mixed or peculiar natures made at the first Creation with other kinds of natural things as the principles of their kind which among themselves and mixed with the Elements give convenient matter to other natural things subject to generation and corruption as Metals Minerals Gems Stones Plants and Animals When I say they were mixed I deny not the concurrence of other Elements to their constitution as resolving of them doth prove to the Chymists Moreover I suppose that they have their peculiar forms from God in the first Creation as was given to other kinds of natural things as Scaliger saith Exercit. 138. s 20. The form of every perfectly mixed body though it be not a Soul as in a Diamond is of a fifth Nature and far differing from the four Elements And I suppose that from these diversly mixed by concurrence of the Elements the divers bodies of natural things are made and that the divers qualities and accidents come immediately from the same as from their first and proper subjects which others in vain bring from the Elements only for there is no force in the Elements to produce scents savors and colours And if there be any it is that Spirit which Aristotle saith is like the Element of the Stars And let none think that there is a matter required for mixture from the regions of the four Elements for when God created the Elements he mixed them by his Word and gave them their peculiar forms and seminal and essential reasons like those of Heaven and so he keeps on still the course of Nature by propagation of the species in the Individuals And now since the Creation those principles are to be seen in the Water and the Earth from divers corruptions For as the order in Nature is that inferior things should serve the superior so it is in bodies the Elements are first thence Salt Sulphur and Mercury or the first mixture by what Name soever termed which though made of Elements yet have they forms by which they differ that arise not from the forms of the Elements mixed together but from the first Creation Then from these being diversly mixed by concurrence of the Elements Minerals Metals Stones and Gemms Plants and Animals receive their matter and bodies in which by the form of every species they are diversly bounded as we see Salt drawn from the Earth may be taken out of the Plants that drew it and Creatures feeding upon plants are changed but never plainly change their Nature And this is not against the Ancients though these names are not mentioned it is sufficient that the thing is stil extant and we may put new names to things newly known because words are at mens disposing Hippocrates saith Lib. de nathuma That Plants drew not only heat and cold moisture and driness or that which was mixed of them but whatsoever was in the Earth agreeable to their Nature whether four or bitter sweet or salt And man is nourished of them and every living creature also and therefore they are in man and them and natural bodies are made of them being mixed and when they are well tempered together they cannot be seen nor be troublesom to man But when they are not well tempered they offend he writes thus Heat alone is not the cause of a disease Hippocr lib de veceri medici but heat and bitterness or heat and sharpness or heat and saltness and many more are the causes of diseases Hence the cure of pestilent malignant and venemous diseases is divers and hence are the divers Symptomes in malignant and pestilent Feavers and constitutions which cannot be from only putrefaction or distemper And though Hippocrates names not plainly Salt Sulphur and Mercury yet the Chymists cal them four bitter and salt But by what arguments we may prove there are such Principles First wheresoever the same affects and qualities are in many they must be in them by some common principle as all things are heavy by reason of the earth and hot by reason of the fire but colours scents savors and the like are in Minerals Metals Stones Jewels and Plants Therefore they are in them by some common principle and subject but the Elements are not such a principle because they have no power to produce such qualities Therefore we must search for some other principles And they are deceived who think to prove colours scents and savors to come from the Elements The next is the argument of Galen and Aristotle Arist 3. de coel c. 3. Gal. lib. 2. de ele c 3. Natural bodies are made of such things as they are resolved into but they are resolved into those three principles therefore they are made of them It is evident that Salt is in all things and may be drawn from them as from Plants and Animals And though Chymists say that Metals are made only of Sulphur and Mercury yet they speak of the next principles as Physitians when they say that seed and blood are the principles of mans body deny not the four Elements And he that knows Metals right and can make Crystals of thē may easily find Salt in them And though all mixed bodies tast not Salt yet it doth not thence follow that there is no salt in them nor can we deny fire to be in all mixtures though all things are not felt to be hot nor is this Salt to be accounted earth because Salt is hot and dry and clensing but earth is cold and dry What I have said of Salt may be said of Sulphur it is plain to be found not only in Plants In praesat in Georg. Agricolam but Metals and Minerals and as Cornelius Martin writes Sulphur is in all Metals except gold I mean combustible Sulphur that will flame and smell as the ordinary Brimstone Nor are they bound to shew the pure principles it is enough to shew the bodies in which they excel The forms of Chymical Elements or Principles do not their duty then Zabarel de generat interm c. 2. but since forms are made for a more active composition the superiors are made subject and are instead of matter and are called hot or dry as they are mixed by the predominate Element So from these principles are four salt combustible and scented things and when a mixed body is corrupted some parts turn to fire earth and air others into Salt others into Sulphur and to be plain and short the Chymical principles are in other mixtures as the Elements are in them and are so brought forth now in the next Chapter we shal shew how Elements are in mixed bodies but for the matter in hand I am of their side that hold the Elements are whole in mixed bodies according to their forms and when a mixed body is resolved again into the Elements the Elements return not again in specie or kind but in number I shal stand to this till I am convinced by solid reason Nor is the same quantity of Salt or
Sulphur drawn by the same fire out of any body for much Salt is drawn from Wormwood Fennel Vine-branches but very little from the Gourd or Cowcumber But they object that the resolution is artificial not natural and the axiome that all things are made of such things as they are resolved into is ment of natural not artificial resolution But we deny that Chymical resolutions are not natural if we consider the immediate agent though the Artificer be joyned for they are from heat and fire which are natural causes as for example When a plant is burnt to make Salt the action is plainly natural not in respect of the plant which is destroyed but in respect of the agent When the spirit of Wine is raised by heat the action is as natural as when the same spirit is sent to the brain by the heat of the stomach and liver or when a thing is evaporated by the heat of the Sun Therefore we say the thing made by the Chymists is natural in its being the action of heat by which it is made is natural and the motion of the thing is natural But it is artificial in respect of the Chymists putting it into a vessel and applying fire to it nor is it any otherwise artificial then health which is recovered by the help of a Physitian The use of Chymical principles is that the proprieties which are in mixed bodies and cannot be immediately shewed from the Elements may be shewed from them as the next and proper principles as it is plain in the searching out of the faculties of Medicines For though Erastus thinks that all these may be fetcht from the Elements he proves it not let them tell me why when Opiats are distilled the vapors cause sleep so that the servants are many times sound asleep other vapors do not the same Why doth the fume of Lead and Quicksilver corrode gold not the fume of Vitriol and other things Why doth only a flegm distil from spirit of Vitriol and sealed Earth These questions cannot be answered without the Principles of the Chymists onely from the Doctrine of the Elements and Meteors Nor do I think all the proprieties of bodies are to be reduced to the Chymical principles for some come from nobler forms as I shewed Nor am I of opinion in all things and I dispute not here whether the force of purging be from Salt only in general I say some properties are from Salt others from Sulphur and in what mixture soever such a property is found there you must seek for the principle hence arise the profitable separations of Chymists But note these common Principles as such are not proper and next principles of particular affects nor is force of purging from Salt nor is a narcotick force from Sulphur as Sulphur for then all Salts would purge and all Sulphur would be narcotick But these principles as they are common are only the principles of common affects but the special affects come from determinate principles So we have shewed in general that besides the Elements there are other principles of mixed things nor is the generation made immediately from the Elements but there are other bodies which as the first subjects some qualities do flow which cannot come from the Elements which Hippocrates acknowledged and the Chymists have given them names and I care not what the names are so the thing be true But as for the species number and nature of particulars it is not clear I will pin my self upon no mans sleeve but give my judgment not to dissent but consent with the Aristotelians and Galenists if it may be The three Principles are Salt Sulphur and Mercury I 'le give my judgment of every one First for Salt Lib. 31. hist nat c. 7. it is so plainly in every natural body that Pliny saith Salt is a necessary Element only consider the growth of Plants what makes them fruitful and flourish the chief cause is piss which hath much Salt and consider that there is no art used As for the properties of Salt It is first a thing to be tasted and all things to be tasted are so from Salt nor is Kitchin-salt the only Salt but that in Mustard Rhadish Garlick Vinegar Choler Allum Vitriol and the like And because tast and feeling are senses united and have objects alike acrimony is ascribed also to Salt and that which twitcheth the feeling is Salt Hence there is in smoak Radishes Watercresses Onions and the like force to twitch the eyes from the volatile Salt in them Secondly Salt will melt in moisture and be hard in a dry place which earth will not and though earth dissolve in water yet it melts not in it as Salt much less will earth melt in a moist air as Salt wil. Thirdly from Salt is the coagulation of all things the Crystal and Diamond are hard from Salt the Metals are strong also Bones Herbs and Trees consist by it Also the stone in the bladder and kidnies grow together from Salt The Chymists prove this by many things in the Sea that grow as Coral and Waters that make stones the growing of Vitriol and Allum and other Salts in the water Moreover they who have the stone piss like snot or the white of an egg which taken into a clout turns to a stone and it hath much Salt because it is sharp and corroding and causeth pain in pissing the cause of these cannot be heat cold or driness For stones bred in the bladder in cold and membranous parts and in infants in whom there is no excess of heat but manifest signs of crudity And how can a stone-making juyce be caused of heat in a cold Well that turns sticks into stones Nor can cold be the cause because stones are found in the arteries of the heart and in the heart and lungs Nor are these causes by accident or by drying up the moisture for in some waters things turn to stone of which Anshelme Boetius speaks Lib. 2. de gemmis c. 300. Also stones breed in the kidnies and bladder where moisture is never wanting and there can be no such drying Hence they think it in vain to seek for the cause of concretion in external causes but to consider the internal matter and disposition by which stones are made hard nor are they against Philosophy I shall deliver my opinion in short First there are many equivocations by which they are bafled in the causes of coagulation and concretion for concretion and coagulation are not the same for juyces and gums and water and many other things may be concreted as ice by cold and clay by the Sun There is Crystal and glass and solid Metal but they are not concreted from the same cause nor is water or Crystal hard or concreted from the same cause To speak distinctly the question is not here of things which are coagulated and made hard only by driness after the moisture is consumed by which they were soft before or
Chyle then Blood Choler or Flegm c. Severinus is out when he saith there is blood in Balsom with spirit flesh bones ligaments and nerves and that these are seperated from it by help of the mechanick spirits There is in all sood somthing familiar to us that turns nourishment and may have divers forms as the parts are to which it comes call it Balsom or Mummy I am indifferent but I allow not that the things mentioned should be contained in them and be only made known and separated by the mechanick spirits Thus we should say with Anaxagoras that all things are in al things and there is no true generation But when chyle is made of bread blood of chyle bones membranes flesh of blood in every change there is a new form And every part hath force to turn its nourishment into its own nature which is the peculiar faculty of the vegetative soul what we have spoken of blood and humors is meant of alimentary humors that make blood We shall speak of excrementitious humors in the next Chapter in the Causes of Diseases Lastly They make two Anatomies the one local which they esteem little as the dissecting of bodies to see the shape figure and position and number of parts this they called a dead Anatomy for Butchers by which the Carcass is only seen but not the secrets of the nature of man The other they cal essential vital formal by by which every body is dissolved into its principles Paracel de orig morb ae tribus primis substantiis c. 6. alibi Severin c. 3. alibi passim he that wil try this must first know the nature of seeds and properties the offices of the elements and of the principles the roots of generation and transplantation the laws of Astronomy and the disposition not of the dead but of the whole living body Therefore they say the heart is wheresoever there is vital heat The Stomach is every cavity or place of concoction The womb is every place where there is seed of any fruit and they think the consideration of the great world is chiefly to be had in this Anatomy They say whatsoever is in the great world is also in man not according to a superficial likeness but indeed and according to the species and that man contains all things in himself though invisibly As to the local Anatomy they speak of they dishonor it for Anatomy is much beyond a Butchers work for by it all parts are artificially found out and their constitution and use Thus did Galen in his Book of the use of parts and others which if Paracelsus had read he had not written so absurdly They arrogate to themselves only the vital Anatomy but the Galenists had it as you may see in Galens Books of the faculties of nature of the Seed of the sorming of the Infant of Breathing temperaments Elements c. in which he speaks of the faculties of the soul which govern the body and of the instruments thereof in action Yet if the Chymists by their Principles can give it more light we wil accept of it thankfully But they here rather quible with words and with new terms they sell the opinions of the Ancients as their own and do little discover them or clear them up as when they say the heart is wheresoever there is vital heat It is the part of a wise Philosopher to call things by their own names and not so to quible with names as to confound things that are distinct Chap. 16. of Pathologie or Diseases THe Chymists seem also to enlarge the Pathological part of Physick Ideae Philos c. 13. when they suppose that the antecedent cause the Disease and the Symptom differ not in kind essence or specifical propreties but only in power and act Thus Severinus and that they differ no otherwise then a sleeping Physitian doth from the same being awake brimstone not burning from that which burneth salt not dissolved from that which is dissolved therefore he supposeth names are to be given from the roots as from the hidden roots of diseases in intermitting feavers when no heat is fired in the heart while the feaver lies close in the body and not from the antecedent cause But Galen doth better divide all things that are besides nature in mans body into three Cap. 12. that is the disease the cause and the symptom and there is no Discipline that makes no difference between the causes and the effects therfore it must be in Physick for the humors are the causes the diseases the effects and again the symptoms are effects of them both and all these differ in their whole essence and nature Therefore Severinus writes foolishly saying That which is most remote from producing of an effect is a genus that which is nearest to the individual is the species and the effect is the individual He makes the most general genus or kind to be the stony tartarous Mucilages in fruits and those in the stomach and guts to be the sudordinate genus But when they cause diseases and symptoms they are species and the last actions being hurt or hindered are the individuals But every true Philosopher may perceive this absurdity He writes like a fool when he saith he saw a feaver vomited forth for he saw the cause but not the feaver And more simply when he saies that matter so vomited up shaked for a time like an ague But either he read not or observed not what Galen and Galenists have written concerning the shaking of feavers But these Severinians are offended that the names of diseases are not given from the causes But they are unreasonable to think names must be given as they please and that fit names may be rejected Therefore it is not bad to define a feaver from its essence then let them enquire into the nature of the cause and whether the cause of a feaver may be called Choler or Sulphur Nor do the Galenists allows eye the disease alone but look often more at the cause much less do they only observe the symptoms for many of them come often from the same cause and one somtimes from divers causes and if these be not diligently disting dished he plaies the Emperick and will be deceived and if the Chymists will help us in curing we shall thank them As for the nature of a disease Paracelsus errs exceedingly when he saith a disease is a substance and that the disease is a whole man and hath an invisible body and this he shews by the Jaundies But every disease is nothing else but a quality in the body besides Nature Lib. 2. de morb podag by which the body is so disposed that it is unfit for its proper actions Now all error is from this that as plants come from their seeds so they think diseases do also and the true cure of a disease is nothing else but the taking away of those seeds and if they be not taken away by changing
here he did ill for all Physitians have acknowledged diet to be necessary to the cure of all diseases and he that neglects it finds it by experience In feavers it is plain for if the patient eat too freely or that which is improper he relapseth And in many diseases good diet is half the cure As for Physick let us consider the universal Medicine which the Chymists so commend by which a man may be preserved from diseases to the determinated time of his life as Robert Valensis writes Lib. de verit Chymiae This as Arnold de Vill a nova faith Hath vertue and force above all Medicines to cure all diseases both hot and cold because it is of an occult and subtile Nature it keeps Nature in health strengthens its vertues and makes the old young and expels all infirmities c. But many Chymists think there is no such universal Medicine that can cure all diseases in similary and organical parts in excess and defect and in conformation They confess that wounds fractures and luxations Ruptures and the like which require Chyrurgery are not ment here They except also the stone hereditary diseases hecticks and diseases in number deficient fixed Cancers and Gangrenes because God alone not man can cure all diseases only they are only curable with this universal Medicine that come from the inward fault of the humors or as they say Which spring from an internal Root And they call it a Medicine of much use as the Ancients called it a Panacea But the Chymists brag of this but few or none have explained it They say it is enough to know the patient to be sick and that next to the Word of God by which eternal life is promised there is nothing more precious but this Medicine is rather to be wished then hoped for nor was that yet found that hath done that which the Philosophers stone doth in transmutation of Metals it is plain and many of our age have had it but it is not evident what it hath done in curing diseases nor yet any thing proved by good witness If this Philosophers-stone can trāsmute ignoble Metals yet it follows not that it is an universal medicine for they should first prove it upon thēselves as Paracelsus and others that bragged of the Philosophers-stone and yet died all young But they which have this universal Medicine and do hide it have no mercy like Christians when they see so many men tormented and will not help them Nor are good things to be concealed because they are abused I doubt whether a Christian Physitian can with a safe conscience conceal a Medicine that can cure great diseases and if he do he doth not like a Christian that must love his neighbor as himself They agree not among themselves in determinating this Medicine for many take it for the Philosophers-stone yet Scheunaman makes the leaves of black Hellebore almost equal to the Philosophers-stone and saith that they being brought into a Balsom make a man live a second age and do purge beyond all There are three opinions of the universal Medicine The first is of them that think that it cures all diseases not primarily but secondarily by strengthening Nature wonderfully for according to Hippocrates Nature is the Physitian she concocts separates voideth and takes away all faintness And here the Chymists extol their Quintessence and Balsom and their incomparable vital Sulphur they call the secret flower the Sun and the Heaven They say their Quintessence and aetherial Spirit diffused through all natural things is the fountain of all vigor and actions In Animals it gives soul in Vegetables it gives growth and vegetation in Minerals and Metals it doth according to them In men it makes concoction and Crisis and then triumphs over his conquered enemy They say this Spirit and Quincessence and Balsomick Medicine comes from the great World to the less that the spirit in the body of man being helped by external aid that is by this strengthener may oppose diseases more valiantly and either change what is foul in the body to a natural state and expel it Some say this is to be done by Chymistry so that it may easily agree and be united to our natural heat and radical moisture and spirit and increase it and raise it to the height of purity And though this quintessence be in all things yet it is more in some then in others And the universal Medicine is to be made of that in which this Quintessence doth most abound but what and what kind of matter it is they do not explain Of this first opinion I think thus First I admit of what they say touching the strength of inbred spirit The Galenists teach this only let us have the soul to be the principle agent this inbred spirit Inst l 5. p. 1. s 1. c. 3. to be only an instrument of it Nor do I wholly reject their Quintessence but admit it so as I shewed in my Institutions namely to be somthing like to the Element of the Heavens a spirit such as is in wine by which it so strengthens the body and refresheth the spirits and by Chymical resolution you may shew it in all plants And many Galenists confess that there is in Medicines not onely that which works by the first qualities Part. 2. disp contra Paracels but by a nobler force Therefore Erastus speaks too rash to call the Quintessence a Dream of idle persons that desire to cheat But let us grant them this and that there is Nature that which abounds with this Quintessence and Spirit which being artificially prepared hath great power to strengthen and therefore may be called an universal Medicine Yet they prove not that it can cure all diseases without purgers alterers and openers and the like And it cannot be that Nature should purge water in a Dropsie with Medicines that move the belly or discuss the nodes in the Gout or the Stone without help of Medicines And though all diseases should come from the hurt of the vital spirit yet the cause of that hurt may be manifold therefore to restore the spirits divers Medicines must be given according to the variety of causes that hinder it Therefore it is not sufficient that the spirit which governs the whole body be strengthened but the strength of every privat part must be preserved The second opinion is of those that allow not only force to the universal Medicine to strengthen the inbred Balsom and Spirit but to dissolve consume and dissipate the seminary tinctures and impurities or diseases and causes thereof But let us consider if this may be to defend their opinion they say that fire burns all things Antimony consumes all Metals mixed with gold and hurts not that therefore the same may be by the universal Medicine which like a purging fire consumes all the impurities of our bodies Secondly they say as there are poysons as Arsenick and that of a mad Dog which hurts
doth the Chymist transmute the thing but makes one thing of another by the power of nature As that which is extracted from Rhubarb in the Spirit of Wine or other liquor is the same in number and species with that in which the force of purging depends in Rhubarb being whole And so we grant that as he that gives butter doth not give all the milk so he that gives the Extract of Rhubarb gives it not all but onely that part in which the force of purging lieth Therefore medicines made by solution are not of the same species with the whole but are of the same kind with the parts of the whole from which they were made Let us conclude thus he that will be a true Physitian needs not only medicines to cure as an Emperick but he must follow method and his indications otherwise he will do more hurt then good for the abuse of the best thing is the worst Therefore Erastus saith well He doth least hurt in most diseases Part. 4. disput contra Parac that useth vulgarly prepared Medicines but he doth much hurt that gives Chymical Physick where it is not needful or gives them not aright This is to teach young Physitians that think themselves wiser then others and neglect all vulgar remedies approved by long experience and use only Chymical medicines lately invented and not well approved and so get a fame And to teach some Galenists that being ignorant of Chymistry yet to seem inseriour to none give dangerous Chymical medicines not knowing their strength and preparation The Chymists offend in this at this time who being ignorant of all other parts of Physick yet having a little skil in Chymical operations contemn other Physitians and proclame their own perfection and so with the Cobler they go beyond their last Let us now discuss the Controversie whether we must use contraries or things like for curing diseases It is an old Axiom Contraries are cured by contraries whence Hippocrates defines Physick to be addition and substraction that is to add things defective by the like and to substract or take away what aboundeth and happens to the body besides nature by the contrary For curing is a motion from a disease to health Arist 5. metaphys and motion is respect of a contrary The modern Chymists say that like cures like and when there may be a twofold similitude with the disease and with nature they understand both because Hippocrates saith Nature is the Physitianess of diseases and remedies are in vain when she resisteth Hence Galen shews that the vital indication is to be preferred before all therefore things are to be given which are like and familiar with nature Then they think that things alike are to be given in respect of the disease and its causes for purges attract vitious humors by the similitude of the whole substance and Alterers must be like to the part to which they are applied and there are proper medicines for every part some for the heart others for the brain and liver Then they say that diseases arising from Salt are cured by Salts and those from Sulphur by Sulphur But this Controversie is rather in words then things First they agree in this that alwaies there is a care to be had of the strength and it must be preserved by its like nor doth the other Axiom oppose this namely That contraries are cured by contraries For here we must distinguish between a vital and a curing indication in species And when Hippocrates saith Contraries are cured by contraries he speaks not of a vital Indication but of taking away what is preternatural and must be only ment so Hence it is that the patient desires contrary things to the disease as when he thirsteth he desires drink which is the cure of thirst for it is not the disease that desires remedies as the thirst doth not require drink but the thirsty and so by this general rule whatsoever is besides nature is to be taken away Nor do the Galenists deny that medicines are to be chosen which are familiar and proper to the part affected which familiarity is in similitude and an occult Sympathy Thirdly I suppose the Dispute is not of the contrariety of Alterers nor is there any Paracelsian so simple that will give a hot remedy as hot against a hot disease as so or thinks that a dried body as such is to be more dried For experience is against them and sense not onely in men but beasts who in great heat require to be cooled and in cold to be warmed Therefore the Axiom of Hippocrates remains unshaken which Galen confirms Lib. 9. meth c. 15. That the Remedies of contraries are contrary And though the Galenists contend among themselves about this and some would overthrow it yet hitherto they have not Therefore the Controversie remains about the causes whether remedies must be like or contrary unto them If by contrary we understand whatsoever is effectively so or that can produce an effect contrary to the preternatural affect I suppose the Chymists will not be against us for they give their medicines for that end namely that the cause and the disease may be taken away and not increased Nor do any of them deny that of Hippocrates 3. Aphor. 22. That diseases from fulness must be cured by evacuation The question then is How ought medicines to be against the causes of diseases according to internal strength and nature and substance Here lies the great wheel of the Controversie for the Paracelsian Chymists refer diseases or the causes of them to their Principles and cal some Sulphurous some Salt and some Mercurial the Sulphurous they say are to be cured by Sulphur the Salt by Salt and the Mercurial by Mercury if Sulphur be on fire it must be quenched and in this they admit of contrarieties but only by sulphurous medicines and so they think of salt and tartarous diseases as the stone which is to be cured by Tartar Hence the stones in Cattel and other Creatures are good to break it and the Jew-stone in the stone of the kidnies bladder and roots of Butchers-broom Smallage Marshmallows and so they say that the disease alwaies denotes the remedy In this the Galenists and Paracelsians seem to differ let us labor to reconcile them And first most Galenists to allow that Purges do attract foul humors by a familiarity of substance which doth not overthrow that old Axiom that contraries are cured by contraries For they are alwaies effectively contrary for the disease is alwales taken away by contraries mediately or immediately by it self or by accident and though Rhubarb attract choler by the likeness of its substance yet it causeth choler to be purged therefore Aristotle writes well 1. De gen ercor c. 7. the patient and the agent are the same in general and alike but unlike in species and such are contrary Nor do the Chymists deny contrariety when â—hey say Salt cures Salt for some
words into an ancient Discipline and to change the custom of an art and to desire to bind up the art to such terms rather let the words be retained which use hath approved which is to judg of the force and form of speaking Let us come to the new way of teaching and knowing which they propound Hitherto reason and experience were the original of all knowledg and whatsoever agreed with them was accounted true and what differed from them was rejected And therefore the Works of Hippocrates Aristotle and Galen are highly esteemed But Paracelsus and his followers propound all their opinions without foundation and begin a new way of knowing In Praef. admonit p. 3. of which Crollius speaks at large A Physitian saith he must have the light of Nature and grace from the internal and visible Man an internal Angel and light of Nature And if you ask what this light of Nature is he saith It is the Firmament that gives man all things naturally If it be asked again Why they who teach in the Universities have not the light of Nature alike He answers nothing clearly but flies to the light of grace and speaks of Paracelsus That he was undoubtedly by the favour of Heaven made the Prince and Monarch of all Physick but shews not how Therefore false Chymistry hath its peculiar Religion for because they think they have reformed or perfected all Philosophy Physick they stay not there but proceed to Divinity and mix prophane and holy things together and so they bring in any absurdity and dispute wonderfully of the Kingdom of the Blessed the Angels Miracles Faith and the Resurrection But to come to our purpose natural all knowledge is so far true as it agrees with things for things measure our knowledg but not on the cōtrary nor are things so because we think the so but because they are so we think them to be so when we know rightly and this being not naturally in us must come from without Before the Fall Adam had that knowledg but none hath it since Therefore whatsoever men know is either immediately revealed from God by revelation or learned another way Since therfore the words of Paracelsus cannot challeng to themselves a peculiar illumination nor can we grant it they must needs learn as other men did and do and learn knowledg from things There is a twofold faculty of knowing in man sense and understanding Things are presented by the external senses to the fancy and by that to the understanding And the soul while it is in the body understands not without a phantasm and the beginning of knowledg is from the senses and we make principles from those things that senses have comprehended without error From principles we go to things unknown which may be concluded from them This is the ordinary way of knowing and learning by which the unlearned learn from the wise and are instructed either by speech or books Thus were all the Paracelsians taught for this cause Paracelsus took such long journies Crollius writes that he got his Chymistry by long travel pains and watchings and observations This may be spoken of others of that gang Chap. 6. Of the Analogie of the great and little World THe whole Philosophy of Paracelsus is built upon the Analogie of the great and little World which they extend largely And they of Marpurg write the opinion of the Chymists thus The Chymists call Man a little World Disp 8. not from a superficial likeness but because he comprehends indeed and according to the species though invisibly all things in himself that are contained in a visible form in the three Kingdoms Vegetal Animal and Mineral and in the whole World This is gathered from divers places in Paracelsus his Works Crollius in his Preface writes thus A man is a circle that contains in it all creatures Man carries all things about him the whole Firmament and all the Stars and Planets Man hath the parts of all the world and there is nothing in it that is not really in him He communicates with God in his mind with Angels in his reasonable soul and his invisible star-like body and with the Stars with the same invisible body and with the Elements by his visible earthly body They say there are two bodies in every man the one physical elementary visible and to be touched made of earth which the first man had from the earth Another invisible insensible from the Stars Crollius pag. 36. calls this the Genius Houshold God shadow of Man the little Man that the wise knew Evester and I know not what Severinus speaks warier of this and dissents not from it On the contrary the Aristotelians and the Galenists use the same words with a divers meaning Disp 3. contra Paracel And though man be called often a Microcosm yet they render another reason why he is so called as saith Erastus He hath a visible Elementary body a Heavenly soul that hath power to grow and nourish as in Plants sensible as in Brutes and the mind is Angelical Also he is like the World in the position of his members and rise of them For there are three parts of the great World The Elementary Coelestial and Supercaelestial To these three man answers by the head breast and belly the last Religion answers the Elementary in which there is perpetual generation and corruption By the breast in which the fountain of vital heat he answers to the Heavens in which is the Sun the original of heat to the world In his head where the mind abides and from which all senses come he is not only like the Coelestial and Angelical world but in that particular the image of God Hence we may gather that the Analogie of the great and little World In labyrin med errant is extended too large by the Chymists because they make not an Analogie but an identity or the same thing For Paracelsus requires in a true Physitian that he say this is a Saphire in man this is Quicksilver this Cypress this a Walflower but no Paracelsian ever shewed this In this great world not only are the Heavens and Elements Metals and Minerals but Plants and Beasts Therefore Paracelsus and Severinus are out saying There is no flegm choler or melancholy in the great World therefore not in Man for humors are found in Beasts as in Men. Also I grant there are many hidden properties in man that agree with many natural things not only in general but with their species or kinds and also with their individuals and dissent also from them wonderfully Hence comes the Sympathy and Antipathy of many things with mans body The Astrologers affirm that peculiar Stars have agreement with the peculiar parts of our bodies But the sublunary things are better known Piony hung about the neck cures the Epilepsie Cantharides hurt the bladder and no other part the Saphire agrees with the heart also Bezoar and Pearl but the causes of this
mixed The modern Chymists follow Severinus and Crollius saith they are lighter but they are more dark Thus he writes In praefat admonit Our visible Elements are only the bodies and houses of others and keep off their force The Earth is twofold the outward visible the inward invisible The outward is not an Element but the body of the Element and is Salt Sulphur and Mercury but the Element of the Earth is Life and Spirit in which the Stars of the Earth lie which by the body of the Earth produce all growing things and so of the rest In which he follows the Doctrine of Paracelsus but differs from Severinus and other Chymists But many things here cannot be proved First they abuse the word Element contrary to the custom of all ages for it properly signifies the least part of that from which the thing is made as from its matter But their Elements are only places matrices receptacles And the place differs much from the matter The wiser Chymists have three principles that come from the Elements or are joyned in the composing of natural bodies But Paracelsus puts his principles before the Elements and from one mixture of Salt Sulphur and Mercury and makes Fire In labyr med err from another Air another Water and Earth which no Philosophy can allow Others make the Elements vile and servile Bodies in disgrace of God and Nature who made all very good They serve God and man and all sublunary creatures and so are to be commended nor are they by that of no value or relolling as they say For the Chymists know their actions who can do nothing with heat and cold They erre also in making the Elements gross Bodies though the Earth be Also they erre in calling them visible they may see Earth and Water but when they will see air or fire I know not They foolishly say they are dead because they never were alive And it is worse that they say The Earth is cursed As for their invisible Elements Inexam philoso we shal believe it when they prove any such hidden under these for their affirmations only cannot creat new beings Libavius writes well of Severinus The good man saith he speaks well as if he came from the treasure of Nature and saw all open but he proves nothing Severinus his Eloments being without bodies and dimensions are not to be allowed for all learned men say the principles of bodies are corporeal He saies they are not infinite therefore they have dimensions and bounds Nor doth it hang together when he calls these incorporeal Elements empty and void and allows to them contrariety and resistence and explains their invisible Nature It may be that Paracelsus put one Element within another for the form and beginning of action and original of all qualities for when the external visible Elements which are inferior to their internal have noble qualities their Elements must have more noble qualities and actions but they never shewed us any yet They say in general only that they are vital and strong to nourish the seed of generation Nor do they prove that seeds are without their species in the Elements as they say Nor did God put seeds in the Elements in the Creation but into the species of natural things in the Elements Nor are seeds seen out of the individuals in the Elements but only in the individuals of their species Nor did God say in the Creation Let the seeds of Plants be in the Elements the same reason is in Animals All things have their seed in themselves and multiply by force of the Divine Word and so the species are preserved And to that they say from Orpheus and Hippocrates We know they spake often from the opinion of the Vulgar and themselves and many things are attributed to Hippocrates which were not his And many absurdities are among the Ancients most from ignorance of the Creation Erastus examines their Doctrine at large As for the first qualities which they value not but call relolling and dead It is foolish to fight against the experience of fense by which it is plain that the first qualities have great force for generation and corruption of natural things and are as considerable as scent savor and colour While we desend the Elements we must not adhere to them alone as some Aristotle knew above the Elemēts as in his Books of the Soul And when he saith 2. de generat anim c. 3. The vertue and power of every soul partakes of another body which is more Divine then the Elements and as the souls are more or less noble so is the Nature of that body For there is in all seeds which makes them fruitful which is heat not a fire but a Spirit which is contained in the seed or froathy body And the Nature in that Spirit is like the Element of the Stars c. Alexander Aphrodisaeus saith many things are in Nature that are known only by experience In proemio probl and are called by Physitians secret proprieties and accuseth them that say the causes of such effects come from the Elements or their qualities Galen accuseth Pelops his Master Lib. 11. de simpl facult Exercit. 101. sect 14. because he would bring all things to manifest qualities and Scaliger saith it is great impudency to Cardan thus What evil genius hath lead thee to say that iron may draw the Loadstone only by mixture of Elements Hence we see that Galenists and Aristotelians are not drowned in the qualities of the Elements Also they knew the Sympathy and Antipathy of things and we defend not them that know nothing but the first qualities For alteration or hurt from manifest qualities cannot kill a man so soon as poyson Secondly the first qualities have not very great force in a smal quantity but poyson hath a little spittle of a mad Dog lyeth somtimes above six months in the body and then offends grievously 3. delo art c. 7. which elementary qualities cannot do and so of other things as the Loadstone and Purgers and Antidotes Nor do occult qualities arise from a singular temper of things mixed unknown to us Lib. 1. de plantis called Idiosynorasia for occult qualities cannot arise from the first qualities For as Scaliger saith There is no savor or tast in any Element as it is an Element nor can it be in a compound from the Elements And if occult qualities are from a singular mixture of Elements may not life laughter sense and voluntary motion and the soul come from the same And to what they say the strange actions come from the form though the qualities are the instruments of forms and are directed by them yet they never loose their strength or Nature but only exercise them If any more noble action be done it is from other faculties and qualities meeting And while they are directed by their forms they act not beyond the strength of their species As things differ
in essence so they differ in operations and instruments For heat the instrument of a vegetative soul 2. de gene ann c. 1. only heats but chyle is made in the stomach not from heat but the chyle-making faculty So heat in the liver makes blood by sanguification but the soul never useth heat to cool or moisture to heat and dry or any thing to act beyond its strength And the first qualities by what unspeakable way soever mixed are not poyson in venemous beasts but the Nature of poyson is from another principle And as divers actions are from divers forms so Nature hath given divers instruments to divers forms for divers actions Therefore we must confess that the vertues in Natural things transcend the condition of the Elements and are to be ascribed not to the Elements or matter of things but to the forms and their qualities Chap. 9. Of the Forms Seeds or Stars of Things THey say the Seeds or Stars of all things that are Natural to be generated or corrupted are in the empty Elements Abyss Hippocrates Hells Night of Orpheus Ilias or Iliastrum of Paracelsus hence all things are bred and all actions of life and qualities came from them And these seeds lie invisibly in the Elements pure and are defiled by the mixture of bodies they call them Seeds Severinus c. 8. because they perpetually produce fruit in their season And Stars because they keep the laws of motion in all natural actions And Roots because in them all the fruitfulness of the Tree of the World is contained And they say every Element hath its seeds And though the inserior Elements have not such perfect individuals yet they have bodies to last for ever in their treasury by which the perpertuity of the seeds and species is kept from destruction They say the Starrie Bodies of the lower Elements are twofold some are purer like those coelestial and are not seen but by the industry of Artists and as the seeds differ in their offices and proprieties so do the bodies All these are not new but contain the vulgar Doctrine of forms therefore they only put new names to things known All famous Philosophers thought that the sorms of Natural things were a Divine and unchangeable principle Ideal Philos cap. 6. 8. and an instrument or hand of God the Creator Galen calls the wonderful works of generation a great Art or Wisdom and the Christian Philosophers say they have not their power from themselves but their Creator at first when he said Let Earth bring forth the herbs bearing seed and the tree in its kind bearing fruit which hath its seed The form or soul of things Star or Root is the act of a thing and the cause why the matter is actually what it is the perfection quiddity and the cause of all motion in a body and the image of a Divine essence Therefore the modern Chymists call the Souls Stars for as Stars end their motions at certain times so do the souls observe laws of motion Black Hellebore flourisheth in Winter the Daffodil in the beginning of the Spring Violets in March Roses in May the Elder in June the Vine and Hops in July then they are ripe at a set time and their motion ended they rest till the next year And if we knew more of the Soul we would declare it Though Severinus braggs he knows more saying I have laid the Rudiments of this Nature and it is not fit to deolare all But he was ignorant without doubt as all men are Moreover Severinus saies that qualities numbers conformation and other signatures come from these forms or seeds and right for while the inward form makes her body she makes also forms which Libavius needs not admire for they do not by their own force but as they are instruments in the hand of the Creator who gives them this force not immediately but from his first blessing Therefore Severinus was not the first that taught this but Sealiger before him saith That qualities quantities number and order and situation are from the Soul and she made the body for her Temple But for truth sake let us consider this opinion farther and speak of the Original of Forms Of the Original of Forms THe Philosopers did not only admire generation but labored to find out the forming cause which made the matter so perfect and and greatness number figure and order and other things in bodies that live Lib. de form foetus Some despaired Galen asketh all the Philosophers that if they have found any truth they should communicate it for nothing was yet known that could satisfie a learning Soul The inquirers have divers opinions For though neither the form nor the matter is generated properly asunder but the copound yet because generation cannot be without the form it is demanded whence that is Fernel saith the form is sent from without and shews that strength is sent to the seed with heat and spirit 1. de abditis ter causis which by force of the womb and a gentle heat prepare the matter that the form may be received which done perfectly the form comes from without by a natural mevitable necessity and from whence forms come he saith That Heaven brings forth many creatures and plants from no seed Cap. 10. and all the forms are contained in the form of Heaven in power and Heaven being as it were great with child of many forms begets al things But he brings no probability to establish this his opinion The Heavens help the producing of things and nourish them as a remote cause external but give not the species to things and if all forms should flow from Heaven there would be no univocal generation in inferior things and the Trees and Beasts were only the progeny of Heaven Secondly it is a common opinion of the Peripateticks that forms are raised from the power of the matter but if the matter should contain forms in it self and they came from it the matter would be the most noble being and a more noble principle then the form and forms would be scarce worthy of the name of a principle Some say the matter doth not actually contain the form but there is in it a disposition to a form which being compleated then it is actual what it was before in power And the Nature of seed is that when there is an adequate or fit efficient cause it comes from power to be in act or form and so this power is only a certain determination that this not that should be made of this matter As for Example a Chicken comes of an egg not a Horse But whence is this act or form or substance doth that power and disposition which is a quality turn into a substance or is the form made of nothing so that the agent gives nothing of its essence unto it Lib. de facult ann c. 11. besides action But both these are absurd and contrary to truth namely
by nature were concreted and made fluid by heat and then concreted again by cold But in regard many things congeal in moisture and grow together hard whose cause is neither heat nor cold nor driness we must think of another internal cause Two kinds of concretion are to be here considered which are when no part of the matter is taken away or any other added but the whole taking its consistence and concrescence from moisture which we want fit words to distinguish The Chymists call one of these by the High-dutch word Schiessen this coagulation is properly of Salts as Vitriol Allum Niter Salts of Herbs come from a moisture to a consistence This is of Salt properly and they by nature tend to this by their form But being there is one form by nature of Niter another of Vitriol another of Allum another of common Salt Every Salt according to its form and proper spirit coagulateth and grows together in this or that figure so do Gemms concrete in certain figures Lib. 2. demasc prima v. 9. for every form makes bounds to the bigness and quantity and sigure as Zabarel shews Another sort of concretion is called Lapidescentia or turning to stone the next and adequate cause of this is not the Elements nor the principles of Chymistry only but a stone making juyce or spirit which is not without Salt and contains more then Salt as the order of nature is to go from simples to things more compound This is in all Jewels and Stones but according to their special forms We said it was a spirit and a juyce but the chief force is in the spirit and the juyce hath it from the spirit because that stone-makeing force is found in the spirit without the juice As for the differences of Salts they are altered in divers Plants and Animals as in corruption of humors there are divers differences There is Salt in Vitriol Allum Sal Armoniack Iron There is a volatile Salt in a Nettle Arsmart Cokow-pints smal Celandine Mustard There is a salt in humors that causeth the Itch Scab Cancer and other corroding Ulcers There are made Salts as Borax Sal Armoniack and the like Sulphur is another Principle of the Chymists which is properly to burn and nothing burns without it The Elements of themselves are not inflamed and if they seem to burn it is from the sulphurous vapors in them Therefore Sulphur is the first scented thing and other things are smelt by their Sulphur many things that are very sweet being whole scent not but when they are burnt or bruised Hence it is that Sulphur and Fat 's scent not much but when they are burnt or smoak Some joyn scents and savors in a subject and say the scent is of the savory part but experience shews otherwise for there are many most savory and sharp things which have little or no scent as Arsenick Sublimate Mercury and other corroding Minerals that have little or no scent Some impute colours to Sulphur and more probably then to Salt but in colours the matter is more difficult Aristotles Interpreters that bring colours from the mixture of the Elements proye nothing Therefore let the principle of colours be Sulphur or as Anshelme Boetius saith God himself who gives colours as well as shape to Jewels and the like for they come from the proper seminary of every thing Common Sulphur Petroleum or Naphtha Amber and Sea-coal have much Sulphur Gums and Rosins of fat Trees as Pine Fir tree Pitch Oyl and the like Fat 's of Beasts of which see Libavius Parte 3. singular He useth the word Bitumen generally as the Chymists use Sulphur The third Principle is Mercury somtimes taken for Quicksilver Ide Philos c. 8. somtimes for a Principle Salt and Sulphur Severinus saith it is added to the other Principles that by daily moistning of them to nourish them from decay by often action In defens contra an̄o c. 14. In Tyrocin Chymico Quercetan saith it is a liquor sharp and penetrable pure and aetherial and so saith Beguin But they agree not therefore Libavius writes that the modern Chymists describe Salt Sulphur and Mercury by Notes but when we ask what it is they consound all and say that Salt is in Sulphur and Mercury In exami Philoso vit and Sulphur and Mercury in Salt and Mercury and Salt in Sulphur and then he gives this definition Mercury is an essential Liquor drawn by the Chymists from a mixed body after the elementary impurities are separated opposite to the Sulphur and Salt of the same mixed body To speak my mind if there be any such Mercury it is a spiriful Liquor or Spirit which can scarce be separated from subtile Sulphur and volatile Salt to be seen by it self and though it be not seen it is no matter for pure fire is not seen nor air nor the spirit in Animals which are true parts of the Nature of things and the best Such things saith Scaliger deceive the vulgar eyes but wise men see them But I appeal to the Learned whether I be absurd in making these principles mixed with the Elements the common matter for the habitation of forms of the Natural bodies To conclude Metals Minerals Stones and Gemms and Plants are not simply mixed and have not only their forms from the forms of the Elements much less from a double exhalation which maketh the next matter of Meteors because they have better actions then are from Elementary qualities and a double exhalation But the Elements give them matter with the chymical Principles and may hence be better by the causes of many things then from the doctrine of Meteors We can clearly shew Salt and Sulphur from a Chymical separation though they are not manifest before We desire to know more of Mercury not of the Metal but of the Principle Aristotle attributes all to a Spirit which the Chymists do to Mercury for Quercetan and Beguin call it a substance or body to be passed through penetrated aethereal pure subtile quickning and the next instrument of the form and call it the Spirit of ancient Hermes The Chymists call that vital Sulphur which Aristotle calls the Natural heat and describe their Mercury as that it is in the Natural heat And this Sulphur and Mercury are so united in Nature that they cannot wel be separated but when the Sulphur is on fire Mercury flies away Also the actions from the whole substance and the hidden qualities are attributed to this Spirit as to the proper subject this in poysons is a venemous spirit in purges a purging spirit As for the original of these Principles some think them to be the first mixtures others to be peculiar natures in the first Creation concreted with other species of natural things to be of the Nature of the Elements He that will embrace the first opinion must hold that these bodies have nobler forms by which they are more noble then the Elements and from which other qualities
and strong imagination yet it is never lawful to ask any things of the Devil or expect his help Nor is there any Example in Scripture that ever the Devil did any man good Certainly Crollius is very wicked in saying That true prayers in spirit and truth are the foundation of Cabalistical Magick For prayers are the worship of God according to the 5. of John and they must be according to his promises and will and this worship ought not to be prophaned with such wicked Speeches Now that natural saith he speaks of which is a power to do miracles and given equally to all men in the Creation is a meer lye For true miracles onely belong to the Church and those done by Infidels and Conjurers are from the Devil and are not true but lying wonders What Crollius writes of Imagination In Praefat. admonit are dreams of Enthusiasts none deny but there is great force in imagination but that it can do what Crollius mentions it is a meer fable and if Crollius could have cured diseases by imaginaon why did he spend so much time in preparation of Chymical medicines In a word concerning Crollius his Magick avoid it there is knavery in the Baker and under the honey of Chymical medicines there is a venemous gall Therefore beware least under the pretence of Natural Magick and Divine Philosophy and light of Nature you do not use Diabolical Magick which may be though you make no contract with the Devil for it may be made not only explicitely but implicitely An explicite contract is when one makes a Covenant with the Devil An implicite is when any useth such means with another who hath contracted with the Devil explicitely and plainly hath before used For though there are examples in Scripture that the Apostles ruled over the Devil and cast him out yet there is no example that any Saint used the help of the Devil for a good end to profit man And though it may be objected for Paracelsus that it is no inconvenience for any to get better medicines then are known from the Devil to cure incurable diseases yet I suppose it is neither safe nor religious and St. Chrysostome saies well That a man had better die then recover by such remedies God that wounded can heal therefore seek help from him alone There is a famous Example that it is not lawful to seek help from the Devil 2 Kings c. 1. in Ahazia 2 Kings c. 1. by which we are taught to seek for cure from God alone not from the Devil and we can expect no good from that great Deceiver Moreover the means in Magick are not ordinary nor natural as you may see in Paracelsus but are words characters waxed images and superstitious inventions of the Devil And that we may not use such superstitions that are suspected to have an occult contract from the Devil observe what follows For where there is neither miracle nor force of Nature nor Arts ingenuity there is a contract with the Devil whosoever he was that made it And when characters and unknown words are used that are obscure and do not cohere or agree or are holy but applied to another meaning or when Ceremonies of no force are used or the like there is a strong suspicion Lib. de occul Philos As when Paracelsus saies a man may be freed from diseases from inchantment if he put on an old shirt with the wrong side outwards He makes Astrologie the third piller of Physick Lib. 1 de Philos sagaci Lib. de aere lo. aq but he extends it too large comprehending all Magick under Astronomy and dividing it strangely As for Astrology if it be right and upon Natural principles we hold it necessary for a Physitian as Hippocrates shews And there are many reasons why a Physitian should not be ignorant of it Therefore I consent to the modern Physitians that say the Stars work upon inferior bodies not only by heat and light but by occult influences But here we are to seek and the strength of the purest Stars is not known And Paracelsus and Crollius should engage us if they would explain the consent between the upper and lower World more plainly But here they are at a loss with the Aristotelians and Galenists many whereof were good Astrologers and studied the force of Stars very much but ingeniously confessed their imperfections of whom Cardan saies well Astrolog aphor sect 1. aph 34. That Astrologie as it is most excellent so it is most difficult And the motions of the Stars can never be known perfectly nor the judgments from them c. Chap. 14. Of the strength of Imagination BEcause the effects of Natural Magick seem to the Paracelsians to depend upon Imagination not onely to cause diseases but to cure them and they shew wonders done by imagination from Philosophers and Physitians we shal here shew what the strength of it is But note first that those effects which are attributed to imagination do not immediately depend upon it nor doth the soul produce such effects by imagination For imagination is only a knowing power that hath an immanent action which goeth not forth to other things and imagination doth nothing effectually but know but the other powers vegetative and moving do act upon others And though the phansie concurs to local motiō as knowing it yet is it not the immediate cause of motion therefore it doth not act upon any body of its own or anothers nor doth it by any sort of motion alter move or change it But appetite or desire follows knowledge and then there is a prosecution or flight which is by a local motion Whose cause is a place moving power distinct from the imagination Therefore the humors are not moved of themselves or immediately by the imagination but only by accident stirring up the natural powers whose office is to move the humors and spirits to nourish the body The imagination directeth the humors and spirits to move towards this or that part and it determines the moving faculty that it may move the spirits and humors to this or that part as when one is lasciviously minded the spirits and humors go to the privities by which motion the body is altered not by the phansie of it self nor can the species of the phansie produce a real quality nor formality make an alteration because the formal and essential reason of it is only in representation and it cannot act beyond its force and perfection Therefore when some are loose bodied from the conceit of a purging medicine not taken it is not because the species of the purging medicine hath a purging force but because the moving natural faculty is drawn to consent with the imagination and stirs the humors which being stirred do provoke the expulsie faculty to stool especially if humors abound First it moves the desiring faculty or appetite and by the passions of the mind affects the body for the passions follow knowledg which causeth
gladness at what is pleasant and sorrow at what is unpleasant these passions have great power to alter the body But phansie doth not immediately alter the body by the appetite but as the appetite moves the natural moving faculties in the members and chiefly in the heart these being moved do move the humors and spirits and the spirits comming and going to the part do change them Therefore the remote cause of alteration is the phansie and so it affects its own body and causeth divers diseases in it but of it self it causeth none And if it should the disease would be but imaginary not real So some melancholick people have thought they had great noses or bodies and yet were not so And though some fall into diseases by imagination yet the phansie doth not of it self but by accident by reason of fear which moves the malignant humors lurking in the body and these being moved cause the plague One Vincent thought his body so big that he could not pass through the door and when the Physitian commanded him to be carried through he complained that he was very much bruised and soon after died But this is not because the patient imagineth but because he is diseased And if imagination doth any thing it is by accident from sorrow or fear and the like passions Many diseases come by accident by means of the spirits and humors as they are different in nature and motion And imagination being the cause of divers passions as anger sorrow much joy they have such force to corrupt and change humors that we need not prove it Moreover strong imagination draws the spirits and humors strongly to the head and the heat is taken from the parts ordained for nourishment Thus imagination may cure diseases namely by accident not of it self for confidence makes the patient obey orders because imagination brings passions by which the humors and spirits are moved by which motion they oppose the disease Therefore confidence begets chearfulness and this stirs up the natural heat and spirits and so there is better concoction and the bad humors are overcome and the disease opposed Hence it is that they who are alwaies sad have many crudities and soul humors from the constant loss of heat and spirits From the same cause if patients have some meats they longed for they recover though they be not wholsom And Hippocrates saith that the best meats 2. Aphoris 38. if not affected cause loathing and the stomach doth not rightly embrace and concoct them hence come wind and crudities and the disease increaseth or the patient is longer sick 〈◊〉 â—â—at taken in with pleasure somtimes curethe because either by the joy the spirits which were dull by the disease are raised and refreshed which are the fittest instrument to conquer soul humors and the disease or because when then the patient hath his desire ceaseth from that imagination and the disease which was falsly supposed There are many Histories of this in Thomas á Vega and Alexander Trallian Com. in art med Galeni c. 48. Tralia lib. 2. c. 17. who speaks of a Woman that thought she had swallowed a Serpent Therefore if imagination of it self cannot afflict its own body it cannot change or hurt any other body For the soul cannot act upon externals but by means of the body because the phansie is an immanent action not transient But by accident it may do somwhat for what is said of Witchcraft is not to be wholly despised They say the Baselisk kils a man by the poysonous beams from his eyes These come from spirits and vapors by which the occult Sympathies and contracts of things are And the imagination may somwhat direct these spirits as we said by moving the natural faculties or stirring up the passions so in envy hatred anger venemous humors which are moved in the body are carried to the eyes and flow from thence But a certain distance is required and it is absurd to think that any can be afflicted at many miles distance and it is worse to ascribe to imagination things beyond its force and to which it no waies concurs as when they say a man may fall from a horse by imagination or corn be carried from one field into another Lastly let us consider what imagination can do in child-bearing Hipp 1. de supert Gal dether ad pis Avic fen 2. lib 1. doctr 2. c. 14. gen c. 30. of which there are many Observations so that it is simple to doubt them Hippocrates Galen and Avicen and many other Authors prove it and that of the Patriach Jacob is well known But it is hard to know how imagination could change a child It is certain that the phansie being known and an immanent power doth not of it self change the child and the forming faculty is the immediate cause of quantity figure number position and heat and not the imagination Nor is the child changed by a species of the phansie because of it self it cannot produce any real quality nor hath it any force but to move imagination and to represent to its object and if this species had any force there would be more changes in children It is therefore more probable to reason that the child is changed by the phansie either through the passions and motions of the spirits and humors or by directing the forming faculty The changes and hurts in children are of two sorts common and determinate The common are abortion death inward sickness and weakness smalness or greatness of some part defect or abundance in number The determinate are changes and signatures which have a determinate similitude to some outward thing as for Example when they long for Cherries the impression of a Cherry will be upon the child The first changes may be from phansie by means of the passions and motion of the humors and spirits but the determinate signatures which answer to external things that are offered to the imagination cannot be by motion of the humors and spirits by the imagination For the passions stirs the spirits and humors which stirred are carried with force or in plenty to the child which troubles it and cause abortion by stirring up of the expulsive faculty of the womb Somtimes the forming faculty is disturbed from the same cause in its operation or is overwhelmed or the spirits and humors being sent another way the parts are not rightly formed or they are greater or less But these are not determinate faults nor have they any resemblance with external things because they are made by an accidental motion of the humors onely stirred by the passions and they are not determinated by a peculiar manner according to the species received in the imagination Therefore these errors are to be attributed rather to the passions of the mind â—hen to imagination nor doth the phansie truly and effectually conduce to them nor otherwise then as it stirs up the appetite But when these signatures are determinated and peculiar according to
the species received by the imagination they are ascribed to the phansie nor can the passions of the mind of themselves produce them as when Mulberries Warts and the like come from the imagination upon the child And it may fall out that the same signature may be upon the child from divers passions and a woman may bear a child somwhat like an Ape if she either loved an Ape and plaid with it or was frighted by one which is a sign that somthing else goes with determinate signatures namely the imagination which directs the conformation For the forming faculty alone immediately makes the whole child whether well or ill fashioned But the phansie somtimes seduceth the forming faculty and directs it to make such a thing as is not conformable to the nature of the seed but like that which is imagined And so it is said to be the cause of these marks concurring to determine them but this is hard to be explained and some are of another mind It is safest to conclude that the forming faculty is directed by the imagination by the species exemplarily or objectively as they say by objecting the species conceived to which as to an example or rule the forming faculty doth her work But if any wonder that the forming faculty which belongs to the vegetative should know this exemplary species let him understand that all the faculties in a man are powers of the same soul and have some communication among themselves although the manner how is not known plainly Then let him know that the soul doth not this by its own power but a power given by the Creator And though the knowing faculty differs from the forming yet they are in some things agreable for so all parts know and attract the nourishment But how the species being conceived in the brain should be carried to the womb is hard to be understood We may say that while the child grows to the mother and partakes of her life those things that move the powers of the soul in the mother may stir up the faculties in the seed also and more affect the child then the mother because her body is so perfect that it needs nothing but nourishment but the soul is still busie in forming the body of the insant therefore any external thing may easily be admitted to direct it or seduce it to do this or that Many arguments are for this so as the passions of the soul are not alwaies necessary but a fixed intention and imagination is sufficient to mark the child The Queen of Aethiopia conceived of a white child by only viewing the picture of Andromeda So Jacobs sheep marked their lambs by beholding and imagining the party-coloured rods and we see the same in other beasts These changes are in the time of conception and child-bearing but more usually when they are gone some time in which time the forming faculty is at work and busie to make the parts after conception But all marks are not made at all times at the end of the colours may change and the whole figure the foot may be like that of a Horse the head like a Dog or Hog in the last month this cannot because all parts are fashioned For when Nature hath once fashioned the child she cannot alter the figure divide or change the number of parts Nor can the imagination make impression of any changes but only such as the matter of the body is disposed to and the forming faculty is apt to make by Natures order she cannot produce true feathers scales or horns and the reason why these are rather stamped upon the child then the womb is because the forming faculty is not busie about the womb but the child Hence it appears that the phansie cannot act upon a strange body and although the imagination of the mother affects the child yet is it so joyned to her that it seems as a part of her Avicen Alchirus Crolâ—ius Therefore they all are out that think the fancy can affect strange bodies and they that would shew causes disagree among themselves Paracelsus is of their opinion and heaps one absurdity upon another and give reasons as weak as the rest They should have shewed that Phantasmes move another way then by representation nor doth the phansie do any thing but receive the species of things from the senses to judge and bring them to the understanding And how can the species and representation that onely are to represent the thing from which they came change or move any thing without a man Especially seeing the action of the phansie is immanent And as for the imagination of women with child and the marks upon their children by the fancy they only prove that the soul any way moved by the imagination may be the cause of peculiar motions in its own body Therefore what Paracelsus and Crollius have written concerning the imagination is not worth the refuting and to speak short the foundation of all Magical operations and the great Wheel of all Crollius his Magick is false and it is this opinion of the strength of imagination and sew modern Writers follow them This Magick is old nor is it better for that because it came from Plato Lib 3 de vit caelitus comparanda and the Aegyptians given to Idolatry the foundation of this was laid by Marcus Ficinus when he writes that by the application of our spirit to the spirit of the world by the Art of Physick and affection that deeds are cast upon the soul and heavenly good upon our affection But this union of the soul of man with the Angels and Spirits which is by imagination and the calling upon Spirits to do man service is the work and invention of Conjurers Chap. 15. of the Physiological part of Physick THough Severinus and the Chymists seem in many things to dissent from the Galenists yet they disser not much but teach almost the same things only they deliver themselves in other language First Contra Anonimum they make three Principles in man and Quercetan placeth theÌ„ in the three principle parts of the body He saith that the natural faculty which is seated in the liver hath its conservation and nourishment from salt which is the first radical Principle and the foundation of the rest That the vital faculty in the heart is sustained by a sulphurous liquor And the animal faculty is preserved by Mercury which is altogether aetherial and spiritual Then they make a twofold body in man the one visible of the four Elements and blood the other invisible This last is called by them The Starlick Man within incorporeal a kind of Gabal man a houshold God a visible shadow of the body a familiar a shade a little wise man a Demon or good genius The internal Adech of Paracelsus A ghost the Euestrum or presaging light of Nature which is a Prophet also the imagination which contains all the Stars in it self and knows all Stars and keeps
all men so there may be Medicines that do all good and cute all diseases But these do not evince For fire doth not consume all things but only combustible things for it doth no hurt to earth or gold What they say of Antimony is not agreable here nor doth he prove that the same thing may be done by the universal Medicine in mans body Therefore they should prove that such a Medicine may be as may resist all the distempers of the body and consume all causes of diseases and hurts not the body as Antimony doth all but gold which is safe To the similitude of poysons I say that every poyson hath its own Nature and man hath his therefore it is the action of a determinate thing upon a determinate nor is every poyson a poyso to every creature And there are many things which hurt men do no hurt to other creatures But if all diseases are to be cured by a medicine there would be an universal action upon a determinate because there are divers diseases and humors which have their peculiar nature all which an universal nature ought to resist They who think there is no such universal Medicine have sounder principles First the cure of a disease is a changing of the body into a contrary to the disease But all change is between contraries and from the contrary There are many differences of diseases and bad humors Some diseases are from manifest qualities some from occult and there is a great difference in these as appears by variety of poysons and every disease and humor requires a peculiar remedy nor doth one Medicine cure diseases from cold heat nor doth it moisten and dry and oppose all poysons If they say this universal Medicine is so tempered that it can resist all how then being so tempered in the first qualities cannot amend the great excess of cold and heat at once And to speak Chymically if Sulphur abound and Salt be wanting how can a temperate Medicine supply the defect of Salt and take away the abundance of Sulphur God therefore alone cures all diseases but the strength of natural things is determinate and distinct and the medicinal vertue is dispersed into many things nor is their strength given naturally to one Medicine to do all things hence is the great variety of Medicines that every disease hath its peculiar remedy And this variety had been in vain given by God if all diseases could be cured by one simple universal Medicine And all Apothecaries would break and Physitians might burn their books if that Medicine were sufficient Hence it sollows that this soundation of Physick is unshaken That which is besides Nature is to be taken away and that which is according to Nature is to be preserved like things are preserved by their like and contraries are cured by their contraries The Chymists themselves admit of these general Indications And therefore they give a force of strengthening the natural Balsom to their universal Medicine and to comfort and consume diseases breeding impurities and so of curing all diseases but they have not proved that one Medicine should do both The Author of the Natural Physick of the round Vision and Cabalistical Chymistry in his Book called The open Chest of the most Artificial Secret hath so many absurdities as words And the learned Chymists approve it not whether he worte it in earnest or in jest There is such another Book called The New Knowledg of the Universal Medicine set out by a Professor of Physick of Fribury in Brisgoy called Wolfang And though he promiseth much concerning this Medicine no man yet can hear what he hath done though many enquire Therefore the Chymists do rather wish and hope for this universal Mendicine then enjoy it In the matter of Physick they differ little from the Galenists first in finding out the faculties of Medicines they go another way which they call by Signatures and say that the Plants that represent Animals or any parts of them or are like any way are good to strengthen those parts or to expel diseases To these they add the Dominion of the Planets and the Plants that are subject to such a Dominiō are dedicated to those parts as are under those Planets Under Saturn they place Plants that are rough and unpleasant black swarthy pale and Lead-coloured thin and dry slalks binding stinking moorish these have an Antipathy with the Plants of the Sun and are dedicated to the Spleen Plants of Jupiter are oyly pleasant in scent and tast with red and skie-colour'd flowers these belong to the Liver as Balsom Oyl Clove-giliflowers Bettony Avens Lillies Centaury Plants of Mars are reddish sharp and rough Corrosives and such as grow in dry places as Nettles Carduus Those under the Sun are sweet in scent and tast yellow flower'd or gold-Colour'd that grow in the South Sun to these they refer Wine Saffron Citrons Oranges Balm Rosemary Under Venus are Plants of a sweet tast and an amurous scent with a white flower as the Dog-stone Plants all Lillies and Lilly Convals Daffodils They say Mercury governs Plants of divers colours that grow in sandy grounds bare Cods have a subtile scent as Pellitory Chamomil Columbines Beans Dasies three-leaved Grass c. The Moon governs the Plants with soft leaves thick and full of juyce as Gourds Cowcumbers Melons Musk melons Pompions Lettice Garlick Onions Leeks c. The modern Chymists from these made Medicine peculiar to every humor and part they thought that these have great relation to the blood as Gilliflowers Roses Piony Bugloss Borage Violets and therefore serve for Sanguification And that Bugloss and Borage purge the blood from melancholy Fumitory from choler the Peach-leaves from flegm and all Plants that are like blood do stop blood as Tormentil Snakeweed Herb Robert with the red Root red Roses the Bloodstone red Coral They say that these sollowing are like to choler and do purge it as Rhubarb Agrimony yellow Mirobalans They are such as are black or duskie are like melancholy and such as are bitter or astringent as Polypody black Hellebore Senna Asarabacca These are proper to evacuate flegm as wild Cowcumbers Mercury Arage all these are under the Moon and belong to the stomach and brain and purge them are good against flegm and the moist scab and the like As to the parts of the body the brain because it is governed by the Moon hath relation to the Medicines under its Dominion and against all diseases of the brain Moonwort Silver and Pearl are good Finally they ascribe proper Medicines to every part of the body either from the signature or colour or from the Dominion of the Planet over the part They say the Herbs with pointed Leaves as Carduus Mariae and Benedictus Eryngus Juniper c. are good against pricking pains That plants that have knotty roots are good against tumors and pustles They which are persorated or are like an axe or saw or any thing that wil wound are
every man use his own way I divide them into a Diacrisis and Syncrisis and Immutation Diacrisis is when the Fabrick of the Body is resolved and that which was one is divided This is done three waies 1. When the impure or strange bodies are separated 2. When the body is dissolved into Homogeneal parts 3. When it is dissolved into Heterogeneal parts In which operations let the Chymists take this proposition let all things be made as pure and subtile and efficacious as may be To the Diacrisis belong Purification Calcination Sublimation Resolution Extraction the Essence the Tincture Putrefaction and Distillation Purification is by washing and often dissolving and coagulating and filtration Instit c. 8. c. 10. of which elswhere To this belongs drying or exsiccation which is by evaporation and exhalation also burning as when the sulphurous parts and water which are not required to stay do flie away and that remains which you desire Calcination is either by actual or potential fire that is by a liquor that hath power to corrode and dissolve as distilled Vinegar Spirit of Salt Instit c. 6. Niter or Vitriol of which Chap. 6. Also Metals Minerals and Stones and other hard things are calcined Sublimation is to separate impurities and to bring bodies to the least Atomes By all these waies the body is dissolved into Homogeneal parts and that which is dissolved is homogeneal Resolution is when a body is dissolved into divers Heterogeneal parts In this Diacrisis note that the properties are in the whole or in the parts therefore when you desire the force which is in the whole you need not this operation but when you need the force that is in a part that depends upon the whole observe in what part it is So Conserve of Roses is good in a Dysentery not Spirit of Roses To this belong Tinctures and Essences Inst lib. 5. part 3. sect 3. c. 9. of which elswhere Concerning Tinctures observe that there is no true Tincture which doth not remain after the Menstruum is abstracted If many Tinctures were examined by this rule they were not true but that colour is from the mixture of the Menstruum with the body dissolved Diacrisis is also by Putrefaction which tendeth to a kind of separation as parts by nature somwhat separated may be better separated by art Instit. loc cit c. 7. therefore as we shewed it is often used before distillation To this head we refer all distillations by descent by the side by ascent in a moist bath dry or vaporous Instit. loc cit sect 2. c. 11. in ashes sand or open fire The second kind of Chymical operation is the Syncrisis when divers things separated are joyned together This is done first by precipitation when the body dissolved in some Menstruum and dispersed by a liquor is again separated from the liquor and goes to the body and unites it self And he that considers all precipitations Instit loc cit 3.13 may observe that precipitation is universally made when any thing is cast in for solution or infused by whose force the liquor dissolving or that which in the liquor is the cause or solution is separated from the body dissolved To this may Reduction be referred by which a body brought to a pouder or liquor or the like is restored to its first form yet reduction is not in all bodies that are dissolved by their Menstruum or put on another shape by the mixture of other things For though these may be separated from their Menstruum yet they are brought only into the form of a pouder not into their first form This is done best by Precipitation Reduction is used in Metals which being brought into divers forms may still be reduced Now reduction is by taking away the Menstruum and that which brought another form into the body The Salt of Tartar is an usual instrument for reduction not that it is contrary to all corrosives and breaks their force but because it is a friend to all Salts and therefore attracts them and unites them to it self by its likeness and so the body being freed from the Salt of the Menstruum that dissolved it is restored to its own nature Metals when melted or mixed with dissolving waters are filthy separated from their Menstruum by precipitation sometimes warm water is sufficient to separate a Metal from its Menstruum To Syncrisis also belongs coagulation and concretion of which in my Institutions Lib. 5. part 3. sec 2. c. 13. To this you may refer Digestion and Circulation which is for this end that the liquid parts which are not sufficiently mixed may be united by the least bodies of which elswhere C. 14. To this belongs Cohobation or an often distilling of the liquor cast into the matter let in the vessel this is that what was not separated in the first distillation may be drawn out in the second or third yet sometimes that the matter which is volatile in the liquor may be joyned to the fixed The third kind of Chymical operation is Immutation as when we bring a new manner of substance upon a thing To this belongs first the changing of a dry thing into a liquid form this operation is called Deliquium of which before For though the moist air is then joyned to that body Loc. cit c. 4. yet nothing is added that gives it peculiar strength but the consistence is only changed To this belongs that operation whereby solid bodies are made drinkable where we shall question whether gold may be made potable Of which hereafter Secondly to this belongs the contrary operation as when a solid body is made of a liquid as Precipitate of Quicksilver of which before Lib. 5. part 3. sec 3. c. 18. Thirdly Fixation or Volatilsation belong to this as when no part of the thing is taken away nor other thing added and a fixed body is made of a volatile and a volatile of a fixed It is called fixed or volatile in respect of the fire or heat the thing in its own nature is such but the heat or fire makes it manifest for that is fixed which endureth the first volatile is that which flies away by heat This is done by the addition of an Homogeneal body for fixed Salts may be made volatile by digestion and also sublimed Vitrification or turning into glass is the end of transmutation of natural bodies after they are melted by the strongest fire We have mentioned the operations which the Chymists use as means to obtain their end As for Chymical works they are under two heads according to the twofold nature of Chymical bodies Some are Homogeneal some are Heterogeneal but there are no words to express it Some cal the first work an Extract Libavius the last a Magistery And in the special explaining of these there are divers appellations as Ens Essence Quintessence the Secret Magisterium Panacaea and the like but these are