besides true Friendship suspicion may as well arise in the Receivers as in the givers Mind Many give onely that they may receive with Usury others out of vanity and to make Creatures and Clients which they regarding no longer but as their inferiors and dependents 't is as dangerous for these to confide in their Benefactors as for a slave to use confidence towards his Master or a Vassal towards his Lord not often allow'd by the respect and timerousness of the less towards the great as commonly those are that give Whereas we ordinarily find in him whom we have oblig'd nothing but Subjection and Humility Virtues much disposing the mind to Gratitude which cannot but assure their Benefactors of their fidelity Nor can they easily be ungrateful if they would your confidence in them obliging them continually to fidelity and withall giving them occasion to requite your kindnesses by their assiduity and services Which was the recompence wherewith the poor amongst the Jews pay'd their Creditors by serving them for some years So that he is scarce less blameable who distrusts him whom he hath oblig'd and by this diffidence deprives him of the means of requital then he who having receiv'd a benefit betrayes his Benefactor the Injustice being almost alike in both If the first complains of having been deceiv'd by him whom he finds ungrateful the second in whom his Benefactor puts not the confidence which he ought will have no less cause of complaint that on the contrary he hath distrusted him and soil'd the lustre of the first Obligation by his diffidence and bad opinion of him which is to tax himself of impudence for having done good to one unworthy of it The Third said That if Men were perfect Communicative Justice would require of them that the receiver of a benefit should repay the like or at least some acknowledgment by his endeavours Which the Poets intimated by the Graces holding Hand in Hand But the perversity of Man is such that the more he is oblig'd to this Duty the worse he acquits himself thereof not doing any thing handsomely but what he does freely and because being a vain-glorious Creature he hates nothing so much as to be subject and to pay homage to him that hath done him good whose presence seems to upbraid him with his own meaness If he loves his Benefactor 't is with an interess'd and mercenary affection whereas that of the former is free from all self-respect and proceeds meerly from a principle of Virtue and consequently is with more reason to be rely'd upon Moreover a Work-man loves his Production more then he is lov'd by it as also God doth his Creatures and Fathers their Children Now a Benefactor who is a kind of Work-man and Artificer of our good Fortune cherishes and loves us as his work and creatures because he seems concern'd for our preservation just as Causes are for that of their Effects in which themselves revive and seem to be reproduc'd The Fourth said That our Natural Sentiments incline us more to rely upon those whom we have oblig'd then upon those who have oblig'd us not so much by way of challenging a requital for Obligations are not to be done in hope of recompence which would be exchange rather than kindness as because we are apt to trust those most whom we love most But we love those most to whom we have given greatest Testimony of our Affections A Man may be deceiv'd in reckoning his benefits as causes of Amity in the receiver but they are certain Effects and Signs of Affection in the bestower So that in respect of us 't is manifestly better to trust him whom we have oblig'd than him who hath oblig'd us The same is prov'd also in respect of him that is oblig'd even the wild beasts are tam'd and instead of hurting obey those that feed them and therefore 't were injurious to humanity not to judge It capable of acknowledging a benefit which it knows how to conferr without provocation For upon examination the Causes of Ingratitude will be found to arise from those who boast of the title of Benefactors the imprudence whereof is so great in some that they displease more than oblige by Presents unseasonably given of no value and contrary to Seneca's advice of little duration intermixt with ill Offices instead of being fenc'd with new to keep out the rain of the disgusts and coldnesses which destroy Friendship with regret and not with a chearful Countenance after denials and delayes so that the thing seemes rather snatch'd then receiv'd diminish'd by burthensome conditions and lastly nullifi'd by reproaches if not requited as soon as was expected Whence such pretended benefits deserve rather the name of Out-rages And nevertheless being there are many that are grateful even for such benefits we may justly conclude that Courtesies done with their due circumstances are far more capable to oblige the receivers to Gratitude which cannot consist with Unfaithfulness The Fifth said That the Decision of this as of all other Moral Questions depends upon persons times places and other circumstances whereupon Prudence is founded which teaches when how and whom we are to trust Yet supposing circumstances alike and two persons equally virtuous one of which hath done me good and the other receiv'd good from me the contrary Reason of the Law which presumes him alwayes bad who hath been once bad makes me judge That he who hath once done me good will sooner do me good again then another and therefore that I ought rather to trust him CONFERENCE CXXV Of the Causes of Freezing and Thawing AS Heat and Cold are the Efficient Causes of all Meteors so Driness and Moisture supply Matter for them sublim'd and made volatil by extraneous Heat Vapours which make Aqueous Meteors are of two sorts some ascend to the Middle Region of the Air whose coldness condenses them into a Cloud which afterwards turnes into Rain Snow or Hail Others through the weakness of Heat or tenuity of their Matter unable to ascend turn into Mists and Dew and the Serene which preceedes it and Frost For the Matter both of Frost and Dew is a subtil thin Vapour which when spread equally and uniformly about the Earth hinders not the Air 's transparency which therefore in time of Frost is alwayes clear and serene But their Efficient is distinct that of Dew is the moderate Coldness of the Night whence 't is most frequent in temperate Seasons that of a Frost is Vehement Cold whereby being first condens'd it falls down in form of Crystal Yet Cold alone suffices not to produce Frost for then Water which is cold in an eminent degree should be alwayes frozen But some terrene and gross parts must serve for an uniting medium to compact the moist parts of the Water or Vapour which being naturally fluid cannot be link'd together but by means of some dry parts fixing and restraining their fluidity Hence the impurest and most compounded Liquors are soonest frozen
the prejudice of a third Which yet hath not place in all there being found good Judges who would condemn their own Child if he had a bad Cause But to attribute to self-love the defect of clear-sightedness is to speak too Poetically since the Prince of Poets believes it not possible to deceive a Lover and the knowledge we have of others affairs hath no other foundation but that which we have of our own just as self-love is given us for a rule of that of our Neighbour The Third said That which happens most frequently being the rule and the rest the exception and the greatest part of Men resembling that Lamia who being blind at home put on her Eyes when she went abroad it must be agreed that we are less clear-sighted in our own than in others affairs Which is the meaning of the Proverb of the wallet in the forepart of which the bearer puts other Mens matters casting his own into the part behind upon his back Moreover to see clear is to see without clouds or mists such as are those of the Passions Fear Hope Avarice Revenge Ambition Anger and all the rest which suffer not the Species to be calmly represented to the Intellect which receives the same as untowardly as stirred water or a Looking-glass sullied with incessant clouds or vapors receive an Image objected to them 't is true the Passions have some effect upon it in affairs without but as themselves so their trouble is less and he is the best Judge who gives them no admittance at all which cannot be in our own affairs where consequently we are no less clear than in those of others CONFERENCE CLXXXIX Of the Original of Mountains GOD having created the world in perfection it was requisite there should be Plains Mountains and Vallies upon the Earth without which agreeable variety there would be no proportion in its parts wherein nevertheless consists its principal ornament which hath given it the name of world no other beginning of Mountains seems assignable but that of the world Nor is there any possibility in attributing another Cause to those great Mountains which separate not only Provinces and States but the parts of the world all the Causes that can be assigned thereof being unequal to such an Effect Which the discovery of the inequalities of the Celestial Bodies observed in our dayes by Galileo's Tubes in some sort confirmed for by them Mountains are discerned in some Planets especially an eminent one in the Orbe of Mars which Mountain cannot reasonably be attributed to any cause but his primary construction The same may likewise be said of the Mountains of the Earth which besides having necessarily its slopenesses and declivities which are followed by Rivers and Torrents there is no more difficulty to conceive a Mountain then an elevated place in the Earth so that to say that from the beginning there was no place higher in one part of the earth then in another is to gain-say Scripture which saith that there were four Rivers in Eden each whereof had its current which could not be unless the place of their rise were higher then that whereunto they tended The Second said That the proportion from which the ornament of the World results is sufficiently manifested in the correspondence of the four Elements with the Heavens and of the Heavens with themselves yea in all compounds which result from those Elements moved by heat and the Celestial influences without fancying a craggy Earth from the beginning to the prejudice of the perfection which is found in the Spherical Figure which God hath also pourtray'd in all his works which observe the same exactly or come as near it as their use will permit as is seen particularly in the fabrick of Man's Body his master-piece whereof all the original parts have somewhat of the Spherical or Cylindrical Figure which is the production of a Circle And if the other Elements of Fire Air and Water are absolutely round and cannot be otherwise conceived though their consistence be fluid and as such more easily mutable in figure 't is much more likely that the earth had that exactly round figure at the beginning otherwise the Waters could not have covered it as they did since not being diminished from the beginning of the World till this time they are not at this day capable of covering it 'T is certain then that God gave the Earth that Spherical form it being to serve for the bulk and Centre to all the other Elements by means of which roundness the Water covered it equally but when it was time to render the Earth habitable to Animals and for that end to discover a part of it it was to be rendered more hollow in some places and more elevated in others since there is no Mountain without a Valley nor on the contrary Afterwards it came to pass that the Rain washed away whatsoever was fat and unctuous in those higher places and carrying it into Brooks and Rivers and thence into the Sea this Sea by the impetuosity of his waves makes great abyffes in some places and banks of sand in others but the great and notable change happened in the universal Deluge when the many Gulfs below and Windows on high as the Scripture speaks overflowed the whole Earth for forty days and forty nights together the Earth being thus become a Sea was in a manner new shaped by the torrents of the waters and the violence of the same waves which made Abysses in some places and Mountains in others according as the Earth happened to be more or less compact and apt for resistance Which is yet easier to be conceived of Rocks which being unapt to be mollified by either that universal rovage of waters or torrents superven'd in four thousand years since they remain intire and appear at this day as supercilious as ever over the more depressed parts round about The Third said That some Mountains were produced at the Creation others since partly by Rains and Torrents partly by Winds and Earth-quakes which have also sometimes levell'd Hills and reduced them into Valleys so that you cannot assign one certain or general cause of all For there is no more reason to believe that the ravages of waters have produced Mountains then that they have levell'd and filled Valleys with their soil as 't is ordinarily seen that the fattest portion of Mountainous places is washed away by Rain into Valleys and fertilizes the same And the smallness of the Earth compared to the rest of the world permits not its inequalities to make any notable disproportion in it or hinder it from being called Round as appears in Eclipses caused by the shadow of the Earth which she sends as regularly towards Heaven as if she were perfectly round The Fourth said That the waters of the Sea from which according to the Scripture all waters issue and return thither impetuously entring into the caverns of the Earth go winding along there till they find resistance
into the Minds of the vulgar with whom the wisest being oblig'd to comply in matter of Language it comes to pass at last that what was before but a common saying finds a degree of assent among the most considerate Nay what is not any longer to be endur'd they think it not enough to maintain this groundless perswasion but there are some so ridiculous as to derive a new kind of Divination from it which they call Amniomantia whereby they promise to foretel what-ever happiness or unhappiness should befall a Child newly born by the colour of that Membrane whereof they affirm that the redness signifies good success and that the blackness or blewness of it denotes the contrary To which they add another kind of Divination call'd Omphalomantia which teaches them to judge by the knots of the string whereby the Child is fasten'd to the After-burthen how many Children more the Mother shall have who according to their judgement will be Males if those intersections be of a colour inclining to black and Females if they be white which Observations are not only impertinent but also impious and superstitious The Third said That the common perswasion of the happiness attending Children born with these Coifs is well-grounded provided that it be taken in the sense wherein the Physicians who in all probability are more likely to be the Authors of it than those simple Women who receiv'd it from them would have it to be understood to wit that those who thus born cover'd with that fortunate Membrane in regard they are not put to so much trouble nor suffer so great violence in the passage by reason of its being open and easie come forth cloath'd out of their Mothers Wombs without being oblig'd to leave behind them the Membranes wherein they had been enclos'd in the Matrix whereas most other Children are forc'd to quit them at their coming into the World by reason of the Obstructions they meet with in their passage through those narrow streights which consequently is so much the more painful and laborious to them than it is to such as are coifed who are not to be imagin'd ever the more happy as to the remainder of their lives whereof the good or bad conduct are the true Causes of their happiness or unhappiness and not that Coif which can neither produce nor signifie them The Fourth said That those Children who are born thus coifed are not only more happy in their Birth but they are also such in all the actions of their lives as being commonly more peaceable and of a more quiet Constitution than such as leave that Membrane within their former lodgings who are accordingly more turbulent and restless and for that reason have not those insinuations whereby the former are recommended For in these the moderation of their manners and demeanour consequent to that of their humours gaining the hearts of all those with whom they converse raises them into the general esteem of all and so facilitates their accession to Honours and Employments it being certain that there may be some judgment made of the course of Life a Man is likely to take by the deportment of his Child-hood so is it no hard matter to give a ghess at the same by that of the Infant when he makes his first sally out of his Mothers Womb which is one of the most remarkable transactions of his Life Whence it may be inferr'd that that first coming abroad being free from the trouble and agitation whereof all others are sensible and which makes them forget their Vesture which is left behind by the way they ought accordingly to be dispenc'd from the misfortunes incident to others and enjoy a particular happiness The Fifth said That the most restless and most turbulent persons are commonly the most happy in this world whereas those who endeavour to walk according to the strict rules of Modesty and Reservedness do not carry on their business so well as the former do who confidently attempt any thing and imagine themselves the favourites of Fortune And thence it is that she on the other side is so assistant to them that though it be granted the Children born cloth'd are more meek and moderate than those who come into the World after the common rate yet would the clean contrary to what is pretended follow from it For instead of being cherish'd by Fortune it is seldom that she smiles on them but is much more kind to those stirring and tumultuary Spirits who many times obtain greater favours of her than they durst hope for had they demean'd themselves towards her with less earnestness and importunity The Sixth said That if every Man be the Artizan of his own Fortune those who are of the best Constitution and strongest Temper ought to be more happy than others whose irregularity of humors does manifestly cause that of their Actions and Fortunes Now the Children born with Cawls and Coifs about them seem to be less vigorous and of a weaker disposition than those who come into the World without any inasmuch as the latter being more earnest and violent are no sooner sensible of the time of their Deliverance but they courageously break through the Chains whereby they are detain'd the Membranes whereby they are encompass'd which those others having neither the Strength nor Courage to do it gives a great presumption that they will express but little upon other more pressing occasions and consequently they will content themselves with the mediocrity of their Conditions and not aspire to any thing extraordinary CONFERENCE CCXXXVII Of Antiperistasis SO great is the Indulgence of Nature that she thought it not enough to bestow Being and Existence on the things she hath produc'd but she hath also imprinted in them a strong Inclination to preserve it by fortifying them against the assaults of their Contraries the presence whereof sets them on such an edge that they become so much the more active And this is not only confirm'd in Animate Beings such as are Plants and Animals which vigorously oppose what-ever is hurtful to them by so powerful a Vertue that Men have been forc'd to find out a particular name for it to wit Antipathy but also in other Inanimate Bodies which generously stand upon the defensive when they are set upon by External Agents whose contrary qualities coming to engage against them they redouble their Forces and rally all together as it were into a Body the better to receive the Charge This is that which the Philosophers call Antiperistasis which is a vigorous resistance of the Subject caus'd by the contrariety of an Agent which encompasses it of all sides purposely to destroy or corrupt it It will be to no purpose to enter into any Dispute concerning the Existence of that which we call Antiperistasis but we shall lay it down for granted though it be contested by Cardan and some other Philosophers who maintain that Water Air and the other Subterraneous Bodies are not actually colder at
are the sole Causes of the distinction of Faculties For Entity immaterial and spiritual is as true and intelligible the object of the Understanding but as good and desirable 't is the object of the Will which are two wholly different formal Reasons Now though the Intellect and the Will are two different Faculties yet there is such a dependance between them that the one can do nothing without the other and they communicate mutual assistance the Understanding supplies Reasons and Counsels which the Will causes the Powers under its dominion to execute for 't is a blind Queen having no knowledg of her own but only what light she receives from the Intellect But how can it see the same if blind as 't is fancied We answer that as all things have a bent and natural inclination to their proper good though they know it not as even the Intellect assents to a truth known by ratiocination but knows not why it assents to a first Principle as That the whole is greater then its part and that 2 and 1 make 3 these being connate Notions so the Will is carried to the Good propos'd to it by the Understanding because the goodness and sutableness thereof engage it to endeavours of enjoying it wherein its supream Felicity lyes The Third said Since the Will is a desire every desire a motion and every motion from some other nothing moving it self the Will cannot desire unless mov'd by some superior power and knowledg For as there is no desire without knowledg so to the end this may not be idle and unprofitable Nature hath joyn'd an Appetite to it to wit a Sensitive Appetite to the knowledg of a Sensible Good apprehended such by the Imagination which is common to Men and Brutes and a Rational Appetite the Will to the knowledg of an honest Good apprehended such by the Understanding And whereas immaterial things cannot be known by themselves but by such as are sensible and corporeal we cannot better judge of the manner whereby the Intellect moves the Will then by that whereby the Imagination moves the Sensitive Appetite which is the sweetness of the Object whose Species being receiv'd by some one of the outward Senses and carried from the Common sense to the Phansie which relishes the same to the full is then propos'd to the Sensitive Appetite which presently flyes to it oftentimes so impetuously as that it hurries the Reason and the Will along with it self and constrains them to yield to the violence of those Passions which it excites to joyn with it in pursuit of that good and which itre doubles upon the occurrence of any obstacle to its designs In like sort the Will is carried of it self to a vertuous action when the Understanding represents the honesty of the same to it provided it be not otherwise prepossess'd and the said action be not accompani'd with difficulties and thorns as commonly happens for then that Sensitive Appetite oftentimes gets the better of Reason the Flesh of the Spirit There is this difference between the motions of the Will and the Appetite that the latter necessarily follows the duct of the Imagination by which 't is inclin'd inspite of it self towards a Delectable Good but the Will common to us with Angels is so mov'd by the Intellect that nevertheless it always remains mistress of its own actions and can do either good or evil by vertue of its liberty which alone discriminates Man from Beast and gives him right of empire and command which the Civilians define a power of making use of any thing at one's pleasure and without which not only Judgments Vertues Vices Rewards and Punishments Praises and Dispraises Consultations and Deliberations would be useless but also all Laws would be to no purpose Man would be in worse condition then Brutes over whom he hath no other advantage but that of Reason which would serve for nothing if he acted things necessarily as other Agents do and not freely and voluntarily The Fourth said He had always accounted it a vain enquiry how the Understanding moves the Will and the Senses the Sensitive Appetite towards their Objects because the Cognoscitive Faculty and these Appetites being really distinct and having nothing common there cannot intervene any commerce between them They are Officers that have severed charges without having any thing to share or dispatch together Nevertheless it being true that we love nothing but what is first apprehended and judg'd amiable we must seek this dependance somwhat higher Now all actions are of the whole Compositum and consequently Man who is the whole is he who by his knowledg either of Sense or of the Intellect judges what both the one and the other Appetite ought to embrace or reject Then after he hath pass'd his judgment by his Cognoscitive Faculty he determines himself to follow by his Appetite what he hath judg'd fit to be done in consequence whereof he applies his Motive Faculty to the execution of his Resolution So that 't is Man that moves himself by his Will towards Good or Evil to pursue or avoid after he hath consider'd what he ought to will how and in what sort to comport himself By this means we obviate a world of difficulties arising from this Question and resolve many as amongst others How the Understanding comes to illuminate corporeal phantasms without establishing an Intellectus Agens for that purpose whose office is pretended to sublime those phantasms by denudating them of their singularity and materiality that so they may become actually intelligible and proportionate to the Intellect For besides that 't is impossible to conceive how any spiritual light can fall from the Intellect upon a corporeal phantasm that which is corporeal being incapable of receiving any thing spiritual and the Intellect of producing any thing out of it self since all its actions are immanent we are deliver'd from all this trouble by saying that in the state of this present life Man by his outward and inward Senses takes in as much knowledg of things as they can give him and afterwards by his Understanding deduces and infers things which the phantasms alone could not acquaint him with Thus when a phantasm represents to him a thing which his eye beholds afar off he by his Understanding judges the same a Substance because the phantasm shews him that it subsists of it self if he see it walk he judges it alive So that 't is sufficient to the drawing of all his Consequences that he infer from the phantasms what they are capable to represent to him without need of spiritualizing them or of commerce between them and the Intellect In like manner 't is not needful that the Intellect shew the Will its Object but the man's seeing it is sufficient to cause him to move himself by his Will towards the Good which he apprehends For as a King hath his Scouts to discover the state of his Enemies upon whose report he holds a Council of War wherein he
whereby their violence redoubled makes the Earth rise in some places and so forms Mountains which therefore are more frequent on the Sea-coasts then elsewhere and seldom further from the same then a hundred and fifty Leagues Now that the Sea is higher then the Earth the Scripture notes and those that travel upon the Sea observe the truth of Genesis which saith that the waters were gathered together on a heap For being remote from a Port at such distance as would otherwise suffer the same to be seen the rising of the interposed waters intercepts the view thereof The Fifth said 'T is easie to conceive how waters running underground make breaches and abysses such as that at Rome into which Q. Curtius cast himself and also in many other places even in our time wherein a Town of the Grisons was totally involved in the ruines of a neighbouring Mountain whose foundations the torrents had undermined And what is found in digging up the ruines of Buildings paved streets and other footsteps of mens habitations so deep that the cause thereof cannot be attributed to a bare raising of the ground in building by some humane artifice shews that these changes happen'd by the depression and sinking of the ground whereon such Towns stood and by the overturning of neighbouring Mountains which in this case turn Plains into Valleys and Valleys into Plains or else into Mountains as also these Mountains into Levels all these changes which to us seem prodigious being no more so to Nature whose agents are proportional to their effect then when we cover an Ant-hill with a clod of Earth But 't is not likely that subterranean waters whose violence is broken by their windings can raise Mountains or so much as ordinarily Hills much less can they raise higher the cavities of Rocks which are the ordinary Basis of such Mountains since our Vaults are ruined by the sole defect of one cliff or stone which joyns and knits the rest together the sand Hills which the winds heap up in Lybia as the waves do the banks in the Sea pertaining as little to the Question as they deserve the name of Mountains Wherefore 't is probable that Mountains are as old as the Earth which was formed uneven by Gods command that so its declivities might serve for assembling the waters together for to say that the situation of the Sea is higher then the Earth is not only contrary to the experience of Dreiners who find the declivity of the Land by no more certain way then by the inclination of the waters but also to the belief and manner of speech of all the world who use the term of going downwards when people pass along with the stream of Rivers which run all into the Sea whose surface must therefore necessarily be lower then that of the earth Whereas it is said that all waters come from the Sea this is meant of vapors exhaled from it and converted into Rain and Springs from whence arise Rivulets Brooks and at length Rivers which terminate again in the Sea The Sixth said In pursuance of Copernicus's opinion which makes the earth turn about the Sun that the several concussions it receives from that motion may possibly elevate one place and debase another CONFERENCE CXC Whence proceed good and bad Gestures Gracefulness and ill Aspects THe Soul being the principle of all the actions we need go no further to find the cause of Gestures and Postures 'T is true that as this Soul is but a general cause being according to the opinion of most Divines alike in all men it must like melted Metal borrow its form from the Mould whereinto it is infused so the Soul follows the model of the Body and as she formed it so in some sort be modified by it exercising her functions variously according to the diversity of its Organs Whereunto also the humors and their mixture or temperament contributes very much Hence a man of small stature and cholerick hath quick and hasty motions the tall and phlegmatick more heavy and slow the Sanguine and middle-sized between both Nevertheless the principal reason is drawn from the conformation of the parts whence the Lame halts he who hath the Muscles and Ligaments of the hinder part of the Neck too short holds his Head too upright He who hath a great Mouth and a large Breast is a great talker and so of all the other parts from the diversity whereof even that of Languages is said to have come These Gestures are either universal as we see some gesticulate with the whole body or particular one contracting his Forehead another shrugging his Shoulders beating of measures with his Foot like a good Horse rubbing his Hands as if they were scabby or to be washed not being able to speak to any one without touching him pulling his Button or pushing him upon the Arm or Breast Where also is but too observable the troublesome way of some who never end their discourse but by an Interrogatory whether you hear them or at least by an hem which they continue till you answer them yea others interlard their speech with some word so impertinent that it takes away the grace from all the rest all Gestures words and vicious accents to which may be opposed others not affected or repeated too often because 't is chiefly their frequent repetition which renders them tedious and as blamable as the saying over and over the same word as on the contrary their seldomness serves for an excuse to those who have no other Above all it must be endeavoured that the Gestures suit or at least be not wholly opposite to that discourse which they accompany as that ignorant Comedian did who pronouncing these words O Heaven O Earth look'd downward at the first and cast up his Eyes at the last Whence one and the same Gesture may be good or bad in respect of the subject whereunto it is applied and according to its seldomness or frequency As for ill looks they are always disagreeable disfiguring the proportion of the countenance and proceeding also from the first conformation of the parts For as the Arm is bowed only at the Shoulder Cubit and Wrist and the Leg at the Knee and Ancle though the Soul which makes the flection be alike in all other parts but the articulation is only in those parts so the motion is carried alike to all the Muscles but only those disposed by their conformation to receive the figure of such grimaces are susceptible thereof They likewise sometimes happen upon Convulsion of the parts which cause the strange bendings we observe therein though never without a precedent disposition which may be called their antecedent cause The Second said That we ought to ascribe to the Imagination all the Motions and Gestures of the Body which are agreeable or displeasing according as they suit with that of the beholder Hence Fools and Children whose judgment is irregular are pleased with seeing such gesticulations and the grimacies of Jack-puddings
but 't is a sign of weakness of sight to see things out of their proportionate distance Much less probable is it that the Cholerick are more ingenious then the Melancholy since reflection is necessary to the making of a solid conclusion which the impatience of Choler cannot endure and indeed never was there seen a man of great parts who was not pensive And accordingly Northern people being more cold and reserv'd will carry it above other hotter Nations The Third said That as to Nations he conceiv'd that as not only the Plants but also the Pearls and Jewels of the East are more excellent and purer than those of other parts of the world so also are their Witts The Reason whereof is That the Sun coming from the East bestows the First-fruits of his own and other Celestial Influences upon the Orientals which Influences like the impression of Perfumes are most vigorous in their beginning Moreover we see that God made use of the excellence of the spirits of those people to make the first and greatest Law-givers and Sages If Authors of new and untrue Religions have been found there this fortifies rather then destroyes this Opinion more Witt being requisite to maintain a bad than a good cause As for Temperaments the Sanguine hath the advantage First because 't is the most healthful Complexion and Health is the principal condition of a good Witt which cannot display it self perfectly in a sick body Secondly because Blood is the proximate matter of spirits and he that hath good Blood must have plenty of spirits Thirdly because this is the Complexion of the amorous who are the most ingenious people of the world Whence the Poet said Quis fallere possit amantem But if the Question be What Exercise or Employment hath the most ingenious people 't is harder to be detemin'd so great Witts being found at this day of all sorts of professions that 't is difficult to judge of which there are most Some will prefer the Scholastick Devines for their subtle disputes and nice distinctions others the Rational Physicians for their discourses and conjectures upon the causes of hidden diseases others the Mathematicians for their curious searches into Heaven it self or the Lawyers who manage their affairs so advantageously above others The Fourth said That absolutely speaking there is no quarter of the world more Oriental or Occidental than another these words having been invented only in respect to Men themselves to some of whom one and the same people is Oriental and yet Occidental to others since the world is round and all the parts of a Sphere are of the same Nature What differences there are must be taken from something else than the four parts of the world and particularly from Cold and Heat Thus those that live under the Poles are of a different Complexion both of Body and Mind from those that are between the Tropicks According to which difference the Inhabitants of the temperate Zones must be the most ingenious Cold being too much an Enemy to Life to advance the Wit and excessive Heat burning the Humors no less within than without as the woolly hair and black skin of the Nations expos'd to it manifest So that 't is no presumption in the French and other Nations under the same Climate to award the preheminence to themselves in this matter For the operations of the Mind as well as the digestions and other natural operations of the Body require a temperate not an excessive Heat And the levity imputed to our Nation is a proof of it since commonly the most ingenious are least stedfast in executing the things they have devis'd But amongst the French I account none more ingenious than the Lawyers who confute the Philosophical Maxim which saith That whatever hath a beginning hath also an end since they render Suits immortal Instead of the four causes taught by Naturalists they create others without number and in spight of the Maxim which saith There is no Vacuum they make one at length in the purses of their Clients The Fifth said That since there are good and bad ingenious and sots in all Lands to be the one or the other dependeth not upon the Climate Heaven from whence the Soul descends being alike in all places Nor is it likely that professions render Men more or less ingenious since those to which people are lead by natural inclination are rather Effects than Causes of good or bad parts As for those to which we are perswaded or forc'd nothing can be inferr'd from them having no affinity with our Nature Lastly nor doth Temper always contribute to render Men ingenious since there are some so of all Tempers Ages and Sexes The true Cause is the proportion which happens to be between the Soul and the Body at the first conformation Whence the surest signs of good parts are taken from the figure of the Body and chiefly of the Head which if sharp never makes a wise man as on the contrary great Heads and broad Fore-heads are always ingenious of whatever Country Vocation and Temper they be CONFERENCE CXCIII Of the Fraternity of the Rosie-Cross I Find that these Brethren being associated in Germany two or three hundred years ago sware mutual Fidelity to observe the Laws of their Fraternity the chief of which was Secrecy never to speak or write but in the Allegories of their Cabal whose pretension is to re-establish all Discipilines and Sciences especially Physick which they say is ignor'd and ill practis'd by all others themselves alone having the Knowledge of so many Secrets that they hold the Philosopers Stone for one of the least and professing to imitate sundry other Societies of ancient time as first that of the Kings Priests and Philosophers of Aegypt under the names of Isis Osiris Apis Anubis and Mercury the mysteries whereof they hid under their Hieroglyphical Letters leaving the use of the common way of writing to the vulgar For proof whereof they alledge that the first Priest of this Fraternity being urg'd by Alexander to discover to him the Secret of Isis and Osiris told him for the whole Secret that they were not gods but men whom they worshipt With which Answer Alexander was so well satisfied that he writ word thereof to his Mother Olympias desiring her to burn his Letter as soon as she had read it for fear of Scandal The second Society which they alledge is the College of the Eumolpides so called from Eumolpus its Author an Eleusinian Priest at Eleusis in Athens in imitation of that instituted in Greece by Orpheus to the honor of Baochus of which Eumolpides the supream Sacrificer carry'd a golden key in his mouth to mind him of keeping the Secret which was not communicated to all the initiated in this Order but only to such as were of approv'd discretion The Third they say was that of the Samothracians who were never troubled with sickness or poverty the two grand scourges of Life maintaining themselves in perpetual
ANOTHER COLLECTION OF Philosophical CONFERENCES OF THE French Virtuosi UPON QUESTIONS of all SORTS For the Improving of Natural Knowledg Made in the Assembly of the Beaux Esprits at Paris by the most Ingenious Persons of that Nation Render'd into English By G. HAVERS Gent. J. DAVIES of Kidwelly Gent. LONDON Printed for Thomas Dring and John Starkey and are to be sold at their Shops at the George in Fleet-street neer Clifford's-Inn and the Mitre between the Middle-Temple-Gate and Temple-bar 1665. IMPRIMATUR Novemb. 20. 1663. WILLIAM MORICE PREFACE THe good Reception a Volume of the like Conferences appears to have found last year by the speedy distribution of the Copies hath given encouragement to the Version and Publication of this wherein I assure my self the Readers will not find themselves worse entertain'd at the second Course then they were at the first the Questions here being proportionably more Philosophical and chosen from such Subjects as are most inquir'd into at this day by the Curious of our own Nation who undoubtedly will find some contentment if not satisfaction in reading what the Virtuosi of our Neighbour-Nation have discours'd touching those Matters I have often heard it spoken to the Commendation of an Eminent Peer in the last Reign That for an hour or two together he made the most agreeable Conversation in the World but if upon parting any one of the Company happened to reflect upon what he had heard he could not remember the least particular passage saving that he had spent such a portion of Time very deliciously 'T was a happy Faculty for the Man for he did his business by it and partly ow'd his Promotion to this Talent I shall pronounce no otherwise upon him but thus That perhaps as Tully said in almost a like case he was a better Gallant than a Wise Man should be At least this way of consuming Time argued a great Disease in Mens Minds when they could be contented to feed upon Air and were so squeamish as not to be able to bear the wholsom Diet of solid Discourse 'T is too apparent that the same Humor is still predominant in these our days wherein Gaming makes the whole Converse amongst the Gentry who like rapacious Animals meet together but to prey upon one another whilst old Stories or News and for want of matter so innocent Detractions Derisions and Abuses are the only things that furnish talk to the Plebeians Thus we live and yet pretend to be Reasonable Creatures whilst true and solid Reason is almost as obscurely discernable in our Commerce as Sense and Motion are in Sponges and Oisters But 't is hop'd the better practice of some Excellent Persons amongst our selves may contribute much to the Reformation of this and to help it forward it cannot but do some good by exciting us to emulation to see what been already done by some Gentlemen of France to whose excellent Wits the World is beholden for these Conferences THE CONTENTS CONFERENCE CI. I. OF Sleep and how long it ought to be II. Which is the strongest thing in the World Page 1 CONFERENCE CII I. Of the Gowt II. Which Condition is most expedient for the acquisition of Wisdom Riches or Poverty 7 CONFERENCE CIII I. Of Glass II. Of Fucusses or Cosmeticks 13 CONFERENCE CIV I. Of Tobacco II. Whether the Invention of Guns hath done more hurt than good 19 CONFERENCE CV I. Of Blood-letting II. Which is the most Excellent of the Soul 's three Faculties Imagination Memory or Judgment 25 CONFERENCE CVI. I. Of Dew II. Whether it be expedient for Women to be Learned 31 CONFERENCE CVII I. Whether it be good to use Chymical Remedies II. Whether the Reading of Romances be profitable 37 CONFERENCE CVIII I. Of Talismans II. Whether a Country-life or a City-life is to be preferr'd 43 CONFERENCE CIX I. Of Volcano's or Subterranean Fires II. Which age is most desirable 49 CONFERENCE CX I. Of Mineral Waters II. Whether it be better to give than to receive p. 55 CONFERENCE CXI I. Of Antidotes II. Which is most communicative Good or Evil. 61 CONFERENCE CXII I. Why Animals cry when they feel Pain II. Whether it be expedient to have Enemies 66 CONFERENCE CXIII I. Of the Iris or Rain-bow II. Whether the Reading of Books is a fitter way for Learning than Vocal Instructions 71 CONFERENCE CXIV I. Of the Milkie-Way II Which is most powerful Gold or Iron 79 CONFERENCE CXV I. Of the cause of Vapours II. Which is less culpable Rashness or Cowardice 85 CONFERENCE CXVI Which Climate is most proper for Long-life The second Question is remitted to the next Conference and 't is Resolv'd for divers Reasons that hereafter but one be handled at a time 90 CONFERENCE CXVII Which is most necessary to a State and most noble Physick or Law 93 CONFERENCE CXVIII Of Sea-sickness 96 CONFERENCE CXIX Of Love by Inclination or Sympathy 99 CONFERENCE CXX How the Vnderstanding moves the Will 102 CONFERENCE CXXI Whence come the Marks or Spots wherewith Children are born 107 CONFERENCE CXXII Of the Original of Forms 111 CONFERENCE CXXIII Whether Lean People are more healthy and long-liv'd than Fat 114 CONFERENCE CXXIV Whether we may better trust one whom we have oblig'd or one that hath oblig'd us 117 CONFERENCE CXXV Of the Causes of Freezing and Thawing 119 CONFERENCE CXXVI Of the Causes of the Small Pox. 123 CONFERENCE CXVII Whether we profit best by Precepts or Examples 126 CONFERENCE CXXVIII Of Incubi and Succubae and whether Devils can generate 129 CONFERENCE CXXIX VVhich Animal is happiest according to Nature 132 CONFERENCE CXXX VVhether is better that Men have many VVives or VVomen many Husbands 135 CONFERENCE CXXXI Of the manner of Accretion 138 CONFERENCE CXXXII VVhether the Dinner or Supper ought to be largest 141 CONFERENCE CXXXIII VVhich of the Humane Passions is most excusable 144 CONFERENCE CXXXIV VVhich is the most laudable Temperament 147 CONFERENCE CXXXV Of Happiness and Vnhappiness and whether men are Happy or Vnhappy because they really are so or because they think themselves so 150 CONFERENCE CXXXVI Of the Original of Precious Stones 153 CONFERENCE CXXXVII Of the Generation of Metals 156 CONFERENCE CXXXVIII Whether there be an Elementary Fire other than the Sun p. 159 CONFERENCE CXXXIX Which is most desirable long or short Life 162 CONFERENCE CXL Of the Lethargy 165 CONFERENCE CXLI Whether it be better to marry or not to marry 168 CONFERENCE CXLII At what time the Rational Soul is infus'd 171 CONFERENCE CXLIII Of Metempsychosis or Transmigration of Souls 174 CONFERENCE CXLIV Whether there were braver Men in any preceding Age than in the present 177 CONFERENCE CXLV Of the Serene which is a hurtful Dew falling in Summer-Evenings 180 CONFERENCE CXLVI Whether the French are light and inconstant and why 183 CONFERENCE CXLVII Of the sundry Motions of the Sea and Rivers 186 CONFERENCE CXLVIII Whether is better to Love or to be Lov'd 189 CONFERENCE CXLIX Of Hair 192 CONFERENCE
remov'd from the place the very next day a great Fire happened in the same City For if every thing below is as that which is above and the effects of inferiour things proceed from the various configuration of the Celestial Bodies as of the different combinations of the Letters of the Alphabet are compos'd infinite Books there may be some proportion and correspondence between those Celestial Figures and such as are made upon fit and suitable materials the knowledg of which sympathetical Correspondences is the true Magick which is by the testimony of J. Picus Mirandula the highest point of humane Knowledg marrying Heaven with Earth as black Magick is detestable shameful and ridiculous The Fifth said That every thing acts in the World by the first or second Qualities or by its Substance whence proceed occult Properties and Sympathies But Talismanical Figures cannot act by any of these ways for 't is certain that they act neither by heat cold hardness softness or such other first or second Quality no more than by their Substance which is different in Talismans of Copper Iron Stone c. Although the Authors of this Art ascribe the same virtue to all provided they be graven with the same Figures and under the same Constellations and Aspects of the Starrs from whom alone they make them derive their strange virtues alledging as a Principle That there is nothing in the World but hath both its Contrary and its Like as well in Heaven as on Earth where we see not only the Marigold and the Sun-flower follow the motion of the Sun the Selenotrope that of the Moon the Cock proclaims the approach of the Sun As also on the contrary Dogs commonly run mad in the Dog-days and Lions under the Sign Leo But also some Persons beheld with an evil eye by some Planets others being propitious So to cure hot and dry Diseases they engrave their Talismans under a Constellation contrary to the Evil as cold and moist having regard to the Signs whereunto every Malady and diseas'd Part is referr'd which is an Invention of Paracelsus who fancies Poles a Zenith a Nadir an Equator a Zodiack and other phantastical Figures in our Bodies answering to those of Heaven without the least proof of his sayings Upon the Second Point it was said Since Man is compos'd of Body and Soul the best Life he can lead is that which is most proper for the perfection and good of both Such is the Country-life being accompanied with the Goods of the Body Fortune and the Mind Those of the Body as Health and Strength are possess'd with advantage by Rusticks who know not so much as the Names of Diseases the cause whereof is their Exercise and Labour which dissipates and resolves the humours that produce most Diseases as also the purity of the Air they breathe which is the more healthful in that it hath free motion and is less confin'd for which reason Physitians send their recovering Patients to confirm their Health in the Air of the Country Which also supplies the Goods of Fortune the true and natural Riches to wit the Fruits of the Earth and the Spoils of Animals Gold Silver and other artificial Goods being but imaginary and useless without those first whereunto they are subservient But above all the Goods of the Mind which consist in Knowledg and Virtue the two Ornaments of its two chief Faculties the Understanding and the Will may be acquir'd much more easily in a Country-life in regard of the purer Air which begets like Spirits as these frame purer Species and Phantasms on which depend the actions of the Understanding which besides cannot meditate nor improve without rest and silence scarce found in a civil and tumultuary Life as that in Cities is which hold our Minds as well as Bodies in captivity depriving us of the free aspect of Heaven the rising and setting of the Sun and Stars and of the means of considering the Wonders of God in the production of Flowers Fruits and Plants Hence the Poets feign'd the Muses the Goddesses of the Sciences living in the Mountains of Helicon and in Woods not in the inclosure of Cities where Virtues are also more difficultly practis'd than the Sciences nothing of them being left there but shadows and phantasms which under veils of Dissimulation Hypocrisie Complements and other testimonies of Virtue cover Injustices Sacriledges Impieties and other Crimes unknown in the Country where Simplicity and Innocence are sure tokens of true Virtue which is also better retain'd amongst the Thorns and Sweats of the Country than in the Luxury and Idleness of Cities And if things may be judg'd of by their beginnings the Sacred History tells That Cain the first Murtherer was the first that built a City named Henoch after the Name of his Son as a little after did the first Tyrant of the World Nimrod who built Niniveh On the contrary all holy Personages have lead a Country-life Adam was a Husband-man and so was Cain as long as he continu'd in the state of Innocence which as soon as he lost he desir'd to become a Burgess Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs his Sons were Shepherds as also the Kings Saul and David and the Prophets Amos Elisha and many others in imitating whose example we cannot erre The Second said That Man being a sociable and political Animal the habitation of Cities is as consentaneous to his Nature as the Country-life is repugnant to the same And therefore Men had no sooner discover'd the inconveniences of the Rustick-life but they unanimously conspir'd to build Cities to the end to supply one anothers Necessities and defend themselves from wild Beasts and their Enemies to whose fury they were expos'd before they liv'd in some Town which is a Sacred Society or Unity of Citizens all aspiring to the conservation of the State to the maintaining of the Laws and Justice and to the publick Ornament and Glory making Arts and Disciplines flourish and procuring Safety to all People by the distribution of Rewards to Virtue and Punishment to Vices which have not their effect but in publick For our Lives would not differ from those of Brutes if we were oblig'd to dwell in Dens or wander up and down Woods as the Barbarians of the new World do whose Brutality Irreligion Cruelty Ignorance and Misery compar'd with the Politeness Devotion Humanity Knowledg and Happiness of others sufficiently manifest what difference there is between a City and a Country-life CONFERENCE CIX I. Of Volcano's or Subterranean Fires II. Which Age is most desirable THe effects of Volcano's and Subterranean Fires are no less manifest than their cause is unknown although the desire of teaching us the same occasion'd the death of Pliny by haying too neer approach'd the Fires of Mont Gibel or Aetna and made Empedocles cast himself head-long into them But the former did not attain it and the latter left us nothing but his Pantofles The Artifice of Man hath indeed excavated the
Land had no doubt experienc'd the michiefs of that unfaithful Element the cruellest whereof is the Scurvy a Disease complicated with several others and whose chief symptoms are the ulceration and swelling of the Gums and Legs with pains over all the Body caus'd by the impurity and malignity of the Air. But the most frequent is vomiting caus'd by the sole agitation and violence of the Air. For our aerious Spirits not only receive the qualities of the air we breathe but also follow its temper and motion as is seen by the Head-ach seising those that are beaten by winds in the Country and by the seeming turning of their heads who attentively behold the circumgyration of a Wheel or some other Body So the Air at Sea being much agitated puts in motion the Spirits which are of the same nature and these being stirr'd set the humours on work which incommoding the parts are by them driven out by vomits and other ejections according to every one's temper and propensity For the cholerick and broad-breasted vomit more easily and successfully then the phlegmatick and narrow-breasted whose Organs of respiration are not sufficiently free Whereunto also the season of the year contributes for Summer provokes vomit more then Winter when the humours being more heavy rather tend downwards But especially Custom is considerable herein which renders those that go frequently to Sea not obnoxious to its inconveniences The Fourth said That the Earth consists of three substances one Unctuous which is the inflammable moisture call'd by the Chymists Sulphur another Cinereouâ— which they call the Faeces or Caput mortuum the third humid and incombustible which they divide into Mercury and Salt this latter again into Salt-nitre and Vitriol of which the Sea being full the same is communicated to the first Region of the Air contiguous to the Waters and insinuating it self into our Bodies by inspiration produces the same effects therein that it doth taken in substance four Grains of which is a sufficient Vomit Whereto also helps the gentle agitation of the waves which makes it penetrate the examples of others vomiting and especially the fear commonly incident to such as were never upon the Sea before who are most obnoxious to this trouble For that Passion so constringes the whole Body especially the inward parts that it weakens and relaxes the Nerves especially the Fibres which keep the parts in a just tenor and so the oblique Fibres and orbicular Muscles which serve to retain them being languid suffer the juices and humours to pass out The same fear which causes relaxation of the Sphincter Ani Vesicae relaxing the Muscles which serve to open and close the upper Orifice of the Ventricle Hence fear is commonly accompani'd with the pain of this part whose sense being very exquisite is the cause that the Vulgar call it The pain of the Heart which also for the same reason happens to such as look down upon low places CONFERENCE CXIX Of Love by Inclination or Sympathy 'T Is not only amongst the Poets that Love is blind the obscurity of this causes evidencing him no less so amongst the Philosophers who assign two sorts of it one of Knowledge which tends to a good known the other of Inclination whereby we love without knowing why Indeed there is no love without ground and some sort of knowledge but yet when the cause obliging us to love is manifest it makes the former kind of love when obscure the latter whereof we have many examples in nature not only in the Symbolical qualities of the Elements Electrical and Magnetical attractions of Stones particular alliances of Metals and all the amities of Plants and Trees as of the female Palm which is said to lean towards the male and those which are found amongst Animals but especially in the particular inclinations of some Persons to others unknown and void of all recommendations to qualifie them for the same and the emotions some have felt both in Soul and Body at the first sight of their unknown Parents as also of a contrary effect when a dead body bleeds upon the presence of its Murderer which is a testimony of an antipathetical hatred contrary to the abovesaid Love which we find in our selves almost upon all occurrences as when two equally strangers play at Tennis we wish that one may win and the other lose For the first motions of Love as well as of all other Passions are not in our power and afford not the Mind time to deliberate and make reflexion upon them Hence oftentimes Anger Sadness Panick fright and such other Passions seise upon us without cause and Love doth the like frequently without any apparent reason Yea we may say there is no Love of Knowledg but what took its first rise from that of Inclination which presently makes us enamor'd of the proportions of a Face which displeases another that understands the same as well as we but without being any way affected therewith because he finds not in it that correspondence and sympathetical resemblance that produces a Love of Inclination which may also arise without any knowledge as in that blind man who lov'd a Lass whom he had never seen as also in Petrarch who made so many Verses upon his Lawra whom he could never behold The cause whereof I should attribute to the power of the Imagination which fancies somthing of loveliness where there is none or else to the sole action of the Will which not able to remain neuter between love and hatred since its action is to will and to will is to love when it meets no cause of hatred in an object loves it and hates it when it finds nothing amiable therein For if you assign the reason of this love to the transpiration of Spirits issuing out of the lov'd person's body their substance is too volatile to act so far off and their issuing being never alike because the pores of the skin are more stopt at one time then at another this love would be remarkably alter'd every moment Besides we many times love by an inclination an absent person for his merit and many have been enamour'd of Beauties at the first sight of their Pictures but love was never produc'd between two blind persons notwithstanding any emission of sympathetical Spirits Moreover 't is the Species and not the Spirits that are receiv'd by our Senses and so none should ever love those they had not seen but by a Prospective-glass The Second said That it imports not much to the causing of love whether the object be really or only imaginarily good and indeed our minds seem to interess themselves more in the pursute and preservation of the latter then the former which maintains it self by its proper worth Wherefore if Love of Inclination presuppose goodness in the object the same must be apprehended either by the Imagination or by some other Faculty to which it must therefore be approximated either immediately by it self or by it self So the
distill'd Waters difficultly by reason of their simplicity Vinegar though cold never by reason of the tenuity of its parts But the surface of waters being full of earthy and gross parts which could not accompany the Vapours or Exhalations drawn up by the Sun's heat is therefore first frozen even that of running waters though not so easily by reason of their motion makes a divulsion of their parts as neither Oyle very easily by reason of its aërious and unctuous humidity the Sea and Hot Spirits which yet Experience shews are sometimes frozen by Vehement Cold the Poet in his description of the sharpness of Winter in his Georgicks saying that they cleav'd Wine with hatchets and the Northern Navigations of the Hollanders relating that they were detain'd three moneths under the seventy fourth Degree where their Ships were frozen in the main sea The Second said That Heat and Cold are the immediate Causes of Freezing and Thawing but 't is hard to know Whence that Heat and Cold comes Now because Cold is onely the Privation of Heat as Darkness is of Light we shall sufficiently understand the Causes of Cold and of Freezing if we know those of Heat which causes Thawing The truth is the Sun whose approach and remoteness makes the diversities of Seasons according to the different mutations which he causes in the qualities of the Air contribute thereunto but the Earth helps too he cannot do it alone for we see that the Snow on the Mountains which approach nearest Heaven is last melted But the Sun's Rays piercing into the bosome of the Earth draw out that Fire which is inclos'd in its entralls and because the Sun removes but a very little from the Aequinoctial Line therefore that part of the Earth which answers to that of Heaven where the Sun continually resides is alwayes Hot and by a contrary Reason that under the Poles is alwayes extreamly cold And even Country-people observe winds to be the Cause of these Effects for those that blow from the North quarter bring with them an extream cold Air which is the cause of Freezing and those from the South bring on us an Air extreamly heated by the continuall action of the Sun and so are the cause of Thawing The Third said That Winds being continual because their matter never fails it happens that the strongest gets the better of the weakest and they chase one another whence Virgil calls them Wrestlers When the South Winds blow which are more frequent and more gross then the Northern or Eastern by reason of the Sun's strength in the South which opens the Pores of the Earth more the copious Exhalations which issue out of it are hotter than those which come out of the Pores of the Northern Earth which are closed up by Cold whence the Winds blowing from thence are colder and thinner just as our breath is cold when we contract our Mouthes and hot when we dilate them In like manner the Exhalations issuing out of the Earth's Pores are hotter or colder according as the passages out of which they proceed are more or less dilated and consequently cause Freezing or Thawing The Fourth said That the Sun or other Stars are onely remote Causes of Freezing and Thawing namely by their Heat which serves to raise the Vapors which are the next causes thereof according as they partake more or less of that external Heat or as the Chymists say as they are full either of certain nitrous and dissolving Spirits which cause Thawing or of coagulating ones which cause Freezing such as those are harden Plants into Stones which so presently congeal drops of water in Caves and Water-droppings and form the Crystals of the Rock Moreover just before it freezes Sinks and other stinking places smell more strong by reason that the Spirits and Vapors of the Earth are complicated with those stinks as they issue forth The Fifth said That the Cause of Thawing is to be attributed to the Heat of the Earth which exhaling warm Vapors fiâ—st heats the bottome of the Water for which reason Fish retire thither then they mollifie and moisten the surface of the Water or the Earth hardned by Cold. Moreover that Heat which is found in the deepest Mines where the Labourers work naked and most ordinarily in the Water without enduring any Cold the veins of Sulphur Bitumen Vitriol and Arsenick which are found in the entralls of the Earth the Hot Springs and the Volcanoes in its surface sufficiently argue That if there be not a Central Fire as the Pythagoreans held yet there is a great Heat there like that of Living Bodies which concocts Metals and makes Plants grow Hence the changes of Air are first discover'd in Mines by the Vapors arising from beneath which hinder Respiration and make the Lamps burn dim or go quite out Whereby 't is evident that they are exhaled by the Heat of the earth and not attracted by that of the Sun and Stars which penetrate but a very little way into the earth Now as our bodies are inwardly hotter in Winter so this heat of the earth being concentred in it self as appears by Springs which smoke in that season and by the heat of subterraneous places raises greater plenty of warm Vapors which in Winte render the Weather moist and rainy but when rain or the coldness of the air stops those pores then those Exhalations being shut up the Air remains cold and it freezes which frost is again dissolv'd by their eruption For the natural heat of the Earth being constring'd and render'd stronger by the ambient Cold drives out hotter and more copious exhalations which consist either of the rain-water wherewith it is moistned or of other humidities and which arriving at the surface of the Earth which is frozen soften it and fill the air with clouds which always accompany a Thaw as Serenity do's a Frost The Sixth said That as Hail is nothing but Rain congeal'd so Frost is nothing but Dew condens'd by the vehemence of Cold and in the Water 't is call'd Ice which coldness condensing the Water which is a diaphanous body and consequently hath an internal and radical light is the cause of its whiteness which is the beginning of light as the Stars are the condens'd parts of their Orbs. Unless you had rather ascribe that whiteness to the Air included in the Ice which also makes the same swim upon the water An Evidence that Cold alone is not the cause of Freezing for Cold alone render bodies more ponderous by condensing their parts whence Ice should be heavier then Water but there is requir'd besides some hot and dry exhalation which insinuating into the Water gives it levity The Seventh said That such bodies as are frozen are so far from receiving augmentation of parts that they lose the thinnest of their own hence a bottle so close stopped that the air cannot get in to supply the place of the thinner parts which transspire and perish upon freezing breaks in pieces for avoiding
of vacuity And Wine and Fruits lose their tast upon the loss of their spirits when they are frozen which spirits not being able to transpire in Cabbages and other Viscous Plants digest their crudities and by that means render the same Plants more tender CONFERENCE CXXVI Of the Causes of the Small Pox. THe variety wherewith this Malady afflicts or that which it causes in the body hath given it the name of Variolae Variolles or Vairolles as its resemblance to the blisters and to the manner wherewith the Venereous Disease invades the Indians to whom the same is Epidemical being caused by the corruption of the air causes it to be called the Small Pox. These are efflorescences or pustules appearing upon the body especially those of Children by reason of the softness of their skin with a Feaver pain scabbiness and purulent matter This malady comprizes three sorts of Diseases Namely Intemperature in its feaver and inflammation Bad conformation in the little Eminencies and solution of continuity in the Ulcers It s precedent signs are commonly hoarsness of the voice pain of the head inflammation of the whole face yawnings distentions trembling of the whole body sneezings and stitches It s concomitant essential and pathognomonical signs are Deliration frightful Dreams pains of the Breast and Throat difficulty of Respiration and a Continual Feaver which is sometimes putrid sometimes not All which signs proceed from the violent ebulition and agitation of the humours the conjunct cause of this Malady an effect of the natural heat which being irritated by their Malignity drives them outwards to the surface where they raise those little Tumours which if red and less high make the Meazles and when more eminent the Small Pox the Pimples whereof at first appear very small afterwards in time wax red and grow bigger from day to day till they become white then they suppurate and dry and lastly falling off commonly leave marks behind them not to be got away because they have consumed the skin which is never generated anew The second said A common effect must have a common cause Now the Small Pox and Meazles which differ only in that the former is produc'd of thinner and the latter of thicker blood are diseases not only common to many but so few escape them that a general rule here scarce admits any exceptions Two Causes there are the Material or the Efficient The former is the impurity of the Menstrual blood which serves for nourishing the foetus in the womb where at first it attracts the purest and sweetest blood but when grown bigger the gross together with the thin So that as Horses once in their lives cast the Strangles so men must also once purge and void that menstrual impurity which being equally dispers'd over all the body and in small quantity hinders not its functions The efficient Cause common likewise to all men is the Natural Heat which drives these impurities outwards and so they come to appear upon the skin which is the Universal Emunctory of the whole body but especially upon the face by reason of its tenderness and because being the place where all the Organs of Sense terminate 't is fuller of spirits then any other and consequently there is a greater attraction thither of those malignant Vapors Now that it seizes some in their childhood others in their youth some very few in old age and all after a different manner this depends upon our particular Constitutions either natural or acquisititious by custom and a long use of the things not natural For according as the humours reign in the body they give occasion to the eruption of that Venemous quality which before lay hid as Madness and Leprosie sometimes appear not till after divers years Our diet also contributes thereunto for when it symboliseth with that malignant humour it encreases the quantity thereof as on the contrary it corrects the same and retards its motion if it be of a laudable temper or exceed in contrary qualities The Third said What Original Sin is to the state of the Soul that the Small Pox seems to be to the state of the Body for this Disease commonly invades children who never committed any fault in their course of living and whose nature should be so much healthier by how much 't is more vigorous and nearer the principles of their Nativity wherefore it seems rather to proceed from the vitiosity of the Parents And as many hereditary diseases come from the bad disposition of the seed so from the impurity of the blood the material principle of our bodies some may also arise as Tettars Kibes Corns and other deformities of the skin which happen to children very like this Moreover this disease usually breaks forth in the seventh and ninth which are the first climacterical years when Nature endeavours the perfection of her work by purging and cleansing it of all impurities And as New Wine when it comes to work casts forth all the heterogeneous impurities in it's body so doth the natural heat attempt the like by causing an ebullition of the blood and spirits whether this Fermentation happens by the universal spirit of the world as those in other natural bodies or whether as 't is most probable it proceeds from the very strength of nature whose motions although regular and certain are yet unknown to any other besides it self which produces them according to the dispositions of the Subject wherein it resides The Fourth said That being our bodies were always form'd of the maternal blood and indu'd with one and the same natural heat which two are held the material and efficient causes of the Small Pox this Disease should have been in all times and places and yet it was unknown before the Arabians in whose time it began to appear For the little red round pustules and those other like flea-bitings mention'd by Hippocrates Aetius and some other Ancients are nothing less then the Small Pox to which not only Women during their Suppressions but even brute Beasts which have also their purgations as among others the Bitch the Mare and the Shee-Ass ought to be subject On the contrary such as have burning Feavers should be free from it if it be true that the seed and leven of this malady is dissipated by the ebullition of the blood which is vehement in a Feaver But 't is impossible to conceive how a venemous and pernicious matter as that impure part of the blood is said to be can be preserv'd for many years in its Mass for being the blood serves for continual aliment to all the parts these ought to resent something of that malignity yet those that are taken with this disease are usually the most healthy and of a sanguine constitution which is the most laudable For this were to accuse Nature either of Imprudence or Weakness but she is good wise powerful and solicitous for nothing so much as to purifie the body which she doth not only while the child is in
Senses of their party as Vices have The Third said That sensible and palpable things as examples are have more power upon us than bare words which cannot so well perswade a Truth but that they alwayes leave some doubting in us whereas Examples being sensible give us a more entire and perfect Knowledge yea they have influence even upon brute beasts who learn not by Precepts but by Examples which is an evidence of their certainty for a thing is the more certain the more common it is to us with more Hence Plato affirmes That Examples are necessary to perswade high and lofty matters Precepts indeed dispose but Examples animate the Soul to Virtue those admonish these stimulate and guide as in the resolution of doing well Instructions shew the way but Examples drive us with the point of Honour and the force of Emulation Nor do Precepts include Examples but the contrary and every Example comprehends a Document When we see a Good Man square his Life out to his Duty we find I know not what satisfaction and contentment in the admimiration of his Virtue and this pleasure makes us conceive yea strongly perswades us that all Virtues are amiable Even Vicious Examples sometimes make Vice appear to us so deform'd that we detest instead of pursuing it Hence the Lacedemonians setting aside the Precepts of Temperature were wont to make their Slaves drunk that the ill-favour'd spectacle might make their Children abhor that Vice Lastly Our Saviour whose Life was a continued Example of Virtue did more Works to teach us then he gave Words and Precepts most of which are comprehended under Examples and Parables Yea the Devil well knowing that Adam's mind was too strong to be prevail'd upon by Reasons first gain'd that of his Wife which was more weak that he might allure him to sin by her Example The Fourth said The end is not onely more noble but also more effectual than the means for 't is to that alone that they aim and terminate Now the end of all Examples is to deduce Precepts from them which Precepts are general Notions grounded upon many Experiences or Examples either of others or our own but these being wholly particular can have no power upon the Understanding which frames its conclusions onely upon things universally true as Maximes and Precepts are and that more than Examples for these are never perfect but full of a thousand defects those sure and infallible Moreover Precepts move the Understanding which is the noblest of all the Faculties whereas Examples make impression onely upon the outward senses and dull wits The Fifth said That as the Sight and the Hearing know how to put a difference between Colours and Sounds without Learning and all the Faculties can naturally discern their own Objects So the Understanding knows naturally the first Principles and clearly beholds those first Verities The Will hath also in it self the Principles and Seeds of Virtues as the Synteresis and remorse of Conscience in the most wicked sufficiently prove and is of it self carryed to Virtuous Actions without needing either Preecepts or Examples equally unprofitable to the bad who amend not thereby and to the good who want them not The Sixth said That the Question is to be decided by distinguishing of the Minds of Men. Those that excel in Judgement attribute more to Reason than to Examples which being more sensible affect the Imagination of duller heads who are not capable of Reasons So that though Precepts and Arguments be without comparison more perfect than Examples yet because very few are capable of them because the generality of the World is stupid and dull therefore they are not generally so proper to teach as Examples which nevertheless being of no power but serving onely to clear an obscure Truth ought not to have any ascendant over a Mind that is reasonable and furnish'd with Knowledge CONFERENCE CXXVIII Of Incubi and Succubae and whether Devils can generate TWo sorts of people err in this matter the superstitious and ignorant vulgar who attribute every thing to Miracles and account the same done either by Saints or Devils and the Atheists and Libertines who believe neither the one nor the other Physitians take the middle way distinguishing what is fit to be attributed to Nature and her ordinary motions from what is supernatural to which last Head 't is not reasonable to referr diseases and indispositions as the Incubus is call'd by the Greeks Ephialtes and by the vulgar the Night-mare 'T is defin'd An impediment of Respiration Speech and Motion with oppression of the Body whereby we feel in our sleep as 't were some weight upon the Stomack The Cause of it is a gross Vapor obstructing principally the hinder part of the Brain and hindring the egress of the Animal Spirits destinated to the motion of the parts which Vapor is more easily dissipable than the humor which causeth the Lethargy Apoplexy and other Symptoms which are therefore of longer duration than this which ceases as soon as the said Vapor is dissipated Now whereas the Passions of the Mind and Body commonly supply the matter of Dreams as those that are hungry or amorous will think they eat or see what they love those that have pain in some part dream that some body hurts the same hence when Respiration the most necessary of all the animal functions is impeded we presently imagine we have a load lying on our Breasts and hindring the dilatation of the same And because the Brain is employ'd in the Incubus therefore all the animal functions are hurt the Imagination deprav'd the Sensation obtunded Motion impeded Hence those whom this evil seizes endeavor to awake but can neither move nor speak till after a good while And though the Cause of this disorder be within our selves nevertheless the distemper'd person believes that some body is going about to strangle him by outward violence which the depraved Imagination rather thinks upon than Internal Causes that being more sensible and common This has given occasion to the error of the Vulgar who charge these Effects upon Evil Spirits instead of imputing them to the Malignity of a Vapor or some phlegmatick and gross humor oppressing the Stomack the coldness and weakness whereof arising from want of Spirits and Heat which keeps all the parts in due order are the most manifest Causes Much unlikely it is to be caused by Generation which being an Effect of the Natural Faculty as this of the Vegetative Soul cannot belong to the Devil who is a pure Spirit The Second said As 't is too gross to recurr to supernatural Causes when Natural are evident so 't is too sensual to seek the Reason of every thing in Nature and to ascribe to meer Phlegm and the distempered Phant'sie the Coitions of Daemons with Men which we cannot deny without giving the lye to infinite of persons of all Ages Sexes and Conditions to whom the same have happened nor without accusing the Sentences of Judicial Courts
obnoxious to external causes which produce diseases On the other side if Animals are happy 't is as Fools are whose minds are quiet by reason of their ignorance and insensibility But as it is better to be sensible then insensible even upon the condition of enduring pain sometimes so it is more happy to have a rational mind though it causes troubles to us sometimes then to have none Moreover we cannot avoid the stroaks of fortune otherwise then those of Thunder namely by being very high or very low but 't is better to be above tempests then below them and to be incapable of them by reason as a wise man then by stupidity as a beast CONFERENCE CXXX Whether is better that Men have many Wives or Women many Husbands THough plurality of Wives or Husbands be disallowed by the Christian Law yet not being contrary to the Law of Nations for many admit it nor of nature during which it was in use we may be permitted to doubt whether supposing Polygamy it were better one Husband should have many Wives or one Wife many Husbands There are examples of both Plurality of Wives was practised by Lamech who first had two by Abraham Jacob and the Patriarchs for multiplying of their Lineage afterwards by David and Solomon who had 700 Wives and 300 Concubins and at present 't is in use among the Turks who are permitted to have as many Wives as they can keep As for plurality of Husbands though it be not now in use yet it was sometimes amongst the Amazons who made use of Men only as Stallions as also amongst the Medes and Persians where it was a shame for a Woman to have less then five Husbands And by the report of Caesar in his Commentaries the Women of great Britain had no less then ten or twelve Husbands a piece Nevertheless this plurality of Husbands is somthing against the Law of Nature according to which the Male as the most perfect is the head and master of the Woman and as 't is a monstrous thing for a body to have many heads so 't is for a Woman to have many Husbands besides that they hinder production of Children for we see publick Women are barren and on the contrary plurality of Wives is the cause of much issue Wherefore 't is more expedient in a State whose chief strength consists in the number of men that one Husband have many Wives then one Wife many Husbands The second said Though men abusing the power and authority of Laws to their own advantage have oftner married more Wives then they have permitted them to have more Husbands yet the women have as much reason of complaint in this point as in any other establish'd to their prejudice without their being heard or summon'd Their vehement and irregular appetite after man of which the irregular motions of that Animal in Animali are most certain evidences seems to conclude in their favour For Woman alone of all Animals desires the Male at all times even after conception She the Fire the Sea and Death never say 't is enough as the matter hath a continual appetite of Forms so hath she of the Male which desire being natural ought to be satisfi'd otherwise it were in vain but nothing is so in Nature and therefore she ought to be permitted more Husbands since one alone is more apt to irritate then satiate her She is able and hath wherewith to satisfie them but if one man cannot suffice one woman how can he acquit himself towards a dozen Especially in this age wherein no doubt women would appeal from the constitution of Solon who would have men live with their wives only thrice a moneth as well as from that foolish custom of Cato who never visited his but when it rain'd Lycurgus was much better advis'd when he permitted old or otherwise impotent persons to chuse out the handsomest young men to lye with their wives This Sage Legislator well judging that they would of themselves take this liberty and therefore 't was better to grant it them that so they might be quit of the vice and blame attending this action when prohibited The Third said That the decision of this Question the very report of which sometimes put the Roman Dames into an aproar being of very great consequence to both parties 't is requisite to observe so much equity therein that the Women have no ground of exception though to speak truth I know not which would be most to their advantage whether to have more Husbands who would be so many Masters and Tyrants or to share with other Women the Caresses of one alone the first being contrary to their haughty humour and the second to their jealousie Besides the plurality of Husbands would hinder not only the propagation but also the education of Children for none would take care of the Children which were not his own and though they were he would not believe they belong'd to him It would be impossible for a Father to know his own Child the term of Child-bearing being no more certain testimony then the resemblance of Physiognomy Moreover whether the Wife were hated or loved by her Husbands she would be displeas'd to see all her Rivals in bad intelligence or the effects of their common hatred However being unable to please all by reason of the diversity of their humours she could not avoid the disgust of some of them As for that impure pleasure 't is too shameful to be brought into the account besides that the frequency of it would take away its sweetness no pleasures of life being such but upon the score of their rarity The Fourth said They that fear the multitude of Husbands would hinder conception and consequently generation by the confusion of several Seeds know not how either is effected since Physitians affirm with Hippocrates That the Womb no sooner receives the fruitful Seed but it shuts it self up to embrace the same straitly as the Stomach does the Meat and that so exactly as not to admit a needles point so that it cannot open again to receive new Seed in a second Coition And though superfoetation happen sometimes yet 't is very rare and is incident to a Woman that lies with the same Man several times as well as to one that lies with many The other Inconvenience of the incertainty of Issues and consequently of Successions is as little considerable for Man being not born for himself but for the State whereof he is a Member and Children less belonging to their Parents then to the Commonwealth whereof they are the Nursery 'twere more expedient that they were bred and instructed like those brave Lacedemonians at the publick charge than of their Parents whose tenderness and too great indulgence is oft-times the cause of their evil education Moreover this was the design of that Divine Commonwealth of Plato who would have not only other Goods but Wives and Children also common that so those ungrateful words of Mine and Thine which
are the cause of all Mischiefs might be taken away For by this means that importunate solicitude of Appropriation and Jealousie which oftentimes afflicts both parties would be no longer any thing but a phantasm Women would find their satisfaction in the plurality of Husbands these how many soever to one woman having always enough and more then they needed and the woman being cunning enough to divide her favours so that all her Husbands might be contented who besides dividing the burden of domestick cares would have an easier task by having the more Associates But especially 't would be much for the womans interest for if she be belov'd by all her Husbands 't will be unspeakable happiness to her if hated by any the caresses of some will make her amends for the bad usage of others whereas finding no remedy in that Gordian knot which tyes her to one person she abandons her self to despair insomuch that in the time of Spurius Carvilius seventy women accus'd one another to the Senate of having poyson'd their Husbands But if she be constrain'd to share the caresses of one Husband with a douzen rivals there will be nothing but perpetual feuds envies and jealousies Witness Leah and Rachel who though holy women yet daily contested for the possession of their common Husband Jacob. And the Scripture observes that Leah who was blear-ey'd was constrain'd to purchase of the fair Rachel with mandrakes the liberty of lying one night with Jacob. The 5th said That seeing a Woman is a hagger'd and indocible animal Experience shewing us that one single man is not capable to reduce her to reason 't were more expedient to allow her many Husbands the reverence and aw of whom and in defect thereof their force might tame her pride and insolence which is risen to the highest pitch since the time that Justinian's Wife got the Law of Divorce repeal'd which ever before had been a Bridle upon them CONFERENCE CXXXI Of the manner of Accretion MOtion which is the mutation from one state to another is either simple or compound Simple is either of Quality is term'd Alteration or of Place and is call'd Lation or Motion Local Compound is either to Substance and is nam'd Generation which includes alteration and formation or to a greater Quantity which comprehends Local Motion with Accretion or Augmentation which cannot be made unless the parts extended change place This Accretion is an effect of one of the Faculties subservient to the Vegetative or Natural which are three the Generative the Auctive or Accretive and the Nutritive according to the three operations observ'd in living bodies which have parts generated nourishing and increasing for a thing must be generated before it can grow and acquire the perfection wherein it is maintain'd by Nutrition The Generative Faculty which is compounded of the Alterative and Formative regards the foetus in the womb The Auctive governs it from its birth till the twentieth or one and twentieth year which is the term of Accretion The Nutritive continues all the time of life which cannot subsist without nourishment because this repairs the continual dissipation of our substance caus'd by the action of heat upon humidity in which action Life it self consists Now though the body may be nourisht without growing yet it cannot grow unless it be nourisht For Accretion being an Extension of the parts in length and breadth new substance must be supply'd to fill up the place of that which is extended otherwise a living body should grow no more then a bladder doth when it is blown or a piece of leather when it is stretcht in the former what is gotten in capacity is lost in thickness and in the latter what is gotten in length is impair'd in breadth so that the augmentation of parts would be rather imaginary than real without supply of new matter to succeed that which is equally extended in all its dimensions amongst which nevertheless that of stature and of the solid parts as the bones is call'd Growth and not that which is made in thickness and the fleshy parts which are enlarged manytimes after the time of full growth The second said That all things being finite must have bounds of magnitude sutable to the use whereunto they are appointed which bounds are not determinate in inanimate bodies as Stones Metals Hair and Nails whose accretion being made by the bare apposition of matter they are augmented continually so long as there is accession of new matter to the former But in living bodies the same are regular for the accretion of these being internal and the work of the soul continues till the body hath attain'd the proportion and stature requisite to its functions To compass which Nature employs Heat as the Efficient Cause and Humidity as the Material Hence children grow most in their infancy because they are then most moist and men to a larger size then women because they have more heat Young men indeed have a more pungent and vigorous heat then Children but these are better stor'd as being nearer the principles of their generation and though it be not so active yet 't is more proper for the growth of the solid parts which being desiccated by a violent heat are not so extensible as when they are full of a fat and unctuous humidity But as for the manner of Accretion 't is almost the same with that of Nutrition The Aliment having been prepar'd in the Stomach and Liver and by this latter transmitted by the veins into all the parts of the body the purer particles of it sweat through the coats of the Vessels and fall like a gentle dew upon the parts which first imbibe then agglutinate and lastly assimilate the same So that Nutrition is nothing but Assimilation of the substance of the food to that of the living body and as Aliments nourish by resemblance of their Substance and by vertue of their Form so they cause augmentation by their Quantity and Matter which arriving at the solid parts as the Bones Cartilages and Ligaments causes the same to extend and grow in all dimensions but especially in height by reason that 't is proper to Heat to drive Humidity upwards And as when the Nutrition is equal to the Dissipation the body is only nourisht as in the Age of Consistence so when the Income of matter is greater than the Expence the surplusage meeting with a due heat causeth augmentation if it be less there follows wasting or diminution as is seen Old-Age The Third said As Animals are indu'd with a nobler degree of life than Plants so they vegetate after a more sublime manner and not only by bare heat and moisture For amongst Animals the Elephant a melancholy and consequently cold and dry beast is yet the greatest of the field the Crocodile though cold grows all its life and some Serpents have by long age attained to the length of sixty foot So amongst Trees Oaks though the dryest are the largest Of Bones the
Malleus Incus and Stapes in the Ear which serve to reproduce sounds grow not at all though they be full of mucosity and humidity on the contrary the Teeth the dryest of all parts as is manifested by their rotting last yet grow all the life long But if Heat and Moisture were the causes of Accretion then the Sanguine who are hot and moist should be of the largest size as they are not but commonly grow as well as the Flegmatick more in thickness than height augmenting their flesh and fat more then their solid parts On the contrary the tallest men are commonly cold dry and lean the lowest generally hotter and people grow upon recovery after fevers which dry the body Wherefore 't is more probable that the Growth of Animals is an effect of the Spirits which insinuating into the Vessels extend the same and withall the membranes muscles and other parts encompassing them proportionably The Fourth said That the Spirits are indeed the Soul's Organs and Instruments whereby she performs her functions but being of so volatile and fluid a nature as not to be reckon'd in the number of the parts of Man's Body they cannot of themselves cause Accretion which requires Apposition of new matter which insinuates it self equally into all the parts just as the nourishment doth both without penetration of dimensions or admission of vacuity This matter must be humid because of all Bodies the moist are most pliant and extensible Whence the Sea by reason of its humidity produces Monsters of strange bulk Yet this humidity as well as the heat must be in due degree for a great heat consumes instead of increasing whence the Males of Birds of prey are lesser than the Females because they are hotter but if it be too weak then the moisture instead of ascending falls downward by its proper gravity which is the cause that Women who have less heat are also of lesser stature than Men and larger downwards as Men are upwards According to the various marriage of this heat with moisture bodies grow variously some more slowly others more speedily some are little and dwarfish others Giants according to the defect or abundance of the matter serving to their first Formation But as for the rest of Man-kind Wise Nature hath set her self such bounds as she hath judg'd convenient beyond which the most part grow not which are between six and seven foot Not the Accretive Faculty is then lost or corrupted for 't is that power of the Soul and consequently incorruptible and inseparable from her but it cannot act longer for want of fitting dispositions to wit the softness and moistness of the solid parts As a Mule hath a Sensitive Soul but not the virtue of generating which is one of the Faculties of that Soul and a Load-stone rub'd with Garlick hath still the virtue of attracting Iron but cannot employ the same by reason that its Pores are stopt no more then the Eye can see in a Suffusion CONFERENCE CXXXII Whether the Dinner or Supper ought to be largest DIet or the Regiment of Living which is the first and most general part of Physick because it concerns both the healthy and the sick consists in regulating the quantity and quality of Aliments and the order and time wherein they are to be taken The Quantity must be proportional to the nature of the Person so that his strength may be repair'd and not oppress'd thereby As for the Quality they must be of good juice and as pleasing and agreeable as may be The Order of taking them is to be this such as are moist soft laxative and of soonest Digestion or Corruption must precede such as are dry hard astringent and of more difficult Concoction The Time in general ought to be so regulated that the interval of Meals be sufficient for digesting the nourishment last fore-going The Custom of most Nations hath made two Dinner and Supper Break-fast and Afternoon-collations being but Diminutives or parts of them two and the over-plus of notorious excesses Now if we compare Dinner and Supper together it seemes requisite that the latter be more plentiful because the Time ensuing it is most proper for Digestion in regard of the intro-recession of the natural heat during sleep which becoming by that means more united and vigorous performes the natural functions to wit Concoction Distribution Apposition and Assimilation more perfectly then after Dinner when it is diverted otherwise to the Senses and Operations both of Body and Mind Besides that the coldness and darkness of the night contributes not a little to the same effect upon the account of Antiperistasis Unless we had rather with some establish a new power of the Soul governing and disposing the Spirits according to necessity sometimes giving them the bridle and causing them to move outwards as in Anger Shame and Indignation sometimes summoning them inwards as in Fear Sadness and Sleep which for this reason renders the Countenance pale and all the extream parts cold whereas in the time of waking the external parts being hotter leave the Internal more cold The Second said That he agreed with the Church which enjoynes Fasting in the Evening but allows Dinners which it doth not without mature consideration drawn as well from Nature as from Grace For it thereby designes the eschewing those Illusions and Temptations attending good Cheer taken before going to bed and conceives a light Supper fittest for meditation and serenity of Mind The reparation of our dissipated Spirits by Food causeth the same disorder in the Body that happens in a Town or Village upon the entrance of strangers to people it after its desolation by some accident and therefore 't is better that this trouble arrive in the day when our waking senses are able to secure themselves from the Commotions caused by this change than in the night whose darkness helps to multiply the Phantasms which are in the Imagination pester'd with the vapors and gross fumes of Meats the Digestion whereof is then but begun Whereas in the day time such vapors transpire more freely by the Pores which are opened by the heat of the Sun and by the Exercises which are used in the Afternoon Besides Meats being onely to fill emptiness the time of the greatest inanition is the fittest for repletion which certainly Noon must be after the Evacuations of the fore-going Night and Morning The Third said There are four manners of taking Repasts First Some eat often and very much at each time so did the Athletae of old and so do those Gourmandizers who are alwayes hungry and whose Stomacks have been found after their death of unusual capacity This way is altogether opposite to Health Secondly Some eat little and seldom which course befits acute Diseases those that are judg'd the fourth day requiring sometimes a total abstinence in case the Patient's strength can bear it those that reach to the seventh or fourteenth very little Food and seldom Thirdly Such as must eat little but
the melancholick besides very nimble and dextrous through the plenty of spirits and as 't is easily disorder'd so likewise 't is restor'd in a little time its maladies being the shortest Moreover its vivacity is much more desirable then the heaviness and lumpishness attending the Melancholy and making the Vulgar think them Sage and prudent though they are only so in appearance whereas the Cholerick are Industrious and Courageous accomplishing whatever they attempt and as amongst Beasts and Birds the noble Lyon and Eagle are of this complexion and according to some our first Parent Adam which signifies Red was in hair and temper bilious whence perhaps also Man is call'd in the same language Ish which signifies Fire whereof choler partakes The Fifth said That indeed his readiness to obey his Wife was an effect of that Temper of which he seems rather to have been then of that laudable and perfectly temperate one which our Saviour enjoy'd But indeed Tempers being the principles of all our functions which must be different in every individual are desirable according to the Places Seasons Employments Age Sex and Inclinations of every one in particular CONFERENCE CXXXV Of Happiness and Vnhappiness and whether men are Happy or Vnhappy because they really are so or because they think themselves so THree sorts of effects are observ'd in Nature Some arise always necessarily as the vicissitudes of Days Nights and Seasons which depend upon the motion of the Stars no more alterable without a miracle then the other effects of Universal Nature Others come to pass often but not always the particular nature which produces them being sometimes hindred by some accident which makes it bring forth Monsters The last happen neither always nor often but seldom as all those which depend upon contingent causes which are of two sorts The first act by a necessity of nature without any election The second by a principle of liberty without choice or deliberation Both when they produce an effect contrary to their intention and primary design are called fortuitous causes And as those which act by natural necessity produce a casualty as when a Stone falls upon the head of any one so when those which operate by election and design produce another thing then what they had propounded to themselves they make fortune or good and ill-luck according to the good or evil arising thence by ways and springs by us unforeseen for in case the cause or motives be known the effects are no longer fortuitous and contingent because they have their manifest and certain cause So when industry labour favour or friendship procure Riches the effect is not to be ascrib'd to Fortune no more then the losses which follow upon the luxury and profusions of a disorderly life but Riches and Honours are fortuitous when they happen to persons altogether incapable thereof as also poverty infamy and contempt also to brave men whose constancy and resolution in undergoing all those disgraces hath made it be commonly said That a wise man is above fortune because he slights her stroaks by the strength of his reason which being alone capable to render us happy since Beasts destitute thereof have neither any share in good-luck or bad-luck I conceive that both the one and the other depends intirely upon our fansie and the reflection we make upon the condition of the thing possessed which appearing sometimes good and sometimes bad makes us accordingly judge our selves happy or unhappy The Second said Diversity is no where more apparent than in humane Actions the incertainty and inconstancy whereof is such that men rarely arrive at their proposed end but oftentimes behold themselves either exalted to an unhoped degree of Felicity or overwhelmed with the Misery which there was no ground to apprehend Which diversity of accidents induced Superstitious Antiquity to set up a blind and flitting Deity constant onely in her inconstancy whom they held the cause of all such effects thus betaking themselves to an imaginary canse in regard they could not or would not acknowledg the true which I attribute to every ones temperament by means of which is produced in the Soul a certain natural motion and impetuosity for obtaining some particular thing without Reasons contributing thereunto and according as a Man follows or resists these instincts and inclinations so he proves either happy or unhappy Thus he who finds himself disposed to Arms if he embrace them thrives better than in a soft and sedentary life whereunto the Melaneholly person is more addicted and prospers better herein Now because dull spirits fools and thick-skull'd fellows easily suffer themselves to be guided by those motions therefore they commonly prove more fortunate than the wise whose Prudence and Discretion causing them to make abundance of reflections upon what they undertake causes them also to lose opportunities which never return For I am not of their Opinion who hold That as there are Spirits which make the Celestial Orbes move and according to Averroes an Intelligence presiding over natural Generations so there is a particular one for the various events of life which it makes to happen according to the different intentions of the First Mover Since without recurring to such obscure and remote causes we carry in our selves those of our Felicity and Infelicity whereof we are the true Artificers which to place in the Phansie alone and not in reality is to say good is not Good since goodness being an essential affection of real entity is inseparable from it and consequently true not barely imaginary The Third said That Good being such onely upon account of its conveniency or sutableness to the Possessor there is not in this world any Absolute Good or Happiness but onely Relative and by Comparison seeing what sutes well with one doth not so with another Riches wherein most Men place their Felicity were cast into the Sea by a Philosopher that he might the better attend Contemplation Honors and Pleasures charms which most powerfully inveigle most of Man-kind are crosses and torments to some others Imprisonment one of the hardest trials of Patience is nevertheless sought by some who prefer Solitude and perpetual Restraint before the vanities of the world To have no Friends is the greatest of infelicities yet Timon made it his prime Pleasure Life the foundation of all goods hath been so tedious to some that to be deliver'd from it they have kill'd themselves and the pains afflictions and diseases leading to death are in the Stoicks account but imaginary Evils making no impression upon the wise The Fourth said Since Happiness and Unhappiness seem to be the Elements composing the Political Life of Men and the two Poles of that Globe upon which the Antients plac'd Fortune their Consideration may be taken two ways either in their Cause or in their Effect As for the first the Stoicks who establisht a Fate governing All by a Series of necessary and determinate Events were as impious as Democritus and Leucippus who on the
said Reason having been given Man to correct the Inclinations of the Sensitive Appetite 't is that alone must judge whether it be expedient for him to live long not Sense which makes us judge like beasts That nothing is dearer than Life But Reason illuminated either by Faith or by Philosophy teaches us that this World is the place of our banishment the Body the Soul's Prison which she alwayes carryes about with her Life a continual suffering and War and therefore he fights against Natural Light who maintaines it expedient to prolong so miserable a State For besides the incommodities attending a long Life which after 70. years as David testifies is onely labour and sorrow long Life is equally unprofitable towards attaining Knowlege and Virtue He that lives long can learn nothing new in the World which is but a Revolution and Repetition of the same Effects produc'd alwayes by the same Causes not onely in Nature whose course and changes may be seen in the Revolution of the Four Seasons of the Year but even in Affairs of State and Private Matters wherein nothing is said or done but what hath been practis'd before And as for Virtue the further we are from Childhod the less Innocence and Sanctity we have and Vices ordinarily increase with years The long Life of the first Men having according to some been the probable Cause of the depravation of those Ages CONFERENCE CXL Of the Lethargy AS the Brain is the most eminent and noble of all the parts being the Seat of the Understanding and the Throne of the Reasonable Soul so its diseases are very considerable and the more in that they do not attaque that alone but are communicated to all the other parts which have a notable interest in the offence of their Chief ceasing to diffuse its Animal Spirits destinated to Motion Sense and the Function of the Inferior Members Which Functions are hurt by the Lethargy which deprives a Man of every other Inclination but that to sleep and renders him so forgetful and slothful whence it took its Greek name which signifies sluggish oblivion that he remembers nothing at all being possess'd with such contumacious sleepiness that she shuts his Eyes as soon as he ha's open'd them besides that his Phansie and Reasoning is hurt with a continual gentle Fever Which differences this Symptom from both the sleeping and waking Coma call'd Typhomania the former of which commonly begins in the Fits of Fevers and ends or diminishes at their declination but the Lethargick sleeps soundly and being wak'd by force presently falls a sleep again The latter makes the Patient inclin'd to sleep but he cannot by reason of the variety of Species represented to him in his Phansie The signes of this Malady are deliration heaviness of the Head and pain of the Neck after waking the Matter taking its course along the spine of the back frequent oscitation trembling of the Hands and Head a palish Complexion Eyes and Face pufft up sweatings troubled Urine like that of Cattle a great Pulse languishing and fluctuating Respiration rare with sighing and so great forgetfulness as sometimes not to remember to shut their Mouths after they have open'd nor even to take breath were they not forc'd to it by the danger of suffocation The Conjunct and next Cause of this Malady is a putrid Phlegm whose natural coldness moistens and refrigerates the Brain whilst it s put refactive heat kindles a Fever by the vapors carry'd from the Brain to the Heart and from thence about the whole Now this Phlegmatick Humor is not detained in the Ventricles of the Brain for then it would cause an Apoplexy if the obstruction were total and if partial an Epilepsie wherein the Nerves contract themselves towards their original for discharging of that Matter But 't is onely in the sinuosities and folds of the Brain which imbibing that excessive humidity acquires a cold and moist intemperature from whence proceeds dulness and listelesness to all Actions For as Heat is the Principle of Motion especially when quickned by Dryness so is Cold the Cause of stupidity and sluggishness especially when accompanied with humidity which relaxes the parts and chills their Action In like manner Heat or Dryness inflaming our Spirits the Tunicles of the Brain produce the irregular Motions of Frenzy which is quite contrary to the Lethargy although it produce the same sometimes namely when the Brain after great evacuations acquires a cold and moist intemperature in which case the Lethargy is incurable because it testifies Lesion of the Faculty and abolition of strength But on the contrary a Frensie after a Lethargy is a good sign resolving by its Heat and dissipating the cold humors which produce the same The Second said That coldness being contrary to put refaction Phlegm the coldest of all humors cannot easily putrifie in the Brain which is cold too of its own nature much less acquire a Heat sufficient to communicate it self to the Heart and there excite a Fever it being more likely for such adventitious Heat to cause in the Brain rather the impetuous motions of a Frenzy than the dulness and languor of a Lethargy Nor is it less then absurd to place two enemy-qualities in the same Subject to wit Cold and Heat whereof the one causes sleep the other a Fever which I conceive to precede not to follow the Lethargy and which having raised from the Hypochondres to the Brain a Phlegmatick blood mixt with gross vapors there causeth that obscuration of Reason and sluggishness of the whole Body but especially the abolition of the Memory the sutable temperament for which is totally destroyed by excessive humidity Indeed the troubled Urine liquid Digestions Tumors and pains of the Neck bloated Flesh and other such signs accompanying this disease argue that its matter is more in the rest of the Body than in the Brain which suffers onely by Sympathie The Third said If it be true that sleep is the Brother of Death then the Lethargy which is a continual drowsiness with a Fever and Delirium seemes to be a middle Estate between Life and Death which is known by the cessation of Actions most of which fail in those afflicted with this Evil which nevertheless is less then the Carus wherein the sleep is so profound that the Patient feels not when he is prickt or call'd by name but is depriv'd of all Sense and Motion saving that of Respiration which scarce appears in the Catoche or Catalepsie a stranger symptom than any of the former wherein the Eyes remain wide open the whole Body stiff and in the same state and posture wherein it hapned to be when it first seiz'd the same The Cause whereof most say is a cold and moist humor obstructing the hinder part of the Brain but I rather ascribe it to a sudden Congelation of the Animal Spirits as I do the Lethargy to narcotick and somniferous vapors which are the sole Causes of Inclination to sleep which cannot
full enough of miseries without needing addition of those that commonly attend Marriage which a Philosopher who had triy'd it said hath but two good dayes the first when there is nothing but laughing and the last which delivers us from that sad slavery perfectly contrary both to liberty and quiet the two greatest Goods a wise Man can enjoy in this Life which are inconsistent with the turmoil of Houswifrie and the Cares of Marriage from which therefore the Brachmans Gymnosophists Galli and Vestals and at this day such as are devoted to God's Service have been exempted to the end the better to mind Contemplation and Virtuous Exercises both hard to be done in Marriage wherein scarce any other Virtue is practis'd but Patience whereof 't is the true School which Socrates said He had learnt better by the scolding of his Wife than by all the Precepts of the Philosophers The Fourth said Men would be Vagrants and Stragglers like wild Beasts were it not for Marriage which is the foundation of the State for it makes Families and Families make Common-wealths which consequently owe their Nativity and increase to marry'd people who have a much greater interest in the Conservation of the State than those that have neither House nor Home as unmarry'd Men seldom have But as there is no compleat Good in this World so Marriage though a most holy and good thing in it self instituted by God in Paradise and during the state of Innocence hath nevertheless its incommodities not so much from it self as from the fault of the persons who know not how to use it as they ought The Fifth said 'T is peculiar to Marriage to have nothing small or moderate every thing in it is extream 'T is either full of sweetness and Affection or of Hatred and bitterness 't is either a Paradise or a Hell When 't is suted with all Conditions requisite there 's no state happier but when any is wanting no Infelicity equals it And because Good requires the integrity of all its constituent parts but Evil comes from the least defect 't is no wonder that few or no Marriages are happy since there is none wherein there is not something to be wisht for especially when the match is made as most commonly 't is by another's Hand though 't is strange that Men who are so circumspect and wary in other bargains searching examining and taking Essay of what they buy should have so little Prudence in an Affair of such Consequence and Danger There is nothing but a Wife that a Man is oblig'd to keep as long as he lives but they have been taken at a venture since at the instance of the Roman Dames the Law of Ancus Martius was abolisht who had purposely built a Temple to Male-Fortune near the Tyber where Women were carefully examin'd And as t is an intolerable madness to engage voluntarily into fetters and a perpetual Prison by subjecting one's self to the Caprichio of a Woman so 't is great simplicity in a Man to entrust his Honor the chiefest of all Goods to her inconstant humor who may render us infamous when the Phansie takes her I think therefore every one ought to consult himself Whether it be fit for him to marry or not that is Whether he believes he ha's Virtue and Constancy enough to suffer the defects of a Woman who may be commendable in some Point but at the bottom is alwayes a Woman CONFERENCE CXLII At what time the Rational Soul is infus'd AS Religion obliges us to believe that the Soul which is of an Immortal Nature comes immediately from God who drawing it out of the Abysse of Nothing at the same time creates it in the Infusing and infuses it in the Creating so nothing is determin'd absolutely touching the time in which that infusion is made For knowing which we must observe that the whole time of the Child's residing in the Womb is divided into four parts namely the Conception Conformation Motion and Parturition so distinguished between themselves that the time of Motion is about treble to that of Conformation and the time of Parturition double to that of Motion The whole work of Conformation is divided again into four times according to which the Matter contained is diversly fashioned and wrought and is called Geniture or Coagulated Milk Foetus Embryo and an Infant when the Conformation of the parts is finished which is at the thirtieth day for Boyes and at the forty second for Girles whose less Heat and more waterish materials require a longer time for Conformation of their Spermatick parts After which the Blood arriving fills the void spaces of the Muscles Fibres and other carnous parts which are not perfectly shaped till towards the time of Motion which is the third month for Males and the fourth for Females at which time the Second Conformation ends and the whole organization is compleated At first the Infant hath onely a Vegetative Life by means of which his parts are generated by the Alteration and Conformation of the Matter and are nourished and take their growth not onely by their Attraction from all parts of the Matrix but also by an Internal Vital Principle which is the Vegetative Soul residing in all fruitful seed and being the same with the Formative Faculty Now because the Vegetative or Sensitive Soul is but an accident namely a certain Harmony of the Four Qualities therefore they easily give place upon the arrival of the reasonable soul which I think happens when the organization of the parts is perfected to wit about the third or fourth month before which time the Body not being organized cannot receive the Soul which is the act of an Organical Body which also she forsakes when upon any notable solution of continuity the Organs are destroyed and abolished oftentimes though the Temper of the similary parts be not hurt which consequently is not the sole requisite for the Infusion of the Soul but also the convenient Fabrick of the Organs The Second said That the opinion which introduces the Rational Soul in the first days of Conception as soon as the matter necessary for receiving it begins to put on the diversity of Organs is the most probable since by this means this soul differs from others in that it proceeds and makes the dispositions whereas others follow the same and absolutely depend thereupon And the same reason which obliges us to acknowledg the Reasonable Soul after motion constrains us to admit it before which nothing hinders us from attributing to some other cause as to the Sensitive Soul introduc'd before the Rational saving that causes are not to be multiplied without necessity and one Soul alone may suffice for Sense whilst yet the defect of Organs allow not the exercise of Reason The same reason shews how absurd it is to assign any other cause in the first days of the Vegetative Actions it being as easie to infer the presence of the Reasonable Soul by this sort of actions as
by the Sensitive Actions which may also have another cause For the infusion of the Reasonable Soul after forty days cannot be proved by actions proper to it for it reasons not till long after nor by the actions of a Soul simply for then you must grant that it is there before Organization which is an action proper to animated things Moreover the Soul must be admitted in the Body as soon as it may be there which is at the beginning of conception because even then there wants no fit disposition to this Soul which needs not any different Organs for the barely Vegetative Actions which she then performs no more then Plants do nor are different Organs necessary to her absolute exsisting since God hath created her immaterial and without any dependance and we see the similary parts of the Body are animated so that the dispositions wherewith the Soul can subsist and which suffice to retain her in the Body are also sufficient to introduce her thereinto Now these dispositions are no other then the same which are requisite for the actions of the Vegetative Soul For whatever indisposition happen to the Organs of Sense and Motion the Soul abides in the Body till the heat be dissipated or extinguished the Organs of Sense and Motion being not necessary to retain the Soul in the Body saving in as much as they contribute to respiration Even the Apoplexie which abolishes all the noble dispositions which the Philosophers hold necessary to the Soul never drives her away unless it be by accident since a Child in his Mothers belly may have that disease without incommodity saving when it comes to need respiration Now though Organization be not a disposition requisite to the introduction of the Soul yet she requires certain others some whereof we know not as that unexplicable character imprinted in the Seed besides the temperament which suffices perfectly to determine the matter for introdudion of this form and exclusion of all other The conformation of Organs being not a disposition which determines necessarily seeing amongst humane bodies some differ more from the generality of men in respect of the principal parts then they do from certain other Animals but 't is the temperament alone which arising in the first days after the mixture of the two seeds and according to Hippocrates the foetus having in the first seven days all that he ought to have this opinion is more pious and expedient for repressing the criminal license of those who without scruple procure abortion within the first forty days The Third said Though the Reasonable Soul be of a much sublimer nature then the souls of other Creatures yet being created with reference to the Body 't is not introduced thereinto till the same be fitted for its reception as no other natural form is ever received into a subject not previously fitted with all due dispositions And since the Soul is the principle of all actions hence she needs Organs and Instruments for performing them and the more sublime she is the greater preparation doth she require then the Sensitive Soul as this also doth then the Vegetative which demands only a certain mixture of the first qualities besides which the sensitive requires a more exquisite temperament of the two Principles of Generation Seed and Blood endued with a vital Spirit capable of producing Sense and Motion So that the Reasonable Soul ought not to be infused till after the conformation is in all points completed The Fourth said Since there is no proportion but between things of the same nature the Immortal Reasonable Soul cannot have any with the corruptible Body and so not depend more on the matter in its infusion then in its creation which is probably the third day after conception at which time the actions of life appear in nutrition growth alteration and configuration of the parts Which actions must proceed from some internal and animated principle which cannot be the Soul either of Father or Mother since they act not where they are not inherently nor yet the spirit of the Seed which is not a principal agent but only the instrument of a Soul nor the formative vertue which is only an accident or temper of qualities and in like manner the instrument of some more noble agent 'T is therefore the Soul contained in the bosom of the matter which produces all these actions therein They who hold the Reasonable Soul not introduced till after the two others consider not that Forms receiving no degrees of more or less cannot be perfected or changed one into another much less annihilated seeing corruption is caused only by contraries and Forms have none It follows therefore that the Reasonable Soul is the principle of all these functions which she performs according to the dispositions she meets with and that she is the architect of her own habitation CONFERENCE CXLIII Of Metempsychosis or Transmigration of Souls THough Metemphychosis or the Transmigration of Souls be rather imaginary then true yet because there is nothing which more inriches the Field of Philosophy then liberty of reasoning we shall here inquire whether the Heathen guided only by the light of Nature had any reason to maintain this extravagance which was first taught in Greece by Pythagoras who had learn'd it of the Egyptians by whom and most other Nations of antiquity it was believ'd not only that souls departed out of some bodies re-entered and animated others but also that all things after a certain revolution of Ages should resume the same state wherein they had formerly been This was also the opinion of Plato saving that he was more rational then Pythagoras who making three Souls of the same quality said that those of men after death went to animate the bodies of Men Beasts or Plants for which reason he abstained from the flesh of Animals and could hardly resolve to eat Beans for fear of biting his Fathers head But Plato held the Transmigration of Rational Souls only into humane Bodies Which opinion though less absurd then the former which destroys it self by the confusion it introduces amongst all natural beings yet it hath its inconveniences too since the Soul being an incompleat form making one whole with its other half the Body it can never meet with one in all points like the first besides that were it in another it would have an inclination towards the first and so would not be in such body in quality of a form but in a state of constraint and violence The Second said That the Pythagorical Metemphychosis is not more absurd in regard that being the form gives a determinate and specifical being to every thing if humane souls past into the bodies of Beasts or Plants these Creatures would be Men then that of Plato seems probable nothing hindring but that a humane soul may enter into another humane body after the dissolution and ruine of the former For if there be any thing to hinder it it must be because there is no return
't is the multitude of persons excelling in all sort of Arts and especially in the Sciences whereof never were so many Doctors Regents and Professors seen in one single Age as in this that makes us less esteem the ingenious that are now living for 't is onely rarity that gives price to things and that made him pass for a great Clerk a few Ages ago who could but write and read he that spoke Latine was a Prodigy though now 't is a Tongue almost as universal and common as the Native Now Admiration being the Daughter of Ignorance the esteem had of most of the admired in former Ages is rather an Argument of the Rudeness and Ignorance of the Times than of the excellence of their Witts Nor were they better than we in their Manners but onely more simple and yet culpable of as many Crimes But were we the more wicked this were no Argument of want of Witt which is the matter in question And if there have been sometimes a Ceres a Bacchus a Pallas a Vulcan and others advanc'd to Deities for finding out the way to sow Wheat plant Vine-yards spin Wool and forge Iron we have had in these last Ages the Inventors of the Compass the Gun Printing the Tubes of Galileo and a thousand other Inventions both more difficult and excellent the easiest having been first discover'd The Modesty of those that govern us who no less hate the vanity of praise than they know how to exercise Actions deserving it permits me not to shew you that all pass'd Ages have nothing that comes near the grandeur of their Souls and that their conduct is the more to be admir'd in that their business is both to keep themselves up with Friends and give reason to Enemies who also help to verifie that there are greater States-men and Captains in this Age than in any of the preceding CONFERENCE CXLV Of the Serene which is a hurtful Dew falling in Summer Evenings AS Painters find it harder to represent a calm smooth Sea than the rampant foaming billows of a storm which require more variety of Colours and afford the Pencil more liberty and as a History of Peace is harder to write and less pleasant to read than the Troubles and Commotions of Warr So I think it less difficult to describe the several impressions of Tempests than those of a calm Air which nevertheless at certain times produces pernicious Effects so much more remarkable in that they proceed from a very simple Cause no-wise malignant of it self to wit from a clear and serene Air free from Clouds and Vapours which in the Evening being cool'd by the reason of the Sun's Elongation acquires a certain Refrigerating and Catarrhous quality call'd by the vulgar The Serene because it happens either in the Evening or more commonly in fair weather when the Air is serene than when it is pluvious and full of Vapours Which quality some ascribe to the Influence of the Stars especially to the Moon term'd for that reason by the Psalmist Infrigidans which hath indeed a notable dominion over all Humid Bodies particularly those of Men who find sensible alterations in themselves according to the several faces of that Planet But because the Heavens diffuse their Influences upon those that are under covert as well as upon those that are in the open Air where onely the Serene is felt I should rather pitch upon the alterations of the refrigerated Air which acts but so far as it is near us and 't is always more proper to attribute Effects here below to proximate Causes than to recur to the Heaven which is but an equivocal Cause thereof The Second said If Cold were the Cause of the Serene the same should happen where-ever it were cold and be more hurtful according to the vehemency of that quality as towards Midnight or Morning and likewise in Winter Yet the Serene is never spoken of but in the temperate Seasons of Spring and Autumn and some little portion of the Seasons bordering upon them Besides in Summer the air of our cold Caves should be capable of producing it at mid-noon Wherefore I cannot think the Serene an effect of bare cold but of the vapors wherewith the air howsoever apparently pure is always charg'd whence proceeds the diversity of refractions In the Planets especially at Sun-rise and Sun-set which is never without some clouds which vapours being destitute of the diurnal heat and so coming to be condens'd fall down upon our heads just as Dew doth which is produc'd after the same manner but of a matter somwhat thicker and more copious And as there is no Dew so there is no Serene but in temperate Seasons and Regions never in Winter or the midst of Summer for violent cold congeals these vapours into Frost and Ice and vehement heat dissipates and consumes them The practice of our Ladies who use to remain in the Serene thereby to whiten their complexion and soften their flesh shows that this evening-air having a cleansing and levigating vertue must be impregnated with a quality like Dew which is detersive by reason of the salt which it drew from the earth by means whereof it not only whitens Linen and Wax but also purgeth Animals as appears by the fluxes hapning to Sheep driven out to grass before the Sun has consum'd the Dew and by Manna which is nothing but a condens'd dew and hath a purgative vertue The Third said Mans body being subject to the injuries of all external Agents receives so much greater from the impressions of the Air as the same is more necessary to life capable of subsisting for some time without other things but not a moment without Air which is continually attracted into our Bodies not only by respiration but also by insensible transpiration through the Pores of the Body which is pierc'd with holes like a Sieve for admission of air which is taken in by the Arteries in their motion of Diastole or Dilatation And being most agile and subtle it easily penetrates our Bodies altering them by the four first qualities wherewith it is variously impregnated according to the vicinity of the Bodies environing it which make the four Seasons of the Year wherein it variously disposes the bodies upon which it acts changing even their natural temperament And because the parts of a natural day have some proportion with those of a year upon account of the several changes caus'd by the common and proper revolutions of the Sun hence the Morning is like the Spring hot and moist or rather temperate and the Blood then predominates Noon resembles Summer hot and dry at which time Choler is in motion the following part is cold and dry Melancholy and correspondent to Autumn the Evening and whole Night by its coldness and humidity which puts Phlegm in motion is a little Winter the coldness whereof proceeds not from the vapors which are always accompani'd with some extraneous heat whereby they are retain'd in the Air and kept
from falling but from the bare privation of the heat of the Sun who as by his presence he actually causes heat in the Air so by his absence he causes coldness in the same which penetrating our Bodies calefi'd by the diurnal heat easily therein condenses the vapors which are not yet setled or laid and squeesing them out of the Brain and all the parts just as we do water out of a wet spunge they fall upon the weakest parts where they cause a fluxion and pain The Fourth said That the Air being of it self very temperate can never do any mischief unless it be mix'd with some extraneous substances as Vapors and Exhalations which continually infect the first Region wherein we reside And because those subtle parts of Earth and Water exhal'd into it are imperceptible 't is not strange if they produce such sudden and unexpected effects as we see the Serene doth which is caus'd by vapors rais'd after Sun-set by the force of the heat remaining upon the surface of the Earth like those arising from heated water after it is taken off the fire So that the Serene is that vapour whilst it mounts upwards not when it falls downwards for it cannot descend till it be render'd heavier by condensation into Water Clouds or Mists which make the Air nubilous and not serene as in this effect it uses to be But at their first elevation they are more volatile rare subtle and invisible The Fifth said That the chief cause of this hurtful accident is the change of one contrary into another without medium which is always incommodious to Nature who for that reason conjoyns all extreams by some mediums which serve for dispositions to pass from the one to the other without difficulty And as the alteration of the body from cold to hot is painful witness those who hold their cold hands to the fire after handling of Ice in like sort that from hot to cold is very incommodious whence the hotter the preceding day hath been the more dangerous is the serene because the pores of the Body being open'd and all the humors disorder'd and mov'd by the diurnal heat the cold insinuates into and works upon the same with more liberty just as heated water is soonest frozen by reason its parts are more open'd by the heat and consequently more capable of receiving the impressions of Agents Which is also the reason why the first cold hurts us rather then the greatest frosts namely because it finds the body more open then ensuing hard weather doth So though in Winter the air be colder yet because 't is almost continually the same it makes less impression in the evening upon our bodies already accustomed to its rigor and though the air is colder at midnight then at Sun-set yet the serene is only at the beginning of the night when our bodies more sensibly receive alteration from the same Wherefore 't is only the sudden change of the air which makes the serene whereof our bodies are the more sensible according to the openness of the pores and of the futures of the head and the softness of the flesh which renders the body obnoxious to external causes as hardness which secures it from them makes it subject to internal causes through want of transpiration Hence Peasants Souldiers and all such as are hardned by labour and are of a firm and constant constitution feel no inconvenience from the Serene although they breathe an air more subtle and consequently more capable of being impregnated in the evening with qualities noxious to the body CONFERENCE CXLVI Whether the French are Light and Inconstant and why THere is no more perfect Mirror of Inconstancy then Man as appears by the pleasure his body takes in the change of Pasture his mind in that of Objects and both in that of Condition Hence men look not upon present honours but as so many steps whereby to ascend to new the possession of present goods bringing no other satisfaction then that of their Stomack that is till a second Appetite be excited by new Meats Whereunto the nimbleness of their volatile Spirits the fluidity and mobility of their humours which constitute the temperament too notoriously furnish the efficient and material cause to inquire elsewhere for them for which reason the melancholick are less subject to this defect this earthy humour being less susceptible of change whence they prove more wise But amongst all Nations there is none to whom the vice of Levity is more imputed then to the French Caesar who had long convers'd with them frequently objects the same to them and experience sufficiently shews by what is pass'd that they are very far from the constancy of other Nations as not only their Statutes and Edicts which they cannot long observe but all their Modes and Customs and their desire of novelty abundantly testifie The causes whereof are either from the Climate or the Soil For 't is observ'd that where the Heaven is always in the same posture as toward the Poles or where the Sun heats almost in the same degree as near the Equator which makes the days and nights equal the Manners and Inclinations of the People are also equal on the contrary those that by the several remotions and approaches of the Sun have different constitutions of Air receive sutable impressions from the same which are afterwards manifested in their actions And because what is below is the same with what is on high the Earth consequently partakes of the same alterations which the Heaven produces in the Air and retains them longer Thus our Soul being heated and cooled moistned and dry'd in one and the same day suffering contrary changes in a very little time 't is no wonder if the Aliments it affords make the parts humors and spirits like it self that is to say flitting inconstant and mutable which parts being communicated from Father to Son can no more be chang'd by us even by Travels and Alteration of Soil than the Moor can change his skin which the temper of his native climate hath in like manner given him Add hereunto that the French Courtesie receiving all strangers more civilly than any Nation of the World is also more easily lead by their perswasions and examples And whereas the roughness and rusticity of many other people thinks shame and scorn to change as implying preceding Ignorance the sincerity and frankness of the French is such that he easily alters his Mind and way as soon as another seems better to him than his own other Nations what-ever Pride they take in being always constant and equal to themselves and especially more patient than we in our Adversities surpassing us onely in this particular that they better know how to dissemble their discontents The Second said Lightness of Minds is like that of Bodies respective onely not absolute And as Air is term'd Light in respect of Water and Earth so dull people those of the North and such others as would have gravity alone
Moon which manifestly exercises its empire over all Humid Bodies the flux and reflux following the Lunar Periods and Motions not onely every six months to wit during the two Aequinoxes when their Tides are very high but also every month in the Conjunction and Opposition of the Moon and also every six hours of the day almost all Seas have their flux and reflux except some which make the same in more or less time and are longer in their reflux than their flux or on the contrary according to the declivity and various winding of the Lands the greatness or smallness of Creeks the Streights of the Seas narrowness of banks and other differences of situation The Second said That the Sea being a simple body can have but one natural Motion viz. that of its own weight which makes it flow into places lower than its source which it can never surmount Amongst the other three Motions proceeding from without that from East to West is discern'd by the time spent in Voyages at Sea which is much longer from West to East than from East to West because in the first they move contrary to the Motion of the Sea and in the second with it Now the cause hereof is the impression of the First Mover upon all the Orbes and Inferior Bodies which follow the rapidity of its daily Motion from East to West upon the Poles of the World That from North to South is likewise seen in most Seas and chiefly in the Euxine which being fill'd by the Palus Maeotis and the Tanais discharges it self by the Aegaean into the Mediterranean Sea which were it not for the high sluces of Africa would continue the same Motion Southwards Which sometimes hindred Darius and Sesostris from digging that space of Land which is between the Red-Sea and the Mediterranean for fear lest this latter should overflow those Southern Countries The Cause of this Motion is the multitude of Waters towards that Pole whose coldness not raising so great a quantity of Vapors and Rains as towards the South the Waters come to be greater there and so are forc'd to fall towards the lower places Or rather since there is the same cold under the Antarctick Pole and consequently the same quantity of Waters and Rains this descent of the Waters Southwards must be attributed to the Elevation of the Earth in the North or to the narrow mouths or gulphs of those Seas which make the waters descend out of them more easily than they enter into them As to the flux and reflux which is a Compounded but regular Motion it cannot proceed from Vapors or from inconstant and irregular Winds but from the Motion Light and particular Influence of the Moon which attracting the Sea in the same manner that the Load-stone doth the Iron is the Cause of its accumulation or swelling and increase which makes the flux And then her Virtue abating by her elongation the Waters by their proper weight resume their level and so make the reflux And because all Seas are continuous the Moon when under our Horizon ceases not to cause the same Motions in our Seas as when she is above it the Waters necessarily following the motion of those which are next them which would be alike in all did not some variation arise from the different situations of Lands which is the cause that the flux and reflux of the Ocean is more sensible then the Mediterranean and in this the Adriatick then the Tuscan by reason that Sicily and the point of Italy makes the Sea enter impetuously into the Gulph of Venice wherein is observ'd another particular motion call'd Circulation whereby the Mediterranean flowing by its proper motion from East to West and meeting immediately at the entrance of that Gulph the Coast of Macedonia discharges it self impetuously thereinto and continues its motion to the bottom of the Gulph whence being repercuss'd it returns by the opposite Coast of Calabria to the other point of the Gulph by which it enters into the Tuscan Sea Hence to go from Venice to Otranto they take the Coast of Galabria and to return back that of Macedonia The Third said Nothing so strongly argues the mobility of the Earth as the motions of the Sea and Rivers for what else were it but a miracle if water contain'd in an immoveable vessel should agitate and move it self That of Rivers proceeds not from their weight which makes them fall into a place nearer their Centre seeing that in a declivity requisite to the course of a River for 200 leagues there must then be a depression more sensible then the altitude of the highest Mountains of the Earth nor could the Sea remit the waters to their Springs as the holy Scripture saith it doth if those Springs were higher then it But supposing the motion of the Earth 't is easie to render a reason of that of the Water As for Rivers almost all which run westward the Earth having its Diurnal Motion from West to East according to the Hypothesis of Copernicus may cause this their contrary motion by subtracting it self from the fluidity of the waters liquid bodies not exactly following the motion of solid as the water in a Tub rises in the side opposite to that towards which you sway the Vessel By the same reason also the Sea shall have its course from East to West which is therefore very sensible between the two Tropicks where the rapidity of the Earths motion is greater then under the Poles Hence upon this account Navigation is very easie Westward the Currents very violent the Tides great towards the Coast of America as is observ'd chiefly in Magellan's Streight where the refluxes of the Northern and Eastern Sea are advanc'd above 70 leagues and the Mar del Sur scarce goes to 25 and that weakly but about the Poles the Sea hath no other motion but that which is caus'd by Winds and Tempests As for the flux and reflux of the Sea according to the same supposition of its motion compounded of the annual in the Ecliptick where others make the Sun circulate and the Diurnal upon its own Axis and proper Centre there arises a certain irregular motion sometimes slower and sometimes swifter which is the cause of that flux and reflux for as in a Boat mov'd at first swiftly and then caus'd to move somwhat slower the water contain'd therein swells in its extremities till by continuation of that motion it recover its level and the Boat being again driven with the same velocity the water swells again upon the change of the motion the same comes to pass upon the unequal motion of the Earth mixt of the annual and diurnal But because the Moon being annex'd to the Earth exactly follows its motions therefore most Philosophers have taken the Moon for the cause of the flux and reflux although she be only the sign of it The Fourth said That according to this Hypothesis 't is easie to render a reason of two things very remarkable in
same to it by its own sole approach Hence such Insects as need fewest parts are soonest and most easily generated of Putrefaction perfecter Animals never The Fourth said That Nothing being made of Nothing some Matter is requir'd to every Generation which being barely alter'd in Animals which produce their like is corrupted in those which are generated of themselves the internal Humidity which serv'd to conjoyn the dry parts together being drawn out whence Carcases become dust And because Nature is never idle therefore when She finds part of that Humidity full of a seminal Vertue and a Vital Spirit and cannot make a Plant or an Animal of it like what it was before then she forms imperfect Creatures Which effect is not to be attributed to the Elements being full of souls nor to that particular Intelligence which Avicenna saith is destinated to the introduction of Forms nor to Heaven call'd by some The Parent Forms but to the establish'd order of Nature That when Matter is indu'd with all the Dispositions requisite to such or such a Form the same must be introduc'd into it which constitutes not a different Species from the Animals generated of Seed though the particular end of those bred of corruption seems to be the purgation of the Elements all whose impurities they attract and are nourisht therewith The fifth said That these Generations must be attributed to the Sun who transmits not only his Influence upon the surface of our Elements but also his Influence and Vertue to the Center of the Earth where it concocts digests prepares and vivifies Metals and makes mineral Waters boil For besides that such Generations happen chiefly when he approaches or makes himself most fell upon our Horizon some have observâ—d That Rats begotten of Corruption without the help of Male and Female are distinguish'd from others in that being expos'd to the Sun after death they have little or no bad smell but are consum'd and become in a manner nothing that Planet resuming what it had contributed to them whereas the smell of other produc'd by ordinary generation is intolerable The Sixth said That both in Univocal Generation which is compar'd to one fire kindling another and in that by Corruption which hath some Analogy with fire excited by a Steel the same difficulty occurrs namely What imperceptible Chain and Link attracts Forms and makes them necessarily descend into the Compound to give it Being so soon as fit Dispositions concur therein whether these Dispositions are awaken'd by the Seed as when you sow a Plant in well-prepared ground or whether they spring out of the earth without sowing as many Plants do which are more vigorous and less need cultivation than others by the Gardener's reason that Mothers have more care of their own Children than Nurses have of those of others Hence Rats bred of Corruption are more sprightly and long-liv'd and multiply more than others As for the manner of their Generation it must have some proportion with that of perfect Animals which are as little understood there being no Philosophy that can tell why a Horse begets rather a Colt than a Calf nor why a Pear-tree rather produces a Pear than a Plum CONFERENCE CLXIIII Of Zoophytes or Plant-Animals THe comprehensiveness of this Universe appears in that in the division of Entity and Substance not onely each Member answers to as many things as are in Nature but there are as many others as there can be several combinations made of the Members of this division Thus in the division of Souls into vegetative sensitive and rational there are found middle ones not onely between sense and reason but also between Vegetation and Sense Examples whereof may be seen in the Families of Animals and Vegetables Some Plants have no Root as Misleto and Mushrooms others nothing but Root as Trubs and Truffles some have onely leaves as Duckmeat others neither flowers nor seed as Ferne some want leaves as Venus-Navil others commonly put forth the Fruit before the Leaf as the Fig-Tree and lastly some Flower without bearing Fruit as the Flower-Cherry-Tree Of Animals some are bred of putrefaction and of others some remain a while without motion or life to appearance as the Silk-Worm in its bag and Snails in Winter others remain alwayes immoveable as Oysters And because this manner of being nourish'd and growing without any progressive motion is proper to Plants and yet by opening and shutting their Shells they testifie some sense therefore they are call'd Plant-animals in which the Soul seems to be compounded and to resemble changeable colours which consist of two extreams as Gray doth of White and Black being wholly neither but both together So also a Zoöphyte is something less then an Animal and more then a Plant. The Second said That Forms and particularly Souls are indivisible Indeed one may be comprehended in another as the Vegetative is in the Sensitive and this in the Rational which comprehends all eminently but it cannot enter into the composition of another much less be divided informing a body that is half Plant and half Animal otherwise by the same reason there might be others half Men and half Beasts which is not imaginable but under the form of a Monster Moreover such division would proceed to infinity there being a Latitude and Degrees without end between one extream and another of one whereof that which partakes most would constitute a new Species or rather a new genius which is absurd and contrary to Philosophy which admits not multiplication of things without necâ—ssity The Third said That by the same reason Plants and Animals being of the same species there can be no doubt but these two attributes might be found in the same Subject For Vegetation and Sense being onely several operations of the same Soul which acts differently according as it findes the Organs of its Subject dispos'd hence the multiplication of Souls is unnecessary seeing they are all but one And as in Brutes the sensitive faculty supervening to the vegetative in their generation adds no new form to the former so the vegetation of Plants is nothing less then the sensitive the dispositions of the matter being the sole causes of this diversity An Animal depriv'd of the use of some senses is no less an Animal then another that hath all why then is a Tree less an Animal because it exercises fewer operations of its soul then Animals do Nor is it a conclusive reason that Plants are wholly destitute of the faculties of sense because the same are not perceptible to our Senses which yet finde something to satisfie themselves in the sensitive Plant growing as Scaliger and others relate in Zanolha a part of Tartary where the Inhabitants sowe a Grain like that of our Melons but somewhat longer from which grows an Herb which they call Borrametz that is a Lamb whereof it hath the whole figure especially the Feet Hoofs and Ears yea all the Head excepting the Horns instead whereof it hath a
tuft of Hair upon the Forehead 'T is cover'd with very soft Hair employ'd by the Natives to make Caps of It s Flesh resembles that of Crevices and being wounded sends forth blood being also of a very sweet taste It adheres to the earth by its root which sends forth a Stem or Stalk which is inserted into its Navil To all which wonders they adde That it lives as long as there is any green Grass about it and dyes when the same is wither'd either by time or purposely And to make the comparison full they say that of all devouring Animals Wolves alone desire to feed of it We finde also some example of this double Life in the Wood of Scotland which being humected in water is turn'd into Ducks as also in the Leaves of another Tree like that of the Mulberry which Anthony Pigafet reports to have two little feet on which they run away as soon as one touches them and live onely of Aire Such likewise are the Mandrakes of upper Hungary which grow in the axact shapes of Men and Women The Baraas mention'd by Josephus which shines in the night and whose flight cannot be stopt but by the menstrual blood of a woman The Balsam-Tree which Pliny affirms to tremble at the approach of the Iron that is to make incision in it and that other Tree which Scaliger saith grows about eight foot high in the Province Pudiferam and upon the approach of a man or other Animal contracts its boughs and extends the same again upon their departure whence it took the name of Arbor Pudica which constriction and dilatation is also attributed to the Spunge In all which effects we observe powers and faculties near of kin to those of Animals The same uniformity of nature between Plants and Animals is prov'd also in that both the one and the other live and dye have their nutrition augmentation and generation If Animals have their time of being salacious Plants have theirs of being in Sap. They have dictinction of Sex as appears particularly in the Cypress Hemp and the Palm which beareth not fruit unless planted near the Male or at least some branch thereof be fastned to it They seem too to have some kinde of respiration for besides that they love the free Aire towards which they encline when planted near a high Wall or under great Trees their Root which is their mouth hath some discernment of taste eschewing hurtful soils and spreading freely into good ground and not imbibing all sorts of liquors indifferently but onely such as are convenient for them Hence their parts have names common to those of Animals as the Marrow Flesh Veins Skin In a word they seem to want onely local-motion which yet besides the foregoing examples is found in the Herba Viva of Acosta which folds up it leaves and flowers when it is toucht as likewise Tulips do in the evening and open the same again in the morning Marigolds follow the Sun and thence have gotten the Latin name Solsequia but more manifestly the Sun-flower and the white Carline Thistle call'd the Almanack of Peasants who therefore hang it at their doors because it folds up its flowers when a Tempest is at hand 'T is notorious that the Bon-Chretien Pear-Tree and the Mulberry-Tree languish in places not frequented by men and on the contrary testifie by their vigour and fertility that they delight in their conversation Hereunto might be added the experience of Wood-Cleavers who finde that a wedge enters further at the first blow then for many following as if the substance of the Tree clos'd it self upon the first feeling it hath of its enemy But the bending of Hazle-rods towards Mines of Gold and Silver seems to denote something more in them then in Animals themselves In brief the motion of creeping Herbs may be call'd progressive amongst others that of the Gourd and Cucumber which follow the neighbouring water and shape their fruit in length to reach it CONFERENCE CLXV Of Trubbs or Truffs and Mushroms AS there is some middle nature between a Plant and an Animal partaking of both so there is also between a plain Mixt Body and a Plant to wit those Exuberances which grow sometimes on Trees as Agarick sometimes only out of the Earth as Mushroms and other such fungous Productions which are driven forth by the inward heat of the earth helpt by that of the Sun The matter of them is a slime or unctuous or viscous moisture fit to receive a sutable Form which is various according to the strength of Nature and the Disposition of the places through which it is driven as the Water of our Artificial Fountains puts on the shape of the pipe through which it passes And as for Trubbs 't is Cardan's Opinion That melted Snow sinking into the surface of the Earth and finding fit matter there produceth this Plant. Which the plenty of Spirits found in Snow makes me willing to assent to because they may serve for Seed to its Production The second said That he lik'd the common Opinion that Trubbs proceed from Thunder whose agitation of the Air and so of the Earth awakens the hidden Seed of this Plant as well of many others that grow of themselves or else perhaps the Rain that follows Thunder being full of Celestial Vertue proper for this Production is the Seed thereof For the Providence of Nature sometimes supplies by an Universal Efficient the Defect of particular Causes destinated to the production of other Plants which in most Trees and Herbs is the Seed which this wants as also all the ordinary parts of other Plants because 't is of the Nature of those Animals who have not their parts distinct one from another having neither stalk nor leaves nor flower nor root unless you will call it all root because it hath more appearance of than of any other part of a Plant which perhaps is the cause of its excellent taste which is neither sweet as most roots are nor sowr as most leaves are nor of any other kind of tast observ'd in the other parts of Plants but mix'd of all tasts together being very pleasant after coction hath matur'd what was terrestrial and aqueous in it As for Mushroms both their Nature and Cause is different but all proceed from an excrement which the Earth casts forth of it self and which was bred therein by the perpetual transcolation of the Humidities of the earth whence they are more or less hurtfull according to the greater or less malignity of such Humours but always of bad juice sutable to its Source and Material Cause The Third said 'T is the Rain of Autumn that makes the Mushrom the too great cold of Winter and that which yet remains in the Spring not permitting that Excrement to come forth but shutting it up as 't is the property of Cold and the heat and drought of Summer consuming the Matter that produces them as fast as it comes out of the Earth But in Autumn
excepting even virtuous ones which is not found in a Bird. The Swallow is skill'd in Architecture the Halcyon is able to divine how far the Nile will overflow and knows that out of Nature's respect to her there will be no Tempest at Sea while she is building her Nest the Goose is so safe a Guard that it sometimes sav'd the Capitol to the shame of the Sentinels the Wren serves for a guide and a scout to the Crocodile the Crow and the Turtle are patterns of conjugal amity so are the Storks of piety and even the swarms of Bees are models of Common-wealths and the Pismires when Age and Experience has render'd them more advised acquire wings The Silk-worm is nothing but a Caterpiller till its wings appear and then fluttering about it perpetuates its species with such prudence that it doth not lay its Eggs in heaps which would hinder their hatching but disperses them in several places in order to being more commodiously animated by the heat of the Sun Then as for Art we see no Animals besides Men capable of speech the first of Disciplines but Birds And the particular Examples of the Elephant and a few other Beasts that have shewn some shadow of Judgement are out-done by the Eagle which flew into the fire wherein her Mistresses Body was burning and many other Instances too numerous to be mention'd The Second said That the little head of Birds in comparison of the rest of their Body their driness and abounding Choler permit them not to be so intelligent as other Animals their chattering jargon as little deserving the name of a Language as their other actions do that of Virtue Moreover their sleep being not so sound and deep as that of Terrestrial Animals which by sucking their Dams are more humid and sleep being the restorer of Spirits Birds cannot have such plenty as other Creatures Whence they suffer themselves to be more easily taken than Land-Animals whose Bodies being more symbolical with ours they must also have greater aptitude for exercising some functions correspondent to those of our Mind For the cavities of their head and brains more resemble ours than those either of Birds or Fishes particularly that of the Ape which consequently is the most intelligent of all Animals next Man with whom all will agree that no other Animal can dispute the preeminence of Judgement with the least shew of Reason if any should it would never gain the Cause in regard Man must be the Judge The Third said Man hath no more reason to award this Cause to himself than to pretend to the advantage of flying better than Birds or swimming better than Fishes who exceed all Creatures in point of Health even to a Proverb which is a thing altogether necessary to the functions of the Soul Moreover they are of a very long Life which begets Experience as that doth Understanding Their Health is manifested by their Fecundity and since coldness is the Complexion of the wife and Salt is reckon'd the Symbol of Wisdom Fishes the inhabitants of the Sea and the coldest of all Creatures must have a share thereof Besides if softness of Flesh be a sign of goodness of Witt every where else as 't is in Man and Physiognomy teaches us to draw consequence from other Creatures to him Fishes have this advantage above all the Inhabitants either of the Air or Earth both which were indeed made for Man but the Sea was primarily made for Fishes it s other conveniences being only accidental Silence the common distinction between the wise and the foolish is natural to them whereas the voices and chantings of Birds and other Animals is oftentimes the occasion of their ruine Yea they are so subtle that Fisher-men cannot take them but with a white line of the colour of the water otherwise if it be gross and visible they will not come near it Diffidence the Parent of safety is more common to them than to all other Animals and their vigilance is greater Land-Animals have no sleight equall to that imperceptible charm whereby the Torpedo chills the arm of the Fisher-man or to that of the Cuttle-fish which when she is in danger of being taken moils the water with her Ink to keep her self from being seen or to that of the Polypus who becomes of the Colour of the Rock upon which it holds to void being perceiv'd And though the Element of Water so separates us from the commerce of its Inhabitants that the hundreth part of what concerns them is unknown to us yet there is none but observes that Fishes need more sleights to secure themselves from the ambushes and hostilities of others than the beasts of the field have which are also more easily taken The Fish call'd the Mullet strikes off the bait of the hook with her tail instead of being taken by it and if she cannot do so she is contented to bite it round about and the Sea-wolf finding her self taken shakes her head this way and that way with much pain till she have cast out the hook again and for the same purpose the Sea-fox turnes her inside outwards The Loubine and Sea-dog finding themselves surrounded with the Net make a hole in the ground and sculk therein till the Net be drawn over them but the Dolphin rejoyces in the Net because he may with ease fill himself with his fellow-prisoners yet when he perceives he is drawing near the shore he bites the Net which if he cannot do quick enough the Fisher-men knowing him a Friend to Man pardon him the first time and only thrusting a bul-rush through his skin let him go if he be taken again which seldom happens as Plutarch saith out of whom most of these Relations are taken he is beaten Yea they are ingenious not only for themselves but for others for when the Gilt-head hath swallow'd the hook his companions bite the line and if one of them fall into one of the Meshes they lend him their tails to bite and draw him through and when the Barbles see one of their companions caught they get upon him and with the indented spine they have upon their backs cut it asunder Crassus's Lamprey would take bread out of his hand and was bewail'd by him when it dy'd The story of Arion and that of the Fish call'd Manaro in the Island of Hispaniola which was delighted with praises and Musick carry'd nine or ten persons upon his back and having been wounded by a Spaniard disappear'd the Raye which Olaus writes defended a man from Dogs upon the shore of Denmark and the Sea-Eele which the Indians carry behind their Boats to let him play about the Tortoises and other Fishes which they take are abundant instances that Fishes are both sociable and docible This also is justifi'd by the Pinatere which pricks the Oyster to advertise it when its prey is within by the Spongothere which performs the same office for the Spunge and by the Whale's guide whom she suffers to sleep in
her throat and without whom she would dash against the shore by the Pike which keeps company with the Tench whose sliminess serves to close his wounds by the Tunnies who always set their good eye toward the shore and move well order'd in a cubick squadron by the Sea-Urchins which presaging a tempest lade themselves with stones for fear of being carry'd away by the waves and by all Fishes in general which swim against the wind lest it should open their scales excepting one whose scales are set the contrary way CONFERENCE CLXVIII What is the cause of the Crisis of Diseases CRisis if you consider its derivation from a word which signifies either to judge or to separate or to encounter agrees in some sort to every of those significations for a Disease is judg'd by it it separates the good humors from the bad and that after a combat between Nature and the Disease But 't is commonly defin'd a mutation of a Disease either to Health or Death for better or for worse We must first consider in it the term of its commencement which is the Augmentation of the Malady whence acute ones have their Crisis sooner then Chronical the very acute being sometimes judg'd in four days in which time very malignant Fevers sweep men away but commonly within seven days acute Diseases are judg'd by the 14th or 20th day and sometimes not before the 40th Chronical Diseases extend to the 120th after which term they count no longer by days but by moneths and years The term it ends at is either Health or Death or the change of one Disease into another The term through which it passes is the space of time employ'd by Nature in the coction separation and excretion of the peccant Humours The Agent or Motor is Nature which must be assisted in imperfect Crises not in such as are perfectly made Lastly we must consider what is mov'd namely the Humors for Crisis hath place only in humoral Diseases A perfect Crisis judges the Malady perfect either to Health or Death and hath had its indices of coction the fourth day for the Crisis on the seventh the eleventh for that on the fourteenth and the seventeenth for that on the twentieth it must also be manifest either by evacuation or abscess for those that mend without apparent cause relapse and fall upon critical days without any dangerous symptom and after such evacuation the Patient must be manifestly better especially if it be universal and sutable to his Nature Age and Malady Long Diseases are judg'd by Abscesses acute by Evacuation In young persons Fevers are judg'd commonly by Haemorrhage or some flux of blood in old men by that of the belly Now besides those Critical and Indicative days there are others call'd Intercidents which judge imperfectly and others also Medicinal because in them purgatives may be adminished which days are sometimes Critical but always unfaithful and commonly mischievous which will better appear by this general application The first day is reckon'd from the hour of the first invasion felt by the Patient in acute Diseases and from the time of his decumbiture in Chronical Yet in women newly deliver'd we begin not to reckon from the time of parturition unless it were precipitated but from the time of the Fever and this first day judges no other Disease but a Febris Ephemera or one-day Fever The second day is vacant and without effect The third is Intercident call'd by some Provocant because it irritates and provokes Nature to make excretions before the time for being odd it causes some motion in the morbifick matter but imperfectly as not following the order of Nature mention'd hereafter neverthess t is Critical in very acute Maladies and such as disorder the Laws of Nature The fourth is an index of the seventh and shews what is to be expected that day by either the Concoction or Crudity of the Urin and other excrements no laudable Crisis hapning without Concoction precedent Which holds good not only in continual Fevers but also in the fits or accessions of Intermitting ones for the fourth day being the middlemost between the first and the seventh it foreshews the design and strength or weakness of Nature and what she is able to do on the seventh The fifth resembles the third being likewise provocatory in Diseases wherein Nature hath made an unprofitable attempt on the third which she then endeavours to repair but unsuccessfully too this Crisis being most commonly imperfect The sixth is also Intercident but ordinarily very badly critical Whence Galen compares it to a cruel and faithless tyrant which precipitates the Patient into evident danger of life if it do not kill him It hath place chiefly in cholerick Diseases for in sanguine ones salutiferous Crises happen on this day which is even the Blood being observ'd to move on even days On the contrary the seventh resembles a just and gentle King or Magistrate for neither precipitating nor deferring too long the judgment of the Patient it gives him time of consideration judging him after its Indices fully and perfectly safely manifestly and without danger 'T is call'd Radical as being the root and foundation of all the other Critical Days and the end of the first week The eighth is of kin to the sixth but not quite so dangerous The ninth is the greatest Intercident and comes nearest to the nature of the Critical though it be not of their number The cause whereof is its being compos'd of odd numbers wherein we have said that morbifick humors are commonly mov'd or else because 't is equally distant from 7 and 11. The tenth resembles the eighth in danger and other circumstances The eleventh is an index of the fourteenth to which it hath the same reference that the fourth hath to the seventh saving that the second week is less active then the first and the third then the second The twelfth is not of any consideration and Galen saith he never observ'd any Crisis good or bad on it The like of the thirteenth The fourteenth follows the seventh in dignity and judges those Diseases which the seventh did not being the end of the second week and in this consideration odd The fifteenth and sixteenth are not any-wise remarkable The seventeenth is an index of the twentieth till which the intervening are insignificant and this twentieth is taken by Physicians for the end of the third week because they make the same begin from the fourteenth inclusively From the 20th to the 40th which is the end of Crisis in acute diseases every seventh day is critical But after the 40th Diseases are call'd Chronical and have their Crisis every 20th day to 120 so much the more obscure as they are distant from the beginning Of all which changes the Moon seems rather to be the cause then the other Planets or the vertue of Numbers as being more active by reason of her proximity and various apparitions The Second said That the reason upon which Astrologers
as they are more constant then Men after the same as we see more Men desert the Love of Women then on the contrary Witness the story of Demophoon after enjoyment of the King of Thrace's Daughter who fell into despair upon his departure as Medea did upon that of Jason and Dido upon that of her Aeneas The cause whereof seems not imputable to feminine Pudor as if having yielded themselves to one man they could not keep their honour unless they keep their affection but the reason is because Men are more perfect then Women and find more causes in them for change Yet I conceive that the augmentation or diminution of Love ariseth not from enjoyment as appears by Friendship which is contracted only after long converse and the eating of many bushels of Salt together as the Proverb speaks so far is a thorough knowledg such as Enjoyment gives us from diminishing it Not to mention the examples of many married couples who if occasion were offer'd would not stick to imitate the noble contention of Gracchus and Cornelia and chuse to dye one for the other The Fifth said That if Fruition diminishes Love it must be the fault either of the Lover or the thing lov'd Not the first for he is always the same person and fruition renders his object more sensible and consequently more amiable to him Nor the latter since the very imperfections of the thing lov'd seem so many perfections to him that loves it Balbinumque suae delectat polypus Agnae Thus also the imperfections of Children diminish not their Parents love but by the help of compassion augment the same Grandfathers commonly love their Childrens Children more tenderly then their own and amongst their own the youngest Which holds not only in this kind of work but in all others bad Painters having no less kindness for their own pieces then Apelles could have for his The Sixth said That the Question may be determin'd by distinguishing the sorts of Love Impetuous Love such as is found in Youth and the Poets describe swells like Torrents by resistance and languishes by liberty Regular and sober Love such as is found in ripe years towards deserving subjects and especially divine things encreases like Rivers by the accession of new Notions as so many new Springs till it end in a boundless Ocean Either sort receives augmentation or diminution according to the diversity of the minds affected therewith the weak as less capable of understanding the inconveniences of this impetuous passion which mastering all the rest deprives them of the use of Reason and renders them unprofitable to other actions of life continue longer before they come to themselves and quit this trouble Hence Women and of them the least judicious are conceiv'd to retain this passion longest even after possession of what they lov'd The contrary happens in the other love wherein the more we enjoy the more we are enflam'd to further pursutes of knowledg CONFERENCE CLXXV Whether 't were better to know all that men now know or all that they ignore NOne doubts but there are still things to be known and consequently Sciences to be attained But if we will stand to the wiseman's sentence That all known Sciences are vanity that is to say Nothing the Question will soon be voided there being no comparison between Nothing and Something Moreover there being no Science without Demonstration and very few or no Demonstrations in any Discipline which themselves are founded upon Principles not demonstrable which nevertheless ought to be known it follows that there is no Science and that we know but one thing with Pythagoras to wit That we know nothing And Pyrrho went further not allowing that men know themselves ignorant but that they must be contented to doubt of it yea and to doubt of their very doubting Accordingly we see that no reason is ever so strong but some other may be found that thwarts it and in all Disciplines the most skillful are the most unresolv'd and furthest from that Scholastick temerity which boasts of knowing every thing and never doubts of any thing like those young Captains that make head upon every occasion whereas your veterans are more sober So likewise the most skillful Physicians are always least hasty in their Judgments and Prescriptions and Lawyers the more practise and experience they have the more contrary presidents they find in the same case If you ascend to Divinity there you will find more ignorance than any where else yea Ignorance is the first degree and one of the conditions requir'd to it which was the reason why S. Paul so much blames Philosophy and our Lord chose the simplest and most ignorant such as poor Fishers not Doctors of the Law nor Scribes and Pharisees who were the most learned of his Country And at this day when matters of Religion seem most refin'd there 's none so rash but acknowledges that one single moment of the Vision of God gives more knowledg then the whole Sorbonne hath and that there is no more comparison between what all the men of the world together know of God and what Beatitude will teach of him then there is between finite and infinite that is none at all Whereby it appears that the knowledg of men is infinitely exceeded by what they ignore I shall instance further in the Mechanick Arts wherein if you compare the things our Artificers are ignorant of with those they know the most excellent amongst them will confess himself very unskilful and ignorant whereof the sole ancient Inventions now lost may serve for a proof For in some Roman Monuments lately discover'd there have been found Lamps which burnt twelve or fifteen hundred years and were not extinguish'd but upon letting in of the Air particularly in the Tomb of Cicero's Daughter at Padua The invention of a perpetual Motion which animated Archimedes Sphear dy'd with him that of malleable Glass with its Inventor who was wretchedly slain by Tiberius that of melting Stones or making artificial ones or at least of transporting and managing them whereby the Romans built those great Piles of Amphitheaters and other Works inimitable by us is not known at this day yea to go no further the goodness of building with most of the materials of the Ancients is perish'd with them So that 't is no wonder that at this day many of their Histories are accounted Fables such as the teaching of an Elephant to Dance upon the Rope which Suetonius affirms was seen in a Spectacle given to the Roman People the care and industry of Men being much diminish'd in this lee of times wherein they desire to obtain every thing without pains For the new Inventions of later Ages as the Compass Guns Printing Telescopes and some others were before Chance produc'd them or at least gave some hints to their Inventors in respect of us in the same Nothing wherein are all other possible things not yet effected So that 't is easie to conceive that there are
some to the disproportion between the seeds whence she that is barren with her first Husband is fruitful with her second Those of the woman are either internal or external The internal depend partly upon the seed and menstrual Blood and partly upon the temper of the Womb and the habit of the body The seed of a woman as well as that of man must be of a laudable temper quantity and consistence and provided of spirits enough If the maternal blood which concurs likewise to generation be too plentiful or too little no effect follows any more then if it were corrupted or wanted other requisite conditions The Womb which is like the soil to corn may be hurt either in its temper or its conformation or in the solution of continuity all which disorders hinder gravidation As for the habit of body we observe that fat women are barren either because the matter of Seed which is the purer portion of the Blood is turn'd into fat or because the Epiploon of fat Women pressing upon the Orifice of the Womb hinders the Seed from entring into the bottom of it Nor are Women too lean fit for Children by reason of their dryness and the tenuity of their Womb although they are far more fit than fat Women but this leanness is to be understood of so great an extenuation that it leavs the parts dedicated to Generation destitute of their vigour and due temperature Neither are the very tall or very low much fitter but those that are of a moderate Corpulency and Stature whose Breasts are firm and their lower parts larger than their upper Now since Conception is an Action proper to the Womb which quickens the Genitures the Woman ought rather to be said the Cause thereof than the Man and by the reason of contraries the Defect thereof must likewise be charg'd upon her The Second said That to blame Women for being more frequently barren than Men is to deprive them of their chief Glory which is Fruitfulness For Nature form'd them chiefly for propagation as the Conformation of their Bodies seems to prove in which the parts serving to that purpose as the Womb and Breasts have direct communications not only between themselves but also with the noblest parts of the Body Whence the Civilians reckon not Praegnation amongst Diseases notwithstanding all its inconveniences but with Physitians as a sign of health and good disposition Whereof Vlpian l. 14. ff de aedilit edicto gives this Reason Because their greatest and peculiar Office is to receive and preserve the fruit And therefore Woman having been in Nature's first intention design'd for Generation she must be also much more fit for it because Nature never fails of her end than Man who being born for Command Labour Contemplation and other more sublime Employments is design'd for Generation but in the more remote intention of Nature For not to speak of the desire of Coition which might renew the old quarrel that cost Tiresias his Eyes Women seem far more desirous to be Mothers than Men do to be Fathers and Nature gives no desires in vain Besides Man is naturally Hot and Dry a Temper less proper for Generation and he inoreases the same by Hunting Warr Exercises and other violent Labours not to speak of business and study On the contrary Women living alwayes at ease have a Constitution both of Body and Mind more calm and consequently more fit for this Action or rather Passion As therefore 't is more easie to suffer than than to act so Women must find less difficulty in Generation and consequently have less impediment to propagate than Men. I say nothing of Excesses in Dyet wherein Men are alwayes more licentious yet 't is the Excess of Wine that some alledge as the chief Cause why some Northern Countries are at this day almost desart whereas anciently they were so populous that Historians call'd the North the Shop of Men and the Magazine of Nations Witness the frequent Colonies issu'd from thence and the great inundations they have upon other parts of the world And possibly the reason why the Hebrew Law oblig'd a Man to marry the Relict of his issuless Brother was because it suppos'd the defect to proceed from the Husband and not from the Wife otherwise why should the Sister of a Wife deceas'd with issue succeed in her stead too But this Sex is reckon'd alwayes fit for ingendring and indeed is ever ready for it as the other is not which is the reason as a late Lady said why Men make sute to Women rather than these to them Perhaps also upon the same account barrenness under the Old Law was accounted by Women so great a reproach because being very rare 't is a kind of a monstrous thing in their Sex to be barren Moreover we hear many Women complain to the Judges which is one of the principal Causes of unfruitfulness But Histories afford scarce above three or four Women of whose inability their Husbands complain'd And to speak truth as fertility is imputed to the field and not to the grain so it must also be to the Woman alone who is the field of Nature and not to the Man The Third said That besides the Internal Causes of fruitfulness and barrenness there are also External ones which depend upon the Air Dyet Exercises Passions and the abuse of the other things call'd Not-natural The Air by the continual alteration it causeth in the Body which attracts the same by Respiration and Transpiration sometimes occasioneth either fruitfulness or sterility according to the variety of its Substance Temper and Qualities two whereof viz. Excessive Heat and Cold are great Enemies to Generation the one melting the other congealing the Humors but the excess of Heat least hinders it especially in Women the coldness of whose Temper is corrected by the warmth and increas'd by the coldness of the Air whence they are more amorous in Summer than in Winter Whereas the greater heat of Men is weakned by that of Summer and augmented by the coldness of Winter during which therefore they are more prone to Love So Dyet too contributes much to render our Bodies fruitful or barren not only altering but making them of the same Temper with it self Thus the waters of Nilus are so fertile that they make the Egyptian Women bring forth three or four Children at once by reason of the Salt-Nitre wherewith that River is impregnated and wherein Chymists place the principle of Fecundity because Ashes and Earth depriv'd of their Nitre produce nothing But cold waters even such as have the Virtue to petrifie render Women especially barren as most Women in Spain are through their frequent use of Ice and cold waters though some lay the fault upon the rarity and tenuity of their Bodies and the excess of Heat which also is the reason why the African and Southern people are not so fruitful as those of the North. Dyet hot and moist easie of digestion nutritive and full
trade and consequently thrive most whereas they that endeavour to grow rich in a day discredit themselves for the rest of their lives I think also 't were fit to remedy the evil custom of some who set so high a rate upon their Commodities that they frighten those that otherwise resolv'd to buy or else affront them with half the just price And if after the manner of some Countreys the prices of all wares were regulated much more would be vented and the time taken up in bargaining would be employ'd in other parts of Traffick besides that by this means we might send even any childe for any commodity whatever in the consideration of the set price and the assurance of not overbuying would make make customers buy the sooner their first consultation being concerning what money the thing will cost them whereas now many forbear meerly out of shame to higgle and beat the bargain The Sixth said That indeed the sole wealth of a State is Traffick there being onely two sorts of goods moveable and immoveable The latter increase and diminish onely by War which is troublesome means and a kinde of game wherein he that wins one time loses another whereas moveables are us'd and consum'd though they be of Iron whence onely Traffick remains for increase but 't is not sufficient to know the dignity and profit a thing brings to put it well in practice all its obstacles must be remov'd as in the first place the idleness of the Inhabitants which is natural to such as live in a good Soil whence the Proverb Bona terra Mala Gens Yea in some people as in the Irish 't is contradicted by ill custom for that people being nourisht in sloathfulness chose rather to cover their whole Bodies with a Mantle then take the pains to cut it into Cloathes Secondly the want of Materials and Instruments proper for Trade as Merchandizes Ships and other means besides the defect of safe Ports Thirdly The danger of transportation by reason of Thieves at Land and Pirates at Sea Fourthly the want of Companies both for undertaking great negotiations and for assurances as 't is in Holland and elsewhere where they have found wayes to assure even the lives of persons under good cautions Fifthly the false dealing of this age directly opposite to the fair dealing of Merchants which is incompatible with brangling Lastly that great process not yet ended between the King of Poland and the Dantsickers about the impost he would lay upon the Baltick Sea shows apparently that impositions also are a notable hinderance of Trade All which obstacles and inconveniences may be thus remedy'd in France The first needs not much to be spoken of more French living by their industry in Forreign Countries then Forreigners here which is a certain evidence that our Nation is none of the sloathfullest But 't were to be wisht that the Youth design'd to the honest exercise of Merchandize were not less careful to learn the Map and the Countrey then our Gentry is so for the war Nor do I think the Tongues especially the Latin less necessary for them then for Lawyers and Physicians since these may in case of necessity learn their Art in their own mother Tongue But Merchants cannot make themselves understood in strange Countreys but by the Latin Tongue which serves to interpret all others and for want of which 't is in the power of an Interpreter to deceive them Neither do we want wares that are both as common and as good as elsewhere as Wheat Wool Hemp and what ever is made thereof as Cordage and Linen Salt Wood and other such things much less materials to build and equippe Ships and we have the best Havens of the world The inconvenience of Robbers and Pyrates is much more considerable but the former may be remedied in Cities by an exact knowledg of all the Houses in each Street by many clear lights set together which will cost less then Lanthorns whereof there is seldom any benefit by a Night-Watch plac'd in each Street and by other means to be mention'd in due place In the Countrey it may be redress'd if Merchants Travel together in Caravans and get the assistance of the Provosts or Sheriffs who are bound to secure the High-Wayes and as well by Land as by Sea by the erection of Companies The seventh said That the only way indeed of improving Commerce is to establish Companies For both Nature and Art teach us that as heavy burthens cannot be mov'd by little strength so Affairs of great importance which need a great stock and attendance in several places cannot be manag'd by one single person who also sufficeth not alone to remedy soon enough the inconveniences foreseen and unforeseen which necessarily happen in all enterprises Whence the first loss that befalls a solitary Merchant dejects and almost breaks him because he hath not where-with to recover himself whereas in Companies a loss is equally distributed and more easily supported by all the Associates amongst whom if the timorousness of one proposes the safest means the Courage and Experience brings a Temperament thereunto and seeing every one contributes his counsel no less than his endeavors in the common cause it is in the less danger by reason of the many that mind it Moreover Companies are best able to solicite and procure the recovery of prizes unjustly taken at Sea obtain Letters of Mart and put them in execution But as these Companies are absolutely necessary and neighbouring States furnish us Examples thereof so care must be taken that they do not degenerate into Monopolies and set excessive prizes upon Commodities The Eighth said That beside what hath been remark'd the conjunction of Rivers so frequently propos'd and not yet executed through want of Spirits constant enough to accomplish their designs would much facilitate Commerce the transporting of Commodities sucking up the main of the profit by reason of the Exactions of Inns which laugh at the regulated Rates of Provisions for want of an Eye to keep them up All which might be remedied by an able Company by appointing places of baiting and lodging for their Factors to be kept by some of the Associates who being thereby interessed in some portion of the profit would look more narrowly to the security of the High-ways for want of which care the most famous Messengers are often rob'd It would be of great use also to have good and certain Intelligence of the Affairs of the world in general especially of the inclining to ruine delays and failings of Bankrupts who oftentimes break in one place whilst their Factors are taking up Commodities in others as also of the besieging and taking of Cities by an Enemy or their danger of being so in which Case the Merchant will hasten to with-draw his stock from thence and hinder others from sending thither to trade there being no Sympathy between War and Merchandize But above all in this Occurrence 't is necessary for him to know the certain
as often of apprehension as they thought of that sad fate Which fear ended with the Swine's meat and the Ship 's arrival at a safe Port where it appear'd that that vile Animal had felt none of that trouble which the Tempest had caus'd in the more unhappy men and consequently that their Imagination was the sole cause of it The like may be said of all other afflictions which men give themselves call'd therefore deservedly by the Wise-man Vanity and vexations of spirit For most of the inductions and consequences which the Mind draws from events prove false and nevertheless they give us real sorrows we see frequently that a great Estate left by a Father to his Children makes them debauch'd and worthless and degenerate from the vertue of their Parent who having receiv'd no inheritance from his own was constrain'd to labour and by that means attain'd Riches and Honour Whence it appears that the trouble of a Father leaving a small Estate to his Children at his death hath no foundation in the thing but only in his abus'd Imagination and consequently cannot be a real Evil and yet this is the most general Evil of all with the Vulgar Thus two men lodging under the same roof lost both their Wives not long ago one of them was so afflicted therewith that he dy'd of sorrow the other receiving the consolatory visits of his friends could not so well dissemble his joy but that it was perceiv'd and yet their loss was equal So that the sadness of the one and the joy of the other depended only upon the different reflection they made upon this accident Thus also the same affront that made one of Socrates's Disciples draw his sword made the Philosopher himself laugh at the sottishness of his enemy and every thing which the Vulgar calls Good or Evil Pain excepted is a Medal which hath its right side and its reverse CONFERENCE CLXXXII Whether Man be the most diseas'd of all Creatures and why A Disease being a preternatural disposition hurting the Functions every living Body capable of action may become sick by some cause impeding its actions Hence not only Men but also Animals and even Plants have their Diseases which Theophrastus diligently describes Amongst Beasts though some are subject to particular Diseases as the Dog to Madness the Swine to Leprosie the Goat and Lyon to Fevers yet there is none so invaded with all sorts of Maladies as Man who is not exempt from any the least of his similary parts that is nourish'd being subject to twelve sorts of Diseases namely when they attract their aliment either not at all or but weakly or otherwise then they should or when they are defective either in retaining or concocting it or in voiding superfluities But if such part have sense too it may have fifteen if motion also eighteen And if it not only be nourish'd it self but labours also for the publick 't is lyable to twelve more according to the three ways that its Functions may be offended in attraction retention concoction and expulsion The Eye alone is subject to almost 200 infirmities and as if there were not ancient Diseases enough we see daily new ones unknown to former Ages Now the reason hereof lyes in the nature of Man who being the most perfectly temper'd and best compounded of all Animals because design'd to the greatest actions is therefore apt upon the least occasion to lose that evenness of proportion which as it requires a great train and concurrence of many things so also there needs but a little thing to subvert it by defect of the least of those requisites Indeed there are but two causes of Diseases to wit Internal and External and man is alike subject to both to the former by reason of his hot and moist temper which is prone to putrefaction and the more upon account of his variety of Food whereas other Animals never change their Diet which is the most probable cause of their health and good constitution For diversity of aliments incommodes Nature weakens the natural heat produces Crudities the Sources of most Diseases which also are frequently caus'd in Men by the internal Passions of Anger Fear and Joy The most ordinary external causes are the evil qualities of the Air pestilential vapours and malignant influences whereof Man's body is the more susceptible by reason of the tenderness of his Flesh and the porosity of his skin which on the contrary in other Animals is hard and cover'd with Hair Feathers and Scales and renders them less subject to the impressions of external bodies as also to Wounds Contusions Fractures and other solutions of continuity The Second said That such perfections or defects of things as we know most exactly seem to us the greatest as the excellences and defects of Pictures are not well observ'd but by those that are skill'd therein and he that is unacquainted with some certain Nation cannot know its Vices so as they that converse with it do Now Beasts being unable to signifie to us the differences of their pains and the other circumstances of their diseases hence we judge them to have fewer although the contrary appears in the Horse in whom observant Farriers remark a great number of Diseases to which we are not subject So that other Animals may have as many or more than Men who being less concern'd therein less understand them 'T is true the parts of Animals resemble ours saving what serve to distinguish their outward shape as appears by the Dissection of Apes whereby Galen learnt Anatomy and no difference is found between the Ventricles of a Man's and a Calfe's brain If their blood and other humors differ so do those of one Man from those of another Moreover Beasts have the same inward Causes Fear Anger and the other Passions in short all the other Non-natural things and not at their discretion as Man hath If a Dog hath the harder skin yet man is less lyable to blows and the injury of the Air. In fine who knows but it may be with these Animals as 't is with rusticks who though Men as well as we and subject to the same inconveniences yet all their Diseases are reduc'd to a few Heads since the true and spurious Pleurisie the Asthma the Cough the Palsie and other Maladies whereof we make so many branches are all reckon'd by them only for a hot or a cold Rheume The Third said The nearer Nature promotes Bodies to their utmost perfection the more frail she renders them And as in Mixts Glass which is her utmost atchievement is weaker and brittler than Stones so in Animals Man the most excellent and perfect is the most frail and weak by reason of the part wherein he abounds more than they and which advances him to wit the Brain the root of most Diseases And as the most noxious Meteors are form'd in the coldest Region of the Air so those that have a moist Brain are soft and less vigorous as Women and
The Third said That there are four colours answering to the Elements viz. Black to Earth White to Water Yellow to Air and Red to Fire For discovering the Causes of whose diversities the ancient Philosophers prepar'd a Matter which by the degrees of fire they pass'd through all the colours of Nature and perceiv'd sometimes in their vessel what they call'd the Peacock's tail representing all colours in one single Matter whence they concluded the variety of colours to proceed from that of External Fire moving the Matter less in one part than in another Thus Antimony which is at first Black is rais'd into White Yellow Red and mixt Flowers according as they are sublim'd more or less But you can draw no consequence from hence to the Colours of Plants since redness which in works of Art argues perfect Digestion and Fire predominant doth not so in Simples CONFERENCE CLXXXVIII Whether we are more perspicacious in the Affairs of others or our own and why IT may seem superfluous to make this a Question since by the enumeration of all sorts of Affairs it appears that we are Moles yea perfectly blind in the Judgement we make of our selves and more clear-sighted than the Lynx in those we make of others Which also the Gospel testifies by the comparison of a mote which we espy in the Eye of a Neighbour not seeing the beam which is in our own for according to the direction of the Lawyers who are to be believed in point of affairs in the first place in reference to persons every one understands himself much less either in Mind or Body than he doth another most esteeming themselves more capable and worthy of praise for Witt than they are and as the Eye sees not it self but every other visible thing so he that hath any perfection or imperfection cannot consider the same in its true Latitude but easily adds something to the first or diminishes from the second whilst the various bent of our Passions always exalts and depresses the balance and keeps it from that aequilibrium which is necessary to a right Judgement Hence Physicians although they ought to know themselves better than they can be known by others yet when sick permit themselves to be treated by their Companions and never succeed so well in the Cure of themselves or their domesticks as they do abroad elsewhere In the second place we are less quick-sighted in things that concern our selves than in those of others whence commonly the greatest Lawyers leave the affairs of their own Houses more imbroiled than others Which was the cause that the Wife of Pacius the famous Lawyer of our time sent to him to ask his Advice concerning his own affairs under fancied names making him pay a Solicitor with his own Money In the third place Actions are in a very evill hand when they are to be managed or defended by their Authors either Modesty on the one hand extenuating them or Thrasonical pride dilating them and adding thereunto more than is fit Lastly the Laws shew sufficiently what hath been the opinion of Legislators upon this matter when they forbid Advocates and Procurators to plead and practise in their own Cause and when they injoyn Judges to forbear not only their own but also from all those wherein their kinred or alliances may have any interest Thus much for the first Head of the Question The Reason which is the second ariseth hence That the Eye as well as all other Organs of External and Internal Senses such as the Judgement is must be serene and not prepossessed by any tincture or Prejudice Now to require this serenity and indifferency in our own affairs is to demand an impossibility The Cause whereof may come from the pureness and subtilty of the Humane Spirit above that of other Animals compared to the Elements of Earth and Water which contracting themselves round about their own Centre move not but in quest of their food others more ayerious rise a little higher but yet have a bounded Region such are the spirits of Women whose Knowledg and Curiosity is limited to the affairs of their houswifrie or at most to those of their neighbourhood But the Mind of Man resembling Fire which hath no other bound but Heaven penetrates even to the Centre of the Earth carries its point every where and is like flame in a perpetual agitation oftentimes resembling our natural heat in Summer which abandons the Internal parts to carry it self to the extremities The Second said There is as great diversity of Judgements and Witts as there is of Eyes amongst Men. As there are some blind other Eyes from which the Objects must be set at distance to become visible some also to which they must be approached and lastly others which require a moderate distance between the Visible Object and the Organ Iin like manner there are some Judgements absolutely blind others which judge not things too near but require to have them removed or set at a middle distance there are others also which judge them better near hand than a far off and this truly is the custom of the best Judgements and of such as least suffer themselves to be prepossess'd Indeed what is more absurd than for us to remove far from Objects in order to judging of them after the manner of old men and of those that are short-sighted and if the saying of Aristotle be true The Species of the thing to be known must be not only introduced into but also made like the Mind Is the divesting our selves of it away to know it well By this reckoning we shall never see clear in any affair not in our own because 't is ours nor in those others in regard of the Envy Men bear to the prosperity of their Neighbours which makes them think that their Vines are more fruitful and their afflictions less severe If some Physicians resign themselves to the cure of others of the same profession 't is because they believe them as able as themselves or perhaps because their own Judgement is disturbed by the disease otherwise since the particular Knowledge of every one's Temper is the condition most requisite to a good Physician for curing his Patient and every one knowing his own better than another can in along time none can be a better Physician of another than of himself and if domestick cures be effected with less notice yet they are not less sure and remarkable to him that would consider them That Lawyers are not admitted to plead in their own Case is rather from their too much than too little Knowledge the Court foreseeing that they would be too prolix and hot in the prosecution thereof besides the greater temptation to dishonesty in disguising their own actions Nor is exception against Judges in the case of their kinred allowed because they see not clear enough into the affair in question but because interest which is inseparably fixed in humane minds might lead them to relieve their Relations to
which displease the more judicious So that as there is one beauty absolutely such and another respective and in comparison of those who judge differently thereof according as they find it in themselves whence the Africans paint the Devil white because themselves are black and the Northern people paint him black because themselves are white so there are Gestures and Motions purely and simply becoming honest and agreeable others such only by opinion of the beholders as are the Modes of Salutation and lastly others absolutely bad as Frowning Winking biting the Lip putting out the Tongue holding the Head too upright or crooked beating of measures with the Fingers in short making any other disorderly Gesture All which defects as they are opposite to perfections which consist in a right situation of all the parts without affectation proceed from the Phansie either sound or depraved Which happens either naturally or through imitation The first case hath place in Children who from their birth are inclined to some motions and distortions of their Muscles which being double if one become weaker and its Antagonist too short it draws the part whereto it gives motion out of its natural seat as is seen in those that squint The second is observed in Children somewhat bigger who beholding some Gesture repeated render the same so familiar to themselves that at length it becomes natural to them Hence the prohibition of Mothers give their Children not to counterfeit the vices their companions bodies is not void even of natural reason because the Phansie is stronger in a weak Mind and when the Memory is unfurnished or other species whence the Phansies of Women are more powerful then those of Men. The Minds of Children being weak and residing in soft pliant Bodies more easily admit any idea's once conceiv'd And as a Language is more easily learn'd by Use then by Precepts so example is Extreamly prevalent and sweetly insinuating into the Phansie by the Senses diffuses its influence over the whole Body The Third said That if the Soul be an harmony as the pleasure it takes therein seems to intimate we need seek no other cause of the several motions and cadences of the Body which it animates 'T is the Soul which moves all the Nerves of the Body and carries to all the parts such portion as she pleases of Spirits proper to move them whereby like a player upon a Lute or some other Instrument she makes what string sound she pleases stretching one and loosening another And as Musick is such as the Quirrester pleases to make it delighting the Ear if it be proportionate thereunto and procuring the Musitian the repute of skilfulness if not the contrary happens so the Soul imprints upon the Body one figure or another which make a good or bad grace insomuch that oftentimes gracefulness is more esteemed than Beauty unless it may be better said to be part thereof for want of which beautiful persons resemble inanimate Statues or Pictures But as true Beauty is wholly natural and an Enemy to Artifice so the Soul ows to its original and first temper the good or posture which it gives its Body and there is as much difference between natural gracefulness and affected postures as between the Life and the Picture truth and appearance yea the sole suspicion of affectation offends us Moreover a Clown seldom becomes Courtly and whatever pains be bestowed in teaching him good Carriage yet still his defects appear through his constraint as on the contrary amongst Shepherds most remote from the civilities of the Court we see gentileness and dexterities which manifest that good carriage or Gestures are purely natural The Fourth said That in the Gestures and Motions of the Body two principles must be acknowledged one natural and the other accidental The former is founded in the structure and composition of every one's Body the diversity whereof produceth with that of the spirits humors and manners all the Actions and Passions which depend thereon the true motive causes of our Gestures and Carriages Hence he that suffers pain frowns he that repents bites his Lip or Fingers he that admires something and dares not express it shrugs his shoulders he that muses deeply turns his Eyes inward and bites the end of his Pen or Nails The accidental principle is imitation which next to Nature is the most efficacious cause and acts most in us Man being born for imitation more than any other Creatures as appears in that scarce five or six Species of Birds imitate our Language the Ape alone our Gestures we on the contrary imitate not only the voices of all Animals but also all their Actions And therefore as it cannot be denied that Nature contributes to our Gestures so neither can it be doubted that Imitation hath a power therein CONFERENCE CXCI. Which is most proper for Study the Evening or the Morning IF Antiquity had not had Errors the cause of those who prefer the study of the Evening before that of the Morning would be very desperate But Reasons having more force here than the Authorities of Pedagogues who hold Aurora the friend of the Muses only to the end that their Scholars rising betimes in the Morning themselves may have the more time left after their exercises I conceive the Evening much more fit for any Employment of the Mind than any other part of the day the Morning leaving not only the first and more common wayes full of Excrements but also all the Ventricles of the Brain wherein the Spirits are elaborated and also the Arteries and Interstices of the Muscles full of vapors whence proceed the frequent oscitations contortions and extension of the members upon our awaking to force out the vapors which incommode them On the contrary the Evening even after repast finds those first wayes full of good Aliments which send up benigne and laudable vapors which allay and temper the acrimony of other more sharp and biting found by experience in Men fasting who for that reason are more prone to Choler Moreover Study consisting in Meditation and this in reflection upon the Species received into the Phansie 't is certain that the report of these introduced all the day long serves for an efficacious Lesson to the Mind when it comes to make review of the things offered to the Intellect for it to draw consequences from the same and make a convenient choice but in the Morning all the species of the preceding day are either totally effaced or greatly decayed Moreover the melancholy humor which is most proper for Study requires constancy and assiduity which ordinarily accompanies this humor and it is predominant in the Evening as Bloud is in the Morning according as Physicians allot the four humors to the four parts of the natural day as therefore the Sanguine are less proper for Study than the Melancholy so is the Morning than the Evening Hence the good Father Ennius never versified so well as after he had drunk which seldom happens in
the presence of his friends than of his Murderer whose spirits are more inwardly retir'd through fear of punishment whereas those of his friends are sent outwards by Anger and desire of Revenge Yea if the Murderer had been wounded before he should rather bleed than the dead because his Blood is more boyling and capable of commotion by the spirits issuing out of the Carkase And had they any Sympathy they could not discover the Murderer for want of sense which they never had for the spirits which are in the Blood scarce deserve that name being purely natural and void of all sense even during life and specifically different from the animal spirits The vital spirits which are a degree above them vanish together with life whence the Arteries that us'd to contain them are empty And those that serve for Sensation cannot remain in a dead Body because they are easily dissipable and need continual reparation whence we see all the senses fail in a swoon because the Heart recruits them not by a continuity of their generation Besides should they remain after death they would be unactive for want of fit dispositions in the Organs Moreover natural causes act necessarily when their object is present but sometime t is known that Murderers have thrust themselves more diligently into the crowd of Spectators than any other persons for avoiding suspition and no such bleeding hath hapned in their presence and that Executioners take Criminals the next day from the Gallows or the Wheel and not a drop of Blood issues from their wounds And why should not a dead Sheep as well fall a bleeding afresh in the presence of the Butcher that kill'd it Or a Man mortally wounded when he that did it is brought unknown into his Chamber For 't is hard to imagine that we have less sense and knowledge whilst life remains than after death that a wounded person must die that he may become sensible In short t is easie to see that this effect is not like other wonders which have a cause in Nature because though we cannot assign the particular causes of these yet they are prov'd by some demonstrative or at least some probable reasons And as for Antipathy it should rather concenter all the dead person's Blood in his Murderer's presence and make it retire to the inward parts Wherefore I conclude that not only the causes of this miracle are not yet found but also that 't is impossible there should be any natural one of it at all The Fourth said That according to the opinion of Avicenna who holds That the Imagination acts even beyond and out of its Subject this faculty may cause the effluxion of Blood the Criminal's Phansie working mightily when the person slain by him is objected before his Eyes And the nitrous vapors arising out of the Earth upon digging up the Body together with the heat of the Air greater than that of the Earth and increas'd by the conflux of Spectators may in some measure contribute to the new fermentation of the Blood But the truth is after all our inquiries this extraordinary motion cannot be better ascrib'd elsewhere than to God's Providence who sometimes performs this miracle for the discovery of Murder which would otherwise be unpunisht but not always And 't is no less impiety to deny that Divine Justice comes sometimes to the aid of that of Men than 't is ignorance and rusticity to be satisfi'd in all cases with universal causes without recurring to particular ones which God employes most ordinarily for the Production of Effects yet does not so tye his power to the necessity of their operations but that he interrupts the same when he pleases even so far as to give clay power to open the Eyes of the blind CONFERENCE CCIII Of the Vnicorn THere are no greater impostures in the Art of Physick than those which relate to Antidotes and Preservatives from Poyson such as the Unicorn's Horn is held to be And I am mistaken if it be not a popular error First because the opinions of all Authors are so contrary concerning it Philostratus in the life of Apollonius saith that the Animal of this name is an Ass and is found in the fenns of Colchis having one single horn in the fore-head where-with he fights furiously against the Elephant Cardan after Pliny saith 't is a Horse as 't is most commonly painted only it hath a Stag's head a Martin's skin a short neck short mane and a cloven hoof and is bred only in the Desarts of Aethiopia amongst the Serpents whose Poyson its horn which is three cubits long resists Garsius ab Horto saith 't is an Amphibious Animal bred on Land near the Cape of good Hope but delighting in the Sea having an Horses head and mane a horn two cubits long which he alone of all Authors affirms to be moveable every way Most agree that it cannot be tam'd and yet Lewis Vartoman saith that he saw two tame ones in Cages at Mecha which had been sent to Sultan Solyman Almost all confess it very rare and yet Marcus Sherer a Renegado German afterwards call'd Idaith Aga and Embassador from the same Solyman to Maximilian the Emperor affirms that he saw whole troops of them in the Desarts of Arabia And Paulus Venetus the same in the Kingdom of Basman where they are almost as big as Elephants having feet like theirs a skin like Camels the head of a Boar and delighting in mire like swine Nor are Authors less various concerning its manner of eating some alledging that being unable to feed on the ground by reason of his horn he lives only on the boughs and fruits of Trees or on what is given him by the hands of Men especially of fair Virgins of whom they say he is amorous though others think it fabulous Some believe that there was once such an Animal but not now the whole race perishing in the Deluge and that the horns we find now for the most part in the earth have been kept there ever since And if there be such variety in the description of this Animal there is no less in the horns which they tell us are those of the Unicorn That at Saint Dennis in France is about seven foot high weighs thirty pound four ounces being wreath'd and terminated in a point from a broad base Yet this is not comparable to that Aelian mentions which was so thick that cups might be made of it That at Strasburg hath some conformity with this of Saint Denis but those of Venice differ from both as that describ'd by Albertus Magnus doth from all For 't is saith he solid like a Hearts horn ten foot high and very large at the base The Swisses have one which was sometimes found on the bank of a River near Bruges two cubits long yellow without white within odorous and apt to take fire That at Rome is but one foot high having been diminish'd by being frequently rasp'd in order to be imploy'd against
but also of a different Species as the Apple-Cyon on a Colewort which Plants being of different durations the graft becomes of a middle duration between them namely longer-liv'd then a Colewort and shorter then another Apple-tree And S. Hierom is not positive that the Centaur which appear'd to S. Anthony was an illusion but doubts whether it were a true Centaur such as Antiquity spoke of or whether 't was not the Devil appearing in that shape to frighten that holy Person And Plato in convivio sapientum relates That a Shepheard having presented to Periander a Foal born of a Mare of his that had the head neck and hands of a Man the rest of an Horse and the voice of a Child Diocles affirm'd that this Prodigy presag'd Seditions and Divisions of Minds But Thales reply'd 'T was a natural thing and for preventing the like again advis'd him to have no other Hors-keepers but what were married Pliny likewise in the seventh Book of his Natural History saith That in the Country of the Cratadulones amongst the Indian Mountains Satyrs are found very swift Creatures running sometimes on two feet sometimes on four and having the shape of a Man And Plutarch tells in Sylla's life That as he return'd into Italy a Satyr was brought to him like those describ'd by ancient Authors half-man and half-goat and being askt what he was answer'd nothing that resembled a humane voice but with a tone mixt of that of Goats and the neighing of Horses Whereupon Sylla having compassion on him appointed guards to carry him back S. Hierom in the above-mention'd place describes another Satyr which he saith was of a middle stature having a crooked Nose horned front and Goats feet and brought Dates yet hanging on a Palm-branch to S. Paul the Hermit The Saint askt him what he was and he answer'd that he was a Mortal one of the Inhabitants of that Hermitage whom the abused Pagans adore for Fauns Satyrs and Incubes and I come saith he as deputed to you from our Company to desire you to pray for us to your and our God whom we know to be come into the World for the common Salvation After which words this light Animal took its course and fled away And lest this Relation might seem strange I shall add That under Constantine a living one was brought to Alexandria and shewn there to the People afterwards being dead it was called and carried to Antioch to be seen by the Emperor Pausanias records also That he was inform'd by one Euphemius who he saith was a man worthy of credit how that sailing into Spain he was driven by storm into certain Islands full of savage Men having hairy bodies long tails like those of Horses and red hair whom they could not keep off from them but by blows and a Woman being expos'd on the shore by the Mariners these Satyrs abus'd her with all outrages imaginable So that to doubt of the existence of Satyrs after so many Testimonies is to ascribe too much to our own senses and too little to the witness of the Ancients CONFERENCE CCV Of the Phoenix IF ever there were cause to admire the simplicity and credulity of the Ancients 't is the story of the Phoenix which is feign'd a Bird that lives many ages after which repairing to the City Heliopolis in Aegypt it builds its nest or rather funeral pile there of aromatick wood which by reason of its high situation being fir'd by the Sun-beams she dyes and immediately another arises out of her ashes it being as impossible for Nature to be without a Phoenix as the Phoenix to have a Companion In which Relation the Historians have imitated the Poets and chosen rather to tell strange things than true For first this Nativity of this imaginary Bird is a manifest impossibility because nothing is more abhorr'd by Nature than voluntary death and that orderly Governess would rather have given the Phoenix a Female as well as to all other Creatures than have put her self thus upon the necessity of a miracle Nor can any thing be more contrary to the generation of Animals than ashes which are dry dryness being altogether opposite to life and to the corruption which is antecedent to every generation Next its progress is equally absurd For they say this little Bird no sooner attains its just bigness which is equal to that of an Eagle having its head cristed with divers colours the neck gold-colour the rest of the feathers purple saving that the tail is mixt of scarlet and sky-colour but it prepares it self to pay the last duties to the bones of its deceased parent But how consistent is this with the Bird 's being reduc'd to ashes Which bones she lays upon her back and flyes from Aegypt with them to Arabia where she places them upon an Altar dedicated to the Sun upon which the same Bird before her death had made an offering of the Neast which was to be her fatal pile After these funerals it flies towards Heaven where 't is fed with dew and the fumes of Incense and Amomum and instead of drink makes use of the vapors which arise from the Sea abhorring all kind of grain and food common to other Birds According to Aelian it lives five hundred years according to others six hundred and according to others more in places apart from the commerce of Men but so highly reverenc'd by all other Birds that they follow it with great respect and admiration insomuch that Birds of rapine forget their prey and others the fear of being taken As many fictions as words even if Lucretius's opinion be true who admits not that any single Animal can generate Wherefore 't is not without reason that to avoid rendring account of the many absurdities arising from these false suppositions the Historians make it to be hid from our sight so many Ages foreseeing that if there was but one Woman found that had danc'd twice at Rome in the secular Playes there will be no witnesses found to attest the nativity life and death of this Animal The Second said That we ought not to condemn the absent under pretext that they are unknown for the Nativity of this Bird is defended by that of Barnacle which is bred of the putrefaction of a Ship and of another call'd Ephemeron which by Aristotle's report is produc'd of the leaf of a Tree near the River Hippanis If the duration of its life be uncertain so likewise is that of all Animals with which we converse not And were the authority of Betonius suspected who confounds it with the Manucodrata yet that of Tacitus in the fourteenth Book of his Animals is authentick P. Fabius and L. Vitellus saith he being Consuls the Bird call'd a Phoenix after many Ages appear'd in Aegypt and gave occasion to many Greeks and other personages of the Country to discourse of the miracle concerning which they relate many doubtful things but worthy to be known They say this Animal is devoted to the
Causes The Second said That the Remora worketh the same Effect upon the Ship that the Torpedo doth upon the hand of the Fisher which becomes stupid when he toucheth the same with a long pole Now of this effect of Remora is not hard to be accounted for if we follow the Principles of Campanella and those who allow sense to all even the most gross corporeal things But this opinion being little received 't is better to say that whereas all natural things subsist only by the vicissitude of motion and rest wise Nature who is the principle of both hath judiciously dispenc'd them that they are found differently in some things and in others and that for the good and ornament of the Universe which requires that as they are bodies immoveable by reason of their scituation or use to wit the Earth and the Poles of the Heavens others always in motion to wit the Heavens Rivers Air and Fire and others endued with an attractive vertue as the Loadstone and Amber so She hath given others a Quality contrary to this Namely the Remora that of stopping the motion of a Ship and because motion and rest are contrary one to the other their principles are no less as well those that are effective of motion as those which cause rest but 't is better to explicate them by their sensible and indubitable effects than by reasons ordinarily frivolous and impertinent The Third said 'T is no rare thing for Ships to be staid in the main Sea whatever pains the Mariners take to make them go forward and how favourable soever the Wind may be the cause whereof is no other but the contrary motion of the waves of the Sea especially in streights and narrow places where there are strong Currents which probably stopp'd Caligula's Ship and those other mentioned in History rather than this little Fish which 't is credible can send so strong a Vertue from its small body as to fix and check the far greater and oftentimes irresistible force of the Winds and Sea Unless you had rather attribute this retardment to the mucosity and other foulnesses wherewith Ships are crusted in long Voyages which hinder their advancing and this Fish being sometimes found in those mucous humidities people mistake it for the cause though it no wise contributed thereunto The Fourth maintain'd according to the opinion of Francastorius That 't is not possible for so small a Fish as the Remora to stop a great Ship at full sail but that this Effect is occasion'd by Rocks indu'd with a Quality like that of the Loadstone upon which this Fish using to reside when a Ship passes near them their Adamantine Vertue attracts the same towards them whence the same thing happens by these two violent motions viz. that wherewith the Vessel is driven along in the main Sea and the attraction of these Rocks as when two equal forces draw a weight two several ways the thing remains unmov'd so that this fish is not the cause but only the sign of this retardment The fifth said That if there were any such magnetical vertue in this case the nails and iron-works of the Ship so stay'd would rather be taken away than its course stopt the latter being more hard to do than the former since a little force sufficeth to pull a nail out of a Ship whose impetuous motion 't is not possible to withhold whence Archimedes's his drawing of a Ship out of the Port into the Market-place by his endless serue pass'd for one of the goodliest secrets of the Mechanicks though indeed it be nothing to the present enquiry And the truth is this strange effect may best be attributed to a hidden property and singular quality of this Fish which being always found sticking to the stopped Ships is more probably the cause of that impediment than any unknown Rocks which ought to do the like to all Vessels that approach them if there were any such For t is a vanity condemn'd by the most intelligent in the secrets of Nature to presume to give valid reasons thereof whilst we have none for the most sensible and ordinary effects for want of knowing the last and proximate differences which constitute every thing in its Essence and distinguish it from others it being easie to know that the Remora after the example of many other which act by a propriety of their form produceth this effect without being needful to trouble our selves to find out the means it imploys in order thereunto CONFERENCE CCXI. Of Negroes NAture loves variety so well that she is not contented with producing a great number of Species of all sorts of Animals differing chiefly according to the Climates which produce them but she hath also pleas'd her self in an innumerable diversity of individuals especially as to colour as cannot be call'd an Accident in Blackamores but an inseparable property which distinguishes them from other men and constitutes the nature of Negroes in whom the Sun's heat produceth an effect contrary to that of his light this brightning the other obscuring the subject upon which it acts Yet it acteth not alike upon all Subjects since the same Star Aethiopian whitens linnen and wax but this blackness happens to the Aethiopians because moisture exceeds and in a manner extinguisheth heat just as we see it come to pass in Charcoals Gangreens and the parts of man's body when struck with Lightning For if the first Quality would take colours no doubt cold would be white as we may judg by Water Ice Snow Gray Hairs and the Animals that live under the Artick Pole which are all white though of the same Species with ours of another colour as Bears and Hares Which is further prov'd by Herbs which grow white under ground and lose as much of their heat and bitterness as they partake of such whiteness witness the stalks of Hartichoaks and Savoury Hot things would be red and of the colour of Fire which we see gives that colour to faces formerly pale to hot Iron and burning Wood but a superfluous humidity supervening stifles and extinguishes this heat and leaves behind it the colour of corruption as we see the whitest skin grows black by heat upon travelling Southwards the contrary happening to those that go Northwards The Second said That if heat alone made Blackamoors those that are most expos'd to the Sun-beams should be the blackest but they are not so there being many Nations of the New World where it is so hot that they go all naked of an olive colour whereas in Guiney Aethiopia and other places inhabited by Moors they are cloth'd and feel more cold And because this colour may be ascrib'd to the reciprocation of heat and cold which is more likely to alter men's bodies in all other qualities than in a permanent one there are found both black and white people under the same parallels and elevation of the Pole as in the Isle of Sumatra where the Inhabitants are white Wherefore this colour must
thing having several times happen'd to him he had given his wife a strict charge that no Body should touch his Body during his Soul's being abroad upon the account aforesaid but some persons of his acquaintance bearing him a grudg having with much importunity obtain'd of her the favour to see his Body lying on the ground in that immoveable posture they caus'd it to be burnt to prevent the Soul's return into it which yet it being not in their power to do and the Clazomenians being inform'd of that injury done to Hermotimus built him a Temple into which Women were forbidden to enter And Plutarch in his Book of Socrates's Daemon or Genius confirming this Relation and allowing it to be true affirms that those who had committed that crime were then tormented in Hell for it Saint Augustine in his Book of the City of God Lib. xiv relates that a certain Priest named Restitutus when-ever and as often as he was desir'd to do it became so insensible at the mournful tone of some lamenting voice and lay stretch'd along as a dead Carkase so as that he could not be awak'd by those who either pinch'd or prick'd him nay not by the application of fire to some part of his Body inasmuch as he could not feel any thing while he continu'd in the Ecstacy only afterwards it was perceiv'd that he had been burnt by the mark which remain'd upon his Body after he was come to himself before which time be had not any respiration and yet he would say that he had heard the voices of those who had cry'd aloud in his Ears calling to mind that he had heard them speaking at a great distance The same Author in the xix Book of the same Work affirms that the Father of one Praestantius was apt to fall into such Ecstacies that he believ'd himself chang'd into a Pack-Horse and that he carry'd Provisions upon his back into the fields with other Horses when all the while his Body continu'd immoveable in the House Among other Examples of this kind of Ecstacy Bodin in his second Book of his Daemonomania chap. 5. relates a story of a certain Servant-maid living in the Danphine having been found lying all along upon a dung-hill in such a dead sleep that all the noise made could not awake her nay her Master 's banging her with a switch not prevailing any thing he ordered fire to be set to the most sensible and tenderest parts of her Body to try whether she were really dead or not Which being upon tryal believ'd they left her in the same place till the morning and then sending to look after her she was found very well in her bed Whereupon the Master asking her What she had been doing all the night before Ah Master said she how unmercifully have you beaten me Upon that discovery she was accus'd for a Witch and confess'd it To be short Cardan in his eighth Book of the Variety of Things affirms of himself that he fell into an Ecstacy when he pleas'd insomuch that he sleightly heard the voices of those who spoke to him but understood them not Nay what is more was not sensible of any pinching nor yet feeling the exquisite pain of his Gout whereto he was much subject as being not sensible at that time of any thing but that he was out of himself He afterwards explicates the manner how that Ecstacy is wrought affirming that he felt it begin at the Head especially in the hinder part of the Brain and thence spread it self all along the Back-bone He affirmed further that at the very beginning of it he was sensible of a certain separation about the Heart as if the Soul with-drew at a kind of wicket or sally-port the whole Body concerning it self therein and adds that then he sees what-ever he would with his Eyes and not by the strength of the Understanding and that those Images which he sees are in a continual transiency and motion in the resemblance of Forests Animals and such other things The Cause whereof he attributes to the strength of the Imagination and sharpness of the Sight He further relates of his Father such things as are much more miraculous and occasion'd the suspicion of his being a Magician Now from all these Sacred and Prophane Histories it may be inferr'd that of Ecstacies some are miraculous and others natural The former not submitting to ordinary Causes any more than all the other things do that concern Religion which stands much upon the preheminence of being above Reason The latter proceeding from the great disproportion there is between the Body and the Mind the one being extreamly vigorous the other extreamly weak Whence it follows that there are two sorts of persons subject to Natural Ecstacies to wit those transcendent Minds which are dispos'd into weak Bodies and weak Minds in strong and robust Bodies inasmuch as there being not a perfect connexion and correspondence between them the Soul finds it no great difficulty to disengage her self from the Body or the Body from the Soul which by that means obtains a freedom in her operations it being supposd that they do not all at depend one upon another as may be seen in the Formation of the Embryo wherein the Soul making her self a place of aboad plainly shews that she is able to act without it as also in swoundings and faintings during which the Body continues so destitute of sense that no active faculty at least no operation of the Soul is observable in it The Third said That the Vegetative Soul which is without motion being the first whereby we live it is not to be much admir'd if the other two Souls to wit the Sensitive and the Rational do sometimes separate themselves from it and this is that which they call Ecstacy whereof we have a certain instance in all the faculties wich are in like manner separated one from another without the loss of their Organs Accordingly he who is most sharp-sighted as to the Understanding hath commonly but a weak corporeal sight the most robust Body is ordinarily joyn'd to the weakest Mind Those persons who walk and talk in their sleep do also shew that the Rational Soul does quit the Government of the Body and leaves it to the direction and disposal of the sensitive and the same thing may be also said of the Vegetative exclusively to the other two To come to Instances we have at this day the experience of some who continue a long time in Ecstacies and that not only in matters of great importance but also in some things of little concernment which they are not able to comprehend nay there are some have the knack of falling into Trances and Ecstacies when they please themselves And this hath been affirm'd to me of a certain person who was able to do it without any other trouble than this He caus'd to be painted on the wall a great Circle all white in the Centre whereof he set a black mark
meditations leaves the Spirits in the Organs whose function it is in the mean time to receive the impressions of the external objects and convey them into the common Sense and thence into the Imagination and Memory whereas 't is expected that the Ecstacy should leave the Body without action Whence therefore I conclude that there is not any at all in regard that an Ecstacy signifying a state of the Soul besides that which is natural to her and besides the natural consequence there is between the actions of the senses and those that are proper to the Rational Soul it may be affirm'd that such a state never happens and that the Soul shall not be absolutely freed from the incumbrances and distractions of the Body till after Death And this hath been sufficiently acknowledg'd by Socrates in Phoedon notwithstanding all the Ecstacies attributed to him and Aristotle whose thoughts were more abstracted and transcended those of all others would not by any means admit of Ecstacies from a natural cause but attributes them all to God Which procedure of his hath been approved by Scaliger and many others CONFERENCE CCXIII. Of the Cock and whether the Lyon be frightned at his Crowing THe Germans being engag'd upon an expedition of War had some reason to carry a Cock along with them to serve them for an incitement and example of Vigilance Thence haply proceeded the custom which some Mule-drivers and Waggoners still observe of having one fasten'd to the leading Mule or Horse and sometimes for want of that adorning them with a plume of his or some other feathers 'T was upon this account that Phidias's Minerva had a Cock upon her head-piece unless it be attributed to this that the said Goddess had also the presidency and direction of War where there is no less need of Vigilance than Industry though that Bird belongs to her sufficiently upon the score of his other qualities as being so gallant and courageous as many times rather to lose his Life upon the spot than quit the desire of victory and when he is engag'd fighting with such fury that Caelius Aurelian relates that one who had been peck'd by a Cock in the heat of fighting grew mad upon it For the Passion of Anger being a short fury 't is possible it may extreamly heighten the degree of heat in a temperament already so highly cholerick that in time the body of the Cock becomes nitrous and upon that consideration is prescrib'd to sick persons for the loosening the belly and that after he hath been well beaten with a wand and the feathers pluck'd while he is alive before he is boyl'd It may be further urg'd that this Courage of the Cock was the motive which inclin'd Artaxerxes King of Persia to grant him who kill'd Prince Cyrus the priviledge of carrying on his Javelin a little Cock of Gold as a singular acknowledgement of his Valour Whereupon the Souldiers of the Province of Caria whereof he who had the aforesaid priviledge of the Cock was a Native in imitation of him instead of Corslets wore Cocks upon their head-pieces whence they had the name of Alectryons or Cocks in Latin Galli which possibly is the reason that gave the French that name And whereas the Cock commonly crows after he hath beaten another it came also to be the Hieroglyphick of Victory and that haply gave the Lacedaemonians occasion to sacrifice a Cock when they had overcome their Enemies This Creature was also dedicated to Mars and the Poets feign that he had sometime been a young Souldier whom that God of War order'd to stand sentinel when he went in to Venus to give him notice of Vulcan's return but he having slept till after the Sun was risen and by that neglect of duty Mars being surpriz'd with her he was so incens'd that he metamorphos'd him into a Cock whence it comes say they that being ever since mindful of the occasion of his transformation he ever crowes when the Sun approaches our Horizon This fable how ridiculous soever it may be thought is as supportable as that of the Alcaron which attributes the crowing of our Cocks to one which it saies there is in Heaven a Cock of such a vast bulk that having his feet on the first of the Heavens the head reaches to the second and this Cock crowing above awakens and incites all those upon Earth to do the like as these last set one another a crowing as if they all crow'd at the same instant all over the world The Cock was also dedicated to the Sun and Moon to the Goddess Latona Ceres and Proserpina whence it came that the Novices and such as were initiated in their mysteries abstain'd from the eating of it It was also the same to Mercury in regard that vigilance and early rising are requisite in Merchants And thence it came that he was painted under the form of a Man sitting having a Crest or Comb on his Head Eagle's claws instead of Feet and holding a Cock upon his fist But there was a particular consecration made of him to Aesculapius which oblig'd Socrates at his death to entreat his Friends to sacrifice a Cock to him since the Hemlock where-with he was poyson'd had wrought well The Inhabitants of Calecuth sacrifice him to their divinity under the form of a he-goat And Acosta after Lucian affirms that anciently the Cock was ador'd as a God which Christianity not enduring hath order'd them to be plac'd upon Churches on the tops of steeples and other very high structures that by their turning about they might tell the beholders which way the Wind blew unless haply some would refer it to the repentance of Saint Peter at the second crowing of one of them As concerning the crowing of this Creature it is commonly attributed to his heat and may be a certain discovery of his joy at the approach of the Star of the same temperament with him And whereas he is more susceptible than any other of the impressions of the Air whence it comes that being moisten'd by the vapors he crows with a hoarser voice which Labourers look on as a prediction of Rain it may be thence consequent that he is the first sensible of the coming of the Sun Moreover whereas there is a Solar Animal such as is also the Lyon but in a lower degree than he the species of Birds being hotter and dryer as being lighter than that of four-footed Beasts it thence follows that the Cock hath an ascendent over the Lyon which no sooner hears his crowing but it awakens in his Imagination those species which cause terror to him Unless we would rather affirm that the spirits of the Cock are communicated to the Lyon by that more than material voice and as such more capable of acting than the spirits issuing out of the Eyes of sick persons which nevertheless infect those who are well and look on them nay if we may believe the Poet bewitch even innocent Lambs The Second said That
cold Whence we may well take occasion to attribute both to the Influences which coming to meet with and possibly to introduce also into the water the conditions requisite such as is cold in respect of ice do insinuate themselves into the water And whereas there is in these Influences somewhat of a celestial nature and that they are rather spiritual than material Quintessences the same thing happens to them as to Spirits which make those Bodies which they animate lighter than they would be if they were inanimate CONFERENCE CCXVIII Of Masks and whether it be lawful for any to disguise themselves THat the wearing of Masks and other ways for people to disguize themselves is of great Antiquity is apparent by the prohibition which God made to his own people that the man should not put on the habit of the woman which is a disguise commonly made with the Mask in regard that otherwise the hair and beard of the man would discover his Sex So that the Question seems to be already decided and that it follows from this prohibition that Masks are not to be allowed But however we may enquire What repute they were in among other Nations And we find that they were frequently us'd among the Romans who about the beginning of the Spring celebrated a Feast in Honor of the Mother of the gods in the pomp of which solemnity it was lawful for any one to mask and disguise himself and to represent what person or part he pleas'd which was done bluntly enough as the French Comedians were heretofore content to have only a certain powder or meal cast over their faces as they still have in the Farce To shew the viciousness of that posture we need only urge the indecency of it and alledge that the use of it ought not to be allow'd in regard that all Dissimulation and Hypocrisie is a great sin in the sight of God and men Now the Mask is so hypocritical that the very word it self is commonly taken for Hypocrisie Thence it comes that Seneca defining the masked or hypocritical person gives him this Character Cum prae se fert aliquis quod non est When any one would seem or appear to be what he is not Besides if Painting be forbidden and be accounted a capricious humour so prejudicial to decency and good manners that there is no Maid nor Woman but thinks it an injury to be reproach'd with painting her self what opinion ought we to conceive of those who disguise themselves For it is imagin'd done out of no other end than to cloak their lewd actions who make use of it as we frequently find in the informations for Murthers and Felonies that they are committed by disguis'd persons who thereby would prevent the discovery of their crimes Let therefore the use of the Mask be utterly discarded as a thing which is contrary to that uprightness of disposition the signs whereof are modesty and shamefastness and by a prevention of blushing ushers in impudence abusiveness and a contempt and falsification of God's Image imprinted on the face of man The Second said That in times of War the Horsemen who are commanded out against the Enemy having close head-pieces over their faces seem to be so mask'd and disguis'd that they are not to be known not so much to prevent their being wounded in the face as to elude their Enemies so as that they may not discover the Commanders and persons of quality upon whose safety the gaining or loss of a battel depends And this Dissimulation hath sometimes been practis'd with great advantage when some private Souldier hath put on the armour and rid the horse of the General of the Army so to draw the Enemies Forces from that side while they unexpectedly charge him on the other And whereas he is commonly the Master of his desires who can discover the counsels of his Enemy and those cannot be known otherwise than by Spies who would never be admitted either into Cities or the Enemy's Camp if they did not in their habit and demeanour imitate him what Question is to be made but that it is lawful to put on disguises upon such a design to get the more certain intelligence To divert from Military Affairs to Merchandize it is the safest way for him who would travel to dissemble his condition and whereas Poverty is that which is least of any expos'd to dangers unless a man will follow the example of Vlysses who counterfeited himself a Beggar or Pedlar of which profession all are not equally capable it will not misbeseem a great Lord to demean himself as an ordinary Gentleman and sometimes to avoid surprizes to act the part of his Servant while the Servant acts that of a Prince Let us divert thence and make our appearance before the Courts of Justice and we shall there find that Attorneys and Lawyers when they speak are ever mask'd disguis'd in laying open the Causes of their Clients who on their side are also apt enough to dissemble conceal whatever they think might prejudice them So that the Painters had much more reason to represent the Lawyers Attorneys and their Clients with a veil over their Eyes then Justice since that among them he hath the reputation of the bravest man who is the greatest Orator and hath the best Lungs and according to their saying who have best defin'd the Art of Oratory It is the Art of perswading people to what they please by making great things little and little things great which in other Language is for a man to disguise all things and himself into the bargain inasmuch as he seems to believe the contrary to what he sayes and knows and that among the rules of Oratory this is one that the Orator is to personate even to his voice and gesture and accommodate himself to what he sayes which is properly to mask himself and that not only the face but also the feet the hands the tongue and all those parts of the body which are employ'd in pronunciation elocution and the gestures suitable to the thing treated of Nor is it to be expected that Divines and Physicians are absolutely exempted from these kinds of disguises since that the better to insinuate into the affections of their Penitents and Patients which is the way to gain their hearts and by that means to Convert and Cure them they ought to be very complaisant towards them comply with their infirmities and accommodate themselves to their humors in all things indifferent that they on the other side may submit to their advice in those things which are necessary And not to descend to particular Instances which might be made in all other Professions this will be the result that those who will find fault with Masks and Disguises must with the same breath cast an aspersion on all humane society which as Augustus said at his departure out of this world is nothing but a Comedy wherein every one acts his part under a disguise
Meteors where the greatest difficulty is to know whether that effect is produc'd by the expulsive or by the attractive and retentive vertue That we should affirm it proceeds from the expulsive vertue cannot with any probability be done inasmuch as expulsion is to be wrought by somewhat that is more powerful and more subtile Now there is not any likelyhood that Iron should be more powerful and more subtile than Air inasmuch as the Iron is of a more weighty matter passive earthy and hath somewhat of the nature of that Passive Element We may therefore rather affirm that this effect is wrought by the attractive and retentive vertue which opinion is prov'd in regard there is but one humid matter which the central fire forces from the deepest part of the Earth and of the more unctuous and weighty part of this matter Metals are made of the less weighty Minerals and Salts from the subtiler part Vegetables and Animals derive their nourishment of the most subtile are produc'd the Winds Thunder and all the Meteors which participate of Heat and Drought which make several combinations in the Air. Now whereas it is from the most imperfect part of this unctuous matter that Iron is made of an earthy and impure Sulphur it is deducible thence that there is a Sympathy between Iron and the gross vapours of Thunder and Lightning To make which out a little more clearly we find that the places through which Thunder hath pass'd smell of Sulphur nay there is fram'd in the Air that which is commonly called the Thunderbolt which somewhat resembles Steel as it were to shew the correspondence there is between Iron and Thunder So that the Air being impregnate by those noisome terrestrial vapours which are of the same nature with Iron meeting with some piece of it laid on a vessel is joyn'd to the Iron by Sympathy makes a sudden stop there and puts a period to its operation and the Iron by its attractive vertue receives them as by its retentive it retains them and by that means prevents their effect The Third said That though that opinion were probable yet doth it require a more ample discussion and we are to examine how this attractive vertue operates Now there are four Natural Vertues which govern all the operations of Nature and Art the Attractive which is now under consideration acts by heat and a temperate drought the Retentive by drought and cold the Expulsive by moisture and heat the Digestive by heat and a temperate moisture The Iron then which is said to attract these vapours hath indeed those qualities of heat and drought yet can it not be easily conceiv'd that a little piece of that mettal can check the malice and infection of a great quantity of Air spread all over a spacious place besides that it is also necessary that the Iron should send forth out of it self the effects of its qualities that so the attraction might be made the marks whereof are neither seen on the Iron nor the effects of the qualities out of the Subject inasmuch as mettals being quench'd in cold Water are not evaporated but by a violent fire So that it may as well be said that the attraction is wrought by some occult vertue which draws yet so as that neither the attraction nor the manner of it can be observ'd The Fourth said That the operations of Nature are not like those of Art her ways and contrivances are more obscure and the causes of things are occult as for example the Load-stone draws Iron yet so as that there cannot be any thing perceiv'd of any body of air and smoak issuing out of the Loadstone And the magnetical Balsom or Weapon-salve cures a wounded person though at a great distance having only some part of his Cloths yet can there not any thing be observ'd on the Subject which receives the Plaister so secret and silent is Nature in her Operations On the contrary the designs and contrivances of Art may easily be discover'd as those of a Clock or Watch. But the reason of this diversity of operations between Art and Nature is that Art goes to work publickly and before the Senses and Nature does her business within doors and secretly the latter works in the Centre the other in the Circumference one produces the seed of the combination of the Elements whereof she keeps an exact account of the weights and proportions and the other can neither make nor produce any thing as being only in a capacity of making use of the substance and materials of Nature in order to their joyning together after she had prepar'd and purify'd them But on the other side Art hath this advantage that her works are much more perfect inasmuch as she makes use of purify'd essences and the other of accidents and superfluities having not instruments fit for the purifying of her Materials So that there are some who doubt of the reality of the effect now under consideration And therefore ere we proceed any further to the finding out of the causes and reasons thereof it were requisite a strict enquiry should be made whether it be certain that Iron prevents the effects of thunder by preserving Wine and Eggs under a Hen that sits from receiving in any prejudice The Fifth said That what was confirm'd by general experience was not any longer to be question'd and that whoever stood upon the Negative betray'd his own ignorance that for us to think to find solutions for all the possibilities of nature were an attempt somewhat like that of exhausting the Sea That there are certain secrets in Nature of things dreadful to humane Reason incredible according to the principles of Art and of our Knowledge That Nature is the great Circe the grand Sorceress That the Load-stone draws Iron to it That there is a certain Stone called Pantarbe which draws gold to it That dead Arse-smart being laid under a Stone cures the wound on which it shall be rubb'd sooner or later according as the Herb putrifies That the hair or wool of a mangy beast being thrust in for a certain time under the bark of an Aspen-tree cures the beast of vermine That the Menstrua of Women trouble Springs spoyl Looking-glasses and Powdering-tubs And if there be some things that corrupt them it is not to be imagin'd that Nature is so cruel a Step-mother but that there may be others whereby they are preserv'd and so the Remedies may come from the same hand as caus'd the disease That the Hazel-tree discovers hidden Treasures and Mines That Talismans are made against Serpents and Insects nay against some Diseases That there is a mutual friendship between the Olive-tree and the Myrtle whereof it would be as hard a matter to give any reason as it would be to give any of the enmity between the Vine and the Laurel and the inclination which the Male-palm hath towards the Female That the crowing of the Cock frightens Lyons and that that Bird should be so exact
contriv'd for the surprizal and carrying away of the Sabine Virgins it being easily inferr'd that what produc'd so bad an effect must of necessity have been a bad cause The Third said That Playes consider'd in themselves were indifferent but that according to the diversity of their Minds who frequent them they have a different operation as Wine excessively taken besots and layes some asleep and enlivens others according to the difference of their Temperaments For if they meet with weak Minds they imprint in them the Passions of the things that are represented much more easily than Books usually do But if they are persons of a strong Constitution of Intellectuals they consider what they see as a pure Fiction and a draught of Painting in the intrigues whereof they find a certain divertisement much like that of excellent Pâ—inters in their Perspectives they are pleas'd to see a mist cast before the eyes of the vulgar while they themselves are sufficiently satisfi'd that what others think represented to the life is only perform'd by the interposition of Scenes So that from this diversity of operations this only can be inferr'd that Playes and Opera's are advantageous and innocent divertisements to such as are well-vers'd in the affairs of the world who being over-press'd with a continu'd earnestness in the prosecution of their more serious concerns find a certain relaxation therein not in a melancholy sloath such as is inconsistent with the activity which is natural to them but in those less serious employments as on the contrary those persons who are already too much enclin'd to idleness vanity and effeminacy ought not to be admitted to Plays in regard they can have no other effect on them than to make them more effeminate The Fourth said That as Women are justly forbidden the use of the Sciences so ought they also to be forbidden the sight of Plays inasmuch as it is not expedient in order to frugal House-keeping that that Sex should be allow'd an acquaintance with those curiosities which might divert them from the care they ought to have of their domestick affairs For besides the loss of time idleness is extreamly prejudicial to that Sex whose portion should be assiduity in labour frugality and a constant keeping of the House which is not consistent with the frequenting of Shews and Play-houses and seeing the representations made there Which the more instructive they are and the more likely to fill Womens heads with new things the more ought they to be forbidden the sight of them there being not any thing a Husband should fear so much in his Wife as an excess of Wit upon the conceit whereof she assumes to her self a certain authority over him contrary to the Institution of Matrimony or at least thinks her self equal to him which is not much less to be fear'd inasmuch as it is a great disturbance to the domestick tranquillity This may be the better apprehended by the example of two Men equally learned who disputing one against the other seldom come to any agreement as a knowing and an ignorant person many times do for if the latter chance to contradict himself he is easily convinc'd and acquiesces And though the Greeks sometimes admitted Women in their Academies to execute the functions of Professors and Regents yet are not those examples to be introduc'd into this Age whereof the corruption is such as is able to change Vertues into Vices But from this general Rule we are to except such Heroina's as are the great Exemplars of all Vertues who surpassing the greatest part of Men in Wit and Intellectuals it were injurious to think them susceptible of those bad impressions which the Men are able to resist The Fifth said That the example of the Romans who gave extraordinary salaries to Comedians as Cicero assures us they did to Roscius sufficiently shews the advantages of publick representations And indeed if there be any thing to be blam'd in Plays it is this that they are too Pathetick that is too apt to raise and express Humane Passions For as an Oration measur'd in Verse is more elaborate than Prose so Verses dispos'd by a sound Judgement for the Stage are extreamly beyond those of Exegematick Poems wherein only the Poet speaks himself Moreover the observance of Time whereto all the Acts are confin'd and the other Laws of Dramatick Pieces discover their excellency above all others So that to question Whether they are advantageous is to bring into doubt Whether the Master-pieces of Poets Orators and Historians are advantageous to a State CONFERENCE CCXXV. Whether that Temperament of the Body which conduces most to Health be also the most convenient for the Mind I Shall not here insist on the division of the Temperaments as for instance into Simple to wit when one Quality is predominant over its opposite the other two remaining equal as we affirm him to be of a hot Temperament who shall be more hot than cold humidity and drought remaining in an aequilibrium and Compound to wit that which is the result of the same combination of qualities which makes the four Elements into the Vniversal to wit of the whole Body and Particular viz. that which is proper to each part into that which is of Weight wherein all those qualities are as it were in a balance one not exceeding the other and that of Justice wherein those qualities bear a certain proportion one to the other Not insisting I say on these Divisions but presupposing them as common doctrines I shall here think it sufficient to examine in the first place Which of all these Temperaments is most convenient in order to health and in the second whether the same will also be most convenient for the acquisition of a good mind that is for the better exercise of the functions of the rational Soul in a word whether the most healthy person shall always be the most wise Galen hath writ an express Treatise to prove that the Manners follow the Temperament of the body and therefore since those manners are the effects of the Will the noblest of all the faculties of the Soul in regard it hath a Soveraignty over all the others it should seem that the affirmative is to be maintain'd especially if we lay this for a ground that those persons who are subject to Melancholy are the most ingenious forasmuch as they are the most healthy cold and drought making up a more solid and firm mass then any other two qualities and heat and moisture being too variable and too much subject to corruption Upon which consideration Galen in his first Book of the Temperaments chap. 4. denies That the Spring is hot and moist on the contrary saith he it is the worst of all the Temperaments of the Air whereby we are encompass'd and that is commonly the constitution observable in sickly and contagious seasons In his eighth Book of the Method of curing Diseases chap. 7. he adds That a hot and moist distemper makes our
to another they make several mixtures as when they come to separate after their union they are the causes of the corruption of mixt bodies And these bodies have so much the more Resistance which is the last property of these Atoms the more dense and solid these last are as on the contrary when they are less dense and solid by reason of the vacuity there is between their parts the bodies consisting of them have so much the less vigour and force to oppose external injuries The Fourth said That there is not any better instance whereby the nature of Atoms can be explicated then those little Motes which move up and down the air of a Chamber when the Sun-beams come into it at some little hole or cranny For from this very instance which is so sensible it may easily be concluded not only that they are bodies which have a certain bulk and quantity how little and indivisible soever it may be but also that they are in continual motion by means whereof as those little corpuscula or Motes incessantly move and strike one against another and are confusedly intermixt one among another so the Atoms by their perpetual agitation and concourse cause the mixtures and generations of all natural things So that all consider'd it is as ridiculous on the other side to affirm that they are only imaginary principles because they are not seen as to maintain that those little Motes are not in the air because they are not perceiv'd to be there in the absence of the Sun-beams which we must confess renders them visible but with this assurance that they are nevertheless there even when they are not discern'd to be there The Fifth said That it is certain there are abundance of bodies in Nature which are in a manner imperceptible to our senses and yet must be granted to be real bodies and consequently endow'd with length breadth profundity solidity and the other corporeal qualities Such as these are among others the sensible Species which continually issue out of the Objects and are not perceiv'd by the senses but only so far as they are corporeal and material especially the Odours exhaling from certain bodies which after their departure thence in process of time decay and wither Of this we have instance in Apples and other Fruits which grow wrinkled proportionably to their being drain'd of those vaporous Atoms whereof they were at first full which evaporate in a lesser or greater space of time the more closely those little bodies stick one to another or the more weakly they are joyned together Nay the intentional Species how sublimated soever they be by the defaecation made by the agent Intellect are nevertheless bodies as are also the Animal Spirits which are charged therewith and the vital and natural whereby the former are cherish'd In like manner Light the beams of the Sun and of other Stars their Influences their Magnetick Vertues and other such Qualities observable in an infinite number of things between which there is a mutual inclination and correspondence or antipathy cannot be imagin'd to act otherwise then by the emission of certain little bodies which being so small and subtile that they are incapable of further division may with good reason be called the Elements and material Principles of all Bodies since there is not any one but consists of them The Sixth said That the concourse of these Atoms being accidental if we may credit Epicurus we cannot attribute thereto the causes of the generations happening in this World inasmuch as an accidental cause not being able to produce a regular effect such as is that of Nature in Generation it is ridiculous to attribute it rather to these Atoms than to some other cause which is such per se and always regular in its operations such as is Nature her self But what further discovers the absurdity of that opinion is this that it thinks it not enough to refer the diversity of the other effects which are observ'd in all natural bodies to that of the Atoms whereof they consist but pretends also by their means to give an account of that of our Spirits which those Philosophers would represent unto us made of those orbicular atoms and accordingly easily mov'd by reason of that round figure and that those in whom it is most exact are the most ingenious and inventive persons as others are dull and blockish because their Spirits have a lesser portion of those circular Atoms But this speculation may be ranked among pure chimaera's since that the functions of our Understanding being absolutely spiritual and immaterial have no dependence on the different constitutions of those little imaginary bodies nay though there were any correspondence between them and the actions of our minds their round figure would not be so much the cause of our vivacity as might be the pointed or forked as being more likely to penetrate into and comprehend the most difficult things than the circular which would only pass over them without any fixt fastning on them CONFERENCE CCXXXI Whether the King 's Evil may be cur'd by the touching of a Seventh Son and why THough this noisom Disease sometime fastens on several parts of the body yet is there not any more sensible of its malice than the neck which by reason of its being full of glandules is extreamly troubled therewith which happens as well by reason of their thin and spongy constitution as their nearness to the brain from which they receive the phlegmatick and excrementitious humours more conveniently than any of the other parts can be imagin'd to do which are at a greater distance from it And yet these last notwithstanding that distance are extremely troubled therewith nay sometimes to such excess that if we may credit Johannes Langius in the first Book of his Medicinal Epistles a Woman at Florence had the Evil in one of her Thighs which being got out weigh'd sixty pound and a Goldsmith of Amberg had another of the same bigness in a manner neer his Knee And what is much to be observ'd is that though the Evil seems to be only external yet is it commonly preceded by the like swellings which ly hid within and whereof those without are only the marks which observation is confirm'd by the dissections made of those who are troubled with it in whose bodies after their death there are abundance of these Evils whereof the Glandules of the Mesenterium and the Pancreas which is the most considerable of any about Man's Body are full and which are commonly produc'd by Phlegm the coldness and viscosity whereof do indeed contribute to their rebellion but it is very much augmented by the external and common Causes such as are Air Aliment and Waters infected with some malignant qualities which render it Endemious and peculiar to certain Nations as for instance the Inhabitants of the Alps and the Pyrenean Mountains especially the Spaniards who are more infected with this foul disease than any others which is also
that the Physician Melampus cited in Homer Odyss lib. xv deliver'd certain precepts of it above three thousand years since and after him Avenzoar Septalius Taxilius and several others have cultivated it and endeavour'd to shew the probability of certain reasons which they ground principally upon the correspondence there is between the face and its parts and all the other parts of the whole body of Man It consists in two heads to wit in the proportion of greatness or measure or in the resemblance of colour consistency figure scituation number or such other condition which may be common between them The first correspondence between the face and the rest of the body consisting in greatness which comprehends the three dimensions length breadth and profundity is so sensible that those who have exactly measur'd all the parts of it have found that the face is the ninth part of the greatness of the body making the distributions of those spaces so just that no one exceed another provided that the body be well compos'd and that there be no defect in the conformation nor any considerable disorder in the temperament of the whole or its parts The first of these spaces comprehends the face it self the second is from the throat to the brisket where the xiphoidal Gristle is the third reaches below the Navil the fourth passes by the groin to the beginning of the haunches the fifth and sixth comprehend the whole extent of the thigh at the end whereof is the seventh which with the eighth take up the whole space from the knee to the heel as the ninth does that of the whole foot wherein as there are three new regions called Tharse Metatharse and the Toes so are there as many in the Face The first whereof which is the mansion of wisdom is from the beginning of the hair to that of the nose where there is an interval between the Eye-brows The second which is that of beauty comprehends all from that interstitium to the end of the nose and the third where the seat of goodness is reaches to the lower part of the chin Now these different intervals are in like manner observable in the other spaces with so exact a proportion that the countenance is not only answerable to any one of those spaces which with it make up the whole greatness of man's body but there is also a correspondence between every part of it and those of each of the said spaces as between the highest the midst and the lowest part and that which is in the same scituation as between right and right and left and left So that as the face is not only the measure of the whole body being repeated nine times but also the least parts of the face bearing the same proportion to those of the rest of the body it should seem that rational consequences may be drawn of the marks of those parts that are out of our sight by those of the Face which are apparent to us For if it be consider'd that besides the correspondence there is between them as to quantity there is yet another which we said was that of resemblance which makes a strict affinity between them and such as is particularly observable between the Forehead and the Breast the Ey-brows and the Shoulders the cavities of the Ey-brows and the Arm-pits the Ears and the Arms the Chin and the Groin the Cheeks and the Thighes and so of the rest those who have this knowledge may easily ghess at the Warts the Moles and marks that are out of our sight by those which are apparent to us it being probable that as Nature hath mark'd the one with one sign which is as it were the Seal she hath set to her work it must needs be found after the same manner in that counter-part between which and the other there is an alliance not only by reason of its substance and composition but upon the account of several other Accidents which make them alike Thus the Fore-head by reason of its plain figure in the middle and circular towards the extremities and by its solidity is a sufficient representation of the Breast The eminent scituation of the Eye-brows discovers the correspondence there is between them and the shoulders which are the most elevated parts of the Body and the cavities of the Eyes which is under the Eye-Brows have some alliance with those of the Armpits which are under the Shoulders The Cheeks by reason of their fleshy and musculous composition have a relation to the Thighs and particularly to the Buttocks which are situated in the midst of the Trunk as the Cheek is in the Face between the Fore-head and the Chin. The Mouth and the Chin have also a great proportion with the Belly and the Groin the former being situated in the lower part of the Face and the latter at the lower part of the Belly as also upon this account that they are equally fleshy and soft in their superiour parts and in their inferiour parts bony and hard But this correspondence is yet more sensible between the Mouth of the Woman and her secret parts and between the Lips of both those parts which for that reason have the same name as there is the like between the Nose the Eye-brows and the Eyes and the Genitals of a Man the Testicles and the Cods Nor can there be any sign more manifest than such as appear in those places whence there may be inferr'd the marks of those which Nature hath so much conceal'd which though so far out of sight are nevertheless manifest to such persons as have the curiosity to study this correspondence But there is such an association between the Hand and the Foot as well in regard of their composition and structure as for the employments they are both put to that the marks about the Hand and Fingers have others answerable to them on the same parts of the Foot in a correspondent order and disposition one to another The Fourth said That to find out the reason of this Proportion and Sympathy we must not confine our selves to sublunary Causes but attribute an Effect so well order'd and so regular to a Cause answerable thereto For my part I cannot assign any but what is derived from the Heavens whose motions and influences being the general Causes of what-ever happens here below that is constant and regular it is to them that we ought to attribute an exactness which is so certain that it very seldom miscarries Thence it comes that the Professors of Astrology with some ground of reason affirm that as there is no Plant so inconsiderable but hath its signature imprinted on it by that Star which hath a predominancy over it so is there a far stronger reason than Man should have his signature which as they maintain is set upon him as a seal by the Star on which he hath a dependance it being certain that the seven Planets have an Empire over every part which they govern Thus