produce either of an honest profitable or delightful Good this Opinion and Imagination must be the strongest of all moral agents Amongst the actions of the Imagination which are the Passions that of Love is the strongest because it serves for a foundation to all the rest it being true that we fear desire and hate nothing but so far as we love some other thing so that he who can be free from this Passion would be exempt from all others Amongst Transcendents Truth is strongest not that which is ill defin'd The conformity of our Vnderstanding with the thing known since there are things above us which surpass the reach of our capacity and yet cease not to be true But this Truth is a property and affection of Entity wherewith it is convertible and consequently cannot be truly defin'd no more then the other Transcendents since a Definition requires a Genus which being superiour and more common cannot be assign'd to Entity or Truth which is the same with Entity otherwise there should be something more general then Entity which is absurd And although the nature of this Truth is not distinctly known nevertheless the virtue of its effects is very sensible for it acts every where and in all yea above the strongest things in the world whose actions depend upon the verity of their Essence which they suppose And as this Verity is the Principle of the actions of all Agents so it is the End and First Mover which gives rise to all their inclinations whereby they all tend towards one Good which is nothing else but Truth which gives weight and value to Goodness But the force of Verity appears principally in that it acts upon the most excellent thing in the World to wit the Understanding which it convinces by its light wherewith it extorts consent and this so much the more as the Understanding is perfect as we see in the Understandings of the Wise and Learned who more easily suffer themselves to be overcome by Truth than the Vulgar and in those of Angels and Intelligences who likewise yield to Truth And because Verity and Entity are the same thing therefore God who possesses Entity Originally is also the Prime Verity which our Lord attributes to himself in the Gospel when he saith That he is the Truth and the Life For whereas Truth is oft-times altered and clouded in the world and frequently produces Hatred the most infamous of all Passions 't is a defect not found but in dissolute Spirits who cannot support the brightness of it and hate its light because it discovers their faults Yea even when men contradict the Truth and follow the deprav'd motions of their most disorderly Passions 't is allways under an appearance of Goodness and Truth But if the shadow and appearance alone of Truth hath so great an Empire over our minds as is seen in the most erroneous Opinions which never want followers with more just reason must it self when known be invincible and the strongest thing in the World In conclusion were propos'd amongst the strongest things Time which consumes all Death which overthrows all the Powers of the Earth Place which embraces all in it self and Necessity so potent that it is not subject to any Law but gives the same to all other things which cannot avoid its Empire insomuch that the Ancients esteem'd the Gods themselves not exempted from it but subject to the necessity of a Destiny CONFERENCE CII I. Of the Gowt II. Which Condition is most expedient for the acquisition of Wisedom Riches or Poverty THe Gowt called Arthritis or Morbus Articularis is the general name of all aches of the Joynts caus'd by fluxion which gave it the name of Gowt and is different according to the divers connexions of the Bones and the Parts which it afflicts being term'd Podagra in the Feet Chiragra in the Hand and the Ischiatick ach by the vulgar Schiatica in the Hip. Nevertheless every Articular Pain is not the Gowt as appears by Contusions Luxations Wounds and the Pains of Women after Child-birth in Virgins after their Evacuation and in Bodies infected with the French Disease But 't is a Grief of the Parts indu'd with sense which are about the Joynts accompanied sometimes with swelling and caus'd by the fluxion of a sharp and serous humour transmitted out of the Veins and Arteries into those Parts whose motion it hinders and because the Feet are most remote from the source of heat therefore Nature commonly drives thither the matter of this Malady whereunto they are more dispos'd then other Parts as well by reason of their composition of Nerves Tendons Veins Arteries Membranes and Ligaments spermatick and cold parts as of their continual motion which gives occasion to the fluxion Hence the Gowt begins usually at the Feet especially at the great Toe whose motion is greatest which hinders not but that it begins too in the Hand Knee and Hip and sometimes in the Sides and if the matter abound sometimes it seizes upon the Joynts with such violence as would make Nature succumbe were the fits continual and not periodical as they are giving to some an interval of a year to others of six months or less according as there needs time for collecting the humour in those parts The cause of this vehement pain is the acrimony of the corrosive and mordicant humour which makes a solution of the parts whose coldness renders this evil almost incurable and makes it last fourty days the pain not being appeasable saving when the cause which produces it is resolv'd whereunto the coldness of its subject is not proper The Second said That in the Gowt as in all sorts of Fluxions four things are to be consider'd the Matter which flows the Place whence it comes the Way by which it passes and the Parts upon which it falls As for the first the Gowt hath some Matter not being as some hold a simple Intemperies which could not subsist so long nor cause such pungent pains much less a tumour as it happens sometimes in the part afflicted which cannot proceed but from the affluence of Matter This Matter some affirm to be Wind or Flatuosity with as little reason for then it might easily be resolv'd and would cause only a pain of distension Most hold that 't is the four Humours arguing from the diversity of Symptomes of this Disease and the various manner of curing some being eas'd by hot Aliments and Medicaments others by cold And lastly from the different colour of the tumours appearing sometimes red white or of some other colour by reason of the blood phlegm or other humours which produc'd them But though a very acute pain may in this malady as it doth in all others attract the humours which abound in the body and so cause a tumour yet this humour which makes the inflation cannot be the cause of the Gowt since at the beginning and before the parts are inflated the pains are very great but cease
and diminish upon the appearing of the Tumour Some have held it to be Blood alone others Melancholy some Bile in regard of its mobility and activity many following the authority of Fernelius that 't is a cold phlegmatick and serous humour and that every Gowt is cold Mercurialis observing that Blood could not cause such great pains that Melancholy was too heavy and thick to be active Bile too subtile to descend and Phlegm too cold to excite such pungent pains and sudden motions which cannot proceed from a cold cause conceiv'd it was Phlegm mingled with Bile the latter serving as a Vehicle to the former and that former to precipitate and make this latter descend Some others confessing their ignorance acknowledg Qu' on n' y void goutte that they see not a jot in this Matter referring this Disease to occult and malignant causes acting by an unknown property as contagious and venemous diseases do I conceive it to be a salt humour subtile and picquant partaking of the nature of Salts which are all corrosive which acrimony and mordacity of this humour is caus'd by the Salt or Tartar contain'd in its substance or deriv'd to the Aliments whereof the humours are produc'd from the Earth which is full of such Salt Nitrous or Tartareous Spirits without which it would be unfruitful and barren as is seen in Earth whence Saltpeter is extracted which can never produce any thing This Nitrous Spirit being all drawn out of the Earth by the Plants which serve us for food and not being tameable by our heat much less convertible into our substance for an Animal is nourish'd with what is sweet and hath had life wherewith these Mineral Spirits were never provided if the natural Faculty be strong it expells them with the other unprofitable Excrements of the first concoction and Urine and Sweat and sometimes forms the Stone in the Kidneys Bladder or other Parts But if it happens either through the weakness of the expulsive Faculty or the quality of the Matter or some other defect that this Tartareous Spirit is not expell'd then it is carry'd with the Blood into the Parts and being unfit for nutrition transpires by the Pores if it be subtil enough or else in case it be thick and cannot be resolv'd flows back into the great Vessels and thence into the Joynts where sometimes it is coagulated into knots and grits and turn'd into a hard matter like chalk or plaister which shews that the four Humours are not the matter thereof since the same do not suppurate rendering then the Gowt incurable and the Reproach of Physians because they find no Cure for it no more than for that of old Men those who have a dry Belly and who live disorderly But 't is curable saith Hippocrates in young people in such as have no gritts or hardnesses form'd in the Joints those who are laborious obedient and to whom some great Evacuations arrive many having been cur'd of it by a Dysenterie As for the Place where it is form'd and the Way whereby the Matter which causes this Evil descends most with Fernelius conceive 't is the Head not the internal part of the Brain whose Excrements are easily voided outwardly by the Nostrils or inwardly by the Infundibulum or Tunnel and other Cavities but the outward part between the skull and the skin which being too thick and compact to give issue to the phlegmatick and serous humours there collected being begotten of the Excrements of the Jugular Veins which are expanded over all these Parts those serous and thin humours glide down between the Skin and other Feguments into the Joints But the Place of this Nitrous Matter above-mentioned are the Viscera of the Liver and Spleen which generate this Matter two ways 1. By the vitiosity of Aliments impregnated with this Nitrous Spirit which they plentifully attracted from the Earth whence it is that Wine which hath more of this Spirit and Tartar then any other Aliment is by consent of all very hurtful to the Gowt 2. By their proper vitiosity namely a hot and dry Intemperies whereby instead of concocting they adure the Blood and so fix that salt serosity which is the Salt or Tartar extracted out of its substance Unless you had rather say That as in the Kidneys of Persons subject to the Stone there is a certain arenaceous or lapidifick constitution proper for producing the Stone so in the Viscera of those who are subject to the Gowt there is a particular arthritical disposition apt to beget that tartareous matter which produces it The Way whereby this Matter is expell'd is the Veins and Arteries these Vessels manifestly swelling when the fits of the Gowt begin Moreover as this Disease unexpectedly invades by a sudden afflux of the Matter so it suddenly changes place especially by means of Refrigerants and Repercussives which drive the Gowt from one Foot to the other or into the Hand and other Parts which cannot be done but by the Veins and Arteries Lastly The Parts upon which this Matter falls and which are about the articulations are membranous and sensible because the Membranes being the first subject of Touch ought to be also of Pain a Symptom thereof The Third said That the greatest difficulty was Why this matter rather falls upon the Joints than other Parts which are not incommoded therewith neither the Nerves nor the Veins through which it passes no more than the Membranes and sensible Parts besides those which are about the Joints The cause whereof may be That as in health the Parts by a strange property attract such humours as are fit for their nutrition the Lungs bilious Blood the Spleen melancholy Blood the Kidneys serous the other carnous Parts temperate Blood so in sickness and ill constitution of the Body some of these Parts attract from all the rest certain humours wherewith they have most affinity So in the new Disease call'd Plica Polonica the viscous and glutinous humour which produceth it is chiefly carri'd to the hair which it knotteth and intaâ—gleth together and to the nails of the Hands and Feet which it makes hard and black And in the cure of Fracture of Bones the Stone call'd Osteocolla taken inwardly is carried towards the broken Bones and causes them to re-unite In like manner the Humour producing the Gowt hath some affinity with the Bones of the Joints especially with their Epiphyses The Fourth said That the Gowty have wherewith to comfort themselves not so much for that they foretel the changes of the Air and Seasons as for that this Disease is a token of health and an evidence of the strength and vigour of Nature which from the noble Parts drives the vicious humours upon the Joints But amongst its antecedent causes the Air is not to be forgotten especially the hot and moist Air of the Spring thawing the Humours lately congeal'd by the Winter to the vitiosity of which Air is that popular Gowt to be referr'd of which Athenaeus speaks in
regard no other Creature besides becomes weary in its Operations For all Animals even the lowest degree of Insects sleep although such who have hard eyes and scales sleep more obscurely then the rest and Birds more lightly then four-footed Beasts which suck because they have a less and dryer Brain and consequently less need sleep whose use is to moisten and refresh that part Hence Man having of all Animals the largest Brain hath also need of the longest sleep which ought to be about seven hours Wherefore I cannot but wonder that Plato in his first Book of Laws would have his Citizens rise in the night to fall to their ordinary employments for this disturbing of their rest were the way to make a Common-wealth of Fools the Brain by watchings acquiring a hot and dry intemperature which begets igneous spirits whose mobility not permitting the Mind to consider the species impress'd upon them is the cause of unsteady and impetuous sallies of the Mind as on the contrary sleep too excessive fills the ventricles of the Brain wherein the Soul exercises her Faculties with abundance of vapours and humidities which offuscating and troubling the species the Mind thereby becomes slothful and dull The second said That Privations are understood by their Habits and therefore Sleep which is a privation of Sense cannot be better known than by the functions of the outward Senses which so long as an Animal exercises it is said to be awake and to sleep when it ceases to employ the same And being Sensation is perform'd by means of the animal Spirits refin'd out of the natural and vital and sent from the Brain into the Sensories which Spirits receive the species of the sensible object and carry it to the Inward Sense the common Arbiter and Judg of all external objects hence when those Spirits happen to fail or the Common Sense is bound up the other external Senses cannot discharge their offices Upon which account the Philosophers have defin'd Sleep The ligation of the First Sense or The rest of the Spirits and Blood And the Physitians The cessation of all outward Senses for the health and repose of an Animal hereby distinguishing it from the cessation of the outward Senses in Swoonings Falling-sickness Apoplexie Lethargy Carus Coma and such sorts of morbifick and praeternatural sleep produc'd by causes acting rather by an occult and somniferous property then by excess of cold or moisture otherwise Winter Ice and the coldest things should cause sleep Wine Annis Opium Henbane and abundance of hot Medicaments should not be Narcotick as experience evinces them to be But natural sleep is produc'd by vapours elevated from the aliments into the brain which moreover performing in us the office of a Ventose or Cupping-glass draws to it self those humid vapours condenses them by its coldness and resolves them into a gentle dew which falling upon the rise or beginning of the Nerves obstructs the passage to the animal Spirits the instruments of Sensation and voluntary Motion which it hinders though not Motion so much as Sensation because the Nerves of the hinder part of the Brain destinated to Motion being harder do not so easily imbibe those vapours as those of the fore-part destinated to Sensation But when the Heat and Spirits whereof there had been an absumption are again sufficiently repair'd they move anew toward the Brain where they resolve those dews which stopp'd the passage and hindred the commerce of the vital Spirits with the animal whereupon we naturally and without violence awake So likewise the violence of an extrinsecal object importunately striking the external Senses obliges the Soul to send other Spirits to the assistance of the few remaining therein and which before this supply apprehend objects only confusedly The Third said Sleep is not the Quiescence of the animal Spirits for these are active and form Dreams whilst we sleep nor of the vital which have no relaxation or rest so long as the Animal hath life much less of the natural Nutrition being perform'd best during sleep which is the cause why sleeping fattens Neither is the Brain 's humidity the cause of sleep as 't is commonly held but the defect of vital heat in the Heart in a sufficient degree for performing the functions of the outward Senses Moreover the sudden seizing and abruption of sleep which we observe cannot be produc'd but by a very movable cause such as the gross vapour of aliments is not but the vital heat is being carried into all parts of the body in an instant Whence it is that we observe the same to be more pale during sleep as having less of the said heat than during Evigilation The Fourth said That indeed the adequate cause of sleep is not a vapour arising from the aliments since it is procur'd by abundance of other causes which produce no evaporation as Weariness Musique Silence and Darkness Neither is it the above-mentioned deficience of Viâ—â—l Heat which indeed is necessary to the Organs inasmuch as they are endu'd with life but not to make them capable of sense there being sufficient in them even during sleep when the parts are found hot enough for Sensation if heat were the cause thereof as it is not But the right cause consists in the Animal Spirits for which as being the noblest instruments of the Body I conceive there is a particular faculty in the Brain which administers and governs them sending them to the Organs when there is need of them and causing them to return back in order to be restor'd and suppli'd As there is a particular faculty in the Heart over-ruling and moving the Vital Spirits as it pleases sometimes diffusing them outwards in Joy Anger and Shame sometimes causing them to retreat in order to succour the Heart in Sadness Grief and Fear The Fifth said The Empire of Sleep whom Orpheus calls King of Gods and Men is so sweet that Not to be of its party is to be an enemy to Nature 'T is the charm of all griefs both of body and mind and was given to man not only for the refreshment of both but chiefly for the liberty of the Soul because it makes both the Master and the Slave the poor and the rich equal 'T is a sign of health in young people and causes a good constitution of Brain strengthning the same and rendring all the functions of the mind more vigorous whence came the saying That the Night gives counsels because then the Mind is freed from the tyranny of the Senses it reasons more solidly and its operations are so much the more perfect as they are more independent on matter and 't was during the repose of sleep that most of the Extasies and prophetical Visions happened to the Saints Moreover frequent sleep is a sign of a very good nature For being conciliated only by the benignity of a temper moderately hot and moist the Sanguine and Phlegmatick whose humour is most agreeable are more inclined thereunto than the Bilious and
and not finding the same in the Cannon issues forth to seek it by the same reason that an Exhalation inflam'd in the middle Region of the Air disengages it self from its prison by breaking the Cloud which holds it inclos'd in its belly thereby forming the Lightnings and Thunders whereof the shots of the Cannon are true Images upon Earth where nothing comes nearer Thunder and consequently the Power of God who oftentimes imploys those Arms to punish the crimes of men Whence Pagan Antiquity assign'd indeed severally a Trident a Sythe a Bow a Helmet a Lance a Club a Sword and such other Instruments to their false Deities but all attributed Thunder to the mightiest of the Gods CONFERENCE CV I. Of Blood-letting II. Which is the most Excellent of the Soul 's three Faculties Imagination Memory or Judgment BLood-letting whose invention is fabulously attributed to the Sea-horse who finding himself too full of Blood rubs himself against the sharp points of Reeds or Canes and afterwards stops the wound with mud is celebrated either in the Arteries and is call'd Arteriotomie or in the Veins and is term'd Phlebotomie which Physitians by good right hold with Galen in the Book which he writ thereof against Erasistratus for a singular remedy and one of the readiest for all sorts of Diseases especially Inflammations Fevers Revulsions or Derivations griefs of the Eyes difficulties of Urine Pleurisie Peripneumonie Squinancy Epilepsie Fractures Luxations and all acute Pains and Diseases And as there are two general and most frequent causes of Diseases namely Plethora or Repletion and Cacochymia or depravation of the Humours Blood-letting is the remedy of the former and Purgation of the latter But Blood-letting is the best and safest causing less agitation and disturbance in the Oeconomy of the Body than Purgatives which are ordinarily violent and enemies of Nature yea it serves not only to evacuate the juices which abound in excess but sometimes remedies their depravation by correcting the hot and dry Intemperies of the Bowels which is the cause of Cacochymie because Bleeding of its own Nature evacuates and makes revulsion but by accident refrigerates and takes away obstructions Therefore Avicenna and all his followers enemies of Blood-letting are ridiculous alledging That the Blood being Fraenum Bitis the bridle of choler this becomes exasperated and enflam'd the less Blood there is to restrain it For if there be any Humour that keeps Choler in order it must be Phlegm which is contrary thereto and not Blood which symbolises with it by heat But Blood-letting checks the impetuous motions of Choler which it evacuates with the Blood if it be in the greater Vessels and if out of them as about the cavities of the Liver it tempers them correcting the ardent constitution of the Liver which produces it The Second said That by reason of Contraries affections against Nature as well as Health have their seat in the Parts Spirits and Humours The Parts are the seat of Maladies the Spirits of Symptoms and laesion of Functions and the Humours of the Morbifick causes either antecedent or conjunct And as these humours which are the source and leven of most Diseases being in a natural state are in their proper place in the quantity and quality requisite to their Nature so in a state against Nature they are out of their due place and offend either in quantity or quality To these three defects Physick opposes Revulsion Alteration and Evacuation this latter is done either by evacuating only the bad by convenient ways in Purgation or the good with the bad Blood-letting which is defin'd an Evacuation of all the humours of the Body by section of the Vessels For though the Blood be the Treasure of Life the Source of all Passion and if we believe Galen the Seat of the Soul nevertheless its corruption as that of the best things of the World being so much the more dangerous as it is the most perfect and temperate of all the Humours it must be presently evacuated out of the Body not only in plenitude where Nature requires nothing but to be discharg'd but also in depravation of the Blood by mixture of the other Humours corrupted of which the less there is the more easily they are subdu'd by Nature which wants not strength to re-produce more laudable Blood than that from which she was unburden'd But regard must chiefly be had to the distinction of Veins according to the diversity of Diseases So the most apparent Veins of the arms are open'd when the Body is plethorick without affection of any Part If it be so by suppression of the Moneths or Hemorrhoids the Vein of the Foot must be open'd If it be by Choler then that of the right arm If by Melancholy then that of the left arm in regard of the situation of the Liver and Spleen as for the various communication of the Vessels the Cephalick Basilick or Median are chosen Hippocrates opens the Vein of the Forehead call'd Praeparata in pains of the Hinder part of the head that of the Occiput in fluxions of the Eyes the Hypoglottides or Veins under the Tongue in the Squinancy for derivation that of the tip of the Nose or great Canthus of the Eye in its Inflammations the Jugulares and Salvatella those of the Temples and in brief all others are open'd according to the sundry intentions of the Physitian The Third said That Blood-letting is the greatest of Remedies there being none sooner communicated to all the Parts which having need of nourishment which is carried to them by the Veins you cannot evacuate any one sensibly but that motion will be communicated with all the Blood in the other Veins that is to say over all the Body It s use was anciently so rare that Galen and the Greeks made conscience of letting Children blood before fourteen years of Age and Avenzoar was accounted too ventrous in Phlebotomising his own Son at seven Hippocrates appoints it in four cases in Inflammation Metastasis Repletion and Obstruction 'T is above all necessary when the Body is too replete evidenced oft-times by spontaneous evacuations at the Nose and Hemorroids whether this Repletion respect the Vessels which are too full and in danger of breaking or the natural strength oppress'd under the weight of the humours But it seems to me impertinent and unprofitable in case of Cacochymie without Repletion which requires Purgatives to purifie the sanguinary mass and not this bleeding Remedy For there being three principal seats of Cacochymie to wit the First Region the Veins and the Habit of the Body Blood-letting is alike unprofitable to them all As for the First Region which is the sink and channel of the humours Blood-letting cannot reach thither without emptying all the Blood of the Body and should it penetrate thither it would draw those excrementitious humours into the Veins where they would corrupt the laudable Blood But Cacochymie residing in the Region of the Veins Purgation which only eliminates the
the Womb where she wraps it up in two membranes which receive the Urine Sweat and other Excrements of sanguification as the Intestines do the grosser excrements but assoon as it is born she expells its immundicities by blisters scurfs scabs tumors of the head and other purgations which Hippocrates saith preserve from diseases especially from the falling sickness Nor can the Malignity of the Air be the Cause as Fernelius holds alledging that the difficulty of respiration heaviness of the head inflammation of the face and such other concomitant symptoms seem to be caus'd by the viciousness of the air which infects the heart and by that means hurts the other Functions For then the Small Pox would be as Epidemical as the Pestilence or any other contagious maladies and seize upon all men indifferently not excepting such as have once had them Wherefore the matter of this disease is a serosity accompanied with the humours which make the Pox appear of several colours sometimes Red Yellow Black or White according as the Blood Choler Melancholy or Flegm flow thither Wind or Water only cause bladders or blisters Nevertheless it must be confessed that this serosity acquires some particular malignity as appears by the deformity caused by the pustules which not only pit the skin and flesh but sometimes even corrode and rot the bones The Fifth said That the Small Pox is a new and hereditary disease and that as all other new maladies of these last ages have always had their causes but only wanted fitting dispositions without which nothing is produced so the causes of the Small Pox have always been existent but the particular dispositions of bodies not lighting upon the point requisite for its production it hath not appeared till these late times whether through the influence of Heaven or through the Malignity of the Air or the intemperance of men the most apparent cause of most diseases formerly unknown or else through contagion and contact by which way the great Pox is communicated For the Small is likewise contagious and which is remarkable more amongst Kindred than Strangers because they being issued of the same blood have greater affinity of dispositions than Strangers CONFERENCE CXXVII Whether we profit best by Precepts or Examples AS there is nothing so hard as to judg of the worth of things so it is the highest point of prudence to understand the goodness of the means that may conduce to some end Precepts and Examples are the two Means to attain Vertue 't is demanded which is the best and most proper At first view Example seems to have the same advantage over Precept that the Whole hath over the Part for a Good Example besides being of its own nature a vertuous action holds the place of a Moral Rule but a Precept is only a General Maxim not necessarily follow'd by a particular Action whence it follows that Precept regards only the Understanding whereto it affords some light but Example makes impression upon both Faculties together the Understanding and the Will by an order necessary in civil life which is regulated by the example of others Therefore Great Persons are oblig'd to good Example which derives its dignity from that of the giver Moreover Moral Propositions are so reasonable and conformable to the instinct we have of good that all the World assents to them as consider'd in the General There is no body but acknowledges that what belongs to each man ought to be render'd to him that we ought not to do that to another which we would not have done to our selves yet in the circumstances and particular cases we do not always apply those precepts because then they appear clog'd with difficulties to which our passion or interest give birth Wherefore Example beng Particular is more considerable in Morality wherein people are govern'd more by opinion then reason but Precept is Universal and affects the mind only at a distance our actions being oftentimes contrary to the secret dictates of the Understanding In Example we feel the force and application of a precept in a particular subject and know not only that which ought to be done but how it ought to be done by seeing it practis'd Experience it self shew us that Doctrine alone is weak and little perswasive unless it be animated by the examples of a good life whose silence is more eloquent than all precepts Moreover we are like those with whom we live and the maladies of the body are not so contagious as those of the mind which notwithstanding may as well profit by bad examples as good the Understanding being able to turn bad food into good nourishment And as a brave Action excites good Motions in us by its beauty resulting from its conformity to Reason so a bad Action by its deformity and contrariety to Reason gives us aversion against it and an inclination to its opposite Socrates judg'd no Lesson so fit to moderate Anger as for a Man to behold himself in a glass when he is agitated with that Passion Which cannot be said of a bad Precept for this being a bad seed can never produce any fruit but of the same Nature On the other side Men are such Lovers of Pleasures that Virtue separated from Delight stumbles them and seemes too severe But Precept is a pure Rule of Duty without any attractive whereas Example which appears to our Eyes and is an Action cloth'd with circumstances perswades us more sweetly because we are naturally prone to Imitation whence it comes to pass that Comedies are so charming And Example is the subject of Imitation but Precept cannot be so for it is general of it self and all Moral Actions are singular The Second said That if it be true as the Stoicks say that Virtue is nothing else but a Science then Precepts must be the foundations as of Science so also of Virtute which indeed being a habit of a reasonable Faculty must be more promoted by Precepts which are infallible verities and supply light to that Power than Examples which have no force to convince a strong Mind They who follow Virtue by Example and not by Reason have more of the Ape than of the Man and all the power Example hath is onely to move the Will to admire and desire Virtue but not to teach the way of attaining it as Precept doth which besides being invariable and always alike to its self is more easie to be applyed than Example which puts on a new face according to the circumstances of times places and persons there being no Actions how contrary soever but have Examples to countenance their goodness Moreover they are either of the time past and so move us not much or of the present in which there are few of Virtue besides that they are of less duration than Precepts which are eternal If vicious Examples attract more powerfully to Vice than vicious Precepts the same cannot be said of the practice of Virtues since these have not all the External
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
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
referr'd than to the Sun The Seventh said That an univocal and certain cause of whiteness cannot be found in the first or second Qualities Not in Heat or Cold since Snow Sugar and Salt are equally white though the first is cold the second temperate and the third hot Nor in Siccity or Humidity since humid Milk is no less white than dry Chalk and Plaster The density and weight of Silver the rarity and levity of Snow the sweetness of Sugar and the acrimony of Salt in short the examen of all other Second Qualities of white things shews that it depends not on them Nor yet on the third for white Agarick is purgative white Starch and flowr of Beans astringent Lastly what some call Fourth Qualities or Properties of the whole Substance depend as little upon Colours since the same whiteness which is in the Meal that nourishes us is also in the Sublimate that kills us It remains to inquire the reason of Colours and consequently of Whiteness in the proportion between the Sight and the Surface of the colour'd body When therefore it happens that the Visual Ray which issues forth pure and white that is to say colour-less finds no Colour in a Surface if the same be Diaphanous it takes it for a Medium not an Object as is seen in Glass Crystal Air and Water if opake it stops at the said Surface and finding no Colour thereon returns with the Species of the Object to make its report to the Common Sense that it saw nothing and this is what they call Whiteness Hence White so little delights the Sight that it disgregates and wearies it as a false stroke doth that brings nothing Now to apply this to Snow the Visual Ray is indeed stopt by its condens'd Surface but whence should it have Colour since 't is compos'd of Air and Water both colourless The Truth is sutably to its Principles it must necessarily remain without Colour that is White whereby it so disgregates the Visual Rayes that sometimes it blinded a whole Army CONFERENCE CLV Whether Courage be natural or acquir'd COurage being the Contempt of Danger which we naturally fear we cannot be naturally courageous for then two contrary Effects should proceed from the same Cause But the Truth is our Nature is indifferent to every thing whereunto it is lead and fashion'd Thus skittish Horses are made sober by inuring to the noise of Muskets which before they could not endure On the contrary brave Coursers kept in a dark Stable and unemploy'd become resty and jadish Moreover since there is no true Courage without Knowledge of the Danger whence Fools and Drunkards cannot be styl'd courageous this argues that this Virtue hath need of Rules and Precepts as without which our Knowledge cannot but be very imperfect Nor did any thing render the Romans more valiant than the Nations they subdu'd but Military Discipline wherein the Roman Legionary under-went his Apprentisage as other Artificers do in their Trades Which Instruction some of their Descendents despising have shewn thereby what difference there is between themselves and their Ancestours and determin'd this Question to the advantage of Industry At this day our Souldiers are not more strong and courageous than Town-people and the Officers whom alone we see perform all the brave Actions surpass not in Courage ordinary Souldiers saving that these have not been so well instructed as they and reflect not so much upon the shame and loss which they incurr by Cowardize And because that Courage is greatest which makes us contemne the greatest dangers hence that which leads us to the Contempt of Death the most terrible of all things is undoubtedly the greatest But the History of the Milesian Virgins is remarkable who upon the perswasions of a certain Orator were contrary to the natural timidity of their Sex carry'd to so great a Contempt of Death that nothing could restrain them from killing themselves but the example of their Self-murder'd Companions drawn forth-with naked about the streets Whereby it may be judg'd how powerful Perswasion is to encourage us Which Captains and Generals of Armies are not ignorant of who employ all their Rhetorick to impress Audacity in their Souldiers breasts upon an assault or a battel and those that have been in such encounters affirm that nothing conduces more either to inflame the Courage of Brave Men or infuse it into such as have none than an Exhortation well apply'd and suted to the Minds of those that are to be encourag'd sometimes by the Memory of their former Gallant Actions sometimes by those of their Enemies Cowardice sometimes by the greatness of the Danger and the inevitable ruine they incurr in case of turning their backs but commonly by the salvation of their Souls and the good of their Country and always by the fair spur of Honour and Glory Considerations directly opposite to those dictated to us by Nature which tend onely to preservation of the Individuall The Second said If Instruction made Men valiant and courageous than all that receive the same Education learn in the same Academy and fight under the same Captain should be equally courageous Yet there is so notable a difference between them that it cannot be imputed to any but Natural Causes such as are the structure of the parts of the Body the temper of the humors the nimbleness or heaviness of the Spirits and especially the diversity of Souls which inform our Bodies which diversity is apparent even in Infancy before the Corporeal Organs can be suspected to be the Cause thereof One Child is more timorous than another and no sooner begins to go but he beats his Companions who suffer themselves to be beaten by one weaker than themselves the first not quitting his hold for the rod for which another will do more than you would have him The truth is if the Soul be the Architect of her habitation to her must be imputed the Principal Cause of the variety found therein upon that of our Actions visibly depends For as every one readily addicts himself to those employments and exercises of body and mind whereunto he is most fit and which he performs with most ease so he is more easily lead to Actions of Courage whose Organs are best dispos'd for the same And because Children commonly have some-what of the Habit of Body and Temper of their Parents hence Courage seems to come by Descent which possibly renders our Gentry so jealous of the Antiquity of their Families in which they had rather find a Man beheaded for an Action that speaks Courage than a Burgess who had not liv'd in a noble way Moreover to judge well of Courage we must not consider it solely in Man since 't is found so resplendent in Animals incapable of Discipline and Instruction that the certainest Physiognomical Rule whereby to judge of a Valiant Man is taken from the similitude or resemblance he hath with the Lyon Bear or other Beasts of Courage Which shews that the
and divorce of them asunder Diseases of bare Intemperature which is either simple or with matter the Imagination may produce by moving the Spirits and Humors which it hath power to do For the Spirits being aerious and naturally very hot when they are sent by a strong Imagination into some part they may so heat it as by the excess of their heat to destroy the temper of such part as Anger sometimes heats the Body into a Fever And as the too great concourse of these Spirits makes hot intemperatures so their absence from other parts causes cold Diseases as crudities and indigestions familiar to such as addict themselves to Study and Meditation after Meat the Spirits which should serve for Concoction being carry'd from the Stomack to the Brain In like manner the Imagination having dominion over the Humors which it moves by mediation of the Spirits as Joy Shame and Anger bring blood and heat into the Face and outward parts and Fear and Sadness give them a contrary motion it appears that it hath power to produce Maladies of Intemperies with matter by the fluxion or congestion of the Humors into some part and out of their natural seat But if the Phansie can disorder the work of Conformation in another body then it s own as that of an Infant whose marks and defects wherewith he is born are effects of his Mothers Phansie much more may it cause the same disorder in its own Body whereunto it is more nearly conjoyn'd Wherefore since it can destroy the temper of the Similar parts and the harmony of the Organs it may also cause Diseases and by the same means cure them too for if contraries be cur'd by their contraries then it may cure a cold distemper by producing a hot one and if it hath power to cause by motion of the humors an obstruction in some part it may by the same means return them to their natural place and cure such obstruction 'T was to the Phansie that the cure of those Splenetick persons is to be attributed who were cur'd by the touch of the great Toe of Pyrrhus's left Foot and we see many Cures wrought by Amulets Periapts and other like Remedies which having no vertue in themselves to produce such an effect the same must be referr'd to some other cause Now none hath more empire then the Imagination over the Spirits and other Humours wherein almost all Diseases consist The Second said That the Imagination being a simple Cognoscitive Power cannot of it self produce the effects that are ascrib'd to it For all Cognition is Passion and to know is to suffer and receive the Species of the thing that is to be known whose impression made upon the Organs of Sense is by them carry'd to the Imagination which judges thereof upon their report Moreover there is this notable difference between the Sensitive or Cognoscitive Powers and the Vegetative or Motive which are destitute of all Cognition that the latter are active out of themselves and operate upon the Members which the Motive Faculty moves with full power and upon the aliments which the Vegetative Faculties as the Nutritive and Auctive alter and turn into the nature of the parts But the Sensitive Faculties and all other Cogniscitive Powers have no real sensible action They are active indeed so far as they are powers issuing from very perfect Forms but their actions are immanent and produce nothing beyond themselves and consequently can have no influence abroad So that the Imagination cannot immediately and of its own nature produce either a Disease or Health in the Body but only by means of the Motive Power or Sensitive Appetite the Passions whereof are acknowledg'd by Physitians to be the external causes of Diseases If the Phansie could produce any thing it should be by help of the Species it is impregnated withall which being extracted from things some think that they eminently contain the vertues of the objects from whence they issue and whereof they are Pictures and that hence it is that the Teeth are set on edge upon the hearing of grating sounds that the sight of a Potion purges many and that of salt things makes the Stomack rise in others and that the thought of the Plague oftentimes propagates it more then the corruption of the Air. Nevertheless these effects proceed only from the various motion of Heat and the Spirits caus'd by the Appetite and the Motive Power which are distinct from the Imagination For if the Species had the same power with the objects from which they issue they would not be perfective but destructive of their Organs the Species of Heat would burn the Brain that of Cold would cool it both would destroy it which is contrary to experience For though Heat and Cold are contraries in Nature yet they are not so in the Understanding but rather friendly the one contributing to the knowledg of the other and the end of Intentional Species is not to alter but onely to represent the objects whereof they are copies The Third said That Aristotle hath built his Physiognomy upon the great connection and sympathy of the Soul with the Body which is such that the one causeth considerable changes in the other To which purpose the Soul employes no other more effectual instrument then the Imagination Which power of the Soul upon the Body is evinc'd by the mighty effects of the Passions especially of Fear Love and Anger Fear having kill'd many as particularly St. Valier before the stroke of the Executioner On which account it is also that Mirth is commended for one of the best preservatives from the Plague And we see that Fear and Sadness are no less the causes then the infallible signs of the Disease call'd Melancholy The same is further verified by the strange Histories of those who being become sick by Fancy could not be cur'd but by curing the Fancy first the Remedy being to be of the same kinde with the Disease Thus he who fancy'd he had no head could not be restor'd to his right sense till the Physician clapping a leaden Cap upon him left him to complain a while of the Head-ache And another who having study'd Physick a little and took up a conceit that he had a prodigious excrescence in his Intestinum Rectum could not be cur'd till the Chirurgeon had made semblance of cauterizing it Another Gentleman who durst not piss for fear of causing an universal Deluge was cur'd of his conceit by the Countrey peoples crying out Fire and desiring him to quench it In like manner another believing himself dead would not eat and had dy'd in good earnest had not his Nephew who was reported dead come into his Chamber in a winding Sheet and fallen to eat before his Uncle who thereupon did the like And to go no further the tying of the Codpiece-point is accounted an effect of the Fancy and is cur'd by curing the Fancy alone So likewise a Lord of Quality falling sick accidentally in a
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 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
CL. Whether Alterations of States have natural Causes 195 CONFERENCE CLI Which is more healthful To become warm by the Fire or by Exercise 198 CONFERENCE CLII. Whether Wine helps or hinders Digestion and why 201 CONFERENCE CLIII Why 't is colder at Day-break than any other time of the Night or Day 203 CONFERENCE CLIV Whence the whiteness of Snow proceeds 206 CONFERENCE CLV Whether Courage be natural or acquir'd 209 CONFERENCE CLVI Whether Men not having learn'd of others would frame Language to themselves 112 CONFERENCE CLVII Whether is better to guard the Frontier or carry the VVar into the Enemies Country 215 CONFERENCE CLVIII Whence diversity of Opinions proceeds 218 CONFERENCE CLIX. Why there is more VVind at Sea than at Land 221 CONFERENCE CLIX. Whether it be easier to procure Obedience by Gentleness than by Terrour 224 CONFERENCE CLX VVhether Trading derogate from Gentility 225 CONFERENCE CLXI VVhy the French are so much incensed with the Lie 128 CONFERENCE CLXII VVhy every one thinks himself well enough provided with VVit and some better than others 231 CONFERENCE CLXIII How Animals are bred of Putrefaction 234 CONFERENCE CLXIV Of Zoophytes or Plant-Animals 237 CONFERENCE CLXV Of Trubbs or Truffs and Mushroms 240 CONFERENCE CLXVI Which is to be preferred Company or Solitude 242 CONFERENCE CLXVII Whether Birds or four-footed Animals or Fishes be most Intelligent 245 CONFERENCE CLXVIII What is the cause of the Crisis of Diseases 248 CONFERENCE CLXIX What Bodily Exercise is the most healthful 252 CONFERENCE CLXX Whether Vertue consists in Mediocrity 255 CONFERENCE CLXXI. Whether the Imagination be able to produce and cure Diseases 258 CONFERENCE CLXXII Of Fascination or Bewitching 261 CONFERENCE CLXXIII Of Amulets and whether Diseases are curable by Words Tickets or other things hang'd at the Neck or applyed to the Body of the Diseased 264 CONFERENCE CLXXIV Whether Fruition diminishes Love 266 CONFERENCE CLXXV Whether 't were better to know all that men now know or all that they ignore 269 CONFERENCE CLXXVI Whether Musick doth more hurt or good 272 CONFERENCE CLXXVII Whether Barrenness is most commonly the fault of Husbands or of Wives 275 CONFERENCE CLXXVIII Whether Complaisance proceeds from Magnanimity or Poorness of Spirit 279 Touching the means of re-establishing Commerce 282 CONFERENCE CLXXIX What are the most common Causes of Law-suits and why they are more now than heretofore 288 CONFERENCE CLXXX Whether more hurt or good hath proceeded from sharing the parts of Physick between Physitions Apothecaries and Chirurgions 291 CONFERENCE CLXXXI Whether there be any Real Evil besides Pain 293 CONFERENCE CLXXXII Whether man be most diseas'd of all Creature and why 295 CONFERENCE CLXXXIII Of the Greeness of Plants 298 CONFERENCE CLXXXIV Of the Cold of the middle Region of the Air. 300 CONFERENCE CLXXXV Of the Generation of Males and Females 302 CONFERENCE CLXXXVI Whether the French Tongue be sufficient for learning all the Sciences 304 CONFERENCE CLXXXVII Of diversity of Colours in one and the same Subject 306 CONFERENCE CLXXXVIII Whether we are more perspicacious in the Affairs of others or our own and why 308 CONFERENCE CLXXXIX Of the Original of Mountains 310 CONFERENCE CXC Whence proceed good and bad Gestures Gracefulness and ill Aspects 313 CONFERENCE CXCI. Which is most proper for Study the Evening or the Morning 316 CONFERENCE CXCII Who are the most Ingenious of the World 319 CONFERENCE CXCIII Of the Fraternity of the Rosie-Cross CONFERENCE CXCXIV What Paracelsus meant by the Book M. 326 CONFERENCE CXCV. Of the Art of Raimond Lully 329 CONFERENCE CXCVI. Why a Needle Touch'd by a Loadstone turns towards the North 332 CONFERENCE CXCVII What Sect of Philosophers is most to be follow'd 334 CONFERENCE CXCVIII. Why Mules breed not 336 CONFERENCE CXCIX Of the Mandrake 338 CONFERENCE CC. Of Panick Fear 343 CONFERENCE CCI. Of the Water-drinker of S. Germain's Fair. 345 CONFERENCE CCII. Why dead Bodies bleed in the presence of their Murderers 350 CONFERENCE CCIII Of the Vnicorn 353 CONFERENCE CIV Of Satyrs 357 CONFERENCE CCV Of the Phoenix 360 CONFERENCE CCVI. Of the Sensitive Plants 362 CONFERENCE CCVII. Of the Bezoar 365 CONFERENCE CCVIII Whence proceeds the sudden Death of Men and Animals upon descending into certain Pits 371 CONFERENCE CCIX. Whether a Dead Body can be preserv'd naturally many years 373 CONFERENCE CCX Of the Remora 375 CONFERENCE CCXI. Of Negroes 377 CONFERENCE CCXII. Of Ecstacies 380 CONFERENCE CCXIII. Of the Cock and whether the Lyon be frightned at his Crowing 388 CONFERENCE CCXIV. Of the Sibyls 392 CONFERENCE CCXV Whether of two Bodies of different weight the one descends faster than the other and why 399 CONFERENCE CCXVI Of the Silk-worm 402 CONFERENCE CCXVII Why Ice being harder than Water is yet lighter 406 CONFERENCE CCXVIII Of Masks and whether it be lawful for any to disguise themselves 409 CONFERENCE CCXIX. Of Fables and Fictions and whether their conveniences or inveniences be greater 413 CONFERENCE CCXX VVhether it be better to go to Bed late and rise betimes in the Morning or do the contrary 416 CONFERENCE CCXXI Whether the Child derives more from the Father or the Mother 420 CONFERENCE CCXXII Whether is harder for a Vertuous Man to do that which is Evil or for a Vicious Man to do that which is good 423 CONFERENCE CCXXII Whether a piece of Iron laid upon the Cask prevents Thunder from marring Wine contain'd within it and why 427 CONFERENCE CCXXIV. Of Stage-Plays and whether they be advantageous to a State or not 431 CONFERENCE CCXXV. Whether that Temperament of the Body which conduces most to Health be also the most convenient for the Mind 434 CONFERENCE CCXXVI Whether it be more expedient for a Man to have only one Friend or many 438 CONFERENCE CCXXVII Of the Oracles 442 CONFERENCE CCXXVIII Of the Tingling of the Ears 447 CONFERENCE CCXXIX Of Philtres and whether there be any proper Remedies for the procuring of Love 451 CONFERENCE CCXXX Of Atoms 454 CONFERENCE CCXXXI Whether the King 's Evil may be cur'd by the touching of a Seventh Son and why 458 CONFERENCE CCXXXII Of Conjuration 462 CONFERENCE CCXXXIII Of Natural Magick 465 CONFERENCE CCXXXIV Of the moles and marks appearing in the Face 468 CONFERENCE CCXXXV Of Auguries and Auspices 473 CONFERENCE CCXXXVI Whether those Children who are born with Cawls about their whole or some parts of their Bodies are always fortunate and why 478 CONFERENCE CCXXXVII Of Antiperistasis 482 CONFERENCE CCXXXVIII Of the Sympathetical Powder 486 CONFERENCE CCXXXIX Whether there be any such Creatures as the Ancients conceiv'd the Satyrs to be 489 CONFERENCE CCXL Whether it be better to bury or to burn the bodies of the Dead 493 PHILOSOPHICAL CONFERENCES Part II. CONFERENCE CI. I. Of Sleep and how long it ought to be II. Which is the strongest thing in the World AS Nature is the Principle of Motion so she is also of Rest and Sleep which is the cessation of the actions of an Animal to whom alone it hath been assigned in
virtues of penetrating inciding opening attenuating provoking Urine and Sweat cleansing the Reins and Bladder all ffects of heat Others account them cold because being drunk they cause shivering at Midsummer correct the heat of the Liver and Reins cure hot Diseases prejudice cold and generally hurt the Nervous Parts to which according to the Aphorism Heat is friendly and Cold hurtful But though actually cold yet they have some have some heat in power and being compos'd of several unlike parts produce different and sometimes contrary effects So Aloes and Rhubarb both loosen and bind All which effects may nevertheless be referr'd to three principal namely Refrigerating Deoppilating or opening and Strengthning They refrigerate by their actual coldness and the acidity of Vitriol which also by vellicating the stomach causes the great appetite we have during the the use of these Waters They deoppilate not so much by their quantity which hath made some erroneously say that the same proportion of common Water would work the same effect as these Medicinal Waters as by their tenuity which they have from the metalline Spirits which make them penetrate and pass speedily over the whole Body Lastly they strengthen by their astringency for all Astringents corroborate which the Chymists attribute to their volatil Spirits which as they say joyn themselves to the fix'd Spirits of our Bodies The Fourth said That the three conditions of a good Medicament are To Cure Speedily Safely and Pleasantly as Mineral Waters do They are familiar to us by their nature of Water Medicaments by their composition which is discover'd either by letting them settle or by evaporating or by distilling them as also by the smell taste and colour which becoming black by the infusion of Galls shews that there is Vitriol in them And whereas the longest and most difficult Maladies proceed from obstruction and cold the hot or acute being speedily terminated these Waters are the most effectual Remedy of both for they penetrate and like a torrent open not the great passages only but also the small veins of the Mesentery and heat by their Spirits and Sulphur which hath a heat very benign and friendly to the principal parts especially to the Lungs whereunto it is a Balsom and Specifical Above all they are admirable in curing Gravel not only vacuating the gross and viscous humours which are the matter of the Stone but sometimes breaking and dissolving the Stone in the Kidneys and Bladder which amongst others those of Spà perform by reason of their abounding in Vitriol whose acidity and acrimony produces the same effect upon Stones in the Body as that of Vinegar doth upon Egg-shells Pearls and Corals The Fifth said That the use of Natural Baths whether hot or cold may be easily practised in sundry Diseases but 't is important to discern the occasions of taking them by the mouth and their differences For besides that their great quantity the Italians prescribing above 200 ounces a day others 25 pound sometimes overcomes the strength and extinguishes the natural heat some have malignant Qualities and Enemies to the principles of Life not so much by reason of their Metalline Spirits disproportionate to our Bodies as of the mixture of Mercury Plaster and other Earths entring into their Composition whence many die by taking the Waters or come back from them more infirm by accidents following upon them as Gowts weakness of Stomach Imbecillity Lassitude Livid Complexion Dropsie and other more dangerous Evils than that for which they were recurr'd to The sixth said To the end the use of these waters may prove healthful regard is to be had to the Persons the Diseases and the Nature of the waters As for the first Children old Men breeding Women and fat People must not take them without great necessity For the second Most waters are unprofitable and sometimes contrary to the disease as to the infirmities of the Breast Fluxions Ulcers of the Lungs Epilepsie Apoplexie Convulsions cold Maladies and all others of the Brain and nervous Parts If there happen a complication of Diseases some of which require others reject the use of the Waters regard must be had to the most urgent and dangerous They have not always the same effect either because they are corrupted by Rain or vehement Heat consumes their subtilest Spirits in which their chief virtue resides which likewise depend on the Quality Quantity Time Place and Manner wherein they are to be us'd For they must be taken in the Morning fasting in a hot and dry Season as well because they are then purest and leightest as because the Body better supports that quantity of cold Water which relieves its natural Faculties languishing in great heat and if it may be they must be taken at the Spring the Spirits being easily dissipated by transportation The Quantity and Time of taking them are not to be measur'd by the number of Glasses or Days but proportionated to the Disease and its Causes the diseas'd Parts the Age Temper Custom and other Signs from which Physitians take their Indications Which Conditions being well observ'd it may be said God hath not given Men any thing more profitable than these Medicinal Waters temper'd by Nature her self who makes us a free present of them their disproportion with our Bodies being the cause of their action upon them otherwise we should turn them into our substance as we do Plants and Animals the bad successes which happen by them being much more rare than those of any other Medicaments although the most rebellious Diseases are commonly remitted to them Upon the Second Point it was said That the straight connexion between all the parts of the Universe makes this Question hard to be judg'd since they give nothing but what they receiv'd before For our common Mother the Earth receives her fruitfulness from the impressions of the Air the Air from the influence of the Stars these their light and power from the Sun and he his from his Maker Which the Platonists represent to us by the mutual embraces of Porus and Penia the one the God of Plenty which is the original of Gifts the other the Goddess of Necessity which is the cause of Receiving to shew that they necessarily follow one the other And as in Nature the attenuated and rarifi'd Parts strongly attract the next for hindring vacuity and the full reject what is superfluous so in Morality we may say That Giving and Receiving are equally good and natural not differing but in certain terms and respects otherwise a Man might be said more or less excellent or happy than himself there being no Person but hath need to Receive and power to Give at the same time out of the Plenty or Necessity which he hath of something For should he be stor'd with whatever he could wish Might not we ask him as S. Paul doth What hast thou that thou hast not receiv'd So then 't is Reception that hath put him into this happy state and if there be
the prevailing Quality bears sway and makes a Temperament hot cold dry or moist In the second these Qualities being alter'd the Elementary Forms which were contrary only by their adversary Qualities unite and conspire into one particular Form the Principle of Occult Properties Sympathies and Antipathies according as their Forms are found Friends or Enemies Thus in all Medicaments there is a temperament of Qualities which is the cause that Pepper is hot Lettuce cold c. and a temperament of Forms which makes Agaric purge Phlegm Sena Melancholy Rhubarb Choler some Drugs Cardiacal others Cephalical or Splenical From the mixture of these Forms arises the action of Antidotes and Poyson and not from that of the Elementary Qualities although they accompany their Forms being their Servants and Vicegerents Otherwise did Poysons kill by excess of heat or cold Pepper and Cucumber would be Poyson as well as Opium and Arsenick and a Glass of Cold Water would be the counter-poyson of Sublimate And nevertheless there are many Alexipharmaca which agree in first qualities with the Poysons they encounter Upon the Second Point it was said Homer had reason to set two Vessels neer Jupiters Throne one full of Bitterness the other of Sweetness wherewith he compounded all the Affairs of the World Since by these contrarieties of Good and Evil Man's Life and Nature it self is divided For if the Principle of Good consist in Entity according to Aristotle and Evil in Non-Entity Privation which is the Principle of Non-entity â—nd consequently of Evil is as well rank'd amongst Natural Principles as Matter and Form which are the Foundations of Entity and Good And we see Corruptions are as common as Generations and Darkness as Light But if we consider Evil in the vitiosity of Entity then according to the Platonists who call what is material and corruptible Evil what is spiritual and incorruptible Good Man consisting both of a material and spiritual Substance will be the Center where all Goods and Evils will terminate In which respect he will be like the Tree of Knowledg of Good and Evil plac'd by himself in Paradise or like that to which David compares him planted by the brink of Waters which are Afflictions For his Branches and upper Parts being deck'd with Flowers Leaves and Fruits which are the three sorts of Goods which attend him his Flowers whose whiteness denotes the Innocence of his first Age are the Goods of the Body which pass away with his Spring His Leaves whose Verdure is the Symbol of Hope which never leaves him till death being fading and subject to be dispers'd by storms are the Goods of Fortune And his Fruits are the Goods of the Mind Knowledg and Virtue which are more savory and nutritive than the rest But if we behold the Roots of this Tree wherewith 't is fasten'd to the Earth and which are the original of his Evils some sticking to that Stock of Adam the source of his Original Sin which sends forth a thousand Suckers of all sorts of Vices and Passions others to that Clay from whence he was extracted and which is the Principle of all bodily Infirmities we shall find that his good things are external and communicated from elsewhere but his evil things are internal and natural and consequently more communicative For as to Vices the Evils of the Soul bad Examples corrupt more than virtuous edifie And for those of the Body Diseases are more easily gotten than cur'd and Health is not communicable to others but Epidemical Diseases are A bad Eye a tainted Grape and a rotten Apple infects its neighbour but by parity of Reason might as well be preserv'd by it The Evils of others not on'y do us ill by Compassion which is a sort of Grief but also their happiness causes in us Jealousie and Envy the cruelest of all Evils Besides Good is rare and consequently not communicative and Possession fills but satisfies not Nor is Metaphysical Good communicable being an abstracted not a real Quality And if Evil arise from the least defect of a thing and Good only from its absolute perfection then since nothing is absolutely perfect Good is not communicated to any one thing here below but on the contrary Evil is found in all The Second said That which hath no Being cannot be communicated But Evil is not any thing real and hath not any Efficient Cause as was held by the Manichees and Priscillianists condemn'd for establishing two Principles one of Good the other of Evil independent one on the other For since Good consists in the integrity and perfection of Parts and of whatever is requisite to the Nature of a Thing Evil is nothing but a Privation a defect and want of what is requisite to its perfection And being a thing is communicated according as it hath more or less of essence Good which is convertible with Being must be more communicative than Evil which is only a Being imperfect God who possesses Beeing and Goodness primarily communicates himself infinitely as doth also Light the most perfect of all created Substances Moreover the Nature of Good consisting in Suitableness and Appetibility by reason of Contraries that of Evil consists in Unfitness and Aversion and if Evil be communicated 't is always under the mask and appearance of some Good which alone is communicative by nature The Third said Good is more difficult than Evil which is commonly attended with Profit and Delight and consequently more communicative For Nature having implanted in us a love of our selves doth also instigate us to seek after all means that may tend as well to the preservation of our Nature as to our Contentment namely Riches Honour Beauty and all other Goods either real or imaginary which not being in our power but almost all in others hands cannot be much desir'd without sin nor possess'd without injustice much less acquir'd by lawful ways much rarer and longer than the unlawful and bad which are many and easie and consequently more frequent CONFERENCE CXII I. Why Animals cry when they feel Pain II. Whether it be expedient to have Enemies AS Speech was given Man to express the thoughts and conceptions of his Mind so was Voice to all Animals to signifie the motions and inclinations of their Nature towards good and evil But with this difference That Voice is a Natural Sign having affinity with the thing it signifies which Speech hath not being an Artificial Sign depending on the will and institution of its Author Hence it comes that there is great variety of Languages and Dialects among Men but one sole fashion of forming the same Voice amongst Animals who being more sensible of Pain than of Pleasure the former destroying Nature the latter giving only a surplusage of Goodness when the Evil is so great and pressing that they cannot avoid it impotence and weakness makes them send forth Cries to implore the help and assistance of their Fellows For Nature having imprinted in all Creatures a Knowledg of Good
and Evil and consequently an inclination to the one and an aversion to the other she hath also given them means of attaining thereunto to wit Local Motion to go thither of themselves and a Voice to seek of others that Good they want and deliverance from the Evil which presses them The Second said That only such perfect Animals as have Lungs have the gift of Voice others destitute either of Lungs as Fishes or of Blood as most Insects having little heat of which Blood is the foundation have no need of Air which is inspir'd only to cool and temper the excess of Natural Heat and so for want of Air which is the matter of Voice are almost all mute except the Dolphin whose Voice is like that of Man Grass-hoppers Flies Bees and other Insects make a noise and sound indeed by the collision of the Air and their Wings but have no Voice which is defin'd A significative sound made by the mouth of an Animal and by Aristotle The stroak of the Air attracted by respiration and emitted by the Lungs against the Larynx to express something So that the Efficient Cause of Voice is the Soul the Matter Air the Form Sound or the collision of two solid Bodies the End to signifie something And so Animals cry to signifie the grief they resent But why they testifie this grief by so different tones and accents is as difficult to understand as the last differences in which Philosophers have plac'd that diversity as Howling Barking Bellowing Braving Roaring Neighing and such other accents of Beasts the cause whereof is hitherto unknown The Third said Such Animals cry soonest and longest who have the strongest Imagination the most exquisite touch the least ability to suffer and the least conscience because most susceptible of apprehension and pain and their Spirits being diffus'd in a less bulk are aptest to be mov'd and gather'd together about the Heart which by this means being unusually oppress'd communicate the sense thereof to the Lungs which suffering by sympathy and being instruments for the hearts eventilation perform their functions then with more speed and violence by an irregular motion forc'd by the present Necessity and the pain which presses them and so the Air which was contain'd in their spongy substance issues forth impetuously and by collision with the Epiglottis and other opposing parts forms loud and resounding clamours Whence we may judg That the secret intention of Nature who disposes these Organs in such sort that the Cry is a kind of interpreter of the Grief was to give some refreshment or ventilation to the Spirits thronged about the Heart and also intelligible tokens of the Evil suffer'd by the Animal either to move the injurer to compassion or else to invoke the help of its own Species or by unknown instinct that of the Author of Nature For we see that Animals by the motives of natural instinct run to the cries of those of their own kind And since the Holy Scripture tells us That not only Birds and all other Animals but also insensible things praise God 't is credible that in their anguishes they are lead by the same Principle to cry to him to help and preserve the Work of his own Hand Which is so true that the wicked'st Persons are forc'd by the interior motions of a hidden power to lift up their hands to Heaven in their Afflictions and implore Succour and Assistance from on High The Fourth said That the Sense of Touch is both more universal and natural to Animals than any other being the first they have and the last they lose The dolour thereof is express'd with Cries to which Man having the most exquisite Touch and consequently being most sensible of pain is also more subject than other Creatures And if that Ancient said true That Tears are mute execrations of the Sorrows of Life which we begin and end with them Cries may be said the more manifest and earnest since they pierce the clouds and see into ascend to the the Throne of God to demand succour of him when none is found upon Earth 'T is an impetuous sound utter'd by an Animal unable to resist present or imminent Grief For 't is proportional to the violence of the Passion Love which is the gentlest renders it smooth and soft Choler the violentest makes it more vehement And Grief the most pressing of all and tending to the destruction of Being which is equally abhor'd by all Creatures ariseth it to the highest tone of which 't is capable Whence even Speech which being artificially divided into syllables and cadences is peculiar to man yet in the precipitateness of Grief keeps not its measures but breaks into an inarticulate sound like that of Animals For explication whereof it must be known that the Cuticle the chief seat of the Touch and consequently of Pain is the expansion of the Nerves the conduits of the Animal Spirits which in Pain either shrink inwards and so cause stupefaction or being irritated and sent by Nature to the aid of the hurt part by Sympathy move the Diaphragma and other nervous and membranous Parts For as of two Lute-strings set at the same pitch the one sounds upon the touching of the other so in the Harmony of the whole Body there may be the same sympathy between the Spirits and the Parts an evidence whereof is seen in Tickling and Laughter which is caus'd by the contraction of the Diaphragm which is the reason that the aspect of such as Laugh and Weep is much alike And because in Grief the coarcted Spirits hinder respiration and free motion of the Heart ttherefore Nature to ease her self drives them outwards with violence and with them moist vapours which partly transpire by the pores and are partly condens'd in the Brain whence they flow through the eyes in streams of Tears which by this means greatly alleviate Grief as the want of Them and Cries argues its vehemence Besides that they may serve Animals to terrifie their Enemies or else to implore the assistance of their Fellows as we read of Elephants that falling into a Ditch they call other Elephants to their aid Upon the Second Point 't was said That 't is proper to a wise man by God's Example to draw Good out of Evil and benefit from the most pernicious things So Physitians turn the strongest Poysons into wholesom Remedies Men use the spoils of the fiercest Beasts for nourishment cloathing and other purposes of Life And many great Personages have taken occasion from bodily Diseases Shipwracks Losses Banishments and other such unkindnesses of Fortune to give up themselves wholly to Virtue and the Knowledg of Things Since then Enmity is the greatest of all Evils as Unity is the most excellent of all Goods and the noblest of all Virtues as having no Vicious Extremity but being perfect by being boundless 't is a Point of great Wisedom to be able to draw some benefit from ones Enemies whereof the principal is
and dry bodies are more gross and earthy those of pure water more subtle and as to the final aqueons vapours serve to irrigate unctuous to impinguate the earth The Third said 'T is not credible that heat is the efficient cause of vapours since they abound more in Winter then Summer and in less hot Climats then in such where heat predominates which have none at all as Egypt and other places where it never rains If you say that there are no vapours there because the Suns heat dssipates as fast as it raises them you imply heat contrary to vapours since it dissolves them and suffers them not to gather into one body The Fourth said Copiousness of vapours in cold Seasons and Regions makes not against their production by heat since the heat which mounts them upwards is not that of the Suns rays but from within the earth which every one acknowledges so much hotter during Winter in its centre as its surface is colder where the matter of vapours coming to be repercuss'd by the coldness of the air is thereby condens'd and receives its form On the contrary in Summer the earth being cold within exhales nothing and if ought issue forth it is not compacted but dissipated by the heat of the outward air The Fifth said That the thorough inquisition of the cause of vapours raises no fewer clouds and obscurities in the wits of men then their true cause produces in the air For if we attribute them to the Sun whose heat penetrating the earth or outwardly calefying it attracts the thinner parts of the earth and water this is contradicted by experience which shews us more Rain Storms and violent Winds in the Winter when the Suns heat is weakest then in the Shmmer when his rays are more perpendicular and as such ought to penetrate deeper into the earth and from its centre or surface attract greater plenty of vapours the contrary whereof falls out It follows therefore that the Sun hath no such attractive faculty Nor is the coldness and dryness of the earth any way proper for the production of such humid substances as Vapours and Exhalations the latter whereof being more subtle and consequently more moveable as appears by Earth-quakes Winds and Tempests which are made with greater violence then Rain Showers or Dew cannot be engendred of earth much grosser then water which is held the material cause of vapour otherwise an exhalation being earthy should be more gross then a vapour extracted out of water which it is not It remains then that the cause of vapours is the internal heat of the earth which being encreas'd from without by the cold of the ambient air or exhaling all its pores open'd by the heat of the Sun produces the diversity of Meteors And this internal heat of the earth appears in Winter by the reaking of Springs and the warmth of Caves and subterraneous places yea the Sea it self said to supply the principle matter to these vapours is affirm'd hotter at the bottom whither therefore the Fishes retire and indeed it is so in its substance as appears by its salt bitterness and motion whence 't is call'd by the Latines Aestus And as in the bodies of Animals vapours issuing by the pores open'd by heat cause sweat and when those passages are stopt by the coldness of the outward air their subtler parts are resolv'd into flatuosities and the more gross and humid are carried up to the Brain by whose coldness being condens'd they fall down upon other parts and produce defluxions so in the world which like us consists of solid parts earth and stones of fluid the waters and of rapid which are the most subtle and tenuious parts of the Mass when these last happen to be associated with others more gross they carry them up on high with themselves where they meet with other natural causes of Cold and Heat which rarefies or condenses and redouble their impetuosity by the occurrence of some obstacle in their way these Spirits being incapable of confinement because 't is proper to them to wander freely through the World Elementary qualities are indeed found joyn'd with these vapours and exhalations but are no more the causes of them then of our animal vital or natural spirits which are likewise imbu'd with the same The Sixth said That the general cause of vapours is Heaven which by its motion light and influences heating and penetrating the Elements subtilises them and extracts their purest parts as appears by the Sea whose saltness proceeds from the Suns having drawn away the lighter and fresher parts and left the grosser and bitter in the surface cold and heat condense and rarefie other and by this Reciprocation the harmonious proportion of the four Elements is continu'd sometimes tempering the Earths excessive dryness by gentle Dews or fruitful Rains and sometimes correcting the too great humidity and impurity of the air by winds and igneous impressions some of which serve also to adorn the World and instruct Men. And as these vapours are for the common good of the Universe in which they maintain Generations and for preservation of the Elements who by this means purge their impurities so they all contribute to the matter of them Fire forms most igneous and luminous impressions Air rarefi'd supplies matter for winds as is seen in the Aeolipila and condens'd is turn'd into rain But especially water and earth the grossest Elements and consequently most subject to the impressions of outward agents continually emit fumes or steams out of their bosom which are always observ'd in the surface of the Terraqueous Globe even in the clearest days of the year and form the diversity of parallaxes These fumes are either dry or moist the dry arise out of the earth and are call'd Exhalations the moist are Vapours and issue from the water yet both are endu'd with an adventitious heat either from subterranean fires or the heat of Heaven or the mixture of fire A Vapour is less hot then an Exhalation because its aqueous humidity abates its heat whereas that of the latter is promoted by its dryness which yet must be a little season'd with humidity the sole aliment and mansion of heat which hath no operation upon bodies totally dry whence ashes remain incorruptible in the midst of flames and evaporate nothing But whatever be the cause of these vapours they are not only more tenuious under that form but also after the re-assumption of their own So Dew is a more potent dissolver and penetrates more then common water which some attribute to the Nitre wherewith the earth abounds Upon the Second Point it was said Valour is a Virtue so high above the pitch of others and so admir'd by all men that 't was it alone that deifi'd the Heroes of Antiquity For Nature having given Man a desire of Self-preservation the Virtue which makes him despise the apprehension of such dangers as may destroy him is undoubtedly the most eminent of all other moral
Mountains on the South are very healthy especially if they lye towards the East the Winds whereof are most healthy And this is the cause of the diversity observ'd in Countries lying in the same Climat which experience not the same changes as the Isle of France is very temperate and yet lyes in the same Climat with Podolia a part of Poland where the cold is extreamly rigorous and in the Islands Bornaio and Sumatra men live commonly 130 years and are not black as the Africans whose life is very short and yet they lye in the same Climat namely under the Aequinoctial Line The Sixth said That Life being the continuance of the radical heat in Humidity that Climat must be properest for Longaevity which will longest preserve that conjunction The violent heat of the Climats near the Equator consumes the radical moisture and makes the natural heat languish although under the Line the coolness of the nights twelve hours long renders it more supportable whereas in our longest Summer-days when the Sun is in Cancer he is no more then 18 degrees from the Horizon and so diffuses his rays upon the vapours hovering about the Earth which reflecting the same after a refraction make the nights almost always light and consequently hot there being no light without heat On the contrary the Northern parts towards the Pole receiving the Suns rays only obliquely are very cold and unfit for long-life combating the heat and desiccating the radical moisture But the temperately hot are the most healthy especially if the air of greatest necessity to Life be pure and not corrupted by vapours CONFERENCE CXVII Which is most necessary to a State and most noble Physick or Law THese two Professions are not absolutely necessary to the subsistence of a State but only suppose some evil which they undertake to amend Physick the disorder of the humours in Mans body and Law that of Manners in the body of the State So that if all people were healthy and good both would be useless But the misery of our Nature having made us slaves to our Appetite and tributaries to Death and Diseases which lead thereto this adventitious necessity hath given rise to two powerful remedies against those two evils Physick to oppose the diseases of the Body and Law to repress the disorders of our Passions which being the sources of all mischiefs Law which restrains their course seems to have as much pre-eminence above Physick as the Body which the latter governs is inferiour to the Mind which the former regulates Moreover Health the end of Physick is common both to Men and Beasts who have a better share thereof and have taught us the best secrets of Physick but to live according to right reason which is the aim of Law is peculiar to man although oftentimes neither the one nor the other obtain its end The Second said These Disciplines are to be consider'd either according to their right use or as they are practis'd Physick consider'd in its right administration is the art of curing Diseases and preserving Health without which there is no pleasure in the World Law taken also according to its institution is that Tree of the Garden of Eden which bears the knowledg of Good and Evil Right and Wrong as Physick is the Tree of Life Now if we compare them together the latter which maintains the precious treasure of Health is as the foundation upon which Law builds its excellent Ordinances for without Health not only the administrations of Justice but all employments of Arts and Exercises cease And though Laws and Justice serve for the ornament of a State yet they are not absolutely necessary to its conservation there being society among Robbers and many States having begun and subsisted by Rapines Violences and other injustices but none without Health which is the foundation of all goods preserving the absolute Being of every thing and by that means maintaining all the faculties of Body and Mind Wherefore Physick is profitable not only to the Body but also to the Soul whose nature faculties and actions it contemplates But if these Arts be consider'd as they are practis'd now a days 't is certain that if there are Mountebanks Ignorants and Cheats who practise Physick amongst a good number of good Physitians there are also Champertors Forgers and other such black souls who live by fraud which they exercise under the mask of justice We must likewise distinguish the bad judgments of certain Nations from the truth For if the Romans sometimes banish'd their Physitians and Chirurgians this might be done out of ignorance as when they saw the Gangren'd Leg of one of their Citizens cut off And though they were for some time without Physitians yet they were never without Physick at least natural The Third said Law hath the pre-eminence above Physick upon account of the great benefits it brings to a State by delivering the same from greater more troublesome and more incurable evils And good according to the Moral axiom being the more divine by how much 't is more common and diffus'd it follows that Law is more divine then Physick For by checking our passions and obstructing the career of illegal Ambitions and Usurpations it does good not only to private persons as Physick doth but also to the whole Publick which is engag'd by particular passions whence Law-sutes Seditions Wars and other evils arise which being publick are of more importance then those to which Physick is design'd whose whole business is about the four humours either to keep them in a just temper or reduce them to their natural state from which Diseases debauch them Besides Physick only cures the Body whereas Law represses the mind's disorders and even the intentions Lastly the evils Physick defends us from are of easie cure having all sensible indications but Law remedies such as depend upon the thoughts and counsels of men impenetrable by sense Moreover Physick regards only particular persons but Law maintains a moral union and good intelligence between all the parts of a Commonwealth namely men of several conditions and keeps every one within the bounds of his own quality and station and so is like a Universal Spirit or Intelligence presiding over all our motions hindring ruptures and dissensions the bane of a State as that doth vacuity which tends to the destruction of the World The Fourth said That as the multitude of Physitians in a City is a sign of a multitude of diseases reigning therein so the multitude of Laws and Judges argues corruption of manners Wherefore both these Professions may seem equally useless to a State free from wicked and miserable persons And indeed we see many Nations have wanted both at Rome Physitians were unknown for divers ages and are so still in some Countries and most States of the World dispense very well with the want of Lawyers whose contrary opinions are as destructive to the State and particular persons as the number of Physitians is to the Sick
which are turn'd into the substance of Animals whose bodies are again reduc'd into Earth The fifth maintain'd the opinion of Albert the Great who is for the Generation of things which the preceding opinion over throws holding nothing to be new generated He said that Forms are indeed in the Matter yet not entire and perfect but only by halves and begun according to their essence not according to their existence which they acquire by the Agents which educe things out of their causes The Sixth said If it were so then there would be no substantial Generation because Existence is nothing but a Manner of Being adding nothing to Essence nor really distinguish'd from it Wherefore I embrace Aristotle's opinion that Forms are in the Matter but only potentially and as the Matter is capable of them just as Wax is potentially Caesar's Statue because capable of receiving that form This he calls to be drawn and educ'd out of the power or bosom of the Matter which is not to be receiv'd in it or to depend of its dispositions since this belongs also to the Rational soul which is not receiv'd in the body till the previous dispositions necessary for its reception be introduc'd therein but the Matter it self concurrs though in a passive way not only to dispose it self but also to produce the Form and consequently to preserve it Which is not applicable to the Rational soul whose Being depends not anywise upon the Matter The Seventh said Matter being a Principle purely passive and incapable of all action cannot produce any thing much less Forms the noblest Entities in the world 'T is the principle of impotence and imperfection and consequently the ugliness deformity contrary to the Form whereof it should partake if it contain'd the same in power as Wine and Pepper do Heat which becomes actual and sensible when reduc'd into act by our Natural Heat which loosens it from the parts which confin'd it Wherefore Forms come from without namely from Heaven and its noblest part the Sun the Father of Forms which are nothing but Beams of light deriv'd from him as their Fountain whose heat and influences give motion and life which is the abode of Heat in Humidity not Elementary Heat for then Arsenic Sulphur and other Mixts abounding with this Heat should have life but Serpents Salamanders Fishes Hemlock Poppies and other excessively cold Plants and Animals should not Moreover in whatever manner the Elements and their Qualities be mix'd they are still Elements and can produce nothing above their own Nature which is to calefie refrigerate attenuate rarefie condense but not the internal and external senses the various motions and other actions of life which can proceed only from a Celestial Heat such as that is which preserves a Plant amidst the rigours of Winter whose coldness would soon destroy the Plant's heat if it were of the same nature Hence Vegetative and Sensitive Souls having no Contraries because Contraries are plac'd under the same Genus but the Celestial matter whereof these souls are constituted and the Elements are not therefore they are not corruptible after the manner of other Mixts but like light cease to exist upon the cessation of the dispositions which maintain'd them For such is the order of Nature that when a Subject is possest of all the dispositions requisite for introduction of a Form the Author of Nature or according to Plato the Idea or that Soul of the World which Avicenna held to be an Intelligence destinated to the generation of substantial Forms concurrs to the production of the Form as also this concourse ceases when those dispositions are abolisht CONFERENCE CXXIII Whether Lean people are more healthy and long-liv'd then Fat THe Immortality of our souls having an absolute disposition to length of Life it depends only upon that of the Body that we do not live Ages as our first Fathers did For 't is from some defect in these bodies that the differences of life even in Animals and Plants proceed whence some less perfect souls as those of Oaks are yet more long-liv'd then those of Beasts The signs of long and short life are either simply such or also causes and effects Such is the conformation of the parts of our body A great number of Teeth is held a sign of longaevity as well because 't is an effect of the strength of the Formative Faculty and Natural Heat as that thereby the food is better masticated and prepar'd and the other concoctions and functions more perfectly perform'd whence comes health and long life So also the Habit of the body is not simply a sign but likewise an effect of health and cause of long life namely when the same is moderate that is neither fat nor lean which two though comprisable within the latitude of health which admits a a great latitude are yet so much less perfect as they decline from that laudable disposition which is the rule and square of all others Now to make a just comparison we must consider the Fat and the Lean in the same degree of excess or defect from this Mediocrity and compare Philetas the Poet who was so dry and lean that he was fain to fasten leaden soles to his shoos for fear the wind should carry him away with Dionysius of Heraclea who was choakt with fat unless his body were continually beset with Leeches Or else we must observe in both an equality of Vigour in the Principles of Life to wit the Radical Heat and Moisture in the same proportion the same age under the same climate regiment and exercises otherwise the comparison will be unequal and lastly we must distinguish the fleshy great-limb'd and musculous from the fat This premis'd I am of Hippocrates's Opinion Aph. 44. Sect. 2. that such as are gross and fat naturally die sooner then the lean and slender because the Vessels of the latter especially the Veins are larger and consequently fuller of Blood and Spirits which are the Architects and principal Organs of Life on the contrary the Fat have smaller Vessels by reason of their coldness which constringes them as is seen in Women Eunuchs and Children whose voices are therefore more shrill and who have also less health and life The Second said Nature hath furnisht Animals with Fat to the end to preserve them from external injuries and therefore the Lean who are unprovided thereof must be of shorter life for not many besides decrepit old people die of a natural death that is proceeding from causes within whereas most diseases arise from external causes wherewith the Fat are less incommoded especially with cold the sworn enemy of life the smallness of their pores and the fat which environs them excluding all qualities contrary to life and withall hindring the dissipation of the Natural Heat which becomes more vigorous by the confinement just as the Bowels are hotter in Winter because the cold air hinders the efflux of the heat and spirits caus'd in Summer and in lean bodies whose
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
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
Crystal which besides should swim upon the water as well as Ice doth and not be more heavy and transparent which cannot be attributed to their greater density caus'd by a more vehement cold since water inspissated into Ice becomes less transparent and Crystals are not so cold to the touch as Ice But above all their Calcination evidently shews that there is something else in them besides Water for finding out of which we must examine the principles of Bodies nearest akin to them as Alom and Glass which by their splendor and consistence much resemble precious Stones being like them Mineral Juices hardned and mixt by a proportionate quantity of Salts and violent Spirits which joyned together lose their Acrimony to embrace one another more closely These Principles are very viscous capable of great solidity and being of themselves transparent are proper to preserve all the brightness and light which their specifick forms can add to them This resemblance being supposed we are obliged to discover the same Principles of Composition in Jewels since things agreeing generically and having resemblance of qualities agree also as to matters and have nothing to distinguish them but that unknown Form which determines the Species But the truth is little brightness and hardness proceed not from their Form alone which is uncapable of so close connexion but from much dark Earth and a very impure Phlegm which is not found in precious Stones or in the Glass where-with in the Indies they make Emeralds Moreover 't is this body that most resembles those Stones which hath no other Principles but a Spirit mingled amongst much Salt and some little of Earth which are united by the activity of heat and condensed by their natural inclination to inspissation cold contributing but very little thereunto since they acquire their solidity and consistence whilst yet very hot The Artifice of counterfeiting Rubies and Diamonds with the same Principles of Glass greatly confirms this Opinion onely for avoiding brittleness they mix less terrestreity and consume not the moisture which causes Concretion with so much violence The Calcination of Crystals whereby much Salt is extracted from them and the easiness of making Glass there-with in like manner shews what are the Material Principles of these Stones Which Principles being contained or generated in the bosome of the Earth certain Juices are formed of their several mixtures which unite to the first body which happens to impress its Virtues upon them then the purest part of these Salts and Earths is volatilized by the Spirit mixt there-with and circulated by Heat which alwayes perfects it by further Concoction till it have rendered it Homogeneous These Juices commonly stick in superficial parts of the Earth where a moderate heat finishes their Concoction evaporating the too great humidity which hinder'd the induration natural to such substances Divers species are made according to the different impressions of Heaven or the place of their Generation or other dispositions to which I also refer the diversity of their Colours and not as most Chymists do to Sulphur which is never found in these Stones which Colours they ought to attribute rather to Salt their principal matter since by several degrees of Coction or Calcination it acquires almost all the Colours of these Stones being first white then blew and lastly reddish The Fifth said 'T is most probable that in the beginning there were Species of Stones of all sorts dispos'd in places most proper for their Conservation which have continually generated the like determining fit matter by the Emission of a certain Vapor or Spirit impregnated with the Character of their Species during its union with their substance before a perfect induration press'd it forth which Spirit lighting upon and uniting to fit Matter fixes and determines the same to be of the same Species with the Mass from which it issu'd For the common Opinion That these Stones are produc'd of a certain slime compounded of Earth and Water concocted and hardned by the action of Heat is groundless since how temperate soever that Heat were it would at length dissipate all the moisture and leave nothing but the Earth the darkest and most friable of all the Elements besides that Water and Earth having no viscosity are incapable of any continuity and hardness which arises from Salt which indu'd with a Principle of Coagulation perfectly unites the Water with the Earth so as not to be afterwards dissolvable by any Water but such as is mix'd with much Salt Lastly the Cement they make with Lime Water and Sand petrifying in time shews the necessity of the fix'd Salt of Lime which gives the coherence of all in the generation of Stones Wherefore I conclude that as in common and opake Stones there is a little Salt amongst much Earth so in those which are precious there is much Salt amongst a very small quantity of Earth CONFERENCE CXXXVII Of the Generation of Metals MEtal which is a Mineral solid opake heavy malleable ductile and sounding body is compounded either by Nature Art or Chance as Latin Electrum and Corinthian Brass or else it is simple and divided into seven Species according to the number of Planets whereunto each of them is referr'd as precious Stones are to the Fixed Starrs namely Gold Silver Lead Copper Iron Tinn and Quick-silver which others reject from the number of Metals because not malleable as also Tinn because compounded of Lead and Silver Their remote Matter is much Water with little Earth their next according to Aristotle a vaporous exhalation Their general Efficient Cause is Heaven by its Motion and Influencess producing Heat which attenuates and concocts the said Exhalation which is afterwards condens'd by Cold Hence all Metals are melted by violent Fire which evaporates Quick-silver and softens that sort of Iron which is not fusible The place where they are generated is the bosome of the Earth the Metals found in Waters as Gold in Tagus and Pactolus having been carry'd from the Earth by the Waters which washing and purifying them render them more perfect than those of the Mines The Second said Although Metals were generated at the beginning of the world in their Mines whence they were first extracted and wrought by Tubalcain who is the fabulous Vulcan of Paganism yet they cease not to be generated anew by the afflux of sutable Matter which is a metallick Juice form'd of humidity not simply aqueous for then Heat should evaporate instead of concocting it but viscous unctuous and somewhat terrestrial which for a long time holds out against whatever violent Heat as appears by the Fires of Volcanoes which are maintain'd by Bitumen alone and other sulphureous Earths This also is the Opinion of the Chymists when they compound them of Sulphur and Mercury Sulphur holding the place of the Male Seed and Mercury which is more crude and aqueous that of the maternal blood And as the Salt or Earth predominating in Stones is the cause of their friability so Sulphur and
Mixts are compounded The Sun indeed is the Efficient Cause of all productions here below but being a celestial and incorruptible body cannot enter into the composition of any thing as a Material Cause Much less can our common Fire which devours every thing and continually destroyes its Subject But it must be that Elementary Fire which is every where potentially and actually in its own Sphere which is above that of the Air and below that of the Moon Moreover being the lightest or least heavy of all the Elements the Harmony of the Universe which consists chiefly in their situation requires that it be in the highest place towards which therefore all other Fires which are of the same Nature ascend in a point with the same violence that a stone descends towards its Centre those remaining here below being detain'd by some Matter whereof they have need by reason of the contraries environing them from which that Sublunary Fire being exempt hath nothing to do with Matter or nourishment and by reason of its great rarity and tenuity can neither burn nor heat any more then it can be perceiv'd by us The Second said That subtlety one of the principal conditions requisite to the conversion of Matter into Fire is so far from hindring that it encreases the violence and activity of Fire making it penetrate even the solidest bodies whence that pretended Fire not being mixt with extraneous things to allay its heat as that of Aqua Vitae is temper'd by its Phlegm or aqueous humidity but being all Fire in its own Sphere and natural place which heightens the Virtue and qualities of all Agents must there also heat shine burn and produce all its Actions which depend not upon density or rarity or such other accidents of Matter purely passive but upon its whole Form which constituting it what it is must also make it produce Effects sutable to its Nature Wherefore as Water condens'd into Ice or Crystal is no longer Water because it hath ceas'd to refrigerate and moisten so the Fire pretended to be above the Air invisible and insensible by reason of its rarity is not Fire but subtile Air. They who say its natural inclination to heat and burn is restrain'd by the Influences of the Heavens particularly of the cold Starrs as Saturn and the Moon speak with as little ground since the circular motion of the Heavens whereby this Fire is turn'd about should rather increase than diminish its heat And besides Fire being a necessary Agent its action can no more be hindred by such Influences than the descent of a stone downwards Whereunto add that the beams of all Stars have heat and were any cold yet those of Saturn are too remote and those of the Moon too weak in comparison of this Fire the extent whereof is about 90000. Leagues for the distance between the Earth and the Moon is almost as much namely 56. Semidiameters of the Earth from which substracting between 25. and 30. Leagues which they allot to the three Regions of the Air the rest must be occupy'd by the Fire which they make to extend from the Concave surface of the Moon to the convex surface of the Air which it would consume in less than a moment considering the great disproportion between them Moreover were there such a Fire it could not be own'd an Element because its levity would keep it from descending and entring into the Composition of mixts and were it not leight yet it would be hindred from descending by the extream coldness of the Middle Region of the Air accounted by some a barrier to the violence of that Chymerical Fire which ought rather to be reckon'd amongst their Entia Rationis than the Natural Elements whereunto Corporeity and Palpability are requisite For these Reasons I conceive with Pythagoras that the Sun is the true Elementary Fire plac'd for that purpose in the middle of the World whose Light and Heat enter into the Composition not onely of all living things but also of Stones and Metals all other Heat besides that of the Sun being destructive and consequently no-wise fit for Generation The Third said He confounds Heaven with Earth and destroyes the Nature of the Sun who takes it for an Element that is to say a thing alterable and corruptible by its contraries which it must have if it be an Element The Heat of his beams proves it not the Elementary Fire seeing commonly the nearer we are to Fire the more we feel the Heat of it but the Supream and Middle Regions of the Air are colder than ours Besides were our common fire deriv'd from the Sun it would not languish as it doth when the Sun shines upon it nor would the heat of dunghils and caves be greater in Winter than in Summer Wherefore I rather embrace the common Opinion which holds That the heaviest Element is in the lowest place and the leightest in the highest whose Action is hindred by the proportion requisite to the quantity of each Element The Fourth said That the qualities of Fire viz. Heat Dryness and Light concurring in the Sun in a supream degree argue it the Elementary Fire for Light being the Cause of Heat the Sun which is the prime Luminous Body must also be the prime Hot that is to say Fire For as the pretended one above the Air was never yet discover'd so 't is repugnant to the Order of the Universe for the leightest of Elements to be shut up in the Centre of the Earth where some place it We have but two wayes to know things Sense and Reason the latter of which is founded either upon Causes or Effects Now we know nothing of the Sun or any other Celestial Bodies otherwise then by its Effects and sensible qualities which being united in Spherical Burning-glasses as they are in the body of the Sun notifie to us by their Effects the Nature of their Cause The Fifth said That Fire being to the World what the Soul is to the Body as Life is in all the parts of the Body so also is Fire equally diffused throughout the whole World In the Air it makes Comets and other Igneous Meteors In the Earth it concocts Metals and appears plentifully in Volcanoes whose Fires would not continue alwayes if they were violently detained in those Concavities yea 't is in the Waters too whose saltness and production of Monsters cannot be without Heat Yet being the most active of all Elements it is therefore distributed in much less quantity than the rest Nature having observed the same proportion both in the greater and lesser World Man's Body in which there is less of Fire than of the other Elements Otherwise had the Fire been equal to the rest it would consume all living things to ashes Nevertheless as the fixed Heat of Animals requires reparation by the Influent Heat from the Heart the Soul 's principal seat in like manner the Elementary Fire dispersed in all part of this great body of the World needs the
and the good Constitution of the Brain the fuliginous vapors whereof being repercuss'd by the abundance of Hair cause Vertigoes and pains of the Head not more certainly cur'd than by shaving the Head As for seemliness much Hair is rather frightful than handsome and our Ancestors were no less comely persons than we though they wore short Hair as at this day also do many warlike Nations Enemies of softness and delicacy whereof great Hair is a most certain token being proper to Women as on the contrary the long Beard is a note of Virility For inasmuch as he that loves conformes as much as possible to what he loves we may judge of the softness and dissoluteness of the manners of this time by the desire Men have to render themselves as like Women as they can by wearing like them much Hair and little Beard For when Men wore shorter Hair long Beards were in request and when the Hair ha's been long the Beards have almost ever been short the length of the one recompencing the brevity of the other which would otherwise render Men hideous The Third said If ever 't was true that Custom is a Tyrant 't is in this Case no variation having been so much as in matter of Hair The Scythians and Parthians wore both Hair and Beard long thereby to terrifie their Enemies The Greeks whose Hair is much commended by Homer kept it long to distinguish themselves from their slaves who were shorn as at present are Galley-slaves Artizans and Monasticks for Humility whom also Peter Lombard Bishop of Paris caus'd to shave their Hair and Beard in the year 1160 according to the 44th Canon of the Fourth Council of Carthage which forbids Clerks to wear either Locks or Beards The Aegyptians wear their Hair long and shave off their Beards The Maxii a people of Africa are shorn on one side of the Head and let the Hair grow on the other The Abaudi had the fore-part onely shaven the Antii contrary The Arabians shave even their Daughters round about leaving a Lock on the top The Armenians shave their Hair into the form of a Cross but there is something more majestical in the Beard than in the Hair and even Animals furnisht there-with seem to have some sort of gravity more than others Hence such as have affected the title of Wise have likewise suffer'd their Beards to grow but the Ephori made the Lacedemonians cut theirs as also Alexander and many Captains did their Souldiers lest their Enemies might catch hold of them But as the caprichio of persons of authority especially Courtiers gives the first model of fashions particularly as to Hair and Beard so to wear short Hair now every one's reaches to his waste or a magisterial spade Beard now all are close shaven except such whose Age and Condition exempts them from this Rule were for a Man to make himself taken notice of for things which bring no commendation which hath no place in discreet Minds but argues a phantastical and humorsome person who is commonly appointed contrary to the Modes whereof the present continually out-vie the Antient. The Fourth said Hair which is rather the leavs and boughs than as Plato held the roots of Man's Body which he terms a Tree revers'd having been chiefly design'd for preservation of the Brain from External Injuries they who would have care of their Health must consult the Constitution of their Brain before they determine either for long or short Hair Cold and Moist Brains need store of Hair to fence off the cold Air Hot and Dry the contrary As for the Hair of the Chin it was design'd onely for Ornament and a Testimony of the Authority which the Male hath above the Female whence that part seemeth somewhat sacred it being an Injury to touch one's Beard of which the Emperor Otho made such account that according to Cuspinian he was wont to swear by his own The proportion of it ought to follow the model of others of like condition Wise Men following the advice of the greatest number in matters indifferent provided they be not contrary to Honesty and Health CONFERENCE CL. VVhether Alterations of States have natural Causes STates being compos'd of Realms or Provinces these of Cities and Towns these of Families these of particular Persons and each Person having Natural Causes 't is clear that the Alteration of the Whole is to be attributed to the same Causes which make the change of its parts Thus when all the Houses of a Town are afflicted with Pestilence or consum'd by Fire which Accidents are capable of producing great Mutations in a Common-wealth it cannot be otherwise express'd but by saying that the Town is burnt or wasted by the Plague And as when the particular suffrages of each Counsellor tend to the absolution or condemnation of a Criminal 't were senseless to say that the Sentence of the Court were other than that of the President and Counsellors so also it is ridiculous to say that the Causes of personal mutations are Natural but not those of Political As therefore 't is almost the sole demonstration we have in Physicks that our Bodies are chang'd and corrupted because they are compos'd of the four Elements in like sort I conceive the Cause of alteration befalling the body of a State is to be sought in the Collection of the several members that compose it which coming to lose the harmony proportion and respect which made them subsist they are dissolv'd and corrupted which is a mutation purely natural and of absolute necessity The Second said If God hath reserv'd any thing to his own disposal 't is that of Crowns and the preservation of States which are the first and universal Causes of the safety of every particular person Whence the transferring of those Crowns from one State to another which is a greater mystery is a mutation purely supernatural as not onely God himself hath manifested when he subjected the State of the Israelites first to Judges and Captains which was a kind of Aristocracy and afterwards to Kings reducing them to a Monarchy but also all such as have wrought great changes in States of the World And Legislators knowing this belief imprinted in all Men's Minds have affected the Reputation of being descended from or favor'd by some Deity as did Alexander the Great and Numa Pompilius Moreover the Holy Scripture attributes to God the changing of Scepters and frequently styles him the God of Battels the winning and losing whereof are the most common and manifest Causes of the change of States And 't is a pure effect of the Divine Will that Men born free subject themselves to the Will of one sole or few persons so the changing of that Inclination cannot proceed but from Him who is the searcher of Hearts and gives us both to will and to do If Natural Causes had their effects as certain in Politicks as in Physicks States should have their limited durations as Plants and Animals have and yet
the parts But the bodies of Plants and Animals inur'd onely to natural heat are far more vigorous whilst the same is secured against external cold by Bark Hair and Skin and those defensive Arms which Instinct taught our Fore-fathers so long as they were guided by Nature in Caves of the Earth which moderate the injuries of the Air much better then humane Art can do or else by thick clothing which reflects the fumes incessantly issuing out of the pores of the Body from which repercussion proceeds the warmth of our Garments If cold happen at any time to over-master the natural heat in the external parts the same is presently reviv'd but dissipated by fire before which infirm persons frequently fall into fainting fits by motion and exercise which heats all Bodies and much more such as are animated driving the Spirits and Blood and with them heat into the agitated part Of the benefit of which motion we cannot judge more certainly then by its effects For as Fire takes away the Appetite and dulls the Senses of those that sit at it so Exercise encreases it and renders the Body and Mind much more lively Wherefore I conclude for Exercise against Fire without which a late Physician liv'd twenty years seeing no other but that of his Candle and without employing his Wood as Sylvius did who run up and down Stairs laden with two or three Fagots more or less according as he was cold till he was warm and then he laid them up till another time The Third said Exercise is not more profitable to such as are accustom'd to it then hurtful to others Which Sedentary persons find true when they play at Tennis or Hunt or use such other violent motion For every sort of motion is not Exercise but only that which is perform'd with some streining whereby respiration is render'd more frequent the Arteries dilated the Spirits and blood chaf'd whence oftentimes they break their vessels and beget Fevers Pleurises Fluxes Head-aches and Catarrhs which is a manifest proof that 't is better to leave the Humors and Spirits in their natural temper For Health consists in a just proportion of the Humors which are generated by the Concoction of temperate and moderate Food which Concoction is perform'd better during rest then during motion and in the sleep of the night then in the labour of the day So also are excrements better expell'd when the Body is quiet then when 't is in motion which brings a confusion of pure with impure Insensible transpiration is sufficiently effected only by the internal motion of Nature without the help of external which Nature hath not prescrib'd Animals although they have no need of Fire being naturally Furr'd Feather'd and otherwise guarded against the injuries of weather and yet their age is almost as regular as that of immovable Plants Man on the contrary by reason chiefly of his several violent exercises hath no prefix'd time of life which labour inseparable from exercise wears and consumes more then his years and makes him old before his time depriving him also of that contentment and pleasure which makes us live Moreover since things are preserv'd and acquir'd by the same causes lost health which is recover'd by rest and the bed cannot be preserv'd by travel which besides consuming our radical moisture swifter then the natural heat doth alone hath the same effect that motion hath in a lighted Candle which is sooner spent when stirr'd then when at quiet The Fourth said That since Fire introduces into us a foreign and contranatural heat as besides the inconveniences already alledg'd the sweating of the head testifies 't is more hurtful then Exercise which only rouses up the natural heat enfeebled by the apertion of the pores caus'd by the Fire in Winter and the Sun in Summer when for that reason Exercise ought to be less The incommodity Exercise brings to unaccustom'd Bodies ought not to hinder their being form'd thereto by little and little and by the degrees recommended by Hippocrates in all changes For if Physicians contribute all their skill to correct distempers drawn from the birth much rather may they endeavour to turn bad customs into good as being an easier task Thus Galen was not accustom'd to cleave wood nor Pittacus King of the Mytelenians to grind corn yet they exercis'd themselves in these labours for their health And indeed some Maladies as those which proceed from a cold and moist distemper are cur'd by exercise especially if they come from repletion Thus Nicomachus of Smyrna was so monstrously fat that he could not put his hand behind him yet was brought to a moderate bulk by Exercise On the contrary Germanicus whose legs were somewhat too slender brought them to a competent proportion by Riding the concussions whereof shake the Stone out of the Kidneys Recovering persons need Exercise so much according to their strength that 't is the most safe means of restoring it and old men are chiefly preserv'd by it Antiochus the Physician and Spurnia both of them 80 years old preserv'd their Senses and strength entire by walking a great way every day on foot And yet Fire is less hurtful in that age by reason of the coldness and thickness of the skin which gives not its heat so free entrance nor so easie an issue to that within CONFERENCE CLII. Whether Wine helps or hinders Digestion and why THis Question will seem frivolous to the vulgar who are no sooner debarr'd Wine by the Physitian but they complain of Indigestion and weakness of Stomack But our free Philosophy shall use its own rights and inquire whether the common Opinion in this Point be the best Now if Wine which is hot and acknowledg'd such by all Physitians be receiv'd into a temperate Stomack it brings it into a distemper whence Saint Paul enjoyn'd it not to Timothy but in regard of the coldness or weakness of his Stomack in which case a due temper results from the one cold and the other hot But temperate persons must avoid it's use which was a just cause of Divorce to the Roman Dames capital in the Camp of the Carthaginians and still in divers parts of Asia whereunto if you add all those that are depriv'd of it because they have none produc'd amongst them Children and sick persons it will appear that to say nothing of Beasts which drink onely water and are more healthy than we there are a hundred live without it for one that drinks it Moreover they who are troubled with Indigestions find and make others sufficiently understand that Wine is last digested otherwise it would not keep its first colour savor and smell after all other food or at least onely alter'd by the acidity into which 't is easily corrupted Besides Water-drinkers have a better Appetite than Wine-drinkers which is an Argument that Wine helps Concoction less then Water and no wonder since as Galen saith it increases Thirst instead of quenching it as Water doth For Thirst which is the
Day 's Heat which tempering the Cold occasion'd by the Sun's absence renders the same less perceptible during the thickness of the Nocturnal Air less subtile than that of the Day when the Light coming to dissipate those Clouds subtilizes the Air by its insinuating beams whence the Cold thereof more easily insinuates into our Pores by the help of that weak Light which is not strong enough to heat the Air. Just as Vinegar though hot and biting of its own Nature yet mix'd with much water cooles the part whereunto 't is apply'd more than water alone doth The Second said That possibly the comparison of the Heat of our beds out of which we arise in the Morning with the cold of the outward Air makes us guilty of a mistake unless you had rather refer this Effect to the Oblique Aspect where-with the other Celestial Bodies of our Hemisphere are regarded by the Sun at his rising For at mid-night when he is directly under the Horizon the little bulk of the Earth hinders not but he directly darts his Rayes upon those Stars which are above us the Pyramid of the Earth's shadow not passing beyond the Moon so that then the vast and incredible magnitude of all those Celestial Bodies perpendicularly reflects upon us the Heat and Light of the Sun which thus reflected may calefie the Air as the Sun doth in the same posture but not at all at Sun-rise in their Oblique Aspects Whence though the Sun be nearer us in Winter yet he warms us less If it be excepted that the Evening when the same Oblique Aspects return is not so cold as the Night 't is answer'd that this difference proceeds from the Heat of the foregoing Day remaining in the Earth Water and Air which conserve the same till by the absence of the Sun the supervening Night wholly dissipate them The Third said That the Matutinal coolness proceeded from the approaching Suns driving the Clouds before him which agitation raiseth a wind as there is always one at day-break whereby the same coolness is effected in the Air that a Fan causeth to a Lady For all things here below having their motion from East to West 't is reasonable that the Air be so mov'd too and acquire the consequent of its agitation namely coldness That all things come from the East sundry instances manifest Mankind was from thence diffus'd into the other Quarters of the World Rivers run generally Eastward And the greater speed of Navigation from East to West than contrarily argnes the Sea to have the same motion as is chiefly observ'd under the Equinoctial the greatness of which Circle renders that motion more manifest This rule the Winds keep when not diverted to a contrary course by Exhalations And as for the Heavens experience shews us that their ordinary and best-known course is from East to West So that 't is no wonder if they hurry the neighbouring Air with them and by a Mathematical contact and natural consecution all the other Elements I speak not of Sciences Arts Policy and other things which the more curious may find to have been deriv'd from the East It suffices that the Sun taking this road drives the Air befor him the wind proceeding from which motion causeth the coolness we feel chiefly at day-break when the vapours between us and the Sun being by his heat violently driven as the water of the Aeolipila is turn'd into wind and driven forth by the subjacent fire the coolness is more unacceptable in that it succeeds and multiplies instead of diminishing that of the night as the diurnal heat in likelihood ought to do The Fourth said He attributed the increase of cold at day-break to the ordinary action of all natural Agents which is strongest when they arrive at the period or utmost point of their declination So a Candle just upon extinguishing casts forth a smarter flame the violence of a Disease is greatest at its crisis when 't is towards ending a Stone moves swiftest as it approacheth its Centre And to compare the Year to the Day the cold is commonly greater and more insupportable in February the last Moneth of Winter than in the beginning thereof though in reason it might seem rather to be so at the end of December when the Sun is further from us and that the custom of the two first months cold should render this last more tolerable as on the contrary the heat is greater also in the dog-days and afterwards than at the Summer Solstice when the Sun is elevated highest above our heads So also in Summer 't is hotter two hours after noon than at noon it self not so much through any disposition already received in the Air and Earth as by reason of that Rule That Natural Actions are stronger at the end than the beginning whereas violent actions as the motion of a Stone upwards is swifter in the beginning than the end The Fifth referr'd this effect to the Antiperistasis of heat and cold For as fire seems more scorching upon the approach of a great frost so by a contrary reason cold must become more vehement at the approach of the Sun's heat Moreover the like combat is observ'd between the thickness of the darkness of the night and the rarity of the day when the Sun 's light rendring the illuminated Air more subtle what was gross in the dark Air cannot be expell'd in an instant without some conflict and motion of the part condens'd by darkness with the rarefi'd by light from which agitation ariseth a wind commonly at day-break which is probably the cause of the cold at that time Now of that tenebrous part condens'd is made the Dew and Frost in our Climate and the Manna in Southern Countries as the cold which we feel redoubled in Winter in the space between a neighbouring fire but out of its Sphere of Activity and the rest of the Air is a familiar example of this Antiperistasis of heat and cold redoubled upon the approach one of the other For as 't is much colder then elsewhere between that fire which is too distant to warm us and the Air left in its natural frigidity so at day-break our Air being too far off from the Sun to be heated by it augments its coldness upon his approach The Sixth said Air hath no natural quality but supream humidity whereby 't is supple movable and pliant heat and cold being impress'd upon it by outward agents Otherwise being the general medium and mediator of motions local natural vital and animal for the Spirits are of an aerious nature and the Factor of all Agents by whose intervention they communicate their influences it would act against the qualities impress'd upon it sometimes hot and sometimes cold and destroy them by its own Which indeed its humidity doth but to the profit of animated bodies dryness being their enemy Hence cold and dry Saturn hath under him hot and moist Jupiter who tempers his hurtfulness and sutes him to living things Now the Sun
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
poor Village and complaining less of his Malady then that he should dye without a Physician no other expedient was found but to cloath his Cook in the Curates Gown upon which he presently became half cur'd but causing the Curtains to be undrawn that he might the better see to thank his Doctor he discover'd the deceit and fell sick again more dangerously then before his imagination thus producing the effects both of sickness and recovery CONFERENCE CLXXII Of Fascination or Bewitching FAscination or Bewitching is the doing of hurt to one by sight without Contact mediate or immediate to deny which is to deny common experience the verdict of all Antiquity of the Learned and of the Holy Scripture it self The manner of it is vulgarly thought to be this namely when one maliciously and with a dangerous eye beholding some fair Child whose tenderness of body makes it more subject to hurt then a stronger person hurts it by commending it which Sorcery is thought to be render'd ineffectual by making Children wear about their Necks some preservatives ridiculous indeed yet much in use particularly amongst the Spaniards such as the figure of a thumb between the two fore-fingers in the form observ'd in making a fig for one 't is also a practice to make such a fig when they rise in the morning and to spit three times in the bosom Now this kinde of Fascination the Poet extends even to Beasts in the common Verse Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos Some refer it to Antipathy as they do the Basilisk's killing at a distance and the hoarseness caus'd by sight of a Wolf Plutarch in the fifth Book of his Symposiacks saith That some hurt their Parents and Friends with their Eyes alone and he relates a story of one Entelidas who like a second Narcissus perceiving himself handsome in a Fountain thereupon lost both his health and his beauty whence he concludes that such Fascination proceeds not alwayes from Envy but he refers the cause to the perverse custom some get of doing mischief which being turn'd into nature becomes as necessary to them as 't is to a bowl to roll Others think it an effect purely natural as a Blear Eye infects the beholder with the same evil and Plutarch saith He saw certain ancient people call'd Thibii who by their aspect hurt not onely Children but perfect men the visual rayes being render'd more active by the evil habit of those that have intention to hurt out of envy which is discern'd commonly by frequent beholding the prosperity of a hated person whence comes the word Invidere An example whereof is seen in the little Bird call'd a Witwal which becomes sick by the sight of one that hath the Jaundies whereof the Bird being presently conscious shuts its eyes upon such a persons approach For the poison is communicated onely to such as are fit to receive it even at further distance then fire reacheth Babylonian Naptha And they hold that Envy or some other passion increases its activity the soul promoting the operations of the body as the imagination excites love and eager Dogs sometimes become blinde through the violence wherewith they pursue their Game This opinion is backt by the observation of menstrous women whose aspect alone taints a Looking-glass and also by the effects proceeding from the passion of Love the cause whereof is attributed to the Eyes which are sometimes so disorder'd by erotical Folly that they see not the objects before them which cannot be attributed to beauty alone considering that the fairest women have oftentimes least power to attract Lovers by their looks whence some are found more dangerous to behold then others Besides Plutarch Aristotle and Heliodorus who confirm this Fascination which is deriv'd from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Envy in Deut. 28.56 This word is us'd and translated by St. Austin Fascination and the Chaldeans call'd it an evil-Eye as elsewhere that Eye of the envious Hireling is so term'd But St. Paul speaks plainly of it Gal. 3.1 asking the Galatians Who hath bewitched or fascinated you not to obey the Truth Which St. Anselm interprets thus Who hath hurt you by a livid and envious beholding of your perfection or like Enchanters hath deluded you and made you see one thing for another And Tertullian saith That Fascination which so followeth Praise that the one is taken for the other is a work of the Devil and sometimes also a punishment of God upon such as forget themselves through vanity The Second said That Fascination in the vulgar sense is not onely possible but natural though the cause be occult as also are magnetical and electrical attractions Thus maleficiated persons infect by insensible transpiration what they wear about themselves whereunto the eye's structure and temper renders it the fittest part of the body whence besides Diseases of the eyes we see Tears easily draw others from those that behold them shed Pliny relates that the Tribalians and Illyrians when angry kill'd people by their aspect alone And Olaus That the same is done at this day in some Northern Nations 'T is read of Tiberius that his eyes sparkled in the night insomuch that a Souldier dy'd by beholding him And Pyrrhus so terrifi'd another who came to dispatch him that onely by looking upon him he render'd him unable to touch him For whether vision be by Emission as the Platonists hold the Rayes will carry with them the qualities of the Eye that emits them or by Reception as Aristotle will have it the colours resulting from the impression of the qualities of a visible object will not be destitute of the same qualities or partly by emission and partly by reception according to Galen the rencontre of both sorts of Rayes cannot but be of great efficacy especially when animated by the Passions of Choler which enflames them or of Envy which envenoms them The Third said That there are two sorts of Fascination the one natural performed by natural means as venomous and malignant qualities which are sent from one body to another and infect the same by their malignity the other supernatural and diabolical perform'd by secret means whereby the vulgar believe that Witches can make sick whom they please by touching beholding and speaking to them which three wayes they employ to bewitch those to whom they desire mischief The first sort of Fascination is possible and is founded upon the Antipapathy and Contrariety which is found between almost all Bodies so that even the shadows of some Trees are noxious to some Animals as that of the Yew to Man and that of the Ash to Serpents The Fig-Tree appeases the madness of the Bull when he is ty'd to it by emission of certain vaporous spirits which entring into him temper and reduce him to moderation and from the same reason meat hang'd on a Fig-Tree becomes more tender and delicate to wit by attenuating its grosser parts For the heat of every living body incessantly
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
of good juice conduceth much to render Women fruitful On the contrary the frequent use of food hot and dry gross and of bad juice may render them barren as Leeks and Garlick do and amongst other Plants Mint which was therefore forbidden to be eaten or planted in time of war wherein 't is needful to repair by Fecundity the loss of Men it causeth In like manner want of Exercise by the heaping up of superfluous Humors and too violent and continual Exercises by desiccating the parts oftentimes occasion sterility Amongst the Passions Sadness is the greatest Enemy to Generation whence Hesiod forbids marry'd people to see one another after a Funeral but only at their coming from a Bath or from places of Mirth In fine what ever is capable to impair the goodness of the Temper is contrary to Fruitfulness and Generation which above all other Natural Actions requires an exact harmony of the qualities and a perfect disposition of the noble parts which supply Matter and Spirits fit for this Action And although Men and Women are alike expos'd to External Causes yet Women being less vigorous are sooner wrought upon by them For to Internal Causes which are the most considerable Women are undoubtedly more subject since beside Seed which they supply as well as Man who to deserve the name of fruitful ought only to supply the same in requisite quantity quality and consistence and place it in convenient Recepticles the Woman must also afford Blood and also a place for receiving and preserving both the Seeds and Blood namely her Womb the least disorder whereof is sufficient to marr the whole work of Generation Wherefore since she contributes most to Generation and there are more Causes in her concurring thereunto if it take not Effect she is more in fault than the Man who hath not so many several concurrences in the business The Fourth said That the Causes of sterility being either Natural or Adventitious and equal in the Man and the Woman nothing can be determin'd upon this Question For in either Sex there are both universal and particular deficiences of right Temper and as many Effeminate Men as Viragoes the one not less unfit for Generation than the other as Aristotle saith Castration is practis'd in both and disorderly living is equal as well in Male as Female in these dayes For if Men exceed in drinking Maids and Women are as bad in Gluttony and Lickerishness If there be any difference 't is from the diversity of Climate Women being found more fruitful in hot Countries and less in cold but Men contrarily the intemperies of either Sex being corrected by an opposite constitution of Air. Hence such Women as have been long barren sometimes become fruitful by change of Air Places manner of Life and especially of Age by which the temperament of the Body being sensibly alter'd it acquires the Fruitfulness it wanted by acquiring the Qualities and Conditions necessary to Generation Many likewise upon the same reason become fuitful after the use of Mineral Waters or Baths and being thereby deliver'd from several Diseases to which barren Women are more subject than such as have Children whom Parturition rids of abundance of Excrements peculiar to that Sex and occasioning many disorders in the barren The Fifth said That the observation made by Bodin in his Republick and several other famous Authors that the number of Women much exceeds that of Men seems to void the Question Nature having thereby sufficiently given us to understand That fewer men are as fruitful as more women Which observation is verifi'd not only in the East and other Countries where plurality of Wives hath places but also in France where there is no Province wherein Virgins remain not unmarry'd for want of Husbands Moreover one man may beget abundance of Children in the space of nine moneths during which a woman breeds but one or two and therefore Man seems more fruitful then Woman who beginning to be capable of Generation but two years before Man doth viz. at 12 years old at the soonest ends 23 years sooner then he for men generate at 70 years of age and more but women end at 50. During which time also they are subject to far more infirmities and maladies than men who have not above four or five whereof women are not capable but women have fifty or threescore peculiar to themselves CONFERENCE CLXXVIII Whether Complaisance proceeds from Magnanimity or Poorness of Spirit COmplaisance is a habit opposite to Roughness the first being a Species of Civility the latter of Rusticity Now since we are complaisant either in good or bad things to be so must be commendable or blameable according to the nature of the object But because no body doubts that we ought to be complaisant in vertuous actions and that they are as culpable who connive at vice as they that commit it It remains to consider of Complaisance in indifferent things as 't is in common practise amongst men and as Juvenal represents it in a person that falls a weeping as soon as he sees his friends tears and when he smiles laughs aloud and if you say you are very hot he sweats if cold he runs to his Fur-gown Now the Question is whether such a man hath more of courage or baseness I conceive he shews himself a very pitiful fellow For this deportment differs not from that servile Vice Flattery which is near akin to Lying and easily turns from an indifferent to a vicious action Thus Courtiers varnish vices with the name of such vertues as have most conformity therewith calling Avarice Frugality Lasciviousness Love Obstinacy Constancy and so in other cases till they render themselves ridiculous even to those they praise who how vain soever they may be yet cannot hear their own praises without blushing at them being conscious that they displease all the hearers Indeed when I am complaisant to any one 't is for fear to offend him and fear was never an effect of Magnanimity To which all that can be excepted is that it belongs also to Prudence to fear formidable things But Fortitude and Courage are never employ'd in the practise of this vertue which therefore is very much suspected and oft-times serves for an excuse of cowardice Hence old men whom their cold blood makes less courageous are esteem'd the most prudent and if they be not the most complaisant 't is to be imputed to the sullenness attending that age as jollity doth youth Moreover as Courage leads us to act without fear of danger what we conceive good and just so it teaches us to call things by their proper names as Philip's Souldiers did On the contrary Complaisance teaches people to admire beauty in a deformed woman to commend a bad Poets Verses and desire a copy of them from him to give fair words to such as we will not or cannot do any kindness to in brief to dissemble all things and to disguise our words contrary to the frequent express
which is so far from being rich enough of its self that it borrows from the Greek and Latine to express the most common things and consequently is not sufficient to teach all the Sciences The Second said The French Tongue is deriv'd from the Greek Latine and Gothick which are Languages much more copious then it and therefore they that will recur to originals will find those Tongues more adapted for teaching the Sciences then the French and yet not any single one of them sufficient for it since the Romans to become and deserve the name of Learned were oblig'd to learn Greek Moreover since Books are the chief instruments for attaining the Sciences the ancient Latine and Greek ones which yet were not sufficient for it are much more numerous than the French and by consequence the French Tongue is not capable to teach every Science and had it more Translations then it hath yet these are but small Rivulets deriv'd from that grand Source of Sciences which is found in the original Languages The Third said If we regard the order of times and particularly that of the Creation when all things were in their perfection and purity 't is most likely that that Language which took birth with Adam and all the Sciences is more fit to teach them then the much more Novel French and since there must be a proportion between Instruments and the Matters upon which they act and this proportion is not found between the French Tongue lately invented and the Sciences which are as ancient as the World who can think it sufficient to teach them and the Cabalists hold that the Language fit to teach the Sciences perfectly must have words adapted to signifie the Vertues and Properties of things which ours hath not The Fourth said That all the Language of Adam who gave names suitable to the nature of every thing being lost except the the name of God for that reason so much esteemed by the Jews The Cabalists in imitation of that Tongue invented one whereof I shall give you a taste It hath five Vowels E A V I O which answer to the Elements and the Heaven E to Earth A to the Water V to the Air I to the Fire and O to Heaven E produceth in pronunciation c d f g l m n p r s t z forasmuch as these Consonants cannot be produc'd without it A produceth h and k v produceth q I produceth nothing because pure and single Fire doth not O likewise produceth nothing because the Heaven only moves and excites Generations whereas E produceth abundance of Letters resembling the Earth which produceth every thing in its bosom being the Centre of Heaven and the Matrix of the Elements Now to form words according to the Elementary Qualities they will have the Vowels which compose such a word answer to the Elements which compose such a mixt body And to specifie degrees because the Vowels whereby they are denoted meeting together would spoil the pronunciation therefore they make foure orders of the sixteen Consonants viz. b c d f denote the four degrees of Fire g l m n those of Air p r s t those of Water x z ss st those of Earth Upon this foundation they build the composition of all their Words which they compose of Vowels according to the Elements predominant in things and of Consonants according to their degree But who sees not the absurdity of this invention which by this means would extend only to corporeal mixts whereof the quality and very degree is known Concerning which Naturalists are so far from being agreed that many attribute most natural effects to other causes as to Occult Properties so call'd in opposition to the Elementary 'T is best therefore not to rove from the common tract which teaches us the Sciences by real Languages amongst which those call'd Dead ones to wit the Hebrew Greek and Latine and others now disus'd suffice not for teaching the Sciences because they are not pronounc'd well and the learned agree not about the importance of many Letters and Syllables Besides the most eloquent express not themselves so naturally in those antick obsolete Tongues as in their own And all confess that in order to obtain the perfection of a Science too much plainness cannot be us'd either on the Teacher's part in establishing their Rules and Precepts or on the Learner's in propounding their difficulties for resolution CONFERENCE CLXXXVII Of diversity of Colours in one and the same subject THe diversity of Colours is commonly deduc'd from the mixtion and proportion of the Elements but more truly from the several degrees of Sulphur which produces them as Salt doth Sapors the most certain indications what degree the quality of a Plant is of For if Colours had relation to the Elements then all red things should be hot and white things cold which is not true in Poppy and Roses on the one side nor Orange-flowers and Jasmin on the other So also green things should be always moist because this colour proceeds from an indigested humidity mixt with a part of putrifi'd earth as appears in standing waters and yet the greenness of Lawrel and Mint hinders them not from being hot and dry nor that of Ranunculus from burning But Colours are either natural or artificial which latter as we find it in Stuffs and Silks is neither the cause nor the effect of their temperament But natural colour such as that in the parts of living Animals is an effect of their Life and alterable after their death Wherefore I conclude that colour and its varieties proceeds from the different degrees of Sulphur in the subject but that one and the same subject is of several colours the causes may be First for that some of its parts are more compact others more loose and so differently receive the impression of the Sulphur and the Internal Fire Secondly the Sun shining more upon one part than another draws the internal colour from the Centre to the Circumference as Apples are colour'd on the side next the Sun Thirdly the same difference which is found between the Root Trunk Leavs Flower Fruit and other parts of Plants and Animals is also found in each portion of those parts as the lower part of the Rose is green the middle part whitish and the top red and the Tulip variegated is compounded of as many several particles which variety of places and matrices serves to determine the colour which Sulphur paints thereon being guided by the pencil of Nature The Second said That this diversity of colours proceeds only from the divers aspect of light which varies the colours of certain Bodies to our Eye as in the Rain-bow the Camelion and the necks of Pigeons in things expos'd to the Sun which seem far brighter than before To which you must add the distance and station of the beholders so water seems black or blew afar off but near hand colourless Turpentine Crystal and the whites of Eggs in several situations do the like
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
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
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
Earth and so draw all Loadstones and what-ever Iron is rub'd with them towards themselves The Second said That the Cause of this Motion ought rather to be ascrib'd to some thing in Heaven because in Ships that approach that Island of Loadstone the Needle still tends towards the North and not towards that Island The truth is there is a Sympathy between some parts and things of the world the Female Palm bends towards the Male Straw moves to Amber all Flowers and particularly the Marigold and Sun-flower incline towards the Sun the Loadstone towards the Iron and the tail of the little Bear which if we conceive to be of the Nature of Iron there is no more inconvenience therein than in the other Properties attributed to the rest of the Starrs and Planets The Third said That to wave what other Authors have said this inclination of the Loadstone proceeds from the great humidity of the North which is the Centre of all waters towards which they tend For the Loadstone being extreamly dry and oblig'd to tend some way when it is in aequilibrio it veers towards that quarter to seek the moisture which is wanting to it as also doth Steel heated red hot and suffer'd to cool of it self if it be lay'd upon a piece of the wood floating gently in water The Fourth was of Cardan's Opinion who conceives that stones are animated and consequently that the soul of the Loadstone carries it to the search of its food and its good as the the Eye affects Light a Whelp is carry'd to his Dam's teat and a Sheep naturally eschews a Wolf For it matters not whether we hold That the touch'd Load-stone moves towards the tail of the little Bear which is distant five degrees from the Arctick Pole or Whether it flie and recoil from the part of Heaven diametrically opposite thereunto Now that the Loadstone is animated appears by its being nourisht with and kept in the filings of Steel by its growing old and by the diminishing of its attractive virtue with age just as the virtues of other bodies do Wherefore 't is probable that the Loadstone's soul either with-draws it from that part which is contrary to it or else leads it towards its good Indeed two different inclinations are observ'd in this Stone depending upon the situation it had in the Mine one Northwards whither it turnes the part that once lay that way the other Southwards whither it turns its opposite part But the Experiment of Iron loosing its attraction by being rub'd on the Loadstone the contrary way to which it was rub'd at first is an evident sign of such a soul in it which makes it thus vary its actions The Fifth said That all these accounts leave many difficulties to be resolv'd for if the Loadstone mov'd towards those great Adamantine Mountains of Ilva then they would draw only that and not Iron if Iron too why not before 't is rub'd with a Loadstone Nor doth this inclination of the Loadstone proceed from its dryness for then plain Iron which is as dry Pumice Lime and Plaster which are dryer should have the same effect Besides that there is not such want of humidity as that this stone should seek it Northwards the Mediterranean and the Main Ocean being nearer hand As for Heaven the Cause is no less obscure there and the terms of Sympathy and Antipathy differ not much from those which profess naked Ignorance The second Opinion hath most probability for since the two pieces of a Loadstone cut parallel to the Axis have so great a community of inclinations that a Needle touch'd with one piece is mov'd at any distance whatsoever according to the motion of another toucht with the other piece why may we not admit that the tail of the little Bear or its neighbouring parts are of a Magnetical Nature and have the same community with our Terrestrial Loadstone according to that Maxim in Trismegistus's Smaragdine-Table That which is above is as that which is below CONFERENCE CXCVII What Sect of Philosophers is most to be follow'd ALl the Sciences confess Obligations to Philosophy Divinity draws Ratiocinations from it Eloquence is diffuse Logick and Rhetorick is not to be learnt but after Philosophy Civil Law being wholly founded upon Morality is nothing but an effect of it whilst it teaches us to do voluntarily what the Laws makes us practise by force Physick supposes excellent skill in Philosophy since the Physician begins where the Naturalist ends Now there are so many Sects of Philosophers that to follow them all is to fall into manifest contradictions and to adhere to one alone is to be in great danger of mistaking the worst That which keeps us from being able to make a good choice is the little knowledge we have of these Sects and the Probability each seems to have and therefore 't is requisite to examine them in general in order to drawing a general conclusion And because Saint Augustine cites almost three hundred Opinions touching the Supream Good and as many may be brought touching other points of the Sciences I shall only take notice of the famousest Sects as seeming the most rational and most follow'd And let us compare the always contentious Peripatericks and the Stoicks together The end of the former was to contemplate and understand things the latter aim'd more to do good than to know it their design was Speculation the scope of these Practici I side with the former because that Science which embellisheth Man's noblest part his Understanding is the most sublime and consequently the most considerable And as the Understanding is more excellent than the Will so is Theory in matter Science than Exercise Acts of Virtue depending on the Acts of Reason and those of Reason not depending on those of Liberty Besides that is most to be esteem'd which must render us blessed and that is the knowledge of God and of the Creatures in God and in themselves which is to constitute the Beatifick Vision The Second said That Men ought not to get knowledge only to know but to operate comformably to their knowledge Truth would be either useless or dangerous if it lead us not to practise And though the Will is one Sense subordinate to the Understanding yet it commands the same in another To know how to do well and yet to do ill is a double crime And if knowledge alone could make happy the Devils would be soon in Heaven since Divines tell us the least of them hath more natural knowledge than all Mankind together Now the Opinion of the Stoicks regulating the Acts of our Wills and composing our Manners suitable to Reason seems to place the steps which must raise us to the highest pitch of Felicity Wherefore I conclude that the Curious may follow the first Sect of these namely the Peripateticks but good men must necessarily adhere to that of the Stoicks The Third said That there are three other Sects which seem to comprize all the rest
and therefore not to be omitted in this important choice First the Pyrrhonians who doubt of all things and say There is no knowledge of any thing Secondly Those that doubt of nothing but think they know every thing Thirdly Those who are neither in doubt nor in perfect certainty but in search of Truth The first do found their Opinion upon this receiv'd Maxim That there is nothing in the Understanding but what pass'd through the Senses and these being fallacious our Notions must be so too That being we perceive not the essence of things we cannot say that we know any thing But these people may be answer'd That since they have not so much as a knowledge of their doubts they cannot make the same pass for a demonstrative maxim if they think they have such a knowledge they must grant that there is knowledge of some thing and if of doubts why not of certainties Moreover if the Senses be always fallacious it will follow that there are Powers which acting without impediment never attain their end and if our Understanding be always abus'd 't is in worse case than the faculties of Brutes who acquiesce in embracing their Objects In brief these dreamers cannot be ignorant that themselves exist because they act and that existence is the foundation of all action Nor are those that think they know every thing much more intelligent the former offend against Truth by denying it these by thinking it their sole Mistress They argue that since the Understanding is the Subject of the Intelligible Species which contain they say either actually or potentially the impressions of all Objects it follows that as soon as we frame a Notion we know all things But I ask these Knowing Men What Truths they know so easily which other Wits hold so difficult to be known Whether created or uncreated Verity The former is knowable only to it self we may demonstrate That it is but not What it is in its own Nature And how many errors have there been concerning the Nature of that Sole Necessary and true Being And as for the latter we know not the Truth of Essences but by their Accidents and these by Species which are very often perverted either in the Medium or the Organ But how can we know other things perfectly whereas we know not our Selves We know that we act but we know not how so that the Opinion of those that profess only to seek Truth is the best and surest though it ingageth us to continual labour and be the punishment said by the Holy Scripture to be inflicted upon Men both to satisfie and chastise their Curiosity Now Action is the Life of the Soul and that Science which keeps the Mind always awake is justly preferrable before that which renders so good an Agent idle and impoverishes it by perswading it that it hath riches enough already Besides all Men are of this Opinion either directly or indirectly And Dissenters themselves seek Reasons every day to maintain it Astrologers still endeavor to discover new Stars Chymists new Secrets Physicians new Remedies and Philosophers new Opinions CONFERENCE CXCVIII. Why Mules breed not THe First said That Mules are barren because every perfect Animal can produce only its own like by univocal Generation defin'd The production of a Living Thing descending from another Living Thing by a conjoyn'd Principle in order to similitude of Species But Mules cannot generate thus because being produc'd by a Horse and an Ass they are neither the one nor the other nor yet both together but a third Species retaining something of both So that after what-ever manner they joyn together they cannot make their like that is produce an Animal part Horse and part Ass If a Mule could generate it must be by coupling with a Species different from its own as with a Horse or an Ass whence infinite several Species partaking more or less of the nature of Horse or Ass would arise and so Forms being increas'd or diminish'd Substance should receive degrees of More and Less contrary to the Maxim of Philosophers And in this matter Nature's Wisdom and Providence is observable who rather suspends her Action than suffers any inconvenience to come by it The Second said That there are particular as well as general causes of the Sterility of Mules As first they want distinction of Sex that between them being only similitudinary and the parts they have answering to the genitals of other Animals having only the outward figure not the internal form and energy thereof Just as the Teats in Men Dogs Swine c. signifie nothing as to any use but serve only for correspondence with the Female and Ornament The Third said That the Sterility of Mules cannot be design'd by Nature only to avoid multiplication of Species in infinitum since this consideration hinders not but that Leopards and other Mixt Animals generate and Plants ingrafted upon others of different Species bear fruit But the cause hereof must be sought in the divers Temperature and Complexion of the Ass and Horse the former being very melancholy that is Cold and Dry as appears by his slowness the other Hot and Dry as he testifies by his nimbleness their two seeds mingled together compose a third which indeed hath Natural Heat and Radical Moisture enough for making an Animal but Nature having brought her work to this point can go no further because she spent all the Radical Moisture and Natural Heat she had in the first production whereby Mules have the Courage of the Horse and the Laboriousness of the Ass But the Mule having only Heat and Radical Moisture enough for it self and not enough for the production of another the same cannot be produc'd The Fourth said That the Number of Forms and Species of things being limitted 't is not in the power of Art and Nature to multiply them And though it be easie to multiply them in the family of Plants which are but of one Sex though some are distinguisht into Male and Female upon account of some small differences Yet 't is not in the Gardener's power to ingraft all sorts of Fruits one upon another For excepting the Colewort in whose foot when 't is become hard and ligneous one may ingraft some shrubs Plants of divers kinds mingle not one with another as trees with herbs or shrubs and herbs with trees Nor will the Pepin admit insition into the Nut-tree or on the contrary Nature differs from Art in this chiefly that she hath her work bounded and determin'd but Art counterfeits what the Artist pleases Whence Painters oftentimes draw fine Pictures and beget deform'd Children Every mixture of Perfumes is not pleasant nor of Medicaments effectual nor do our Sawces admit of any ingredients but only of some that are suitable and proper So also two several grains mixt together produce nothing because Nature hath temper'd seeds in such degree that nothing can be added or diminisht from them but deprives them of their efficacy If
such unnatural Mixture make any productions the same is prodigious and amongst Animals is call'd a Monster But being an Error of Nature she returns to her old way as soon as she can and rather ceases to generate than produces second Monsters of those first And this in Mules rather than other Species because the Equine and Asinine Natures are no less contrary than Fire and Water So that if they happen to be conjoyn'd and make one Compositum the Generative Virtues then existent in their seeds make an Animal indeed but in producing the same they extinguish one another as Fire doth Water and so what is generated of them hath no power of Generation The Fifth said That this Sterility being suppos'd although Aristotle relates that in Syria-Mules commonly generate and Theophrastus Varro and others affirm the like of those in Cappadocia and Africa Democritus in Aelian attributes the cause thereof to the ill conformation of their genitals particularly of the womb which is unapt to retain and quicken the seed because through the excessive heat deriv'd from the Horse the passages serving to those parts in either sex are too much dilated besides that the same are very laxe in the Shee-Ass whence Naturalists and Experience tells us that she conceives not unless after covering she be well cudgel'd that so the pain thereof may make her constringe her womb and retain the seed which otherwise would slide out again Now this over great dilatation of the genitals appears by dissection and 't is found by Experience that the Beasts themselves are unwilling to such an unnatural copulation so that in some Countries people are fain to feed Asses with Mare 's milk and cover the Mares sometimes with Cloaths of the colour of an Ass to beguile them into the same Add hereunto that both the Species of which Mules are generated are very subject to Sterility For the Ass is of a cold temper and particularly its seed is so cold that unless it begins to generate at the first casting of its Teeth it remains barren for ever Yea if an Ass couple with a pregnant Mare the coldness of his seed makes her cast her Foal The Horse likewise by Arâ—stotle's report is very little fruitful whence his seed being further refrigerated by that of the Ass they produce an Animal indeed but altogether improlifick CONFERENCE CXCIX Of the Mandrake SInce of the three Conditions of Curing to wit pleasantly speedily and safely this latter pertains chiefly to Plants it were good that a little more curious search were made into the treasures hid in the Plantal Family of Remedies whereof Nature hath provided above three thousand several Species which are many more than are in those of Animals and Minerals And as Nature hath instead of the Instinct bestow'd on other Animals to guide them to their good given Man Reason whereby he may proceed from things known to things unknown so besides the manifest and occult qualities of Plants from whence their uses may be inferr'd she hath markt those which are most useful to us with certain Signs and Characters Amongst these Mandrake is the most famous representing not the Eye as Eye-bright doth nor the Lungs as Lungwort nor the Liver as Liverwort nor the Rupture as Solomon's Seal nor the Hemorrhoids or Orpment nor an Ulcer as spotted as spotted Arsmart but the Figure of an entire Man And as the eminent Virtues of Ancient Heroes being too great to be comprehended by the Wits of these Ages gave occasion to fabulous Romances so the Wits of Botanists that have been capable to write the Virtues of other Simples have not been sufficient to speak of these of Mandrakes leaving the vulgar the liberty to attribute Supernatural Virtues to them Which made some Rabbins say that the Teraphins of Jacob's Father-in-law were the roots of Mandrake which render'd him Answers and for the loss of which he fell into such Passion and Pliny ascribes to the Mandrake the name of Osiris which was that of an Aegyptian Idol Our Histories report that in the year 1420. a certain Cordelier nam'd Frier Richard was so perswasive in his Sermâ—ns that in two dayes the Parisians publickly burnt all the instruments of voluptuousness and debauchery and particularly the Women their Images and Mandrakes which they kept wrapt up in their attires upon a belief that as long as they had Mandrakes they should never fail to become rich which Mandrakes gave them Answers by shaking the head or else by speech And there are not only true but also counterfeit ones such as were made by an Italian Mountebank as Matthiolus relates who carv'd the root of Pyony or of a great Reed in the shape of a Man and sticking Millet or Flax seed in the places where hair should grow bury'd the same for twenty dayes at the end whereof fine small threads appear'd in those places and a skin over all the rest which represented and pass'd for a true Mandrake Belleforest also relates that the Maid of Orleans was calumniated for having acquir'd the valour she testifi'd against the English by the Magical Virtue of a Mandrake And Henry Bouquet a modern Author affirms that Thieves steal the Goods out of Houses and Children from their Mothers Breasts by help of it those that behold them being unable to defend themselves because this Plant stupifies their Hands So likewise Levinus Lemnius tell us that 't is employ'd with great effect in Philtres and Amorous Potions Upon which account Natalis Comes thinks it was an ingredient in that which Circe gave Scylla whereby she became so desperately in Love with Glaucus that being unable to enjoy him she cast her self headlong into the streight of Messina Some think 't is the same Plant that Josephus lib. 7. cap. 25. de bello Judaico calls Baaras from the valley wherein it grows which he saith shines in the night like fire and is pluckt up by a hungry Dog ty'd to the top of the root after the same hath been softned with the Urine of a Woman because upon its plucking up 't is said to send forth a shreek which is mortal to the hearer and so the Dog dyes after his work is done Others conceive that this root cannot be found except a little before the rising of the Pleiades which is about the beginning of September Which is no more incredible than that the seed of Fearn springs but at a certain prefixt time before and after which it appears not 'T is likewise thought particular to Upper Hungary and to be pluckt up only by certain Sorceresses and that in the night whence also they sell the same secretly for fear of being punish'd by Justice as it happen'd Anno 1630. at Hamburg where the Senate caus'd three Women who exercis'd this trade to be whipt Moreover they hold that this Plant call'd Mandrake from a German word which signifies to bear the figure of a Man for Man hath the same sense in that Language as in ours and Dragen is
which is very hard to prove because we know not how far they may reach And should we accuse of Magick every thing when we understand not the Causes almost all Natural Philosophy would be turn'd into superstition Again a Man that promises more than he can perform drinking but the twentieth part of what he boasts of and who can make but one sort of colour issue out of his mouth though he exposes several others to the Spectator's Eyes cannot pass for a great Sorcerer or refin'd Magician As for the easiness and violence where-with he casts water out of his Stomack at pleasure it cannot be either from Artifice or Custom alone which cannot put free and voluntary motions into parts wherein there is none nor procure new Organs necessary to this action and no Man being able to accustom himself to move his Ears at his pleasure unless the same be naturally dispos'd thereunto as Manfrede's Stomack is Now natural dispositions are only of two sorts some depend upon the Temperament which is incapable of this effect others belong to the Stomack as it is an Organical part namely a particular Conformation which may be easily conjectur'd from the example of ruminating Animals who when they list bring up their food out of their Stomack into their mouth An action not impossible to Men since Nature oftentimes by error gives one Species such a Conformation in some parts as is of right peculiar to another and accordingly the faculty of ruminating is found in divers Men. Aquapendens saw two to whom this action was more voluntary than that whereby we void our excrements when they importunately solicite us observing expresly that they were not constrain'd to it but by the pleasure which they took in it And the same Author likewise records that opening the Body of one that ruminated he found one Membrane of his Stomack more fibrous and strong than ordinary And the same is probably so in that of this Maltese since this voluntary motion can proceed only from such a Conformation In like manner these persons that have been able to move their Ears have been observ'd to have the Muscles behind them more fleshy than other Men. And our Conjecture is further confirm'd by the Instance of the Bladder whose Excretion is perform'd by the Pyramidal Muscles which oftentimes are deficient and in that case their office is supply'd by the carnous Membrane of the Bladder which is valid and performs the motions of a Muscle according to the opinion of the greatest Anatomists of this Age. So that what is so ordinary in the Bladder is not to be admir'd in the Stomack Besides that Custom may have much increas'd the strength and dexterity of this faculty and although it have not otherwise conduc'd in the least to the effect but only as founded upon a natural Disposition That all ruminating have not been able to do the like is because they neglected to increase the natural Disposition by use and practise and as to the diversity of colour and smells there is nothing therein but artifice and fallacy The Third said That what is here thought most admirable the drinking of a great quantity of Water is seen every day at Pougues and Forges where you shall have one Person drink sixty glasses and those that have seen the Stomach that hangs up in the Anatomical Theater of Leyden and is capable of seven quarts will not think it strange that this Maltese drinks much less As for the diversity of Liquors which he brings up discern'd by their several colours smells and the inflammability of the Aqua vitae I attribute it to the perfection of the reasonable soul which as well as all other forms imprints Dispositions in the matter this being universal that besides the Properties common to the whole Species there is a particular one in every Individual which distinguishes the same from others and comes from the last Character of the form That of the Maltese is to turn common Water into Wine Orenge-flower-water Rose-water and Aqua vitae For the diversity of matter and its dispositions signifies nothing as to the mutations introduc'd therein by the Forms though one may say that in common Water especially that of the Well all the Elements and the three Principles of Chymistry are found having its Salt from the Earth its Sulphur from the Bitumen and Naphtha wherewith the Caverns of the Earth and especially Wells abound and as for Mercury 't is nothing but water it self No wonder then if since every thing may be made of every thing by the Maxim of the most ancient Philosophers our Maltese fetches what he pleases out of his Stomack The Fourth wonder'd if this Maxim were true That every thing is made of every thing in the Maltese's Belly even without any distinction or preparation of the matter why this Water-drinker fetcht so great a circuit to get money since 't would be a shorter way for him to make it and even Gold it self by the same reason or at least he would make sale of his sweet Waters and not suffer the Perfumers to be at such charge in fetching them from far If he make it his excuse that he would not get vent for such an abundance why if there be no cheat in the thing hath he not taken occasion of the dearness of Wine in France this year to sell the Wine he makes in Paris But Experience renders it manifest that the Wine he promises is nothing but water and consequently he is less able to make Aqua vitae into which water cannot be turn'd but by first taking the nature of Wine and indeed there needs more wine to yield the quantity of Aqua vitae he pretends to bring up then he drinks water before he ejects it Besides Chymistry manifests that Aqua vitae is not made but only separated Nor can this change be a Property in the Malteses Stomack because all Properties are specifical and belong to all the Individuals of the same Species there being nothing peculiar in any man but a certain degree of indivisible temperament call'd Idio-syncrasie And if his temper be so hot as to turn common water in an instant into Aqua vitae 't is impossible to be cold enough to make Rose-water at the same time if it have any transmuting vertue it ought to turn all into one sort of Liquor because the same Agent never makes but the same Effect unless the Subject be diversifi'd by diversity of matter whereas here 't is all water from the same Spring Neither could this Drinker drink Well-water without intoxication because being turn'd into Aqua vitae the vapors thereof would mount up into his brain and so to prescribe him water in a Feaver would be no more refreshment to him then if one gave him Aqua vitae The fifth said That the diversity of colours and odors of the Liquor he ejects proceeds from the tincture of some mass of Essence extracted from the same materials which those
Liquors represent which Masses he holds between his teeth incorporated with some gum which fastens them there so that as the Water he drinks passes impetuously between his teeth it derives colours and odors from the same Which is the reason why the water he first casts forth is most colour'd whereas if the Dye proceeded from his Stomack it would be deeper at last of all as having acquir'd more digestion by a longer infusion The Sixth said That Histories are full of several particular Constitutions of the Natural Parts witness the example of the Maid mention'd by Cardan who drinking but two pints of water a day piss'd twenty and that of the Emperor Maximinus who commonly eat forty pound weight of meat with proportionable drink and sweat so abundantly that he fill'd 'T is said That Theagenes the Thasian eat a Calf for his dinner and Milo the famous Wrastler of Croton devour'd a 100. pound of Flesh a Hogshead of Wine and Bread proportionable Such was that Parasite who one day at the Table of the Emperor Aurelius eat a Boar a Sheep a Pig and an hundred Loaves and drunk half a tun of Wine All which stories render less strange the quantity of this Maltese's Drink whose colour possibly afterwards he disguises with powders hid in his Handkerchief which he handles so often or by the help of a double Glass of which his Vessels are made or by some other trick whereto he ha's inur'd himself for many years The Seventh said That mineral waters are usually drunk with more ease in great quantity by half than common water can be because their tenuity makes them pass immediately into the habit of the Body And if you consider that this fellow drinks only out of small vessels and those not always full as also with what nimbleness he dispatches his work you will much abate the opinion that he drinks so much as is generally believed Besides though his pail be of a middle size yet 't is never quite full and he spends much water in washing his mouth and his glasses and some too is left behind Nor is it absurd to think that before his shewing himself to drink he swallows a bolus of Brazil or of Alkanet or Fearn Root or of red Sanders or Indian Wood or some such other thing in powder after which drinking two or three glasses of water he interposes some interval that the same may be the better tinctur'd in his Stomack which time being pass'd he drinks about two quarts of water which soon after he brings up red appearing so both in the Air and in the glasses Which colour being weak for want of time to be well imbib'd by the water is wholly lost when the same is powr'd into a vessel wherein there is a little Verjuice Vinegar juice of Citron Spirit of Vitriol or other such acid liquor which is proper to consume the said color And 't is observable that the last water he vomits is continually paler than the first the tincture being diminisht by the quantity of water Add hereunto that 't is likely his glasses are smear'd with some essences which seem transparent to the Spectators for though he makes shew of washing them he only passes the brims dextrously over the water and lets none of it enter into them As for the violence wherewith he spouts forth the water it must be confess'd that the fellow hath a great natural propensity to vomiting which by frequent repetition is become habitual to him Custom being capable to produce such effects that I have seen a Beggar about fifty years old by being exercis'd thereunto piss as high as a pike CONFERENCE CCII. Why dead Bodies bleed in the presence of their Murderers HOnest Antiquity was so desirous of knowing the Truth that when natural and ordinary proofs fail'd they had recourse to supernatural and extraordinary Such was the Jews water of Jealousie which made the otherwise undiscoverable Adulterer burst in sunder the innocent Vestal's Sieve in which being accus'd of Incest she carry'd water without shedding Such also were the Oaths made upon Saint Anthonie's arm of so great reverence that 't was believ'd the perjur'd would burn a year with the fire of that Saint and in our time the excommunication of Saint Geneviesue which those that incurr are commonly reckon'd not to out-live a year In like sort the zeal of Men against that horrid crime of Murder hath made them cherish a perswasion that a Carkase will bleed before its Murderers though most slain Bodies bleed when they are stirr'd that so the Conscience of the Actors being disturb'd they might either by word or gesture be brought to make discovery of themselves For indeed the Blood which was congeal'd in the Veins presently after death becomes liquid again after two or three dayes when it is in its tendency to corruption which Liquefaction and the Inquisition after the Murderer hapning commonly at the same time 't is no wonder if the Body bleed in the Murderer's presence since it doth so frequently when he is absent Yet because this false perswasion from the co-incidence of times ceases not sometimes to have its effect and to discover Truth therefore Legislators have thought fit to authorize it and to use it as an Argument at least to frighten the Murderer though indeed 't is no conclusive one to condemn him The Second said That 't is not credible that Courts of Justice who often admit this proof to good purpose could so continue in ignorance of Natural Causes as not to discern the effusion of Blood ensuing upon its putrefaction in the Veins from that which happens upon confrontation of a Murderer 'T is better therefore to seek further for the cause than to question the effect which some attribute to some secret Antipathy of the murder'd person's blood to that of his Murderer or else to their mutual emission of spirits which still seeking the destruction of each other's person those of the Murderer being the strongest because still living cause a commotion in the Blood of the dead which thereupon breaks forth at the out-let of the wound Campanella attributes it to the sense where-with all things are indu'd and which still remains in these dead Bodies so that having a sense of their Murderers and perceiving them near hand they suffer two very different motions Trembling and Anger which cause such a commotion in the Blood that it flows forth at the wound For the spirits which during life had such perceptions as were necessary for their receiving and obeying the Soul's commands retain somewhat thereof after death and are capable of discerning their friends and their enemies The Third said If this opinion concerning the emanation of spirits whether by Sympathy or Antipathy be true it will follow That one who hath done a Murder with gun-shot cannot be discover'd by this sign and that one slain in his Wife's arms and in a crowd of his friends that endeavor'd to defend his life will bleed rather in
the prosecution of their designs or forc'd them to pronounce such as should be to their advantage This course was taken by Alexander the Great and Cleomenes by the former when he consulted the Pythian by the other when he consulted the Delphick Oracle both which they forc'd to say what they pleas'd themselves Thence it came that most of the ancient Philsophers exclaim'd against them and the Platonists who made a greater account of them then any of the other Sects acknowledge that they are no other then the most despicable Devils and those of the lowest rank who engage themselves in that employment which they must needs practise in desert and dreadful places to the end there might be fewer witnesses of their weakness and impostures These are apparent in their very Answers which if not false were so ambiguous or at least so obscure that many times there needed another Oracle to explain them Nor were they in vogue but during the darkness of Paganism which being dispell'd by the light of the Gospel those Oracles never durst appear in that glorious day which would have discover'd their lying and falshood The Second said That the Art of Divination being conjectural and grounded on experience as well as several others of that nature it is not to be admir'd that the Answers of those who heretofore made profession thereof were not always true and therefore it is as irrational a procedure to draw any consequences thence to its prejudice as to infer that the Precepts of Medicine are false because the Physician does not always make his Prognosticks aright The General of an Army may sometimes proceed upon wrong grounds and the expert Pilot may run upon those shelves and rocks which he most endeavours to avoid True it is that the subtilty of the Devil and depravedness of Mankind have foisted abundance of abuses into the business of Oracles especially in the erecting of those Statues to those fabulous Divinities which they commonly made of Olive-tree Lawrel Vine Cedar or some such kind of wood full of unctuous moisture which they said were the tears or sweat of their false Gods as also in the pompous Ceremonies wherewith they amused the credulous Vulgar Such were those of Trophonius among the Thebans who answer'd only those who being clad in white descended through a hole of the cave into his Temple and there offered cakes to the Spirits which inhabited it after which they were convey'd out at another place of the cave where they drunk the Water of the Fountain of Memory which caus'd them to remember whatever they had heard as they had drunk that of Lethe before they had entred into it which had caus'd them to forget all affairs of the World But we are not hence to conclude that all Oracles were false nor doubt of the validity of that sublime Art upon its being disparag'd by those who have profess'd it since it hath its grounds not only in the inclination of mens minds who having an extraordinary earnestness to know things to come there must needs be some Science for the attaining of that Knowledge otherwise Nature who had imprinted that desire in him should contrary to her custom have done something in vain but also in the dispositions of that Temperament which is subject to Melancholy or black Choler For the former of these is the Temperament of the more ingenious sort of people according to the Philsopher in his Problems and the other being more resplendent is that of persons enclin'd to Divination occasion'd by the clear representation of the Species in that humour which being bright and smooth as a Mirrour cannot so well be discover'd by those who are not of that Constitution to which Plato in his Memnon attributes the cause of Apollo's Priestesse's pronouncing the Oracles in Hexameter Verse though she had never learnt Poesie and Pompanatius in his Books of Enchantments affirms that it caus'd a Woman who never was out of Mantua where she was born to speak several strange Languages The Third said That Divination being above the reach of our Understanding as much as this latter is below the Divinity which hath reserv'd to it self the priviledge of a distinct knowledge of things to come it is to no purpose to seek for the true causes of it in our selves but we are to find them in the Heavens whence if we may believe the Professors of Astrology that quality of Divination or Prediction is communicated to Men by the interposition of the Intelligences whereby those vast Bodies are moved and that Science taught by making it appear how great a correspondence there is between the effects of the sublunary Bodies and the superior causes on which they depend and wherein they are potentially comprehended even before they are actually existent Whereto if you add the concourse of the Universal Spirit which equally animates the whole world and the parts whereof it consists and which meeting with convenient dispositions in the minds of men and the several places where Oracles have been given inspir'd those extraordinary motions which have rais'd the Spirit of man and open'd its way into effects the most at a distance from his knowledge Admitting I say such a concourse there may some probable reason be given of these Predictions not only of things whose causes being natural and necessary their effects are infallible such as are Eclipses the Rising Setting and Regular Motions of the Planets or of those whose causes are only probable as it is reported that Pherecydes foretold a dreadful Earth-quake by the boyling up of the water in his own Well and Thales foresaw the scarcity of Olives in the Territories of Athens But also of effects which having only contingent or free causes lie not so obvious to discovery and yet these being denoted by the general causes such as are the Heavens and the Universal Spirit those persons who have clear-sighted and illuminated Souls may perceive them therein even before they happen The Fourth said That there are three general causes of Oracles one Supernatural another Artificial and the third Natural and that not to speak any thing of the Supernatural whereof the Devils were the Authors and made use of it to continue still in their first Rebellion when they attempted to ascend into the Throne of God and be like him nor yet of their Artificial Cause which was certain persons devoted to their worship who retiring into Caves and Subterraneous places were incited by those evil Spirits to that sordid Ministry that so by that means they might lay snares for the simple who were easily drawn away by these false Lights The Natural Cause of those Oracles especially such as were pronounc'd out of the celebrated Caves and Grots of Antiquity was a subtile Exhalation rais'd out of those places which fastening on the Spirits of the Prophet or Prophetess already dispos'd to receive that impression had the same Influence on them as the fumes of Wine have on those who drink it to
Xenophanes on the two latter joyntly Hippon on Fire and Water Parmenides on Fire and Earth Empedocles and most of the other Naturalists on those four Elements together which yet as some affirmed could not execute the function of Principles without the assistance of other Superiours such as Hesiod maintains to be Chaos and Love Antiphanes Silence and Voice the Chaldaeans Light and Darkness the Mathematicians Numbers and among others the Tetrad which the Pythagoreans affirm to be the source of all things the Peripateticks Matter Form and Privation Anaxagoras the Similar Parts and Democritus his Atoms so called by reason of their smalness which renders them invisible and incapable of being distinguish'd and divided into other lesser Particles though they have quantity and are of so great a bulk as to be thereby distinguish'd from a Mathematical Point which hath not any as being defin'd to be what hath not any part and what is so imperceptible and small that it can hardly fall under our External Senses but is only perceivable by reason The same thing may also be said of the other qualities of these Atoms which Epicurus who receiv'd them from Democritus as he had the knowledge of them from Leucippus and he again from one Moschus Phoenician who liv'd before the Trojan Warr made it not so much his business to lay them down for the first Causes and general Principles of Natural Things as to take away the four common Elements since he does not deny but that these are constitutive parts of the world and whatever is comprehended therein But his main work is to maintain that they not the first seeds and immediate Principles thereof as consisting themselves of Atoms or little Bodies so subtile and small that they cannot be broken or made less and being the most simple and next pieces whereof mixt bodies are made up and whereto they are afterwards reducible by dissolution there is some reason to give them the denomination of the first material and sensible principles of natural bodies The Second said That if these Atoms be allow'd to be the principles of natural bodies these last will be absolutely unknown to us as being made up of infinite principles which being incapable of falling under our knowledge it will be impossible for us to come to that of the mixt bodies which are to consist of them Whence it will follow that though the Atoms should be such as the Philosophers would perswade us they are yet would not our Understanding which cannot comprehend any thing but what is finite be ever the more satisfy'd since it would not be able to conceive them nor consequently the things which should be produc'd of them Nor is it to be imagin'd that those things would differ among themselves since that according to their sentiment those little chimerical bodies are not any way distinguish'd but all of the like nature and of the same substance The Third said That though there be not any essential difference in the Atoms yet is it certain That they make remarkable diversity in the production of things by the properties and different qualities that are in each of them whereof there are two kinds Common and Proper The proper are Largeness of Bulk Figure Motion and Resistance the common are Concourse Connexion Situation and Order which are generally competible to all Atoms as the four others are proper and particular to them Their bulk is not to be consider'd as if they had any considerable quantity there being no Atom how great soever it may be but is infinitely less then the least body in the World being for that reason so imperceptible that it is impossible for the sight to distinguish it Yet does not that hinder but that they are bodies and consequently have quantity which is a property inseparable from bodies as Mites Hand-worms and such other little Animals which by their extreme litleness elude our sight do nevertheless consist of diverse parts miraculously discoverable by Magnifying-glasses nay to the observance of Veins Arteries Nerves and such like obscure parts answerable to those which reason obliges us to admit though our senses cannot attain thereto It being the property of figure to follow quantity which it determinates and qualifies it is necessary that if the atoms are different as to bulk they should be the same also as to figure which being observable when bodies are broken into great pieces and those appearing with superficies angles and points diversly figur'd they must still retain some figure even after they are pounded in a mortar into small parcels and particles though our senses by reason of their weakness are not able to comprehend it To the same weakness it is to be attributed that we are not able to discern the diversity of figures in grains of corn and other seeds which seem to be in a manner alike though they are not such no more than the leaves of Trees and Plants Nay even in Drops of water and Eggs though in appearance there is a likeness so great that it is come into a Proverb yet is there so remarkable a diversity when it is strictly observ'd that there were heretofore in the Island of Delos certain people so expert that among several Eggs they would tell which had been laid by such or such a Hen. The hair of our heads a thing to some would seem incredible have particular figures whereby they are distinguish'd one from another The figures of Atoms are of that rank as are also those of the Moats which are seen playing and dancing up and down in the beams of the Sun when darted in at a narrow passage for though they seem to be all round yet examin'd with that instrument which magnifies the species of things we find in them an infinite number of other figures In like manner is it requisite that the Atoms should have the same difference of figures that they may the more fitly concur to the mixture and generation of Bodies To that end the maintainers of this opinion affirm that some are round some oval some oblong some pointed some forked some concave some convex some smooth and even some rough and rugged and of other such like figures as well regular as irregular in order to the diversity of their motions Of these there are three kinds assigned according to the first the Atom moves downwards by its own weight according to the second it moves upwards and according to the third it moves indirectly and from one side to another These two last are violent motions but the first is natural to the Atom to which Epicurus attributes a perpetual motion which causing it to move incessantly towards the lowest place it still makes that way of its own nature till such time as in its progress it hath met with other Atoms which coming to strike against it if they are the stronger they force it upwards or of one side according to the part of it which had receiv'd the shock and so clinging one
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