the operative Principle of dividing of the Waters 5. The seperating Powers of Waters in the air 6. A History of a Vapour 7. Gas differs from the exhalation of the auntients 8. A supposition of Principles 9. The manner of making in a Vapour 10. The Gas of the Water 11. An example in Gold 12. The Gas of the Water is shewne to the young beginner 13. The incrusting of the Water 14. The heat of the Alps is great yet not to be felt 15. That Gold is not the absence or privation of heat 16. Why Gas is an invisible thing 17. Why the Stars do twinckle 18. Why the Heaven is of an Azure colour 19. The Air knowes not the motion of snatching 20. Above all Clouds the Air is not voyd of all motion 21. What quietness there may be in that place 22. Gas is the Mother of a Meteor 23. Gas and Blas do constitute the whole re-publick of a Meteor 24. The Sun is hot by it self 25. The soils of the Air are the folding doores of Heaven 26. Why some are side-windes but others perpendicular or down-right ones 27. From whence the Blas of the air is originally stirred up 28. Two Causes of every Meteor 29. The water is in the same manner that it was from the beginning 30. From whence there is a stability in the quiet Perolede or Soil of the Air. 31. Peroledes are proved 32. A solving of an objection 33. The water is frozen of it self occasionally but not effectively by cold 34. Why Ice is lighter than water 35. The proportion of lightness in Ice by Handicraft-operation 36. The constancy and simplicity of the water 37. That all Beings do after some sort feel or perceive 38. A Vapour doth sooner return into water than into Gas 39. The changing into a Vapour in respect of the air the seperater is oblique or crooked 40. The air is dry and cold by it self 41. In an elementated Body there is not a simple and an every way sameliness of kinde 42. The rarefying of the Sulphur of water gives smoothness to Ice but not the immixing of a strange air 43. In the Patient or sufferer re-acting differs from resistance 44. It is proved by 17 Reasons that air is never transchanged into water nor this into that GAS and Blas are indeed new names brought in by me because the knowledge of them hath been unknown to the Antients notwithstanding Gas and Blas do obtain a necessary place among natural Beginnings Therefore this Paradox is the more largely to be explained And first after what sort Gas may be made of water and how different a manner it is from that wherein heat doth elevate water into a Vapour And likewise we must know after what sort these things do happen by the dissection of the water I will therefore repeat That the thrice glorious God in the beginning created the Heaven and the Earth and the great deep of waters But the
great deep began from the hollowness of the Heaven and was bounded upon the Globe of the Earth Nothing is there read of the creating of the air which notwithstanding is a Body and created into an Element not indeed after the six dayes Creation that it might fill up the place where the air now is Therefore the Heaven designeth or signifieth the Air and the matter of the Heavens is otherwise hitherto unknown And then the Eternall created the Firmament that it might seperate the waters which ought to remain under it from those that were to remain above it But the Firmament was not as it were the floud-gate or as it were an idle partition of the waters but rather the operative Principle of that seperation Even as the Sun is not the middle partition between the day and the night although it was made to seperate the day from the night but the Sun is the maker of the day it self Therefore the Heaven or Air was appointed the seperater of the waters to endure as long as the very World it self For which cause it hath obtained two notable powers To wit exceeding coldness and dryness proportioned thereunto It hath indeed great lights in it which are rowled about in it and the which however they may mitigate its in-born cold yet the air ceaseth not from that office of a seperater And in what part that kinde of seperation ought to happen which is neere to us there are no lights at all yea nor also far aloft But by how much the neerer that air toucheth at the Chambers of the blessed it abounds with many lights Thus is the air it self disposed But now I will set upon the History of an exhalation which contains a vapour and also a Gas and so we must examine the thing contained in the air For neither is Gas a dry and Oily Body which the Antients have called an exhalation but it containeth moreover another watery body also besides Vapours from whence the body manner and progress of Meteors will be known I consider the body of the water to contain in it an Elementary and native Mercury liquid and most simple next an un-savoury and alike simple Salt Both which do embrace within them a uniform homogeneall simple and unseperable Sulphur These things I suppose even as Astronomers do their excentrices that I may go to meet the weakness of our understanding Therefore the Salt of water as it is moved and waxeth hot from the least lukewarmness being impatient of heat straight-way climbes on high as it were to the place of rest and refreshment with a proportionable part of its own Mercury And for that cause the Sulphur also being unseperable from both ought to accompany them The three things being thus conjoyned are the vapour which being brought into the luke-warm air for the same Reasons hasteneth to ascend untill it hath touched the places of its refreshment provided by the Creator Whither the vapour being now brought the heat which troubled it being presently laid down the Salt as it were repenting of its flight could wish that it might again receive a resolving in its Mercury and return into its former state of water But the lofty and troublesome cold of the place hinders it By occasion whereof the Mercury of the water is so frozen or congealed that it is unfit for the resolving of its Salt Wherefore that vapour is presently changed into a Gas and Gas hanging in doubt in a shape wanders up and down So that unless the cold did dry up the Sulphur of the water in a bark or shell and in this respect divide it every vapour and Cloud even as in our glassen Vessels as being heavier than the air should by and by rush downwards Hence we see that vapours having slidden down a little beyond their bound even as straightway after great colds when as the South winde blowes on it at unawares the Mercury of the water being unfrozen that the Salt is at length easily resolved within its Mercury For the importunities of cold and heat do command the Beginnings of the water to be turned inward or outward For so the lesser rains and the dew do fall down in the least Atomes as it were descending and resolved vapours Therefore there is not a new and substantiall generation while of water a vapour is lifted up since it is onely an extenuating by reason of a turning of its parts outward As neither also whiles the Mercury of the water doth resolve the Salt which it again shuts up within it self and is changed into rain Which is nothing but the resolving of the former Atomes of the water and a co-uniting them into greater drops For a changing of the essence doth not interpose where there is onely a locall dividing and turning of parts outward For example yellow and malleable gold doth not change its essence while being dissolved by Aqua Regis it hath the colour of Iron rust nor while it waxeth black in Chrysulca and is beaten into the smallest powder Moreover that thou mayest know Gas in the first place meditate the air to be the seperater next to be simple in its Root so likewise to be simply cold and dry Since therefore heat and cold are more active than moysture and dryness therefore the moysture of the Mercury doth first suffer by the coldness of the air and seeing that the Mercury and Salt of the water are more cold than its Sulphur therefore they are more speedily affected and first of all indeed the Mercury because it is the coldest of the two Companions But since every thing desireth to remain in rest without the change of successive alterations and since the Elements also ought to remain without destruction therefore the Mercury and Salt of the water do hasten to preserve themselves from the coldness of the air And so they co-thicken arm and incrust themselves in Ice that they may the more resist in soundness which otherwise being changed into Gas are lifted up for it is alwayes a property of the air to seperate the waters from the waters or else they stop or hinder that changing and flight But if indeed the water being stirred or disturbed is not made Ice then the cold and dryth of the air do lay hold on the three first things of the water so as the Mercury of the water is made uncapable of resolving the salt in its moysture And so the Salt doth under the cold after a sort wax clotty in the Mercury and Sulphur So as that the Sulphur being more dry than the other two doth also more easily suffer than its fellowes and more from the dryth of the air than from its coldness Wherefore the Sulphur is enlarged into the smallest parts and the Mercuries and Salts of all which parts being made clotty they thrust their Sulphur outward that it might suffer from the dryness of the air Wherefore seeing the Sulphur is equall to either of them both the other two must needes
subdivision is many times re-shaken sub-divided by the colds through which it hath passed This Gas at least should never of its own accord return into its auntient water nor should descend unto the most cold places through which it escaped by climbing upward unless the uppermost Blas of the Stars should force its descent And so the Region of the still air is not void of successive changes but that the Rain doth not there moysten the ground nor the rage of windes serve for the commotion of the waters For since the Gas which it keepes in it self is now reduced to so great a fineness of it self and all its Atomes being as it were roasted with heats in the outward superficies of the Sulphur surely they cannot return into rain unless by a sweet winde they descend to the middle Region where they do re-take the beginnings of coagulating under the luke-warm blowing of the air For a certain alteration opposite to that place from which the Gas departed ought to reduce the Gas into water For a sweet luke-warmth in the still air maketh the Atomes of Gas being covered in their own Sulphur to divide which Sulphur a skin being as it were broken thorow or like a Glasse that is brought suddenly from luke-warmth into the cold is broken and so the Mercury of the water doth dissolve its Salt at the dissolution whereof the Sulphur it self may be melted into its former water And that kinde of inversion or turning in and out of the body of the water and that torture through the exact searching of the cold is necessary that all the power of the Ferment may be wholly taken away out of the Clouds For else much corruption and the much stink of mists would soon destroy mortalls As in Silver being melted the exceeding small atomes of Gold do slide to the bottom So do the atomes of the Gas settle and by sliding they do increase or wax bigger which otherwise being infirm by reason of the coldness of the Air are again lifted up unless a gentle or favourable luke-warmth in the coldest place did now and then hinder it For so indeed rains shoures storms so Hail Snow mist and Frost are through an alteration by accident having arisen as well from a motive as an alterative Blas in the most cold places And so Gas and Blas have divided the whole Common-wealth of a Meteor into Colonies In like manner I have learned by the examples cited that the Sun doth not heat by accident but by it self and immediately And that heat is as intimate and proper to it as its light is to it The Air hath therefore its grounds or soils no lesse than the Earth which the Adeptists do call Peroledes Therefore the invisible Gas is entertained in the various Beds or Pavements of the Air if the Water hath its depths of its Gulfs it s own Gates are in the Peroledes which skilfull men have called the Floud-gates and folding doores of Heaven For neither is Gas falling down into the place of Clouds carried out of the depth of Heaven without its directer Blas Yea it falls not down but thorow ordained Pavements and folding-doores For all the folding-doores do not promiscuously lay open to the Planets but all the Planets in particular are by their own Blas the Key-keepers of their own Perolede Which thing I submit to be examined by Astrologers that are the shewers or disclosers of Meteors and I promise that they shall finde out a rich substance For so windes do sometimes hasten perpendicularly downwards and smite the Earth but otherwise they go side-wayes out of their folding-doores they beat down Houses and Trees as also bring miserable destruction on all sorts of Shipping But the more luke-warm Air doth foreshew the Winde to come out of the depth of the Air and the Gas to bring with it the Blas of Heaven downwards Whence Gas is straight-way again resolved into a Vapour and afterwards into rain Indeed Clouds do then appear which not long before were not beheld at any corner of the World Because the invisible Gas slides downward out of the depth of the upper Air the which growes together into vapours and from thence into drops For that is the appointment of the Air that it may continually seperate the waters from the waters But seeing that one part of water is extended at least to a hundred fold of its dimension while it is made a vapour and so much the finer by how much the Gas thereof is sub-divided into the more lesse parts and since there is that order and that law of universe that all things may be carried on for the necessity of man and the preserving of the World Indeed in this respect do heavy things tend upward light things are drawn downward Hence it hath seemed to me that the Blas of the Stars is disturbed into rain and is carried into clearnesses and other seasons as oft as the pluralities of Gas it self in the still Perolede of the air do seem to threaten almost choakings and the too-much com-pressions in the air Yet I am not so carefull concerning the occasionall causes of a Meteor it is sufficient that I have known an exhalation arising from beneath to wit a vapour and Gas to be the materiall cause of every Meteor It sufficeth to have known Blas to be the effective cause by the authority of the holy Scriptures The Stars shall be to you for times or seasons dayes and years This therefore is the unrestable appointment of the water that by proceeding continually upwards and downwards it should answer no otherwise than as the windes by an inordinate and irregular motion do answer to their Blas of the Stars And so the water which existed from the beginning of the Universe is the same and not diminished and shall be so unto the end thereof But I meditate of the Peroledes or Soils of the Air to be as it were the Bottles of the Stars by which they do unfold their Blas even through their determined or limited places for the uses and interchangeable courses of times or seasons And chiefly because the upper and almost still Perolede doth contain the cause why there are windes fruits dewes and especially things pertaining to Provinces For seeing that the winde is a flowing Air and so hath an unstableness in it we must needes finde the locall cause of stability in the more quiet Perolede Therefore the folding-doores are shut or laying open in the Perolede according to the Blas of the Stars which they obey Nor is it a wonder that there are limits or invisible bounds in the air of so great power and capable to restrain a heap for the visible World doth scarce contain another Common-wealth of things and the least one of powers For who will deny that under a Rock or great Stone of Scotland scarce 12 foot broad and deep 30 there is not some division of a Perolede that in the mean time I may be
fortune come suddenly unlooked for Famagusta had been destroyed Therefore let the Reader know that the Eastern Marriners were wont on the day that they do observe such Windes to take a great Knife wherewith they make the Sign of the Cross in the Air and do utter these words In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word and suddenly all the Whirle-winde and tempest seperates it self and ceaseth For I have seen this experiment twice And on the second time while I returned out of Cyprus into Italy For neither do I finde any thing of Superstition therein but that the Knife must have a black handle And so I can determine of nothing certainly Thus far he A wonder at least That this divelish tempest should cease and the Devill spare the whole City perhaps for the sin of one sinner Moreover about Blas this is as yet considerable If in the great heat of Summer thou holdest a burning Candle about the hole of a Window there is no foot-step for the most part of mooved Air to be perceived but throughout the whole winter however small the hole be a troublesome Winde breatheth and that continually But since there is not a greater quantity of air let us now take the air for its Magnall or sheath being constrained by reason of cold than of that which is rarefied by reason of heat there seemes not to be a stronger reason of this than of that to stir up the Winde Therefore there is a twofold Motive locall Blas in the Air one indeed which stirs up the Windes and so includes a violence or swiftness from a native power or motion But the other which followes as for an alterative Blas for co-thickning or rarefying in the air But since this is almost universall by reason of Summer and Winter it also sends forth a certain slow flowing of the Air. And although cold may equally condense the Magnall and the Air be in this respect unmoved by reason of an alterative and violent windy Blas yet seeing in the opposite Coast of the Sphere the Magnall or sheath in the Air is generally made thin onely by reason of heat the Air in the Northern Coast must needes partly go back be knit together and so occupie the lesse room and partly be gently driven forward by the rarefying and rarefied Magnall of the Air that co-toucheth with it from the other half of the Orbe And this is the cause of the Question proposed to wit of the slow and uncessant flowing in the Winter Air which we do experience through a Chap be it never so small also the Winde ceasing But not so in the Summer-time For the Magnall being once made thin through heat the air stands unmooved amongst us CHAP. XV. A Vacuum or emptiness of Nature 1. The true definition of the Winde 2. The undistinct sincerity of former ages 3. Whither the Authours invention tendeth 4. An examining of the Air by an Engine like to a Hand-Gun 5. A Vacuum or emptiness in the Air is proved 6. A Vacuum is easier believed than a piercing of bodies 7. A Handicraft Demonstration by fire in behalf of a Vacuum and five remarkable things of it 8. A Handicraft operation concerning a sulphurated Torch or Candle 9. Subsequent Collections from both the Handicraft Operations 10. Pores of the Air are demonstrated 11. Opposite suspitions are taken away 12. Inward heat and inward fire being shut up together in a Glasse how they act diversly into the Air. 13. That it acts more strongly by the pressing together of its smoak than by the enlarging of heat 14. Of what sort the sense or feeling of the Air is 15. A new end of the Air. 16. That the fire lives not by the air but onely is choaked through penurie 17. Vacuities or emptinesses in the air are needfull 18. That every thing hath hated pressing together made by its guest by the lawes of self-love 19. A Vacuum being an impossible thing with Aristotle hath now become a requisite thing in nature 20. That there is given in the Vacuum of the air a middle thing between a body and an accident and so a neutrality 21. What the great Magnall may be 22. How the Blas of the Stars is communicated without Species or particular kindes 23. The tristes of the Aristotelicks concerning the Winde 24. A ridiculous multitude and plenty of exhalations according to Aristotle 25. The Opinion of Galen touching the Windes is hissed out 26. The Opinion of Galen concerning Quicksilver badly from Diascorides and worse copied out 27. The nature of rarefied air for the confirming of a Vacuum 28. While the air is commonly thought to be made thin it is indeed pressed together by reason of the extension of of its Magnall or Sheath 29. The body of the air hath its just extension under cold 30. Why in a hotter Climate the favours of the Heaven are the greater 31. The Magnall is proved to be increased and diminished but not the air to be properly rarefied or condensed IN the beginning of the Blas of a Meteor I have defined the Winde by a true definition that is by its constitutive Causes Seeing that a thing without or besides the containing of its Causes is nothing and every thing produced doth naturally shew an originall and essentiall respect unto its own producer which is inward to it Therefore a naturall Winde is a flowing Air mooved by the Blas of the Stars And that for distinction from a prodigious or monstrous Winde raised up by the malice of evill spirits Hypocrates calls the Winde a Blast and saying that all Diseases are from blasts he reckoueth up his To Enormon or forcible blast among the chief or first causes of Diseases For such was the plainness and candour or simplicity of former times wherein because they being more blessed there was not yet such knowledge nor cruelty nor frequency of Diseases For all things were not granted to Hypocrates For it hath well pleased the Almighty since Hypocrates to have also created his Physitians He made known indeed to Hypocrates that there is in us a Spirit stirring up all things by its Blas which Spirit he afterwards by a microcosmicall analogie or the proportion of a little World compared to the blasts of the World and restrained into the order of a blast whether they were partakers of life or indeed did contain the causes of death and destruction Lastly he left it undecided whether they being stirred up from the Heaven they should shew the suitable proportions of the Heavenly Circle or at length were stirred up by a sublunary law For the race or descent of the vitall Spirits had not yet been plainly made known For none had hitherto learned by experience that the matter of Gas was water and so it had not been as yet known that the windes of the World did wholly differ from the vitall Spirit From the knowledge of the windes handed forth by me in the
a body which fills up the emptinesses of the air and which is wholly annihilated by the fire Nor that indeed as if also it were the nourishment of the fire it self For although that thing be impertinent to this Question and place yet that which is not truly a body can nourish nothing And then seeing it is neither a body nor a fat thing it cannot be inflamed kindled or wasted or consumed by the fire Then also I will demonstrate in the Chapter of forms that the fire is not a substance but that which is not a substance doth not require to be nourished Lastly seeing the Air is an Element and a simple thing it cannot admit of composition or a conjoyning of divers things or Beings in its own nature Nor are there in the essentiall substance of the Air diversities of parts some whereof may be consumed by the fire but others not For therefore if the fire had found a part in the Air capable of inflaming the whole Air being kindled had even by one onely Candle long since perished For neither had the fire ceased if having need of nourishment it had known that to be in the Air which was neighbour to it Yea if the Air could be burnt up by the fire the Air should passe over to some more simple and formerly Being and should cease to be an Element for the flame of the Candle should be before the Element of the Air and more simple than it Therefore it is manifest that the flame in the aforesaid Glasse although in respect of heat it enlargeth the quantity of the air yet that naturally it will have its smoakes entertained in the hollownesses of the air so far is it that the air doth extend it self and this is the one onely cause of the diminished space in the air whence the flame is also consequently smothered For the heat that is externall to the Glasse seemes to inlarge the air in the Glasse but the fire within by reason of its smoakes doth actually stir up a stifling and pressing together of the air Therefore the heat doth by it self enlarge the air as appeareth by the Engine meating out the degrees of the encompassing air but the fire by reason of its smoakes presseth it together And so it followes that smoakes do more strongly act by pressing together than heat doth in enlarging And then also that smoaks are more importunate or inconvenient to the air than its own naturall vacuum yea than is the enlarging of its own vacuum Seeing that the enlarging of the space of the air made by heat is delightfull to it in respect of com-pression caused by smoakes For from hence I conjecture that all particular members of the Universe have a certain sympatheticall feeling And so seeing the air essentially hath porosities or little hollow spaces it grieveth it that they should be filled up and over-burdened by a strange Gas Yet unless the air should have empty porosities at leastwise the Doctrine of naturall Philosophy founded upon a vacuum negatively falls bodies could never admit of an enlargement of themselves or of a strange Gas because by the changing of them into Gas they should require a thousand fold bigger capacities and so room would fail for the breathing our of belching blasts Therefore the air was created that it may be a receptacle of exhalations wherefore also it must needes have an emptiness in its pores yet it receiveth those exhalations by its set and just proportion and where it hath its emptinesses filled up to a just measure the air fleeth away and in its flight it forceth or gathereth all the flame into a Pyramide or Spire But if the air being detained from its flight be loaded with too much smoak it straightens it self and extinguisheth the fire which fills it self with smoak above due measure These things have not as yet been thorowly weighed by the Schooles and therefore they have thought the fire to live and be nourished by the air neither have they proof for this unless on a contrary sense because fire being stopped up with air is straightway smothered But that Idiotisme of the Schooles doth sufficiently make it self manifest Seeing the fire is not a body for as much as it is fire nor is it a creature of the first constitution for neither doth it live nor is nourished the which is like unto death Even as shall be manifested concerning the birth of forms But the Air is a simple Element For neither doth the stifling of the fire presuppose a necessary life as neither nourishment nor is there for this cause an increase of the fire although it be built in an abundantly open air neither also doth fire consume even the least quantity of air or convert it into its own substance which it hath none as it were its nourishment they are fables For the fire being deprived of air perisheth not indeed in respect of denied nourishment or of a participated life but for want of room which cannot contain the smoak by the pressing together whereof the fire being stifled is extinguished For after another manner from the too much and hasty blown up air the flame straightway perisheth when the flame being lesse toughly fastened to the Candle is presently taken away by a blast and being once taken away from the Candle it cannot have afterwards a subsistence in the air as neither having a substance in it self Therefore the pores of the air being filled up with smoak they fly away and give place to another air coming to them that they may also receive their juyce or moysture from Gas Which flight of the air stirs up as also requireth winde In the Salt pits of Burgundy a plain Earthen pot being filled up with water and placed nigh the grate of a Furnace doth far sooner freeze than any other which is set out in the open air and frost by reason of the continuall Flux and passing over of the air which by the Schooles hath been rashly thought to flow thither for the life or nourishment of the flame Therefore the empty places of the Air are moderately filled but if they are over-loaded the space of the air doth presently straighten it self and shuts it self up in a narrower room the empty porosites being consumed that it may by stifling the exhaling fire divert it from its enterprise That thing is inbred in all created things through self-love For neither otherwise doth water incrust it self in Ice than that it may not be snatched away by the cold of the air into Gas. There are therefore necessary vacuities or emptinesses in the Air that according to their capacity they might entertain the fluide vapours that are to be evaporated for whose sake the air hath seemed to sustain a pressing together and enlarging For else a vacuum of the air being taken away the least motion should move almost the whole Universe through its continuity or un-interrupted joyning and exhalations soon arising the mortalls that are near being choaked
first appeared for a sign of the Covenant Wherefore mortalls were amazed at that unwonted Being and being otherwise incredulous gave credit Secondly From hence I learn that the Rain-bow was given for a meer sign wherefore neither that it hath even to this day any reason of a cause with relation to any effect Thirdly seeing now the World before the floud had been about two thousand years old and yet there had been causes in nature which to this day the Schooles do attribute to the Rain-bow yet there was no Rain-bow Surely that convinceth of the falshood of those causes Whence at length in the fourth place it followes That unless the Rainbow be also at this day for a sign of the Covenant and for the sake of its first appointment it otherwise appeares for a frustrated purpose Therefore also the Rain-bow doth now and then remember us of the Covenant once stricken that we may believe and alway be mindfull that God the avenger on sinners sometimes sent the waters that they might destroy every soul living on the Earth that the same God might be a conscious or fellow-knowing revenger and Judge of our sin For all flesh had corrupted its way by luxurie which ought to be choaked by waters By the Rain-bow therefore God will alway have us mindefull of threatned punishments who by this sign doth signifie that he is the continuall President or chief Ruler the Revenger of nature But that the Rainbow might signifie that the World should be no more drowned with waters it was meet that it should bear before it not indeed a certain unwonted spectacle in the air without difference to any other thing but the mystery of the promised Covenant ought to lay hid in the Rainbow which might declare the promlse and belief of the thing promised by a signe Surely I seem to my self to admire with Noah three colours in the Rainbow and the pleasing splendours of three Sulphurs shining forth in co-burnt Mineralls And so the Colours do give testimony that the Earth being the womb of Mineralls is at length to satisfie the wrath of God by the extream melting of the burning of her Sulphurs Therefore the Rainbow doth not henceforth presage water but fire I wonder at the Schooles who will not hearken to the truth of the holy Scriptures delivered but that they even to this day proceed to make young men drunk with heathenish toyes or dotages For they hand forth that the Rainbow consisteth of a twofold Cloud to wit one being deeper and thicker but the other being thinner and moreover extended over that other that in manner of a Glasse it may resemble the Sun from the contrary part Verily it is a vain devise like unto an old Wives Dream For I have sometimes kicked the lower part of a Rainbow with my feet and have touched it with my hands and that not onely in Cloudy Mountains but in an open and Sunnie-field And so I have certainly known by my eyes hands and feet the falshood of that supposition Seeing that not so much as a simple Cloud was in the place of the Rainbow For neither although in the morning I did cleave the Rainbow and drew it by the colours of the Rainbow have I perceived any thing which is not every where on every side in the neighbouring Air. Yea therefore were not the colours of the Rainbow troubled nor suffered confusion The Schooles ought at least to declare why it should have alwayes the figure of a Bow or Semi-circle but never the resemblance of a Glasse Why if it be the Image of the Sun reflex doth it not shine in the middle of it self seeing the Parelia shines like the Sun with an undistinct and ruddie light Why should those two Clowds be alwayes folded together with the equall form of a Bow and variety of Colours Why doth not the Glasse that is against the Sun represent those Colours if that double Cloud be in the room of a Glasse Why doth not that doubled Cloud at least in its more outward and conjoyned part change the wandring Latitude of the Clouds if its hollow part be pierced with an abounding light of the Sun declining or going down Why doth a Rainbow also appear the Sun being hid under the Clouds and no where shining Why doth the Sun I say paint out alwayes those uniform and various Colours and so neerly placed together and not one onely Colour according to the simplicity of its own light Wherefore do many Rainbowes now and then appear together in one field For truly in so vast a Circle of the Air of the Horizon the reflexion falls not in one or two miles but the Cloud opposite to the Sun hath not its reflexion directly unless on the opposite part answering to it self in the Horizon but not on the part near to its side Lastly it is absurd that the upper and thinner Cloud which is void of Colour and which the light of the Sun doth easily pierce should fashion Colours in the other thicker Cloud which neither the Sun nor either of those Clouds have in themselves Surely I have very much admired at these vain positions of the Schooles while as I should handle a Rainbow with my hand and should see no Cloud at all round about Wherefore I have noted that the Rainbow by a peculiar priviledge hath its Colours immediately in a place but in the Air by the place mediating And so I have taken notice that those Colours and the figure of the Rainbow in their manner of existing are of the nature of light That is the Winde blowing the Colours which are immediately in a medium or mean do walk together with the mean and are dispersed according as the mean in which they are is but the Colours or Lights which are immediately in place are not changed although the Air or Mean in which they appear may change its place and flow So neither the winde blowing doth the Rainbow perish or walk For from hence it is that the object of sight is at one onely instant brought to the Eye but the object of hearing because it is not immediately in place but in an Air placed doth presuppose a durance of time and motion Wherefore the Rainbow not onely is not in a Cloud but moreover not indeed in the Air but immediately in place but in the Air immediately to wit as this is in a place For so the light of the Sun doth the more swiftly strike it self in an instant even unto the Earth because it is immediately in place but in the Air mediately to wit as this is in a place But that the Sun is the cause of the Rainbow that I believe is naturall but that a Bow immediately in place is appointed to be so coloured by the Sun but in no wise in the Air that hath the force of a sign For the Schooles have hitherto been ignorant that Light and Colours can subsist unless they do inherit or stick in some certain
substance But it is no wonder for truly they have not known some Creatures some whereof they have brought back into a substance to wit the fire substantiall forms c. but others they have surrendred into meer accidents as the Rainbow Light the Magnall c. The which notwithstanding I shall demonstrate in their place to be created things of a neither sort But let it be enough to have said it in this place But if the Rainbow should be immediately in the Air and not in a place it must needes be that by any little winde it should straightway flow abroad and be puft away by blowing together with a Cloud or the Air which is false in the Rainbow the which doth also remain a great while under the Windes sometimes without any presence of Clouds and yet in the same constant figure of a Bow or Semi-circle therefore the Rainbow seeing it is immediately in place it is a new figure of a coloured Light Indeed the Rainbow began supernaturally for a Sign and Mystery of the Covenant struck with Mortalls and since it hath at this day its Root in the Air without any matter yet after the manner of naturall things I do reverence its efficient cause and its presence and do ponder with my self that the Rainbow is at this day given for a Sign of the Covenant even as in times past Paracelsus supposeth the Rainbow to be the Evestrum of the Sun but the Evestrum he calls the Spirits or Ghosts of men The which from the absurdity of it self alone as sufficiently rejected I passe by For truly the Sun hath neither a Soul nor being as yet alive hath an Evestrum after its Buriall There are some who will laugh at me for these daily Miracles But certainly while I do more fully look into things I see divine goodness to be actually alwayes every where and immediately President or chief Ruler because all which things he in very deed even from end to end reacheth to strongly and disposeth of all things sweetly For in God we live are and are moved in very deed and act but not by way of proportion or similitude For truly when the Lord the Saviour said I am he to wit by whom ye are live and are moved he withdrew onely that his power whereby they were moved and straightway all the Souldiers fell on the ground And although the Instrument in nature whereby we are moved be ordinary yet there is another principall totall and independent cause of our motion and the originall thereof being a miraculous hand doth concur in every motion So also in the Rainbow the Sun and place do concur as it were second causes Yet there is another independent totall miraculous and immediate cause which hath directed the Rainbow to the glory of his own goodness and of the Covenant stricken not onely indeed with Noah and his Family but with the Sons of men his posterity even to the end of the World And so from the same originall and for the same end for which the Rainbow began it is promised to endure as long as Mortalls shall be and seeing it is a sign of the Covenant with the Sons of men but not onely with the Sons of Noah it also includes a certain Covenant or agreement Therefore there is a miraculous thing in the Rainbow that its colours are not in any body but immediately in place it self like light and that immediately from the hand of God without the concurrence of a second cause Nor is it a wonder that from the condition of the Covenant a supernaturall effect should interpose Because that in many places continuall miracles do offer themselves Therefore as the Rainbow is a sign of an everlasting Covenant and a Messenger of divine goodness so Thunder causeth an admiration and adoring of the power of God For there is nothing in the Catalogue or number of things whose rains the Almighty Creator doth not immediately rule Surely he every where inforceth his love and fear and so will have man to be ordinarily put in minde of his power According to that saying The Voyce af Thunder hath stricken the Earth For a sudden and monstrous Blas is stirred up in the Air. The Heaven is oft-times clear straightway also being without winde it is suddenly bespotted with a black Cloud For often times it thunders the Heaven being clear without any small Cloud And so Thunder doth not require a Cloud but if it doth suddenly stir up any it is made as the cracking noyse shakes the Peroledes and as Gas settles downwards into a thick Cloud being drawn together by the cold of the place Therefore the Doctrine of the Schooles is frivolous determining that an exhalation is kindled between the sheath of the Clouds that it dasheth forth Lightning and that there are so many rentings of that Cloud as there are sounds and cracking noyses For I have seen in Mountains wandring Clouds and most cold in the touching yet none of any firmness or strength that they being discontinued can utter so great a noyse or cast down Lightning of so great a power by a mooving downwards and with so violent a motion and that besides the nature of ascending fire I have seen I say Lightnings about me and have heard Thunder also under my feet Notwithstanding I have even least of all discerned those firmnesses of Clouds and trifles of Thunder I say I have seen Lightnings and Thunders diversly to play under my feet where at first there was no Cloud and a Cloud to descend as if it had been called to them by the voyce of the Thunder And so I have beheld Lightning with a magnifying of the Divine Power but not with fear although I have been twice in a house that was smitten with Thunder For I by so much the more admiring have praysed the magnificencies or great atchievements of the Lord by how much the nearer his effects were unto me I have seen also once nigh Vilvord and again at Bella in Flanders a certain black Sheath as if it were a long Horsemans Boot to fly among the Groves of Oaks or Forrests with a great cracking noyse having behinde it a flame as it were of kindled straw but great Snow succeeded it Therefore seeing Thunder hath no cause plainly naturall in the Clouds of a Meteor I believe that it hath wholly all its cause not above but besides nature and so that it is a monstrous effect For first of all we are bound to believe that the evill Spirit is the Prince of this World and that his Principality doth not shine forth amongst the faithfull unless onely in the office of a tempter For so it is said that the Adversary as a Roaring Lyon goeth about seeking whom he may devoure but that not from the office of his Principality Therefore he hath obtained the Principality of this World that he may be a certain Executer of the judgements of the chief Monarch and so that he may be the Umpire or
Rentings asunder or disruptions for fear of a piercing of Bodies do differ from that which might happen through the supposed gentleness of exhalations 15. An impossibility is proved from the nature of the composition of exhalations 16. Those things are resisted which were granted from the connivance of a falshood 17. Wells and Caves are all the year in their depth or bottom of an equall temperature 18. That there is no fiery exhalation as neither a fiery Gas 19. An exhalation cannot lift up the Earth with its lightness 20. A Bladder filled with Air doth not spring up out of the water efficiently by reason of its lightness but occasionally 21. Weightiness is an active quality but lightness seeing it hath no weight doth signifie nothing 22. Three remarkable things drawn from thence 23. That the manner of an Earth-quake delivered by the Schooles is impossible 24. The ignorance of the Schooles concerning the properties of lightness 25. A faulty Argument of the Schooles from ignorance 26. After what sort the Schooles are deluded in this thing 27. A new Sophistry by reason of errours 28. An Earth-quake declareth monstrous tokens 29. The Earth trembles being shaken by God 30. The one onely cause of an Earth-quake 31. An objection of a certain one is resolved 32. The Earth doth not feel or perceive after an animall manner 33. What an Earth-quake may properly portend 34. Sacrifices for the purging of offences do differ according to sins 35. The proper inciting cause 36. What an Earth-quake in the Lords Resurrection denoted 37. An answer to a friendly objection I Being to speak of the Earth-quake its Causes and ends will first of all begin with its name It is wont to be called a Moving but it seemes to me to be a name too generall and very improper For truly while the Earth or any other heavy Body doth hasten downwards it is said to move it self so that water flowing moves the Wheel actively but in an Earth-quake the motion seemes to be passive and so by accident as improper to it Nicolas Copernicus by very many fictions doth contend the Earth to be circularly moved with the Orbe of the Moon and seeing that no motion is proper to a Globe but a Sphericall or round one and that doth not agree to the Earth according to the Decree of the Church therefore I have withdrawn the name of Moving from the Earth and have changed it to wit that it being rather fearfull is said to tremble For truly the Earth being passively smitten or threatned by a certain huge force it is as it were jogged or shaken through fear and horrour but doth not leap or skip for joy because it seemeth to undergoe some cruel and horrid thing besides the ordinary course of nature Therefore the name of Quaking being first established next the shew of the deed comes to hand For truly there was a night between the third and fourth day of the second month called April in the year 1640 indeed a quarter past the third houre after midnight the Moon being at full two dayes after that time and it being the fourth day of the week called Wednesday before Easter when as Mecheline where I then was by reason of some occasions notably trembled and leaped with three re-iterated approaches or fits and at every onset the trembling endured a little lesse than there might be of the space of repeating the Apostles Creed but a certain roaring in the Air went immediately before every fit and as it were the action of Wheeles whereby great Ordinance are carried thorow the streetes shooke the Earth I say the night was fair clear void of Windes For truly for the cause of the revisall then to be sifted a little before midnight I returned home But I rested nigh Dillie in the Commendatory of Almaine commonly called Pitzenborch being received through the Courtesie and humanity of the famous man the Lord Wernher Spies of Bullensheim of the Teutonick order he being Provinciall Commendatour of the confluence of Bullensheim and Commendatour of Pitzenborch Toparch or President in Elson Herren-nolhe c. But I was removed for the space of seventy spaces from the streetes And then I learned of my friends that almost at the same moments of time and with the same three re-iterated turns seperated by an equall intervall and the same roaring accompanying them Bruxells Antwerp Lire Gaudan the Mountains of Hannonia Namurc Camerac trembled Afterwards we heard that the same thing happened in Holland Zealand Friesland Luxemburg and Gilderland yea that even Francford upon Menus no lesse trembled That at Mentz some Towers were beaten down and that new Buildings nigh Theonpolis fell down together Also that Westphalia yea Ambiave and the nearest Coasts of France trembled Truly all these places trembled at the very same instant of time although by reason of the roundness of the Sphere the Dialls the Messengers of dayes did necessarily differ It is a tract of Land at least of three hundred and sixty Leagues in every one of the least places of its Circle the ground every where trembled with an equall fear For neither was the Watchman in the most vast Tower of the Temple of Mecheline any otherwise shaken than any one that lay in a low Cottage No otherwise I say a borderer of Scalds an Inhabitant of the Islands and Citizen of the Medows than they which stayed in the more high Hill Then was the fortune of all and every one alike Lastly I understood that the Ships in the Havens of Holland and Zealand were shaken in their Masts and Sails without Winde Concerning the immediate Causes of so great an effect there is much agreement among Writers The modern or late Writers I say supping up the Lessons of Aristotle have not gone back from thence a nails breadth hitherto Although they have added their own inventions to the Precepts of the Auntients The Schooles therefore do teach that the Earth trembles by reason of Air Winde or an exhalation gathered together in the hollow places and pores of the Earth which seeking and sometimes making a passage for it self doth make the Earth to leap or dance For from hence it oft-times suddenly breaking out thorow gaps and clefts hath given a rise to destructive Diseases This is a Tradition of the Schooles received throughout the whole World for one and twenty Ages Which if it had seemed to me to be agreeable to the ends of the Divine power I had desisted from writing But truly it hath seemed to me to be sowen with heavy perplexities and an unavoidable absurdity so that it containeth not a little of an old Wives fable Indeed Man-kinde doth of its own accord so incline to drowsiness that the hope of Learning being as it were beheaded it hath commanded all the Treasures of Sciences being drawn out in one Aristotle to have been as it were left off from a further diligent search First therefore I will shew the impossibility of that Doctrine and then I will
perfectly teach my own opinion not stablished by heathenish Dreams but confirmed by the Doctrine of a higher authority For first of all the Earth is actually distinguished by certain Pavements Soils or grounds for truly the outward Soil of the Earth is plainly Sandy Clayie white else-where clayie-yellow muddy grisely or grayie white yellow black red c. sporting with divers varieties Under which for the most part is a Sand and this very Sand differenced every where with great variety But under this Soil is at length the flinty Mountain which they call Keyberch being the Pavement and Originall of Rocks and first Root of Mineralls And at length every where under this Soil is the living or quick Sand the boyling Sand Drif or Quellem which is extended even into the Center of the World being thorowly washed in its un-interrupted joyning with waters And although all the aforesaid Soils do not every where succeed each other in order yet the Quellem is every where the last Pavement of the World although oftentimes immediately exposed to the Air and plain to be seen As concerning the Originall of Fountains in my Book of the Fountains of the Spaw This therefore being once supposed I say that the place where the exhalation should be which is believed to be the cause of the Earth-quake ought to be placed or appointed in some or amongst some of the said Soils seeing that in the Earth there is not a place out of the aforesaid Pavements But to the overthrowing of that Doctrine a demonstration is required which from a sufficient enumcration of the Pavements may shew that such an impossible exhalation cannot be contained or be raised up in any of the said Soils or if it should be there stirred up yet that it hath not the power of forming an Earth-quake As to the first of the three members to wit that not any exhalation can be contained under the Earth which may actively cause its trembling I prove First of all not under the outmost Clayie or first Soil of the Earth next to the Air and designed for the habitation of Mortalls because so S. Rumolds Tower had not trembled as neither Buildings built immediately upon the Quellem As neither had Ships without the raging of Windes been removed in deep Waters far from the ground of the Sand. For it being granted that the bottom of the Sea did tremble just even as the Earth else-where inhabited yet the Superficies of the Water could not keep the tenour of the same trembligg Sand without winde and storm which thing notwithstanding is discerned to be false for flying Birds also feeling the trembling of the Earth would not fall down they being as it were sore smitten or astonished for a sign that the Air it self doth tremble For the Elements shall at sometime melt in the sight of the Judge Therefore if the water doth tremble no lesse than the quiet Earth it self the cause thereof is signified to be in the Globe or because the Earth and water do at the same stroak of smiting together with the Air feel a fear or hand of the smiter Secondly neither can an exhalation the cause of an Earth-quake dwell in any of the Soils of Sands because then Fens Medows and places wherein the Quellem is immediately prostituted beneath the Clay had not trembled VVhich thing is as equally different from the truth of the deed as the former Next in the third place neither can the same exhalation be hidden under the Keyberch For in the whole Circle a few places excepted wherein the Earth then trembled at the same moment of time the ground Keyberch is not extant At length neither could an exhalation arise or be detained between the Quellem which is sufficient to shake so great an heap with an equall fury Because the Quellem that is oft-times next the Air and conjoyned even into the Center of the Universe by its continuall unity and thorow mixture of waters should easily puffe out such an exhalation before it could equally lift up so great an heap at once For it is of an unexcusable necessity because such an exhalalation should break forth out of the more weak lesse heavy and lesse resisting part that is in the place that is least ponderous And so under the position of the granted exhalation there could not be an alike trembling of all places which resisteth the thing done For before that the exhalation should lift up so great weights through so vast and various spaces of ground and waters at once and at one moment it had sought and had found out easie following and the more weak places through which it had made a way for it self to break out at For otherwise the exhalations should fight against the rules of nature proportion and motions which should lift up equally and at once all the parts of the Low-Countries and a great part of Germany Especially where there is not an equall capacity of every place wherein the exhalation should be entertained not an equall fardle of the incumbent burden or resistance of weight as neither is there an equall awakening of that exhalation possible to be that at once and almost at one onely moment it should alike act thorow so many Regions Which is to say that it is impossible that the exhalation the Mover of the Earth-quake being granted there should be an equality in the sameliness of time and power of motion through so great a space through so great a difference and resistance of the Soil and of the Heaven and diversity of weight seeing such an acting exhalation meating out its efficacy by the variety of places difference greatness activity swiftness of the Mover being of necessity unlike ought also to obey the unlikenesses of places Therefore let the quantity rise power entertainment and swiftness of exhalations be ridiculous which should at one and the same moment after a like manner and re-iterated course shake so many Cities Mountains Valleys Hills watry places Meadows Rivers Islands and so vast a heap longly and largely displaced and sooner than it should seek finde and make a passage for it self But now I coming to the second Member of proving to wit that in the aforesaid Pavements of the Earth the raising up of an exhalation is impossible which may be the cause of an Earth-quake Let every kinde of naturall vapour be determined and examined by its causes The exhalation which may be supposed to be the Mover of the Earth is not in the first place a vapour or watery exhalation because that most swiftly returns again into water daily by pressing together of its own accord in our Alembicks but an exhalation according to Aristotle that is chiefly necessary for these bounds is a hot and dry flux or Issue out of Bodies for the most part also Oylie lifted up from the dry parts by a sharp heat into the form of Air or a rising smoak But I could wish that the Schooles may answer what therefore at
length shall that actuall equall and connexed heat under the Sea Rivers pooles Meadows and under the Quellem be For truly it behoveth heat and dryth to be actuall and strong which may there be sufficient for so notable an effect but not potentiall naked remote possible or dreamed qualities What is that heat from what and whence is it rowsed in the more deeper cold what is that heat so short so strong and so interrupted which after a few rigours or extremities of tremblings ceaseth nor which doth shake the Earth a new by trembling For if the cause of so great motion be in heat there shall not at leastwise after the motion be in heat the cause of so sudden rest Lastly what is the dryness connexed to the fire which may forthwith kindle under the Earth and Waters the Waters being all alike dryed up throughout all the Low-Countries a fire the Patron of so great exhalations But go to let us feign by sporting and grant a heat to be actually under the Earth and Water which is made by kindling likewise that great and stubborn heat and its unwonted action which may raise up the exhalations before the dryness of the thing It is verily an irregular effect not as yet hitherto seen among the Artists of the fire Again let us feigne also other absurdities that actuall fire violent in the Water or under watery Bodies may there be bred without fewel and be sustained proceed and long persist without fodder but at leastwise that fire shall not be able to raise up vapours and much lesse inclosed exhalations and to detain them in a narrow place which may not choak that fire out of hand and make the sufficiency forces and successive generation of those exhalations void For truly in the Burrowes of Mineralls if the lights are not forth with from above refreshed with a new blast of Air they are presently extinguished and the diggers also are deprived of breath and life But if that the fire and that the exhalation do subsist untill a sufficient breathing be given Now for that very cause the motive exhalation its off-spring shall first expire from thence or if there be not room for a sufficient breathing the fire verily shall of necessity be stified nor shall there be place for so great a successive exhalation or for the repeated onset of an Earth-quake Let us feign again not indeed that actuall fire or heat is entertained under the Waters in the aforesaid Soils of the Earth but that all the Low-Countries have had something in all places like to Gun-powder which at length by its own ripeness or a hidden conspiracy of the Stats is enflamed at once and every where and for that cause doth afford a sudden exhalation in every place equall But neither truly under so many trifles should all the Low-Countries then jogge any more than once and it had gaped in the more slender and lesse deep and weigh y places and some pieces thereof had leaped forth on high and a Chimny of that exhaling flame would there follow But the Low-Countries and part of Germany had not therefore trembled For once and at once the Earth had some where rose up on the top where it had gaped but it had not often trembled as it were with an aguish rigour For truly the supposed action of inflaming should be made onely that the piercing of Bodies might be hindered Therefore as to the third point To wit that also a sufficient exhalation being granted to be under the Earth nevertheless an Earth-quake is impossible I have begun indeed already to prove by some granted fictions Otherwise after what manner soever an exhalation may be taken and wheresoever that of the Pavements may be supposed the Earth should not thereby tremble but where the least resistances should be it should rise up into a heap or bunch untill it had gaped and the exhalation had made a passage for it self by expiring thorow a huge Gulf. Which things seeing they are not found to have happened the tradition of the Schooles doth in this respect also go to ruine For first of all that it may more clearly appear that the action and manner of the action is divers when as for fear of a piercing of Bodies a thing leaps forth and that nature doth operate after another manner by reason of the supposed lightness of exhalations striving to break forth observe a Handicraft-operation Let there be a Glasse-bottle spatious thick and strong infuse in it four ounces of Aqua fortis being prepared of Salt-peter Alume and Vitriol being dryed apart But cast into that water one ounce of the Powder of Sal Armoniac and straightway let the neck of the Glasse be shut by melting it which is called Hermes Seal As soon as the voluntary action shall begin and the Vessel is filled with a plentifull exhalation yet an invisible one and however it may be feigned to be stronger than Iron yet it straightway dangerously leapeth asunder into broken pieces for fear of piercing but not by reason of the lightness of many exhalations For truly although it bursteth by reason of the multitude and the pressing together of most light and invisible exhalations yet the lightness of the same in this things hath nothing of moment Because if any of these things should happen for lightness sake the Glasse Vessel it self before its bursting would be lifted up into the Air and fly upwards Because it is a thing of lesse labour to lift up a weight of three or four pounds than to break asunder a most strong Vessel Therefore the exhalations which do break the Glasse should much more powerfully lift up the Glasse if the Schooles did not beg the vain help of lightness from exhalations for an Earth-quake If therefore exhalations are not able by their lightness to lift up the Vessel wherein they are shut much lesse so great a quantity of Earth and vast an heap Lastly seeing that every exhalation is of some body and every body if it be to be seperated is divided into Salt Sulphur and Mercury and the Mercuriall part be the watery part of the body therefore it must needes be that every exhalation is of a Salt and Oylie matter And that that is first to be raised up before the watery part Which thing hath not as yet so happened in our Glasses by the an equall action of heat If therefore an exhalation be Salt it is easily soaked or imbibed into the Earth which may be seen wholly in all waters and exhalations of what Salts soever which in acting upon the Earth are coagulated in it and loose all activity Therefore if they should be stirred up in the earth they had failed before they were or in the making had ceased to be But if the exhalation be oily surely that being laid deposited or laid up into the Earth it retakes the former shape of Oyl and so growes together Which thing seeing it easily comes to passe it cannot be thought
much Air cannot lift up a Bladder surely much lesse shall the Air rise up being pressed down under the huge weight of the low Countries For indeed the Elements do in the first place and onely respect themselves truly they act all things for their own sake And therefore a Glasse-bottle being filled with Air and buried can never a whit endeavour to spring up out of the Earth because the Air is every where in its own naturall place as oft as the space of its place is not filled with another body neither is it carefull for passage Therefore if there are hollow places under the Earth the Air doth naturally rest in those places from all locall motion But in places where Sands fall down as it were a fluide body there because the dust fills up the empty place and falls down through its weight it also by accident presseth out the air But that motion of the Earth or Water is not therefore efficiently from the lightness of the Air or that the Air by the proper motion of its own lightness doth move it self and climbe upwards But mark in this thing weightiness it self is the active primary and totall efficient cause seeing weightiness hath a reall weight and is an active quality but on the contrary the lightness of the Air is the effecter of nothing seeing it hath no weight it of necessity betokeneth nothing neither can it have any efficacy of acting From whence it followes 1. That the lightness of the Air worketh nothing nor that a Bladder which should be great and weigh onely six grains could be of its own accord lifted up by the inclosed Air how great soever otherwise which is false the Air should be lighter than that which hath no weight 2. That the Air doth not appear out of the water by reason of its lightness as it were the active or the moving quality of swimming but weightiness is the reall quality which expells the Air. 3. And therefore the position of the Schooles is absurd wherein Air or an exhalation is appointed for the efficient cause of an Earth-quake by reason of its lightness as if it should shake the Earth by lifting it up Wherefore seeing it is now sufficiently proved 1. That there is not a place in the Pavements or Soils of the Earth wherein any Aiery Body may be entertained whether that Body be a Winde or an Aiery exhalation but by how much the deeper that place shall be sought for by so much the greater difficulties do arise as well by reason of the greater abundance of water as the greater fardle of Earth from above so that that is as it were of an infinite power which should cause a trembling of the Earth 2. And then that there can be no fire heat driness or any other stirrer up of an exhalation of so great power or that which is co-related to it That there is no possibility of such an exhalation in nature there to subsist And at length thirdly that no exhalation by reason of lightness doth operate any thing or lift up a heavy body much lesse so vast a Country of Earth Therefore I conclude that it is an empty fiction of the Schooles whatsoever hath been hitherto diligently taught concerning an Earth-quake Wherefore I will perfectly teach that the manner of an Earth-quake diligently taught by the Schooles is altogether impossible Let us therefore again feigne absurdities that as it were by the rule of falshood the errour of the Schooles may be discovered To wit let us grant a Bladder to be of a matter that is tractable or easily to be beaten thin being a thousand times stronger than all Iron and to be spread it is unknown in what Soil throughout all the low Countries and Germany under the foundation of Mountains Cities Seas and Rivers But a thousand huge paires of Bellowes most firmly and excellently annexed thereto Therefore that they may be able to lift up all the low Countries at once it must needes be that those Bellowes and the Posts and Axles of these be so strong as that they might be sufficient to lift up the weight And then a hand should be required or an Agent of so great strength that it might be able to lift up all the low Countries with its Palme or else it could not presse together those Bellowes which are full of winde But such an Agent is not in the Sublunary nature of things although the other granted absurdities should be present therefore the vain lightness of the Air or an exhalation is frivolous and the inbred desire of their breaking forth Therefore I never a whit doubt to deny the naturall cause rendered by the Schooles invented by the Devill that my God his own honour may be over-clouded Because the Schooles have been hitherto ignorant that lightness is not an active quality and so much lesse should it be an overturner of Mountains but they have sometimes considered that a Mine which was before over-covered hath straightway after an Earthquake belched forth a stinking poyson and made a gap for it self therefore they have dared through inconsiderateness and ignorance to refer this effect of an Earth-quake by accident into a cause by it self Which things that they may more clearly appear let us again feign the aforesaid Bladder under the low Countries to be stretched out with an Aiery Body of its own accord or by the influence of the Stars for when reason faileth those that are ignorant do alwayes run back to the Stars and causes afar of and for Witnesses not to be cited and no Bellowes to be as neither holes round about Then at leastwise the Body of all the Low-Countries laying on it should so presse the aforesaid Bladder with its weight that if it burst not it should at least in its weaker and lesse ponderous part belch forth that which is contained in it Which thing being obtained now indeed the cause of the pressing together of the Bladder and of the fall of the Low Countries together with the opening of some gap is present But the cause of the lifting up of that Bladder is not yet to be found and much lesse of the repeated succession of trembling and quaking Lastly neither is such a Bladder and its substance possible to be without which although there should be room in the Earth yet it is not fit for nourishing or receiving that exhalation Yea the bounds of the aforesaid Bladder being set or supposed at leastwise the Air or exhalation works nothing that it may lift up the Earth by its lightness but if the Earth fall down or go to ruine it findes not a cause for it selfe as to this thing in the lightness of the detained Air seeing it shuts up the whole cause in the Fist of its weightiness and the pressing out of the Air is to be measured according to the measure of the weight that layeth on it Therefore the Bladder being again supposed if any Winde or Air should blow from without
into the aforesaid Bladder being pressed together laying on the ground and void of every Body however most strongly it should blow yet it could not at all blow up the Bladder because the low Countries laying on it should presse it together But if indeed a fiery exhalation be sought for in the place of the Winde or Air I have already demonstrated before that fire to be impossible and the exhalation of so great an effect throughout all the low Countries to be fabulous At length that continuall Bladder so strong and capable to be hammered thin also faileth which may sustain with its back the low Countries Seas Rivers and far more For although I have granted the same it is not because I think it to be but because that Bladder being supposed so great absurdities may also follow and the Schooles at length be squeezed to an impossibility Mountains Sulphurous places and the mansions of Mines have afforded to Countrey people whence the Schooles have them the beginnings of this Dream Alass is there every where a miserable drowsiness in searching into the causes of effects The Mountain Soma or Vesuvius nigh Naples hath burned now for some Ages with Sulphur or Brimstone and fire-Stones But it hath a gap in its top large enough whereby the smoaks and flame might expire or breath out To wit perhaps to the largeness of three filed measures or Acres of Land But a Vault that was next to the flame as being now sufficiently roasted and full of chaps at length about the sixteenth day of the tenth Moneth or December of the year 1631 by one sudden fall fell down into the Gulf of the flame But it is the property as well of some Metalls as of bright shining Fire-stones while they are melting that if any thing of water shall fall in among them they all leap asunder therefore the Sulphurs with the Fire-stones being melted in the bowels of Vesuvius they did not endure the roasted fragment falling down from the Rocks without a great deluge but the flame did vomit out all of whatsoever had slidden down from above and more Neither was this sufficient But moreover some Fountains were loosed from above into the Chimney of the fire But what have the melted Sulphurs or what the raging tempests of smoakes common with an Earth-quake Do Sulphurs thus burn throughout all the low Countries For an Earth-quake had gone before at Naples and did accompany that danger of Sodom And although they shall happen together they do not therefore partake of one onely root the which do obey divers causes that Earth-quake fore-shewing a wonder did also inclose in it a monstrous token and doth alwayes inclose some such But the belching out of Metallick Veins stands by its natural causes Surely a wretched Sophistry it is to argue from not the cause as for the cause For neither are exhalations to be believed to have been enclosed in that Earth-quake a Chimney is produced having long since a way opened for exhalations I would the Schooles hath hearkened to their Pliny that oft-times at the present time or urgency of an Earth-quake Birds the winde being still being as it were sore smitten with fear do fall down out of the Air that in a quiet Haven the Oare Galleys do leap a little But what fellowship interposeth between the Air and the Sea with an exhalation shut up under the Earth For doth the Air tremble when the Earth doth Is so small a trembling of the Air sufficient to cast down Birds which fly in every winde For because the Sand of the Sea and that indeed without gaping should leap a little for the depth of half a foot ought therefore the Superficies of the deep Sea void of Winde together with Ships to tremble A Manuscript of the Curate of S. Mary beyond Dilca of Mecheline was shewen wherein he had written that in the year 1540 once every day for three dayes space the Earth trembled before that lightning inflamed its Sand-Port and also the Gun-powder contained therein whence the City by an un-thought of slaughter being almost utterly dashed in pieces went to ruine Lastly in the year 1580 the second houre after noon the fury of the Windes ceasing the City trembled two dayes before the English invaded Mecheline and took it for a prey But what have those events happening from a fatall necessity common in the joyning of causes with a dreamed exhalation under the Earth For what could a supposed exhalation portend besides or out of it self For why should it include a future signifying of a VVar-like invasion or Lightning to come and to kindle the Vessels of Gun-powder there also kept shaking the Sandy Tower and throwing down the whole City For before that the Mountain Vesuvius belched out its bowels and covered very many small Towns with a Minerall Clod and denyed hope to the Husband-man for the time to come thick darkness under the Sun went before in the Air lamentable howlings and the Earth trembled things stirring up the required devotion of the Nation Truly the Earth trembled from its own cause for a fore-knowledge of the future slaughter threatned But the slaughter it selfe followed by its naturall causes But the fore-going signes have never any thing common with the event of future fire Since therefore now it is certain that there is no place among the Pavements of the Earth nor exhalation that layes under them and if any should be under yet that it were impossible to cause an Earth-quake yet that it is an undoubted truth that the Earth doth truly and actually tremble without the dis-continuance of its pavements or through the opening of some gap I have considered that trembling to be in the Earth no otherwise than in Brasse when as the Clapper hath smote the Bell. For as long as the Bell trembles without a cleft so long it gives a Tune The Earth also while it is shaken with its Super-natural Clapper sends forth a deaf sound because its body toucheth together indeed by Sand and VVater even into its Center yet it is not holding together by a continuance of unity without intermission And it may tremble without the dis-continuance of touching together indeed by so much the more freely if the Mettall be bended without the renting asunder of that which holds together the Earth also in trembling hath its inward Clapper more famous than the voice of Thunder But because the stroak waxeth deaf in the Sand and VVater therefore it is shaken together with a certain tune or note while it trembled yet the roaring which is sometimes heard is not of the Earth but a strange one not proper to the Earth-quake but an accidentary howling of Spirits which by the Italians is called Baleno At length I weighing the cause of an Earth-quake do know that in the first place there is a motive force in the Air whereby the Air doth commit to execution the spurre conceived in the Stars For the Stars shall be to you for
signes times or seasons dayes and years Moreover I know that in the Sea and deep Lakes there is their motive force whereby they suffer a raging heat without windes whereby I say our Ocean is rowled six houres and else-where six constant months with one onely flowing Lastly I know that the Earth is at rest nor that it hath a motive force actively proper to it self Therefore I believe that the Earth doth quake and fear as oft as the Angel of the Lord doth smite it Behold a great Earth-quake was made for the Angel of the Lord descended from Heaven Mat. 28. The word For among the Hebrewes doth contain a cause as if he should say Because For this is the onely cause of an Earth-quake whereby all things do without resistance equally tremble together as it were a light Reed In the Revelations the third part of Mortalls Trees and Fishes perished at the very time wherein the Angel powred forth his Viall For abstracted spirits do work by the divine Power and nothing can resist them Evill spirits also as oft as it is granted them to act by a free power they act without the resistance of bodies or a re-acting of resistance For matter is the Client of or dependant on another Monarchy and it cannot re-act into a spirit which it by no meanes toucheth and with no object affecteth Even as the Angel useth the powred out liquor of the Viall unto the aforesaid slaughter so for the Earth-quake he for the most part makes use of a note or voice For a wandering note was heard in the Air no otherwise than as the creaking of Wheeles driven thereupon as it were a tempestuous murmuring sound succeeded yet without Winde and at that very time the whole tract of so great Provinces trembled at once with a huge horrour Which same note accompanied the trembling of the Earth at every of the three repeated turns The same thing almost happens in Lightning Truly the Lightning burns and causeth melting but surely it smiteth not According to that saying The voice of Thunder shall strike the Earth because it smiteth For Silk-worms die Milk is curdled Ale or Beer waxeth sowre a slain Oxe hanging up retains flaggie flesh unfit to take Salt and that onely by the Thunder-stroak the Lightning doing no hurt there Therefore let the voice of Thunder and the voice of the Earth-quake be the note or tone of ministring spirits But the Stars do not stir up a motive and alterative force of the Air or Water through a note but do act onely by an Aspect which they call an Influence And it hath its action and direction in a moment even as light sight c. For otherwise there should be need of many years before the audible Species or resemblances that are to be heard should come down from Saturn to the places of a Meteor And then a note or sound although it be great yet it faileth by degrees in the way But that the Earth doth tremble with a Tempest of Windes or that the Tempest doth sometimes run successively thorow Villages Cities and as it were thorow street by street in its wheeling about That is wholly by accident and according to the will of him who shaketh the Earth for a monstrous sign Likewise that else-where it doth oft-times tremble in quick Belgium very seldom that changeth not the moving cause For it stands in the free will of him who encloseth the Universe in his Fist who can shake the Earth at his pleasure and alone do marvellous things At the beholding of whom the Earth shall at sometime smoak and the Mountains being melted shall go to ruine But that in another place gapings chaps after an Earth-quake have sometimes appeared and a filthy poyson and fumes of arsenicall bodies have breathed forth that is joyned onely to its naturall causes Nor are they the effects of an Earth-quake but by accident but not the causes But this blindness of causes of the Earth-quake hath been invented the Devill being the Authour whereby mortall men might set apart all fear of the power and so might prevent if not wholly neglect the ends which God hath appointed to himself for the serious reverencing of the power of his Majesty that they being mind-full of the faults of their fore-led life might repent Deh qual possente man conforzze ignote Il terreno a crollar si spesso riede Non e chiuso vapor como altro crede Ne sognato stridente il suol percuote Certo la terra si rissente scuote Perche del peâcator sa aggrava il piede Et i nostri corpi impatiente chiede Per riemper se sue spelonche âuote E linquaggio del ciel che l'huom riprende Il turbo il tuono il fulmine il baleno Hor parla anco la terra in note horrende Perche l'huom ch' esser vuol tutto terreno Ne del cielo il parlar straniero intende I l parlar della terra intenda al meno Behold with what a mighty yet unknown A force the Earthy Body makes a noyse And with so thick a rushing gives a groan 'T is not a vapour hot shut up they 'r toyes Even as some believe which beats the ground Or thumps its entrails with a whistling sound Truly the Earth it selfe doth feele and quake Because the sinners foot doth load its back And our impatient mortall bodies fall In to fill up its own deep Vaults withall The Language of the Heaven which reproves Man is the Whirle-winde Thunder Lightning flash And sp'ritous howling in the Air Ecchoes Now speaks the earth more-o're with horride lash Of signall tokens ' cause since man which would Be wholly earthly doth not understand The Linguo strange of Heaven yet may or should At least the Earth it 's Language apprehend These things nothing hindering there hath not been one wanting who said that from a most deep well of the Castle of Lovaine he by a sure presage foretold an Earth-quake was shortly to be because the water of the same Well three dayes before sent forth the stinking savour of Brimstone and that its contagion yellowness together with the turbulency of the water did bewray it But let that good man know that that Well is one hundred and fifteen foot in depth because they go up to the Castle from the Street that is next unto it by ninety three steps And so that Well in one part is not deeper than its Neighbouring Wells although in the other part where it is co-touching with the Hill of the Castle it is deep as I have said But seeing that a vein of Sulphur is not hidden in the Hill the water could not breath Sulphur which was not there But if it cast the smell of Sulphur a sign might precede God admonishing but it had not Sulphur which neither is in that place nor was enflamed therefore neither could it cause an Earthquake unto all Belgium or the Low Countries Therefore there is no naturall reason why the water
be expected from elsewhere For he is the Prince of life and death the Alpha and Omega of all things He giveth and taketh away Victories Wars Famine and Pestilences also second partaking causes also free mediating con-causes and occasionall ones accompanying them over all which notwithstanding God is sits as chief as the totall immediate and independent cause Therefore the Firmament is a preacher of all these Works for neither doth God more erre in these free contingent things than in animall accustomed and necessary things if the Firmament was made by God the Mover and knower of all things to foreshew The Land of Libyssa shall over-cover the dead Carcase of Hannibal as Appian relates it to have been foretold by an Oracle of the evill spirit Hannibal hoped he saith that he should therefore die in Lybia or Africa who died in Bythinia near the River Libyssus For the Devil cannot foreknow the lots or events of future Wars which are in the hand of the God of Armies and as yet in the future will or judgement of man unless he shall first read them decyphered in a fore-telling Star Which Picture of the Stars while they no where finde mentioned but cannot deny but that the Devill declares things to come they have meditated of a privy shift and do say that the knowledges of future things are nearly related to Angels and so are co-natural to them but that they differ according to the Quires or Regions from whence they were expelled so that they which fell down from the highest Hierarchy of the Angels should have a much more clear understanding of future things which understanding because it was naturall God had not took away from an evill Spirit For neither is it more naturall to the Devil to have known the enlightnings concerning future things than to have known the natures and names of living Creatures not seen before like Adam But I conceive with Dionysius that the inferior Angels are enlightned by the superior but this light continually to beam forth from the wisdom of the Father and never to have been natural to Angels but to be a free and beatifical gift Next that every good gift doth descend from the Father of Lights that the gift of the Counsels of God and of his future works is not to be searched out by Creatures by their gifts of nature else the naturall knowledge of evill spirits should be almost infinite if it should include in it self the fortunes of mortall men to come distinguished in their second causes yea if an evill spirit otherwise had had this natural participation of divine counsel he had not been ignorant of future effects which he himself as the fire-brand of all evills was to raise up and suffer and so he could scarce have sinned Therefore it is more safe to believe contingent or accidentall things to be painted out by the Stars not indeed all but perhaps those of one age and likewise the Tragedy of every man to be deciphered in his own Star the Picture whereof ceaseth with the closure of his life They will say Hannibal took poyson Satan perswading him But this he did not certainly know as neither could he foretell it if man hath free will and therefore neither did he know that Hannibal would certainly obey his perswasions neither doth Hannibal die by the foolish perswasion of Satan which could not be knit to its causes depending on the divine will For neither doth he die by the poyson but first he is a run-away from many adverse battels But the Lord the onely God of Armies hath Victories in his own hand neither is the evill spirit chief in Battels Therefore to have foreknown the issue of Wars is the same as of free contingencies For truly Victory doth for the most part arise occasionally from a contingent thing not premeditated of therefore I conclude that the infernal enemy doth read the Pictures of the Stars whereby the Firmament is said to foretel the Handy works of the Lord. But thou wilt say whence do the Heavens make Predictions which no mortall men have known and the which to be known by the evill spirit is wickedness In the first place it should be sufficient that the fore-tellings of future things do chiefly declare the glory of God and the infiniteness of his wisdom and fore-knowledge to wit that it may not remain unsignified And then The Lord hath not done a word which he doth not signifie to his servants the Prophets Lastly if the number of mortall men be scarce the hundreth of Angels that are good Spirits it sufficeth that these at least do read the foretokens of future things and therefore do they praise the Lord anew Lucifer indeed hath waxed proud by the much knowledge of things both of those that do exist and of things afterwards to be and it was naturall to him the which he breaths in without grace But it doth not therefore follow that he hath known all mortall men to come and their fortunes vices defects sins grace and whatsoever things should be hereafter like to a second cause as neither the secret mysteries of God that are revealed in succession of dayes and added to a connexion of causes But whether Plagues do arise and rage or Tyrannies Wars destructions tumults or the beginnings of arch-Hereticks the Lord permitting them at leastwise those things shall be as well connexed to their own necessary and second causes although arbitrall and occasionall ones as otherwise Meteors are to theirs For neither is the office of foreshewing the Handy works of the Lord to be restrained to the changes of the Air alone but absolutely unto all the works of the Lords hands Because if the Stars can be preachers of the threatning effects of the wrath of God which without second causes should be committed to the smiting Angel why shall they not also in like manner shew the works of the Lord deputed or reckoned to second and free causes For truly what things soever God foreknoweth he can also if he will shew them by his Instruments but those proper Instruments of God are the Firmament and the Lights thereof as the Scripture witnesseth Yea truly I have been bold to attribute more Authority to the Heaven than what hath wont to be given unto it by the holy Scriptures To wit that the Stars are to us for foreshewing Signes Seasons or changes of the Air lastly for dayes and years wherefore the Text takes away all power of causes besides in the abovesaid revolutions of seasons dayes and years Neither do they act I say but by a motive and alterative Blas But the Stars are said to act by motion and light onely but motion in the Schooles is said to act onely by reason of the divers Aspects of Light for that the motion of the Heavens even the swiftest as well as those remote from us should produce as well heat as motion is a devise or fiction For truly the daily motion of the Heavens is almost
is before to please and to please is before to displease and nothing can displease or wish for a successive change but as a pleasure being gotten and known something more perfect possibly also better is shewen For in the more crude seeds which nave conceived their first ferments by Odours the Odour goes before the complacency or good pleasure but this doth generate a desire of it self and of a thing remaining But in things possible desire causeth the same appetite of remaining but not of perishing by the changing of its Being But if indeed by reason of the hidden impediments of death a permanency is not granted there is made a dissolution in Bodies but thence a weariness but from weariness there is a proceeding to a remove or change through the ruling virtue by degrees declining from whence at length destruction is not intended but following after through necessities It belonged to the Schooles to have known that to be doth alwayes go before a wearisomness unto a non-being because this wearisomness is not of the intent of nature but rather an imaginary Metaphor or translation succeeding upon the defects of things At least that this wearisomness ought to precede the desire to a non-being And much more a desire to a new Being and unknown to it self Seeing a new Being is not granted before the death of the present Being In brief because also the wearinesses of the displacency of the appetite do but dreamingly agree to a non-being And at length because from dreaming principles so absurd nothing is to be exspected besides errours full of confusion Therefore successive change in nature is not from the desire of the matter but from the power of the efficient Vulcan Wherein the Odour and Savour of the middle life do generate a seminall Image the beginning of transmutation For neither are the Schooles as yet constant enough to themselves in that appetite of the matter yea the Schooles do not seem to have taught the speculative principles of nature for the service of the truth For truly when they descend to the things themselves they do no more blame the appetite of the matter for the corruption of a thing but they blame the Air as the effecter of all corruptions whatsoever But I know that many things are dried under Air which otherwise under the Earth or water do putrifie presently For truly Glasse the last of things putrefiable doth in the Air main as it were for ever But being buried after some years it admits of a putrifying through continuance is covered or enrowled with a Crust its Salt being dissolved it decayes and its constitutive Sand remaineth The Air is a Case in whose porosities some things do dispose themselves into successive alterations some things under the water and many things also under the Earth according to the dispositions of the seeds For truly those things which do spinkle from themselves an Odour do loose the same by the flowing and snatching wind or the Vessel being close shut they do retain the same within For if the former the pores of Bodies being afterwards empty they do receive Air which being there enclosed doth putrifie through continuance with the odourable thing whence the residue of the Odour doth receive a ferment doth draw a warerish filthiness from the said putrefaction by continuance and becomes rank or muckie But if the latter comes to passe then the Air there detained doth cause the composed Body to putrifie by continuance and brings it to corruption unless the odourable Body hath the properties of a Balsam because a new ferment thinks of a successive change Volatile or exhalable and swift flying things do easily decay because for the most part they have a diversity of kindes through want whereof distilled things are scarce corrupted one whereof doth ferment or leaven another from their true Element they are even choaked and do putrifie through continuance or do conceive an air as before Therefore the ferment changeth the thing as it alters its Odour according to the essence of the matter imprinting of the Vessel of the place or of the thing adjoyned which things I prove by this Handicraft-operation For truly I do preserve the broaths of fleshes of Fruits even as also any boyled things otherwise soon subject to corrupt for years from corruption so that I shall poure a balsamicall ferment into the Air and that ferment being continued I shall restrain it With me therefore corruption is thus as I have said Forms are never corrupted they die indeed onely the minde of man departeth safe but all other forms do perish But matter neither departeth nor dieth but is corrupted And so corruption is onely of the matter Therefore corruption is a certain disposition of the matter left behinde by the ruling Vulcan decaying For as the Body saileth its Ruler or Pilots being in good health it being safe doth not hearken unto strange ferments Neither is corruption therefore to be numbred among privative things if it consist of positive causes Wherefore another Beginning of Aristotle in nature falls to the ground For truly the Archeus is not of his own accord taken away dispersed changed or estranged unless by a new one troubling him under another ferment Therefore strange ferments are chief over all corruptions and by the interchangeable courses of ferments all corruption begins doth by little and little ascend unto a degree and pitch and at length having obtained its period is terminated For there are some things in whom the proper lust of their seeds is wanton and calls them away from the tenour of constancy to undergo the transmutations of successive changes not indeed by reason of a desire to another form but because the implanted Balsam of nature is easily blown away and perisheth as are fleshes and Fishes But others do change their Wedlock not without a putrifying being first stirred up and do put on the careful governments of new seeds As are Woods Stones and Glasse which is most constant in fire Among which they do interpose in a middle degree for whom the touchings of the place do cover their Superficies with a hoary putrefaction or mouldiness From whence Odours being dispersed they do disjoyn the Wedlocks of the antient seeds and meditate of a new Generation by dissolving It is a mark naturall or proper to the Air uncessantly to seperate the waters from the waters and there are many things which do not endure such a successive alteration without a spot or corruption hence therefore they do most immediately slide into a sudden disorder Therefore corruption as it includes an extinguishing of the naturall Balsam so the constancy of a thing desires its continuance for in such things whose Balsam doth voluntarily flow forth or expire it being joyned to fixed things they are seasoned therewith it sticks fast is restrained by the bolts of dryness or at leastwise is nourished by a predominating ferment that is no stranger to the disposition of a Balsam For so sweet things
use of the Pulses and another of breathing and âââther for heat only For in the most sharp and hot diseases to wit as oft as there is the greatest breathing drawn and that like a sigh the Pulse is small and swift also the strength remaining Therefore the use of breathing and the Pulse do not answer especially because we are more refreshed by a great draught of cold water abundantly drunk than if the same quantity be drunk at many times I say we are more refreshed by one only sigh than by many small and more frequent breathings Even so as a pair of Bellows doth perform more by a great and continual blast than by those that are lesse exact although many whence it may be sufficiently manifested to a well considerate and judicious man that there is another use of the Pulses of greater moment to wit That which respecteth the ferment of digestions Whence I repeat a handicraft operation to wit That at length under the last digestion all our Arterial bloud doth perish and exhale neither that it leaves any dreg behind it Yet whatsoever doth exhale by heat alone all that as well in living as in inanimate things doth leave a dreg behind it the skilfull do call this The dead Head which dreg being at length thus roasted doth resemble a Coale For the action of heat is of it self every where Simple Univocal and Homogeneal differing in the effect by reason of the Matter Therefore if the vitall bloud ought to be wholly so disposed in us that it be at length wholly blown away without a dead head it was altogether necessary that that should happen by some other Mean than that of heat But the aire was alwayes and from the beginning every where the seperater of the waters from the waters This hath not been known in the Schools to wit that the whole Venal bloud that it may depart into a Gas it hath need of two wings to fly the aire and a ferment Wherefore observe thou That as oft as any thing of bloud becomes unfit or is not by degrees disposed of and undergoes its degrees in the outward part of the body that it may wholly throughout the whole be made volatile and capable to flye away or thorow the poâes at the same moment now Scirthus's Nodes or Knots and Apostems are conceived but if that thing happen in the more inward part thereof for the most part Fevers Apoplexies Falling evills Asthma's likewise pains and deaths do soon follow Let us see therefore what the aire or what a ferment may conduce hereunto First of all Every muscilage of the earth which else is easily turned into worms likewise Starch Fleshes Fishes c. being once frozen at that very moment do lose their muckinesse and return into water As the aire was once very well combined to the Ice as I have sometimes spoken concerning the weight of Ice and so it is the first degree whereby the aire doth resolve a tough body into water And then under the greatest colds and purest aire we are more hungry yet we sweat and less is discussed out of us with a small and more hard siege or excrement Therefore one that saileth in the Sea eats more by double if not by treble unlesse he be sick and le ts go less excrement than himself doth living at Land whence is the Proverb The water causeth a promoting of digestion As if indeed he that saileth should not float in the aire but in the water but floating doth renew the aire in us and from hence there is a stronger digestion Therefore if we do eat more strongly and do cast forth less excrements it necessarily follows that the more is discussed or doth vanish out of the Body which is to say That the more pure Northern and Sea-aire doth conduce to a transpiration or evaporation of the body or doth dispose the bloud unto an insensible perspiration or breathing out of it self Surely for that cause is breathing made not indeed that the air may depart into nourishment for the vitall spirit but that it may be connexed with it being sucked to it thorow the Arterial Vein and Venal Artery of the Lungs and that the air being for this cause transported into the heart it may receive a ferment which accompanying it they both may dispose the venal blood into a totall transpiration of it self After another manner many things are made fixt and do resist a breathing forth if they are provoked by heat otherwise they were in themselves volatile Wherefore an Alcali is not generated in ashes by the fire essentially although effectively it proceed from thence For the office of the fire is indeed to kindle consume and seperate yet not to produce any thing Seeing the fire is not rich in a seed it is the very destroyer of seeds But from seeds all Generation proceedeth When therefore an Alcali is fixed out of a Salt that was before volatile it is not a new production of a thing but only the Alteration of a thing For the Alcali was indeed materially in the composed body before burning and did flow together with its Mercury and Sulphur Notwithstanding while the fire takes away the Mercury and Sulphur the Salt indeed as being a principle more subsisting in the melting of the combustion doth snatch to it self the neighbouring part of the Sulphur or Fat and when it is not able sufficiently to defend it from the torture of the fire it partly also flyes away under the mask of a Gas and attains the odour of corrupted matter and is partly incorporated in the laid-hold-of co-melted Sulphur and is made a true Coal Wherefore the Sulphur being now fixed by the wedlock of the Salt it doth not speedily incline from a Coal into a smoaky vapour But by degrees and not unlesse in an open Vessel and so with the former Sulphur for from hence the Sulphur of a thing being for the most part sharp doth retain the savour of a volatile Salt and at length with the Coalie Sulphur the just weight of its volatile Salt flies away Which thing surely is no where more manifest than in the Coal of Honey For if this be urged or forced by a shut vessel it remains not changed in a bright burning fire but the vessel being open both do so depart that moreover no remainder of ashes doth ever survive Therefore the Alcali Salt doth fore-exist materially in the composed body before combustion Because all the Salt was formally volatile in the composed body and not in the form of a more fixed Alcali which thing is now especially manifest in the bloud which being wholly volatile exhaleth unsensibly through the Pores without any residence But if it be combusted or burnt it leaveth very much fixed Salt in its own ashes In the next place The wood of the Pine-Tree which affordeth little ashes and less Salt in the preparation of ashes barrelled is by calcining wholly turned into an Alcali For barrelled ashes are brought
or boyling to be concoction therefore they translated digestions to boyling and on both sides where they thought heat to be the natural total and one only cause of them For they saw that by seething and roasting very many things waxed tender and were altered Therefore a liberty being taken from artificial things they translated a Kitchin into the amazed transmutations of the bowels and meats not indeed by way of similitude but altogether properly and immediately and by thinking the matter passed over into a belief and then into a true opinion and all the offices and benefits of our nature they translated into heats and temperaments as it were into totall causes Especially indeed because they perceived the bellies of men and four-footed beasts to be actually hot even so that afterwards they laboured more for increasing of heat than for strengthening of digestion For neither have they diligently searched further into it although the event did for the most part deceive their hope Thinking it sufficient that heat might be found as well in boyling as in the natural digestion of the belly from which they slumbered as expecting abundant help to themselves In the mean time they were in doubt when they took notice that meats were not by seethings wholly transchanged into juice by a total metamorphizing For fleshes the vessel being shut they resolved into a consummated Bâoth a true portage being pressed out and melted but indeed they observed their errour because fleshy tough and hard remaining threds did abide and never melt by a true transmutation into juice yet through an aptnesse of belief and antiquity of errour they suffered their eyes to be vailed seeking privy shifts and biding places they presently thought themselves safe while that they had implored the divers degrees of heat if not also its particular kinds and general kinds as is a fiery elementary radical correspondent to the element of the stars c. yea and the moments of heats for a help of their excuses So that every degree should almost in every moment have its own constitutive temperature in digesting In which stupidity Paracelsus also involved himself who will have one only bread in so many particular kinds of living creatures to receive a specifical diversity of venal bloud and dungs by reason of the moment of degree alone in heat As if the Latitude of heat could frame a species or vary in the substance But while the Schools did presume to have taken away every knot in the Bulrush they afterwards fell into the spongy differences of digestive heat natural and likewise into that of besides and against nature And at length they ought now and then against their will to fly back unto the sacred Anchor of hidden secrets or properties in digestions So indeed that there should be some certain heat the Authour of digestion as well in diseases as in health Having forgotten in the mean time that as they had feigned one only kind of contraries and both to be said or declared after like manners that there should be one only and a uniform condition of both Wherefore they forgot to devise the like particular kindes and properties of colds to wit of what so it that natural digestive cold besides and against nature should be And likewise they ought to have taught some radical and primogeniall cold So that if radical heat doth answer in proportion to the Element of the Stars and doth differ in the whole general kind from any other luke-warmth also radicall cold ought to differ in as many numbers and faculties from any other cold unlesse through the great want of truth they forsake their own wisdom as barren So indeed although heat not natural should proceed into natural and this into it by an unheard of license of seeds yet they have banished native and feverish heat into distinct species yea also into generall kinds that they might save the effects attributed to digestive heat So that while they would believe that some Birds do digest those things which otherwise do defend them against the fury of the fire they have acknowledged some fire to be more powerfull than fire For a Dog doth digest swallowed bones which fire never dares to convert into Chyle Therefore The diversities of which effects have constrained the Schools to erect heat into the Latitude of a predicament opposite colds being in the mean time neglected When as in the mean time there is only a specifical diversity of heat which is not able to with-draw it from the number of other things For truly whatsoever is cast into the stomack digestion being at length finished is transchanged and far separated from boyling and other coctures after whatsoever degree prepared Because the one only ignorance of ferments hath caused digestions and the remedies of unconcoction to be unknown and a faulty argument to be promoted of not the cause as of the cause where it is not an idle brawling as it were about a name while fermentall effects are ascribed to heat Because the resolving of this question doth change the intentions of healing Therefore I willingly accustome my self to enquire into the proper causes to wit at the meditation whereof profit follows diseases tremble or the strength or faculties are made vigorous Therefore ferments are worthily wrath because they are against their will believed to war under a Relolleum or quality not having a seminal Being For it never belonged to heat to withdraw a thing into a formal transmutation Seeing heat by it self and primarily doth nothing but make hot but by accident it separates watery things from stiff or tough things Which univocal or single action of heat is no wise a digestion being wholly included in transchanging For although digestion doth happen in us heat accompanying it yet that is not heat although it be by accident connexed with heat For therefore in a Fish there is no actual heat neither therefore notwithstanding doth he digest more unprosperously than hot Animals Neither is he after the manner of men badly affected by things cast into him Therefore it is a frivolous thing to flee to potential heat for a fish For in sensible things known by sense the touching only is witnesse and judge but not to flee to dreams For if digestion be to be attributed to heat not actually hot but to a virtual power I now enjoy my wish For otherwise what is that I pray but ignorantly to brawl about heat as such And in the mean time to confesse that there is something besides a sensible heat which is the containing cause of digestion For what can more foolishly be spoken than that potential heat doth actually make hot and that digestion is made for this heatings sake Can a thing in power now act actually But at least in a Dog-like hunger there is a most swift digestion and implacable hunger Therefore a troublesome and offensive heat even then ought to be felt in us hot creatures if digestion be made in us by actual
or downwards beset to wit when as that which I but now before spake concerning hoarsnesse is cast out of the breast by Coughs Therefore the Snivel of the nostrils dropping down from above even as also that which is ââit out by Coââbs doth take its rise from the Keeper the faculty an excrement indeed in it self profitable but through errour of the Keeper hurtful But I call these powers placed at both the solding doors of the gates of the air Keepers or Watchmen and oft-times erring or wandring ones while by reason of a frequent strife with forreign injuries the Keeper doth not rightly execute his Offices Yet the Keeper is not to be numbred under the Quaternion of faculties to wit the attractive digestive retentive and expulsive Because it doth not onely expell its own but also frameth its own and indeed onely excrements which are not made by digestion but by an abortive or miscarrying power Wherefore the Schools have altogether neglected both these Faculties prefixed before the doors of the Brain and Lungs and have dedicated both onely to the Brain and have accused onely the distemper hereof in those who are in the most perfect health As long the Keeper is in its right-strength as a Conqueress of the Cruelty of the Air it overcomes but when by reason of its much broken strength it cannot satisfie its first ordination according to its desire it at least frames much Snivel that it may wash off the conceived blemish in separating about which it was not at first bruised Therefore the Keeper differs from the digestive and family-administring property of the Brain And it happens that one is hurt the other remaining safe which truth sneezing medicines do discover unto us which do presently after the neighbour Snivel being dispatched stir up meer waterishnesses most speedily brought forth by the provoked Keeper So that at length if the sneezing medicine shall be the sharper fibers of venal blood do fall down with the thin muck and a salt water waxing pale is expunged from the red According to the Proverb he that expungeth too much doth at length draw forth blood For the red blood begân to wax palish which through the troublesomnesse of sneezing was untimely drawn oâ allured otherwiâe it had been snivel Therefore the Keeper doth first of all witnesse Divine Providence to have watched over both Bowels in so ready and frequent a necessity Also they do bewray the effects not indeed of the digestion of the Brain and Lungs but of their own proper power which neither brings forth diseasie effects unlesse it wander from its mark Therefore it is false to have said that a pose is healthy as being the expunger or wiper out of filths For the Offices of both the Keepers and their errours I have by the way already touched Now moreover for the confirmation of the granted Doctrine I will explain the exorbitances of the wandering or eâring Keeper As the Keeper hath received its Lievtenantship chiefly by reason of the cruelties of the adverse Air so it also moderateth the same taking to it a matter obeying its functions to wit out of the masse of the whole to wit of the liquor Latex and venal blood Which Doctrine although it shew a novelty and for that cause may carry difficulties with it yet the ignorance of Ages is never able to prescribe to the truth For first of all a multiplicity of matter being drawn out under the errour of the Keeper sheweth the same not to be the excrement of the brain otherwise sound and strong Therefore the instinct of preparing speedy ready and diverse mucks is raised up from âlswhere Indeed the Powers are for the washing of the filths off the atomes of the air therefore placed at the doors or entrance of the Bowels that are passable for Air Surely all things proceed well and orderly so long as the Keeper doth not exceed its own limits But seeing all humane things are exposed to ruines where as often as the Keeper wandreth from its aim presently Poses or Distillations Hoarsnesses Coughs c. do invade us after a miserable manner Concerning the Grief or Stuffing of a distilled Rheume or Pose I have already spoken sufficiently Now moreover I will speak of the Cough The Cough ariseth from a feeling of that which is hurtful troubling the wind-pipe from the beginning thereof even unto the bottome or depth of the Lungs to wit smoaks smoaky vapours sharp exhalations minerals and likewise moist vapours stinking ones c. At length cruel cold overcomes the force of its Inne as if tending to the extinguishing of the vital guest The Cough therefore is an effect of the act of Feeling for as soon as the spirit implanted in those parts is grieved with a trouble leaâing on it from without the Keeper presently performs his own office For that unnamed Faculty doth readily call to it as much out of the mass of the juyce Latex as seemeth fit for it and transchangeth it into snivel which in manner of a dew it thrusts forth unto the wind-pipe whereby the injury of the Air may the lesse nakedly and immediately affect the solid pâââ it self but may break it self against the aforesaid coat of snivel But alas I when either the outward injury is greater than that which may ââffer it self to be mitigated by touching or doth more deeply strike the very substance of the wind-pipe or Lungs now the Keeper stumbleth neither doth it withdraw its aid onely from the Lateâ but doth alienate the very substance of the next nourishment and wander into a muckie glew indeed so much the nearer to the immediate nourishment of the Bowel by how much it shall come deeper unto a Colour of yellow looking ruddy and nearer to redness and having slidden from that Colour it returns into its former Colour while it shall approach from a ruddy Colour nearer to the yellowness of Chaffe and from thence at length unto the similitude of the white of an Egg. Hence on the other hand in hectick Fevers the snivel becomes bloudy and assumeth the Colour of the more dark ashes while the very substance of the nourishment it self being transchanged departs and doth there shew forth a failing integrity of life Then indeed the stinking smell of a dead Carcase beginning in the breath doth bewray the faintings or doataââs of the Archeus of the Lungs Therefore the snivel doth readily serve for a partition wall between the hurtful thing coming unto it and the forces or strength of the Inn wherefore it hath a saltness brought to it as the prick of its expulsion that it may provoke the feeling of the Wind-pipe And in the smallness of Salt snivel Coughs are dry But because old Age is likened to a defect and the Lungs are first deficient as above hence Coughs are natural to old Age as it were by property and they are scarce silent do scarce cease or are restrained woren-out nature not admitting a restauration These things of the
it self Therefore something doth precede in the masse or lump which should be plainly an immaterial yet a real and effective Beginning wherein there should be a power of figuring by the impression of a Seal Therefore the Soul of the begetter while it slides outward and doth lighten the Body of the seed in a certain Air it delineates the Seal and figure of it self which is the cause of the fruitfulness of seeds Otherwise if the Soul should not be figured but the figure it self of the Body should as it were of its own accord be formed now the Trunck in some member should also generate nothing but a Trunck for that the body of that generater is not entire but at least faileth in the implanted Spirit of that member If therefore the shape be implanted in the seed it shall receive that Image from a vital and former Beginning out of it self But if the Soul doth imprint a figure on the seed it shall not dissemble a forreign or strange face but shall decipher its very own Image For so the Souls of bruit Beasts do keep their own particular kinde in generating But the minde although by reason of its beginning it be above the Laws of Nature yet by what foot it hath once entred the threshold of Nature and is incorporated and joyned unto another it is afterwards also restrained by its own Laws Because there is a univocal or single progress ascention descention limitation and end of vital generations For neither otherwise doth it want absurdities that the operation of so great a thing as is the generation of man and the continuance of his Species should happen without the co-operation of the minde Therefore it must needs be that fruitfulness is granted to the seed by a participation and specifical determination of vital principles which thing surely doth not otherwise happen than by a sealing of the Soul in the Spirit of the seed whence the matter obtains a requisite maturity and a delineated shape or figure that at length it may obtain by request a formal light of life from the Creator or the Soul of its own Species the similitude whereof is expressed in the figure Furthermore it is of faith that our minde is a substance never to die The new framing of which substance of nothing belongs onely to the Creator who if it hath well pleased him to adopt the minde alone into his own Image it also seems to follow that the vast and unutterable God is of a humane figure and that from an Argument from the effect if there be any force of Arguments in this subject But because the Body is oft-times defectuous they have thought the glorious Image of God the Arch-Type represented in the minde to consist onely in the power of Reason Not knowing that the rational power is a servant to the understanding but not of its essence as neither its unseparable companion which thing I have already explained in the Treatise of the searching or hunting out of Sciences But others hold the Soul most nearly to express the Image of God by a single simplicity of its own substance and a ternary of its powers to wit of understanding will and memory which similitude hath alwayes seemed to me fabulous that the minde should be the Image of God by a singular valour or ability For truly an Image doth involve a similitude of essence and figure but not an equality or likeness of number onely yea if the Soul doth in its substance represent God himself now understanding will and memory shall not be the powers properties or accidents of the Soul And so the likeness of ternariness shall cease such an image shall badly square with the Type whose image it is believed to be And than it is absurd to compare the persons of the Trinity to memory or will Seeing no person of the holy sacred Trinity doth represent the will onely or the will a separated person in God Also the three powers in the Soul cannot any way expresse the image or a nearer supposed thing than a naked threeness of accidents collected into the substance of the Soul In which sense the Soul doth lesse denote the Image of God than any peece of Wood To wit because it by its resolution doth express Salt Sulphur and Liquor but not like the minde in the aforesaid similitude of its own powers and the divine persons three powers onely or a naked ternary For every Wood hath three substances concluded under a unity of the composed Body separated indeed in the things supposed which in their connexion do make one onely substance of Wood. But Tauterus severeth the Soul or minde not indeed into three powers but into two distinct parts To wit the inferiour or more outward which by a pecullar name he calls the Soul and the other the superiour the more inward and the which he calls the bottom of the Soul or Spirit In which part alone he saith the Image of God is specially contained unto which there is not access for the Devil because there is the Kingdom or God But to either part he assigneth far unlike acts and properties whereby he distinguisheth both from each other But at least that holy man doth blot out the simple homogenity or samelinesse of kinde of the Soul whereby notwithstanding it ought especially to express the likeness of God or at least he thus far denies the Image of God to be propagated throughout the whole Soul of man Surely I shall not easily believe a duality of the immortal Soul or the interchangeable course of a binary or twofold thing if it ought to shew forth in its very own essence a unity But rather I shall believe that the minde is rather made like unto God in a most simple unity by an indivisible homogeneity of Spirit under the co-resemblance of immortality and undissolution and identity without all connexion Therefore the glorious Image of God is not separated from the Soul as neither to be separated but the minde it self is the glorious Image as well intimate to the Soul as the Soul it self is to it self for therefore the likeness between the minde and God cannot be declared or thought seeing God himself is wholly incomprehensible neither can therefore the Character of identity and unity wherein that likeness is founded ever be thought or conceived It is sufficient that the minde is a Spirit beloved of God homogeneal simple immortal created into the Image of God one onely Being whereto death adds nothing or takes nothing from it which may be natural or proper to it in the essence of its simplicity And because from the constitution and appointment of it it is a partaker of blessedness therefore damnation coming upon it is to it by accident to wit besides its purpose and by reason of a future fall or defect Therefore the minde being separated from the Body doth no more use memory nor the inducing of remembrance by the beholding of place or duration but
taking of the solutive medicine I had cast forth almost two little Buckets of stinking and cadaverous choler the ejections being besprinkled with snivelly branches which the Physitians affirmed to be that salt phlegm And in the mean time while I nourished almost throughout my whole body mattery and large wheals especially in my legs I asked them whether the corrupt snotty matter or Pus did not denote the venal blood to be guilty no lesse than choler and phlegm They said seeing that my strength did now fail they should be silent as to a repeated cutting of a vein otherwise meet to be done in the abundance of corrupt Pus remaining But I repentingly considered that before I was in good health except the contagion of my skin drawn from elswhere and that of nothing nothing was or could be made neither could any corporeal body be placed but in a body therefore I leasurely enquired whence so great a plenty of choler had flown from me and in what place it had layen hid For all the veins together could scarce have conteined the tenth part of the filth although they should contein no good blood I knew moreover that so great a weight could neither be entertained in the head nor in the breast nor in the bottom of the belly although they had been empty of all bowels Therefore with earnest repentance and my own dammage I collected by Science Mathematical First That the name of purging was a grand deceit Secondly That a particular Selection of bringing forth such a humour or any other was likewise false Thirdly Because the birth and existence of humours was also false Fourthly That the cause of scabbednesse in respect of burnt choler and salt phlegm was feigned Fifthly That the Liver was guiltlesse in contagions of the Skin Sixthly That my Scab did as yet remain after purgings although not with an equal fury Seventhly That the fury thereof was not slackened because that some one or more imagined humours were expelled and that for this cause the abounding of the same humours had offended For truly the venal blood being straightway recovered the scab persisted the same and so the scab had been a little diminished through a defect of fulnesse At length perhaps after three moneths I recovered from my scabbednesse by an easie anointing or unguent of Sulphur Eighthly That the Scab is an affect of the Skin onely Ninthly That the Schools did name as well choler as phlegm humors ill affected as well in the veins as out of them as well those hurtful as harmlesse Tenthly That any purging things did promiscuously melt resolve and putrifie the venal blood and flesh even while they abode in the stomach and bowels Eleventhly That it is false that the venal bloud doth return into humours from whence it was bred Twelfthly That in this thing an impossible return from a privation to an habit should happen Thirteenthly That it is a grand deceit that those three humours do remain in the venal blood flesh and solid parts that by purging medicines they should be renewed into that which they were before the framing of the flesh c. All which things when I found them fighting with the truth of nature and with the agreement of Phylosophy I manifestly knew the speculations of the Schools to be scabby and false And so I could not any longer doubt whether Choler or Phlegme were the cause of scabbedness And I thus understood that thing by little and little with the Grace of God more certainly than certainty it self the which alike equally knew by an intellectual certainty and as it were by a knowledge Optick or of the sight that there is no Choler in nature nor three humors united with the venal bloud But that which is shewen by the Schools under the mask of both Phlegms and Cholers I have demonstrated in a peculiar Book to be diseasie filths besides nature and the vitious products of the Functions At leastwise in me the scab was contracted and bred onely by touching in a full enjoyment of health before the Liver could even have ever waxed hot for my scabbedness was conceived in the space of a quarter of an hour But the scabby Pustules their having more afterwards broken forth in the succession of some dayes were not so much the scab it self as the fruits of the same If therefore scabbedness ariseth from the distemper of the Liver surely in me the scab it self was before its own cause A Sheep feeding onely of Grasse doth voluntarily get the scab If that be from a hot distemper of the Liver truly ye unjustly prescribe Grasse for a cooling refreshment of the Liver Again the scab in me the Sheep and Dog are cured onely by Oyntments or by an external aid neither is the heat of the Liver heeded Yea Medicines of Sulphur Bayberries and white Helebore do never prevail against the heat of the Liver Finally scabbedness which is suddenly gotten by the touching of a towel is of the same disposition with a voluntary one but if that at least ariseth not from the heat of the Liver therefore neither doth this if there are the same causes of the same thing in the particular kinde object and subject For at the very time wherein the scab is conceived by touching of the hand or by the scabbedness of an infected Towel in the skin of the toucher the scab is already present whose Seed or Ferment is in the aforesaid Skin or Towel and then the Embryo or imperfect Young thereof is conceived in the skin of the toucher the product whereof doth at length visibly break forth In like manner also Ulcers are made either from a wound being badly cured or from a confusion or bruise as a Cancer in a Woman or from an Aposteme breaking forth or at length from poyson bred within which planteth its malignity in the external part and doth there fix the properties of its own poysonsome Ferment from whence also whatsoever of venal bloud is distributed every hour for the nourishing of the part that is turned into poyson according to the race of its own Ferment But humors which may be sent thither from the Liver do not rise again from the dead corrupted The Schools therefore being credulously misled by Galen have mutually signed unto his dreamed humors rising again out of the venal bloud and flesh by reason of the importunate distemper of some certain bowel due to an Elementary fight For Galen in his Therapeuticks or curings of Diseases will have it that an Ulcer ought to consist naturally of a twofold excrement for it hath seemed sufficient for him to have laid down this Doctrine and not to have proved it to wit one of a more liquid Liquor or corrupt matter and the other of a more grosse one that is of a corrupt Pus from hence in the next place he concludeth that every Ulcer ought to betoken to require and be healed by a double Medicine to wit through the offence whereof many
recompence the fore-going errours and defect Nevertheless although it may be lawful from the aforesaid considerations to prove a greater necessity of difficult Breathing yet at leastwise they do nothing convince why there is a straightned Breathing in our Man of sixty Years old but otherwise in a healthy person not any at all And seeing in the Man of sixty Years old the Lungs do want obstruction even as is manifest from the signs supposed it must needs be also that his defect be fetched from elsewhere especially seeing he feels in his Abdomen or lower Belly the place of his Stomack pressings together the causes of his Asthma Therefore his Asthma is from the Spleen being ill affected and that from the Duumvirate and the cause is stirred up by an ascending motion otherwise sleeping by reason of the considerations above which by the action of government doth otherwise strain a weak Lungs by aspect only no otherwise than as was declared concerning a dry Asthma whither a lurking Falling-sickness the pain of the Spleen after riding the sore shaking of the whole Body in riding c. do tend Moreover that I may give the more safe judgment whether the Lungs did labour by a passion of its own or indeed by a secondary passion I busily enquired whether he felt carnal copulation troublesome unto him and he confessed to me that before the Asthma was manifested Venus had hurt him that after the flesh lyact he felt cold in his Breast a looseness in his Muscles and fainting threatned unto him But involuntary pollutions that he experienced no such thing At length in his old age presently after a seldome carnal act that he perceived a snorter of Phlegms in his rough Artery or else silence Whence I certainly conjectured that seeing from an Infant he had retained his Spleen troubled by a Quartane-ague and falling-sickness and that the Milt is the nest of carnal Lust because in the case proposed the Duumvirate strikes the Lungs with a right Line especially being prostrated by an unequal strength that the provoking and radical cause of his Asthma was in the Spleen yet so as that the Lungs doth not altogether want blame although it labour not with the first or chief affect of the Asthma For it sufficeth that it is trodden down by an unequal strength that the Duumvitate may exercise on it its own diseasie Tyranny For if the Lungs should labour with an Asthma from a primary or first affect or moving they should continually pant for Breath and breath forth a difficult air Indeed a thin or slender poyson layes hid in the Duumvirate which is the cause of this dry Asthma ordinarily fast a sleep in it self nor awakened but by too much motion and so in climbing sooner than in descending for the considerations of the oblique Muscles of the bottom of the Belly afore-touched Neither doth that poyson strike the Heart and Lungs materially in manner of an exhalation vapour or Smoakiness but by the action of Government And seeing the Heart doth beat the pulse is inordinate and also a great and frequent panting for Breath is desired and the place between the Navil and mouth of the Stomack is vexed from one only cause stirred up and by one only motion and after a like manner it becomes undoubted that there is one only Poyson which may affect the vital power of the Heart and Lungs Then also he is vexed more grievously manifestly and cruelly every Year because an unacceptable guest abiding in the Spleen doth daily through old age become more troublesom And these things I have more strongly concluded with my self because that Asthmatical Man doth complain that for many Years his left hand was now and then astonied or stupified and that he was cold in the Palm or hollow of his Hand under the auricular or ear vein and likewise that his left shoulder did greatly pain him although laden with a light habite if he walketh the farther although but modestly For I have observed that all Splenetick persons when the Spleen begins by reason of old age to fail of its office do difficultly breath This therefore is sufficient to be spoken concerning the Asthma of the Man of sixty Years of of age one thing only I will here note to wit that his left hand in the length of the palm doth pain him through cold piercing it and likewise that his fingers are now and then benummed from the discommodities of his Spleen that that is made by the action of Government But if the Schools do command that that comes to pass by reason of blind vapours at leastwise let them strew the way whereby they may go thitherto The archer therefore of this Asthma is in the Duumvirate but his mark is the Lungs Therefore there is a two-fold Asthma a moist and a dry one That indeed hath found its name from a plenteous spitting by reaching and for the most part is made by the proper vice of the Lungs and so is continual and doth more trouble one at seasons the cold and the moist in old age weakness and things a-kin to Death But a dry Asthma is for the most part interrupted And even as it tumultuously sore shaketh the whole Body even the Teeth with a confusion of the vital Spirits it must needs be the Falling-sickness of the Lungs wherein the Lungs alone suffereth a constraining or convulsion of it self because it causeth a straining together of the Pores thereof For in this Asthma the whole Archeus is defiled in its root some part to wit the Womb or Spleen c. doth first affect the inbred Spirit of the Lungs by the action of government And therefore from an invisible and sudden immaterial storm the whole Body is sore shaken and is again suddenly restored to an unhoped for health In vain therefore are openings of the pores hitherto unknown attempted in a dry Asthma and in vain are many and easie expectoratings because they are cloakative and vain helps as many as are intent on products or effects indeed vain are the Remedies which are wont to be administred in Coughs seeing the Cough doth most far differ from a dry Asthma But a moist Asthma although it for the most part produceth the Cough that it may expectorate the produced Snivelliness yet it is severed from the Cough in the whole particular kind because it is wont to be bred from many causes For it hath either a mattery imposthume or some secret phlegm obstructing in the very bowel it self or an imprinted mark of some cold or some other injury from whence it may bring forth many muckinesses or snivels and corrupt its proper nourishment Oft-times also those muckinesses are stirred up not so much from the malady of the Boweâ as from the weakness of the wandring keeper Although this kind of vice ãâ¦ã rather bring forth a Cough than an Asthma yet they do easily happen or agree together for the unequal strength of the Lungs and obstruction thereof The
yet they are both ended together and then although thou shalt cleanse thy nostrills wholly of all snivel yet the Cough arising snivel doth forth with flow abundantly out of the nostrils Therefore there is a great co-resemblance of action between the Head and the Lungs not indeed that the Head doth lay up its own portions or conditions into the Lungs but as at the hurting of the smelling the brain takesaway together with it the tasting also So also it wrests the Lungs into the union of it self because both Bowels are of one nourishment also both keepers do generate a co-like snivel of the same as a vassal bewails the chance or fortune of his Prince Then in the next place there is the more striââ necessity to the Head with the Lungs because both Bowels do conspire in the government of the Keeper readily seeming for the same end These things are thus to be pressed from the root that the cure may be directed unto the roots unto the antecedent that is to the freeing of the spongy bone For truly the cough being sprung from the action of government whatsoever Cough is in the Lungs by accident ceaseth the pose being removed A coughing person if he sit the snivel doth the less snort in the wind-pipe his breath is more free and his expectorating more easie for hence is the name of orthopnea or upright breathing with difficulty when as otherwise if snivel should distil from above into the wind-pipe it should hasten downwards rather in sitting than in laying which is false therefore also the antecedent For if it should fall down from the Head into the Lungs it should descend with less trouble and should be more easily received in the Lungs as long as at the beginning of the pose it is exspunged in manner of water It should then I say easily full up the Lungs and by its quantity intercept the breath but at the beginning of a pose there is yet no Cough and next no difficulty of Breathing therefore there is no falling down of snivel out of the Head into the Lungs in a Cough But as touching a Cough which is made by the proper malady of the Lungs and not from the pose I have already treated before But as to that which concerns Remedies first of all soporiferous or sleep-causing things do ease the Cough and the pose as they do also appease a Pleurisie from sumptomatical affects And I conquer the Cough with those Remedies wherewith I do the Pleurisie There are also in the next place other Coughs never arising from a pose but from a corruption of contagion of the air also from an unseasonable impression of the greatest cold and the Lungs are offended in their strengthening or liveliness no otherwise than as is the wandring keeper before the door But the excrement which hath overflown longer than was meet about the utmost parts or ends of the rough artery is hardened and moreover affords a difficult breathing And the Lungs being weary of this guest do shew forth tokens of their wearisomness by spitting out of the vitiated excrement by reaching And if that excrement be not chased away by Coughs or inwardly it ends into a mattery imposthume and consumption But a sitting life hath oft-times brought this evil wherefore I have alwaies perswaded unto exercises which provoke difficulty of Breathing whereby excrements may be expectorated or cast out of the Breast and the over-flowing by force of the air may be hindered surely no otherwise than as havens of the Sea do require waters flowing on their back which do wash off Sand from thence For otherwise the filth subsisting the Lungs cannot choose but sustain a hurting of their liveliness bring forth many and divers spittles according to the disposition of the blemish received Such Coughs have an adhering and strange filth and do successively beget another which afterwards do end into difficulties of Breathing Asthmaes gnawings of the vessels and of the substance of the bowel Many of these defects because they witness a weakness of the vital strength in the bowel are difficultly restored and less in old age But an Asthma sprung from thence hath as many floud-gates of air shut as there are little mouths dedicated to breathing And this is the difference of degrees in a greater and less straightness of Breathing But the filths or spittles which do bewray themselves in these affects are not so much the original causes of the Cough as they bear the relation of a product for new Coughs continually For they grow alwaies anew for them because a hateful guest being within doth not cease to stir up new filths from the last digestion Indeed such is the negligence of this bowel and the command of external things over the wandring keeper But the Remedies which do as well cure the Falling-sickness of the Lungs or dry Asthma as those which cure a moist one ought to be renewers and to arise unto the largness of a general kind Because they are such which ought to contain a restoring of the weakness contracted To wit these are the greater Secrets of Paracelsus of which elsewhere And likewise which do Sympathetically overcome every Disease For Arcanum's do by an every way purifying take away any Diseases but seeing they do not infuse new strength into the vitiated part as neither do take away the evil impression of the implanted spirit surely the lost strength is not after any sort to be restored but by Sympathetical Remedies But that some fruit may be cropped from what hath been said before I will relate one example out of ordinary and domestical ones A certain old man did Snort after a wonderful manner so that he seemed sometimes to sing sometimes also to snort with his weasand that he being oftimes raised upright all night was also compelled to sleep in sitting and he uttered less noyse and fewer Phlegms sitting than laying his Physitians therefore refreshed him with Meat-broaths perfectly boyled with a more strong and plentiful nourishment least he should fail of much Spitting out by reaching or should suffer a Consumption of the Lungs which they said was threatned Yet he felt himself better under fastings and in time of Lent then presently after Easter But his Physitians did accuse sometimes the North-wind but then the Rain but not his much juicie and more strong nourishments But I went occasionally to see the man and when I seriously minded all things in my Power I presently shewed that that generation of Phlegms had its domestical or homebred cause in the Lungs but not that it did slide down from above into the Lungs or that his Lungs did languish with a secondary passion And moreover as the generating of Phlegm was made in the Lungs it self so also the plenty or abundance thereof did not proceed from an increase of a diseasifying cause but rather from the abounding of good and much juycie nourishment So as that evil would most certainly come from whence others divined good
scoffingly interpret because the applied words of Paracelsus which is of the essence of Gold do sound another thing Nor also doth the colour sulfur or Tincture of Gold move the Belly but this secret is in matter metallick in Colour Coralline in savour like hony and in essence Golden Not indeed that it was ever a Malleable or Hammerable Body but it is the Horizon or circular bound of gold an un-concluded or un-enclosed and fixed Body whose Sulfur is sweet and Co-mixeable with our constitutive parts For in this Sulfur the almighty hath Collected all the virtues of Sol to whom alone all Honour and Glory is due He that understands me is rare yet he knoweth that what things I have said concerning Gowt are true Nevertheless seeing that is not sufficiently spoken which is not sufficiently understood it shall perhaps be profitable to have repeated the rise and progresse of the Gowt in an Epitome In the first place those that have the Gowt or are Gowty do complain that they do well perceive or feel the defluxion of a burning Humor But I have already sufficiently and more than sufficiently taught that there never was any humor of us in nature besides the blood the Latex and a secondary or nutritious nourishment and besides a degenerate excrement and that none of these do flow down and much less can a defluxion be felt a humor no where exsisting but in Galenical books Therefore in the suposition of feeling or percievance there is of necessity an errour Therefore the Gowt is a diseasie Character Seminally implanted in the spirit of life the which at the set bounds of its own ripeness doth beget a fermental sharpe Fruit co-fermentable with the spermatick or seedy parts Therefore the Gowt doth not exist in the venal Blood and muchless in the excrements But Gowty Persons are first disturbed in their Midriffs and they do as well feel the inward successive changes of Drinks and Meats as the outward ones of the air yea and oftentimes they presage these to come Wherefore they at first undergo feverish motions about the Shop of the vital Spirit and indeed in the beginnings of a fit For the first Motions do ascend out of the Midriffs and assault the Seat of the Sensitive Soul For the Character conceived in the Midriffs unfoldeth the figures of the Moon and Mercury and afterwards is perfected in the Heart But the formed or ripened Character doth there put on a feverish Spirit as it doth infect it The which assoon as it hath conceived the sharpness of the content or co-resemblance of Life or a fermental sharpeness it is ill-favouredly driven by a feverish Motion and is feverishly brought unto appointed places to wit those of the raw sperm in the Sunovie of the joynts The Spirit I say being thus infected and not a humor which thing is to be noted doth Coagulate the Sunovie being a transparent thing in it self with the sharpness of a ferment into a thick clot So that by reason of the degree of a conceived brackishness heats pains and swellings of the Gowt are distinguished But that the Humor Latex is called by the horn of pain and is dismissed by the veins to wash it off it is certain that it hath confirmed in the Schools the errors of defluxions an accused Liver and the Head to have paid the punishment of an undeserved fault and to have sustained a thousand vain Medicines Therefore the Gowt is not that which Paineth and that which Swelleth or burneth but they are the products hereof For neither when the foot is taken off by the Bullet of a Gun is the Gowt taken away or the Joynt-sickness for truly in the act of feeling by an instrument of feeling there is made only a consent of parts Which thing hath deceived the Sick and Physitians who believe or trust to them neither in the mean time doth Swelling prove a descending For that which follows the Pain ought to go before it if the descending of a humor or a Swelling should be the cause of the Pain Add to this that the hottest Gowt is without Swelling For that is wont to be seen in the pain of the Teeth in the thorn fixed in a part that the pain of a place doth counterfeit the defluxions of the upper parts But what have these things common with the fable of a Catarrhe On the contrary the Schools do persist they inflict Cauteries on the opposite side that they may pull back the humor flowing down into the opposite Leg and expunge it by a hole But in good sooth what do Cauteries suck out nothing but Snotty and liquide corrupt matter But these are the fruits of a Wound the degenerations of venal Blood Is therefore the matter of the Gowt Snotty corruption or liquid corruption Or the Snotty filths of an Ulcer Is Snotty matter ever transchanged into a Chalk Is Snotty corruption quiet without corroding Therefore the Schools sell their own Dream to the Young beginner that Snotty corrupt matter doth descend between the joints or that it is apt to be turned into a Chalk but well that it maks an opening to it self by Corroding And it is more childish that any Snotty corrupt thing flowing down into the right foot should decline from the scope appointed to it if the Wound be made in the left leg the which if it do flow down it falls down of its own free accord or is sent and directed by a Commander I pass by in the mean time the absurdities of making it and of waies or passages which I have elsewhere blown away And likewise the falling down of humors seperated from the venal Blood I have already before together with the humors themselves banished without the nature and hope of things in an appointed Book First of all that there is no part Commanding Sending Darting or Directing hath been elsewhere sufficiently concluded But if of its own accord it fall down into the side perpendicular unto it surely the humor will not fall in one that Sleeps if the whole Body Sleepeth in a plain Bed because a Perpendicular line is wanting neither shall a humor sliding down by its weight be called away from its purpose although the hole be in the opposite Leg. In the Gowt therefore surely nature hath derided the vain purgations of Physitians their extenuations cuttings of a Vein Scarrifying hot Baths and Cauteries the which do even detract from the strength and shorten Life For it is certain that nature fore-perceiving and fearing a ruine procured unto her such remedies do often mitigate the aforesaid Sumptoms but that appeasing is presently to be requited with a more cruel pain and cruelty of knots Therefore all things have been hitherto attempted with an unprosperous event In the next place they appoint dry sweats with lesse loss of Life indeed but with the like unprosperousness of successes At length they give drinks from a barbarous foundation of the utmost corner of the Earth to drink and when they
the giddiness of the head Doatages Asthmaes bastard Pleurisies the Convulsion Cramp the Disease of the standing of the Yard the Tympany furies of the Wombe yea and of the falling Sickness with some other affects divided in their particular kind do without controversie owe their beginnings unto windy blasts and vapours wherefore also they by an equal right enlarging the Catalogue brought down their searches unto the Book of Hippocrates Peri Phusiân or concerning natural things That old man hath so altogether consecrated all Diseases to flatus's or windy blasts that he hath promiscuously confounded winds with the principles of life Therefore the more fruitful wits of the Schools began to search not so much into the nature and properties of windinesses as the suppositions of windy blasts being granted and yeelded to further to superstruct and build the nature and causes of almost all Diseases and to dedicate them to windy blasts vapours and exhalations climbing from beneath upwards or being thrust head-long downwards But when as they were not able wholly to deliver themselves out of straits nor that the edifice of so great a moment could stand firm because it was supported by no foundation of a more solide enquiry it was as it were the thred of an enterprise broken asunder by too much twisting Truly Hippocrates constrained a flatus into a predicament whether they should be partakers of life or death or at length of destruction and should contain the causes thereof or should be stirred up from Heaven by the Blas of the Stars and so should promise causal necessities of the heavenly circle or at length they should obey a sublunary or voluntary Law to wit he left it wholly undecided And so he left a broken method And that stood because there was not yet so great a necessity experience frequency and stubbornness of Diseases For it was not as yet known that the vital spirit had conceived the light of life which was that of the sensitive soul and that they were the immediate seats of the forms of soulified Creatures and so that they did contain the crasis or temperature of the whole Essence For none then had learned that the matter of that Gas the Water and so none had as yet dreamed that the vital spirit did differ from the wind of the World in the whole Element For truly the Schools had easily fallen down into this ditch of windy blasts and had stubbornly there remained but that they acknowledged the succours of purging Medicines and blood-letting in winds to be vain and foresaw that they should be in vain without the aid of both those succours Galen indeed had seen that Oyles and fatnesses did by degrees exhale through fire therefore he thought that winds also are awakened in us through a melted fatness or the inordinacy of the digestions because he was he who was not able to distinguish the Air or wind from an exhalation from a vapour and from a windy blast The Galenical School I say hath not hitherto known the difference between a windy Gas which is meerly Air that is a wind moved up and down by the Blas of the Stars a fat Gas a dry Gas which is called a sublimed one a fuliginous or smoaky or endemical Gas and a wild Gas or an unrestrainable one which cannot be compelled into a visible Body Wherefore the obscurity of the darkness of natural things hath remained unexcusable among those that are ignorant of the Art of the Fire The which doth instruct us in what degree watry Bodies or in what degree and order every fatness may flie away in the next place by what separation or by what Ferment Bodies may depart from each other may putrifie what all particular Bodies may carry with them by resolving in the next place by what means the Crases of Seeds and properties of a composed Body may shew themselves Lastly by what endeavour all of whatsoever is in us may be disposed into transpiration without a separation of parts They had heard indeed winds in the belly and then unhurtful rumblings and painful wringings they took notice of to be in the stomack and Colon but in Winter a plurality of winds wherefore they dreamed of an icy Phlegme in the bowels and hot Remedies to be applyed to cold Diseases Wherein the Schools do at first infold or ensnare themselves while they deliver the original of vapours and windinesses and do intend to cure and put these to flight by contrary Remedies as they call them For they contradict themselves in their principles or beginnings mean and manner For if windinesses in us are vapours or exhalations in us Surely there will follow upon the administring of hot Remedies against winds a greater exciting of pains and flatus's and stretching out of parts because vapours must needs be increased and torments be multiplyed as well by reason of stretchings out as the sharpness of the winds And that thing the Art of distilling doth prove throughout the whole Paracelsus although a Potentate of the Art of the Fire was not free from the storm of winds Because he was he which was ignorant of the nature of winds and of the Air that the matter of vapours of flatus's is a watry Gas that their efficient causes manners means as also matter is water got with child by a Seed Because he was he who plainly despised the authorities of Philosophy and endeavoured to bind nature under his own idiotism he was also forsaken God so permitting it by the light of nature who maketh such endeavours every where void Also no man ever attaineth unto Wisdom who hath thought to have come thereunto by himself For Paracelsus doth every where constantly perswade that we ought to feel the Diseases and defects of all things because we are hitherto every way an extract of the whole universe That we ought to express the universe as it were the Parent of a Son For so he will have us to contain winds and their varieties our wringings of the bowels also to answer unto the tempests of the Air. But I will not depart even a nails breadth from the famous Image of God that we do resemble the Macrocosme or great World rather than God in his Image For I believe that I am not a man that I might undergo Diseases and so resemble Pirke Olam or Holam Hapiroud but rather I know that I do undergo Diseases that I might shew a depraved and mortal nature but that I am a man for no other end than that according to the good pleasure of God I may represent his lively Image That man therefore divides the wringings of the bowels into four parts according unto the four accustomed hinges of the winds Whereof the Northern one he first of all placeth in the loyns whose wind in its colick should blow against the Navil But in the Navil he placeth the Southern one which in its colick should blow Diametrically on the back So also he hath disposed the Eastern one in the
Cough of old folks and the snortings of dying persons although afflicted with another vice than that of the Lungs For that is proper to the Lungs because it alwayes drinks crude or fresh Air and being neighbour to the oppressed heart doth readily restore its strength and for that cause its own strength the sooner faileth For truly I first of all dissent from the Schools because I know this kind of vice to be of the parts containing but not of the liquors contained For those contents are the certain products of a root which are begotten by the Archeus of the parts being badly seasoned And then I also differ in this that I know it to be a local evil but not bestowed or dispensed by a secondary affection of the Head For the Coughs of old age are made under a difficult hope of restoring because a very small quantity of the excrement bred in the Lungs doth reside in the utmost small branches of the Airy pipe which doth not only stop up the reeds but also through its presence disturbeth the ferment of the place and lessens it whence new excrements the wealthy houshold-stuff of Coughs are stirred up every hour Which in old age are scarce cured by means commonly known Because they are those which do not pierce unto the places affected yea neither have they obtained a strength of restoring Such excrements therefore are the local defects of the parts And every part hath its own weakness whether it be in-bred or attained with a diminishment of the growing or flourishing ferment And so also from hence all those excrements of parts do proceed I understand therefore in the first place that the repetitions of purges are vain and hurtful in these affects because they are those things which are appointed only about the products but not about the causes Then also and chiefly because such excrements do not give place by loosening Medicines However it is they do no way reach to the primitive blemish and hurtful root in us but only do meditate of latter effects but the former causes or roots they are not able to touch Adde thou that although loosening Medicines do seem sometimes to have succoured for two dayes space as the lump of the venal blood of the Mesentery being taken away a more sparing dispensation and nourishment is brought unto the Lungs and hence there is a more sparing spitting forth by reaching Yet notwithstanding laxative Medicines do oppose the general strength of the whole Body by weakening it more and more Which thing while Physitians do even see as it were thorow a sieve neither know they to have profited the sick party by a diminishing of the Body and exhausted strength they at length dismisse the weak to be handled by the rules of Diet and the only aids of a sober Kitchin only by the aid of a Cautery and repeated assistance of the more gentle laxatives they proceed medicinally that is to live miserably By which supposition in the first place they at least insinuate that the Kitchin is to be preferred before any unfaithful or distrustful Medicines of the shops and experience being made they decree that these must be abstained from as hurtful And I wish that after so many wipings away of the strength that might suffice neither that they would again any more afterwards by the same succours attempt to exhaust the hope Body veins strength and purses of the sick I would to God also they were mindful of their own Maxim wherein their chief curative indication or betokening sign is to be taken from things profitable and hurtful Which rule although it be shameful and only that of Empericks I would that at least by the same they would now skip back from their committed errors Neither that in the Cough and Consumption they would return unto Remedies which hitherto they have found to have profited none For loosening Medicines cuttings of a vein purgers by the nostrils drawers of phlegme by the mouth Ecligmaes or Lohochs the decoction of China Sarsaparilla Sassafras a Cautery in the Coronal suture or seam of the scull and other unfaithful aids of that sort would fall asleep being applied by the Physitian that they may after some sort seem not to have received their money from a free gift At least wise I would that they had learned by their practice that while they meditate of the removings revulsions derivations and preventions of latter effects that is excrements they do openly shew that the knowledge of the causes have lain hid unto them neither that they have methodically cured their sick by a taking away of the causes They had also found the respect of food to be a dainty or costly languishing weak and desperate kind of Remedy for so great an enemy now an in-mate yea and a Patron No wonder therefore that the common People heeding the vanity of these Cures have took an occasion to say that it is the best Medicine not to use Medicine For I have oftentimes bewailed with great compassion in reading thorowly of the centuries of medicinal counsels and especially while they afresh prosecute all the Diseases of Almanzor from the crown of the Head unto the soal of the foot because they narrowly searching into the catarctical or principal cause from the beginning as they think and boast they do every where accuse some natural or attained singular distemper yet under the uncertainty of a doubt whether they should appoint the same as the disease or indeed as the antecedent cause of the disease whereof they consulted But least they should erre even in any diseases they have accused heat and also cold To wit they complain almost in all cases of a coldness of the stomack alone or combined with the heat of the liver whence they many wayes divine Rheumes to arise and to have slidden down into divers parts and they prosecute as the diseases of the same not onely almost all internal ones but also even unto the defects of the skin Thus indeed do the Schooles season their young beginners theorically and practically For so Rheumes are guilty of the defects of the eyes ears jawes tongue teeth breast armes loines and legs So coughs consumptions astmaes plurisies peripneumonies apoplexies palsies sudden deaths corrupt mattery imposthumes spittings of blood have found their already supposed cause in Rheums So in the next place the Stomack casts up its vomit loatheth labours with an unconcoction the liver also and the spleen are ill at ease For an undigestible snivel having slidden down out of the head obstructions hardnesses dropsies aposthems scirrhus's fevers wringings of the bowels have taken up their room among Catarrhes their Clients Unto which Catarrhes Paracelsus although elsewhere triumphing in Tartars and his Three first Things through an invention hath notwithstanding for the most part subscribed and hath alwayes manifestly acknowledged the name of the defluxion fflussen by nodding under his Mistriss Uncertainty For the Schooles do so seriously adorn this deplorable fable of
the defending of a healthy life And if that be difficult to him that at first accustomes himself at leastwise it shall not be to him that hath accustomed himself For how foolish a thing is it for him that groaneth or sigheth through a Disease to wish for his long since denied ingorgings Yet I will not that any man perswade himself that this sobriety of living and light fardle of Food doth prevent any man from having the Plague a Fall or Bruise a Wound Thunder-bolt or Stone For external incidencies or accidents do despise the Family administration of the digestions because they overcome them Indeed I reject the Stone even among external things because it is made by a Ferment that is now a stranger 3. Seing all food ought to be changed into a Cream and an exquisite chewing is that which makes the digestions easie hence I most strictly commend chewing at all times For truly one onely morsel being not rightly chewed makes more adoe in the body than three which are well bruised in eating For therefore birds because they want teeth have need of a double stomack however most powerful otherwise they were in digesting Every Beast also which cheweth the cud as it was greatly esteemed in the Law so it seriously insinuates unto us that the necessity of chewing is not to be despised Yea for that cause a bruit which chewes the cud is in the holy Scriptures chosen for a clean Beast 4. In the next place whatsoever things are taken in gluttony beyond the power of the Ferment of the Stomack are indeed made hot within and do putrifie neither also are they for that cause digested as in Feavers is most plentifully to be seen But as much of the more tender meats as is taken under gluttony is indeed digested and slides out of the Stomack but it carries headlong with it a great heap of that which is undigested as well by reason of the extension of the vessel as the negligence of nature being loaded and forsaking the raines But if that which is most exceeding tender shall be digested and that stayeth in the Stomack longer than is meet that retained food doth also of necessity wax too sharp or plainly putrifie is brought over into a bitter excrement in the morning being oft-times rejected by Vomit And the which the Schooles have falsly called Choller For Diers do by one onely Kettle of Dye change above a hundred diverse colours if the Cloaths be first diversly affected So also one only wandering ferment of the Stomack doth diversly dispose and determine of the cream by reason of the diversity of its parts else single or simple if it containeth in it diversities not as yet plainly digested So that although it ordinarily tingeth nothing but the digested part of the cream with its ferment yet it ceaseth not to affect the undigested part and wrongfully to season it by reason of the defect of the receiver Wherefore most things do thus grow to an exorbitancy in the kitchin of the first digestion 5. Whatsoever accustomed thing is not taken as malignant but desired that also fulnesse being absent is the more easily digested and in Diseases is safely admitted if it be soberly and moderately taken Because the ferments do easily subdue those things which are accustomed and especially if they are desired For Hippocrates perswades us to use a most slender food in sharp Diseases to wit until an appetite doth arise again For I praise the more thin Ales or Beers as much as I trusting to the words of Galen do despise sweet Drinks and Barley-broths Barley saith he being a little boyled causeth Ventosities or windinesses but stoppages if it shall be somewhat better boyled Wherefore our Ancestors believing that Barley is not unhurtful being any way boyled do constrain that to bud which they then call Malt by which work they prevent aswell windinesses as stoppages But of Malt and Hop they make Beers or Ales. 6. I also urge none with Broths compleated with beaten Eggs c. if a sharp Feaver be present being mindful of that Precept Impure Bodies by how much the more thou nourishest them by so much the more thou hurtest them For although in sharp Diseases people live without meat and onely by drink yet a peril of their life doth not thereupon invade them Yea thus do they the sooner recover and the strength and appetite do renew with much less difficulty As oft indeed as a putrifiable or mortifiable thing is cast into the Stomack wanting its own digestive ferment it putrifies that which is digested not digested And that is the true explication of that Aphorism For I never wished that those who were sick of sharp Diseases might return fat or fatted but I did well intend that one only thing to wit that they might recover and indeed not much curtaild in their strength The greatest part of Diet therefore in Diseases of the Stomack I have drawn out of the Aphorism That a sower Belching of a repaired ferment coming upon burnt ones is good For burntish Belchings voluntary loathings an averseness to Fleshes Fishes and Eggs yea and loadings of the Stomack have commanded the sick to be nourished with things that are to be drunk onely For else by things subject so stink or mortifie I had learned that strange accidents were to be expected defects of the mind and other discommodities of that sort Then because drinks do moisten do comfort thirst and satisfie heat do drive away drinesses and weaknesses following thereupon But by drink I do not here understand the suppings of Broths which do abundantly nourish to wit of those which in a hot stomack without a digestive ferment are of their own accord mortified but altogether of those which do least of all putrifie such as are Ponadoes and likewise Beer or Ale tinged with wine wherewith crums of bread also are co-mixed that they may be meat and also drink Hither I recal what I have elsewhere taught at large To wit That digestion is made by a propper ferment but not by heat As oft therefore as there is an aversness to flesh and burntish belchings heat is signified to be present and a sharp ferment to be wanting Give heed to this how easily new flesh being fast tied to a hot foot or head doth putrifie and presently stink Therefore in a Feverish Stomack being very hot wise Nature fears least a dead or stinking carcass should be made in it and therefore she is presently averse to fleshes But whither then hath the ferment of the Stomack in a Feverish man departed Hath it wandred to some other place or was it extinct For whither had the Ferment departed which is no where acceptable but in its own dens neither also hath it perished because it is a vital thing but whatsoever vital thing hath once perished doth not return again after privation But a ferment is that which returns afresh That therefore happens For either sometimes the dismissing of the ferment
in other Professions but that in the Art of healing alone men have been hitherto so stumbled through deaf Principles wherein notwithstanding Charity towards our Neighbour hath been penally commanded For all things have remained most obscure many things most false and those things which might chiefly conduce unto the scope of Curing untouched For there is no where a tractable acuteness but on every side a great dulnesse So that from what hath been said before there is none but may easily gather that whatsoever hath been hither to diligently taught according to the Doctrine of the Pagans and against a mutual Charity was the Invention of the evil Spirit Therefore indeed the stability of Paganish Theorems hath remained through the perswasion of the Devil which speculations notwithstanding through their easinesse onely at the first sight ought to have been suspected by any one of a sound mind Therefore nothing more hard inhumane and fuller of cruelty hath been received now for so many Ages among the Arts of Mortals than that Art which under a con-centrical subscription makes fresh experiments by the deaths of men The Professors whereof while they presume that themselves do keep the keys of knowledge they neither enter the passages themselves nor admit others who are willing to enter in but do drive away all by all wiles and subtilties Alwayes learning and never coming to the knowledge of the Truth according to the Apostle Oh Jesus my light my life my glorying and the helper of my weakness and corrupt disposition who in they own matters dost easily find out a passage with whom that is easie which with mortal men is as it were impossible Thou who hast made me to undergo all adversities I offer unto thee my calamities and the oppressions of justice Nevertheless thou hast always comforted me with thine unvanquished right hand afford me thine hand that if thou vouchsafe not to snatch me out of the deep pit of so many tribulations at least wise that through thy strength I may not sin against thee and that they may repent who have hated me undeservedly and that they who adore thy Power may acknowledge in me that thou alone art God the helper of the oppressed and the undoubted hope of them that trust in thee Let them be cloathed with contrition and find favour with thee and that I wretched man may sing forth the praises of thy greatness after this life For the rottenness of this Age is such that thy judgement being hidden the hypocrisie of mighty men professeth Faith in deceit and collects their wickedness under the shadow of Piety But in so great a tempest of my miseries unto the miseries of mortals and the defective errors of Physitians before the view of my mind I have attempted under thy command to record in writing That as hypocrisie hath trampled on me and my fortunes so I likewise know and that primarily that the father of lyes hath introduced the cup of ignorance and the bane of charity and health into the Paganish Schools lucre strewing the way under the beaten stormy path of Tritons For every young beginner that is to come shall admire with me that nothing hath been so unskilfully handled as those things which concern the life of mortal men For truly according to Thomas a Kempis it is all one with the Devil so he may render thee uncapable to serve God whether that be by true things or things appearing Therefore it sufficeth him so he shall but frustrate man of health and cut short his life wherein he might serve God if so be he shall make him a despiser of Divine aid by the appearing Doctrines of Pagans For the Schooles have written a thousand Volumns concerning the temperature and strife of qualities in the next place it hath been much and long interpreted by the Successors of Galen about these trifles and they have daily relapsed into new centuries and patcheries And at length they have squared unto those qualities feigned and excrementitious humours which should so wholly govern man as well healthy as sick that they should be chief over humane affairs as though the conditions manners healths appetites instincts inclinations slips or mis-deeds strengths valours defects events of fortune yea and the deserved punishments of loss or damnation and the adoptions of eternal life of mortal men should depend thereon A horrid surely and intollerable thing that these toyes have stood so long and that from things not existing and never to be and the which by the asserters themselves are accounted for excrements so serious and pernicious Fables have been co-feigned and believed And so that by the Schooles themselves scarce any thing hath been ever narrowly searched into which under such Principles may in very deed be truly true and good In the mean time I grieve I testifie it again not indeed that I have obtained the light of Truth from a long compassion towards my Neighbour but that it hath behoved me to lay open these Errors That is I grieve that the Devil hath deceived the Schools and will deceive them as long as they shall suffer themselves to be deluded by Paganish Fables and to be separated from the Schools of Truth But that that thing may be manifested I will by a Prologue declare it by the way and as it were by a positive demonstration For truly God made not Death And that is of Faith Therefore man became mortal from another thing than from God And seeing the scope or bound of most Diseases is Death it self because it is that which is nothing else but an extinguishing of life therefore a Disease and Death are Diametrically opposite to life Whence it follows that every Disease doth immediately act on the life But nothing is able to act on the life unless it be applyed unto it and well mixed with it But a Disease the enemy is not applyed unto the life promiscuously unless it shall besiege a part of the life and so shall sit totally or partially in the very life it self Which being done that part of the life besieged or overcome doth retire from the vital Air and the which being thus vanquished and become degenerate is made hostile unto the life as yet remaining or as yet constituted in its integrity Hence it necessarily follows that every Disease as it finds matter in the Organical or instrumental Air of life whereby it most immediately and inwardly riseth up against the life it self so in the same vital light it finds an efficient cause And so a Disease being thus instructed or furnished with matter and an efficient cause is entertained about the life Neither is it of concernment the while whether that contagion of a Disease be drawn from occasional Causes or in the next place be bred within in the Archeus through the errour of Life At leastwise it is sufficient in this place that the Life it self is on both sides the principal object for the hostile disease But seeing the Life it self
is a lightsome Being it acts not but by its instrument of the vital aire or by the Archeus as a mean between the light of Life flowing from the father of lights and the body But this aire or Archeus doth not act but after the manner wherein every seminal spirit acteth on the mass subjected under it that is not but by an imprinted mark or sealie Idea which hath known what and which way it must act Therefore all and every disease hath a sealie mark and as it were a seminal act which is expert of things to be acted by it self This Declaration therefore doth far recede or differ from an elementary distemperature from humours and the disproportionable mixture of those from the fight and contrariety of the elements of our composition because every disease is nothing but a Sword to the Life wounding or totally cutting it off For as a Sword doth exhaust the Life together with the arterial blood and vital aire wherein according to the holy Scriptures the Soul it self sitteth So a disease consumeth the same air of Life on which it afresh sealeth an hostile character drawn as well from occasional Causes as gotten through the errour of its own indignation This exact account of a disease being granted lo I come unto the explaining of a disease And first I will demonstrate from the very Theoremes of the Schools that the thingliness or essence of a disease hath been hitherto unknown Whence in the next place any one shall easily judge what hath even hitherto been done in the remedies and vanquishing of diseases I have oft-times promised that I will demonstrate that the Schools have hitherto neglected that is that they have not known the essence root or nature of a disease in its own universal quiddity or thingliness And seeing I have already from the Elements prosecuted that thing even unto a conclusion thorow all their privy shifts now at length by an Anatomy of particulars I shall also stand to my promises if I shall detect the same in the general and especially if I shall shew that thing no longer by the fictions of Elements temperaments and humours but by the very words of Authors whereby they corrupt their Young beginners as it were with a mortal contagion In the premises it hath already been demonstrated by me that the Ages before me being deluded by the trifles of the Peripateticks have been ignorant of the Causes to wit the Matter and Efficient of natural things Then also that a thing it self is nothing besides a connexion of both Causes and that this same thing is in diseases especially seeing a disease although happening unto us by sin is now admitted for a prodigal Son of Nature Truly the univocal or simple homogeneity of Causes in natural Beings hath compelled me hereunto whereby the efficient Cause is denominated from effecting but not from the Effect which is after the Efficiency Therefore the Schools do first of all define a disease to be an affect or disposition which doth primarily hurt the actions of our faculties wherein they do as yet very much stumble For truly first they name this Affect a distemperature of one or two qualities of the first Elements For so they rehearse the same thing because they consess a disease to be an elementary quality it self as it exceedeth a just temperature Therefore a disease shall no longer be that disposition resulting from the first qualities which they suppose immediately to hurt the functions themselves And so they feign the whole disease hereafter to consist in nothing but in a degree or excess of an elementary quality Again now and then they call the very distemperature of qualities not indeed a Disease but well the antecedent cause of the same They will I say have those four solitary qualities to be diseases whether they shall proceed from external qualities co-like unto themselves or whether they owe their beginning in the body to be from a strange disproportion of mixture Furthermore they afterwards combine those qualities in a bride-bed from the congress whereof they then derive their off-spring a Disease to wit they believe that the Elements are so subservient to their own dreams As that also qualities being joyned at their pleasure they have commanded them to answer to as many elements So that those naked qualities being even balaced with feigned elements and dreamed humours they have feigned to be Diseases themselves For in this place I declare the unseasonable yea sporting varieties of the Schools and their poverty greatly fighting otherwise surely I have sufficiently proved elsewhere by a Demonstration chiefly true That in the nature of things there are not four elements and therefore neither are they mixed that bodies which they have called mixt may be thereby constituted and by consequence that neither can distemperatures be accused for diseases As neither that ever there were four constitutive humours of us in the nature of things whereby it is sufficiently and over-manifest that the causes of diseases yea and diseases and the predicament of diseases have been hitherto unknown in the Schools Notwithstanding I will now dissemblingly treat with them by the supposed Positions of the same Schools Therefore the Schools sometimes repenting them of their sayings will have the elementary qualities and not unfrequently the humours equal to these not indeed to be diseases but onely the containing causes of almost all diseases Otherwise again that of those qualities being more intense than is meet a third or neutral one doth arise which they have called the Diathesis or Disposition or Disease it self And so however they toss the business they have hitherto commanded a disease to inhabite among qualities but humours although intemperate ones they for the most part driven out of the rank of diseases Indeed a Cataract in the eye although as a substance it doth immediately intercept the sight yet it cannot be a disease Therefore they have feigned a certain Being of reason and an imaginary relation or obstruction which might contain every property of a disease and might be truly a disease the Cataract being rejected And so by degrees a disease comes down unto non-beings and privations And now and then they for the essence of a disease do ridiculously distinguish a simple distemperature from a conjoyned one and again both of them from a humourous one when as a humour should be a substance void of degrees Indeed they have distinguished the societies of proportionable and disproportionable mixtures of the first qualities into pedigrees and then they have thereby erected specious Schemes and at length they have filled whole Volumes with those fables But at leastwise they have never admitted an evil or vitiated humour to be bred in us which may not presuppose some elementary distemperature to be mother unto it Wherefore a distemperature in the Schools shall be onely the cause of the cause and of the thing caused but it shall not be the thing caused it self or the disease nor in
and double Fevers Neither doth it also forbid a primary Disease to be con-folded with its own or with a secundary one bred from else where In such a manner as is a primary Fever which brings forth a Product from whence there is a resolving of the Blood into the putrifying Disease of a malignant Flux matched with a feverish Ferment At length neither is there a necessary passage of the three first Digestions unto the sixth by the fourth and fifth Because the greatest part of the venal Blood never comes unto the Heart and much less is it snatched into its left Bosom Because all particular parts are nourished no less with Venal than Arterial Blood From hence indeed it happens that the Vices of the three first Digestions do oftentimes immediately pass over into the sixth And therefore the transchanged Retents of the three first Digestions if they shall reach unto the sixth they offend not by transmission of a proper name but only by transmutation because a transmission from the third into the sixth Digestion is regular lawful and ordinary I will add concerning the Spleen If from the first Digestion a sharpness of the Chyle be immediately brought unto the Spleen A Quartane Ague is soon present to wit from a curdled Retent being there a stranger But if the sixth Digestion in the Spleen be troubled seeing it is the Couch of the first Conceptions The Excrements or things transchanged which are made of its proper nourishment are for the most part endowed with an imaginative Power such as occurs in many Simples and which is most plainly to be seen in the Spittle of a mad Dog and the which therefore I call inebriating or be-drunkening dreamifying or befooling Simples For therefore of one Wine there is a many-form condition of drunken Men That is one only Wine doth stir up diverse Madnesses For a mad Poyson halts with the similitude of Wine For a mad Poyson by reason of its excelling Power doth not follow the conditions of the Man but the very Conditions of the Man are constrained to obey the Poyson As is clearly seen in the Poyson of him that is bitten by a Mid-dog Poysons therefore which of a degenerate nourishment are bred in the sixth Digestion do follow their own Nature For by how much the nearer they shall be unto assimilating by so much the more powerfully do they infatuate For by how much the nearer the Ferment of the Bowel and an in-beaming of the implanted Spirit shall be present with it by so much also the nearer it calls unto it the Idea of a certain imaginative Power which at length it transplanteth into a venemous Poyson not indeed so destructive unto the Life as unto the Power of that Bowel But from what hath been before declared any one shall be hereafter able to erect unto himself the Stages of Diseases But it hath been sufficient for me to have shewn that every primary Disease doth objectively and subjectively fall into the Archeus and so into the Life it self whereof to wit it is immediately formed But that a secondary Disease fals objectively indeed into the Archeus but subjectively into a Matter either the solid one of the part containing or the fluide one of that contained And thus indeed to have shewn Diseases to be distributed in Nature by their Causes Roots and Essence according to their Inns I repose my Pen. Barrenness also seeing it is among Defects beside Nature hath hither extended its Treatise Wherefore Coldness Heat or moistness is not in either of the Sexes the cause of Barrenness however lowdly others may sound out this thing For truly first of all there is no dryness possible in living Creatures or the vitious moisture of the Womb is not of the complexion but a meer superfluity of Digestion or Transmission So in the next place Heat and Cold are signs of Defects in Nature but not Causes Because these Qualities do want a Seed vital Properties and potestative Conditions Therefore indeed Barrenness and Fruitfulness is in every Climate of the World Yet an Aethiopian Woman is far hotter than the most hot Woman of Muscovia But the excrementitious and superfluous Moistness of the Womb is an Effect of Diseases Yea if it shall be a companion of Barrenness yet not the containing Cause thereof For an internal Cause differs not from the Being it self So neither is the Defect of the Menstrues the cause of Barrenness if that Defect contains a denial or proceeds as an Effect of a nearer Indisposition Women of unripe Age have oft-times conceived even also before their Menstrues and those of more ripe years their Menstrues being silent Also oft-times Women affected in their Womb being trampled on by many Perplexities do succesfully conceive and accordingly bring forth In the mean time some Barren Women are in good health Also many conceive while their Menstrues is urgently present As also the Menstrues being afterwards silent hath deceived many of Conception Some Women do take notice of their Menstrues all the time of their bearing but many for some months only For indeed although Barrenness may after some sort bespeak a privative respect yet it is meerly a positive and diseasie Being for it ariseth from singular positive Defects Because by it self and in self it is a Malady of Nature Even as fruitfulness bespeaks an entire Cause For in a Man which is not Gelded not an Eunuch not hindred or disturbed not mischieved Barrenness hath scarce place For from hence an Old-man doth as yet generate Whence it follows that there is not so much perfection to be attributed as neither to be required in the Male as in the Mother But I call those hindered Males who do labour with a Gonorrhea or who have from thence retained a Vice And likewise who do labour with the notable Vice of some Bowel In a Woman the Menstrues abounding being Deficient Irregular Watery Yellow looking Blackish Slimy Stinking a Pain in her Loyns Belly Hips and movings of the Womb upwards downwards to the Sides are indeed Witnesses and Signs of the Sicknesses or Feeblenesses of the Womb and therefore also they fore-slow overflow Conception move Abortions and gushings forth of the Courses yet they do not altogether take away the hope of Conception nor are they the Disease which is called Barrenness For indeed old Women are Barren without all those For I find the one only suitable and co-equal Cause in Time and Age to be described in the holy Scriptures for a positive Being which is called Barrenness in these Words God opened the Womb of Sarah For it is the Gift of God derived into Nature whereby the Parchment or Membrane of the Womb being most exactly shut in its Foldings is opened and enlarged at the co-agreeing moment of Conjunction There is I say an attractive drawing Blas whereby for fear of a Vacuum or Emptiness an attraction of the Seeds and a suitable filling up of the opened Wrinckles follows that opening To wit the
Ferments as many Varieties of Putrefactions and as many Dungs of one Bread as there are particular Kindes of Animals nourished by Bread Yea and moreover there are more Ferments for the Corruption of Bread because also Bread doth putrifie after many manners as well of its own accord as through the Odour of Places and Impressions of Agents And that which is said of Bread the same thing may be understood of other Foods The Schooles taking notice also that nothings will profit us but that which in its Root containeth the Flourish of Life therefore also they would that the Spirit of the Liver being actually natural should glisten in the Venal Blood like an Air And they have thought it to be a Vapour and therefore also they have confounded it with an Exhalation Not knowing that a Vapour is Water but that it is not a Gas a wild Spirit an uncoagulable Air and Skie Therefore they have thought that a Vapour exhaling out of the out-chased venal Blood even as elsewhere it breaths out of any lukewarm Liquors was that Spirit of the venal Blood from whence the vital Spirit should afterwards be materially framed Of which I have elsewhere profesly spoken For indeed whatsoever defcendeth into an healthy Stomack if it be concocted by the Ferment of the Spleen it waxeth sharp through the fermental and specifical Sharpness of our Species And Superfluities being first sequestred from thence it is at length turned into venal Blood Which Blood after the Bound of its Digestion is transferred into the Heart and is made Arterial Blood which in the holy Scriptures is called A ruddy or red Spirit wherein the Soul inhabiteth For it is made fit to pass over into Vital Spirit and the remainder thereof to undergo the last Digestion of the solid parts and at length without that its residence to exhale into the Air Therefore also for that very Cause it ought to be volatile and to have assumed the Disposition of a Spirit in the Heart Furthermore that Sharpness of the Stomack by Virtue of the ferment of the Gaul is converted into a Salt even as elsewhere concerning Digestions And the Actual Saltness is separated with the Urin and Sweats because it became Excrementitious But the Mass of the venal Blood it self seeing it cannot pass over into Spirit but by the Vital Ferment of the Heart I say there is made a substantial Derivation or Translation of the Venal Blood into Arterial Blood and of the Arterial Blood into Spirit wholly throughout the whole without any residence and separation of heterogeneal Parts because the Excrements are first withdrawn from thence and the Substance of the Heart is restless being continually busied about this Office of Transmutation that it may uncessantly effect Arterial Blood out of the Venal Blood and of this vital Spirit So that a certain natural Spirit doth not fore-exist in the venal Blood from whence as it were of the matter whereof vital Spirit may be made But the whole venal Blood it self if there shall be need is made Arterial Blood and from thence âital Spirit Therefore the making of Venal Blood in the Liver and the making of Arterial Blood in the Heart do differ For one is a true transmutation of the Chyle into venal Blood and the generating of a new Being But the other is an extenuating of the Venal Blood into a volatile Arterial Blood and into a Vital Air For venal Blood is made with a thickning of it self and with a Separation of the liquid Excrement or Urin. But the Vital Spirit is made with a melting of that which is thickned and an Aiery extenuation thereof to wit whereunto the Arterial Blood affords a Degree or Mean I confess indeed that the Spirit of Wine is snatched as a Spirit into the Arteries as a certain simple Symbolizing and previously disposed thing that it may easily passover into vital Spirit but the Schooles do from hence conclude nothing for their Spirit of the Liver Therefore let the venal Blood be the Spirit of the Liver it self coagulated and the fore-existing Matter of the Vital Spirits Which Spirit indeed hath the Nature together with the Power of a Body that it may be Spiritualized Therefore even as from the Ferment of the Heart the venal Blood is made arterial Blood and a volatile Spirit So in the Arteries as it were in the Stomack of the Heart and the Ferment of the Heart being drawn the Arterial Blood it self passeth over into the Common-wealth of Spirits Yea the secondary Humours also or the immediate Nourishments of the solid Parts are by degrees made Volatile least they should leave a remaining Residence behind them but they make an egress with a total transpitation of themselves The Heart therefore by its Ferment frameth arterial Blood out of venal Blood the which by the same endeavour it so fits and extenuates that moreover so much of vital Spirits is made out of the arterial Blood in the Arteries as it were in its Stomack as the Grosness and resisting Substance of the arterial Blood in so small a space wherein it is agitated or wrought in the Arteries permits to be made And there is well nigh a single Action while the venal Blood passeth over into arterial Blood and the Arterial Blood into Spirit Because they differ not in their Shops and likewise in the Degrees of Digestion Extenuation and Subtilizing For as much of arterial Blood is bred of venal Blood and as much of vital Spirits is made out of the arterial Blood by the same Feâment of the Heart as is needful for every one of them and the Faculties of concocting are able to make Neither is it sufficient also to have known that the venal Blood doth ascend into arterial Blood but that the arterial Blood passeth over partly into vital Spirit and partly departeth into the Nourishment of the solid Parts Also that at length of vital Spirit it is made animal and the which receiveth an ultimated or utmost Determination in its Nerves so indeed that it is made visive or visible Spirit in the optick Nerves or Sinews of Sight but being exorbitant from thence and being derived into the Tongue it should be plainly unprofitable for tasting even as also the Aanimal Spirits the Authors of touching are unfit for Motion and those of this for them But moreover it behoves us to have known the Marrow of the vital Spirit For indeed of the Sharpe Chyle partly venal Blood and partly a Urin and sweat is made But that excrementous Saltness of the Urin is a volatile and Salt Spirit the which being co-fermented with Earth at length a Salta-peter is formed wherefore that Salt Spirit is excrementous The venal Blood indeed by Distillation shews unto us also a saltish Spirit plainly volatile not any thing distinguishable in Smell as neither in Tast from the Spirit of the Urin Yet essentially different in this that the Spirit of the Salt of Venal Blood cureth the Falling-sickness but the
on in opposition to the Scripture CHAP. CXIII The Tabernacle in the Sun THe Schools deny the Sun to be fervently hot For they will that they also should herein be believed without demonstration Because they think that a man is generated by a man and the Sun And therefore that it becomes Nature least if the Sun should be of a fervent heat he should consume himself his Inn and all neighbouring things into hot Embers For seeing he is of a huge bigness and also heats afar of why should he not commit a cruel outrage if he should be fervently hot in himself For how should he generate a man and also all sublunary things As if first of all the Sun being exceeding hot the substance of the Heavens should therefore be burnable And that it should not be more meet to admit the Sun to be hot without nourishment than to deny all the Senses to wit that the effect doth exist being produced by no proper Cause To deny I say heat indeed which makes hot with so great a force and at so great a distance Chiefly because according to the proportion whereby we do the more approach unto the direct beams of the Sun by so much we meet with the greater heat I believe this fear of the Schools to be vain because the Light was made by the Word which contracted the whole Light into two Globes That the Sun should be the Light of the Day and the Moon of the Night The lightsome Globe of Sun is said to exceed the Diameter of the Earth and Water 160. times Out of which Globe of the Sun the beams of Light are dispersed as well above as beneath himself on the whole Universe And they most thorowly enlighten all traseparent bodies but dark or thick bodies in their superficies onely But I have shewn that the beams of the Sun being united by a Glasse are true fire shining in its properties For whether the beams are united or not that is to the Sun by accident And therefore if the beams of Light being connexed are true fire and do burn the Sun also as the very Center of the connexed beams shall of necessity be most exceeding hot For the Fire of the Sun persisteth without nourishment by the command of God Also seeing the fire in the middle of the crest wherein the Sun-beams are united subsisteth without nourishment Kitchin fire only bears before it a Light subsisting by it self without the intervening of the Sun Yet in that thing being different from the Sun that it ought to be nourished that it may subsist But the Sun because he is of a heavenly Nature wants not food because he is void of Usuries and appointed of God that he may thus burn The Sun therefore is a most fervent fire the principal Center in Nature of created Lights Peradventure when at sometimes dayes shall be at their full and the harvest of things shall be ripe the watery vision of the Heavens the Waters I say which are above the Heavens through a divine virtue shall assume a ferment and the seed of a combâââble matter and it shall rain fire from Heaven and the Stars shall fall For the Sun by the command of God breaking open the floodgates and bolts of his Globe shall burn the Heavens as well those which are nigh as those which are very far of and shall consume the World into hot embers For the Heavens shall be changed shall wax old and shall at sometimes melt like wax And the Stars shall fall down on the Earth not indeed whole because they are for the most part bigger than the Globe of the Earth but the parts of the Stars that are burnt shall make an Abyss of fire upon the Center Therefore the Sun is a fire in himself and being nigh but by how much further his beams are dispersed throughout the Universe they shall give the more apt nourishing warmths unto the seeds of things because the Sun doth suggest onely a general and common Light which is fit for exciting and promoting the seeds of things and for this cause it is vital But not that it conferreth Life and that which gives Essence to the seeds of things In Caire of Aegypt Eggs are nourished by the fire of a furnace and Chickens are abundantly bred without the nourishing of any Hen yet the fire of the furnace neither gives nor hath a seminal virtue neither doth it burn the Eggs nor because it nourisheth doth it cease to be burningly hot in its Fountain So the beams of the Sun being dispersed throughout the Universe are no longer fire but a simple Light Kitchin fire therefore doth after some sort dispose it self according to an emulation of the Sun To wit it enflames burns and consumes things that are near it but from far it onely heats and at a very far distance onely shines Yea neither is it reckoned true fire unless it be hot in the highest degree unless it centrically stick fast with its connexed beams in the crest of Light But it differs in nobleness from the Light of the Sun that it is not of the first created things not of an heavenly disposition not subsisting without fewels nor therefore is it universal The Almighty therefore as he hath created the Sun a singular thing so he hath created as it were one only Sun in every species of sensitive Creatures which should suffice even unto the end of the World and should propagate them thenceforward not indeed being hot in the highest degree but that it subsisting by the poynts of dispersed beams may not cover to ascend unto further moments of degrees Therefore in the smallestminutes of specifical Lights a formal Light of species or particular kinds is restrained by a Divine virtue which hath tied up every species unto a particular moment of Lights general indeed in respect of the Sun yet made individual by the co-ordination of my Lord For the Sun of Species's shall endure for ever no otherwise than as the Species themselves shall But because it doth not subsist but in individuals therefore the sun of Species is daily slidable in individuals even at every Moment unless it be nourished as it were by a continual fewel Therefore the light of Life hath some similitude with the Sun and a part agreeable unto Kitchin fire To wit in this that our Sun ought to have vital Spirits for an uncessant Fewel and those capable of an administring to a depending Light that is to follow ââot indeed that the Spirits do in themselves and of themselves heat any more than the beams of the Sun the which the light of the Sun being withdrawn do presently die from heat and light Nevertheless they bear a mutual resemblance with the Sun because they seem to propagate an enflaming and subsist centrally in the heart For when the Schools took notice that the heart did voluntarily and of it self hasten into a cold dead Carcass and that the Spirits being dissolved or spent it indeed
some other place namely in the heart alone Again from the same position it followes that that there may be a Fever it is not-required that the offending and feverish matter be enflamed but some other inflameable thing primarily residing in the heart and from thence slideable throughout the whole body For this inflameable body I together with Hippocrates call the spirit which maketh the assault But this last matter I have brought hither not from the minde of the Antients but it is extorted and by force I have commanded it to be granted me Whereof in its own place when I shall discourse of the efficient cause of Fevers At least wise that being now violently begged it followes that the peccant matter of Fevers is not properly enflamed neither that it is in it self primarily or efficiently hot nor indeed that it makes hot besides nature if the first inflameable body ought to be kindled in the heart Therefore neither is the peccant or offensive matter in a Fever hot beyond or besides the degree of nature But that which is kindled in the heart was not kindled before the comming of the Fever and so it every way differs from the peccant matter in Fevers At length it is also from hence fitly concluded that in whomsoever they intend to slay a Fever by cooling things as such they do not intend to cure by a removal of the causes by a cutting up of the Root and a plucking out of the fountaine and fewel of the Fever but only they intend to take away and correct the heat which is a certaine latter product entertained with-out the feverish matter To wit they apply their remedies unto the effect but not unto the cause For truly the heat of Fevers is kindled in the Archeus which maketh the assault and the root of Fevers is the peccant matter it self They have regard therefore only unto the taking away of the effect following upon and resulting from the placing of that root for the sake whereof the Archeus is enflamed not indeed by the root but by heat drawn from elsewhere while as indeed he enflames himself by a proper animosity and by his own heat being beyond a requirance extended unto a degree wherein he is wholly troublesome as he is enlarged beyond the amplenesse of his own necessity Foâ neither must we think that any heat is so in a hateful feverish matter which with me they name the offensive one that it afterwards makes feverishly hot the whole entire body For truly that for which every thing is such that very thing they will have to be more such And then also because every calefactive or heating agent doth throughout its own specie's more strongly act on a near object than on an object at a distance wherefore if a feverish matter should make the other parts hot by its own heat it should of necessity be that the center or nest wherein that peccant matter of a Fever is received should be first roasted into a fryed substance before that any distant object should be made hot thereby Yea if the peccant matter should be hot of its own free accord and the Fever should be that meer heat besides nature every Fever as such ought to be continual nor should it have intermission until that all the offensive matter were wholly consumed into ashes Neither therefore should there be any reason of a repetition or relapse seeing the peccant matter should even from a general property always make hot for the consuming of it self And moreover a dead carcase also should be hot as well after death and be more ardently tortured or writhed with a Fever than while it lived because the same matter in number from the obedience whereof death happens even still persisteth in the dead carcasse and seeing they suppose it to be hot by a proper heat of putrefaction and since it is more putrified after death as also after death more powerfully putrifying and affecteth more parts co-bordering upon it than while it lived therefore also it should be more actually hot after death than in the life time But surely this errour is bewrayed For a Fever which made a live body hot ceaseth presently after death and all heat exspires with the life The which ought to instruct us that the heat of a Fever is not proper unto the peccant matter or its inmate and that the heat of the offensive matter doth not efficiently and effectively make hot in Fevers Therefore it is perpetually true that the peccant matter makes hot occasionally only but that the Archeus is the workman of every alteration and so by this title that which efficiently primarily immediatly always every where maketh the assault and that he alone doth not make hot according to the maxime Whatsoever utters healthy actions in healthy bodies that very thing utters vitiated ones in diseases For that spirit heats man naturally in health it being the same which in Fevers rageth with heat For example The thorne or splinter of an oake being thrust into the finger and actually and potentially cold presently stirs up a heat besides nature in the finger Not indeed that hot humours do flow thither as if they being called together thither by the thorne had exspected the wound of the splinter and the which otherwise as moderate had resided in their own seates For truly the blood next to the wound first runs to it and preventeth the passage for other blood coming thither And that blood also by it self is not hot but for the sake of the vital spirit Therefore the inflamation and swelling together with an hard pulse pain and heat do proceed from the spirit alone causally but from the infixed thorn occasionally only Surely it is an example sufficient for the position manner knowledg and cure of a Fever To wit the cause offending in a Fever is not hot of it self but it makes hot only occasionally and upon the pulling out of the thorne or occasional cause health followes The Archeus alone every where effectively stirs up the Fever and the which departing by death the Fever ceaseth with it Therefore heat is a latter accident and subsequent upon the essence of a Fever For indeed the Archeus enflames himself in his endeavour whereby he could earnestly desire to expel the occasional matter as it were a thorne thrust into himself But whosoever takes away this thorne whether that be done by hot meanes or by temperate ones or at length by cold ones he takes away the disease by the Root and it is unto nature as it were indifferent Because for that very cause the animosity of the Archeus is appeased and ceaseth Wherefore heat however it being besides nature increased may be a token of Fevers yet it is not the Fever it self neither therefore must we greatly labour about it in time of healing For from hence Hippocrates hath seriously admonished that heat and cold are not diseases as neither the causes of these but that the causes to wit the
occasional ones of diseases are bitter sharp salt brackish c. But that the spirit is he that maketh all assaults Galen Juniour unto Hippocrates by five hundred years afterwards easily stained much paper and by his prate allured followers unto himself But posterity having admired this prattle followed the same it hath always had that in the greatest esteem which was of the least worth And then the world every where grew aged in frivolous judgments always esteeming that to be of great weight which was most like unto its own unconstancy CHAP. II. The Schools Nodding or Doubting have introduced Putrefaction 1. The Schools have been constrained to devise another thing in Fevers beside heat 2. Another defect in the definition of a Fever 3. The Schools contradict the principles laid down by themselves 4. That the essence of Fevers is not from heat 5. They by degrees are forgetful of their own positions 6. The spiciness of Roses is most hot 7. Whether a Feverish heat be rightly judged by the Schools to arise from Putrefaction 8. A malignant Fever wherein it differs from other Fevers 9. A Crisis of Fevers by sweat is most wholesome 10. Why the Schools have fled back unto Putrefaction 11. A blockish comparison of heat in horse-dung 12. Why horse-dung is hot 13. A degree of the heat of a putrifying matter is not sufficient for heating the whole man in a Fever 14. Putrefaction is no where the cause of heat 15. Dung waxeth not hot from Putrefaction 16. Why they have not drawn a feverish heat from hot Baths 17. The ignorance of the Roots hath wrested the Schools aside unto the considerations and remedies of effects 18. Dung looseth its heat while it begins to putrefie 19. The great blindness of the Schools 20. Galen convicted of error 21. That the blood doth never putrefie in the veins and so whatsoever they trifle concerning a Sunochus or putrefied Fever is erroneous 22. The foregoing particulars are proved 23. The natural endowments of the veins 24. Either Nature goes to ruine or the Doctrine of the Schools 25. An example from the variety of blood 26. A ridiculous table of blood let out of the veins 27. An argument from the Plague against the Vse of the Schools 28. Again from the Pleurifie 29. The heats and turbulencies of the blood do not testifie the vices thereof 30. A wan deceit of the Schools 31. To suppose putrefied humours in Fevers is ridiculous 32. Against the definition of Fevers of the foregoing Chapter some absurdities are alledged 33. A frivolous excuse by a Diary 34. The foregoing definition of Fevers is again resisted 35. The unconstancy of the Schools 36. That the blood doth not putrefie in the veins 37. Corruption from whence it is 38. That the blood of the Hemeroides is not putrefied 39. A wonderful remedy against the Hemeroides or Piles by a ring And likewise for other Diseases THE Schools meditated that an heat did oft-times spring up through exercises not unlike to the heat of feverish persons the which notwithstanding seeing it was not a feverish one they indeed judged heat to be of necessity in Fevers not any one in differently but that which should be stirred up by putrefaction Now they are no longer careful concerning heat as neither concerning the degrees or distemperature thereof but rather concerning the containing cause thereof For neither hath a heat graduated besides nature seemed to be sufficient for a Fever unless that heat also spring up from putrefaction which particle surely hath been dully omitted in the aforesaid definition of Fevers Therefore the essence of a Fever is now no longer a naked heat neither shall this heat distinguish Fevers from the diversity of heat although a Species doth result from thence whence the essence is but from the varieties of the putrefied or at leastwise from the putrefying humours It was finely indeed begun thus to wander from the terms proposed that when as they before respected nothing but heat which should exceed the accustomed temper of nature they afterwards require heat and a subject of putrefaction which heat they will have to be kindled in an offensive putrified matter but not any longer first in the heart But seeing that of heat there is not but only Species in degree but very many moments or extensions of the same and there are very many particular kinds of Fevers neither that the specifical multitude of Fevers can proceed from one only Species of heat besides nature Therefore in the Essence or Being of heat another thing is beheld besides the degree of the same Heat therefore shall not constitute the Essence of a Fever but that other thing by reason whereof the diversity of Fevers breaks forth If therefore putrefying of divers matters be the efficient cause of the diversity of Fevers heat shall be thing as well caused from putrefaction as the Fever it self and so seeing the action of causality of the putrisied matter involveth some other thing in it besides heat it self a Fever shall not be heat Now the Schools do confusedly adjoyn very many things on both sides that if one thing do not help at leastwise another may help them So that although they toughly maintain the aforesaid definition and adore it yet they by degrees decline from the naked distemper of heat unto the putrefaction of Humours Neither do they stay in these trifles but moreover they flee back unto hot remedies as having forgotten their own Positions And that whether they attempt Purgations or next whether they shall convert themselves unto the proper specifical Rdmedies of Fevers For what is now more solemn in healing than to have given Apozemes of Hop Asparagus c. and to have seasoned the same with Sugar For what is more hot than the spiceness included in Roses whether thou respectest its savour or application without which notwithstanding the Rose it self is a meer dead carcase what doth every where more frequently offer it self than to have mingled the corrosive liquor of Sulphur or Vitriol being through the perswasion of gain manifoldly adulterated with Juleps for Fevers In the next place to have drawn forth those which they feign to be guilty humours by Rhubarb and Scammoneated Medicines Therefore before all we must profesly examine whether the heat of a Fever owes its Original to Putrefaction Wherefore first of all I have plainly taught That a feverish heat doth in no wise causally depend on the peecant matter And then I have learned that a malignant Fever alone differs from other Fevers in this that its own offensive matter hath a beginning-putrefaction adjoyned unto it The which if it shall afterwards creep unto its height until the putrefaction be actually made and shall remain within it straightway brings death of necessity But if it be driven forth in the making of the Putrefaction as in the Measills an Erisipelas c. it is for the most part cured Because health for the most part accompanies a motion to without
the thing besides nature nor cocteth any thing except she pretend alwayes to assimilate it to her self by a similar or alike and simple digestion For oft-times therefore a little cloud appearing in a Quartane vanisheth away because Coction which the small Cloud signifies is not a true subduing of the matter from a Primary intention but only of the digestive ferment of the stomach otherwise the Feverish matter being once made the more fluide a new Crudity happens not thereupon CHAP. XII The Diet of Fevers 1. What is the most slender food of acute or sharp Fevers 2. Herbie medicines are not to be mixed with meates 3. Feverish persons may drink 4. They must abstaine from fleshy foodes 5. The madnesse of Physitians 6. What sort of meat and drink is fit for those that have a Fever 7. A debate concerning the use of wine in Fevers 8. That a Fever and heat are radically distinguished 9. It is of little concernment whether a remedy for a Fever be hot or temperate 10. An objection is refuted 11. How great the inflamation of the Archeus is FRom that one only precept of Hippocrates that in acute or sharp diseases he hath commanded we must presently use a most slender food But I do not interpret a most slender diet to be a strict fasting or severe abstinence nor likewise to be the broaths of fleshes by whatsoever favour of herbs they are altered Truly those medicines are not to be mixed with meates but all things are to be introduced by their own Stages First of all I detest in Fevers an abstinence from drink For if the Fever be hot and thirsty but is deprived of moistening drink it robs of blood and of the nourishments of the solide parts together with the strength For as it is lawfull to unload the bladder even as oft as an importunate necessity urgeth it craves not leave of the Physitian to this end likewise also we must drink as oft as necessity admonisheth seeing the one is not more agreeable to nature than the other Otherwise the strict law of thirst and obedience of its command being broken hath already a thousand times brought disgrace on the Physitian I also abhorre the broaths of fleshes in a Fever for nature forthwith detesteth the same and by how much the more meer or unmixt they are by so much the more to be condemned according to the mind of Hippocrates Impure bodies so he calls those of feverish persons whose stomach is burntishly stinking by how much the more thou nourishest them by so much the more thou hurtest them For they hurt feverish persons because Flesh Eggs Fishes and fleshy broaths are then easily mortified or corrupted and do least of all nourish For it is like unto madnesse to empty the veins and again to be willing to nourish those whose digestive faculty is prostrated To be willing to comfort I say where the enemy is within For then thin ales being joyned with wine wherewith bread being first boyled in water apart even unto a glew or mucilage it admixed do most especially satisfie And these being taken crude and not boyled For truly by boyling the vertue of those Drinks looseth but not increase For so that vertue being unsensibly mixed with the drink satisfies both indications neither is it to be feared least the sick party under this diet should perish through want Especially since he is unworthy the name of a Physitian who restoreth not the person that hath a Fever before the space of four dayes But moreover all the Galenists inveigh against the use of wine although wines being secretly drunk have a thousand times brought Reproach on the Galenical Art because a Fever is nothing but a meer heat being called by Hippocrates a Fire and wine shall be to him that hath a Fever such as oyl is for the extinguishing of fire But this Argument hath already before perished as an old Wives Fable under the definition of a Fever And by so much the rather because it is contrary to daily experience For as many as use Wine moderately in Fevers do the more easily recover preserve their strength and are the sooner restored unto their former state But they who after the diminishments of the body and abstinence from Wine do peradventure escape through the benefit of nature alone they remain sickly for a long course of weeks For truly none doubteth but that the Plague is the most cruel sharp and swift Fever but that it is loosed without the cutting of a vein and purging and only by sweats and the drinking of the more pure wine None also doubteth but that Triacle and other sudoriserous Medicines are hot may be given to drink in Wine yea and in Aqua vitae And since these things as such do not hurt but profit in the sharpest of Fevers much less shall Wine be taken away in the more mild ones Especially Because it is manifest that heat is not the Constituter of Fevers but a consequent thereof by accident Neither is there place for arguing the difference of the Plague from other Fevers For in very deed the Plague floats in the Archeus as a poyson But Fevers have a stubborn occasional matter and that adhering to the veins Therefore transpirative Medicines are required on both sides in the Plague indeed Medicines that cause sweat together with an Antidote against the Contagion of the poyson But in other Fevers Diaphoreticks which cut dissolve and cleanse And truly on both sides this buisiness is perfected by hot things But Wine hath a peculiar betokening not only because it addeth strength whereby nature subdueth the hateful matter but moreover because it is a convenient Chariot of Medicines For indeed it is a Messenger that hath known the wayes being fitted for the journey being near to the inner most parts and admitted into the inner Chambers of the body For in a young and strong man with a small Fever there is great heat when as in the mean time in old men there is a mortal and difficult Fever yet it hath an heat scarce troublesome If therefore heat be encreased after wine is administred the feverish malignity is not therefore encreased Because a Fever and Heat are radically distinct The which I have already shewn by the Fevers of young and old people It makes no matter Although the trouble of heat shall a little increase through the drinking of Wine For that is recompenced with usury Because the faculties the only Physitianesses of diseases are increased by moderate Wine This very thing if it be more fully and radically sifted thou shalt find that heat doth not properly accompany a Fever but the valour or strength of the faculties Therefore that which the Schools do so greatly abhor in Wine is the mark of a good sign For deadly and the worst of Fevers are scarce hot and every Fever about the time of death is without heat If therefore the motion of heat be that of the Archeus himself for the expelling
life it self is entertained and sits and so it hath an immediate and plenipotentiary power on the life which is con-nexed unto it in the resembling mark of uniformity for otherwise it should be an inconvenient thing for the mad or raging life of a Fever to bring forth a disease or to conceive effect and nourish a formal and essential Beginning foundation and seed out of it self For the life is not able to establish a disease which is a seminal Being in the forreign and external subject of excrements For if the life ought to suffer by a disease to be vexed and killed thereby surely it being now defiled ought to suffer all the injury from its own self according to the Proverb None is hurt but from himself Hippocrates in times past after a rustical manner perceived that thing the first called that vital spirit The maker of the Assault as well for life as for death For God made not death for man the which began from sin But I do not deny that the life is provoked into its own injury by occasional causes yet at leastwise I could wish that the Antients had divided as is meet to be the internal cause essentially from the external occasional ones But I take not the internal and external matter for a respect of the body but that which is radically and essentially proper to the disease that I call the Internal and unseparable matter But otherwise if if it be only accidentally adjacent thereunto Therefore before all it is seriously and only to be noted in what manner the very essential thingliness of Fevers may be formed by the Essence of the efficient life That not only the very local thingliness of principiating a Disease may be hereby conceived but that moreover an essential limitation thereof essentially issuing from the life it self may be known Which things therefore are more deeply to be peirced Wherefore let it be instead of a Proposition that Mortality Death and a Disease seeing they entered with sin they corrupted the life and defiled the whole humanity with impurity Not indeed that the entrance of all particular Fevers is therefore from a new sin as neither immediately from original sin although they have originally defluxed from thence But in the state of Purity there was Immortality no Death no Disease because then the immortal mind immediately governed the body and therefore it suffered not any thing by frail things which are altogether inferiour to it self therefore it deserveedly freed its own Mansion united unto it self from death and corruption But after the departure out of the right way the mind delivered up its government to the sensitive soul whence the life became subject to a thousand inconvenient necessities of death The Sensitive soul therefore afterwards stirred up the Vital air which after that began to be called by Hippocrates ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã or the Maker of the Assault and the chief Work-man of Diseases But the power of the same was badly understood by his followers and that Maker of the Assault remained neglected by Successours it being also unknown that the differences of diseases did issue immediately from the life And therefore the whole buisiness of Diseases was falsely committed unto occasional and never existing Humours For I have concerning the Original and Principles of Healing delivered the manner whereby that Maker of the Assault produceth an Ideal Being from whence Fevers and all Diseases borrow their Original The which generation of Idea's or shapie likenesses being there professly handled I will only touch at by the way First therefore it is confessed that the madness of a dog is stirred up by or in his conception through the effective Idea of that mad poyson The which is not in any healthy dog even as in a mad one And from thence it is manifest that that poyson which strikes our imagination after the biting is framed by an Idea caused by the conception of the mad dog The same thing ptoffers it self in the Tarantula in Serpents and things sore moved with fury So in the Plague-grave I have demonstrated that this Idea is made not only by the fear of the man but also of the vital air Wherefore also it is very equally necessary that for a Fever which is stirred up from the assaulting spirit and vital Beginning not which ariseth is moved or increaseth of its own accord or of nothing a motive Idea or effective cause springs up in the same vital Beginning being indeed poysonsome in it self and varying according to the signatures or impressions which this tree of a feverish Idea utters for its fruits For since of nothing nothing is made but of something alwayes something As well the Antients as the Moderns have supposed that any Fevers whatsoever do of necessity arise from the strife of the Elements or at least of feigned Humours Neither have they till now cleerly defined of which of these two the texture of Fevers might be But since the Elements are but three in number neither do these flow together unto the constitution of bodies because I shall elsewhere shew the connexion of these to be impossible they cannot produce any strange Beginning from themselves But Humours since they never have hitherto any where been and since Fevers are of a more aiery and abstracted body than that which a liquid excrement is thought to be I have discerned that from nothing nothing is indeed materially made but that most things are efficiently effectively and formally made from a conceived Idea which do forthwith after cloath themselves with bodies Indeed by the conception active Ideas are made and the formal Beginnings of seeds which presently cloath themselves with the coat of the vital spirit wherewith they then in the next place come upon the stage and are made that Maker of the Assault which is known by the Schools only by its name alone and therefore neglected by practical Physitians For that Fevers do now and then arise from the disturbances of the mind that is very well known to persons of no reputation and Barbers But that the Archeus or the spirit which violently assaileth doth suffer its own perturbations and conceive the Off-springs of these the Idea's stirred up in it self hath indeed been even hitherto unthought of and unheard of in the Schools Notwithstanding nothing is more certaine than that the spittle of a mad dog doth a good while after the death of the dog produce its madness in whom he bit it being plainly very like to its own dog from whence it issued Wherefore there was in the spittle a forming seminal Idea of that madness produced being like unto that from whence the first infection flowed For such an infection presupposeth an active vital and potent propagative power of its seed because it can cause death and madness in us But that power never acteth as a naked accident but as it inhabites in a formal subject of inhesion Neither also that the visible matter or Inn of its
Tragedy of the world would again be hidden at leastwise I suppose that there will be other far more horrible Plagues than ever heretofore and against which all Antidotes will be vain For truly our Plague at this day doth not affect bruit beasts But in the last dreggishness ãâ¦ã they shall destroy wild beasts also yea fishes and trees and there shall be Plagues but not an ordinary Plague otherwise this should be an uncertain sign of the future destruction For there shall be Plagues from the hand of God from the powring out of the Vials as the Revelation hath it But against those Plagues there is not to be a Buckler in Nature I promised therefore unto my self before I attempted to write these things that the Plague that was curable even unto that face of times and a true remedy thereof was to be fetched out of the Grave of Hippocrates or rather from above from the Father of Lights I will declare what I have learned for the profit of Posterity CHAP. III. The Heaven is free from as also innocent of our Contagion or Infection NOt the least comfort hath appeared unto the Soul that is earnestly desirous of knowledge or unto the miserable and forsaken sick from the writings of the Antients First of all it is of Faith that the Stars are for signs times or seasons daies and years nor that man can any way alienate the offices of the Stars or decline them unto other scopes That the Heavens are the works of the Lords hands that God created not Death and therefore that neither doth the Heaven contain Death a disease poyson discords corruptions or the effective cause of these For truly they are ordained not for the cause but for the signs of future things and only for the changing of seasons or Meteors and for the succession of daies and years The office therefore of the Heavens is not to generate evils to cause poysons to disperse or influx them to sow wars and to stir up deaths Because the heaven cannot exceed the bounds of its own appointment the heavens declare the glory of God for whose honour and the uses of ungrateful humanity it was created And therefore it rather contains in it life light joy peace and health with an orderly and continued motion no curse is read to have been communicated to the heaven after the transgression of Adam nor execration to be infused into it as neither a spot to have been sprinkled thereon The earth indeed brings forth thistles and thorns because under the Moon is the Copy-hold of the Devil and Death because of sinners the Empire of discords and interchanges The earth hath become a Step-mother unto us she is therefore the vale of miseries being great with-child of the corruption and fardle of sinners because it hath pleased God that there should be no other way unto rest but by tribulations yea it behoved Christ to suffer and so to enter into glory not indeed anothers but his own because he was willing to take on him the form of a servant I belive the Word of God but in no wise the vanities of the Sooth-sayers of Heaven and I judge that they who write that the Plague doth arise from the heaven do stumble as being hitherto deceived with the errours of the Gentiles The Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth the handy-works of the Lord The Heavens therefore shew a sweet or bitter thing to come but they do not cause that sweet or bitter yea neither is it lawful for us to call bitter things evils for God hath directed all things to a good end Therefore the heaven declares future things unto us but doth not cause them and the stars are only unto us for the signs of things to come and therefore there shall be signs in the Sun Moon and Stars The Stars also cause the successive alterations of seasons in the ayr waters and earth only by a native Blas From whence the changes and ripenesses as well in fruits as in the body of man especially in a sick one do consequently depend I understand also that the stars are in this respect for times or seasons unto us by their motive and alterative Blas For neither therefore are the Heavens Sorcerers or the Cocters of poysons the incensers of wars c. I knowingly consider them to be altogether as the alterers of successive interchanges in Elementary qualities as to the interchangeable courses of Stations Wherefore it happens that the sick aâe diversly altered in the promotion and maturity of seeds conceived in them because our vital faculties do stir up every their own Blas according to the rule or square of the most general motion of the stars not indeed as of violent leaders but of foregoing or accompanying ones For the Book of the Revelation doth not attribute even any the least punishing power unto the Heavens but the same to be distributed by God among the Angels and the which therefore are called smiting and ministring spirits performing the commands of the Judge Therefore I shall not easily believe that the Plague owes its original unto the importunate or unseasonable changes of times the which also Eudoxus according to Fernelius perceived And I cannot be induced by any reason to believe that the Heavens do give growth form figure virtues or any thing else which proceedeth from the Being of seeds For the Herb was potent in a flourishing seed even before the stars were born so that although there should be no stars yet every seed by the power of the Word is of it self naturally for producing of its own constituted body and against the will of the stars and stations of the year yea and of climates many seeds and forreign fruits are produced by Art Wherefore the Epidemicks of Hippocrates illustrated with the Commentary of Galen do also contain very many things unworthy the name of the Author not only because it attributes diseases to the stations or seasons of the year and not every one to their own seeds and divers infirmities to one root that is unto the first qualities of the ayr and so coupleth divers effects with unjust causes but because they contain very many absurdities of trifles For I am wont in this thing to compare Judiciary Astrologers unto Empericks who having gotten an oyntment powder or any other medicine extoll the same to be prevalent well nigh for all diseases and also for many other So many of those being not content with the shewing or betokening message of the Stars constrain them to be the workmen Deasters and absolute Patrons of all fortune and misfortune to be conscious or witness-bearers and the workers of life and death to come Lastly to be the Councellors and Judges of thoughts and questions asked If therefore they do not contain death wars poysons nor the Plague verily neither shall they be able to rain down such scourges upon us seeing they cannot give those things which they have not do not contain
they are opened thou Paracelsus callest Ulcers and distinguishest against wound and thy own self Too fabulously therefore is the heaven defiled with out corruption and is a revenger of these injuries even as also a Notary and wounder of our crimes That was an invention of Heathenism in times past that it might blasphemously extol the heavens and starry Gods into a worship Four Elements also are blasphemously and foolishly brought in by Paracelsus who was wont to laugh at the Relolleous quality of them especially because in the original of our medicine a Quaternary or four-fold number of Elements is taken away as well in the nature of the Universe as in the constitution of mixt bodies For how ignorantly is a Quaternary of Elements suited with the aforesaid Ternary of emunctory places For Paracelsus having obtained Arcanums plainly heroical for the supplanting of diseases and being destitute of medicinal Science descending from the Father of Lights and of his own accord assuming to himself the Title of the Monarch of secrets and from this boldness invading the principality of healing treated of the Plague as it were of an enemy unknown unto him Therefore he ascribeth the Plague sometimes to the heaven at another time to the Sun and sometimes to the elements alone and oft times to Pythonisses or women of a prophecying spirit witches and to spirits as well those infernal as elementary Deasters being for the most part forgetful of the doctrine of his own Paramire where he proposeth plagues of the being of nature of the being of poyson as if any Plague could exist void of poyson or as if some poyson were not natural of the being of the Stars as though the Stars were above nature or without it of the being of witches these he attributes unto Incubi or devils in mens shapes hobgoblins sylphs c. he distinguisheth them also against the being of the Stars least peradventure witches may be the wise men which are said to bear rule over the Stars and of a God-like being and he there forgat his own and an imaginative being the remembrance whereof notwithstanding he ought to have had before the rest unlesse he had rather that an imaginative being cannot cause disease or that it is no where vigorous but in the possession of Witches And moreover as I judge a plague sent from the hand of God to despise the remedies of nature so also if there were any proper unto devils or witches which is not a thing to be believed yet at least it should in no wise owe its original unto the heaven For otherwise if there were a witch Plague it would be far more cruel than accustomed ones are by reason of an external poyson being adjoyned and a readinesse of its acting speedied and enlarged through the wrath of the evil spirit P. Boucher a Minorite Frier in his oriental or Eastern pilgrimages tels as an eye-witnesse That although Egypt be otherwise exceeding subject to the Plague yet that every year before the inundation of Nile a singular dew falls down which they call Elthalim at the coming whereof as many as lay sick of the Plague are readily and universally cured and are preserved as healthy there from by the same dew For if this be true neither hath it been sufficiently searched into by Prince Radzvil yet not any thing can be drawn from thence whereby we may know that the Plague is naturally caused by the heaven since from thence at least it follows that some meteors are healthy but others hurtful to some which none hath hitherto denied For although the Sun the day before the inundation of Nile returns every year almost unto the same place yet the same stars do not return as companions together with him And then that dew is not the off-spring of the heavens or stars nor of a meteorical Blas of the heaven but the day before the inundation of Nile the more high land of Aethiopia being more hot and southern was long since overflown which sends forth a great vapour from it filled with Nitre for the whole water of Nilus is nitrous which vapour is not only resolved into a dew the dew elsewhere weepes Honies Tereniabin or the fatnesse oftwood hony found in good quantity in the summer months with a manna-ie Being and Laudanum being as it were gummy things and among us the May dew daily abounds with a sugary salt and accompanies Nile running but it well washeth the whole aire of Aegypt even by moistening it and refresheth the bodies of the sick not much otherwise than as a shower doth the earth after long driths At leastwise I being admonished by the holy scriptures despise the sooth-sayers of heaven Therefore if the heaven be the cause of a destroying or devouring Plague it ought likewise to be the cause of every other Plague Because the same Being in the Species obtaines the same constitutive causes from which the Species it self recieveth its identity or samelinesse Therefore I constantly deny that a pestilent poyson is bred by the heaven or dismissed from the stars but all Plagues which are not singularly sent from God for a scourge are either endemical ones or proper to a Country or framed by a certain terrour But those which are borrowed as being drawn in from contagion do follow their own seed and ferment But an endemical Plague although it be drawn in from without occasionally yet it is not to be reckoned for the plague unlesse the terrour of our Archeus do first frame a poysonous Idea of sore fear conceived from the endemical Being even as shall by and by be manifested I deny moreover that any Plague is endemical For although the aire may myire the bodies of many unto diverse confusions of putrefaction yet it is in no wise the original cause of a Postilential poyson For as all putrefaction differs from the Plague so in like manner also the poyson of the Plague differs from any corruption that is the daughter of a thereor The which unlesse it be rightly and perfectly known the nature of the Plague also shall not be able to be any way understood and much lesse a radical healing of the same promoted For a conclusion of this Chapter I will adde an argument which is drawn from the bank of rivers For I have seen those who that they might avoyd houses infected with the Plague departed from Antwerp others who fled from the Smalpocks through which two years before they as yet carried about with them a face he potted with the scats thereof which were smitten in the river Scalds it self with the diseases which they presumed they had avoyded and had withdrawn themselves as healthy I remember also that a certain girle was cured by me of the Leprousy at Vilvord who when shew is now accounted to have been whole for the space of seven weeks and returned to Antwerp she presently felt in the River it self the Leprousie to bud again upon her throughout her whole body Who at
the air water or earth that that can neither be a disease in it self nor the containing cause thereof Yea whatsoever is marked with the name of antecedent causes is nothing but the occasional cause causing nothing by it self but by accident nor any thing without an appropriation received in us Wherefore they neither betoken nor desire nor prescribe a cure but only a caution or flight The occasions therefore of the Plague are to be considered as the occasions of diseases being sometime entertained do passe into the order of causes First of all therefore I have already sufficiently taught that the Pest is not sent down from the Heavens And seeing every effect is the fruit or product of its own and not of anothers tree therefore every cause produceth its own and not anothers effect therefore the Pest hath a specifical proper and not a forreign cause For neither may we distinguish of Plagues by their accidents concomitants or signates because they are those which flow immediately from the diversity of subjects because they diversly vary after the manner and nature of the receiver according to the custom of the Beings of nature Wherefore also the Pest consisting of matter form essence a seed and properties requires also to have its own and one onely species seeing the very essence it self of things or defects is most near to individuals But if it either happen from without or be generated within that is all one seeing from thence the Plague is now constituted Again if it do the more swiftly or slowly defile its issue be the more violent and speedy do invade diverse parts or diversly disquiet the body yet that doth not therefore change the species of the poyson For they are only the signs of quantiry co-mixture of a ferment appropriation and incidency on the parts receiving Otherwise the internal and formal poyson of the Pest and that which conteins the thingliness thereof is ãâã âys singular in every individual Because the essence or Being of things consisteth in the simplicity of their own species as there is the same essence of fire on both sides whether it be great or little whether quiet or driven with the bellows or lastly whether the flame shall be red yellow green or sky-coloured Therefore the remote crude and first occasional matter of the pestilence is an air putrified through continuance or rather a hoary putrified Gas which putrefaction of the air according to the experience of the fire which Adeptists promise hath not as yet the 8200. part of its own seminal body The which thou shalt the more easily comprehend if thou considerest a hoary putrified vessel and hogs-head of wine now exhausted without any weight of it self to corrupt new and old wines infused in the hogs-head For I have treated in my discourses of natural Phylosophy concerning the nature of a ferment putrifying by contmuance and after what sort vegetables do arise from an incorporeal and putrified seed that from hence the progeny of the Pest may be the more distinctly made manifest Moreover I have shewn that the earth is the mother of putrefaction through continuance that we may know that popular Plagues do draw their first occasional matter from an earthquake and from the consequences of camps and siedges For therefore as much as the earth differs from the heaven so much also is the occasional matter of the Pâst remote from the Heaven But I call this first matter that incorporeal hoary puârified poyson existing in the Gas of the earth And so I substitute this poyson as theremoâe matter under another more near poyson which disposeth the matter of the Archeus whereby he may the more easily assent and conceive in himself a pestilent terrour that at length a formal pestilential essence may suddenly come upon the previous dispositions hereof But besides if I must duely Phylosophize concerning the infections of the Air I ought of necessity to repeate the Anatomy thereof from the fore assayed doctrine of the elements in my treatise of natural of Phylosophy The air therefore in it self is one of the first-born elements being transparent and void as well of lightnesse as weight unchangeable and perpetual being endowed with natural cold unlesse it be hindered by the strength of scituations and things co mixed with it but being every where filled with pores and for this cause suffering an extension or pressing together of it self The porosities whereof are either filled with vapours and forreign exhalations or remayning in their integrity they plainly gape being void of a body the which I have elsewhere demonstrated in the treatise of a necessary Vacuum For in very deed if the air were without pores that are empty of every body vapours could not be lifted up without a penetration of bodies But since a most manifest enlargement and com-pression of the air is granted as I have elsewhere fully demonstrated an emptinesse also is of necessity granted For such porosities in the air are as it were wombs wherein the vapours the fruits of the water are again resolved into the last simplicity of waters from whence they proceeded and are spoyled of any signatures of their former seeds whatsoever But those effluxes in the air are forreign ây accident and various according to the disposition of the concrete body from whence they exhaled First of all they are the vapours of pure and simple water and then of the waters of the salt sea which season the rain with their vaporous brine and for that cause preserâe it from corruption For otherwise by reason of the societies of diverse exhalations being admixed with it rain waters would of necessity putrifie and stink no lesse than clouds in mountains and most miââs The poysons therefore of the air being drawn in are partly entertained in manner of a vapour in its porosities and do partly defile the very body of the air without a corporeal mixture even as glasse conceiveth odours which defilement hath of right the name of an impression I have an house in a plain field being rich on its South-side in a wood of oakes but on the north it respecteth pleasant meadows moreover toward both the mansions of the Sun it hath hils that are fruitful in corn But linnen cloaths being there washed and âânced in the fountain being hung up in the loft look most neatly white while the North wind blows and here and there also from east to west or on the other hand from west to east But the south-winde only blowing and the southerly windowes being opened they are notably yellow with a clayie colour For from the numerous oakes a tinging vapour is belched forth into the air and I have learned that this vapour is breathed in by us as also drunk up by the linnen And also thus from Groves of oakes after the Summer solstice an hidden vapour doth exhale which inâecteth an unwonted countenance and neck with a frequent itching pustule or wheale and afterwards they becoââ plainly visible in the
legs and elsewhere For there are somethings in the air which are perceived by the smelling of the nostrils in the next place there are other things which are distinguished by dogs only And lastly there are also other things which are voyd of all odour although not void of contagion For truly the serment of a poyson as such may be free from smel Therefore every country produceth and suffereth its own sicknesses For why nature is subject to the soile neither doth every Land bring-forth all things Because diverse vapours are brought forth in the air according to the variety of the soile Which things I more fully sifting with my self have often admired that our life is extended unto so many years since we are environed on every side with so manifold a guard of most potent enemies since we admit the same so deeply within us and are constrained to attract them against our will And that not only by breathing but also by a magnet or attraction which sports aftes its own manner through the habit of the flesh For I who have been often and long present without-fear among the fumes of live coals and the odours of other things have reaâly felt those odours and fumes not only to be derived in a straight line into my breast but also from thence into my stomach and therefore that our belchings do express those smoaky fumes conceived For so the breath blown out of the lungs resembleth the smells of Garlick and Onyons that are eaten although collected thorow the Nostrils but the plague is drawn in on both sides But a voluntary Pest which is begotten not from without but within bewrays it self in the arm-pits and groyn but seldom behind the ears For this Pest for the most part issues forth from drawn-in odours But that which is infamous in spots proceeds from an internal poyson being first smothered within and therefore the worst of all as it is for the most part intended or increased with the fermental putrefaction of suffocation But that which shews forth Carbuncles is either a strong expulsion which casteth farther than into the next âmunctory or which ariseth from the touch of a contagious matter or from an in-breathed poyson of the plague For that Pest which hath invaded from a co-touching although it be more slow than that which otherwise insulteth from an universal cause yet for the most part it is more deadly Because the Archeus implanted in the member is slain by this plague and from thence the part draws a pestilential Gangren for succouring whereof the whole Archeus is the more negligent he meditating of defending the bowels as fleeing betakes himself inwards and that mortal Gangren proceeds to creep Also remedies and their intention are for the most part idle for escharring of the outward parts and that afterwards the Escharre may quickly fall off For in this respect all Emplaisters and attracting things are administred but they are seldom administred as that they overcome the poyson it self But a plague from without as it is chiefly to be feared in the joynts so on the other hand that which is darted from within to without involveth the less danger And indeed that which is bred within doth primarily terrifie the Archeus and therefore it is sudden and very powerful But the poyson of a plague that is caught by touching after it hath insinuated it self into the Archeus because he is that which is the first living and the last dying and the only Ruler of things inwardly to be done being at length confirmed after the manner of poyson it easily infecteth the rest For truly the Archeus himself being once infected presently conceiveth a pestiferous image of terrour and the raines of governing the body being forsaken he communicates it to his Associates In the next place although sweat be profitable in every plague yet less in that which hath privily entred by an external co-touching at least it is in no wise therefore to be neglected Moreover in the plague of a particular individual person by whom the whole people in common are now and then afflicted there a fermental putrefaction doth for the most part begin within which being once suddenly laid hold of the poysonous image of an Archeal terrour is from thence the more easily committed That Pest is the more swift which is drawn inwards from the external putrefaction of an odour because it presently associates unto it two degrees to wit a putrefaction through continuance and a mumial and co-marriageable ferment But there is no need that that hoary putrefaction should be perceiveable by the nostrils with an aversness For if dogs which exceed us in smelling do sent an hoary putrefaction or the foot-step of their Master in the way our Archeus himself doth as yet far more easily smell out-those things which are within and therefore a putrified odour cannot hurt unless it shall find a mumial serment within whereunto it may couple it self Then indeed there is now forthwith a forreign matter nevertheless as yet wanting a contagion Therefore it behoveth that the matter be furnished with full conditions and with a formality of acting For these two are as yet as it were the occasional and provoking causes Again as concerning the Tartar of the blood there hath been enough spoken that it is a product of the Pest and that it waits for this or is made out of hand at the coming of the plague The first term therefore of making the Pest is an hoary putrified Gas the which seeing it cannot infect without a co-resemblance of appropriation it requires another correlative term which is a mumial ferment without which there is not an appropriation to wit the Archeus the receiver of the Pest For truly the poysonous matter of the plague being by contagion derived into us defiles not any one unless the Archeus shall lay hold of it and appropriate it to himself wherein surely the Archeus labours improvidently For from thenceforth the Pest conceiveth a terrour by his own phantasie but not from the sore fear of the man to wit in which phantasie of Archeal terrour the Archeus brings forth a pestilential poyson which is the very Idea of the conceived terrour being cloathed with the proper coat of the Archeus Alas then the Pest is present within and doth soon easily disturb the whole man The image of the Pestilence therefore consisteth of an Archeal air as of the matter containing whereon the poyson of the terrour of the Archeus is imprinted as the immediate efficient cause For neither therefore doth the poyson of the plague always defile any one whatsoever although it shall presently find an odour in us agreeable to it self because the mumial ferment although it be internal yet nevertheless it is only an occasional mean in respect of the contagious application or of the infection applied which appropriation immediately consisteth in a real and actual congress of the image bred by terrour which the Archeus conceiveth from the aforesaid
now I directly behold or cast my eye on the Affects of the Womb For from the Effect I am induced to believe that in enchantments the most powerful part of the whole tragedy doth depend on the Idea's of the bond-slaves of the Devil and so that they do originally proceed from conceptions even as I have demonstrated in its place because those things which naturally do help those that are enchanted do also cure the passions of the Womb and on the other hand but that the Womb which else is quiet is stirred up into animosity or wrathfulness by anger and grief is so without controversie that it is known to poor Women and old Women themselves Neither doth any thing hurt the virtues implanted in the Womb which is plainly a non-being as a cogitation is unless it be made most nearly to approach into the form of a Being at the original of all motions in us But I have endeavoured by a long tract of Words to convince of this progress in Idea's Wherefore also I am constrained to ascribe the like nativity in enchantments For indeed although Odoriferus and grateful Spices do weaken many Women yet any ill smelling and stinking things ought not therefore to cure them For Example For Assa or the smell of fuming Sulphur do not refresh distempers of the Womb as they do stink for neither do they alwayes equally refresh all Women alike or simply but because they restrain or slay the Idea's that are imprinted without the Womb So although sweet things do weaken them therefore bitter things as such do cure them For I have taught first of all that contraries do not exist in Nature Wherefore an argument from the contrary sense although it may be of value in the Law Yet not in Nature because the contentions and brawlings of the Law are not found in Nature Neither is it to be thought in the mean time that the Remedies of the Womb do consist in that which is temperate as it were the middle of Extreams the refuge of qualities mutually broken being taken away from extreams but altogether in a free Arcanum So indeed that although no Simple be an unpartaker of the first Qualities yet things appropriated do least of all cure the Affects of the Womb in respect of those Qualities But such a kind of Arcanum is the fire or sweetness of the Sulphur of the Vitriol of Venus or Copper and likewise the volatile tincture of Coral the Essence of Amber the Agath-stone or Jet the Nettle with a white-hooded Flower that doth not sting the black Gooseberry Ballote or the kind of Horehound so called Rue Southern-wood Sage Nep the berries of Elder of Wallwort or dwarfe-Elder Assa-fetida the wart or hillock of a Horses Ham Golden shining Coral therefore is a stony Herb or an herbie Stone born for the destruction of Sorceries For even as Sorceries are made by an Idea irregularly transplanted in filths to wit the which Idea was already before seminal in its own Spirit yet while it it inserted in filths it wanders into a Poyson So indeed the seminal virtue in Coral is inserted into a stonifying matter If therefore there be he who can seperate the vegetable part from the stone of Coral now an endowment of Nature it attained or the Idea of that Simple which doth vindicate and transplant the Idea's transplanted into a Poyson For I have observed how unvoluntarily the Devil could endure this Stone Because I knew a Noble-man enchanted on whom although Bracelets of Beads of Coral were strongly bound yet they would presently burst asunder from thence The like whereof doth occur in that because Women being ill at ease bright golden Coral doth presently wax pale as it were taking compassion on them the which notwithstanding doth resume itâ former brightness of redness with the health of the Womans Womb. But not any kind of Simples do equally cure the enchanted as neither all Affects of the Womb alike for all particular Simples have their own Endowments their Idea's and do take away hurtful Idea's their compeers To wit Southern-wood Sage and Rue do drive away the Idea's of Fear Mugwort the Nettle Ballote and black Gooseberry do prevail in cases contracted from Grief But Assa Castoreum the Elder berries the Essence of the Agath or Jet in cases caused from Anger But Nep Valerian and Venus or Maiden-Hair in cases resulting fââm the Idea of Hatred Even as Saint Johns Wort and the third Phu in Idea's that are ââl of Fury So an Hare dried the Stones of some Beasts being dryed in the Smoak the rod of a Stage Agnus Castus or the Willow Vitex and Amber in Idea's bred through the suggestion of Lust But the mineral Electrum Coral prepared and the greater Arcanums do after some sort ascend unto a universality whereunto the Secundines of a first-born Male the Gaule of a Snake c. do most nearly approach Truly the greater Secrets perpared by Art or things appropriated by natural Endowments do scarce leave any one destitute Furthermore how much the method proposed doth deviate from the Schooles let themselves judge for they do acknowledge the Disease of the Womb after a rustical manner To wit they have only known the inordinacies of the Menstrues and the Gonorrhea's or Whites because they refer the inordinate lusting of the Woman with Child and stranglings of the Womb among Sumptomes For they weigh the retaining of the Menstrues by a stoppage and are vainly intent to Cure it by opening things For they have been so accustomed not to heale or make sound their Patients that the name of Sanation hath departed into Oblivion and Curation hath obtained its place For so they will have immoderate Courses to be cured by an inordinate opening of the Veins it being an undistinct observance with the common sort In the next place it is a thing full of Mockery that they do endeavour only by Phlebotomy to help as well the retained as the immoderate flowing Menstrues In those being retained they do only cut a Vein of the Ancle but ãâã their inordinate Fluxes the liver Vein in the Arm In both Cases I say they do draw out venal Blood in equal quantity because they have sometimes found that Nature being as well full of Danger and Fear as empty of Blood and Strength hath now and then desisted for a space from the begun fury of a Flux Perhaps it shall be alike if they shall make an Horse that is too wanton to halt through hurting of a Tendon But the Menstrues failing the Schooles have now forgotten Obstructions and as if the suppressing thereof did involue a necessary Plethora or abounding of Humours they command a Vein to be cut the which is to have fought against the Effect but not against the obstructing or stopping Cause They know not I say that the Menstrues being detained do offend through a fury of the ruling power or faculty They sometimes give Solutives repeatedly to drink and those things which are feigned