there all the more clowdy speculation and aid of Reason languisheth even as on the other hand a true understanding is suppressed in us under the precepts of Reason Wherefore seeing the proper object of understanding is the essence of things it self for that cause accidents being as it were abstracted and rent asunder from the things in which they are ought to be conceived by the imagination and that by shapes and likenesses but in no wise by the understanding Wherein after another manner I finde all accidents co-knit together in a point under the essence of the things understood Because accidents properly are not Beings but of the Beings on whom they depend therefore accidents have not an essence which doth co-pass unto the unity of the understanding or into which essence the understanding may transport it self But the Schooles do divide the Intellect into the Agent and Patient For they will have that to be conversant about the invention of meanes and premises of a demonstration to wit that the sealing marks of the termes may imprint an understanding on the Patient as it were on wax subjected to it Therefore they call the Agent masculine noble and formall But they liken the Patient to the Woman and ignoble matter And these their Dreams they perswade to young beginners as Nature doth every where operate toward the perfection of it self but operation or action is alwayes more noble than passion or suffering But I do every where pity so great dryness First because demonstration is not an effect or of-spring of the understanding neither doth it any way supply meanes for Sciences or knowledges I have seen an Aethiopian swiftly to roule a Reed about in the hole of a Plank with a Towel placed between and not long after the Reed with the Towel took fire And then I have hidden a Reed in a bright burning Fornace and the inflamed Reed hath more speedily cleerly and perfectly shined When as nevertheless the Reed did act nothing but onely suffered an inflaming So that although the acting principle may now and then be more noble than the suffering one while the effect tends to perfection or while the Patient ought to be perfected by the Agent Yet while a pretious Pearl doth putrifie under the Dunghill I may not believe the Agent to be more perfect than the Patient I have sufficiently shewed elsewhere that in whole nature the Doctrine of Aristotle is vain and meer trifles how much lesse therefore could he subsist in the Court of understanding whose Being and operating do depend onely on the Soul For we Christians are constrained to believe that our intellect or understanding is an immortal Spirit Light and Image of the Almighty whose beginning as it exceedes Nature so it cannot be fitted or squared to its Rules Seeing it hath a most simple Being never to be divided into the strifes of Agent and Patient or into heterogeneals or divers kindes Seeing also that it dependeth immediately totally and continually on its original Type and so that without particular or special grace it cannot understand any thing because the object of understanding is truth it self Wherefore neither doth it understand with a perfect understanding but by receiving But that which receives onely that suffers but doth not act therein for neither is that proper to the understanding which comes to it by grace The will also while it suffers is more noble than while it wills to wit while it is ruled by the will of the Superiour Powers The Imagination indeed knowes by acting and therefore it is wearied and this Aristotle knew but not the understanding Because it is that which suffers in understanding by way of enlightning onely For it is a more troublesome servile and obscure thing to operate in understanding than to suffer because by suffering it receives a more noble light freely conferred on it Lastly seeing that in understanding it alwayes passeth over into the form of the thing understood therefore that which partakes of an unlimited light is perfected without weariness and labour of understanding and the light understood shineth in understanding in the light of the Intellect it self So as the things themselves seem to talk with us without words and the understanding pierceth them being shut up no otherwise than as if they were dissected and laid open Therefore the understanding is alway perfected by suffering and receiving But the imaginative knowledge or animal understanding which was known to Aristotle beholdeth things onely on the outside and frameth to it self Images or likenesses thereof according to its own thinking and with all wearisomness of labours runs about them into a circle It sees indeed the Rhines and husks but never reacheth at the kernel because the Imagination doth not enter things as neither on the other hand do things enter and satisfie the imaginative part For at most the imaginative part satisfies it self by likenesses if it hath long admired the outward Signate the inward sealer whereof notwithstanding it least of all embraceth For how unjustly doth it square that the Schooles should acknowledge the Soul to be the immediate Image of God and to divide the understanding into two supposed things which differ in Offices and effects For truly a two foldedness it self in the understanding disagreeth with the simplicity of him whose Image it hideth in it self throughout its whole Being I believe in the first place that nothing doth pertain to the knowledge of truth but faith and understanding Secondly That all truth doth issue from one onely and primitive truth Thirdly That all understanding deriveth it self from one onely and infinite understanding Fourthly Even as all Light from one onely Light Fifthly Therefore that the Essence of truth doth nothing differ from the Essence of the understanding Sixthly That our understanding is vain empty poor and dark Seventhly That all its clearness nobleness fulness light and truth do come to it by receiving and suffering Eightly That it is so much the more ennobled by how much the more it suffers by the light which is beyond all nature Finally the Schooles of the Heathens have failed of the knowledge of a true understanding And therefore man is not a rational living Creature But the predicament of a substance is to be divided into a Spirit and a Body A Spirit is abstract or withdrawn or concrete or joyned with a Body Man alone is a concrete Spirit but not to be placed among Bodies If his denomination be to be drawn from the more especial part and essential determination from the more famous thing signified Therefore man was to be denominated and defined from a Spirit and an intellectual Light CHAP. IV. The Causes and beginnings of Natural things 1. The Authour excuseth himself why he is Paradoxical 2. Some Bodies want causes in Nature 3. A fourfold order of Causes makes manifest the ignorance of Nature in Aristotle 4. Some Errours of Aristotle 5. That the form the efficient cause and the end of Aristotle are
not the causes of natural things 6. The Form is not the Act. 7. A false Maxim of Aristotle 8. He erreth in the attributes of the Form 9. He knew not the true efficient cause 10. The Father is not the efficient cause of the Son 11. There are two onely causes in Nature 12. The End hath no reason of a cause in nature 13. That the three beginnings of Bodies of Paracelsus have not the nature of causes 14. Whence the definition of any sort soever of natural things is to be required 15. The definition of a Horse 16. The division of sublnnary bodies among the Auntients is dangerous or destructive 17. The definition of Animalls Plants and Mineralls 18. The name of Subject sounds improperly in Philosophy why 't is to be called a co-worker 19. Things without life that are produced how they receive their ends 20. Why the seminal Power is attributed to the Earth 21. That there is not a conjunction of the Elements 22. The Principles of the Chymists have not the power of principiating 23. That there are two onely Principles or beginnings of Bodies to wit that from which and by which 24. What the Ferment or Leaven of things is 25. What are Ferments in their kinde 26. What is immediately in places 27. The Ferments of the Air and water 28. There is onely a speculative distinction of the Ferment and efficient cause 29. The Ferment is the original of some seeds 30. The principiating Ferment of what sort it is and where 31. Ferments are immediately in places in things themselves as if in places 32. The name of matter is speculative but that of water is practical 33. What the inward efficient cause is 34. A false Maxim of Aristotle 35. The efficient cause in natural things is explained 36. Fire is not of the number of seminal efficient causes as it hath deceived the Aristotelicks neither is the influence of the Heavens among the number of efficients 37. The diversity of the efficient and effective cause 38. The wit of Aristotle is ambitious and idle 39. A false Maxim of Aristotle 40. Aristotle was more able in the Mathematicks or learning by de monstration than in Nature 41. How great hath been the ignorance of the Schooles in natural things hitherto 42. Aristotle is in the things of natural Philosophy ridiculous and to himself contradictory I Come into a forsaken house to re-melt the dross that is to be swept out by me Most things are to be searched into and those things to be taught which are unknown those things which have been ill delivered are to be overthrown what are unclean are to be wiped off and what things are false are to be cast away but all and every thing duly to be confirmed But let it be sufficient to have forewarned thee of these things to withdraw wearisomness if happily new and Paradoxall things do more trouble than true things delight The knowledge of Nature is onely taken from that which is in act and in the thing it self for it is that which no where consisteth in feigned Meditations Indeed the whole composure of Nature is individual in very deed in act and fastned in any Body except the number of abstracted Spirits Lastly and chiefly I seriously admonish that as often as I speak of the causes of Natural things these things are not at all to be taken for the Elements or for the Heaven because they supernaturally began with the Title of Creation and to this day do also constantly remain the same which they were from the beginning Therefore I understand the causes of natural things to presuppose a Being subject to change And although the Bodies of the Elements have come under Nature yet their speculation is of another manner of unfolding and another kinde of Philosophy For they who before me have thought that to all Generations or Births of Bodies four Elementsdo co-mix have beheld the Elements after the heathenish manner have tried by their lies or devises to marry the Elements obey them Therefore every natural Body requireth no other than corporeall beginnings for the most part subject to change and succeeding course of dayes but Nature doth not consist of an undetermined hyle or matter and an impossible one neither hath it need of such a Principle as neither of privation but order and life are in the efficient cause of necessity And every thing is empty void dead and slow unless it hath been constituted or sometimes be constituted by a vitall or seminal Principle present with it And moreover those Lawes should rush down together unless there were a certain order in things which did interpose which might incline proper things to the support or necessities of the common good Aristotle hath declared four constitutive causes of things which have made also their own Authour ignorant of Nature For in the first place he confoundeth the Principle with the material cause to wit calling the first cause an undetermined or unlimited matter or a corporeal subjected heap wanting a formall limitation And then he confoundeth the other cause even the inward Essence or form of a thing with another of his Principles Next the third which is external he calleth the efficient cause and at length the fourth he nameth the end to wit unto which every thing is directed But this cause in the minde of the efficient he would have to be the first of the three former causes and so natural things not onely to be principiated or made to begin by the Being of Reason and mental but also as if they were inanimate things they did lie hid through the end in the minde of the efficient cause But if therefore he doth badly search into natural causes he hath far worse appointed a supernatural end in the minde of the first mover in the room of a natural cause or he requireth a mentall conceit of the end in things without life Truly I who have not been accustomed through the floath of consenting to serve others enterprizes without foreweighing them have very much found that the three latter causes in natural knowledge are false yea and hurtful But the first of the four I will by and by shew to be fabulous For first of all since every cause according to nature and succession of dayes is before its thing caused Surely the form of the thing composed cannot be the cause of the thing produced but rather the last perfect act of generation and the veriest essence and perfection it self of the thing generated for the attaining whereof all other things are directed Therefore I meditate the form to be rather as an effect than as a cause of the thing Yea more For the Form seeing it is the end of generation is not meerly the act of generation but of the thing generated and rather a power that may be attained in generation but the matter or subject of generation as it is in act so also its act is an inward worker or
others even sick solks do move themselves freely For the Stomach is loaded and burdened and the concoction thereof is not yet finished and therefore it happens to those that lay on their left side to wit which way the mouth of the stomach is wrested From whence it becomes first of all evident that the stomach also doth command the motion and especially that in this it doth govern the sleep dreams and also the motion For the dreams of the Mare are almost always the same as also the impotency of moving as long as the stomach being thus ill affected is stretched forth in sleep For the Schools do assign the causes of the Mare to be grosse vapours invading the thorny marrow And indeed they are carried into vapours by reason of the momentary solving of that distemper For if the sleepers are forthwith awakened the Mare also presently ceaseth And so those vapours ought to cease at the will of the awakener In the next place I hardly hear that grosse vapours should be accused in many or most causes of Diseases I hitherto confess that for fifty full years I never as yet saw a grosse vapour of distillations There are indeed corporeal exhalations in which a volatile matter is sublimed and doth climbe to the sides of the vessel So indeed out of Sulphur Orpiment Woods Arsenick Sal-Armoniack Camphor Urine and likewise from Mercury Lead brasse-Oar Brasse c. grosse smoakinesses do ascend upwards but vapours to wit watery ones I never saw or knew to be grosse unless among University-men who are ignorant of vapours yea however grosse they should be they should at least both loose their grosseness at the pleasure of the awakener and the heat which had stirred up those vapours should presently be stopped Both of them surely ridiculous things Again they conjecture the marrow to be affected by reason of motion denied in the Dream And so every affect of the marrow and every stopping vapour should cease at the will of the awakener which is alike full of frivolous rashness But how shall one laying with his face upwards send grosse vapours out of the stomach into his loins and the marrow enclosed within the turning joynts and covered with membranes to wit whither in another place they say that not the more thin windes do pierce especially because such a Scituation of him that layes down should of its own nature rather banith vapours out of the stomach into the bowels or should carry them upwards thorow the stomach into the Navil than downwards unto the marrow being shut up and loaded with the bowels What community passeth betwixt the speech with the thorny marrow or why shall grosse vapours out of the stomach desire onely the back-running sinews For the Mare doth not onely cause a hearing of inward whisperings and granteth to discourse also to fear but also external true and appearing objects are heard But he cannot move his tongue how much soever others may speak in time of dreaming Do the Schools perhaps think the motions of the tongue to be made by the thorny marrow Therefore those grosse vapours shall be far different from dreamy ones they not hindering the use of motion of the tongue yea of the whole Body For while they apply themselves to the sinews that they may afford the causes of unmoveableness the Schools themselves become dumb and unmoveable While they shall never understand what they say as neither after what manner those grosse that is impossible vapours shall pierce the stomach bottom of the belly hollow vein extended through the back with a beating Artery its companion and likewise the ligaments of the turning joynts And how those things shall be silent appeased and cease at a moment if haply he be awakened who suffers the distemper of the Mare Surely they had more rightly learned the action of the government of the Duumvirate to wit that an impediment brought on the stomach in its vital government aloâ—â—â— doth without vapours or Truncks trouble the Brain doth vitiate the sinews and first conceptions as it interrupteth the comforts of the spleen For so it happens that those who have the Apoplexie and Palsey do eat hear and sleep c. yet that they cannot speak For the Schools do accuse the back-running sinews to be stopped Why therefore shall not the Mare have regard to these sinews rather than to the thorny marrow Why do Remedies for the Duumvirate help those that have an Apoplexie a giddiness in the Head that know not how to go and speak those very Medicines I say being as yet present in the hollow of the stomach but are unprofitable to the back-running sinews and head Hath a Pie perhaps those sinews stuffed together before speech Shall a Cow which thrusts forth her tongue moveable into the nostrils have her tongue bound and doth she want back-running sinewes Or else she shall have them in vain if they are perpetually and naturally stopped A certain voluntary command is brought down from the Head unto the sinews of the tongue that is denied unto four-footed beasts but not unto some Birds Likewise that thing not at the first turn but by degrees through an accustomed going But he that hath an Apoplexie doth not put this command into execution because he is dismayed or astonished almost like a four-footed beast Indeed the conception of an Asse God permitting it once passed thorow unto his tongue Not indeed that the Asse was the Instrument of the Angel For then he had spoken the iudgements of God but not his own conceivings neither had he complained of his stripes From occasion of the Asse I will speak my own In the year 1643. the day before the Calends of the 11th month called January I sate beginning to write in a close Chamber but the cold was great and I bad an earthen Pot or Pan to be brought with burning Coals that I might sometimes comfort the cold stiffness of my fingers My little Daughter comes unto me who as soon as she sented the hurt or offence wiâ—hdrew the Earthen Pan and unless she had chanced to come I being choaked had perished For I presently felt about the mouth of my stomach a sore-threatned swooning I arose from my Study while I would go forth abroad I fell like a straight staffe and was brought away for dead For there was a two-fold affect one of the bruised hinder part of my head which filched away my tast and smelling but did over-cloud my hearing The other was a sounding affect stirred up from the stomach For in the first dayes my Head turned round with giddiness as oft as I looked on one side much more if upwards I thought that that befel me from the stroak of the fall with the naked hinder part of my Head suddenly and from my whole statute on a hard stone But by little and little I was better assured and I for many dayes revolved all things within my self I knew therefore at length that my giddiness proceeded
Spirit far from the Mouth as that their dissolutions by Vegetable are difficult they promise full Hospitals wherein the continual mournings or waylings of the unfortunate Sick do dolefully sound Wherefore from hence also every one doth almost dayly behold in his own House a stubborn and uncessant Disease amongst those of his Family and Physitians are made the Comedy of stages because they have scarce done any thing worthy of thanks For some of them confess their own and their Authors weaknesses and many do unwillingly flee unto Chymical unknown Remedies most of them abounding with their adultery and ravishment they fly back to Books not likewise to Furnaces for their unexperiences do promise most ample Fruits and they boast of all illegitimate and ridiculous Remedies The which while University Men do not understand and on the other side they do behold their withered Galen so destitute they as full of doubt flee over unto Cauteries sharpish Fountains and Baths Alas for grief what an unhappiness to the Sick and a vain refuge to themselves hath so great a stumbling of darkness in the Schools produced I will therefore shew that the text and that great boasted of virtue doth by the name of Stones understand all Minerals wholly and mettals the Marrow of these before the rest Because they are those things which do scarce shew themselves in any other Image than that of small Stones or great Stones For indeed this is the most rich and constant off-spring and chief treasure of Nature So that therein the conjunctions of the Stars are laid up or hidden and moreover in speaking properly and out of the profound Idiotisme of the Gentiles the Stars do excel or are chief over Meteours only causally but Mettals in their Excellencies or Remedies do far exceed the Stars For truly I have taught according to the text of the holy Scriptures That the Stars are not unto us for Causes but only for Signs Seasons Dayes and Years Neither is it lawful for Man to extend the Offices of the Stars any further Wherefore I have never in my desire married the number of the Stars unto the wandring Stars or Planets as neither have I enclosed both their Offices and Dignities in a like equality or resemblance For as they are at a far distance from each other so also they have unlike Offices and ends of Offices divided from each other But this one thing I willingly admit of to wit that Mettals do exceed Plants and Minerals in healing by long stades or distances And therefore that Mettals are certain clear or shining glasses not indeed by reason of their brightness but rather because that as oft as their virtues are opened and set at liberty they do act by an endowed light and a vital co-touching Mettals therefore do operate after the manner attributed to the Stars to wit by an Aspect and the touching of an alterative Blas which things will by handicraft-operation more clearly appear For Mettals themselves are Glasses the most excellent off-spring I say of the inferiour Globe to wit upon which the whole central virtue hath for some Ages before prodigally poured forth its treasure that it might most rightly espouse this liquor of the Earth this duggy nourishment and this off-spring of divine providence unto the ends which the weakness of Nature did require Therefore the Glasses of Gold Silver Mercury Lead Copper Iron and Tin and the fire-stones of these are not yet shut up or closed c. But I call those shining Glasses which have such a force of piercing and enlightning the Archeus from his errours furies and defects that they restore him into a brightness through the tincture of an endowed perfection For although these Minerals are not for food or of the condition of the Body of Man Yet they have the internal faculty of a Glass and a Power most chiefly efficacious co-touching with or very near to the Archeus of man being entire and appeased such as was the Archeus before the mind was conceived the which mind indeed was afterwards estranged from its right path after that the sensitive Soul wherein the mind sits drew the government of the Body on it self the which indeed was wholly frail and brutal in it self But in shining Glasses for a distinction to wit of Vegetables which do not shine a certain figure of our former immortality hath as yet remained resident and in this respect those Glasses are not only communicated but are willingly received by our Archeus Yea and which more is the restauration of the Archeus should the longer continue if the Glasses themselves were not presently banished which thing is manifest in the preparation of Copper Iron c. These things concerning the Tree of Life I do prosecute in the Book of long Life that there may be a stable Remedy transchangeable into mans Nature to be taken from ones childhood especially as long as the growing faculty doth flourish This Remedy I say doth exceed the force of a shining Glass for long Life but not likewise for a healthy Life Furthermore whatsoever is further to be spoken concerning Stones that was either so far as they do partake of a certain Metallick Sulphurous Tincture or of a Mineral Salt But as a mineral Being is neither for food nor nourishment neither could it be Vital or for Life but before that I shall pass over unto Arcanums which is called the great virtue of Stones in this place surely it is profitable to enter into the very seat of the Body and inwardly to view how much any Remedy can there operate To which end that which I have already said above comes first in our way To wit that the Stomack doth not coct any thing but as from a single aime it doth from thence at length frame a nourishment for its whole Body and for that very cause it hath an intention to make thereof a nourishable Liquor to wit venal Blood and afterwards a spermatick Humour fit for the nourishing of the chief constituting parts So that it may be turned into a substance fit for the nourishment and increase of the parts To wit as long as they are appointed within the bound designed for growth or increasing From whence it necessarily also follows that none but fit and foody matters concocted and digested by the Stomack are transmitted into the more remote shops of the digestions Wherefore I have first of all withdrawn every Plant by whatsoever cruelty being infamous from the border of the Mesentery because every thing that is unfit for these borders is for that very cause driven downwards by the Stomack and adjoyned unto the excrements But whatsoever hath now passed over into Chyle hath presently laid aside every strange quality whereby it may act as it were by choice But if from Magnum Oportet any kinde of quality of its antient concrete Body shall as yet remain surely that is drowsie feeble sluggish loose and vain and therefore it doth for the most part deceive Physitians in
in so high an esteem as hitherto it hath been And the rather because Reason and Discourse do not obscurely flcurish or grow in bâ—uit Beasts for that an aged Fox is more crafty than a younger one by rational discourse doth happen to be confirmed by the remembrance of experience yea Bees do number because if there be 30 Hives placed in order a small Bee flying out in the morning numbers out of what Hive she went forth and then doth not return nor enter unless she first re-number the rank which is easily proved For if the fifth or sixth Hive be removed into the seventh or any other place and the number being turned in and out the Bees which return laden with Hony and Wax thinking to lay up their fardle within their own Common-wealth do reck on again upon the fifth or sixth numbred Hive the Citizens whereof seeing they are strangers to that little Bee coming unto them do kill the same And in this manner 〈◊〉 do in one night destroy all the Hives For the Serpent was more crafty than the other living Creatures And I will confirm by one example instead of a thousand a rational Discourse in Beasts A man of a neighbouring Village brought up a House the chief Watchman of the night-prey But it happened that in full of the Moon a Wolf ran up and down about the Village at whom that Dog straightway barked and followed the fleeing Wolf But this being impatient of hunger reterted himself on the Dog and followes him But the Dog running away and leaping upon his Oven retired himself in safety and from thence continually barked and waking his Master discovered the presence of the Wolf But the day following the Wolf returned whom the Dog as he did the day before assaulted by barking For the Wolf feigning a flight until he knew by conjecture that his fellow Wolf which he had brought with him had hidden himself under the Oven When therefore he turned himself towards the Dog who running away from the Wolf following him and thinking to retire to his Oven as it were to a most safe Castle another hidden Wolf bewrayed himself who laid hold on the Dog with a grinning mouth and hindered his leaping upon his Oven Therefore I have noted a remarkable diligence in all bruit Beasts also in most insects I think it therefore a disgraceful definition whereby a man is decyphered to be a rational or reasonable living Creature as it were from a description of his Essence For truly he was to be defined from his ultimate end by the properties of appointments in creating if the end be the first of causes according to Aristotle Wherefore neither was the definition of a man to be begged from the Fountain of Paganisme which hath been plainly ignorant of Creation and the ends thereof For as my Philosophy is unknown to the Heathen so likewise their Philosophy is with me of no value Indeed I write for the sake of Christians for whom it is a shame to follow Heathens contrary to Gospel-truth Neither also am I willing to be accounted a brawler about names as oft as I treat of the ends Prerogatives choiceness and Dignity of the divine Image I reject first of all the follies of Paganisme in-definitions especially those made concerning man For truly according to the Testimony of St. Anthony described by Blessed Jerome Paul the first of Anchorets is referred among the number of the Gods Also by relation of the same Anthony Faunus is read to be a talking rational Creature yea knowing and worshipping the God of Nature and of the Christians and beseeching Anthony to pray for him and his It is manifest in the first place that this Faunus was not a man from the assertion of Anthony and his monstrous figure or shape Next neither that he was an evil spirit is gathered because this is so proud that if he knew he might be saved by Prayer he would not so much as ask that any one would pray for him neither would he prostrate himself for to beg pardon For blessed Jerome calls Faunus not a man as neither an evil Spirit Therefore Faunus is neither of these as the same man witnesseth by whom that Paul obtained the first place among the Anchorets and was reckoned among the Saints Therefore a Faunus is a living Creature as a Being in reason speaking his own proper Country Dialect but not a man So in times past a live Satyr and afterwards seasoned with Salt was shewen for money being carried thorowout Aegypt Phrygia and Greece Finally in Scotland and Zeland and elsewhere there are fished Monsters using Reason yea exercising mechanick arts in the half shapes of men Indeed man alone was made after the Image of God with an excluding of all Creatures or things But these rational bruits being in their own Elements are also different among themselves yet are they the Images or likenesses of us and not the Images of God Man therefore is a Creature living in a body by an immortal minde sealed to the honour of God according to the light and Image of the Word the first example of all causes For the day and its light were sometimes without the Sun and the Sun shall at sometimes be without light But the Soul of man cannot be considered without the Image of God seeing the Kingdom of God with all its free gifts is more intimate to the Soul than the Soul it self is intimate to it self Therefore I am deservedly angry that the Schooles do badly season Youth with Heathenish Phylosophy and that they do even till now delight in Acorns the Banquets of the first or original truth being now found Oh Lord the light of thy countenance is imprinted upon us for none hath perfectly known the Image and whether it doth well answer to its Type if he shall not first know or acknowledge the Type Wherefore as many as do badly define a man do not know or acknowledge God as neither themselves in essential things The Phylosophical Schooles therefore have rested more in the lessons of the Heathens than of Paul Hence I contemplate that they have meditated of a man onely according to his dead Carcase but not according to the intention of the Creator or efficient and the finall ordinations of man For otherwise the Almighty had declined from his scope if the end be the first or chief of causes in Creation and there be something considerable as first in the adorable Authour of things Therefore the Creature was to be defined and that from the intention of the efficient Creator For he erreth not in his ends who frameth the properties themselves which flow from the very ends of their appointments Wherefore man although he hath from his body some animal or sensitive and bodily conditions yet from the intent of God he is created into the living Image of God in an immortal substance that he may know love and worship God according to the light of the Type or figure imprinted
Agent the efficient or Archeus or chief Workman Therefore it is false that by how much the more a thing hath of the form by so much the more it hath of the act of the Entity or Beingness of vertue and operation Because the form is not gotten or possessed by parts or degrees neither therefore are Beings more or lesse capable to receive from the form yea although they were more capable to receive yet the activeness of the Agent is not of the form it self but of the Master-workman or Archeus of whom by and by Therefore the form cannot be divided For whatsoever Aristotle hath attributed to the form or to the last perfection in the Scene or Stage of things that properly directively and executively belongeth to that Agent or seminal chief Workman In the next place seeing that the efficient cause of Aristotle is external as he saith the Smith to be in his view of the Iron I easily knew that he hath set to sale his fictions for true foundations and all his speculation about artificial and external things of Nature to wander The whole efficient cause in Nature is after another manner it is inward and essential And although the Father generating be effective yet in order to causing or doing he is not but the cause efficient of the Seed wholly outward in respect to the Being which of the Seed is framed by generation For in the Seed which fulfills and contains the whole quiddity or thing liness of the immediate efficient that is not the Father himself but the Archeus or chief Workman For that the Father in respect of the thing generated hath the Reason of nought but an external cause and occasionally producing for by accident alone the effect of generation doth follow although the Agent applies himself to generation with his whole intent Therefore the constitutive constituter efficiently causing inwardly perfectively and by it self is the chief seminal Workman it self really distinct from the Father in Being and properties Even as in Vegetables Herbs indeed are the productresses of Seeds but they are but the occasional and remote causes of Herbs arising from that Seed and therefore although they are natural causes yet not sufficient and necessary ones for neither of every Seed will therefore rise up a Plant. Therefore the seminal Being is in the Seed the immediate efficient cause efficiently the internal as also essential of the Herbe proceeding from thence But the Plant that goeth before that Seed is the remote cause the natural occasion indeed of the Seed which by it self and immediately frameth the Plant and effects it with the assistance of that which stirs it up For otherwise if the Herbe causing should be the efficient of the Herbe produced the working or begetting cause could not be burnt up but the Plant produced should also perish Therefore the Seed is the efficient inward immediate cause of the herbe produced Wherefore after a diligent searching into all things I have not found any dependance of a natural body but onely on two causes on the matter and the efficient to wit inward ones whereto for the most part some outward exciter or stirrer up is joyned Because that these two are abundantly sufficient to themselves and to other things and do contain the whole composure order motion birth sealing notions or tokens of knowing properties and lastly whatsoever is required to the constituting and propagating or increasing of a thing For the seminal efficient cause containeth the Types or Patterns of things to be done by it self the figure motions houre respects inclinations fitnesses equalizings proportions alienation defect and whatsoever falls in under the succession of dayes as well in the business of generation as of government Lastly Since the efficient containeth all ends in it self as it were the instructions of things to be done by it self therefore the finall external cause of the Schooles which onely hath place in artificial things is altogether vain in Nature At leastwise it is not to be considered in a distinct thingliness from the efficient it self For that which in the minde of the Artificer is the Being of Reason can never obtain the weight of a cause real and natural Because in the efficient natural cause it s own knowledge of ends and dispositions is infused naturally by God Indeed all things in Nature do desire some generating juyce for their matter and lastly a seminal efficient disposing directing principle the inward one of generation For of these two and not more have all corporeal things need of But the three principles of bodies so greatly boasted of by Paracelsus although they should be found in all things that are to be framed yet it would not therefore follow that those have the force of principiating because those three seeing they are the fruits of Seeds they do partake as it were of a specifical diversity which they should necessarily be ignorant of if they should be true principles that is if they should be present before the framing of the particular kinde Nor also could one thing passe into another which notwithstanding is a thing natural or proper to the three first principles of Paracelsus Moreover since matter and also the efficient cause do suffice to every thing produced it followes that every natural definition is not to be fetched from the general kinde and difference things for the most part unknown to mortal men but from the conjoyning of both causes because both together do finish the whole effence of the thing And then it also followes that the thing it self produced or the effect is nothing but both causes joyned or knit together Which thing truly is to be understood of things without life to things having life life is otherwise to be added over and above or the Soul of the Liver For so a Horse is the Son of his four-footed parents created by virtue of the word into a living horse-like soul Sublunary things are commonly divided into Elements and things elementated but I divide them into Elements and seminal things produced These again into Vegetables Animals and Minerals So as every one of them may shut up a peculiar Monarchie secret from the other two Therefore Minerals and Vegetables if by any condition they may seem to live since they live onely by power and not by a living form in light enlivened they may also fitly be defined by their matter alone and internal efficient For every effect is produced either from the outward Agent and it is a thing brought forth by Art or from an outward awakener and nourisher which is the occasional and outward cause which notwithstanding hath an efficient and seminal causewithin and remains the efficient even until the last period or finishing of the thing brought forth yet the occasional cause is not the true but mediate Agent But the subject which the Schooles have called the Patient or sufferer I call the co-agent or co-worker But in respect of both limits or in the disposure of the
working motion to the co-working the action doth re-bound Therefore things that are produced without life do not receive their forms through the makeable disposition of the working terme or limit but onely they do obtain the ends or maturities of their appointments and digestions For while from the causes of Minerals or Mettalls a stone doth re-bound or from the Seed of a Plant while a Plant is made no new Being is made which was not by way of power in the Seed but it onely obtains the perfecting of the appointed ripeness And therefore power is given to the Earth of producing Herbes but not to the water of producing Fishes Because it is not so in things that have a living Soul as in Plants For as their Monarchies are plainly unlike so also their manners of generation and generating For therefore the natural gift of increasing Seeds durable throughout Ages is read to have been given to the Earth not so in living Creatures although these in the mean time ought to propagate Therefore the Seeds of things that are not soulified are indeed propagated no otherwise than as light taken from light Yet in the partaking of which enlightning the Creator is of necessity the chief Efficient But the Creator alone createth every where a new light whether it be formal or also vitall of the individual that is brought forth for neither was that light before not so much as in part although from the potential disposure or fit or inclinable disposition the Seeds of things not soulified may in some sort be reckoned to obtain a Form so are things that have life yet the formal virtue is not so neerly planted in these as in Plants For Souls and lives as they know not degrees so also not parts And although the Seed of a living Creature may have a disposition unto life yet it hath not life neither can it have it or effect it of it self for the Reasons drawn from the Rise or Birth of Forms Wherefore I shall teach by and by that there are not four Elements nor that there is a uniting of the three remainders yea nor of two that bodies which are believed to be mixt may be thereby made but that to the framing of these two natural causes at least do abundantly suffice the matter indeed is the veriest substance it self of the effect but the efficient its inward and seminal Agent and even as in living Creatures I acknowledge two onely Sexes so also are there two bodies at least the beginnings of any things whatsoever and not more even as there are onely two great lights For the three beginnings of bodies which the Chymists do call Salt Sulphur and Mercury or Salt Liquor and Balsam I will shew in their place that they cannot obtain the Dignities of beginnings which cannot be found in all things and which themselves are originally sprung from the Element of water and do fail being dissolved again into water as at sometime I shall make to appear for it behoveth the nature of beginnings to be stable if they ought to bear the name and property of a Principle Therefore there are two chief or first beginnings of Bodies and corporeal Causes and no more to wit the Element of Water or the beginning of which and the Ferment or Leaven or seminal beginning by which that is to be disposed of whence straightway the Seed is produced in the matter which the Seed being gotten is by that very thing made the life or the middle matter of that Being running thorow even into the finishing of the thing or last matter But the Ferment is a formall created Being which is neither a substance nor an accident but a neutrall thing framed from the beginning of the World in the places of its own Monarchie in the manner of light fire the Magnall or sheath of the Air Forms c. that it may prepare stir up and go before the Seeds This is indeed a Ferment in general But what things I here suppose I will at length evidently shew every thing in its place I will not treat of Fables and things that are not in being but of Principles and Causes in order to their ends actions and generations I consider Ferments existing truly and in act and individually by their kindes distinct Therefore Ferments are gifts and Roots stablished by the Creator the Lord for the finishing of Ages sufficient and durable by continual increase which of water can stir up and make Seeds proper to themselves Surely wherein he hath given to the Earth the virtue of budding from it self he hath given so many Ferments as expectations of fruits that also without the Seed of the foregoing Plant they may out of Water generate their own Liquors and Fruits Therefore Ferments do bring forth their own Seeds not others that is every ones according to their own Nature and property which the Poet saith For Nature is subject to the Soil Neither doth every Land bring forth all things For there is in places a certain order divinely placed a certain Reason and unchangeable Root of producing some appointed effects or fruits nor indeed onely of Vegetables but also of Minerals and Insects or creatures that retain their life in a divided portion For the soils and properties of Lands do differ and that by reason of some cause of the same birth and age with that Land Indeed this I attribute to the formall Ferment created in that place Whence consequently divers fruits do bud and of their own accord break forth in divers places whose Seeds being removed to another place we see for the most part to come forth more weakly as counterfeit young But that which I have said of the Ferment or Leaven placed in the Earth that very thing thou shalt likewise finde in the Air and Water for neither do they want Roots Gifts fermental Reasons or respects which being stable do bring forth fruits dedicated to places and Provinces and that thing not onely the perseverance of fruits doth convince of but also the voluntarily and abundant shedding abroad of unforbidden Seeds Therefore the Ferment holds the Nature of a true Principle divers in this from the efficient cause that the efficient cause is considered as an immediate active Principle in the thing which is the Seed and as it were the moving Principle to generation or the constitutive beginning of the thing but the Ferment is often before the Seed and doth generate this from it self And the Ferment is the original beginning of things a Power placed in the Earth or places but not in seminal things constituted But the Ferment which growes up in the things constituted or framed together with the properties of Seeds hath it self in manner of the efficient cause unto the Seed of things but the seminal Ferment is not that which is one of the two original Principles but the product of the same and the effect of the individual Seed and therefore frail and perishing Whereas otherwise the
principiating Ferment laid up in the bosoms of the Elements continues unchangeable and constant nor subject to successive change or death Therefore it is a power implanted in places by the Lord the Creator and there placed for ends ordained to himself in the succession of dayes While as othewise the Seed in things and its fermental or leavening force is a thing which the Scene of its Tragedy being out of date doth end in an individual conclusion For a thing although it successively causeth off-spring from it self that comes to passe not but by the virtue of the Ferment once drawn which therefore ceaseth not in its own Places uncessantly to send forth voluntary or more prosperous fruits by the Seed of the former Parents These things are easie to be known in Mineralls sprung of their own accord but in Plants and living Creatures generating by a successive fruitfulness of the Seed it is not alike easie as neither in things soulified counterfetting indeed a confused Sex by putrifaction but straightway causing off-spring also by a mutual joyning But there is every where the same Reason of the Ferment and so that the Ferment is on both sides the same Principle For in the Seed it is placed by the Parent and undergoes an identity or sameliness with the same or it is imprinted in the matter elsewhere from external causes and at leastwise it on either side holds the place of a true inward efficient Because the framer of things hath ordained proper and stable places for some Ferments in the Cup or bosome of the Elements as it were the Store-house of the Seeds therefore the first figures of efficient causes But in other things he hath dispersed them thorow individual things and kindes as if they were places for elsewhere he would have these beginnings stedfast in regard of the Nature of bodies in which they are in but in another place that they might passe from hand to hand into the continuances of things But in this he would have them to differ that the stable Ferments of places should be as it were the chief universal simple and inchoative or beginning Beginnings of Seeds or the efficients of natural Causes which indeed should beget with Childe the Element of Water in it self in the Air or in the Earth But that the sliding Ferments of frail Bodies and those Ferments drawn from the Parents should onely concern the matter prepared and should sit immediately in the bosom of the Seeds and therefore also that they should contain the inward necessity of death Likewise the other universal beginning of Bodies which is the water is the onely material cause of things as the water hath the Nature of a beginning it self in the manner purity simpleness and progress of beginning even as also in the bound of dissolution unto which all Bodies through the reducing of the last matter do return Which thing I will straightway in its place typically demonstrate A Beginning therefore differs from a cause onely speculatively as that is an actual initiating Being and thus far causing But a Cause may be a terme of relation to the thing caused or the Effect happily neerer to a speculative Being Or distinguish those as it listeth thee I at leastwise understand Causes to begin and beginnings to cause by the same name whether it be in the bosom of the Elements or in the very Family of material Seeds Therefore in the History of Natural things I consider the matter for the most part begotten with Childe by the Seed running down from its first life unto the last bound of that conjoyned thing but not the first matter of Aristotle or that impossible non-Being But I consider the reall beginnings of the efficient cause conceived as the first Gifts Roots Treasures and begetting Ferments Or if the Reader had rather confound the efficient Cause with the Ferment of things and the matter of Bodies with the Element of water I willingly cease to be distinct onely that it be known how those things have themselves in the light of Nature Thus at least I have discoursed of beginnings and causes of Bodies as I judge and have found by experience also I promise much light to those who shall have once made this speculation their own Therefore first of all they shall certainly finde the Maxime of Aristotle false to wit that the thing generating cannot be a part of the thing generated Seeing that the effective Principle of generation is alway the inward Agent the inward doer or accomplisher and the thing generating Which appeareth clearly enough in those things which bring forth living Creatures by their onely Mother putrifaction Wherein there is no outward univocall or simple thing generating but the seminal lump it self or the generative Seed doth keep in it self all things which it hath need of for the managing of generation But truly neither is it sufficient to have shewen a couple of Causes but rather it hath holpen more plainly to have brought forth the efficient or chief Builder of the Fabrick Wherefore I do suppose in this place what things I will demonstrate elsewhere to wit that in the whole order of natural things nothing of new doth arise which may not take its beginning out of the Seed and nothing to be made which may not be made out of the necessity of the Seed But the Tragedy that hath done its office in the bound of the end is nothing out the period or conclusion of the Seeds overcome with pains or ended unless happily they may be compelled by violence to depart Wherefore I except the fire because as being given not for generation but for destruction Chiefly because there is a peculiar not a seminal beginning of it Indeed it is a thing among all created things singular and unlike as sometime in its place Last of all I except the influences of the Heavens which by reason of their most general appointment have no seminal power in themselves Because they are too far distinct from the lot or interest of things to be generated and therefore influences are chosen to be for signes times or seasons dayes and years by the Creator nor ordained for any thing else but not for the seminal causes of things Moreover of efficient and seminal Causes in Nature some are efficiently effecting but others effectively effecting Indeed of the former order are the Seeds themselves and the Spirits the dispensers of these and those causes are of the race of essences through their much activity worthily divided from the material cause But the effective efficients are the very places of entertainment and the neerest Organs or Instruments of the Seeds such as are external Ferments the disposers of the matter into the interchangeableness of the passing over of one thing into another Also hither have the dispositive powers of circumstances regard likewise the cherishing exciting and promoting ones because the Seed being given yet not any things promiscuously do thence proceed Besides our young beginner shall
the disposing of instruments and the effect or thing produced 6. That heat is not an agent in seminal generation 7. Why Aristotle hath not known the truth of Nature 8. His Books of natural Philosophy contain onely tristes 9. How young men are to be instructed in the place or room of Schoole-Philosophy 10. Into what great Apolloes young men might climbe 11. The Prerogatives of the fire 12. What a young man so instructed might judge 13. Privations do not succeed in the flowing of Seeds to generation 14. There is no form of a dead Carcase 15. That generation and corruption do not receive each other 16. The Vulcan of life vanisheth without the corrupting of it self 17. Death is not the corruption of life 18. The distinction of privation and corruption 19. Of forms there is no corruption 20. The ignorance of Galen 21. His ridiculous Volumes concerning the decrees of Hipocrates and Plato 22. His books of preserving of health are foolish THE Schooles have so sworn constancy and their end to their Aristotle that even to this day they by putting one name for another do call him the Philosopher whom notwithstanding I certainly finde to be altogether ignorant of Nature and it grieveth me not to write down some causes which have enforced me hereunto and that for no other end than that hereafter as well Professors as young beginners may not through an aptness to believe and a custome of assenting be made to wander out of the way nor may suffer themselves hence-forward to be led by a blinde man into the ditch For otherwise I tell no mans tale nor am I more displeased with Aristotle than with a non ens or a non-being Therefore first of all Aristotle defineth Nature It is the Principle or beginning of motion as also of rest in Bodies in whom it is in by it self and not by accident Wherein I finde more errours and ignorances of the definer than words First therefore the word it is in sheweth that he speaketh of a Body really existing but not of his impossible matter 2. He denotes that such Bodies are not of the number or supposed things of Nature For truly it belongeth not to Bodies to be in Bodies by it self and not by accident 3. He takes away any accidents from the Catalogue of Nature as if they were without besides and above Nature because accidents are in by accident 4. He sets down that Bodies which have motion or rest by accident are likewise without Nature 5. That the Being of things is in Nature in Nature it self before the day or motion or rest of the same Because it must needs be that something first be before that it move be moved or doth rest And so the Principle of Being goes before the beginning of moving or resting notwithstanding Nature cannot be before its existence For if the beginning of motion or rest should be latter or an effect as to their Being Nature should be an effect as to its being a natural thing 6. What if God after Creation had enjoyned neither motion nor rest rest indeed according to Aristotle presupposeth the bound of motion there had now been a Creature and not Nature For God in the beginning created the Heaven and the Earth Now Nature was not understood by Aristotle to wit there was sometimes a Creature and it actually existed before or on this side Nature here defined 7. Bodies in which the beginning of motion is external and by accident suppose thou when 〈◊〉 heat of the Sun moves the Seed to increase or a Woman with Childe by accident transforms the imperfect Infant by her own Imagination should not be under Nature as neither that accidental beginning 8. To rest is not not to be moved but to cease from motion and so not to be moved is more general than rest Therefore Nature absolutely taken should be onely after the existence of Nature 9. If the beginning of motion in a moveable thing be Nature and the efficient cause be properly called the beginning of motion as he saith heat not elementary to be therefore it must needs be that the efficient cause is inward which is against Aristotle or that Nature in as much as it is the beginning of motion is not in Bodies most neerly or inwardly by it self 10. Every outward efficient cause is the beginning of motion in a thing by accident But every efficient cause according to Aristotle is external therefore no efficient cause external is natural which is contrary to his second Book of Physicks 11. Whatsoever things are moved by the Mathematicks and also a Mill moved by the Winde or a stream should not be moved by Nature But I believe that Nature is the Command of God whereby a thing is that which it is and doth that which it is commanded to do or act This is a Christian definition taken out of the holy Scriptures 12. But Aristotle contrary to his own Precepts of a definition takes the difference which he thinketh to be constitutive for the general kinde of the thing defined in Nature to wit the formall beginning of motion and rest But for the constitutive difference he takes the matter or Body wherein the said beginning of motion is But Christians are held to believe Nature to be every Creature to wit a Body and accidents no lesse than the beginning of motion it self 13. Death also although it be the beginning by it self of rest in a dead Carcase yet Christians do believe it not to be created by the Lord and so neither to be Nature and although it may light naturally on it yet that happens not by reason of the death but of its natural Causes But Aristotle in another place a like stumblingly touching on Nature saith Every power of the Soul seemeth to be a partaker of some other certain Body for neither dares he positively and simply to affirm it than those which are called Elements For even as Souls do differ so also the Nature of that Body doth differ the Seed contains the cause of fruitfulness to wit heat which is not fiery but a spirit or breath in the froathy body of the Seed and the Nature which is in that Spirit answereth in proportion to the Element of the Stars This Precept praised by the Schooles containeth almost as many Errours as Syllables And at length this Writer of natural instruction being exceeding doubtful knowes not what he may call or ought to call Nature For first he saith it to be a Corporeal power of the Soul and therefore he banisheth the understanding out of the powers of the Soul 2. He saith the power of the Soul which he afterwards calleth heat is a partaker of another Body than those that are called Elements As if it were a partaker onely of a Body above an Elementated one and heavenly 3. It is absolutely false and an ignorant thing that any power of the Soul is a partaker of the body although it be tied to the body For every
power is an accident and no accident or quality can be a partaker of a Body but on the contrary a Body is a partaker of accidents 4. That souls do not differ but in respect of that body which at length he calleth meer heat notwithstanding that all Souls are a power partaking of a heavenly Body therefore Souls do not differ in respect of that Body in which he hath said they all do agree or if there be any difference between Souls let it be in respect of the matter of a Body or of an unnamed Client or retainer being neglected by and plainly unknown to Aristotle And so in so great a dress of words he hath spoken nothing but trifles 5. If Souls do differ onely for that bodies sake the act shall be now limited by the power the Species or particular kinde by the matter not by the form 6. The Seed contains the cause of fruitfulness it is a Childish and triflous thing because the Seed ceaseth to be Seed if it be without the cause of fruitfulness 7. Every power of the Soul is a partaker of some other body than those which are called the Elements Yet he would have the bodies of all soulified or living Creatures to be of necessity mixt of non but actual Elements 8. The Seed is not fruitful but by heat As though Fishes were not more fruitfull than four footed Beasts and as though Fishes were not actually cold 9. He knew not another moderate heat from live Coals which nourisheth Eggs even unto a Chick And he knowes not that all heat is in one onely most special kinde of quality being distinguished onely by degree 10. He is ignorant that heat onely makes hot by it self and that it should make fruitful by accident And therefore although that heat be the principle of motion and the power of the Soul that is Nature by it self yet as it should make the Seeds fruitful by accident it should be the beginning of motion by accident Therefore in respect of the same Nature it should be a beginning by it self and by accident or with relation to the same Nature it should be Nature and not Nature 11. He confoundeth the quality of heats with the spirit and air of the froathy Seed which notwithstanding do differ no lesse than in predicaments 12. Heat is the spirit of the froathy body and the nature which is in that spirit is heat Therefore the spirit shall be in the spirit 13. Nature is in that spirit and that spirit is not nature defined by Aristotle for the subject of natural Philosophy yet that spirit is the Principle of motion in the Seed and of life in living Creatures and he much more strictly denies the froathy body of the Seed to be of the account of nature as though the seed of things were a froath and not the more inward invisible kernel in a corporeal seed but that onely the power of Souls which with him is nothing but heat were nature 14. Because every power of the Soul is encompassed with heat he excludes out of the account of nature any other bodies and accidents 15. That power of Souls for whose sake Souls do differ is onely heat not indeed a fiery one but agreeing in proportion with the Element of the Stars that is it hath not been understood by Aristotle nor is it to be any way to be understood by the Schooles how heat doth agree with a body with an Element what agreement there can be between such various dependants of predicaments 16. He denieth this power of Souls to be of the race of Elements That plural number rejecteth not onely one Element but by reason of the strength of negatives all Elements 17. Every power of the Soul is a meer heat not indeed answering to the heat of the Element of the Stars but altogether to the Element it self 18. For truly he acknowledgeth no other heat than that of fire nor any other Element of fire than that which is of the kitchin because he distinguisheth Elementary heat from the Element of the Stars yet by his own authority he hath inclosed fire that is not of the kitchin between the Heaven and the Air. 19. At length as oft as he was positively to tell what nature was the privy shifter saith sometimes that it is the power of the Soul sometimes the fruitfulness of the Seed and at last he neither perceived nor ever knew what the heat not fiery was and makes a fifth Element of the Firmament of the Stars after he hath cast away the other four by denying them Therefore he runs about in denying by far fetched speeches and least he should be laid hold on he denyeth nature to be of the race of Elements As if it were enough to have said there is a Chymera or certain fabulous Monster not of the Elements but of the fifth Element of the Stars It is not a body not an accident but a heat answering to the Element of the Heavens not to the heat of the same 20. And he would not say that indeed these things are so bur that they seem to him to be so Seeing that according to the same man many things may seem to be which yet are not 21. And if thou wilt not believe it go to see or expect it for ever 22. As though the whole action of nature were made by heat 23. Also that Mettalls which elsewhere he writeth to be co-thickned or condensed by their own cold because they do abound with heat should now be out of nature 24. And as though the seeds of Vegetables because they are not froathy should not be endowed with fruitfulnesses or should not contain nature in themselves 25. Therefore he denieth the heat of living Creatures actually hot to be Elementary the which notwithstanding I shall at sometime in its own place prove to be true being unmindeful of his own maxim that the cause is of the same particular kinde with its thing caused He knowes not I say that our heat doth make any other things to be hot by a naked Elementary heat And likewise that since not onely Elementary heat which he placeth in the sublunary fire distinct from the common or kitchin fire but also the kitchin fire do heat us in a degree fitted to us Therefore they ought to be of one and the same species or particular kinde 26. At length he rashly affirmeth that nature or the power of the Soul or seminal truths are nothing besides that heavenly heat 27. Therefore he acknowledgeth heat actually cold in Fishes to be the cause of fruitfulness seeing it distributes from every power of the Soul For that is to have sold trifles instead of Phylosophy And as oft as he feareth his toyes are not saleable he provokes us to the Element of the Stars after that he had provoked us it seemes by one affirmative and many trifles of denyalls to the proportion of the Element of the Stars Surely it is a shame for Christians
as yet to follow that Patron in natural Philosophy seeing that we believe by Faith that Plants budded forth by a seminal virtue before the Stars arose For in Nature there is alway found the Agent the matter and thing brought forth or the effect the instrument and the disposition But every Agent measureth his instrument and fits the dispositions unto the end or finishing of the thing produced But heat whether thou wilt have it Elementary or heavenly may indeed be a disposition brought forth by the Seed and likewise the Instrument thereof but it can by no meanes be a seminal Agent measuring and squaring its dispositive Instruments For neither is the operation of heat any other than to make hot whether that thing be called Elementarily or Firmamentarily Therefore the operation of heat in generation is not ordained for the end of specifical dispositions and much lesse is it directed to the bringing in of a specifical thingliness For if that heat should be this seminal Agent or the nature of Seeds besides that it being one hath so many specifical differences as there are kindes of things generated in Nature it ought to have without it self an Instrument seeing that it is not granted to be without essential properties measured and manifestly limited to the bringing in of any kinde of specifical thingliness but no such Instrument or mean is present with heat therefore the co-measuring of every Instrument according to quantity manner motion figure durance and the appointments of any operations whatsoever dependeth on the seminal Agent in which such kindes of co-measuring knowledges of proportions are and no way on heat For seeing the knowledge of natural truth doth necessarily depend on nature and the essence thereof Aristotle who was ignorant of the thingliness of nature also knew not the truth thereof and so prostituted nought but his own dreams to be diligently taught in Schooles Truly the operation of generation depends on nature and its proper Instruments He therefore that looks on heat for every Instrument of nature and accounts this very Instrument for the seminal and vitall nature he supposeth one of the Kings Guard to be the King or the File to be the Workman Yea heat as heat is not indeed the Instrument proper to nature but a common adjacent concomitant and accidental thing produced in hot things onely but the knowledge of nature and essence is not taken from improper adjacent and accidental effects but from the knowing of Principles which hitherto even as it plainly appeares the Schoole of the Peripateticks hath been ignorant of I say the Principles of nature are the matter and the Agent But the Principles of Bodies are water and the seed or vulcane things answering to both Sexes which thing I will by and by teach in its place Wherefore since Aristotle knowes not the nature properties and likewise the causes and thingliness of generations who shall not shew that the Schooles have hitherto drawn the waters of Philosophy out of dry Cisterns For his eight Books of natural Instructions do expound Dreams and privations instead of the knowledge of nature I say they do suppose a matter or impossible corporeity or bodyliness with Mathematical abstraction for the principle prop and seminary of nature The which as it never existeth neither shall it have the efficacy of beginning or of causing Likewise privation is given to be drunk down as another Principle which the Schooles themselves do rashly confess to be a meer non ens or a non-Being And at length they diligently teach surely by an over rash dotage the form which is the end top and utmost aim of appointment and the thing it self produced for a beginning of nature to wit they place the effect in the room of a Beginning But in another Book he sets to sale the causes of nature for Principles to wit the matter and form privation being omitted As I shall sometimes shew concerning causes As though they were the Principles of nature or could principiaâ—e by causing But fortune and chance as if they were the proper passions of nature are handled in a particular Book For events do not deserve a place in the contemplation and Doctrine of nature Lastly a Vacuum or emptiness and an Infinite things not belonging to the knowledge of nature and well high privative things or plainly negative have obtained his treatises But time and place the Schooles do no lesse ignorantly than impertinently reckon among the lessons of nature And last of all they bring in locall motion as it serves to Science Mathematical or Learning by demonstration alike foolishly and with an undistinct indiscretion into nature Certainly I could wish that in so short a space of life the Spring of young men might not be hereafter seasoned with such trifles and no longer with lying Sophistry Indeed they should learn in that unprofitable three years space and in the whole seven years Arithmetick the Science Mathematical the Elements of Euclide and then Geographie with the circumstances of Seas Rivers Springs Mountains Provinces and Minerals And likewise the properties and Customs of Nations Waters Plants living Creatures Minerals and places Moreover the use of the Ring and of the Astrolabe And then let them come to the Study of Nature let them learn to know and seperate the first Beginnings of Bodies I say by working to have known their fixedness volatility or swiftness with their seperation life death interchangeable course defects alteration weakness corruption transplanting solution coagulation or co-thickning resolving Let the History of extractions dividings conjoynings ripenesses promotions hinderances consequences lastly of losse and profit be added Let them also be taught the Beginnings of Seeds Ferments Spirits and Tinctures with every flowing digesting changing motion and disturbance of things to be altered And all those things not indeed by a naked description of discourse but by handicraft demonstration of the fire For truly nature measureth her works by distilling moystening drying calcining resolving plainly by the same meanes whereby glasses do accomplish those same operations And so the Artificer by changing the operations of nature obtains the properties and knowledge of the same For however natural a wit and sharpness of judgement the Philosopher may have yet he is never admitted to the Root or radical knowledge of natural things without the fire And so every one is deluded with a thousand thoughts or doubts the which he unfoldeth not to himself but by the help of the fire Therefore I confess nothing doth more fully bring a man that is greedy of knowing to the knowledges of all things knowable than the fire Therefore a young man at length returning out of those Schooles truly it is a wonder to see how much he shall ascend above the Phylosophers of the University and the vain reasoning of the Schooles First of all he shall account it a shameful thing for the Schooles to be ignorant for example in an Egge that in that space of time while it comes
to be a Bird a thousand dispositions do succeed each other in the way and all of them to be external and accidentary to the Seed neither that in the mean time it ceaseth to hasten to the aims of its appointment For the figure of the yolk of the Egge together with accidentary dispositions succeeding each other do passe over it indeed yet there is not a new generation of the form of that puttified Egge present at every disposure of the putrifaction Indeed one onely vitall form of the Chick being excepted there comes to it no other which by degrees is stirred up by foregoing dispositions and at length the ripeness of dispositions being attained floweth into it For neither when the Bird dyeth is there a certain essential form and generation of the dead Carcase Because all generation in nature is enclosed in an essential form which a dead Carcase wanteth even as also a seed and an Archeus the Governour as shall be shewed in its place Even as the essence begins him with the Vulcan of the Seed and the same essence continues with the product or thing generated so the same product failing the same essence perisheth But the essence perishing the form the Governour or President thereof also goes to ruine For the Vulcan or Master-Workman forsaking the body the flesh heart veins c. do begin to putrifie for that they are now deprived of the vital Balsam their leader For under life the flesh and the bone c. were distinguished In its particular kinde and proper form the flesh was flesh and was formally severed from the bone in which form in the dead Carcase they do forthwith appear And so through death no form or essential thingliness comes upon the dead Carcase in the whole or in any particular parts Onely that which was vitall is seperated Therefore let it be an erroneous thing That the corruption of one thing is the generation of another Because the corruption of life happens onely through the quenching of the vitall Balsam or form therefore without a new generation of a Creature Therefore no privation happens in things that have life and so neither can privation there have the force of a Principle Seeing that from the seed even unto the vitall being there is but one progress promotion and ripeness about the end whereof the form is given Therefore also generation doth reciprocally or cursarily happen without any corruption as often as the matter being now brought to the ripeness of its appointment by the seminal Vulcan hath obtained a form coming to it from elsewhere Yea that Vulcan through the departure of life departs flies away and vanisheth without any corrupting of it self no otherwise than as light perisheth without the corrupting of it self Indeed life vanisheth after the manner of light perishing And the Vulcan seeing it is a certain vitall Air fleeth away Both of them without the corruption of themselves and the body which is deprived of life properly for that very cause is not corrupted although through the failing of the vitall Balsam corruption doth soon succeed Which thing sufficiently appeareth in Mummies and also in Vegetables which being dry and deprived of life are kept for uses yea they do very often drive away all corruption So far of is it that their life perishing for that very cause they should be corrupted Therefore death in things that have life is not the corruption of their own life as neither of that which lives but the extinguishing of life And although in some things the corruption of the body may follow truly that is to life and the body by accident which thing is manifest For truly dead Carcases are preserved from corruption by art Therefore now Aristotle confounds privation with corruption and doth not distinguish his own Principle non ens or a non-being from the Being corruption Lastly the forms of things are not subject to corruption and therefore neither are they corrupted but annihilated or brought to nothing Wherefore neither can the withdrawing or the extinguishing of the form include any corruption on behalf of the form Furthermore I have hated Metaphors or figurative Translations of words from their proper signification to another in the History of nature and Family of essential things because they are those things which have introduced the errours of the Schooles brawls of disputing and religious Worship given to Aristotle But besides if Aristotle be unskilful in nature and ignorant of all natural Philosphy truly Galen hath hitherto every where manifested a greater ignorance For first of all I will make it manifest that there is not a quaternary or a fourfold kinde of Elements nor a congress or conjunction of these for bodies which are believed to be mixt much less a strife or fighting of qualities or Complexions or for the Causes of Diseases And so that neither doth the Treatise of the Elements properly belong to Medicine Truly I finde Galen diligent in opinions and a boasting Writer without judgement or discretion For neither hath he better perceived of Nature Diseases Causes and defects than of the decrees of Hipocrates and Plato For I profess I have twice read over those Volumes of Galen with attention but I have found the poverty and undistinct ignorance of Galen to fight with his rashness For truly those Books do touch at nothing lesse than the Doctrine of Hipocrates or Plato Neither also hath Hipocrates any thing common with Plato And so that I have not found any one who hath judged them worthy of a Commentary as neither to have been written concerning the preserving of health This one thing is alway to be found in Galen that the names of Authours being suppressed he hath willingly snatched the Inventions of others to himself a man wholly scanty or very poor in judgement as oft as he hath expressed the conceptions of his own judgement I ought to declare these things concerning the two Standard-Defenders of natural Philosophy that the Schooles may abstain from worshipping these Masters CHAP. VIII The Elements 1. The Doctrine of the Elements in healing is wholly impertinent and so that in Galen such a heap of those Books is ridiculous 2. The vain opinions of the Schooles concerning the Elements 3. The true beginnings of naturall Science are delivered 4. Six conclusions out of the holy Scriptures 5. That there are onely three Elements 6. The Content of the Heavens 7. That there are two first-born Elements 8. That Fire is not an Element 9. The Errour of Paracelsus touching the matter of the Heaven 10. A Quaternary of Elements for the mixtures of Bodies and for Diseases falls to the ground 11. A Proposition that all things which are believed to be mixt are materially of water onely with a mechanicall or handicraft demonstration 12. What the Elementall and Virgin Earth is 13. From whence the two Elements may be called the first-born 14. An objection from artificial things 15. The force of the artificial fire of Hell 16. Another
from East to West For very many Waters do alwayes descend by Rivers from the North which do never run back unto the North. So the River Danubius with many others doth slide thorow the Hellespont or Greek Sea into the Archi-pelago or chief Sea the Waters descend neither doth any thing return from the Mediterranean Sea Whatsoever doth once descend into the Mediterranean is never spread into the Ocean For the River Nilus alwayes descending in a right line from the Mountains of the Moon is wholly plunged into the Zebunutican Sea with its dresses neither doth the Mediterranean Sea in the mean time increase nor become the salter Which thing notwithstanding should be altogether needful so to be if in manner of a naked vapour the waters powred into it should exhale out of the Sea But the Eternal wisdom hath in most places made the Mediterranean Sea deeper than the Ocean that the Virgin-Sand might drink up the Waters together with its Salts like a sieve For mans necessities which do seem to have dictated a Law to God out of his goodness did require Springs and Rivers falling down from the highest tops Lastly the waters being turned forth of the Quellem by Fountains do by a continuation draw after them the following waters and therefore also in the bottom do they drink up the Sea-waters by supping Therefore properties are added to places by Divine Providence by reason of necessities The flowing of the North Sea about Kent of England doth prevent or go before the flowing of the West Sea almost for half an houre Whence I conjecture the Earth and Sea to ascend in the Northern Climate or Coast For the whole Northern Earth is named Scandia from Scandendo or climbing And the North Sea should not be frozen to ice if it were salt If it be sweet it points out that the Salt of the Ocean cannot by ascendding be co-mingled with it but that the Northern waters do uncessantly rush into a steep place For it is likely to be true that as well in the first mixture of the deep as in the floud of the generall overflowing all Waters were once again co-mixt and that the co-mingling of these was therefore called Sea Which waters therefore in the beginning were once salt and straight way afterwards were sweeter it is certain that those waters have continually flowen downwards because they are sweet at this day and so Scandia is far higher in Scituation than Aegypt But let us imagine onely earth of ten foot to have framed a banke to the Sea in the shoares on every side and let us keep an equall roundness at least Nilus which is carried head-long in a straight line from the South into the Mediterranean Sea for a thousand Leagues space if besides the roundness of the Sphere which is not any where steep it also hath it self in manner of a plain with relation to its Center it should have onely ten foot fall at the highest from its rise even into the Sea Which is to call Nilus a quiet pool but not a steep running River For when a Ditch was devised at Gaudave Bruges there was found a declining height of 18 foot the dimension being taken by night over the flame of a Candle and that by the withdrawn roundness of the Sphere If therefore by a slow rowling or running there is 18 foot of fall or descent in eight Leagues Nilus flowing alike slowly shall have need of 2230 foot in height at least in its beginning But if it shall flow after the manner of Nilus it shall of necessity have need of four times as much at the least or of nine thousand foot But if Nilus doth measure this height of the Earth by 15 degrees from the Southern Tropick or turning point unto the Mediterranean Sea where the figure of the Globe is as yet Sphericall or round the which altitude therefore is it not lawful to conjecture to be from the Mountains of the Moon even to the South An unwearied fall of the waters from the North promiseth a notable elevation of the Earth so it is But thence it is not granted to collect that all the waters that being supposed do forsake the North because the Lawes of Scituations are silent where the water falls down on every side about the Center of the World And so hath been the necessity of the Universe and the rule of properties For I feign a subiunary place without a palpable body but a flint of an Egge-like form to fall down from Heaven and him to rest in his Center yet shall his length be inclined towards some part of Heaven What if this be towards the Poles it will express to us the figure of the World For it hath not therefore lost its auntient weight yet should it not fall towards Heaven because that is against the nature of every weight neither should it fall crooked-wise seeing that so it should fall into an infinite and should have no bound of motion which is alike absurd Therefore that Stone with its weightiness should be stayed in that place wherein it was laid But since that thing happens not under the Moon it must needes be that besides the weight of things there be some property in place at the sight whereof it be remooved and may make the respects of upper and lower Therefore if that thing above and beneath is not but in respect of Bodies and perhaps onely of sublunary ones those kindes of respects do wholly subsist from the intent of the Creator which is the original cause of all rest and motion Wherefore if his intent hath been to make the figure of the Universe Egg-like because that was the more commodious habitation of Mortalls for the needful nourishments of the heat of the Sun and hath alwayes made that which is far the best in all things he hath also limited an Oyall or Egg-like figure to the waters and the same respect to their Center Or that the Ovall figure should keep almost the same intention to the Center as a round figure hath What if Fountains do ascend to the tops of Mountains the Water of the Pole might also hold the reason of an ovall Scituation no otherwise than of a round one otherwise if the Heaven as the adequate or suitable Husband of the Earth be plainly Spherical or round 1. It would follow that the Sun makes a greater Circle under the Aequinoctials than under the Tropicks 2. The Sun to be so much the swifter moved under the Aequinoctiall than under the Tropick 3. The motion of the Sun to be daily inordinate and unequall to it self 4. Houre-glasses which do measure the motion of the Sun in order to slowness and the pins of Sun-Dialls which measure motion in order to the scituation of the Orbe or Circle of the Sun should not answer to each other 5. If those Instruments should agree under the Aequinoctial lines they should varie at leastwise under the Sol-stices or Sun-steads Also the Heaven which is
Degrees of Simples he hath not attempted it by the discretion of his Tongue and so he divined that more of the fire had concurred to a mixture where he found the more sharpness and bitterness Which thing the Schooles even till now hold as authenticall although Opium being bitter hinders it although Flammula or Scarrewort the Glasse being close shut layeth aside its tartness as also Water-Pepper and the like And what things are moyst do burn or sting but dried things do binde Neither shall the Galenists easily finde out a way whereby they may bring fire for water-Pepper under dirt For it hath been unknown in the Schooles that all properties not onely those which they call occult or hidden but also that any other properties do flow out of the lap of seeds and all those which it pleaseth the Schooles themselves also to call formall ones Surely I do experience four Elementary qualities to be as in the outward bark of things the second qualities to be more dangerous or destructive but the most inward ones to be immediately pressed in the Archeus Yet all of them to be from the bosom of the seede and forms But no quality to come forth from the first matter as neither from the Wedlock of the Elements because they are both feigned Mothers But because the water which is brought into a vapour by cold is of another condition than a vapour raised by heat therefore by the Licence of a Paradox for want of a name I have called that vapour Gas being not far severed from the Chaos of the â—â—untients In the mean time it is sufficient for me to know that Gas is a far more subtile or fine thing than a vapour mist or distilled Oylinesses although as yet it be many times thicker than Air. But Gas it self materially taken is water as yet masked with the Ferment of composed Bodies Moreover Paracelsus was altogether earnest in seperating four Elements out of Earth Water Air and Fire and so from his very own Elements which seperation notwithstanding he denieth to be from the three first things possible as if those three first things were more simple and before the Elements Being unmindefull of the Doctrine many times repeated by him To wit that every kinde of Body doth consist onely of three principles but not of Elements because Elements were not bodies but places and empty wombs of bodies or principles void of all body For although the Elements are among us commonly not believed to be undefiled yet Paracelsus calls them so the which he teacheth are by art to be seperated from pollutions But this description receiveth the air in one Glasse common water in another but the Earth either of the Garden or the Field in a third and at length the flame of the fire in a fourth But he shuts the Vessels with Hermes's Seal by melting of the neck And the water for a moneth continually to boyl in its Vessel As though that thing could possibly be done and the Glasse not the sooner leap asunder especially because he commands the water to be shut up without air unto the highest brim of the Vessel and the Glasse to be melted to wit with the water Lastly he conceives a flame in the Glasse and in the very moment wherein it ceaseth it is no more fire but an aiery smoak nor is the fire a substance Last of all nor can the fire be detained within the compass of the Vessel In another place he denieth any Element of fire besides the Heaven but now he calls the fire the Gas of the thing burnt up And he exalts these his trifles for causes of great moment the which notwithstanding he dared not to name Because the doubtful man hath exposed his Dreams to the World in hope of deserving thereby the name of the Monarch of Secrets CHAP. XIII The Gas of the Water 1. The Gas of the water differs from a Vapour 2. A Demonstration from Creation 3. That the Air in Genesis is signified by the Heaven 4. That in the Firmament is the operative Principle of dividing of the Waters 5. The seperating Powers of Waters in the air 6. A History of a Vapour 7. Gas differs from the exhalation of the auntients 8. A supposition of Principles 9. The manner of making in a Vapour 10. The Gas of the Water 11. An example in Gold 12. The Gas of the Water is shewne to the young beginner 13. The incrusting of the Water 14. The heat of the Alps is great yet not to be felt 15. That Gold is not the absence or privation of heat 16. Why Gas is an invisible thing 17. Why the Stars do twinckle 18. Why the Heaven is of an Azure colour 19. The Air knowes not the motion of snatching 20. Above all Clouds the Air is not voyd of all motion 21. What quietness there may be in that place 22. Gas is the Mother of a Meteor 23. Gas and Blas do constitute the whole re-publick of a Meteor 24. The Sun is hot by it self 25. The soils of the Air are the folding doores of Heaven 26. Why some are side-windes but others perpendicular or down-right ones 27. From whence the Blas of the air is originally stirred up 28. Two Causes of every Meteor 29. The water is in the same manner that it was from the beginning 30. From whence there is a stability in the quiet Perolede or Soil of the Air. 31. Peroledes are proved 32. A solving of an objection 33. The water is frozen of it self occasionally but not effectively by cold 34. Why Ice is lighter than water 35. The proportion of lightness in Ice by Handicraft-operation 36. The constancy and simplicity of the water 37. That all Beings do after some sort feel or perceive 38. A Vapour doth sooner return into water than into Gas 39. The changing into a Vapour in respect of the air the seperater is oblique or crooked 40. The air is dry and cold by it self 41. In an elementated Body there is not a simple and an every way sameliness of kinde 42. The rarefying of the Sulphur of water gives smoothness to Ice but not the immixing of a strange air 43. In the Patient or sufferer re-acting differs from resistance 44. It is proved by 17 Reasons that air is never transchanged into water nor this into that GAS and Blas are indeed new names brought in by me because the knowledge of them hath been unknown to the Antients notwithstanding Gas and Blas do obtain a necessary place among natural Beginnings Therefore this Paradox is the more largely to be explained And first after what sort Gas may be made of water and how different a manner it is from that wherein heat doth elevate water into a Vapour And likewise we must know after what sort these things do happen by the dissection of the water I will therefore repeat That the thrice glorious God in the beginning created the Heaven and the Earth and the great deep of waters But the
silent concerning the Equinoctial Line and its wonderfull properties that a Canon being discharged on one side of the Stone not any noyse or trembling should be heard on the other side thereof the which therefore is called a mute one So also we must needes consider that there are side folding-doores or Gates of Peroledes in the Air because the windes going forth for the most part with a side motion are also by the Blas of the Stars agreeably carried a crosse their bounds From the aforesaid Doctrine of Gas I at length object against my self If the water be frozen by cold into snowes Hail and Ice then the water shall not be dissolved by cold into Gas if of a uniform Agent and Patient there ought to be the same action and effect Where I must seriously note That the Water freezeth it self but is not frozen efficiently by another For although cold may be hitherto thought to congeal yet that is onely occasionally not effectively The water therefore after the sense of its measure perceives the cold of the air not indeed a certain absence or privation of heat even as I have already demonstrated by an ordinary example in Helvetia but as a positive cause in a naturall quality For truly first of all it is without doubt and is manifest by the sight that the cold Air doth by degrees consume Water Snow and Ice yet these two more slowly and the other more swiftly In the next place it is easie to be seen that whatsoever the Air thus privily steales away that presently for that very cause passeth over into an invisible Gas If therefore the cold of the Air should harden water into Ice a further action of the Air would also the Ice being now made continually cease but the consequent is false therefore also the Antecedent For the Sulphur of the water doth easily wax dry and is divided by the cold wherefore the Mercury and Salt of the water perceiving the frost of the Air that would seperate the Waters from the Waters and that they ought to suffer the extension and drying up of their Sulphur and so an alltogether violent impression of the seperater and that they do desire to remain as they are Hence the whole water at once doth arm it self by a Crust that it may resist the seperater Which thing indeed it could not accomplish but that also some part of the Sulphur hath already suffered an extenuating of it self and so also in this respect the Ice doth swim upon the water But that the Sulphur of the water although it was extenuated in the Ice yet hath not laid aside the nature of water is proved by handicraft-operation Fill a glassen and great Bottle with pieces of Ice but let the neck be shut with a Hermes Seal by the melting of the glasse in the same place Then let this Bottle be put in a balance the weight thereof being laid in the contrary Scale and thou shalt see that the water after the Ice is melted shall be weightier by almost an eighth part than it self being Ice Which thing since it may be a thousand times done by the same water reserving alwayes the same weight it cannot be said that any part thereof was turned into air For such is the continuance and constancy of the Elements that although the water departs into a vapour into Gas into Ice yea into composed bodies yet the auntient water alwayes materially remaineth in some place masked by ferments and seedes coming upon it and else-where onely by the importunities of the first qualities made to differ in the Relolleum of Paracellus that is without a seed But from what hath been said before Some remarkable things do arise 1. That the water hath a certain kinde of sense or feeling and so that all Beings do after some sort partake of life Come let us worship the King by whom all things live 2. Seeing that the water doth not incrust it self in the fabrick of a vapour therefore a vapour as well in the cause as in the manner is more acceptable to the water than a Gas is And that thing doth argue in the water something like to choice 3. And that therefore a vapour doth sooner return into water than into Gas 4. That the changing of water into a vapour is in respect of the seperater oblique or crooked and as it were by accident but that Gas consisteth of a proper appointment of the air whereby the air doth seperate the waters from the waters 5. That the air is far more cold in it self than the water 6. That it is dry by it self 7. That the unity or connexion of entire parts is as acceptable to nature as the dividing of the same is to things opposite 8. That the fabrick of Gas shall afford another intimate principle to the water since it hath not a compositive beginning or part that is the cause of some small difference of kinde besides that which is touched by heat in the rise of a vapour 9. That all created things by how much the more simple they are by so much the more of the same kinde yet an every way most simple homogeniety or sameliness of kinde is not found in bodies 10. That the Sulphur of the water being extenuated in the Ice is the cause of smoothness in congealed things but not the enclosing of a forreign air because alwayes and every where water doth exclude the Wedlock of air 11. That the cold and dryness of the air can act nothing else into the water but to extenuate its Sulphur But that the congealing or hardening it self is an action proper to the water whereby it puts a stop to the seperater 12. That the air acts upon the water without the re-acting of this and the suffering of the air since it is appointed by divine right the seperater of the waters 13. That even in unsensible naturall things re-action differeth from resistance For truly there is no re-action of the water on the air and yet the water is with a resistance 14. That the Schooles have erred because they have dictated every action of nature to be made with a re-acting of the Patient and a suffering of the agent 15. That the changing of Gas into air is impossible 1. For otherwise the air should alwayes increase into a huge body and by consequence all water had long since failed 2. Because besides that which I have elsewhere demonstrated that the air can by no meanes return again into water the same thing is manifest from the but now aforesaid particulars 3. For truly it is proper to water to suffer by air and not likewise to re-act on the air Therefore air being once made by water should alwayes remain air seeing a returning agent is wanting which may turn air into water 4. But for air by it self to return into water opposeth a generall Maxim That every thing as much as in it lies doth desire to remain in it self 5. Especially because air
and connexion Whither when the light of the Stars shall descend the folding-doores do open and shut themselves Therefore let the Key-keeper of the folding-doores be the motion of the Stars Which also moveth the Peroledes or Pavements of the Air. Therefore all heat is not made by fore-existing fire or light nor doth cold shew a naked absence of heat But the motive Blas of the Stars is a pulsive or beating power or virtue in respect of their Journey through places and according to their aspects Which circumstances in the Stars do cause the first qualities on these inferiour bodies no otherwise than bashfulness anger feat c. do stir up cold and heat in men And that thing the Stars have by the gift of Creation The Winde according to Hypocrates is a flowing Water of the Air but I defining it by its causes say that the Winde is a flowing Air mooved by the Blas of the Stars And that for a naturall winde but otherwise it is often granted to an evill Spirit that even without a Blas he should stir up windes or increase a tempestuous Blas Therefore the Air unless it have a Blas remains quiet nor hath it the principle of motion from it self but it comes to it from elsewhere Therefore the motive Blas stirreth up Windes Tempests over-flowing of Waters by running thorow the divers Peroledes of the Air sometimes upwards sometimes downwards across long-wayes side-wayes into all the Coasts of the Earth although the Elements have no need of motion yet mans necessity requireth that motion But seeing nothing was for mooving of it self except the Archeus granted to seedes it hath well pleased the Eternall to place in the Stars a flatuous violent motive force not much unlike to the Command of his mouth So that Blas is for a testimony to us that God of his excelling goodness hath made the Elements and Stars for us by measuring out bounds of these according to our Commodities Blas therefore mooveth not so much by light beames and motion as motion but as the Stars have come down unto certain places whereunto these Stars do owe their offices Therefore there are stable properties in those places but if they are not stable that happens in respect of other Stars brought with them by an analogicall or proportionable motion for the interchangeable courses of continuance Blas therefore as a Masculine thing in the Stars is the generall beginning of motion it seemes no lesse to respect the Earth than the Air and Water For the Moon according to the holy Scriptures ruleth the night as the Sun doth the day although the Moon for her own half runs not under the night For the Globe of the Earth is divided into four parts into two accesses or flowings and recesses or ebbings of the Ocean daily And it spends almost 28 houres therein and so much the lesse by how much the Sun and Moon shall in the mean time depart from or draw near to each other Blas therefore stirs up also a raging heat in the waters the winde being still But the alterative Blas consisteth in the producing of heat and cold and that especially with the changings of the windes But the Stars neither have nor give moysture or dryth of themselves For neither is moysture to be considered in nature as naked quality without a matter and therefore neither is it brought down from the Stars unto us For all moysture is from the water which was before the Stars were born Therefore Paracelsus erreth who saith that rains snow c. are so the fruits of the Stars that they are boyled to a ripeness in the Stars as it were in bottles Dryness also was in the air the seperater of the waters before the Stars nor is it to be considered without a body in manner of a quality But heat and cold are rather qualities abstracted from a body Therefore there are onely two great Lights and therefore two onely qualities of them are spread into the air from whence all Meteors are stirred or mooved For the heat of life is the property of the Sun but cold of the other Star Also the other Stars have given their names or honours to these two Lights As often therefore as the Stars of the nature of the Moon are brought thorow places of the Sun a luke-warmth is made in the air but if Stars of the nature of the Sun do run down under the same places heat is made according to which qualities of the air the Gas of the air is also diversly altered Hence indeed Blas heats after the same manner thorow the soils of the air therefore Gas also is either detained in its pavements or soils or is brought downward to us So as that the atomes of Gas being invisible through their too much smallness loosing their constriction and excess of cold do again fall together or decay into the smallest drops and hasten downwards But if indeed the luke-warmth doth affect the lower Peroledes when Gas being provoked by Blas wandereth downwards Summer Snowes are made Surely Gas being grown together through frost a luke-warmth presently arising it is melted and rusheth headlong downwards For the Mercurie of the water resolveth its Salt and the Sulphur doth as it were rowl up these two And so they fall down into rain But if indeed that thing happens in the upper Perolede the drops descending are frozen in the middle cold pavements and so they are cast down headlong into Snow and Hails But if luke-warmth do bear sway thorow some continuall Peroledes of the air daily rains do accompany it Hence also it appeares that an unequall Blas in divers soils of the air doth bring forth divers effects For oftentimes the lowermost Peroledes are luke-warm and the day is plainly clowdy and there are very many Clouds But else the second and the third Perolede are luke-warm the lower being cold whence are Snowes And so the other Troop of Meteors is caused unto us Therefore I am now confident that by Gas materially and by Blas operatively and motively their causes and manner do more clearly appear than heretofore they have done From whence Astrologers and Physitians shall be able from a founder ground to presage of some things In the mean time I leave the matters of presages untouched which God by his ministring Spirits hath laid up among his signes of good or ill Onely I will relate what Fryer Stephen of Lusignan the last of the Family of the Kings of Cyprus of the Order of S. Dominick in his description of Cyprus printed at Paris in the year 1580 page 212 rehearseth in French to this purpose About the end of the year an Earthquake happened at Famagusta which continued eight dayes But afterwards raging or Whirle-windes arose passing over the Island and entring into the Market-place of Famagusta for there by beating down a great Pallace they presently take away very many Houses with some Men. So that if some Marriners had not by the chance of
substance But it is no wonder for truly they have not known some Creatures some whereof they have brought back into a substance to wit the fire substantiall forms c. but others they have surrendred into meer accidents as the Rainbow Light the Magnall c. The which notwithstanding I shall demonstrate in their place to be created things of a neither sort But let it be enough to have said it in this place But if the Rainbow should be immediately in the Air and not in a place it must needes be that by any little winde it should straightway flow abroad and be puft away by blowing together with a Cloud or the Air which is false in the Rainbow the which doth also remain a great while under the Windes sometimes without any presence of Clouds and yet in the same constant figure of a Bow or Semi-circle therefore the Rainbow seeing it is immediately in place it is a new figure of a coloured Light Indeed the Rainbow began supernaturally for a Sign and Mystery of the Covenant struck with Mortalls and since it hath at this day its Root in the Air without any matter yet after the manner of naturall things I do reverence its efficient cause and its presence and do ponder with my self that the Rainbow is at this day given for a Sign of the Covenant even as in times past Paracelsus supposeth the Rainbow to be the Evestrum of the Sun but the Evestrum he calls the Spirits or Ghosts of men The which from the absurdity of it self alone as sufficiently rejected I passe by For truly the Sun hath neither a Soul nor being as yet alive hath an Evestrum after its Buriall There are some who will laugh at me for these daily Miracles But certainly while I do more fully look into things I see divine goodness to be actually alwayes every where and immediately President or chief Ruler because all which things he in very deed even from end to end reacheth to strongly and disposeth of all things sweetly For in God we live are and are moved in very deed and act but not by way of proportion or similitude For truly when the Lord the Saviour said I am he to wit by whom ye are live and are moved he withdrew onely that his power whereby they were moved and straightway all the Souldiers fell on the ground And although the Instrument in nature whereby we are moved be ordinary yet there is another principall totall and independent cause of our motion and the originall thereof being a miraculous hand doth concur in every motion So also in the Rainbow the Sun and place do concur as it were second causes Yet there is another independent totall miraculous and immediate cause which hath directed the Rainbow to the glory of his own goodness and of the Covenant stricken not onely indeed with Noah and his Family but with the Sons of men his posterity even to the end of the World And so from the same originall and for the same end for which the Rainbow began it is promised to endure as long as Mortalls shall be and seeing it is a sign of the Covenant with the Sons of men but not onely with the Sons of Noah it also includes a certain Covenant or agreement Therefore there is a miraculous thing in the Rainbow that its colours are not in any body but immediately in place it self like light and that immediately from the hand of God without the concurrence of a second cause Nor is it a wonder that from the condition of the Covenant a supernaturall effect should interpose Because that in many places continuall miracles do offer themselves Therefore as the Rainbow is a sign of an everlasting Covenant and a Messenger of divine goodness so Thunder causeth an admiration and adoring of the power of God For there is nothing in the Catalogue or number of things whose rains the Almighty Creator doth not immediately rule Surely he every where inforceth his love and fear and so will have man to be ordinarily put in minde of his power According to that saying The Voyce af Thunder hath stricken the Earth For a sudden and monstrous Blas is stirred up in the Air. The Heaven is oft-times clear straightway also being without winde it is suddenly bespotted with a black Cloud For often times it thunders the Heaven being clear without any small Cloud And so Thunder doth not require a Cloud but if it doth suddenly stir up any it is made as the cracking noyse shakes the Peroledes and as Gas settles downwards into a thick Cloud being drawn together by the cold of the place Therefore the Doctrine of the Schooles is frivolous determining that an exhalation is kindled between the sheath of the Clouds that it dasheth forth Lightning and that there are so many rentings of that Cloud as there are sounds and cracking noyses For I have seen in Mountains wandring Clouds and most cold in the touching yet none of any firmness or strength that they being discontinued can utter so great a noyse or cast down Lightning of so great a power by a mooving downwards and with so violent a motion and that besides the nature of ascending fire I have seen I say Lightnings about me and have heard Thunder also under my feet Notwithstanding I have even least of all discerned those firmnesses of Clouds and trifles of Thunder I say I have seen Lightnings and Thunders diversly to play under my feet where at first there was no Cloud and a Cloud to descend as if it had been called to them by the voyce of the Thunder And so I have beheld Lightning with a magnifying of the Divine Power but not with fear although I have been twice in a house that was smitten with Thunder For I by so much the more admiring have praysed the magnificencies or great atchievements of the Lord by how much the nearer his effects were unto me I have seen also once nigh Vilvord and again at Bella in Flanders a certain black Sheath as if it were a long Horsemans Boot to fly among the Groves of Oaks or Forrests with a great cracking noyse having behinde it a flame as it were of kindled straw but great Snow succeeded it Therefore seeing Thunder hath no cause plainly naturall in the Clouds of a Meteor I believe that it hath wholly all its cause not above but besides nature and so that it is a monstrous effect For first of all we are bound to believe that the evill Spirit is the Prince of this World and that his Principality doth not shine forth amongst the faithfull unless onely in the office of a tempter For so it is said that the Adversary as a Roaring Lyon goeth about seeking whom he may devoure but that not from the office of his Principality Therefore he hath obtained the Principality of this World that he may be a certain Executer of the judgements of the chief Monarch and so that he may be the Umpire or
how an exhalation may by its lightness make so great a heap of Earth and of huge weight to stumble sooner then to consult of coagulating And upon every event there should not be room but for one elevation of the Earth and one onely settling of the same after some gaping chap is found but not of stirring up a quaking trembling But let these Dreams be in watery places Meadows Clayie places pooles the Sea Rivers c. Therefore the absurdities which I granted before in jest I will now oppose in earnest First of all I demand what is that so unwonted heat which from the year 1580 even unto the year 1640 was not seen at Mecheline as neither an Earth-quake wherefore not every year wherefore in the 2d moneth called April under a most cold night when as the day before it had snowed much under the continuall North Winde and not under the Dog-Star Is it because the more inward parts of the Earth are then hot Why therefore not every year in the eleventh moneth called January But this Argument of the Antients ceaseth after that the Instrument meating out the Degrees of the encompassing Air is found For Wells and Caves are found all the year of an equall heat and cold Again why doth so great heat the stirrer up of exhalations cease so suddenly especially where it may stir up an exhalation the moover of so great an heap by what fewell it is kindled under the water by what Fodder doth it live and subsist by what Law is it not in the same place stifâ—ed by what priviledge doth it despise the respects of bodies places and weights at length by what Prerogative doth it stir up an exhalation of so great a vastness out of moyst Bodies without moyst vapours or if it doth also allure or draw out vapours after the ordinary manner why do not these mitigate a heat of so great moment do they extinguish do they choak together with their Sisters and forthwith following exhalations or what is that exhalation which shaketh the vast Tower of Mecheline with no greater respect than a low Cottage nor that respecteth any resistance of a huge weight or which doth in a like manner operate near at hand as at a distance or which doth at once every where and alike finde throughout its whole Superficies the collected power of its own Center that at once every where alike it may operate in one moment equally and alike strongly Why through the necessity of naturall causes is not the thred broken in the weaker part but all things do at once undergoe yea and sustain the same law of violence Surely if these things be rightly considered there is found in the Earth-quake a certain operative force of an infinite power which lifts up Mountains and Towers without respect of lightness or weight as if nothing were able to resist this moving virtue But I have proved that an exhalation if in any there be an efficient moving cause of an Earth-quake is neither of the race of Salts nor of Sulphurs as neither of Mercuries because that this is not an exhalation but the vapour of the watery parts Therefore it remains that it is not an exhalation but Gas it self not an eflux of Bodies stirred up by heat but rather an effect remaining after the fire To wit the Gas of the flame of the fire alone or of the smoak sprung from this But neither of these exhalations also can be the effective cause of an Earth-quake Therefore if none of these exhalations be the mover of the Earth there shall be none at all since another is not found and by consequence it is a vain fiction of the Schooles which they will have themselves to be believed in in the Earth-quake But if indeed they thinking of an escape do say that they do not understand an exhalation raised up by heat not brought forth by dryness but an unnamed vapour constituted by its causes To wit like as Aristotle writeth that all Rockie Stones small stones Mineralls and likewise the Salt of the Sea Comets although a hundred fold bigger than the Globe of the Earth and all Windes do proceed from some irregular and un-explained exhalations distinguishing the Windes therein against the Air This I say is to be willing to doat with Aristotle and to remain ignorant of naturall Philosophy with the same Aristotle Lastly it is an impertinent thing for them to have cited Aristotle and by his authority to be willing to defend their errours Notwithstanding I will treat against the Schooles by reason that seeing they do publish themselves to be so rationall they may deliver up their weapons to reason I say therefore that no exhalation can be more light simple or subtile than the Air because this is the simple body of an Element but that is a composed body and so however it be it hath in it a weighty body which the Air wanteth Yet the Air is not lighter than a Body that is without weight that is the Air is not lighter than it self nor can it lift up any thing besides it self unless by the motion of a Flatus or blast or of flowing that is by a Blas Which ceasing the body which it lifted up setleth From whence I conclude that the Air or Winde whether it be shut up or free cannot lift up the Earth by reason of its lightness alone unless it be by chance stricken by an externall and violent Mover but in this case the force of the exhalation ceaseth seeing it is a constraining force which moveth but not the exhalation it self Because it is that which in such a case is onely the mean or Instrument of motion but not the chief motive force And much lesse is that agreeable to an exhalation because it is that which is thicker and weightier than the Air as it containeth water I prove it by Handicraft-operation A Bladder stretched out with Air springs up out of the water not primarily because the Air is lighter than water but because the water is a heavy and fluide body and therefore it suffers not it self to be driven out of its place by a lighter body For indeed it is the first endeavour of the water to joyn it self to the water from whence it was seperated its secondary endeavour or that as it were by accident is to presse out by its falling together whatsoever is lighter than it self Therefore weightiness not lightness doth operate in this thing for the reason straightway to be shewed Let a Bladder able to contain three pounds or pints of water be put in a small trench or ditch and let it be covered with Earth Truly it shall not shake off from it half an ounce of the dust poured upon it Yea neither shall the Bladder desire to appear out of the dry more weighty Sand. Let it therefore be ridiculous that a Bladder weighing half an ounce doth ever from any lightness of Air of its own accord fly up into the Air. If therefore
much Air cannot lift up a Bladder surely much lesse shall the Air rise up being pressed down under the huge weight of the low Countries For indeed the Elements do in the first place and onely respect themselves truly they act all things for their own sake And therefore a Glasse-bottle being filled with Air and buried can never a whit endeavour to spring up out of the Earth because the Air is every where in its own naturall place as oft as the space of its place is not filled with another body neither is it carefull for passage Therefore if there are hollow places under the Earth the Air doth naturally rest in those places from all locall motion But in places where Sands fall down as it were a fluide body there because the dust fills up the empty place and falls down through its weight it also by accident presseth out the air But that motion of the Earth or Water is not therefore efficiently from the lightness of the Air or that the Air by the proper motion of its own lightness doth move it self and climbe upwards But mark in this thing weightiness it self is the active primary and totall efficient cause seeing weightiness hath a reall weight and is an active quality but on the contrary the lightness of the Air is the effecter of nothing seeing it hath no weight it of necessity betokeneth nothing neither can it have any efficacy of acting From whence it followes 1. That the lightness of the Air worketh nothing nor that a Bladder which should be great and weigh onely six grains could be of its own accord lifted up by the inclosed Air how great soever otherwise which is false the Air should be lighter than that which hath no weight 2. That the Air doth not appear out of the water by reason of its lightness as it were the active or the moving quality of swimming but weightiness is the reall quality which expells the Air. 3. And therefore the position of the Schooles is absurd wherein Air or an exhalation is appointed for the efficient cause of an Earth-quake by reason of its lightness as if it should shake the Earth by lifting it up Wherefore seeing it is now sufficiently proved 1. That there is not a place in the Pavements or Soils of the Earth wherein any Aiery Body may be entertained whether that Body be a Winde or an Aiery exhalation but by how much the deeper that place shall be sought for by so much the greater difficulties do arise as well by reason of the greater abundance of water as the greater fardle of Earth from above so that that is as it were of an infinite power which should cause a trembling of the Earth 2. And then that there can be no fire heat driness or any other stirrer up of an exhalation of so great power or that which is co-related to it That there is no possibility of such an exhalation in nature there to subsist And at length thirdly that no exhalation by reason of lightness doth operate any thing or lift up a heavy body much lesse so vast a Country of Earth Therefore I conclude that it is an empty fiction of the Schooles whatsoever hath been hitherto diligently taught concerning an Earth-quake Wherefore I will perfectly teach that the manner of an Earth-quake diligently taught by the Schooles is altogether impossible Let us therefore again feigne absurdities that as it were by the rule of falshood the errour of the Schooles may be discovered To wit let us grant a Bladder to be of a matter that is tractable or easily to be beaten thin being a thousand times stronger than all Iron and to be spread it is unknown in what Soil throughout all the low Countries and Germany under the foundation of Mountains Cities Seas and Rivers But a thousand huge paires of Bellowes most firmly and excellently annexed thereto Therefore that they may be able to lift up all the low Countries at once it must needes be that those Bellowes and the Posts and Axles of these be so strong as that they might be sufficient to lift up the weight And then a hand should be required or an Agent of so great strength that it might be able to lift up all the low Countries with its Palme or else it could not presse together those Bellowes which are full of winde But such an Agent is not in the Sublunary nature of things although the other granted absurdities should be present therefore the vain lightness of the Air or an exhalation is frivolous and the inbred desire of their breaking forth Therefore I never a whit doubt to deny the naturall cause rendered by the Schooles invented by the Devill that my God his own honour may be over-clouded Because the Schooles have been hitherto ignorant that lightness is not an active quality and so much lesse should it be an overturner of Mountains but they have sometimes considered that a Mine which was before over-covered hath straightway after an Earthquake belched forth a stinking poyson and made a gap for it self therefore they have dared through inconsiderateness and ignorance to refer this effect of an Earth-quake by accident into a cause by it self Which things that they may more clearly appear let us again feign the aforesaid Bladder under the low Countries to be stretched out with an Aiery Body of its own accord or by the influence of the Stars for when reason faileth those that are ignorant do alwayes run back to the Stars and causes afar of and for Witnesses not to be cited and no Bellowes to be as neither holes round about Then at leastwise the Body of all the Low-Countries laying on it should so presse the aforesaid Bladder with its weight that if it burst not it should at least in its weaker and lesse ponderous part belch forth that which is contained in it Which thing being obtained now indeed the cause of the pressing together of the Bladder and of the fall of the Low Countries together with the opening of some gap is present But the cause of the lifting up of that Bladder is not yet to be found and much lesse of the repeated succession of trembling and quaking Lastly neither is such a Bladder and its substance possible to be without which although there should be room in the Earth yet it is not fit for nourishing or receiving that exhalation Yea the bounds of the aforesaid Bladder being set or supposed at leastwise the Air or exhalation works nothing that it may lift up the Earth by its lightness but if the Earth fall down or go to ruine it findes not a cause for it selfe as to this thing in the lightness of the detained Air seeing it shuts up the whole cause in the Fist of its weightiness and the pressing out of the Air is to be measured according to the measure of the weight that layeth on it Therefore the Bladder being again supposed if any Winde or Air should blow from without
signes times or seasons dayes and years Moreover I know that in the Sea and deep Lakes there is their motive force whereby they suffer a raging heat without windes whereby I say our Ocean is rowled six houres and else-where six constant months with one onely flowing Lastly I know that the Earth is at rest nor that it hath a motive force actively proper to it self Therefore I believe that the Earth doth quake and fear as oft as the Angel of the Lord doth smite it Behold a great Earth-quake was made for the Angel of the Lord descended from Heaven Mat. 28. The word For among the Hebrewes doth contain a cause as if he should say Because For this is the onely cause of an Earth-quake whereby all things do without resistance equally tremble together as it were a light Reed In the Revelations the third part of Mortalls Trees and Fishes perished at the very time wherein the Angel powred forth his Viall For abstracted spirits do work by the divine Power and nothing can resist them Evill spirits also as oft as it is granted them to act by a free power they act without the resistance of bodies or a re-acting of resistance For matter is the Client of or dependant on another Monarchy and it cannot re-act into a spirit which it by no meanes toucheth and with no object affecteth Even as the Angel useth the powred out liquor of the Viall unto the aforesaid slaughter so for the Earth-quake he for the most part makes use of a note or voice For a wandering note was heard in the Air no otherwise than as the creaking of Wheeles driven thereupon as it were a tempestuous murmuring sound succeeded yet without Winde and at that very time the whole tract of so great Provinces trembled at once with a huge horrour Which same note accompanied the trembling of the Earth at every of the three repeated turns The same thing almost happens in Lightning Truly the Lightning burns and causeth melting but surely it smiteth not According to that saying The voice of Thunder shall strike the Earth because it smiteth For Silk-worms die Milk is curdled Ale or Beer waxeth sowre a slain Oxe hanging up retains flaggie flesh unfit to take Salt and that onely by the Thunder-stroak the Lightning doing no hurt there Therefore let the voice of Thunder and the voice of the Earth-quake be the note or tone of ministring spirits But the Stars do not stir up a motive and alterative force of the Air or Water through a note but do act onely by an Aspect which they call an Influence And it hath its action and direction in a moment even as light sight c. For otherwise there should be need of many years before the audible Species or resemblances that are to be heard should come down from Saturn to the places of a Meteor And then a note or sound although it be great yet it faileth by degrees in the way But that the Earth doth tremble with a Tempest of Windes or that the Tempest doth sometimes run successively thorow Villages Cities and as it were thorow street by street in its wheeling about That is wholly by accident and according to the will of him who shaketh the Earth for a monstrous sign Likewise that else-where it doth oft-times tremble in quick Belgium very seldom that changeth not the moving cause For it stands in the free will of him who encloseth the Universe in his Fist who can shake the Earth at his pleasure and alone do marvellous things At the beholding of whom the Earth shall at sometime smoak and the Mountains being melted shall go to ruine But that in another place gapings chaps after an Earth-quake have sometimes appeared and a filthy poyson and fumes of arsenicall bodies have breathed forth that is joyned onely to its naturall causes Nor are they the effects of an Earth-quake but by accident but not the causes But this blindness of causes of the Earth-quake hath been invented the Devill being the Authour whereby mortall men might set apart all fear of the power and so might prevent if not wholly neglect the ends which God hath appointed to himself for the serious reverencing of the power of his Majesty that they being mind-full of the faults of their fore-led life might repent Deh qual possente man conforzze ignote Il terreno a crollar si spesso riede Non e chiuso vapor como altro crede Ne sognato stridente il suol percuote Certo la terra si rissente scuote Perche del peâ—cator sa aggrava il piede Et i nostri corpi impatiente chiede Per riemper se sue spelonche â—uote E linquaggio del ciel che l'huom riprende Il turbo il tuono il fulmine il baleno Hor parla anco la terra in note horrende Perche l'huom ch' esser vuol tutto terreno Ne del cielo il parlar straniero intende I l parlar della terra intenda al meno Behold with what a mighty yet unknown A force the Earthy Body makes a noyse And with so thick a rushing gives a groan 'T is not a vapour hot shut up they 'r toyes Even as some believe which beats the ground Or thumps its entrails with a whistling sound Truly the Earth it selfe doth feele and quake Because the sinners foot doth load its back And our impatient mortall bodies fall In to fill up its own deep Vaults withall The Language of the Heaven which reproves Man is the Whirle-winde Thunder Lightning flash And sp'ritous howling in the Air Ecchoes Now speaks the earth more-o're with horride lash Of signall tokens ' cause since man which would Be wholly earthly doth not understand The Linguo strange of Heaven yet may or should At least the Earth it 's Language apprehend These things nothing hindering there hath not been one wanting who said that from a most deep well of the Castle of Lovaine he by a sure presage foretold an Earth-quake was shortly to be because the water of the same Well three dayes before sent forth the stinking savour of Brimstone and that its contagion yellowness together with the turbulency of the water did bewray it But let that good man know that that Well is one hundred and fifteen foot in depth because they go up to the Castle from the Street that is next unto it by ninety three steps And so that Well in one part is not deeper than its Neighbouring Wells although in the other part where it is co-touching with the Hill of the Castle it is deep as I have said But seeing that a vein of Sulphur is not hidden in the Hill the water could not breath Sulphur which was not there But if it cast the smell of Sulphur a sign might precede God admonishing but it had not Sulphur which neither is in that place nor was enflamed therefore neither could it cause an Earthquake unto all Belgium or the Low Countries Therefore there is no naturall reason why the water
judging or willing 21. The figures of the windes are described in the Heaven 22. The knowledge of the signification of the Stars is unknown to man 23. The Magitians or wise men of the East 24. From new Wine Sooth-sayers or Diviners of God 25. The Prophesie of Feasters was from new Wine 26. That the drunken or besotted gift of Paracelsus was made known to the Hebrews 27. Three histories of predictions 28. The Stars onely to incline resisteth the Scriptures 29. The inclining of the Stars how far it reacheth 30. The Stars the solemn prayses of God do not necessitate as causes but as signes bewraying the will of the Lord. 31. A solving of an objection 32. The common explaining of the Proverb derogates from the Grace of God 33. That the Heaven doth not incline 34. The seed of man doth of its own accord deflux into a living animall and dispersing soul 35. VVhat the seminall properties of inclinations are 36. A fourfold inclination 37. The inclination of calling is onely from God but not from the Stars 38. The morall inclination is from the seed and from education 39. The inclination vitall or of the life is from the seed and education 40. The vain and proud presumption of Astrologers 41. The inclination of fortunes is immediately from the hand of the Lord. 42. The Schooles seduced by the evill spirit of Paganisme 43. The sloathfull or careless negligence of Astrologers 44. How the sensitive soul of man differs from the soul of a bruit beast 45. How custome brings forth inclination 46. How a wise man shall have dominion over the Stars 47. Why predictions from the Stars are fundamentally vain 48. The error of the Authour 49. Astrologers confess their deceipts 50. They suppose astrall or Starry effects from causes not in being HItherto concerning the Elements their qualities Complexions and contrarieties in order to the Science of Medicine without which indeed I have thought the Study of naturall Philosophy to have lost as it were its end no otherwise than if a Clergy-man shall treat of the State politique or of War-like affaires For why S. Paul drives every Sacrificer from the like things No man he saith going a warfare intangleth himself with the affaires of this life Therefore the Studies of naturall Philosophy have I directed to a farther end to wit to the profit of men but not to the delighting of the Readers For this cause also I declame concerning the Stars because they are thought to be the causers of any kinde of Diseases Inclinations and Fortunes And indeed Paracelsus at length consented in this thing although he be refractory in all other things to the Study of the Antients First of all I will take the Text The Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy works For that soundeth that the Heavens were chiefly created that they might declare the large Majesty Power Goodness and Wisdom of God to wit on which four Pillars the whole Globe of the Universe stands and is supported but the Star-bearing Heaven doth as it were a Preacher shew the wonderfull works of the Lords hands to intellectuall Creatures For thus far the Church admitteth of Meteorical Predictions the barrennesses of years and their fruitfulnesses the stations of sowings the dangers of sailings the deaths of chief men Plagues inundations yea whatsoever things do not depend on the direction of our will or judgement to wit as all those things are believed to be connexed with the first qualities of the Elements by a contingent or accidentall consequence even so that although it doth admit of the deaths of great men the tumults of Wars and fires to be prognosticated of in Ephemerides yet it will have those things to be beheld not as free contingencies or arbitrall and much lesse as necessary ones but nakedly as it were the effects of the first Qualities and Complexions Wherein how much they have erred I have already demonstrated in the premises And moreover how far they have in this thing gone back from the holy Scriptures I will here shew If the Heavenly influences do obtain the reason of a cause surely their effects shall of necessity be connexed to their causes and so also thus far at least necessary after the manner of other second causes whose effects the causes being placed do necessarily succeed unless they are supernaturally hindered or changed Which thing is alike proper to all causes neither doth it include a singularity for the Heaven but if the Influences of Heaven are onely after the manner of a sign and fore-shewing surely neither shall they import a lesse necessity but a far more strict one if we believe the certain foreknowledge of Divine Providence and do believe the Handy works of the Lord to be fore-signified by the Stars Therefore after what manner soever it may be taken the Stars do necessitate The Stars shall be unto you for Signes Times or Seasons dayes and years But these Works of the Lord shewed from a necessity by the Stars and by the Firmament are not the works of the first six dayes For neither could the Stars shew forth either themselves or what things were created straightway after them without an absurdity of speech In the next place the Stars ought not to foreshew Winter and Summer which they actually cause by their Blas and which we do ordinarily know and perceive to invade us by degrees but they ought indefinitely to foreshew the Handy works of the Lord and rather those which are called contingent ones than otherwise necessary and ordinary Revolutions Which contingences do not therefore respect the fruitfulnesses of Victuall which they do cause but for the Majesty Wisdom and goodness of the Creator the Stars ought to foreshew those future Handy works of the Lord whence he hath taken to himself the name the God of Armies by whom Kings reign a zealous God a revenger translating Kingdoms from Nation to Nation by reason of injustice which kinde of works are contained in the life birth vertue or power continuance change interchange motions and interchangeable courses of successive things And so the preachings of the Stars must needes have place in the removing of Scepters and by consequence in the foreshewing of the meanes by which those things are done framed do depend and subsequently follow as it were by second causes For such kinde of effects are not to be taken away from the Handy works of the Lord without blasphemy Therefore of this sort are also Tempests Earth-quakes wonted and unwonted flouds of waters For the Lord of Hosts giveth Scepters to the Shepherd which he taketh away and translates from the King by reason of the injustice of Kings of Clergy and Judges Therefore by consequence the Stars do foreshew this injustice also If the translations of Crowns are the works of the Lord if the lots of all men do stand in the hands of the Lord For neither doth Faith permit fortune or misfortune to be else-where or to
bloud Yet this keeps no obscure accidents of the former food which do therefore walk from one matter into another Surely this is a hard and Paradoxall saying in the Schooles which I will presently prove by an example of the deed Nigh the Mountain at Zome a Hog the Sea departing is fed with Sea-Onions shell-fishes c. His flesh savours of the grease of a Fish yet it is Hogs-flesh forbidden to the Hebrews Therefore it is vain that the Species of things are as it were the species of numbers whereto not a unite is added or substracted but the species it self is continually changed For one onely flesh of a living Creature doth receive strange savours through the variety of meats Irish Oak doth so retain the properties of an Antidote that it chaseth Spiders from our Buildings which property our Countrey Oak wanteth For the passings over of accidents do not happen in meats through want of a perfect and essential transmutation Neither also doth Urine smell of Terpentine Mace or Asparagus as some excrementitious part of the meat may remain with the bloud in the flesh For that lesse resisteth a perfect transmutation separation and election in things due to the Archeus in whom to wit there is perfectly a transmutative dispositive power of the matter into figures Odours Colours and every property of accidents For Paracelsus hath now and then made mention of a middle life and matter but he hath not owned himself in the greatest necessity whereby he dreamed of Tartarous humours For he had seemed to secure the matter to himself by the example of living Tartar if he had obliquely or by the way immingled a co-like Tartar in meates and drinks to the finding out of the matter and originall of Diseases not yet discovered before For neither hath he explained from whence it is that notable favours do survive after the true transmutations of meates Wherefore it must needs be that the same accident in number doth passe from its subject that it is I say in the formall transchanged thing which was first in the thing to be transchanged although the form of the subject of inherency shall fully perish Because although the matter doth not remain yet the middle life remains of which nothing hath hitherto been heard in the Schooles Indeed the middle life remains in the transchanged Archeus no otherwise than the form of a bone a man being dead For although there be a fermentall virtue in the stomach which resolveth things carried into it and afterwards the same things be perfectly transchanged in the other shops or places of digestion yet so that nothing can be so perfectly transchanged in us by assimilating or making like through the immediate flowing of digestions as that there do not remain for the future the more dull qualities of the middle life of the former composed Body By which necessity indeed the accustomed nourishment of divers Climates doth imprint into the sound parts very strange or forreign contagions of properties Whence do happen so many unlikenesses of deformities of one humane nature the which surely I could never dedicate to the vain complexions of qualities Indeed Swines flesh is Swines flesh although the horrid taste of Fish-grease shall remain in its middle life Which thing being never before considered hath made the whole contemplation of nature barren For truly this hinge hath been neglected in the Schooles For Oportet is a thing altogether necessary whereby the qualities of the middle life do remain in things that are transchanged For unless that be granted there shall be no power of Medicines as neither occasion of Diseases For nothing doth more prosperously operate to heal than that which hath most fully entred by the transmutation of it self and is neerest united to that which ought to be healed So a grain dies in the Earth that by its middle life it may stir up new off-springs for usury Also in meats although the former forms of meates have wholly perished yet the operative properties of the former middle life have remained and that into the second and now and then the third transmutation of the thing generated For the native property of the middle life sailing by degrees under the dominion of the Archeus ascending to wit of whose Ferment it is the subdued matter That indeed is Magnum Oportet in this Valley of successive changes but it is not the whorish appetite of an impossible matter For Aristotle feigned a matter deprived of every accident as also of all essential Forms and he appointed this Chymera to himself for the Beginning of nature And so he constituted for a material principle not indeed a naturall Being existing in act or possible in power but a Mathematicall corporality or bodiliness but not this something or a principiating Beginning For he thought that nature was at an imaginary pleasure to hearken to figures and measures In the mean time that that matter might be principiating he feigned that a certain motive principle did agree or belong to it to wit a universall appetite unto any forms unknown to it self Which Dreams although they are ridiculous agreeable to no end use or necessity and bringing forth many absurdities from them yet are they at this day adored by the Schooles who have made themselves ridiculous thereby Seeing there can be no appetite of that corporiety breathing to any perfection which it had not before in it self To wit that it may be capable of forms and figures For otherwise in the consideration of nature and indeed in a principiating Being every appetite of a Being is carried to perfection not any one but that of the seed fore-existing in the disposition of the ferments and so also operating But a seed doth not aspire but to the limitation delineated or represented in the disposition of the Archeus For truly as learning by demonstration doth propose to it self a Body capable of all figures without any accident So Aristotle hath brought this Speculation according to his pleasure into nature unknown to him and hath introduced an appetite into this matter the lover and one onely cause of successive change Even so that he reckoned the first matter to be void of all quality and form but endowed or given up to all and any forms onely by a whorish appetite Not knowing in the first place that successive change doth proceed not from the appetite of the matter but from the instruction of the seeds Neither have the Schooles once looked back that the desire of remaining is more antient strong and naturall than the desire of permutability or much changeableness and that the Schooles themselves do contradict their own Aristotle who will have every Being to desire to remain from the proper endeavour of nature Seeing it is of necessity a Being before it can think of a change or wish for it Therefore the matter ought to have obtained to be perfect before it should disdain to be old and should desire a successive change For to be
is before to please and to please is before to displease and nothing can displease or wish for a successive change but as a pleasure being gotten and known something more perfect possibly also better is shewen For in the more crude seeds which nave conceived their first ferments by Odours the Odour goes before the complacency or good pleasure but this doth generate a desire of it self and of a thing remaining But in things possible desire causeth the same appetite of remaining but not of perishing by the changing of its Being But if indeed by reason of the hidden impediments of death a permanency is not granted there is made a dissolution in Bodies but thence a weariness but from weariness there is a proceeding to a remove or change through the ruling virtue by degrees declining from whence at length destruction is not intended but following after through necessities It belonged to the Schooles to have known that to be doth alwayes go before a wearisomness unto a non-being because this wearisomness is not of the intent of nature but rather an imaginary Metaphor or translation succeeding upon the defects of things At least that this wearisomness ought to precede the desire to a non-being And much more a desire to a new Being and unknown to it self Seeing a new Being is not granted before the death of the present Being In brief because also the wearinesses of the displacency of the appetite do but dreamingly agree to a non-being And at length because from dreaming principles so absurd nothing is to be exspected besides errours full of confusion Therefore successive change in nature is not from the desire of the matter but from the power of the efficient Vulcan Wherein the Odour and Savour of the middle life do generate a seminall Image the beginning of transmutation For neither are the Schooles as yet constant enough to themselves in that appetite of the matter yea the Schooles do not seem to have taught the speculative principles of nature for the service of the truth For truly when they descend to the things themselves they do no more blame the appetite of the matter for the corruption of a thing but they blame the Air as the effecter of all corruptions whatsoever But I know that many things are dried under Air which otherwise under the Earth or water do putrifie presently For truly Glasse the last of things putrefiable doth in the Air main as it were for ever But being buried after some years it admits of a putrifying through continuance is covered or enrowled with a Crust its Salt being dissolved it decayes and its constitutive Sand remaineth The Air is a Case in whose porosities some things do dispose themselves into successive alterations some things under the water and many things also under the Earth according to the dispositions of the seeds For truly those things which do spinkle from themselves an Odour do loose the same by the flowing and snatching wind or the Vessel being close shut they do retain the same within For if the former the pores of Bodies being afterwards empty they do receive Air which being there enclosed doth putrifie through continuance with the odourable thing whence the residue of the Odour doth receive a ferment doth draw a warerish filthiness from the said putrefaction by continuance and becomes rank or muckie But if the latter comes to passe then the Air there detained doth cause the composed Body to putrifie by continuance and brings it to corruption unless the odourable Body hath the properties of a Balsam because a new ferment thinks of a successive change Volatile or exhalable and swift flying things do easily decay because for the most part they have a diversity of kindes through want whereof distilled things are scarce corrupted one whereof doth ferment or leaven another from their true Element they are even choaked and do putrifie through continuance or do conceive an air as before Therefore the ferment changeth the thing as it alters its Odour according to the essence of the matter imprinting of the Vessel of the place or of the thing adjoyned which things I prove by this Handicraft-operation For truly I do preserve the broaths of fleshes of Fruits even as also any boyled things otherwise soon subject to corrupt for years from corruption so that I shall poure a balsamicall ferment into the Air and that ferment being continued I shall restrain it With me therefore corruption is thus as I have said Forms are never corrupted they die indeed onely the minde of man departeth safe but all other forms do perish But matter neither departeth nor dieth but is corrupted And so corruption is onely of the matter Therefore corruption is a certain disposition of the matter left behinde by the ruling Vulcan decaying For as the Body saileth its Ruler or Pilots being in good health it being safe doth not hearken unto strange ferments Neither is corruption therefore to be numbred among privative things if it consist of positive causes Wherefore another Beginning of Aristotle in nature falls to the ground For truly the Archeus is not of his own accord taken away dispersed changed or estranged unless by a new one troubling him under another ferment Therefore strange ferments are chief over all corruptions and by the interchangeable courses of ferments all corruption begins doth by little and little ascend unto a degree and pitch and at length having obtained its period is terminated For there are some things in whom the proper lust of their seeds is wanton and calls them away from the tenour of constancy to undergo the transmutations of successive changes not indeed by reason of a desire to another form but because the implanted Balsam of nature is easily blown away and perisheth as are fleshes and Fishes But others do change their Wedlock not without a putrifying being first stirred up and do put on the careful governments of new seeds As are Woods Stones and Glasse which is most constant in fire Among which they do interpose in a middle degree for whom the touchings of the place do cover their Superficies with a hoary putrefaction or mouldiness From whence Odours being dispersed they do disjoyn the Wedlocks of the antient seeds and meditate of a new Generation by dissolving It is a mark naturall or proper to the Air uncessantly to seperate the waters from the waters and there are many things which do not endure such a successive alteration without a spot or corruption hence therefore they do most immediately slide into a sudden disorder Therefore corruption as it includes an extinguishing of the naturall Balsam so the constancy of a thing desires its continuance for in such things whose Balsam doth voluntarily flow forth or expire it being joyned to fixed things they are seasoned therewith it sticks fast is restrained by the bolts of dryness or at leastwise is nourished by a predominating ferment that is no stranger to the disposition of a Balsam For so sweet things
water is a transitory Relolleum because it is violently brought in For therefore the fire ceasing from which it was produced of its own accord it presently is diminished and ceaseth being no longer cherished That the heat in the hot water being divided throughout the least Atomes of its subject perisheth of its own accord but is not overcome expulsively by a contrariety Because a Relolleum is an efficient quality not proceeding out of the Ferments and Seeds of things And it is twofold to wit One in its own body but the other in a strange body Amongst proper Relolleum's some are seperable As cold in the air and water but others are unseperable as heat in the light of the Sun Candle and Fire which can never wax cold A strange Relolleum is violent by which if it be not nourished it therefore perisheth by its moments and degrees And therefore it is called transient as is heat in the water Therefore aire and water are not made hot by the fire through contrariety but by the generating of a strange Relolleum as it acteth that which was commanded it to act after a different manner of acting with seeds And therefore it neither acteth to or for a form In like manner when water extinguisheth fire or fire lifts up water into a vapour that never happens by the force of contrariety Because the whole fire of the universe cannot blot out or lessen the least moistness from one only drop of water Wherefore the contrariety of the fire should be in vain and foolish or its fight vain and invalide But that aire cannot in any ages by Art or Nature be converted into water or this likewise into aire as I have elsewhere demonstrated by Science Mathematical and by other means sufficiently enough demonstrated For neither is the fire quenched by the water by reason of the presence of a contrary cold in the water For so hot water should not quench fire And fire burns more strongly under the blowing and cold of the North than of the South and the coldest blowing of Bellows doth the more kindle or enflame the fire Therefore water slayeth fire but not fire water Also fire gives place not being overcome by cold but being choaked it perisheth And so hot Oyl doth extinguish a bright burning Coale If therefore contraries ought to be under the same generall kind fire cannot be contrary to water seeing fire is not a Substance even as I have sufficiently demonstrated elsewhere Lastly If they were contrary they should be primarily by themselves substantially and immediately contrary as simple bodies and that being granted their action ought to be a like and equall sight which thing I have already before shewn to be false even as also that nothing is contrary to substances For by the beholding of which two things to wit The fire and the water the Schools have feigned every contrariety of Mixtures and Complexions in the Universe What wonder is it therefore that the contrariety of nature dreamed of in the Schools is now to be had in suspition Seeing their own privative contraries are without contrariety likeness or equality combate co-mixture and grappling of forces Furthermore moysture and dryness are qualities scarce to be understood in the abstract even as otherwise heat is considered in the hand besides or without the fire yea in its improper subject as is the water but moystness and dryness are rather very Bodies themselves qualitated or endowed with qualities Neither therefore are they attained by parts and degrees with the leave of the Schooles after the manner of qualities For moystness is not properly produced but a moyst Body being added to a dry one more of the moyst Body is applyed and so moystness improperly waxeth great That is moysture increaseth quantitatively but not qualitatively But water doth never wax dry although it may deceive the eyes by vanishing away Even as concerning Gas elsewhere Again Siccum or Dry soundeth properly ex-succum or without juyce and contains onely a denyall of moysture But although through the admixture of dry water may seem to be diminished in Clay yet the water doth alwayes keep its own intrinsecall moysture As also the dry Body keeps likewise its own dryness Because there is not a piercing co-mixture of those in the Root but onely an applying of parts Therefore moysture and dryth are so tied to a Body that they can in no wise be distinguished from it And therefore they are not Relolleum's in manner of heat and cold which are brought in by degrees The whole water indeed vanisheth away into a vapour yet it never assumeth even the least quantity of dryth But if of meal and water pulse or bread be made and at length the nature of a fermentall seed being conceived they do passe into a Stone yet truly those things are coagulated ones which do cover and vail the antient moystness of the water but at length the antient water is fetched again from thence For it was not dryed up nor hath it perished although it were coagulated by the seed of things For I have demonstrated elsewhere mechanically and mathematically that all solid Bodies are onely of water nor that they do admit of the congress or concourse of the other Elements Or that every rangible Body is at length resolved into a simple Elementary water such as falleth down through Rain yea being of equall weight with its former solid Body which onely head destroyeth the compact temperature of the Elements and the intestine and uncessant Warr of qualities in us wherefore it behoves the Schooles diligently to search for altogether other causes of Diseases which I have declared by the unheard of beginnings of naturall Philosophy Therefore it is a part of blockishness to be admired at to have dreamed that moysture cometh to a thing by degrees and likewise that moysture and dryness are slackened in the Elements And so that it is a huge fiction to have introduced these stupid Dreams into the Families of Diseases and Cures and confidently to have built upon these the whole foundation of healing So that throughout the whole ranks of moystures and dryths they have married each other as well by their mutuall kinne as by the bawderies of heat and cold To wit for one onely fault that their Neighbours might mournfully deliver their substance unto their vanities of temperaments Being altogether ignorant that there is no piercing of moyst with dry in nature no radicall union co-mixture or radicall temperature whereby they may divide between each other in the bosom of a Form And I do propose one question at least to all by me resolved elsewhere how many contrary Elements soever they hitherto suppose to conflux into the constitution of Bodies which are believed to be mixt Since indeed they suppose two weighty ones to wit the water and Earth and two light ones And likewise do suppose a penetration of Bodies to be impossible in nature Thirdly also seeing they suppose that Gold without controversie
use of the Pulses and another of breathing and â—â—â—ther for heat only For in the most sharp and hot diseases to wit as oft as there is the greatest breathing drawn and that like a sigh the Pulse is small and swift also the strength remaining Therefore the use of breathing and the Pulse do not answer especially because we are more refreshed by a great draught of cold water abundantly drunk than if the same quantity be drunk at many times I say we are more refreshed by one only sigh than by many small and more frequent breathings Even so as a pair of Bellows doth perform more by a great and continual blast than by those that are lesse exact although many whence it may be sufficiently manifested to a well considerate and judicious man that there is another use of the Pulses of greater moment to wit That which respecteth the ferment of digestions Whence I repeat a handicraft operation to wit That at length under the last digestion all our Arterial bloud doth perish and exhale neither that it leaves any dreg behind it Yet whatsoever doth exhale by heat alone all that as well in living as in inanimate things doth leave a dreg behind it the skilfull do call this The dead Head which dreg being at length thus roasted doth resemble a Coale For the action of heat is of it self every where Simple Univocal and Homogeneal differing in the effect by reason of the Matter Therefore if the vitall bloud ought to be wholly so disposed in us that it be at length wholly blown away without a dead head it was altogether necessary that that should happen by some other Mean than that of heat But the aire was alwayes and from the beginning every where the seperater of the waters from the waters This hath not been known in the Schools to wit that the whole Venal bloud that it may depart into a Gas it hath need of two wings to fly the aire and a ferment Wherefore observe thou That as oft as any thing of bloud becomes unfit or is not by degrees disposed of and undergoes its degrees in the outward part of the body that it may wholly throughout the whole be made volatile and capable to flye away or thorow the poâ—es at the same moment now Scirthus's Nodes or Knots and Apostems are conceived but if that thing happen in the more inward part thereof for the most part Fevers Apoplexies Falling evills Asthma's likewise pains and deaths do soon follow Let us see therefore what the aire or what a ferment may conduce hereunto First of all Every muscilage of the earth which else is easily turned into worms likewise Starch Fleshes Fishes c. being once frozen at that very moment do lose their muckinesse and return into water As the aire was once very well combined to the Ice as I have sometimes spoken concerning the weight of Ice and so it is the first degree whereby the aire doth resolve a tough body into water And then under the greatest colds and purest aire we are more hungry yet we sweat and less is discussed out of us with a small and more hard siege or excrement Therefore one that saileth in the Sea eats more by double if not by treble unlesse he be sick and le ts go less excrement than himself doth living at Land whence is the Proverb The water causeth a promoting of digestion As if indeed he that saileth should not float in the aire but in the water but floating doth renew the aire in us and from hence there is a stronger digestion Therefore if we do eat more strongly and do cast forth less excrements it necessarily follows that the more is discussed or doth vanish out of the Body which is to say That the more pure Northern and Sea-aire doth conduce to a transpiration or evaporation of the body or doth dispose the bloud unto an insensible perspiration or breathing out of it self Surely for that cause is breathing made not indeed that the air may depart into nourishment for the vitall spirit but that it may be connexed with it being sucked to it thorow the Arterial Vein and Venal Artery of the Lungs and that the air being for this cause transported into the heart it may receive a ferment which accompanying it they both may dispose the venal blood into a totall transpiration of it self After another manner many things are made fixt and do resist a breathing forth if they are provoked by heat otherwise they were in themselves volatile Wherefore an Alcali is not generated in ashes by the fire essentially although effectively it proceed from thence For the office of the fire is indeed to kindle consume and seperate yet not to produce any thing Seeing the fire is not rich in a seed it is the very destroyer of seeds But from seeds all Generation proceedeth When therefore an Alcali is fixed out of a Salt that was before volatile it is not a new production of a thing but only the Alteration of a thing For the Alcali was indeed materially in the composed body before burning and did flow together with its Mercury and Sulphur Notwithstanding while the fire takes away the Mercury and Sulphur the Salt indeed as being a principle more subsisting in the melting of the combustion doth snatch to it self the neighbouring part of the Sulphur or Fat and when it is not able sufficiently to defend it from the torture of the fire it partly also flyes away under the mask of a Gas and attains the odour of corrupted matter and is partly incorporated in the laid-hold-of co-melted Sulphur and is made a true Coal Wherefore the Sulphur being now fixed by the wedlock of the Salt it doth not speedily incline from a Coal into a smoaky vapour But by degrees and not unlesse in an open Vessel and so with the former Sulphur for from hence the Sulphur of a thing being for the most part sharp doth retain the savour of a volatile Salt and at length with the Coalie Sulphur the just weight of its volatile Salt flies away Which thing surely is no where more manifest than in the Coal of Honey For if this be urged or forced by a shut vessel it remains not changed in a bright burning fire but the vessel being open both do so depart that moreover no remainder of ashes doth ever survive Therefore the Alcali Salt doth fore-exist materially in the composed body before combustion Because all the Salt was formally volatile in the composed body and not in the form of a more fixed Alcali which thing is now especially manifest in the bloud which being wholly volatile exhaleth unsensibly through the Pores without any residence But if it be combusted or burnt it leaveth very much fixed Salt in its own ashes In the next place The wood of the Pine-Tree which affordeth little ashes and less Salt in the preparation of ashes barrelled is by calcining wholly turned into an Alcali For barrelled ashes are brought
heat For if a little heat causeth a small digestion and amean heat a mean one Verily at a powerful and troublesome digestion a great heat ought also to be present Which thing notwithstanding although I have divers times the more curiously searched into I have not found to be true Then at length it is to be noted That the digestion of bread in a Man Dog Horse Fish Bird differ in the whole general kind no otherwise than as a manifold venal bloud and filths sprung from thence Wherefore from one only particular kind of digesting heat those kinds of varieties of digestions cannot proceed Therefore let the Schools erect and defend so many general kinds of heats and colds before they do require for themselves to be believed I therefore do draw so great a difference of venal blood from formal properties and specifical ferments never from heat For truly I perfectly know that whatsoever things have divers essential efficients have also divers effects and attributes to wit So that products divers in the general kind do necessarily require their own efficient causes diverse in the general kind For otherwise any thing should produce any thing indifferently to wit even as one and the same thing doth arise from the same nigh causes For how frivolous a thing is it to have adjudged the vital powers and the formal and specifical parents of transmutations unto luke-warmths For if the digestion of heat were needful a more prosperous and plentiful digestion should continually follow a greater heat For by how much every cause is more powerful in nature by so much it doth also more powerfully perfect its own proper effect By consequence the stomack of one sick of a Fever in a burning Fever should more powerfully digest than that of a healthy person But surely in the stomack of him that hath a Fever nothing is rightly digested For Eggs Fishes Fleshes and Broths are presently made cadeverous or stinking within and therefore they do cause adust or burnt belchings the which if sowre belchings do soon follow after Hippocrates hath reckoned to be good as well from the sign as from the cause Yet there is in one that hath a Fever a heat also sometimes that heat is temperate to wit while it is not troublesome neither doth stir up thirst yet the digestion is void Impure bodies by how much the more powerfully thou nourishest them by so much the more thou hurtest them which in a Feverish man is manifest wherein we must presently use a most slender food easie of digestion And we must abstain from the more strongmeats to wit those consummated or accomplished in growth from meat Broths because the ferment being absent they do easily putrifie contract an adust savour and turn as it were into a dead Carcass No otherwise than as raw flesh being bound on the Wrist Breast Soals of the feet or Neck so far is it that it should be resolved into Chyle that straight-way after some hours it putrifies and stinks although it be salt The same thing is in an impure Feverish body where heat is present but a digesting ferment is wanting For if heat be the cause of digestion otherwise digestion is wanting in a Feaver but heat is present but we must more apply our selves to digestion than to cooling refreshment especially if no very troublesome heat be present Therefore we should rather study the increase of heat than cooling And so the Scope of the Physitian should be changed while it should be devised concerning the increase of heat in a Fever for digestion nourishing and increase of strength Neither also shall sharp and hungry Medicines of Sulphur Vitriol Salt Niter Citron and the like help but the heat should be stirred up and increased by sharp things He speaketh something like madness who saith That the Snow makes cold as it is white So it is a ridiculous thing to affirm That the specificall ferment of the stomack doth digest by reason of vitall heat existing in it Surely it is to be lamented that the credulity and sloath of those to whom the care of the life is committed have changed burying-places into a meer Sumen or fatting juice despairing of the searching out of natural properties whence notwithstanding they have their Sur-name Paracelsus also being deluded by a digestive heat and ignorant of the Ferment of the stomack admires that some things which are most hard are changed into Chyle in a few hours and that a bone is consumed in the luke-warmth of the stomack of a Dog who aspiring to the Monarchy of healing failed thereof after that he named this a power to be admired at was ignorant of and knew not the ferments For being unconstant to himself he wrote elsewhere That this digestive property doth agree no lesse to the mouth being shut than to the stomack and so also from hence That Anchorets have spent their long life happily without swallowed meat But surely that Idiotisme is to be left to his own boldness while in the mean time whatsoever hath perhaps remained within the hollownesses of the Teeth is straight-way made like a dead carcasse with a horrible stink but is not digested For I remember that a white and thick glasse being cast out of my Furnace was swallowed by my Hens they being deluded through the heat of Milk but the fracture of glasse is always sharp-pointed but after a few dayes some Hens being killed the glasse was found to be pointingly diminished on every side and to have lost its sharp tops and to have been made roundish or globish But the other surviving Hens and Guests had presently after a few dayes consumed the rest of the Glasse although they had also devoured the small Pellets of Glasse taken out of the Hens formerly slain Thou shalt take notice in the mean time that glasse doth resist waters which resolve any Mettals Indeed the ferment in many Birds is so powerful that unlesse they are now and then fed with Tiles or Bricks Chalk or white earth they are ill at ease through the multitude of sharpness But on the contrary that the stomack of one that hath a Fever is wholly of an adust savour he rejecteth meats of three dayes continuance being oft-times as yet distinguished by the sight or sometimes turned into a yellow or rusty liquour to wit through the straining scope of the ferment I learned the necessity of this ferment of the stomack while being a Boy I nourished Sparrows I oft-times thrust out my tongue which the Sparrow laid hold of by biting and endeavoured to swallow to himself and then I perceived a great sharpness to be in the throat of the Sparrow whence from that time I knew why they are so devouring and digesting And then I saw that the sharp distilled Liquor of Sulphur had seasoned my Glove and that it did presently resolve it into a juice in the part which it had moistned which thing confirmed to me a young Beginner that meats are transchanged
each to other by subscribing and I will subjoyn those things which singular experience under divine grace hath taught me Without controversie it belongs to meats and drinks together and in like manner to be dissolved into a Cream plainly transparent in the hollow of the Stomach I add that that is done by vertue of the first Ferment manifestly soure or sharp and borrowed of the Spleen for I have found as many suitable Ferments as there are in us digestions Again neither is it of lesse admiration that that Cream is spoiled wholly of all drawn sourness of the ferment as soon as it slides out of the stomach into the great Bowel or intestine than the power of that ferment in the stomach was wonderful That intestine is called the Duodenum from the measure of 12 fingers and it is immediately under the Pylorus or lower mouth of the stomach Truly Anatomy complains of trouble in this place by reason of the stretching out the offices of the kernels and Vessels to wit in so small a space for Instruments of so great uses and so that in the whole dissection nothing doth offer it self alike difficult For neither are there so many Vessels and Organs in vain although their use hath stood neglected For first of all when I learned that the ferment conceived in the Cream of the stomach was pernicious as well in the intestines themselves as in other parts by reason of many torments or wringings I not sloathfully noted that all particular parts have obtained particular ferments seeing there is an unexcusable necessity of these in transchanging And so I also from hence further concluded that all particular ferments do abhorre strange ones to be their Companions and the commands of strange patrons as if they were forreign thieves and such as thrust their Sickle into another mans Corn And that indeed through no vice of jealousie as though they did envie the activities of others But from an endeavour of executing the office which was enjoyned them by the Lord of things It is a wonder to be spoken that a sour cream in the Duodenum doth straightway attain the savour of Salt and doth so willingly exchange its own sharp Salt into a salt Salt No otherwise almost than as the Vinegar which is most sharp hath forthwith through red Lead put off its former sharpness and doth presently change into an aluminous sweetness Even as also the sharpness of Sulphur is forthwith changed in the Salt of Tartar But by a far more excellent vigour of transmutation that sour Cream is presently made Salt in us For truly that is made without any co-mixture of any Body even as when Vinegar waxing sweet it is constrained by the addition of the Lead or a sharp distillation is drunk up in an Alcali-Salt Because in very deed nothing is any where found which can fully answer to the force of a ferment seeing Ferments are the primitive causes of transmutations and that indeed from a former cause and therefore it must needs be that the similitudes of those drawn onely from a latter effect do very much halt Therefore our sour Cream is made salt only by a fermental and unchangeable disposition wherefore also the volatile sharpness of that Cream doth remain in its antient volatility while it exchangeth its own first obtained soureness with saltness For the volatile stillatitious sharpness of Vinegar doth not thus remain volatile as before while it dissolveth Litharge Minium or Ceruse because in dissolving it is coagulated and doth assume the form of a more fixed Salt now separable from the liquid distillation of the Vinegar which it had lately married but in dissolving it is coagulated and doth assume the form of a more fixed Salt because it is the action of a thing dissolving and dissolved but not of a transchanging Ferment which doth continually tend to a new Form on either side For indeed the Stomachs of some do more easily digest Potherbs Pulses or bread-Corns but those of others do more succesfully digest Fishes abhorre Cheese prefer water before Wine whereas in the mean time the stomach of others is a devourer of flesh or addicted to Apple to wit by reason of a specifical yea and also an appropriated property of that Ferment yea neither is it sufficient to have said that the sour Ferment of the first digestion and totall cause of the melting of the harder meats doth freely inhabit in the stomach unless that very thing be more plainly explained First of all the stomach hath not this Ferment in it self or from its own self For the digestion of the appetite and Family-government of the stomach do sometimes depart and return without extinguishing because they are not of the stomach it self Wherefore I have said that the membrane of the stomach hath all the efficacy of its digestion and government thereof from the Spleen For surely the Spleen together with the stomach doth therefore make in us one onely Duumvirate or Sheriffdom from whence indeed the Poets have erected the Golden and prosperous Kingdoms of Saturn and in pride the liberal Feasts of Saturn The Antients have smelled out some History of antient truth To wit that whatsoever things meats being digested are cast out by vomit are of a soure taste and smell yea although they were seasoned with much Sugar For soure belchings coming upon adust ones in Diseases are reckoned to presage good according to Hypocrates Hence indeed all saltnesses or seasonings and Sauces of meats for sharpening of the Appetite are sharp as the juyce of Citron Orange Pomegranate the unripe Olive Tartar Vinegar Berbery Vine-branch Mustard and likewise Salt of the Sea as it containeth a sharp Spirit in it in which respect also the Liquors of Sulphur Vitriol Salt Sal Niter c. are commended For I will not that the sharpness of any of those be consumed into increase of a specifical and appropriated ferment dwelling in the Spleen Far be it for ferments have nothing besides or out of themselves in nature which may worthily be assimilated to themselves seeing they are specifical gifts of a vital nature For therefore a ferment in what respect it is a ferment is a vital and free Secret yoaked to no other quality for it is sufficient for Sawces that sharp things do prepare meats for a more easie entrance of the ferment of the Spleen In the next place although the ferment of the stomach hath a specifical tartness yet that tartness is not the vital ferment it self but onely the Instrument thereof For the ferment of the stomach hath a sharpness as a singular companion unto it self it being also divided by properties by general kindes and Species but digestion in it self is the work of the life it self whereof sharpness is in this Shop the attaching or guarding Instrument But in the other Shops which are afterwards the life associates to it self a secondary quality on either side as a Minister of its intention to the fermental quality and suited
to the vital scope For from hence there is no seldom offence of the stomach it having arisen from a degree of a forreign sharpness wherefore an Orexis or inordinate appetite to meat and such like perplexities or the stomach do offend in an adulterous tartness For from hence are prickings in the stomach difficult concoctions lastly very soure belchings and vomitings wherefore if a ferment should consist in soureness Vinegar Oyl of Vitriol and the like should ferment the lump of bread and should digest our meats by a perfect transmutation but they do neither of these Therefore the ferment is a free Secret and vital and therefore it every where co-fitteth to it self a retaining quality in its own Borders Because seeing ferments are of the rank of formal and seminal things therefore they have also severed themselves plainly from the society of material qualities But if they have associated unto them a corporeal ministring quality whereby they may the more easily disperse their own vital strength account that to be done for a help and so it cannot but contain a duality with the Ferment And therefore also that quality may offend as well in its excessive as in its diminished degree For in that thing I greatly differ from the Schooles Because first of all they teach that the Gaul is not a vital bowel 2. That it is not a noble member 3. That it is nothing but a very unprofitable superfluity it self and banished from the masse of venal bloud to wit least it should infect the venal bloud 4. That it is therefore a product besides the intention of nature 5. Being onely profitable for the expelling of Dung and Urine 6. And therefore that the little bag of the Gaul is not of the substance of a Bowel but a sack or sink of dregs and superfluities 7. That at length Sanguification or the making of bloud doth begin and is compleated in the Liver which things indeed seem to me dreams For first of all seeing Choler is not required to the constitution of venal bloud that bitter Gaul or Choler should not of necessity be procreated of all kinde of meats unless it be propagated by a proper Agent and in a particular Shop of its own for a profitable vital and necessary end For much lesse hath the Gaul seemed to me to be an excrement than the water of the Pericardium or Case of the heart It is a wonder at least why Fishes of water and Cattel of Grasse do nevertheless alwayes daily make so bitter a Liquor Truly that simple identity or sameliness of the Gaul through so many particular kindes seemed to me to prove some necessity in the Workmanship of life And so the Gaul not to have the necessity of an excrement produced by any nourishments whatsoever but rather the constitution of a necessary Bowel For I ceased to admire by considering how great Tragedies of rule the paunch which is nothing but a Sack and Skin might stir up and that it obtained the room of a principal bowel by considering I say how great a prerogative the membrane of the stomach might challenge to it self so that it hath snatched to it self the name and properties of the heart before the other bowels Whence surely I ceased to admire that the name of a bowel should be given to the little bag of the Gaul and to the Gaul it self especially because the wrathful power is believed by most to be bred in the same Surely I have found in the Family-administration of mans digestion Bodies and Ferments connexed of two bowels the Gaul and the Liver for Sanguification To wit the Gaul to precede in the work of Sanguification and for this cause to be nearer to the Stomach and Entrails than the Liver For the Gaul is nourished in the Bosom and lap of the Liver as it were in its Mothers Bosom for it is the Balsam of the Liver and Bloud For seeing Sanguification is not a transmutation which may be introduced by a momentary disposition and since the Liver is deprived of a remarkable hollowness whereby it may be able to contain within it the juyce that is to be made bloud for the leisure or terme of digestion That is the Liver in it self is a solid Body having few and slender veins and so the whole Cream being accompanied with so great a heap of Urine it ought to passe thorow the Liver with a swift passage but the crude Cream cannot by so swift a passage onely be straightway changed into venal blond Wherefore a perfect Sanguification could in no wise be made in the Liver Because the Liver was not a Kitchin but a family Governour by its own Sanguificative ferment whereby as it were by a Command it chiefly by successive dispositions executes the office enjoyned it from its creation Therefore the plurality of the Mesentery veins is the stomack of the Liver it self and the preparative Shop of the venal bloud And the perfection thereof the Liver doth breath into the venal bloud as yet naked after that it is laid up into the hollow vein Truly as Sanguification is a certain more exquisite digestion and a more manifest transmutation of a thing than is the melting of the meat into Chyle it could not fitly or profitably happen in any large vessel but in many the more straight ones which together may equalize some notable capacity whereby indeed that fermental Archeus may most strictly narrowly and neerly touch and comprehend them all and his Liver may communicate a ferment in changing and may inspire a vital faculty Forthe Spleen doth inspire its Ferment into the Stomack a large vessel for neither doth the Spleen touch the meats immediately So also doth the Liver inspire the act of Sanguification by the breathing or ferment of its own life into the veins subjected under it And even as the meat slides from the Mouth into the Stomack and there expecteth the end of digestion So from the Entrails the Cream is immediately snatched into the stomack of the Liver But seeing that Cream is much and for a great part of it excrementitious for as yet it containeth the Urine in it it ought first to be unloaded of its excrement that it may the more conveniently be made bloud Because that Cream is as yet wholly undistinct neither therefore doth it acknowledge an excrement what therefore shall the Liver act by a single action of Sanguification For shall the severing of the excrement the degeneration of the Cream and Sanguification of the Cream be made and finished by one and the same work Nay Surely the Cream had need of a Ferment its transchanger distinct from the Sanguificative ferment whereby indeed that part of it that is less fit is changed into a meer excrement for the action of Sanguification could not make an excrement of that which is not an excrement For both those do differ too much from each other For the action which prepares an excrement out of the greatest part of the
the chance She was asked thereupon of what savour it was and she answered it was of a stinking and waterishly sweet one Thirdly a Painter of Bruxels being mad between whiles about the beginning of his madness escapes into a Wood near by and was there found far from the sight of men to have lived 23 dayes by his own Dung He was straightway brought home I went to see him and the Lord healed him But he was perfectly mindeful of all things past at the time of his madness I asked him whether he remembred of what savour his Dung was He said it savours as it smells And being afterwards examined by me through the Capital tasts he answered it was not sour not bitten sharp salt but waterishly sweet Yea he said that by how much the oftner he had re-earen it by so much it had alway been the sweeter But being asked for what cause he had rather eat Dung than return home He said that he throughout his whole madness abhorred men being perswaded by his own fury that men sought to destroy him by a snare Therefore it is manifest that there is not even the least drop of Gaul in the Dung for the Gaul being once burst however a Fish may afterwards be most exactly washed yet the bitterness of the Gaul conceived by the least touching is never laid aside For if yellowness should bewray the Gaul the dung of Infants should be especially gawly which notwithstanding is licked by Dogs because it hath as yet retained some kinde of savour of the milk But whatsoever hath not been fully subdued in the stomach nor hath assumed the beauty of a transparency may not hope to be digested in the bowels by the ferment of the Gaul although it be tinged with a yellow colour Because it goes not to the second or third but thorow the absolute first Whatsoever therefore is thick and tinged with heat in the Ileos that is wholly banished into an excrement and under a certain sweetness doth attain the savour of putrefaction No otherwise than as soure fruits wax sweet by a little heat But whatsoever was before sour in the stomach that is made salt in the Duodenum and is severed from the Dung but if any thing do persevere sour which may resist the ferment of the Gaul wringings of the bowels c. do presently follow But the excrement of man doth putrifie because the ferment of the dung is chief over that place But that which slides out of the stomach undigested also is not digested in the bowels It is cast out whole but it keeps and now and then increaseth the part of sournesses which it assumed in the stomach For from hence do the brans in bread provoke the stool by reason of sharpness but other things do wax more sharp and stir up wringings of the guts Therefore from the Duodenum the Chyle doth forthwith begin to exchange its own sharp volatile Salt into an equall saltness it being resolved in the Cream But the remaining and more corporal substance of the Cream doth expect a sanguification in the veins of the mesentery from the inspired ferment of the Liver The salt Liquor in the mean time being attracted by the Reins thorow the Liver is it self committed to the Reins and Bladder for expulsion Therefore the third digestion begins in the veins of the mesentery which is terminated in the Liver For the venal bloud as long as it is in the mesentery is not yet digested not yet thredded or perfect For the venal bloud of the mesentery doth therefore not grow together in the Bloudy flux But otherwise a vein of the stomach being burst the venal bloud doth forthwith wax clotty in the stomach For the ferment of the Liver is so much inclined to sanguification for it is its univocal and one onely office that the veins do even by the right of league retain or hold that from the Liver and its proper implanted Archeus thereupon confirming it So that the bloud in the veins of a dead Carcase is not coagulated a long while after death which being elsewhere powred forth doth presently wax clotty For the Cream running down afterwards thorow the Bowels becomes the dryer and also the liquid matter thereof being sucked upwards into the veins But thereby the rest doth more and more putrifie so that when it is almost brought down to the ends of the Ileos now not a little of a more liquid Dung is generated because before it hath fully putrified it is snatched to the mesentery that it may be thorowly mingled with the Urine profitable for its ends Even as elsewhere concerning Fevers and likewise concerning the Stone Which yellow Dung the Schooles have believed to be Choler and Gaul and so out of the Dung they have founded their demonstration for one of the four humours and a Gate hath thereby layen open to miserable errours and wicked slaughters For it was of little regard for them hitherto to have built up their false significative knowledge by the unknown substance of the tincture of the Urine but to have made Choler and Gaul the constitutive humours of us the causers of all Diseases to wit to have feigned yellow Choler and that a little the more digested to be adust and like the cankering of Brasse and from thence to be dry and scorched melancholy or black Choler but the gaul it self to be the sink of superfluous Choler but the venal bloud to be nothing but an artificial Body connexed of many things or humours which being again seperated they should be the same after their death as before in their life but that a Body is not born of Mother nature by a true transmutation of the Chyle into univocal or simple venal bloud and at length to have instituted healings about the removing of accomplished causes which never will be or were in nature Surely that thing doth exceed gross ignorance and renders the Snorters of the Schooles unexcusable But perhaps they will object to me Thou sayest that the veins do suck the Cream being slidden out of the stomach into the intestines therefore the same office belongs to the veins of the stomach that they may draw that sour Cream into themselves without the interceding of the Ferment of the Gaul that is without changing of the Sour into Salt And by consequence thy ferment of the Gaul is a dreamed and invented thing yea meat broath injected by a Clyster shall be able to pierce to the Liver without the knowledge of the Gaul touching the right of a Clyster I have finished this question in the Book of Fevers I answer that it is an antient abuse of the Schooles who have equally attributed the same use to all the veins As if the veins seperated in the arms should busie themselves in drawing of the Cream First of all I have already shewen that the bloud in the veins is coagulable the bloud of the Mesentery not so And then we must know that all sour Cream is
of name of the Philosopher despised the contradicters of his own and indeed false beginnings no otherwise than as Necromancers do require to be credited without demonstration Let eternal prayse and glory be to my Lord in all Benediction who hath formed us not after the Image of the most impure VVorld but after the figure of his own divine Image therefore hath he adopted us for the Sons of Election and co-heirs of his glory through grace Surely the condition of that similitude were to be grieved at and too much to be pitied which had hitherto subjected us under the Law of all calamities from our Creation even till now and that before sin we should onely be the engravement of so abjected a thing as if the VVorld had been framed for it self but not for us as the ultimate end but we for the VVorld whose Images indeed onely we should be to wit we ought to be made stony that we may represent Stones and Rocks And so we should all of right be altogether stony leprous c. For indeed seeing we are by Creation that which we are and a Stone should be made in us that we may represent Rocks Now death and a Disease were in us before that we departed out of the right way or fell Let Heresies depart For neither do we all suffer the falling evill neither do they who labour with it have it that sometimes we may represent Thunder or the Earth-quake or an unknown Lorinde of the Air its unconstancy But now if there were at least the least truth hereof verily he who suffers dammages according to Justice ought also to perceive the profits of the Microcosme even so that especially we ought to fly Seeing it is more rational for us sooner to shew our selves Birds than great Stones or storms of the Air or water Therefore let allegorical and moral senses depart out of nature Nature throughly handles Beings as they do in very deed and act subsist in a substantial entity and do flow forth from the root of a seed even unto the conclusion of the Tragedy neither doth it admit of any other interpretation than by being made and being in essence from ordained causes I observe also that Paracelsus Tartar being invented and introduced into Diseases hath not yet stood secure enough for truly he immingles Tartar also in the first Beginnings of our constitution and so neither doth he require the Seeds of things themselves out of Tartar but he will have Tartar to be radically intimately and most thorowly immirgled with the Seeds whereby he may finde out the Seminary of Hereditary Diseases Of which mixture he being at length forgetful calleth it ridiculous He saith that a VVoman having conceived by the Seed of man it doth separate snatch lay up Tartar into it self and that the Seed being as it were anatomized doth constitute it self the flattering Heir of that Tartar On the contrary that the Spirit of Wine is never so refined by possible circulations as that it doth not as yet contain its own Tartar in it As if Tartar were the chief Root of the Universe or an immediate Companion thereunto But I know if any forreign thing be materially in the Seed generation doth never follow Next that the Seed of Adam being materially prepared in Paradise had not generated a more perfect off-spring than that which afterwards after the fall was made in him Cain and Abel do especially prove that thing At length if Tartar should so intimately grow in Seeds that after many years from generation it should cause hereditary Diseases by materially separating it self from the whole surely that Tartar should not so soon be separable by the Magnet or attraction of a VVoman seeing if any thing be separated from the seed it is a Gas diametrically opposite unto Tartar For if the womb should separate any thing from the seed that should happen by drawing but such is the condition of drawing things that they draw for themselves and unto themselves and then cease but if the womb shall extract for separation sake there shall now be no fear of an hereditary evill because the womb hath a power of serving that which is hurtfull Lastly although Diseases shall come by degrees into the place of exercise yet they were never materially thorowly mixed with the Seed after the manner of Tartar that not Tartar not a gowty Chalk fore-existed in the Seed but that Diseases derived from the Parents do lay hid in manner of a Character in the middle life of the Archeus whose Seal doth at length under its own maturity of dayes break forth and frameth a Body fit for it self and so is made the Archeus of a Disease together with every requisite property of the Seeds For a Disease also is a natural constitution proceeding from the Seed consisting of an Archeus as the efficient cause It hath otherwise rustically been thought in the Schools that Diseasie Bodies do materially conflux unto the Generation of hereditary defects It also contains an Idiotism to exclude a Disease out of the number of natural Agents and corporal Beings seeing the matter also which they say is diseasifying is now and then obvious to the finger if it be thorowly viewed by the eyes If therefore a Disease be now reckoned among the Beings of Nature why should it not be established by a necessity of its own seed It is rude Phylosophy that Tartar had been from the beginning in the seed and that after thirty whole years it should begin the first principles of a Cream and should meditate of an Increase and as it were a particular Republique for it self and that wholly without the direction of the seed God made not death nor therefore hath he connexed Tartar unto seeds as the matter of Diseases For if so stupid errours should happen unto the seminal Archeus the Ruler of Nature hath already forsaken the Rains of the same and mankinde shall shortly go to ruine Also that saying of Paracelsus is absurd that not so much as the Spirit of Wine doth want its own Tartar For although it should be circulated for the space of an Age yet it shall never in very deed separate any Tartar For Paracelsus who never saw or found that Tartar of the Spirit of VVine will therefore be credited in his own good belief no otherwise than as elsewhere where he thinketh that water as oft as it hath ceased to be seen doth wholly depart into nothing and that something is created anew For it doth not follow a Salt is made out of the Spirit of vvine it receives a coagulation in the Salt of Tartar therefore the Spirit of vvine doth contain Tartar Because although every coagulated thing should be Tartar which it is not yet those Bodies do not contain those things which at length are made of them To wit Milk is made of Grasse of Milk Arterial Bloud and from hence the seed of man yet Grasse doth not contain a man in it self as neither
doth Grasse contain Cowes Milk Therefore he bewraies his own Idiotisme because he will have every coagulable Body of what sort soever to be Tartar That is whole Nature to be Tartar for the introducing of the cause of Diseases also out of the most refined Liquors For even as if he had been to have said that the matter of a Disease is taken from created Bodies but what then had he made himself besides ridiculous doth he not the same thing now while he tieth up every Body as well that which is coagulated as that ever congulable under Tartar to finde out the cause of a Disease For what new thing doth he bring which before was not known besides the name of Tartar Hath not Galen known that the material cause of Diseases is coagulated or coagulable Therefore by the name of Tartar he hath at least dazled the eyes Seeing coagulable Bodies do not assume a hardness elsewhere than from the appointment of their own seed but not after the manner wherein vvine and Lee do strain themselves together in acting First of all these things do resist the holy Scriptures and his very own position which teach that Diseases have come into man from sin and the position that Tartar was sprinkled on the Virgin Nature And by consequence that before transgression Bodies had their Creams in them and not from Tartar For he had found in the History of Nature if not an Idiot that no Liquor doth undergoe a coagulation by virtue of Tartar but from the intention of the Creator shining forth in the seeds And therefore whatsoever is condensed is a new Generation but not the ripening of a fore-existing Tartar For else there had been Tartar not onely in meats before sin but whole nature had been nothing but a Disease and the cause of death a punishment before an offence and death had arisen from the Creator For Paracelsus elsewhere thorowly weighing that favours do remain in the thing transchanged wandering as yet farther off thought that Essences do not die that they are not corrupted lastly that they are not transchanged but that they remain safe in the dungs of living Creatures and he perswaded himself that where no or perhaps the slender footsteps of favours did remain that their antient Essences also remained safe being badly instructed by the Schools that the same accident did not wander from subject into subject And so if he had been pressed he had denied also the the transmutations of things For he would have fruitful fields dunged because that the Essences of Vegetables being safe in the mud as knowing no death should sub-enter into the Roots of things sowed Being no more mindful of his own Doctrine wherein the dung of living Creatures is deprived of every property of the composed Body and is onely the last matter of Salts But elsewhere he will have the dung to contain the most especial matter of the Tartar and that in this respect the undunged fields of Bohemia do yield lesse tartarous fruits than those which were fattened with a stony or earthy juyce or food or at length with the dung of living Creatures wherein indeed abroad in the Air in a long race of years this earthy Sumen or fattening juyce doth voluntarily melt Because this Sumen-soil should produce a Tartar in Herbs more wild and Rockie than dung so often reâ—cocted and refined into the matter of Salts In which respect some filths do wash out of Towels like Soap And Paracelsus hath grown to that insolency with his Tartar that as oft as any thing did gnaw the Bladder or bring on the Strangury or pissing by drops he presently nameth that thing a Chalk or Lime a frosty Tartar or any such like thing As if Lime and Tartar were now Sunonymalls as though any thing could be calcined in the middle of the Urine without burning as if Lime did not presuppose the matter whereof the Stones consist Seeing there is not ashes which was not before a Coal Finally he acknowledgeth also the Tartar of Marrow not to be coagulable But how knew he this Tartar which he could never see For he will have himself believed in all things who knew most perfectly the Beings and all the properties of the Microcosme But why doth he now call Tartar a Being not coagulable but that all Diseases will they nill they may obey his fiction of Tartars For I being a Christian could not admit of Microcosmical Dreams as they have been delivered by Paracelsus That is by literally and not metaphorically understanding them which sense or meaning doth alwayes banish it self from the History of natural things Neither do I suffer his Tartarers but according to the same Paracelsus I will say we must believe no man in that which he cannot prove by the fire And therefore I may not consent that Lime is burnt in us as neither that Tartar is bred in us because Tartar is not to be acknowledged but in Winy Liquors but that the matter of Tartar doth remain from Generation to Generation through the Shops of the digestions I reject it as a Fable CHAP. XXXII Nourishments are guiltless or innocent of Tartar 1. Physitians at this day do by little and little accustom themselves to the Doctrine of Tartar 2. An Argument against Tartar 3. The Tartar of a Disease should not be a Creature 4. The Thistles and Thorns not to signifie Tartar 5. Two womb Sisters in nature 6. By what means the transmutations of solid things may be 7. An unbelieving invention 8. An impossibility some impertinences 9. The unconstancy of Paracelsus 10. A frivolous thing 11. Absurd Consequences upon the Position of Tartar 12. The Archeus prepares matter for himself while he doth not finde the same 13. The Errour of Paracelsus about the Idea of the Microcosme in Bread about Anatomies declared in meats and Medicines 14. Other absurdities 15. Some notable things against the Tartar of meat 16. Manly Age is lesse subject to Worms 17. A stone growing to a Tooth hath deceived Paracelsus 18. Hence another fiction hath sprung 19. The aforesaid assertion and some absurdities are discovered 20. Some absurdities concerning the Stone of a Tooth 21. A frivolous thing of Paracelsus 22. What a dental or Tooth-stone is 23. It s Birth and manner of making 24. The Family Government of the Teeth 25. Teeth have their Age. 26. Why Cold is an enemy to a Tooth 27. An Errour about the hardness of Stones in us 28. Why the Stone of the Reins doth at length arise pale 29. The unconstancy of Paracelsus 30. The neglect of the same man 31. An instance brought on a Maxim THE more refined Physitians do so by degrees go back from the Humorists the Schools that with Paracelsus they now ascribe almost all Diseases unto the one thing Tartar wherefore it hath behoved me to decypher the beginnings of my repentance and how far youthful and inconsiderate credulity hath in times past seduced me In the mean time seeing the counsel
a cane through the defect of his mouth palate tongue jawes c. and therefore cheweth nothing and so touching not any nourishment with his teeth yet he daily affixeth a stone to his teeth no otherwise than he which eateth Likewise after every repast although the mouth and teeth be exactly cleansed by washing yet in the morning a new stone and stinking muscilage is conversant about the teeth which at least could not have remained of the meat and the which if it should be the Tartar of meats this should also be as often diverse as there are interchangeable courses of meats which the Carthusians have the same and alike smelling as the devourers of flesh have Likewise they who are fed with simple bread and apples have it no otherwise than those who do eat bread and likewise cheese Even those Irish who live by Trifoil or three-leaved grasse which they call Ciambrock instead of bread and water with the Norwayes who are content with raw and dried fish all do agree in the same stone except a few of a more happy disposition Therefore it was a frivolovs thing to have founded the invention of Tartar for diseases out of the Tartar of meats by reason of the tooth-stone which certainly in the first place doth not issue from a dreamed Microcosmical property because the Macrocosme shall never in chewing affix a stinking stone to its teeth If therefore the stone be not from the Tartar of meats neither surely shall it also be from the Tartar of drinks because seeing it is that which seldome toucheth at the teeth it swiftly flowes thorow and should sooner wash off the same Tartar than apply it Therefore I will shew from whence the tooth-stone may have its matter and efficient cause Because it will afterwards as yet be certainly manifest that the reasons of Tartar are vain Therefore it is an undoubted truth that the tongue is cloathed with a fimbrious or seamy coat like unto whole silk and if it shall wet any thing of the meat or drink in the mouth that this is conteined within those seams or hems until they are filled up with the same moisture Yet that is not any Tartar of the meats or drinks as if it were a coagulable body separated from that which is not coagulable but it is foundly the whole substance of the meat which perhaps became wet by the spittle and is deteined within that whole silk And moreover that filth being shaved off from the tongue yet it doth not attain the hardnesse of a tooth-stone with whatsoever lukewarmth it may at length wax dry It stinks Indeed yet not altogether by reason of the cadaverous smell of the stone of the teeth For if presently after feeding the tongue be shaved or scraped with a file or rubbed with a more course towel in the morning indeed thou shalt again scrape off lesse muscilage but not therefore lesse strongly smelling The like thou shalt find concerning the teeth Understand thou therefore that this ballast of the tongue doth spring not onely from the meats but also from the spittle and superfluity of the tongue For if the meat that is deteined in the hollow of a tooth the same excrement whereof is drunk up in the coat of the tongue hath remained there all night it breatheth forth a far more stinking vapour than the aforesaid shaved muscilage of the tongue So also between the gums and the cheek-bone how clean soever thou shalt wash thy mouth after supper every morning a certain white muscilage is co-heaped which being wiped off from thence by a towel and dried on it doth smell with a proper stink Therefore by an oblique passing thorow the matter I will give notice that this muscilage of the tongue is the special cause of the difficulties arising in the jawes consequently also those that are subject unto these evils to have freed themselves by a frequent filing or scratching to wit as after every meal or time of feeding and in the morning they do claw their tongue For truly the tender and neighbour parts abhorring this muscilage when it puttifieth do wax wroth through a horrid contagion on themselves therefore they do kindle a thin inflammation by reason of the presence of a guest that is a foreigner unto them But that tooth-stone is not the son of the spittle or meats seeing neither nor indeed both of them together can ever be coagulated into such an hardnesse and much lesse into a smell so stinking infecting ten thousand times every day the whole air of a stinking mouth and breath I have long since admired with my self that a generation or birth so frequent strongly smelling and manifest hath remained unknown for so many Ages and by so many wits of men Therefore as being afraid I sighed what therefore would the Schools act about more abstruse or hidden things I will shew what the Mistris of things hath taught me In the mouth nothing is conversant besides spittle meat and drink But the tooth-stone is of none of these but in its first rise is like a white snivelliness which on the morrow becomes of a pale-yellow colour thence at length it growes to the teeth into the hardnesse of the Stone of the Bladder from whose gums it begins to be of a clayish colour and in the teeth oft-times manifest with black spots yea and makes the tooth to be rotten and black So that the most hard and dry thing of the whole body that is the tooth doth also most speedily putrifie I have known indeed that the muscilage of meats and the spittle did grow together but never into the consistence of a Stone For which cause we must note that the tooth is nourished not onely in its bottom and root but also side-wayes from the gums themselves gums themselves that are bloody or lesse sound are witnesses which do not fitly to-here unto the teeth because they forthwith from the beginning of their indisposition do leave pits or little trenches at the tooth that is badly nourished and do tinge the tooth with the blacknesse of their out-hunted venal blood Then lastly also because the tooth is of a most acute feeling under the gum which out of it it wanteth Therefore in so great a livelinesse of sense the tooth lives and therefore also is nourished Therefore the excrement of the gums as it was of prepared venal blood for the nourishing of the tooth so also it hath received some kind of limitation or power of a tooth-like hardnesse Which excrement surely of the teeth when as it hath drunk up the muckinesse of the meats and drink it straightway also hastens to harden unto its appointed hardnesse For that which I have said in my Book of the Disease of the Stone concerning the stony seed and so of petrescency or the manner of making in stones that also not incongruously doth totally agree to the tooth for the framing of a tooth-like Stone For it once received the Seal of a Cream and Seed
phlegm of Elements and the constitutive humours of us For the phlegm which about the beginning of a pose doth rain down out of the Nostrils watery as they say and thin after some dayes is made thicker and yellow because it is thickned by a daily cocture of heat As if perhaps for full forty years without the corruption of it self the Scull being empty it had exspected a thickning as its chiefest good nor otherwise being more thin should it finde chinks enough for utterance These dreams do not deserve reproof by Argument unless by a serious credulity they had translated the method of healing into the destruction of mortalls I confess indeed that at the time of my young beginnings I believed that snivel if it arose not from one of the four Humours at leastwise that it was an excrement of the digestion of the brain But afterwards through a more liberal diligent search I declining from the Schools began to observe that in Summer I seldom cleanse my Nose but in Winter very often Notwithstanding in either station I through the Grace of God do enjoy a brain and its fruitfulnesses or operations alike strong at both seasons For I moreover considered that my Winter venal bloud is alike lively with that which I make or digest in Summer For the life according to the holy Scriptures is placed in the Arterial bloud and that the digestion as well of my brain as of my other parts is alike wholesom because compleat which things should not be on such a manner if the brain should daily draw out at least four ounces of an excrement and therefore sixteen ounces of venal bloud for the onely nourishment of it self and the abundance of so great a quantity of phlegm to wit besides that which hath remained in the nourished Body for a pledge of nourishment which ounces it should otherwise in Summer leave in the venal bloud Or if they do suppose that to be made by a more exact digestion of the brain or if they had rather to have the brain by reason of the injury of a Winter Air to be badly disposed and which way soever it be taken the snivel must needs be caused at least from some indisposition therefore not from the abundance of phlegm and so from the vice of the Liver as neither from a more exquisite separation of vvinter phlegm and the neglect of Summer phlegm Neither in the next place doth that indisposition happen through the vice of the brain as not of the venal bloud For that resisteth the position proposed Therefore that very thing doth spring from elsewhere For if those superfluities should remain in the venal bloud or brain in Summer-time which are otherwise expelled in Winter a place should be wanting for the entertainment of the phlegm which was collected in the whole Summer Hence I lay it down for a position that the snivel of the nostrils is more watery and plentiful and therefore there is a continual cleansing of the same in winter but not in Summer whence it followes that that thing is caused by reason of an untemperate Station which if it doth occasionally hurt the digestion of the brain that shall be either throughout the whole brain or in its lower plain whereby the cold strikes If it be offensive throughout the whole brain all the functions of the brain should be hurt together with it the imagination the discourse c. which is false For it should denote a superiority of the encompassing Air over the Spirit the Fountain and Ruler of all Functions And then the snivel ought to be made and to descend from all the intimate connexed and least particles of the brain and not onely from those which may immediately be shaken by the entring Air. Whence it is manifest that snivel is onely an excrement of the lower parts of the brain degenerated from the totality or wholeness of its nourishment before it could nourish But that it is not an excrement surviving from the last digestion which they affirm to be dispersed in manner of a dew by the least pieces into the solid parts For this also doth equally exhale in manner of a vapour no lesse from the brain than from the whole Body If therefore snivel be naturally stirred up by external occasional causes and hurtful seasons and hath its effective cause about the plain of the brain which way it toucheth the Air but not from cold for that would sound that the brain were conquered overcome and its powers as it were extinct therefore the matter of snivel which I shall teach in its place to be the matter of the Liquor Latex and also of nourishment is converted for a good and ordinary end which conversion of that matter seeing it is natural is extended as it were a Coat of Mail on the part stricken by cold And seeing the matter is vitiated through the injury of the Air surely it doth not adhere but doth distil a continual drop of water Therefore I call this effective power of snivel the Keeper which thing to have thus now supposed let it be sufficient Furthermore the the excrements of the Paunch and Bladder are indeed the superfluities of the whole Body and of the parts wherein they are made and do grow they being superfluous and unprofitable from within themselves But sweat and an unsensible eflux are superfluities now made in the last digestion and expelled after the utmost discharging of their ends But snivel is of a neither kinde For it is made by the Keeper onely provoked indeed but he is that which that he may defend and oversmear the part doth thus change the more crude juyce and also the venal bloud and that changing of the same is plainly natural ordained to a good end as long as it ariseth from a well appointed keeper Truly I do also greatly wonder at the drowsiness of the Schools for so many Ages That because they saw the snivel to distil thorow the Nostrils therefore they suddenly by an undoubted Statute decreed that the same was nothing else besides the excrement of the brain yea whatsoever is thrust forth by spitting and cough because the likeness of Colours deceived their eyes they dictated it to be nothing but a descending excrement of the brain For neither have they once by the way enquired If it be an excrement of the brain therefore it ought to be the remainder of the last digestion when indeed the Arterial bloud after that it is made a nourishable humour and distributed in manner of a dew throughout the equal masse of the brain should not indeed be consumed in the same place although now first being assimilated to the substance of the brain and being expelled should depart thorow the pores without any remainder of it self by an unsensible transpiration but altogether by a diverse or strange kinde of defilement after that it had put on the condition of a spermatick muckiness for we are nourished of those things whereof we consist the
it self Therefore something doth precede in the masse or lump which should be plainly an immaterial yet a real and effective Beginning wherein there should be a power of figuring by the impression of a Seal Therefore the Soul of the begetter while it slides outward and doth lighten the Body of the seed in a certain Air it delineates the Seal and figure of it self which is the cause of the fruitfulness of seeds Otherwise if the Soul should not be figured but the figure it self of the Body should as it were of its own accord be formed now the Trunck in some member should also generate nothing but a Trunck for that the body of that generater is not entire but at least faileth in the implanted Spirit of that member If therefore the shape be implanted in the seed it shall receive that Image from a vital and former Beginning out of it self But if the Soul doth imprint a figure on the seed it shall not dissemble a forreign or strange face but shall decipher its very own Image For so the Souls of bruit Beasts do keep their own particular kinde in generating But the minde although by reason of its beginning it be above the Laws of Nature yet by what foot it hath once entred the threshold of Nature and is incorporated and joyned unto another it is afterwards also restrained by its own Laws Because there is a univocal or single progress ascention descention limitation and end of vital generations For neither otherwise doth it want absurdities that the operation of so great a thing as is the generation of man and the continuance of his Species should happen without the co-operation of the minde Therefore it must needs be that fruitfulness is granted to the seed by a participation and specifical determination of vital principles which thing surely doth not otherwise happen than by a sealing of the Soul in the Spirit of the seed whence the matter obtains a requisite maturity and a delineated shape or figure that at length it may obtain by request a formal light of life from the Creator or the Soul of its own Species the similitude whereof is expressed in the figure Furthermore it is of faith that our minde is a substance never to die The new framing of which substance of nothing belongs onely to the Creator who if it hath well pleased him to adopt the minde alone into his own Image it also seems to follow that the vast and unutterable God is of a humane figure and that from an Argument from the effect if there be any force of Arguments in this subject But because the Body is oft-times defectuous they have thought the glorious Image of God the Arch-Type represented in the minde to consist onely in the power of Reason Not knowing that the rational power is a servant to the understanding but not of its essence as neither its unseparable companion which thing I have already explained in the Treatise of the searching or hunting out of Sciences But others hold the Soul most nearly to express the Image of God by a single simplicity of its own substance and a ternary of its powers to wit of understanding will and memory which similitude hath alwayes seemed to me fabulous that the minde should be the Image of God by a singular valour or ability For truly an Image doth involve a similitude of essence and figure but not an equality or likeness of number onely yea if the Soul doth in its substance represent God himself now understanding will and memory shall not be the powers properties or accidents of the Soul And so the likeness of ternariness shall cease such an image shall badly square with the Type whose image it is believed to be And than it is absurd to compare the persons of the Trinity to memory or will Seeing no person of the holy sacred Trinity doth represent the will onely or the will a separated person in God Also the three powers in the Soul cannot any way expresse the image or a nearer supposed thing than a naked threeness of accidents collected into the substance of the Soul In which sense the Soul doth lesse denote the Image of God than any peece of Wood To wit because it by its resolution doth express Salt Sulphur and Liquor but not like the minde in the aforesaid similitude of its own powers and the divine persons three powers onely or a naked ternary For every Wood hath three substances concluded under a unity of the composed Body separated indeed in the things supposed which in their connexion do make one onely substance of Wood. But Tauterus severeth the Soul or minde not indeed into three powers but into two distinct parts To wit the inferiour or more outward which by a pecullar name he calls the Soul and the other the superiour the more inward and the which he calls the bottom of the Soul or Spirit In which part alone he saith the Image of God is specially contained unto which there is not access for the Devil because there is the Kingdom or God But to either part he assigneth far unlike acts and properties whereby he distinguisheth both from each other But at least that holy man doth blot out the simple homogenity or samelinesse of kinde of the Soul whereby notwithstanding it ought especially to express the likeness of God or at least he thus far denies the Image of God to be propagated throughout the whole Soul of man Surely I shall not easily believe a duality of the immortal Soul or the interchangeable course of a binary or twofold thing if it ought to shew forth in its very own essence a unity But rather I shall believe that the minde is rather made like unto God in a most simple unity by an indivisible homogeneity of Spirit under the co-resemblance of immortality and undissolution and identity without all connexion Therefore the glorious Image of God is not separated from the Soul as neither to be separated but the minde it self is the glorious Image as well intimate to the Soul as the Soul it self is to it self for therefore the likeness between the minde and God cannot be declared or thought seeing God himself is wholly incomprehensible neither can therefore the Character of identity and unity wherein that likeness is founded ever be thought or conceived It is sufficient that the minde is a Spirit beloved of God homogeneal simple immortal created into the Image of God one onely Being whereto death adds nothing or takes nothing from it which may be natural or proper to it in the essence of its simplicity And because from the constitution and appointment of it it is a partaker of blessedness therefore damnation coming upon it is to it by accident to wit besides its purpose and by reason of a future fall or defect Therefore the minde being separated from the Body doth no more use memory nor the inducing of remembrance by the beholding of place or duration but
looked back on them crooked-wise or by the by they being as it were shaken into the Head of a man of another World Sixteenthly I learned also that life understanding sleep c. are the works of a certain clear or shining light not requiring Pipes or Channels Seeing the shining light pierceth the vital light Therefore also the Soul doth retract diffuse and withdraw it self by a motion proper unto it and altogether diversly in sleep watching contemplation an extasie swooning madness doatage raging madness by its own disturbances voluntary confusions yea and the violent impressions of some Simples Because the minde doth embrace an entire Monarchy in spiritual things divided in many general and particular kindes no lesse than Bodies themselves shall differ among themselves so also shall lights Seventeenthly At length that the understanding being raised by invention and judgment with a reflexion on places on circumstances on things past said before premised and so on things absent as absent is made by an ultimate or the last endeavour in the Brain through the afflux or issuing of a beam out of the Midriffs as such an understanding doth presuppose memory But that those things which are concerning future or abstracted things without respect of circumstances as if they were present are wholly forged in the Midriffs And for this cause mad men do behold and prattle of all things as if they were present as though they did talk of present things Eighteenthly Therefore poysons which have a power of displacing the imagination do not primarily affect the Brain but the Midriffs onely Which thing the History of a Lawyer who had drunk Henbane-seed elsewhere by me rehearsed doth sufficiently prove For whatsoever the Stomach doth conceive that very thing is plainly transchanged and doth wholly passe into another Essence before that the least quantity doth from thence reach to the Brain and whatsoever thereof doth come thither is already venal bloud which hath put off all the qualities of its former condition in the entry of the first shops or at length it slides cut of the Stomach and together with the drosses is thrust out of doors And so no Simples after what manner soever they are taken are materially applied to the Brain Therefore it is false whatsoever the Schools do set to sale concerning pills for the Head Pills of light c. For truly neither do Pills allure any thing out of the Head neither doth the Head afford any thing which it hath not besides snivel which it sends unto its own Basin and not to any other place But if any Medicines or things do strike the Head alter it and profit it that wholly happens in regard of the Midriffs from which there is an unshaken action of Government into the Head even as hath been already sufficiently proved before Indeed they have rightly taught that giddinesses of the Head and Coma's or sleeping evils are stirred up by reason of a consent of the lower parts but neither is their Grain without Chaffe For the Schools have introduced grosse Smoakie and sharp vapours And then and that for the most part in such distempers they will have the Brain to be affected with the first or chief Contagion And therefore it s a blockish thing to have applied Remedies to the Head to the mark I say and without the Archer To wit because they have not known the true internal efficient cause and its connexions nor the accustomed manner of making Diseases and because they have plainly neglected the action of Government and the Conspiracies of light Nineteenthly Also lastly hence I have understood that the immortal and untireable Soul while it did of due right govern its own Body before sin it understood all things intimately optically or clearly and that without labour tediousnesses and wearisomness Because it did understand all things that were in its power in its own Center and unity without the help of Organs or Instruments But now being detained in a strange Inn it being as it were wholly hindered hath committed the diversities of Functions unto the sensitive Soul its Hand-maid In this place I presume to give a Reason of the thoughts of others who cannot sufficiently promise or grieve for my own For I have proposed to phylosophize concerning the more hidden Spring of Cogitations and of the most abstracted ones concerning the vices and exorbitances of floating and uncertain Cogitations yea we must pierce deeper when as we must take aim at the powers of vitiated Cogitations themselves and must come unto the fountainous and occasional causes of these vices Surely it is a matter hard obscure and unpassable wherein the speculations of the Schools the succours of Bodies do fail before the threshold yea and of Diseases whose causes and effects do fall under sense or are proved by the dissections of dead Carcases wherein I say the Patient or suffering imagination doth indeed enlarge it self but the Agent or active one is hidden In other diligent searches that which is vitiated is known by a knowledge of the whole but in those of the minde the cause and manner of a violated understanding should as yet be far more easily conceived than of a sound one because that a sound faculty doth more ascend unto the likeness of God but a defectuous one doth more incline it self unto the meditations of corrupted Nature And therefore that which is sound or entire in the faculties of the minde is not demonstrated by a former cause but that which is deficient doth after some sort make it self known by a rupture of the co-knitting of causes Also madness is alwayes of a most difficult learning because it contains in it a denying together with a privation wherefore in the case proposed I have judged of the same in another way whether perhaps by searching into the manner of making in any one kinde of madnesses I might finde an utterance for the other Therefore I have proposed that madness which ariseth from a strong and continued contemplation feat and passion Forthwith afterwards I concluded that the quality of the poysonous matter was to be known and the dispositions of Instruments which should concur when as any Simple being taken or something inwardly generated had stirred up madness But the knowledge of one sort of madness being attained it shall be the easier to measure afterwards the diversities of the same by descending into the ampleness of the manners or measures strength approaching application and variety of particular kinds For therefore I first of all reckoned to search into the Seat of the Sensitive soul to wit the exorbitances whereof do cause madnesses For truly I have considered that in what seat the animal form should abide in the same also the immortal mind should co-inhabite as being tied unto it which should refuse a duallity difference and diversities of mansions For neither was it meet for that mind to be tied to the body without a mean when as the Seed of man no lesse then of a
memory of the brain then a certain waking Dream with an expresse doatage from the Midriffs doth enter For neither is the doatage made with a cessation of understanding even as in the Apoplexy sleepy evil swooning c. But there is a confused uncessant propagation of Idea's formed in the Midriffs shaken like beams upward And seeing that in health conceptions are not otherwise made without Idea's in a dotage also there must needs be its own mad Idea's But altogether with this distinction That Idea's or likenesses in health are formed from a liberty of the soul but mad ones are sealmarks brought into the sensitive Soul against our will and therefore they doe also violently withdraw this out of its path So far is it that mad Idea's should be formed by the mind which knows not how to play the fool For it is manifest that Idea's doe follow the disturbances of things from whence they are made which is most clear in a mad dog and the Tarantula whose poison doth produce a proper determined and equal madness and Idea's alwayes co-like to themselves so also a strong disturbance of our imagination doth forge an image and imprint it on some filths but if not on the nourishment it self yet even on the solid and constitutive part of us whence indeed there is a continued propagation of new Idea's 〈…〉 the 〈…〉 and ampleâ—ess thereof in mad folks 〈…〉 or truly from fear contention envy ambitiâ—â— love study care shame coverousness and 〈◊〉 co-like disturbances are madnesses made And so much the more miserable are those which are stirred up without the infamy of excrements because they do either continually persevere or do return at set periods of relapses Otherwise the filthineâ—ses being consumed the blemishes sprung from thence do voluntarily cease But madnesses whether they do rage with a continuall heat or do return by intervals they at least have so defiled the spirit of the Duumvirate that they have radically imprinted the storm of furious-images received after the same manner as a blemish branded on the Young from the exorbitancy of its mother great with child is durable for term of life Indeed even as the mark of a Cherry in the Young doth every year wax green yellow and red with the fruits of the Trees So also maddish Idea's arising from disturbances have in the Spirit of the midriffs their incentive or provoking intervals of repetitions accesses of periods and imbitterings or also their uncessant fewels of continuations Which thing a Lunacisme doth cleerly expresse unto us to wit it keeping the Conjunction of that Star Neither verily is it a wonder that those madnesses have themselves in the Duumvirate in manner of a blot for the Spirit is capable of seeing in the eye not elsewhere in the whole body Therefore seeing the Duumvirate doth by a radical Ordination of the Lord continually employ it self about imaginations therefore the incidencies or chances that are brought on it ought so to vitiate the family-Government of the Imagination that it receives a re-planting of the relapses of the Idea conceived In the meane time we must take notice that a Lunatick person could not be cured but by the casting out also of the unclean spirit whether this shall be a companion of the Night-star or finally the chief effecter I likewise in all madnesse do find a great arrogancy in taking to it a certain unmortified sociall passion which doth also remain for terme of life and being transferred on modern Nephews doth shine forth Because the mad Idea hath pierced the implanted Spirit whence at length it violates the Seed being made proper or natural to it For I have the more curiously searched into many mad men and have cured not a few as well those who had become mad from great disturbances passions and other diseases as those that so becâ—me from things taken into the body and they have told me that they fell by degrees into madnesse which was wont with a foregoing sense to ascend in them from about their short â—bs or midriffs as it were an obscure Phantasie and cloudy temptation of madness wherewith it first they were pressed as it were against their will untill the Idea at length had gotten a full dominion over them But being returned to themselves they were mindfull of all things acted for they boldly or confidently complained of all things to wit that at first they were spoyled of all consequence of discourse and that they remained in the punctual plunging of one conceipt without which they thought of no other thing with grief trouble and importunity For they thought no otherwise than as if they had alwayes beheld that conceipt in a glass yet neither did they know that they did then think that or so behold it in their own conception Although they did so stedfastly think that if at length they should happen a little before the entrance and dominion of madnesse to stand they had stood for some dayes without weariness neither should they know that they did stand For it thus befell them that that Idea of foolishness which had driven away discourse by which else they had been eased from their immoderate and inordinate weighing or examining was imprinted with a dominion over the Spirit the Lieutenant to the understanding Yea that which these persons had made in themselves by a long delay continued cogitation was attained by others by a sudden and violent disturbance in a short time of delay In the mean space some complained that while it was a working they were oppressed with an unwilling and importunate Troop of thoughts as it were a Smoak being stirred up from beneath the which if they would suppresse by discourse yet a repeating of the same conceipts alike troublesome and importunate returned But others who had not power over themselves or were otherwise without comfort presently after they were diverted from a strong and fixed contemplation as oft as they would sleep or were otherwise at leisure they returned with a plausibility into their forbidden or hindred speculation yet altogether troublesome therefore rejoycing in solitarinesse they withdrew themselves from the talks of others Because conceipted Idea's as yet wanting a body have and hold themselves in respect or manner of an intellectual light and therefore they do pierce the first constitutives of us which is not likewise lawful for meats and other bodies to do Therefore they do pierce and cloath themselves with the aiery body of Spirits and by means hereof do infect the vital Forms of the parts Yet with this difference that Idea 's which were forged by the excentricity of conceits did indeed enter and more admitted more powerfully but were imprinted more slowly whereas otherwise 〈…〉 that cause madness a disease mediating â—â—d by degrees sow their own ferment on their proper objects but at length they did 〈…〉 imprint it on them as it were sealed on nature And it is a thing proper to mad folks that however naked he doth lay on
stirs up giddinesses of the head and by so much the more troublesome ones by how much these do the more behold or respect its hinder part But an Apoplexy ariseth while as an unsavoury Muscilage plainly by a strange motion and entertainment doth enter from the hollow of the Stomach into the veins thereof about the Orifice and doth keep the rightness of its own side and distinguisheth a great one from a lesse by theabsence or presence of poysonsomnesse But there is for the most part in such chronical diseases a certain sealing Character So indeed the Gout doth oft-times issue from the Beginning of the Parents into the off-spring and doth there patiently wait very many years before that the proper fruit thereof doth obtain its own ripeness Therefore in the vital Beginnings and radical Organs of the Stomach which are the local or implanted Archeus it self that post-bume and translated gouty character or impression doth stick fast by a hereditary right and consequently likewise also that entired character which is gotten by an inordinary of living that sits in the Archeus of the orifice of the Stomach the which while it is wearied by the insolency of a strange guest doth sharpen it self for an expulsion of the same and from thence also the fruit of an Apoplexy issues For neither is that silent gouty Character materially laid up in a certain nest within and received in a separated Stable in the folds and wrinckles of the Stomach as it were some forreign Tartar adhering to it But it is a committed character in the very Archeus of life For let us feign a unity of the thing supposed and of the property whereby that character doth lay intombed for the Gout Apoplexy or Falling evil and is stirred up at the set stations of its own ripeness or is much stirred by certain meats taken or smels And then let us consider the natural sharpness of the stomach now degenerate and likewise the tenderness of its orifice stirring up swoonings and falling sicknesses which testifies nothing besides an easie feeling hurting suffering disturbance of the life and so an enemy present tumulting from very many things therefore if the sharpness which is co-mingled with the Archeus be stirred up besides nature and seeing this is chief over all the particular digestions that sharpness is beamingly brought down unto strange cottages whereto is wholly an enemy and from thence doth the Gout or joynt sickness issue forth But if it be co-knit to the meat or drink pains of the Colick wringings of the Guts and other exorbitances of the parts occasionally are present But if that the sharpness of the Stomach doth degenerate and associate it self with an opiate or drowsie poyson with a piercing toward the seat of the Soul the falling evil is straightway present But if a stinking muscilage inclining to bitterness doth arise there is a giddiness of the head and that more strongly insulting doth stir up an Apoplexy For neither is it meet to distinguish those precisely from each other while it is better to have the matter or occasion exhausted Likewise some external Medicines bound about the head do preserve from an Epileptical fall and fit which is for a signe that either the fruit of the Character is hindered or the applying of the occasion to the Archeus Indeed in either manner the hurtfull matter is to be letted or prevented to be extinguished or annihilated that it be not co-mingled with the Archeus And moreover as vegetables are wont for the most part to sleep in Winter and to be as it were awakened at Spring that they may send forth a bud leaves flowers or fruits So a Gouty Epileptical c. Character is also stirred up into a ripeness at a fet period unlesse the importunity of provoking things do forestal it At leastwise the giddiness of the head and Apoplexy c. although they are brought back within occasional causes yet they do sit immediately within the very nest of life in the Archeus which indeed is implanted in the orifice or upper mouth of the Stomach For in how easie a breviary by things hanged on the neck or body is the falling-evil suspended and detained Because an entrance of the hurtful cause into the sensitive soul is hindered for there is a piercing of the hurtful cause lurking in the Archeus to within and the which doth therefore wholly take away the mind Indeed it leaves a pulse to wit of the heart but it so tramples on the sense imagination and every principal power of the soul that for that space of time they seem to be plainly withdrawn From whence also we must note with a pen of iron that the Soul so trampled upon doth not dwell in the heart which never a whit stumbleth But the Gout as it tends to without so the Character thereof doth not so much affect the secret chamber or seat of the soul as the Archeus the President or chief Ruler of the digestions which things do therefore happen because an hereditary character of the Gout is stamped on the Young from the beginning of Generation and long before its quicking And therefore it respecteth only the Archeus but not the soul which then alone bare the whole burden on himself But he that hath gotten the Character of the Gout by the exorbitances of his life although it shall come to him being a man in years yet it keeps the nature of its own property whence it is made manifest that the stamp or character of every disease is promiscuously to be admitted into the lap of the sensitive soul So that as great fear hath made many persons Epileptical or to have the falling sickness for their life time so a co-like fear hath afterwards rendred many free from the Gout Indeed in the one the fear generated in the conjunction of the life and sensitive soul an Epileptical character which fear being more slack by one or two degrees and more outwardly killed the character of the Gout and rendred it either congealed by the fear or even oppressed the Root thereof Black choler according to Hippocrates which seeing it hath no where ever existed is to be taken for the effect attributed to that choler subsisting in the Midriffs for he hath had respect unto the seat of the soul or the Duumvirate not yet known if it he dispersed into the body provoketh the falling sickness but if into the soul madness For such was the plainness of the first age which indeed did candidly fift things but for want of light from above it came not unto the grounds of the matter There are some simples which are without a valuable abhorrency which by eating of them do produce true madness but others cause sleep some also produce madmen for term of life but others do bring forth doatages only as it were certain drunkennesses according also to the equalities whereof I will have the characters of diseases to be judged Because not only such hostile things being taken
the state of innocency was 35. That the first conceptions are badly said to be those out of our power 36. A power of remembring in the Scull and others elswhere 37. The memory of the mind is divers from that of the imagination or phantasie 38. The lustful and wrathful seat of the Schools 39. The leasures of the Spleen 40. The Head follows the Midriffs 41. A stupefactive virtue 42. The Stone-vessels or Cods 43. Tickling or provocation to leachery is not to be attributed to the kidney or reins but to the stomach 44. That a frail or mortal life hath entered and is established where the soul also is 45. The mouth of the stomach is the center of the whole trunck of the body 46. What it may be to have carried the Messiah in his loynes 47. A remedy for a woman in travel 48. Judiciary Astrology fals to the ground 49. An external Spleen what virtue it may have 50. Why a woman at the time of her going with Young is troubled with wondrous conceipts 51. The mind doth not become mad 52. Splenetick conceipts 53. Curable and desperate diseases which they may be 54. The natural endowments of Simples 55. Conclusions deduced from an ignorance of the foregoing things 56. Sleepifying remedies do not heal madnesses 57. The Lydian Whet-stone for a Physitian in madnesses 58. An objection of those that are ignorant or skillful 59. Fatness limited 60. The Majesty of the Duumvirate is to be admired 61. Risibility or a capableness of laughter what it is and whence it happens to man alone 62. The dominion of the Duumvirate over the Lungs 63. The original of Spittles 64. The virtue of Sulphur is determined 65. Why the Stomach commands the Lungs IT is a saying of Hipocrates In whom a vein doth strongly beat in the part about the short Ribs their minde is presently sick or distempered For the Artery of the Spleen is most frequent yet the Pulse thereof is not manifest as long as it is in good health and doth rightly imagine But when it is rash it presently with a strong pulse even into the left ear being also oft-times audible by the sitters by denounceth madness But that thing is manifest in a thorn imprinted in the finger whose pulse before unknown is presently after before the swelling of the finger stirred with a troublesom and hard beating Therefore madness is denoted to proceed from a thorny spleen The same old man hath placed black choler in the Midriffs For the name of the Midriffs doth sound that the stomach doth undergo or supply the room of the heart and from thence he presageth the Falling-sickness if it shall get into the Body but madness if into the minde Therefore he drawes both weaknesses of the minde out of the Midriffs But they do especially flourish where their occasional cause is near at hand And so the Schools do testifie where the shop of madness layeth hid that there also in health is the seat of right judgement according to the Maxim The function of the same part is vitiated the function whereof in healthy persons is sound and on the contrary For all madnesses except the Sisters of sleepy evils do undergo watchings As a sure Argument that sleep the drowsie evil watching and madness do live in the same Inn Because sleep watching imagination dreaming are powers conversant about the same subject and are made in the same Organ and Inn. I confess indeed that sleep is after watching but that doth not argue a variety of the Inn the subject For it is not to be doubted that in a moment every operation of the minde doth cease by 〈…〉 c. Therefore if the Head should be the proper place 〈…〉 Imagination the operations of the minde should remain which notwithstanding do perish presently after light is denied from the lower parts Galen proposeth ashes of burnt Crabs against the madnesse proceeding from a Dog which madness rageth in the desirable or lustful faculty or in the fear of liquid things From whence the name of Hydrophobia is given unto it Therefore madness by a Dog layeth in the part of the desirable power For neither is the Lixivium of Crabs fit to be brought unto the brain For nothing goes thither which was not first transchanged in the stomach neither doth it go to the fifth or sixth but through the first and second digestion Therefore that madness is by intervals to wit the Cup being offered it rageth into the desirable faculty but none hath dedicated the lustful power of drinks unto the Brain Therefore when a mad Dog bit the finger of Dr. Bald that poyson crept from the finger into the stomach as the chief Instrument of the sensitive soul as also to the Spleen bending about it whither the Remedy of that Lixivium creepeth as it is the subject for the Hypochondriacal passion But least the Schools should detract from the dignity of the Brain they grant that madness to have indeed it s bound from which in the Spleen but the bound to which they will have to be within the Brain Wherein they say nothing that is excusable For although the doubt doth cease at least for a time it is sufficient that the first motion of the vitiated phantasie be in the bound from which They will answer with the more speed that that humourable and occasional cause in the Spleen doth not accuse that therefore the framing of Imaginations ought to be be made out of the Head But I will presently make that by degrees manifest by the strength of many Arguments Peter Bor a Christian in his Annalls of Belgium relates that in the year 1564 at Bruxels a Sow brought forth six young ones the first whereof for the last in generating is alwayes in bruit Beasts brought forth first had the head face arms and legs of a man but that the whole Trunck of the Body from the neck was of a Swine For there was no doubt but that the Mother was a Sow And therefore the heart Spleen and also the other Organs of the Vegetative Soul were like to the Mother Therefore although it had the head of a man yet it had onely a sensative soul Indeed a Sodomitical monster is more like the Mother than the Father So of a sheep the mother and a He goat the Father a Lamb comes forth which besides Wooll and tail hath his other parts like a sheep So a Mule his Father being an Asse and his Mother a Mare And so a Horse of a Bull and a Mare Lastly in seven Coneys from their Father a Dormouse and their mother a Coney nothing besides their tail was like unto the â—e â—â—tter If therefore that monster had the soul of a swine therefore the soul followes the condition not indeed of the Head but of the inferior members And the very prerogative of the phantastical soul inhabits in the Duumvirate although the Head be a part which is the conductresse of conceits formed in the lower parts for
a sleeping Asthma by reason of the difficulties caused in the parts busied in Meditating So also Giddinesses of the Head which Survive from Yester-daies Gluttony or Drunkenness or from the Tossing of the Sea are taken away by Vomiting for not because those filths contain a whirling in them but because they do trouble or hinder the Duumvirate in the Mouth of the Stomack Now I will Speak of the man of sixty years old For this man in the beginning never suffered a disturbance of breathing but in an ascending and swift Motion And else he hath an open free breathing and that according to his wish Wherefore he wants the Asthma of a Proper Name For although he hath tender Lungs and those impatient of cold and through colds fruitful in much excrement yet in respect of these he undergoes rather a Cough than an Asthma But why is his breathing straightned in time of Motion Is it from a matterâ— Imposthume or a corrupt swelling enclosed within But it is manifest that not from either of these two because being out of Motion he feels neither pain in his Brest neither doth he draw constrained air in rest That which is to be noted in him is a Quartane making its residence in his Spleen of a Child and sometimes stirring up his swoonings in so tender a health and Commotion of his Lungs the which sleep failing doth not bear the labour of Cogitations but it frameth Snorting Phlegms for it cleerly appeareth what I have elsewhere said that the Lungs in man is a Member which first dieth and the rather in this man who was given to Spittings from his Youth What if the Lungs do breath air into the Breast through a thousand Pores or little Holes and 50 of the same are stopped up shall not spitting out by reaching occasionaily increase in cold Seasons But at least wise the doubt is not solued why he walking with a swift pace up a steep place or in a plain doth not equally pant for Breath as in climbing with a slow step or why his hear then beateth But the Schools have added a ready cause To wit because every Motion doth of its own nature stir up Smoaks and therefore the more Smoakinesses do accompany the greater Motion for expelling whereof a more swift Breathing is required but they say nothing For truly besides the supposition of a false-hood the same doubt doth as yet remain as before To wit why a swift motion in a plain and a swifter together with a jogging of the whole Body in descending doth not stir up so many Smoaks as a slow motion in climbing a steep or hilly street by degrees doth For the trouble of slow ascent is not of the Bowels or Lungs but of the Shanks or Legs shall therefore those plenty of Smoakinesses be made in the Muscles of the Legs which may provoke the Breast to pant for Breath and the Heart to beat And shall Smoaks find a way from the Superficies to the Center which nature should rather expel by the pores than to call back inwards And then let them explain what they understand by the Etymology of Smoaks For their Aristotle reckons up only 〈◊〉 to wit a moist one which he calls a waâ—ery vapour and a dry or oylicone which he names an exhalation Also Chymistry adde a third unknown to the 〈…〉 a body it self doth ascend from things to knit unto it in manner of a Smoak and 〈…〉 it self to the Ribs or sides of Vessels it is called a Sublimate so Sulphur Arsâ—â—â—ck Camphour Mercury the fire-stone Zinck Sal Armoniac c. do afford their own vapours undistinct from their auntient Body I in the next place have adjoyned a forth Smoakiness To wit while a solide Body by virtue of a ferment is disposed into a flatus or windy blast or wild Gas But seeing the Peripateticks have acknowledged only the two former the Galenick Schools have also undistinctly understood them both by the name of Smoakinesses But first of all that waterish vapours cannot be admitted I do even from hence collect To wit because then Sweats flowing forth more plentifully in Summer also the Body being quiet they should of necessity more vex this Aâ—ehmatical man even than an ascending upwards in a more cold Air which is false But if therefore under the name of Smoakiness they do understand an exhalation It is certain in the first place that those are not stirred up unless the watery ones shall first fail seeing that doth not so come to pass in living Persons of necessity also for want of a Smoakiness the Schools do not understand themselves in their aforesaid Reason as neither in either Columne of the Pulses demonstrated in the Chapter of the Blas of the pulses Neither at length that by the name of Smoaks both vapours together are understood it is manifest For if by a like degree of heat dry things with moist cannot equally climbe or be seperated from their whole entire bodies it follows that the Smoaks assigned are not to be granted nor are they for the cause But go to let impossible and unnamed Smoakinesses be supposed which they will have to breath forth out of us by an unsensible transpiration yet they are not yet examined whether they war under the vapours or indeed of exhalations Because the Schools have been ignorant that the whole blood in us is blown away by a far different help than that of heat But at least wise by the rule of false-hood let us examine where those supposed Smoaks are stirred up by an ascending upward that a moderate one which else in a more swift going are quiet For are they stirred up in the Lungs themselves So that they may spur up these unto the necessities of passing away But the Lungs are never moved whether the Legs do ascend or descend And the Lungs are otherwise supposed to breath freely in the aforesaid old man what therefore doth ascending touch the Lungs that they may Belch forth the more plentiful Smoakinesses But if Smoaks are stirred up in the Legs as labouring the more strongly why at least wise after feeding is ascending more difficult as to the Breath than with a fasting Stomack Do therefore the Schools understand the Smoakinesses of Meats But why shall those molest the Legs after meat But if the more plentiful number of Smoaks are reckoned to be made in the Heart or the Shop-bowells yet this at least is to confound the Spirit of Life with a Smoak a Bowel with an emunctory to have held the reason alleadged in the Chapter of the Blas of man of no esteem But if therefore Smoaks are judged to be the Smells vapours arising from meats but they will have them to be brought in a straight line to the Head so to bring forth Catarrhs at leastwise they are in no wise brought into the Heart For neither is it a meet thing but it is a new invention that the heart should be provoked with the Smells of
opening of a Vein the Blood already Co-agulated and the Aposteme conceived from thence and the ordained corrupt matter do hasten unto their bound or limit For hence from curing by cutting of a Vein there is a frequent Consumption or a Pleurisie returneth every Year which otherwise by the aforesaid Remedies are not beheld to come CHAP. LV. That the three first Principles of the Chymists nor the Essences of the same are not of or do not belong unto the Army of Diseases 1. Why the Schools leave the Market 2. Why Paracelsus hath sought other beginnings of Diseases 3. He hath theevishly transferred on himself the Invention of Basilius 4. An easie slip or fall of the Paracelsians 5. An Abuse discovered by degrees 6. Paracelsus was deceived by Chymical Rules badly understood 7. He aspired to the chiefdome of Healing 8. He failed under his Fardle or Burden 9. He was deceived also by Ulcers 10. Some Rashnesses of his 11. Robbery is covered by Sin 12. Some Rashnesses of his 13. The Doctrine of the Elements of his Archidoxis is taken notice of 14. He fleeth to the Stars least the curious should follow him running away 15. The Adeptical part of Healing 16. The Boasting of Paracelsus 17. The most perfect Distillation of Art 18. The wonderful Coal of Honey 19. Paracelsus thrown down from his pretended Monarchy 20. Fabulous meanes of Diseases 21. The Venal Blood is blown away without a Dead Head 22. What things Nature hath once refused she never retakes again 23. The Water although it be a thousand times Distilled it is not notwithstanding therefore made subbtile 24. Some Absurdities 25. The Fiction of a Microcosme in the manner of making Diseases 26. The Ambition of Paracelsus 27. Whence he had the boldnesse to invade the Monarchy 28. That the Three first Things are not in us 29. He was ignorant of the Bond of the Three first Things 30. He was ignorant of the Original of Salt 31. Some of his Rashnesses 32. His Error in the knowledge of Feavers 33. An Example that the whole venal blood doth melt by purgings 34. Diseases do not bewray the Three first Things 35. How the Three first Things are made 36. That Galen and Paracelsus were almost alike in Boldness and Error 37. The Three first Things are resisted 38. The Error of Paracelsus about the Essences of Diseases 39. That the Three first Things are not nor do operate in Diseases 40. Paracelsus came more nigh to the Truth than Galen 41. The Three first Things do not immediately support Life 42. Although the Three first Things are not Diseases yet they are Remedies 43. The manner of the Operation of Remedies is badly weighed in the Schools 44. A Quintessence or Fifth Essence is withstood 45. It hath been inconsiderately subscribed unto the foregoing Things because the Essence of Diseases hath remained unknown 46. That the Three first Things is a late Invention 47. That the Three first Things have not fore existed before their Separation but that they are bred anew 48. That Water passeth over into Oyle 49. For those Three Things to be changed into each other doth resist Principles 50. Proofs of Positions 51. Against Aristotle that there are onely two Beginnings of Bodies which are also their beginning or initiating Causes 52. The oversight or rashnesse of the Paracelsists 53. That those Three Things are not in any Bodies whatsoever 54. That the Three first Things are not in the Water as neither in Mercury 55. The Objections of some Writers of the Enterance into Chymistry 56. They proceed further 57. Paracelsus is brought on the Stage 58. An Answer 59. Whence the Immortality of Mercury is 60. The Principiative Maxims of Chymistry 61. The truth of Bacon 62. An Answer to a Paracelsian Objection 63. What the Three first Things in Bodies are 64. Other Instances in Sand a Flint c. 65. It is proved by Handycraft-operation that the Salt in Lime is not an extract of the thing contained 66. How a necessity of Offices hath invented the Three first Things 67. That the Three first Things were not natural or proper to a Body as it was a Body 68. It is proved by Handy-craft-operation that the Fire is the Workman of the Three first Things 69. The unstability of the Three first Things 70. That in the Digestion of Meats a Separation of the Three first things doth not happen 71. Why a Disease is not of the Three first things 72. That the Three first Things are not the Principles of Bodies 73. They are ultimate Things that is Principiated ones or those that are begun 74. The unconstancy of Paracelsus 75. He was ignorant from whence the Salt of the Urine is 76. An Essence is said to be after divers manners 77. A Chymical Essence 78. Some Homogeneal things do not send forth a Fifth Essence 79. A greater Virtue is in some Simples than in their extracted Essences 80. The Rashnesse of Paracelsus 81. Putrefaction also doth else-where generate a Fragrancy 82. What a Quint or Fifth Essence properly is 83. The Liquor which makes Plants fruitful 84. The Essential Oyle of Spice or Crasis of the same How the Elixir thereof may be made and that more strong by an hundred fold NOw after that I have demonstrated the Elements Complexions first Qualities and at length Tartar to have been rashly introduced into the Essential causes of Diseases by the Schools as well of the Ancients as of the Moderns I proceed to teach That the Three Beginnings of the Chymists and those of late brought into the Art of Medicine have been falsely intruded into the Essential causes of Diseases What therefore will the more refined Physitians do while as they do clearly enough behold not onely the miserable stuffe of their Remedies but also the unprosperous Helps of the howling Sick So that they have many times seriously and secretly confessed to me that nothing almost did any longer obey their indeavours and that all the curing aswel of sharp Diseases for of Chronical Diseases they have all every where long since despaired in their mind as of any of the least ones was in very deed nothing but a Cloakative cure and a meer juggling with the sick to wit whereunto unlesse as it were a certain resurrection of the Nature of the Sick doth voluntarily succeed the appointed and sure comfort of Remedies is in vain expected And moreover that hence it comes to passe that many an Old Woman is in many places far more successful in curing some defects than is the whole School of Medicine with all their discursive Speculations speculative Prescriptions Kitching Precepts of Diet confirmed by the long experience of the destruction of their Neighbours and a multiplicity of their Dispensatories When therefore the more ingenuous persons were long since wearied in the Correcting of Distempers in the vain expelling of Humours they now incline to another thing seeking a Haven from shipwrack and being easily seduced by Theophrastus Paracelsus they have
so bent their Studies that what was not yet found out by the Greeks and Arabians they may find more successful elsewhere Hence indeed they have been devolved with a steep fall unto the Fictions of Tartar but surely their curiosity is to be had in great esteem although it shall not attain unto its desire For It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God alone that sheweth Mercy Therefore the Schooles donow leave their title and Market For what shall they do if the conjoyned root of Diseases and method of Curing them be not to be drawn out of the Elements Qualities Contrarieties Humours Stars Windes and Catarths But seeing other Examples of healing have possessed the more Modern followers of Paracelsus it must as yet be diligently searched into whether the Causes of Diseases have been made known to Paracelsus For when he the Lessons of the Ancients being rejected had sufficiently understood that there was nothing of a Foundation or Truth in Complexions and Humours he began by variously doubting to inquire into the most immediate Cause of Diseases and Posterity owes him Praise for it Although he hath not exactly touched at the matter that cannot be accounted a fault if the Most High the Dispenser of Gifts as yet vouchsafed not to open the Truth to Mortals in Paracelsus's days This man therefore had learned of Basilius Valentine that Water Oyle and Salt were to be separated by Distillation from most Bodies He began to call these Three Things not only the first universal beginnings of corporal beings but also he so introduced them within Diseases and the necessities of healing that he referred all Diseases immediately into some of those three things And thus he made his followers almost mad that the first hope of diligently searching into the truth being rejected they consecrated all things to the three first things Which Doctrine hath fixed its roots the faster because the three things are actually separated from most Bodies and so that they were not undemonstrable like humours arisen from feigned beginnings But surely this abuse was discovered while as these three beginnings were wrested aside unto the originals of any Diseases whatsoever For truly because many Bodies being dissolved by the fire gave from them Salt Sulphur and Liquor which they point out to be Mercury it was thought that all Diseases did owe their Birth unto those constitutive beginnings First of all Hermes before the industry of the Greeks sprang up because in his Pymander he had noted every Trine to be perfect consequently also he foresaw that in Chymical things Mettals did consist of two extreams to wit of a Body and a Soul and the which he would have cleave together not but by the baudery of a certain third thing or Spirit Afterwards Basilius Valentine a Monk of Benedict wrote more distinctly he named the Soul of a Mettal the Sulphur or Tincture but the Body the Salt and lastly the Spirit he called the Mercury Which things being thus borrowed of Basilius Theophrastus Paracelsus afterwards transferred by a wonderful diligency of search into all the Principles of Bodies he being one Age younger than Busilius The Doctrine of whom the Authors name being suppressed he snatched on himself and by a liberty of his own introduced it into the speculations of Medicine So indeed that after he had banished every Disease into the Caralogue of Tartars and had not yet satisfied his own scruple at length he adoms his Paramire of the three first beings with much boldness Indeed he forged these three things as it were the beginnings of all Bodies and declameth many things in general touching Diseases but being constrained by necessity when as he would reduce Diseases into the ranks of the three first things being pressed down under the burden he was silent Except in the Family of Ulcers where he had seemed to himself to have found salt at least wise in the other two beginnings he on both sides remained scanty and almost ridiculous For he had commanded that it should every where be believed that the four Elements were nothing but the incorporeal Wombs and asit were the Inns of Bodies but that the first beginnings did so supply the conditions or offices of Bodies that also the Elements of the world have all their substance and subsistance from those three things only Elsewhere also he being unmindful of these hath stuck wholly in the Elements and next he hath ascribed the inclinations and properties of Stars and men to the complexions of these He also hath dedicated unto all the particular Elements their own fruits and degrees of fruits but not all to one Element nor the fruits any longer proceeding from incorporeal Elements as Wombs but that these did borrow their Bodies from the material Elements themselves Lastly by the same liberty and unconstancy of a borrowed matter he hath taught that Bodies do by a resolving decay sometimes into four but sometimes into three Elements only Truly he hath so graced the Art of the Fire by bringing it into Medicine that he breaths after an eternal Name for himself and hopes that the time would come that he should sometimes wax proud with the Title of the Monarch of Secrets He foreseeing that the Doctrine of Basilius was not commonly known therefore the Name of the Author being concealed he made it his own and in this respect hath he enlarged his own Sections Wherefore his Tartar now and then losing its universal dominion in Diseases it being suppressed he makes an invasion as being constrained by the Laws of his three first things Which his three first things as presuming on increase he would at length that they should become the Mothers and Wombs even of all Diseases as well of the mind as of the Being or Body This indeed was only his own and not the Invention of Basilius and the which when he would endeavour to disperse into the ranks of Diseases by Troops he sometimes goes confusedly to work yet doth he again more oft go beyond himself being every where forgetful of his own Doctrine delivered For in his Archidoxals he hath dedicated a little Book to the separation of the Elements which are to be brought out of the flame air water and earth And thus far he hath resisted his own Doctrine concerning the three first things and concerning the Wombs of the Elements because now there should be four beginnings no longer the three first and ultimate into which at length by long labour the three first things as being after the Elements so of right no longer the first should be derived For they being also thus enriched by one number should beget far more Diseases than of late than while that pretended Monarch commanded only three to be the principles as well of Bodies as of Diseases Yea truly he accuseth as guilty only and at length one only Tartar to be the cause of almost all Diseases But elsewhere in some peculiar Treatises he calls the Heaven
to the guidance of divers Seeds and Ferments For he had learned that from Galen thinking that the blood did consist of as many simples as it was resolved into I wonder therefore at the unconsiderateness of Paracelsus that he did not know that the three first things are never separated but by the fire their last life being destroyed the mark of the Seed of their middle life being retained But that they are not therefore to be called three beginnings for they are made and so are bred or born And much less are they to be reckoned the beginning of Bodies while as that returneth whole through the guidance of a strange Seed by transmutation into another nature For neither hath that Man ever seen the three first things of any composed Body to have appeared in living Creatures in any degree of heat nor otherwise made and extorted but by fire I am also angry that it is not known that the same first things remaining they are nevertheless materially subject to the divers transmutations of Seeds under the same weight He hath after a sort relapsed into the Errors of Galen who thinks that the Elements do essentially remain in mixed Bodies For thus was he deluded in his three Principles For there is every where the same defect of both in the Principles of Philosophy which teach that the life alone doth operate in a living Body and into a body But that the subordinate forms of the entire parts even of the three first things if these are within before they are made by extraction are restrained by the form or superiour life under the unity of an Archeus because the three first things do never appear and operate much lesse do they offend by distemper or are diseasie unlesse their obedience due to the Archeus be first dissolved that is that they shall be separated by the fire and their last life be destroyed with a persevering not of the whole seed but of a small quantity of the middle life of that composed body whose properties every one of them do after some sort imitate when they are made a Being by it self subsisting For this being unknown Paracelsus thought every power and the formal operations of things so immediately to depend on the Essence of the Three first Things that he hath described the properties of Vegetables as they did contain such a Mercury Salt or Sulphur and all those according to his own pleasure As though these beginnings being shut up under a formal Archeus could operate the Archeus of life being idle or at rest For Galen attributed all things to the Elements for which Paracelsus being angry thereupon attributed all things to his three adoptive beginnings Like Quack-salvers who having gotten one onely Oyle or Emplaister give forth that that prevaileth wholly for all Diseases and at least for most Diseases Paracelsus I say heeded not that Lead as long as it is Lead hath other virtues than when it is changed into Sulphur and Mercury For Water Oyle and Ashes being shut up in a bottle do not operate out of the containing Vessel The bottle indeed as such doth operate but not as it containeth three things which of themselves may be separated So also judge thou of the Three Things as long as they are enclosed under a common Life Paracelsus therefore although he hath searched more nearly into Nature than Galen as some of the Three Things are actually allured or drawn out of many Bodies which doth not happen unto feigned Elements and Humors yet both of them have stumbled in this that he hath introduced his own suppositions into Diseases when as otherwise nothing feels sicknesses in us besides the vital powers themselves But the Life moves and altereth matters by its own Seminal Blas and nothing doth materially hurt us within which is not hostile forreign and an excrement in respect of the Life and so that it cannot be of its first adoptive beginnings For neither are those Three Things originally and immediately subject to the whole Life but to the middle Life of that seed where of they are said have been to the three corporal beginings to wit the Three first Things of the flesh blood brain c. are not immediately subject to the command of the total Archeus but to the Seminal mumial Balsame of composed bodies And that not before their manifested Nativity Diseases therefore do not owe the Original or Cause of their birth unto the birth of the Three first Things or any of them Because they cannot be act or hurt unlesse being first separated from each other and the intireness of the whole Body wherein they are potentially contained being destroyed by death But if they should be seperated that they may be able to wrong and hurt surely that should be made by some internal disease and agent besides Nature and by a former thing or cause Therefore the separation of those Three Things from each other could never be but a product and so also a more later thing than the Disease neither should it first appear unless a Disease being supposed Therefore it could not be the immediate or nearest occasional cause of Diseases For although the Three first Things are not the Causes of Diseases yet this doth not-argue whereby the Salt Sulphur and Mercury of things are ever the less the Medicines of of Diseases For it is not requisite that the Remedy and external Cause of a Disease should have a co-resemblance how ever notwithstanding Paracelsus hath so commanded whereby he might oppose the maxime of Galen Contraries are cured by Contraries For Poysons are not overcome by a co-resemblance of the Venome but by that which conquers the Venome For those medicinal Powers are the gifts of God which do neither bear a contrariety or character of hostility mutually towards themselves nor towards Diseases But every thing acteth from a gift that which it is commanded to act And moreover bodies being freed from their lump enclosure filths and impediments do unfold most noble gifts and most excellent Powers or faculties Even as elsewhere more largly Furthermore it hath been already sufficiently and over demonstrated that Nature doth not suffer four Elements neither that she doth admit of their congresse or encounter for the constitution of composed Bodies and consequently that there is no contrariety or skirmishing of the Elements for a Disease or Remedy It follows also from thence that there is no Quintessence or Fifth Essence by a proper Name to be so called if a Fifth Thing shews a necessary relation unto other four The Invention therefore of a Fifth Essence is indeed Chymical but of Phylosophers who before me knew not the Number Essences of the Elements and the Nullity of their mixture Which things if Paracelsus had known he had undoubtedly named the Essence which he calls a Fifth a Fourth in respect of his Three first Things Indeed he thought that every Body is constituted even as also resolved as well by Art as by Nature into
these Three Things and that nothing besides remained For in so great Novelty he being unconstant knew not unto what side he might throw himself For now and then he denieth the Elements to be Bodies but he calls them void and empty Wombs Places and Seates of Bodies But that all Bodies are nothing but the Three first Things but not Elements But elsewhere he having followed the flock of his Predecessors teacheth That the Elements do remain in all particular Bodies are therein to be found and that they are thence drawn out safe So that their Essences and Bodies do remain in the mixt Body being onely heaped together by mixture Certainly aswel in the Three first Things as in a Fifth Essence it is at this day no lesse emptily subscribed to Paracelsus than it hitherto hath been to the Fables of the Elements Mixtures and Complexions For they began in the late Age by plausible novelties to have belief and Names given to the Invention of Paracelsus without a diligent search Although I have seen read or heard of none hitherto who hath been able and much lesse hath boldly attempted equally to separate the Three first Things out of Bodies Wherefore I state this Proposition The first Three Things are a late Invention contrary to the truth of Nature and of a Thing The first Position Although that the Three first Things are in part drawn out of some Bodies by the Fire yet that is not done by a Separation of the same fore-existing but as by a Trans-mutation made by the Fire they are there generated as it were new Beings and there is made that which there was not before The Second A branch of a Tree of one pound growing as yet green will scarce yield a Drachm of Oyle which about October or the Eighth Moneth waxing wooddie will yeeld about seven Drachms of Oyle And at length in the Twelfth Moneth called February after will give almost two Ounces of Oyle and fivefold more of Coal and Ashes than before in the Sixth Moneth called August The Third That those Things which were not in as constitutive from the beginning cannot be the first Things but they themselves are made and exchanged into each other as later Things to be made to a likenesse and which are to arise from the directions of Seeds The Fourth Elementary Water is made Oyle in Vegetables Animals and Sulphurs Likewise all Oyle with its adiunct is easily reduced into Water But the first Principles of other things cannot be exchanged into each other or cease to be that which they were before The Fifth Some Bodies do not contain the Three Things but are content onely with one alone or with two The Sixth There are some Bodies from whence the Three Things were never separated by skilful workmanships hitherto used the which do alwayes by a suitable weight weigh equal with the body from whence they are drawn The Seventh Some Bodies are altogether Unchangeable and Inseparable and not containing a Duality or twofoldnesse It is profitable for me a little more exactly to explain these things for the sake of young beginners who do easily subscribe to other mens devises For First of all Woods contain Water and Oyle not a Coal which was not in them but is produced by Art neither was it in them except â—aterialy potentially remotely neither could it ever be made from thence but by the 〈…〉 In the next place a Coal unlesse it burn with a manifest fire it is never in the least changed so far is it that it should be turned into Ashes or Salt In a Coal indeed some fatnesse burns the which is immediately and materially reduced into a Gas never to be seen This Gas doth at length pass over into Water but as long as it is a Gas and is separated from its concrete Body or Coal it is not Sulphur for it is wasted away and trans-changed by burning not Salt or Mercury for those should not return into an uncoagulable Gas but should return into Mercury and Salt if they were the first and constant beginnings of things therefore some other thing out of or besides those three But besides neither is the whole Ashes which remaineth of the Coale a Salt because the Lixivial or Lyee Salt being taken away that which remaines cannot be calcined by any fire as neither be turned into Salt Sulphur and Mercury But if it be by additions turned into Salt it is a sign that it is made but that it is not a Salt and so that a Principle should be born Therefore Salt in the Ashes ariseth not by extraction or separation the other two being wasted away by the fire but by a trans-changing into a new Being which was not before For whatsoever is framed of that thing is not in that thing For so blood and bones of divers general kindes and species were in the bread For neither doth Marble contain Glasse although of Marble with an adjunct Glasse be made For it is one thing to dispute of those Three Things as the total matter of things and those actually constituting a thing and far another thing that the Tree is in the Seed or a Fish-bone or Grisle in the Bread For a Hide or Wood are not a stone although they are in some springs stonified For in things trans-changed the end differs from it self in the beginning of motion at least in the particular kind I have elsewhere also demonstrated that a fixed Alcali or Lixivial Salt hath not fore existed in Vegetables but that it is fixed in burning Wherefore the doctrine of the first Things doth not satisfie because it doth not onely compel Nature under violent Rules but that if they are the first Things and do obtain the desert of making to begin they ought to be stable which thing was not hid even from Aristotle neither can one be changed into another For if Wood doth consist of Salt Oyle Water and Ashes if Salt be prepared not of Ashes by the Salt it self of the Ashes Also if every distilled Oyle be to be changed into a Salt as also into Water by things adjoyned and there be so great unconstancy of those Three Things and they might therefore also be made by the fire in the separation and destruction of the composed Body We must needs in Bodies establish one first and last material real beginning which is the Water but not the three things because they are those which are the off-springs of the feeds of Bodies composed of water And then there is another motive and effective Principle which is an Essential seed or the very Archeal Essence of the seed differing from the form of a thing because this hath not a rational respect of making to begin because it is that which it self is generated by generating as the scope of generation which is by degrees brought through by passable dispositions unto the perfection of a Being together with the end of generation These are the two Principles as also the Causes of all
Bodies For if every thing be by its Causes and be thereby principated or made to begin it is a vain thing after the manner of Aristotle to believe other Causes and other Principles of things They are therefore Principles which never slide into each other by any whirling of successive changes For the first is stable perpetual the real beginning and prop and Seminary of Bodies And it is the last thing whereinto the dead or ended Tragedies of things do return But not a certain feigned sluggish and impossible hyle or matter But the other is the Principle of the begining of motion with every property of things to be acted under their Tragedy Yea truly seeing particular kinds do exist into general kinds no where solitary or without companions and they are individuals only which are and do subsist by a real Act. Principles ought to have been real and individually existing So indeed that the universality of the matter be individually limited by the activity of the efficient Cause Wherefore a falshood being granted to wit That all Bodies might be reduced into those Three Things by the motion of a proper dissolution yet it doth not also from thence follow that these Three things are the beginnings of Bodies Because an immediate resolving of Bodies doth not prove Principles but a diversity of kind of the matter being ultimated or brought to its last state And the last resolving of the last matter is a Witness only of the Seeds of the concrete Body but not of Principles Neither in the next place is there any reason why the Three Things may be called the First Things if three do return or may be reduced into two and lastly into one only thing Yea although in the Beginning three bodys should be seen trans-changably passing over into each other neither were they therefore to be reckoned Three rather than Two if of Three they may be presently after be made two only Therefore where the three things are found they are not the material beginnings of Bodies but the Bride-beds of the Seeds The which being worn out all things do of their own accord return into their original Element of Water But that those Three Things are not contained in any Bodies whatsoever and so are not necessary Principles is manifest because the Mercury which is drawn out of a Mettal is so single homogeneal simple and undivideable that it is impossible for Salt or Sulphur to be drawn from thence by Art or Nature But Mercury is never in any respect to be divided To wit it hath grown together onely from an elementary Water and the virtue of a most simple Mercurial Seed into an undivideable unpenetrable and unseparable Body the which among generated things hath not its like Otherwise it is like unto Water which in it self being defiled with no Seed hath on every side a co-like simplicity and impossibility of separation But inasmuch as I have sometime attributed unto the Water its Three Things that was spoken Analogically or by way of suitable resemblance as besides abstracted Spirits nothing is so alike in Bodies that it is not understood to be diversly affected according to divers dispositions and and as those dispositions must of necessity respect some diversity of kind of being For it is sufficient in the same place also to have admonished that the Heterogeneal parts of Water are in the most simple Body of an Element undivideable and really impossible by Art Nature and all Ages they consisting of the utmost simplicity Therefore although I have there called them the Three first Things of the Water yet they are not the Three of composition as the more formerly Beginnings of the Water but the Three things of heterogeniety or diversity of kind Which Heterogeniety at least mentally to be divivided into diverse things although the Water doth by the Law whereby it contains a Body contain Yet seeing it is an impossible thing that they should be drawn asunder from each other there is onely place for conjecture that although those things are not true Sulphur Salt and Mercury at least wise that they do in some sort answer unto them Therefore there is an instance in the Water no lesse than in the Mercury whereby the Three first Things are denied to be from thence accounted to be separated I seem to hear whisperings that I shall offend very many Artificers who with full cheeks do boast of the Oyle Salt Vitriol and Water of Mercury and that I shall convince them of a Lye or juggle while they promise the aforesaid things I answer That an active Imposture or deceitful juggle doth bring forth its own Imposture unworthy of life and happiness But that a passive imposture is worthy of pity But they who do not as yet discern the fallacy whereby they are circumvented do Argue First Gold they say a Body which is the most exceeding constant among sublunary things is dissolved into parts of divers kinds therefore also Mercury by a more strong reason Indeed they strain from the less to the greater Again they urge Nature hath known of the first Elements to compose Mercury therefore she hath known also to destroy it But the way of composition is not to make Mercury immediately of the Element of water but by dispositions of the matter coming between which are unlike So also the way of corruption in Mercury shall proceed by the same dispositions with a retrograde pace and a diversity of kind of matter Where thirdly Paracelsus saith the matter of things which cannot be destroyed by Art is at least wise destroyed by Nature Because all sublunary things which are not subject to death are at least wise subject to a bound or end Unto the first I answer That Gold is indeed the most constant of Bodies in the fire but it borrows the constancy of its separation from the Mercury And so if the Sulphur thereof doth include a Heterogeneal duality that doth least of all touch at the Mercury For Mercury being pure and distinct from combustible Sulphur which is more or less in the common Mercury doth plainly refuse all twoness or duality That is to say the nature of Mercury includes a perfect Homogenity or sameliness of kind But to the other I say that Nature hath indeed proceeded from the purity of the Element of water unto the composition of Mercury Yet that it cannot the admitted Seed of Mercury being once enclosed in the innermost parts of the water return to the destruction of that composed Body Because that Seed is nor mortal nor frail nor subject unto sublunary Laws as Paracelsus saith in his vexation of Chymists But the reason of immortality in Mercury is because the Seed and Fruit thereof in the constitution of Mercury are now one and the same thing Mercury in Mercury Neither hath Nature known to invent a manner of destruction in a thing so Homogeneal where the Seed hath become the Fruit by a most perfect and undestroyable or undissolveable union Seeing
It is made I say in Vegetables through the art of the Spirit of Wine which before was not in them from a disposition of the matter of a putrifiable juyce and agreeing resemblance of a winie Ferment For therefore the Spirit of Wine shall not be the Principle of Vegetables as all Vegetables divers in themselves do agree in this Spirit and might be drawn out of every one of them but the Spirit of Wine bears the reason of an Effect and Product In like manner therefore those three things are principated but not principles For shall the Blood want a Salt in distilling because it hath severed the Urine which Paracelsus calls The Salt of the Blood And If Salt be one of the Principles surely the venal Blood shall in supposition be Eternal if it wants a beginning or something shall be able to subsist of Mercury and Sulphur without the Principle of Salt which thing hath not seemed strange to Paracellus striving with his own Doctrine of the Three first Things when as he teacheth That the venal blood and flesh of Leprous persons is deprived of all Salt And from hence again his own History of Ulcers falls to the ground if the Ulcers of Leprous persons being without Salt are voluntary and not to be despised For he hath badly distinguished the Salt of the drink from the Salt of the Venal blood Neither hath he known the difference of the Salt in the external humour Latex from the Salt which is wiped out of the venal blood by distillation in the torture of the fire He being wholly ignorant from whence there was Salt in the Urine Salt being not frequently eaten Because the rank of digestions being unknown natural knowledge in Paracelsus was overshadowed with darkness and through the ignorance of Physitians the dayes of Mortals are cut short and burying places do become bossie Concerning a Quintessence or Fifth Essence also it hath been soberly enquired into hitherto as if it were a glorious thing through sluggishnesse to have subscribed unto others devises and to have stuck in fabulous Principles An Essence therefore is called by divers names For it is most principally understood of the most Great and Excellent God who is the True Immediate and the most Very Essence it self of all things from which the Being of things doth issue and depend unseparably in nature But an Essence for the actual being of things in the Abstract is the Life in living Creatures or in the Soul Otherwise it is a Form by reason whereof every thing is that which it is But the Life or Form is not by Chymists taken into the Essence because the thing being dead it doth return into nothing therefore have they considered of a certain most famous substance wherein the whole Crasis or constitutive temperature or mixture and perfection of a thing doth inhere as in Spices there is somewhat like Oyle which being withdrawn the body of the Spice remaineth as it were ungrateful to wit Cynamon its Oyle being withdrawn favours of the Bark of an Oak in its astriction or binding quality But in things tinged the Essence is a coloured liquor extracted from things which substances as they are more active so they have themselves by way of a Life or Form as to the residue of the Lump So that the name of Essence is plainly Metaphorical Wherefore very many things have not an Essence even as I have demonstrated concerning Mercury Chrystal great Stones and things Homogeneal or of one and the same kind Then in the next place a greater power and efficacy is oft-times in a thing being entire than in its separated Essence As is manifest in the Load-stone Carabe or Amber c. For very many Simples do loose their specifical property by preparing and more by separating and the fire In the Elkes Hoofe and Bezoardical things there is a certain thing which had rather be proper unto crude Simples But the Forms or Essences of Herbs will not be subject to the Artificer For many things do alike prevaile whether their Vegetative power they call it a Soul shall die or as yet exist in them But after that they have plainly withered or been dried up some Herbs do produce their Essence but many Herbs especially Water-Pepper do loose the same However therefore an Essence be taken it is an improper Name and a Fifth Essence is an unsavoury Epithite For truly what Essence they do promise either it is not equally in all neither doth it obey the Artificer or it is not drawn from any place whatsoever But under other things in the crudity of things it laughs at painful or diligent Labours Neither doth every sweet smelling thing sit in the middle but in the last Life For the Flowers of Jasmine of the Lilly of the Valleys c. by putrifying do loose their grateful Odour and Medicinal Virtues they wax sharp neither do they ever re-take their former Fragrancy But elsewhere the sweet smell sits under the middle Life which Odours indeed do keep their sweet smell in time of putrifying the which they send forth in Distilling as Roses This thing hath deceived Paracelsus and hath made him to think that the Essences of things do thus putrify and so he was ignorant that in Dung and dunged-Fields he dictated safe Mansions for ever Not knowing that the Offices of Seeds being loosed and dead all things do yield themselves to rest and at length do require their first Inne of Water or at least wise obeying a stronger seed coming over them they againe suffer themselves to be led into new Colonies and themselves to be brought into new Tragedies Yea there are many Simples which do find a fragrancy in the bosome of putrifactions which before they had not in their own Species Such as are Mosch Ziver Amber certain Dungs of bruit Beasts and putrifying Woods For a various putrifying by continuance ariseth in them whence their Seeds do draw a fragrancy to themselves and do transplant them into a new generation Therefore the Spicinesse if it be fast tied to the Balsame of the middle life is not overcome in putrifaction by a separation of parts and is the more fitly sequestred from corrupt things A Chymical Essence therefore is not properly a Fifth Essence seeing there are not Four others in a concrete Body neither is it extracted out of the Three things but is the Seminal part of the Sulphur of the composed Body Of the Sulphur I say Because the Sulphur is the off-spring of the efficient Cause and so more formal For Cynamon while it is without a spiciness is indeed as yet Cynamon even as the young or a foolish person are men I therefore name the best part of a thing the Crasis thereof whether the Spice or sweet smel do sent or not But in Herbs which are not fragrant I call the seminal or seedy Liquor their Crasis To wit I know that from every plant or seed and likewise from the trunk or stemme of some Plants
pulsive or driving Blas But wind being shut up doth cause the less pain so long as it is quiet So every pulsive Remedy should of necessity increase the pains of the wringings or gripes and so nature sheweth that we must abstain from things that do drive or force windiness But they strongly meditate that in carminatives there is the force of a whip But are flatus's like unto cattel For do they acknowledge that they and their carminatives are to be set in the place of a suitable Pestil or that perhaps carminatives have the same virtue like a voice which drives away cattel and that windy blasts in the Body do hearken unto the exhortation of enchanting Poets or Singers I know indeed from hence that the Schools are ignorant of the force property causes and manner as well of the gripings or wringings as of the Remedies For winds are not to be driven away and secondly not to be dispersed For this is impossible but that contains a childish Fiction Neither also by an honest man are flatus's to be restrained by any Verse or Song a religious Etymology whereof doth notwithstanding hitherto remain in the Schools A windy blast is not inwardly stirred up in the Wombe because the Wombe is destitute of a flatulent matter and its digestion is not fit for creating of flatus's but outwardly Air scarce enters into the Wombe because it is that which least it should suffer a vacuum or emptiness in its membrane it falleth down wholly moist and flaggy and so of its own accord a passage for the breathing Air is prevented unless it be by force cast into it by an instrument In the next place neither do external winds borrow a force from the mouth that they may enter into unwonted regions and that they may strongly thump the Pleura grown to the ribs but that between this and the Muscles between the ribs they may stir up a flatulent Pleurisie and presently after tear the Pleura from the ribs and frame a true inflamation of the Pleurisie Because there is no way for Air thither yea if it should reach thither it hath not a Blas behind which might be of any damage And by which way it had entred for therefore before it had hurt it had expired Neither also are flatus's made internally in those parts the matter whereof and the efficient cause hindering it It is also like an old Wives Fiction that an external wind or blast of Air doth pierce thorow the skin however so pory it be even as also the fleshy Membrane and also the Muscles under it According to the shameful reason of Physitians wherein they say He hath lately contracted wind whence his parts are ill affected For I have oftentimes with my own blushing heard this cause to be assigned almost to all Diseases from the head even to the ankle The distemperature of the Air is accused for the vices of the head eyes ears teeth Oasand for hoarsnesses coughs likewise for all defluxions unconcoctions feavers and so the Air hath been accounted a Pandora's box And that not only by the touching of cold as an outward cause but as a windy blast hath been drawn inwards and there unduely detained Of which things elsewhere But now our speech is of our and those internal windy blasts I grant indeed that an unwonted cold as a guards-man of Death doth indeed affect some noble part or servile one as it disturbs the last digestion thereof whence excrements pains yea and Aposthems of the similiar parts do diversly follow But in these the faculty of the cold is only an outward occasional cause which shews a prevention not likewise a cure or quality of a Remedy Therefore let the trifles of the Schools bid farewel But besides that any Physitian may rightly perform his office he shall know first what wind is and then what is a windy blast from whence it is made why it causeth pain and then the Remedy shall be easie unto him Indeed the cause of flatus's being known we must take heed least their concrete or composure be turned into a Gas But a Gas which hath been once made prepareth an easie way or passage for it self But if not and if the bowel where it is beneath it be stopped with a more hard obstacle this is to be loosed But where there is no excrement as a partition and yet the wringings do proceed shall not those things be vain which drive away winds and foolish which disperse them For truly not the windy blasts but the matter from whence the bowels are drawn together and the bowels themselves do generate windinesses is to be brushed away The cure I say may not be converted unto the flatus produced but unto the cause producing it I see therefore that the Remedies of Dill Caraway Anise Cummin wild Carrot seed c. were found out not by the Schools who are ignorant of the causes of wringings of the bowels but that they were made known from Divine compassion to little ones and poor ones from whom the Schools have begged them as also many other experiments from thence For truly the original essence matter property process and history of flatus's have lain hid to the Schools In the next place neither is the Volvulus Iliack passion or that of a barbarous name miserere mei any twisting or writhing together and extravagancy of the lesser bowel For besides that it should be a perpetual and of necessity a relapsing evil Anatomy resists it which shewes the bowel to be cloathed with the mesentery to wit with an external cloathing with a third garment and upper skinny one and it being fast tyed to the loynes by that mesentery to hang or bend forwards Therefore that bond being once burst asunder and the society of the mesentery despised there is no hope for the future of reducing the bowels into their former case from which they had freed themselves by breaking Prison And so the evil being by a strong fortune restored should of necessity presently return and should alwayes afterwards rush into a worse state Again throughout the whole tract of the bowel there should henceforeward be no nourishment with the Veins and no attraction of chyle for life when as nevertheless in the mean time that Disease gives place to an easie Remedy For if besides its wonted circles the bowel should be co-writhed who should be that mover or who that tormenter For from without it hath none and fears none which bowel is covered with a smooth caule and simple bladder of the Abdomen or bottom of the belly Also if it be stopped up by an internal excrement for this nor the other can happen unto it now the gut Ileon is stopped wherein excrements are not yet wont to be hardned by an unwonted dung but not co-writhed not dissolved without the case of the mesentery And so the Schools being amazed that Disease hath been unknown in its causes and manner For I remember that Thomas Balbani of Antwerp
Objects receiving Especially because dungs are not the voluntary putrifyings or artificial putrifactions of things but the limited and specifical ones whose efficacy seeing it doth not proceed onely from the thing it self it hath need of an external author alwaies operating in the same agreeing resemblance also in the same manner and character most especially because the impression follows both the healthy disposition of its ferment as also the sick one Which thing doth from thence more clearly appear Because belching or a flatus originally in the stomack even as also the flatus of the Ileon do extinguish the flame of a candle But a dungy flatus which is formed in the utmost bowels and breaks forth thorow the fundament being sent thorow the flame of a candle is enflamed in flying thorow it and expresseth a flame of divers colours like a Rain-bow But that which is formed in the Ileon or slender bowel is never inflameable is often without smell unless it bring down the mixture of another with it it oft-times strikes through being tart sharp and brackish in the Fundament Therefore flatus's or windinesses do differ in us in their matter form place ferment properties and so in their whole species Neither have flatus's less their own generical and specifical varieties than the Bodies from whence they proceed For flatus's are in no wise Air. Yea flatus's are not only distinguished by the matter whereof they are but also by the ferment and seed of flatus's Hitherto have those things regard which I have taught concerning the birth of a Gas or wild Spirit which surely should else remain in its antient concrete Body unless a ferment of the place being adjoyned and a seed of sharpness drawn it be made or composed into a flatus or Gas I will repeat in this place the general kinds of diversities of flatus's bred in us which are specificated by their ferments and the properties of things from whence they arise Behold their Scheme or Figure For there are two irregular flatus's in us whereof one is ordinary natural and necessary in the Ileon The other is plainly pestiferous and degenerate the which a poyson being taken or bred within doth for the most part lift up the whole habit of the Body into a tumour And then there are four flatus's in the stomack and bowels One of the stomack which is belching And this is either specifical from undigested hard and stubborn meat Another is unsavory of the cream being almost digested but bred from a weakness of digestion but a third is sower from the cream digested but yet hindered A fourth belching is brackish being produced from the ferment of the place being exasperated The second flatus is that of the and it hath some diversities in it The first whereof containeth farting arising from Ileon the abundance of the aforesaid natural flatus The other is bitter which breaks forth from strange and ill digested dregs And it hath somewhat of an over-hasty dungy ferment Also the flatus of the gut Colon succeedeth from meats not plainly freed from their stomatical sharpness but being corrupted by a prevention a dungy ferment fore-timely coming unto them There is also a dungy mortified flatus from a resolving and putrefaction of the lively and vital nourishment of the solide parts Lastly without the channels of a bowel is the flatus Tympany arising from a diseasifying cause between the Bought of the intestine and the concave of the Peritoneum or skin which covereth the bowels Which diseasifying cause hath the property of a local matter but a more mild one But the flatus which is hence begotten is not from a diseasifying matter but it is the product thereof indeed it is from the same matter whereof the natural and ordinary flatus of the Ileon is That is from the very immediate nourishment of the bowel But it is mortal as well from a poysonous cause or from a radical Disease as in respect of the place which produced Disease may be increased without a limit and at length may choak the sick like the Dropsie Ascites The Scheme being now finished thou shalt see that the matter whereof flatus's are is that concrete Body about which a ferment doth operate And then that he who strives to drive away flatus's by propulsion or dispersing and so to overcome the Disease doth not take away the cause but goes unto the last effect Which thing that it may be the more cleerly made known to thy view I will suppose three Brethren to be nourished with the same drink and meat one whereof can send forth almost no flatus But another and the weaker can bring forth many un-savory and now and then sower belchings But the third undergoing a disproportionable temper of his bowels can make many crackings From whence first of all it becomes plain to be seen that flatus's are not made of flatulent or windy meats the use whereof is therefore so greatly forbidden in the Dietary of the Schools But even as fulness doth for the most part cause many windy blasts the which sobriety excuseth therefore it follows that the fardle is for a burden but that a burden presupposeth a labour or weakness of the digestive faculty So sharpish Apples if they are roasted do puff out very much windiness the which if they are eaten by a strong stomack are void of windiness Whence it is sufficiently manifest that a flatus is the vice of us but not of things The which that nothing hinders that some things are more apt for the producing of flatus's and that from hence they are called windy Because those things which are most flatulent do not beget flatus's but in defective persons For if windinesses were by themselves and materially in meats flatus's should equally bewray themselves in all and he that should send forth the less of flatus's the same being retained he should be the weaker Both whereof is false Therefore the aforesaid interchangeable course of flatus's doth accuse the agent rather than the matter In the next place if it should be moved principally from the matter and there be a fatty flatus in us but that could in no wise be troubled or moved by our luke-warmth which is first obliged to vaporal moistures before that it can be sufficient for dry and oylie exhalations Therefore even from hence it is also manifest that flatus's are made by a causing but not by a separating agent Again that also of Galen is absurd that some things are windy in the first digestion but that other things utter their flatus in the second which he calls sanguification and so also hence he names them things venereous or causing natural lust But the third things he calls windy in the last digestion even as he saith concerning the keepers of Fig-trees That their fleshes are blown up and swollen with windiness from the eating of abundance of Figs. For every flatus which was after any manner materially in meats at least while the food
Catarrhe be feigned to flow down with a like success unto other and inferiour parts how therefore do the upper parts seem to be free from evil for seeing it should proceed from the same fountain the brain and through the same channel of the marrow of the thorn of the back why doth it not rather follow the path already opened doth it more largely fall down unto a weakened inclinable and affected part and commit new adulteries why doth it shake and seek new Innes Is that perhaps the delight of nature that through a whorish appetite it doth molest and divide new parts successively Finally that there is no place of refuge for a Catarrhe running down between the scull and the skin and the muscles cloathed with their own membrane hath been already before discussed Therefore there is no way manner mean connexion or dependance whereby a Rheume may in truth subsist And seeing no material thing runs down in those affects for which the Schools have rashly feigned Catarrhs therefore let the lovers of truth know that as oft as a strange or forreign Air odour ferment or forreign seed is received into the Spirit which makes violent assaults so often that spirit being defiled by the Archeus is excluded from the Communion of life But the genius or disposition of that conceived Seed hath no less parts whereby also the Spirit defiled by a strange ferment is sent unto remote rather than to nigh places As shall be said in its place concerning the joynt-sickness or Gout in the Duumvirate and elsewhere For so Mercury being even outwardly anointed doth affect the jawes tongue teeth Moreover when this defiled spirit shall come down unto the place of its sending it presently seasons the nourishment of the part with its own ferment transplanteth and translateth it according to the idea or likeness of the Seed and that Seed doth there interrupt the offices of digestions by successive blasts being drawn with strange dispositions Whence it at length stirs up a plentiful houshold-stuffe and doth oft-times characterize the impression there made on the implanted spirit with a brand durable for life These things the Schools beg for primary feigned humours and for the fallings down of defluxions from the one only brain I therefore am far from a Catarrhe who deny the matter shops efficient cause manner of making and defluxing thereof and therefore I also seperate the causes effect as also the cure far from the fictions of a Catarrhe Therefore salt soure sharp phlegmatick and cholerick humours do not fall down but as often as the defiled spirit hath passed thorow unto the places the first which shall come thither from a common endeavour and study of washing it off is the liquour or humour latex For the spirit being depraved by a forreign contagion is carried through the Nerves Arteries yea and through the very habite of the Body From whence the brain hath bore the blame and the sick do feel as it were the falling down of a defluxing humour and because the latex is designed thither by the veins not as a primitive cause of the evil although by accident it doth oftentimes nourish the evil the longer but for an easment and washing off therefore the Schools have as yet remained doubtful whether Rheumes should be dismissed from the Head through the sinews or between the skin or indeed through the veins out of the Liver at least wise in Gouty persons Therefore the Phlegme and Choler of the Schools do not flow from a Fountain or Flood-gate as if the Head were the one only sink of these And then neither do they fall down by reason of a steeper scituation or by reason of an easiness of passages For truly as in a dead Carcass there are no such defects but in live creatures only so whatsoever of these defects doth come to pass it proceedeth from a spirit which maketh a violent assault and from a vital beginning In whose family administration an ascending upwards is no more difficult than a descending downwards Seeing nothing of these in living creatures floweth by its own motion of weight but indeed is directed being sent unto its own certain bounds It also often comes to pass that the latex being defiled with a strange salt doth thenceforth infect the spirit so that the spirit is not therefore alwayes estranged by an external injury of Air or from a proper Air of contagion bred within but rather being stirred up by the latex because that is less lively it takes on it an animosity or angry heat And the latex accompanies it being troublesome as well through its aforesaid sharpness as through quantity and it enters as an importunate Souldier against the will of his Host Wherefore natural and artificial Baths do reconcile many of these sort of defects and overflowings to wit by consuming the latex they restore health rather than the loosening and drying Medicines of the Schools Vain therefore is the History and matter of a Catarrhe lifted up out of the stomack unto the Head vain also is the defluxing and falling down thereof between the muscles and the skin and deplorable Remedies from unknown causes Vain also are cauteries or searing Remedies to pull back and consume feigned humours Lastly vain are the Medicines of drying drinks seeing the evil or Malady is by the latex and a larger quantity of drink only occasionally bred Therefore it is manifest how wholesom sober drinking is for the liquor latex in respect of its appointment ought to be without savour but it waxeth sharp through the much drinking of pure and more sharp wine But the History and necessity of the latex is due in its own Chapter Thou shalt remember that all the fruits of composed Bodies do materially spring from water Let us therefore also suppose the un-savoury latex through a little help of a Seed presently to wax sharp For example For at the Spring-time a plentiful liquor drops out of a Vine or Birch-tree To wit if the bark near the earth be hurt it poures out an un-savoury liquour of the earth But if the wound be made in the stem or branches now the same juice is sharpish So it comes to pass in the latex being of its own nature without savour which through the contagion of things receiving doth at length wax sharp or becomes the heir of a strange quality For the Schools have neglected the latex because they have confounded the urine with the latex But it is a blockish argument to have co-melted the thing generated with the matter whereof as if the snivel spittle water between the skin and flesh and urine were drinks The Liver therefore being badly affected if it recal the latex unto it self truly it doth not thereby prepare urine but Oedemaes or the Dropsie Anasarca therefore I am not such a man as to call the Pleurisie Tooth-ach and other madness of furies non-beings For I know and grieve for their too much serious commands over us I do indeed admit of
thirst remaining safe For that thirst doth proceed as a forraign excrement doth cause the nourishable juice of the stomack to melt For truly while I describe my feelings or perceivances I am not so much besides my self as that I shall deny the excess of an external heat to burn and cause a wound or ulcer or that cold excelling doth mortifie as if it did burn But in the Dream proposed I onely perceived them as they are serviceable to the speculation of healing Therefore the examples of excessive heat and cold are like a sword but not to be referred among the occasional and internal causes of diseases to be considered by a Physitian If indeed according to the speculations of Medicine health is expected by the removal of those wherefore the speculation of external and antecedent Causes is not curative but onely now and then significative and directive For a wound being once inflicted although the sword be taken away the wound is not healed neither is the fire to be taken from the hearth although it hath at sometime burnt or scorched some-body in the same place For truly the causes of Diseases are inward as they are connexed occasions therefore the consideration and removal of those is truly medicinal But the Schools when they saw the fire to burn its objects likewise also cold to mortifie and destroy and so the body of man by those external qualities excelling to be diversly disturbed they for that cause thought that Effects which should have heat adjoyned unto them were raised up by fire and in this respect that in Feavers two Elements did strive in us whereof the Water should alwaies obtain the former part of the victory but the Fire the latter part thereof to wit that the Fire did cause Erisipelas's the Prune or burning coal the accute or Persian fire the burning Feaver c. That it did likewise harden by drying or exsiccation of Schirrus's Stones Bones and Knots They have also decreed Remedies beseeming such rules by contrarieties not knowing after what sort the spirit of life may stir up heats and colds without fire or icy cold because neither from the Elements of our body or from feigned humours But they have on both sides neglected the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or violent assailant of Hippocrates Even as I have sometime by one example of a thorn thrust into the finger demonstrated wherein the Heat Pain Inflamation Feaver do not efficiently proceed from the fire of the thorn but because the sensitive Spirit doth grievously bear the forreign thorn So indeed heat and cold are accidents impertinent to the nature of a Feaver even as in the Liver are felt its heats because in the same place there are its thorns and the heat is not the cause but the effect of the thorn And therefore the alterations which do happen in the vital Family-admistration and do cease in dead carcases do not depend on the fire or icyness of the body or humours but on the Beginnings of life Yea if the Schools had touched at the matter as it is they had found that natural artificial Baths c. do not dry and burn us up but rather moisten us unless their heats are inordinate and of daily continuance yea neither then indeed otherwise than because more is consumed than is received doth the body accidentally wither At length I presently after the first qualities perceived the theevish adulteries of Merchants wherewith they load defile estrange and substitutively dissemble foreign Medicines or Drugs who have no need of my Doctrine because they are such as are not moved with the fear of Hell I presently after perceived two distinct Savours at least of things if not sometimes three or four one to wit whereby things are sharp bitter salt c. but the other which is called specifical being appropriated to the seed The first therefore I perceived to be the dignities and offices of Salts not indeed of Salts separated from the three first things or as they say drawn from corporeal Beginnings but of Salts glistening in their composed body But the other of the savours I perceived to be the seminal nature of Odours performing or at least unfolding the office of Forms in concrete bodies for Salts as being most sensible do first offer themselves to the taste whereunto therefore Hippocrates hath attributed the knowledges of diseases to wit bitter salt sharp and brackish pointing forth diseases But heats and colds he rather understood to be subsequent affects or passions than diseases But I do ascribe their judgement to the taste by reason of the aforesaid tastable qualities wherein for the most part a more profound power or faculty sits and containing the seminal and efficient cause But not that therefore the judgement concerning diseases doth belong to the tongue and the pallate but I name it the taste by reason of the tastable qualities Otherwise it is the feeling wherewithal the Instruments are strongly endowed whose sensitive force by an approximation of touching makes the signs of friendship or enmity about the hidden thing perceiveable After this manner therefore I perceived that it is the offices of the salts exceeding in force which do unfold the vertues of the subordinate forms of their concrete body and carry them unto the Archeus as it were their object whereon they act Therefore I perceived that Cures as well by Mediciues as by Nature are made by an appeasing of the disturbed Archeus and the removal of the seminal and diseasie character produced by the Archeus This indeed I have perceived to be the nearest safest and highest or chiefest curing But that which succeedeth by the help of secrets is busied about the taking away of the product And therefore I have perceived that Arcanum's do operate as Salts Indeed such cures do happen by removing of that which is hurtfull and by adding that which is defectuous for else those things which do hinder increases or appropriations have rather a regard unto prevention than unto curing it self but hurtfull things are taken away by resolving cleansing exhaling or expelling which properties are agreeable unto Salts But the removals of that which is hurtfull are not duly wrought by poisonous melting and putrifactive things as neither by the withdrawings of the venal blood and life But the adding of that which is deficient I have perceived not to be done by a proper means and therefore that we go back or decline by little and little through great want of the Tree of Life the which be it spoken of the vital faculties but not of the want of the venal blood which is restored by the kitchins But I have perceived that Nature doth voluntarily rise again and repair some of her defects if she shall be made to sit up after her prostrating To which end also balsamical and tinging things do help I perceived also that in the stomack is bred a soure salt partly volatile and partly fixed But that both are afterwards changed by their
poysons of Minerals are bred of Salts Sulphurs and Mercuries whereby their fury is propagated by a Seed Analogical or agreeable in proportion But how evident is that thing in the company of Vegetables where those seminal perturbations and therefore also co-natural ones are by Seeds transplanted with a continued course For we may well know any kind of poysons which are reduced by the ranks of perturbations by distinguishing of them Consequently also the knowledge of specifical properties is drawn per quia or from the Effect of the Cause if they are reduced unto the certain orders of perturbations or disturbances and affections Even as more largely elsewhere concerning the Plague So indeed many things are searched into and found out we thereby by the Effects come to the Causes and being led by the hand from one knowledge to another the poysons of an Erisipelas and Dysentery being in their Tearms from the wroth of the Archeus their cure is in a Hare wherein is fear meekesse flight and an harmless life Neither is the argument of contrariety of value For first of all I have admitted of contrarieties in living Creatures and I say that the properties of those being as it were sealed in the Idea's of living Creatures are in some sort contrary in the priority of the efficient tree as the Seals of Passions do end in to this Idea And so the fruits of this tree do act no more by way of contrary Passions but from the force of a received and inbred seminal Character wherein every thing acteth according to the Talent received even as it is in it self but not by reason of a repugnant duality or disagreeing contrariety Therefore the blood wherein is the seminal product and the effecter of the fearful meekness doth mortifie the poyson which is bred from a poysonous wrothfulness For I have noted in things loves hatreds terrors and the seminal products seals Idea's and characters of these Whence I have found out the immediate Causes of many hidden Remedies But I have interpreted them to be found out and suggested by me with the truth of possible and appearing consequences These things I have spoken concerning occult or hidden properties out of the Dream that we may cease to be occult Philosophers and may follow the manifest Doctrine of the more tractable ones Now I will prosecute my Dream I perceived I say that Smallage Asparagus and whatsoever things are taken to open Obstructions have indeed a Salt of a specifical savour the which being with their middle life made the Cream of the Stomack remaineth surviving although enfeebled yet that they do obtain weak Remedies for the opening of Obstructions For truly those things which do keep the Savour of their own concrete Body under the ferment of the Stomack as Onion Garlick Mace Turpentine Asparagus c. Those I perceived even to slide along with the Superfluities because they wax soure with their specifical Savour and then do take under the Gawl the nature of a Salt and at length under the dungy ferment of the Reines do put on a Urine-provoking or diuretical faculty But whose specifical Savours do putrifie by continuance and perish with the sourness of the Cream those things I perceived to be indifferent meats but whose Savours do not plainly yeild themselves into the sourness of the Cream and do after some sort remain in their mediocrity for the Cream if it should alike on every side receive a ferment and wax soure it should easily be sharper than Vinegar those things indeed-do through the force of the Gawl easily perish in the Meseraick Veines that together with a third or mumial ferment they may be changed into Venal Blood Therefore I perceived those to reach forth feeble aides for dissolving or opening of Obstructions At length I perceived that all simple Salts of the Sea Sal gemmae Fountaines Salt Peter c. as such do depart through the Urine and Intestines and in the mean time resolve the filths or dregs in those passages and render the expulsive faculty mindful of its duty But I perceive that Salts which carry a Mineral fruit in them are Strangers to our Nature and therefore are scarce to be inwardly admitted But Salts which are a part of the composed Body as Lixivium's and Alkalies I perceived to be deprived of Seminal Virtues and to have onely an abstersive or cleansing Soapie or resolving property unless they are volatile wherein I perceived the radical Beginnings and seminal Balsams of the concrete Body to be I perceived I say that these are easily transchanged into a new fruit because they do associate themselves with and act in all things according to their inbred endowments In the next place I have perceived the corrosive spirits of Minerals to differ far from themselves being crude to resolve the Excrements adhering to the sides of the first Vessels Yet not to be altogether destitute of Dammages by reason of an occult infection of Arsenick admixed with them from their original Therefore I perceived that occult properties as they call them being seminally traduced into the Archeus by the generater or efficient do unfold the presence of their Object and a sympathetical knowledge as they are immediately entertained in the bosom of the Formes Some to wit by a motive local Blas as the Load-stone Amber Gummes Lacca the herb Turne-sole Diamond for this also even as Carabe or Amber doth attract chaffes c. do bewray themselves but other things are terminated into an alteration as poysons likewise laxatives medicines tied about the Head or Body Antidotes c. Laxatives I have peculiarly perceived to operate onely by reason of a poyson lurking within them which being once admitted inwardly nigh the entrance whatsoever they touch they do ferment do afterwards resolve the things fermented and for that very cause do putrifie the things resolved I perceived therefore that Laxatives do putrifie the vital juyces but seldom the excrements the occasional causes of Diseases For seeing they are Poysons in respect of us and not of excrements hence they rise up rather against us than against Diseases And most speedily indeed do putrifie the more crude juyce or the not yet vital blood of the Veines or the yesterdays Cream But because they scarce suppress the excrements neither do these in like manner obey them seeing every action or Blas in us doth proceed from the Spirit which maketh the assault whereof excrements are deprived hence no Physitian dareth by taking Laxatives to promise a cure But true Solutives do neither cause Putrifaction nor selectively draw forth feigned Humours neither therefore do they resolve our vitial parts or things and the which Solutives I have perceived to bewray themselves by a three fold Sign First That they draw nothing from a healthy Body neither do they move after or weaken that Body Secondly That they do not fetch any thing forth but what is offensive and therefore they do not aggravate but ease of the burden and presently
the Eyes which might be fitly accused Wherefore this dissection being compared with the dreaming Vision of the Tertian Ague from the eating of too much Salmon I presently perceived why they were both at once recalled to mind while I was about to write the present Chapter to wit that through the opportunity of them both being remembred I might the more strongly insist about the true thingliness or essence of Diseases con-centred in the bosome of the vital spirit but that the dregginesses which the Schooles have reputed for the immediate and containing causes of Diseases are nothing but the external occasional Causes how intimately soever they should be admitted within the veines themselves CHAP. LXII A Disease is an unknown Guest 1. A Narration of things hitherto done 2. The Object and Intent of the Author 3. That the Art of the Medicine of the Pagans was an invention of the evil Spirit 4. A Prayer for his Persecutors 5. The Author searcheth out or espieth from his Persecutions that the evil Spirit was the Inventor of the Doctrine of the Pagans 6. The Labours of the Schooles from hence are vain 7. The Authors Anguishes 8. A Prologue of the thingliness of a Disease 9. The most immediate containing and essential Causes of Diseases 10. The necessity of a seminal Idea is collected 11. How far this Doctrine departeth from the Schooles 12. The true causes of things and of Diseases 13. The Schooles their ancient definition of a Disease 14. The first Contradiction of the Schooles 15. Another Stumbling 16. A Third 17. The Author teacheth in his Treatise of the Elements that there are not mixt Bodies as neither humors in Nature whence the whole foundation of the Medicine of the Schooles goes to ruine 18. A Fourth Stumbling 19. A Fifth 20. A Sixth 21. A Seventh 22. Against the distemperature of Elementary qualities in us 23. An Eighth staggering 24. A Ninth 25. A Tenth 26. An Eleventh 27. The Error of the Schooles is discovered 28. A Twelfth stumbling 29. An absurd consequence according to the position of the Schooles 30. The uncertainty of a predicament for Diseases 31. Arguments on the opposite part and against a feigned disposition 32. Tee true efficient Cause of diseases 33. The occasional matter 34. Wherein the whole thingliness or essence of a Disease may be scituated 35. Whence the Schooles have been seduced 36. Two false Maxims of the Schooles 37. Another delusion of the Schooles 38. What natural generation is 39. The Schooles deceived by Aristotle 40. Some ignorances arisen from hence 41. A Disease consisteth of matter and an efficient cause 42. Whatsoever is generated that is made by seminal Ideas 43. All the predicaments are in every Disease 44. The stip of Heathenisme in healing 45. That the definition of a Disease hath been hitherto unknown 46. A Disease is not a Being of the first Constitution yet hath it entred into the account of Nature 47. Wherein Diseases are distinguished from other created things 48. The Error of the Schooles from the subject of Inhaesion of Diseases and very many Absurdities issuing from thence 49. That those Absurdities are not to be connived at by Christians 50. A stubborn ignorance 51. Hunger is not a Disease 52. The Schooles depart from their own Hippocrates 53. Some neglects of the Schooles 54. The rashness of the Schooles 55. That the hurt of action is not to be regarded for the essence of a Disease 65. Whence that fiction sprang 57. The consequent upon a confounding of the cause with the symptome 58. A removal of the Cause doth not of necessity respect a withdrawing of the occasional matter 59. The Schooles being deluded by artificial things delude their young beginners by artificial things 60. How the Seed may differ from its constituted Body 61. A Thirteenth stumbling 62. Some knowledges chiefly true in the Author 63. What a kind of production of a Disease is made by a Blas 64. The efficient Cause in a Disease 65. A Disease pierceth the Life with a formal Light in a point 66. Some differences of efficient Causes 67. An example in the Stone 68. The Stone is not properly a Disease 69. While the Effect hath concluded the occasional efficient there is not the former Disease 70. The products of Diseases neglected by the Schooles are touched at 71. The Error of the Schooles about the Objects of Contrarieties in Diseases 72. Some Arguments against the Schooles that it may jerk them 73. The Products of Diseases Secondary Diseases together with a destinction of Symptomes and Fruits are resumed 47. Weakness or Feebleness what it is 75. An improper division of Diseases by the Organical parts 76. Whence there is a divers action of diverse things 77. From the handy-craft operation of the Fire of Pepper an Escarrhotick and Caustick are Thirteen Conclusions Paradoxes to the Schooles and diverse things are illustrated worthy to be noted 78. The Fire is but little profitable unto the Speculation of Curing 79. Some notable things concerning our heat 80. A various Classis or Order of the Occasions of Diseases 81. Hippocrates is explained with a connivance 82. That which Nature doth once despise that she never afterwards receiveth into favour 83. A Disease is of the matter of the Archeus 84. An explaining of Products 85. Our Nature is ruled by an erring Understanding after that it is corrupted 86. The Schooles again deluded by artificial things 87. To Produce differs from to Generate 88. The Schooles have onely thought of taking away the occasional cause 89. In us there is a Nature standing sitting and lying 90. A decree of Hippocrates is explained with the moderation of that age 91. Anatomy is frequent to excuse excuses in sins 92. The sloathful negligence of the Schooles 93. After what manner death and a disease have become the Beings of Nature since the creation and have received second Causes their producers 94. Two Objections of the Schooles refuted 95. A Guess or Presage from the unseparable goodness THe integrity of Nature being already at first constituted to wit between the Matter the Archeus and the Life or forme of a vital Light with the seminal and vital beginnings the ferments also the authors of transmutations being newly discovered also the elements qualities complexions and miscellanies of these their fights strife and cursary victories being rejected likewise humours and defluxing Catarrhes being banished out of Nature Lastly Flatus's Tartars and the three Principles of the Chymists being banished out of the exercises of Diseases it now remained that the defects and interchangable courses of Nature themselves should be intimately or pithily considered Wherefore before that I make a more profound entrance I have undertaken to prove That Diseases have not onely been unknown in the Schooles in the particular and therefore that their Cure hath radically layn hid but moreover That the very Essence of a Disease hath been hidden in the general Truly it is matter of grief that it hath been so ingeniously elabourated
is a lightsome Being it acts not but by its instrument of the vital aire or by the Archeus as a mean between the light of Life flowing from the father of lights and the body But this aire or Archeus doth not act but after the manner wherein every seminal spirit acteth on the mass subjected under it that is not but by an imprinted mark or sealie Idea which hath known what and which way it must act Therefore all and every disease hath a sealie mark and as it were a seminal act which is expert of things to be acted by it self This Declaration therefore doth far recede or differ from an elementary distemperature from humours and the disproportionable mixture of those from the fight and contrariety of the elements of our composition because every disease is nothing but a Sword to the Life wounding or totally cutting it off For as a Sword doth exhaust the Life together with the arterial blood and vital aire wherein according to the holy Scriptures the Soul it self sitteth So a disease consumeth the same air of Life on which it afresh sealeth an hostile character drawn as well from occasional Causes as gotten through the errour of its own indignation This exact account of a disease being granted lo I come unto the explaining of a disease And first I will demonstrate from the very Theoremes of the Schools that the thingliness or essence of a disease hath been hitherto unknown Whence in the next place any one shall easily judge what hath even hitherto been done in the remedies and vanquishing of diseases I have oft-times promised that I will demonstrate that the Schools have hitherto neglected that is that they have not known the essence root or nature of a disease in its own universal quiddity or thingliness And seeing I have already from the Elements prosecuted that thing even unto a conclusion thorow all their privy shifts now at length by an Anatomy of particulars I shall also stand to my promises if I shall detect the same in the general and especially if I shall shew that thing no longer by the fictions of Elements temperaments and humours but by the very words of Authors whereby they corrupt their Young beginners as it were with a mortal contagion In the premises it hath already been demonstrated by me that the Ages before me being deluded by the trifles of the Peripateticks have been ignorant of the Causes to wit the Matter and Efficient of natural things Then also that a thing it self is nothing besides a connexion of both Causes and that this same thing is in diseases especially seeing a disease although happening unto us by sin is now admitted for a prodigal Son of Nature Truly the univocal or simple homogeneity of Causes in natural Beings hath compelled me hereunto whereby the efficient Cause is denominated from effecting but not from the Effect which is after the Efficiency Therefore the Schools do first of all define a disease to be an affect or disposition which doth primarily hurt the actions of our faculties wherein they do as yet very much stumble For truly first they name this Affect a distemperature of one or two qualities of the first Elements For so they rehearse the same thing because they consess a disease to be an elementary quality it self as it exceedeth a just temperature Therefore a disease shall no longer be that disposition resulting from the first qualities which they suppose immediately to hurt the functions themselves And so they feign the whole disease hereafter to consist in nothing but in a degree or excess of an elementary quality Again now and then they call the very distemperature of qualities not indeed a Disease but well the antecedent cause of the same They will I say have those four solitary qualities to be diseases whether they shall proceed from external qualities co-like unto themselves or whether they owe their beginning in the body to be from a strange disproportion of mixture Furthermore they afterwards combine those qualities in a bride-bed from the congress whereof they then derive their off-spring a Disease to wit they believe that the Elements are so subservient to their own dreams As that also qualities being joyned at their pleasure they have commanded them to answer to as many elements So that those naked qualities being even balaced with feigned elements and dreamed humours they have feigned to be Diseases themselves For in this place I declare the unseasonable yea sporting varieties of the Schools and their poverty greatly fighting otherwise surely I have sufficiently proved elsewhere by a Demonstration chiefly true That in the nature of things there are not four elements and therefore neither are they mixed that bodies which they have called mixt may be thereby constituted and by consequence that neither can distemperatures be accused for diseases As neither that ever there were four constitutive humours of us in the nature of things whereby it is sufficiently and over-manifest that the causes of diseases yea and diseases and the predicament of diseases have been hitherto unknown in the Schools Notwithstanding I will now dissemblingly treat with them by the supposed Positions of the same Schools Therefore the Schools sometimes repenting them of their sayings will have the elementary qualities and not unfrequently the humours equal to these not indeed to be diseases but onely the containing causes of almost all diseases Otherwise again that of those qualities being more intense than is meet a third or neutral one doth arise which they have called the Diathesis or Disposition or Disease it self And so however they toss the business they have hitherto commanded a disease to inhabite among qualities but humours although intemperate ones they for the most part driven out of the rank of diseases Indeed a Cataract in the eye although as a substance it doth immediately intercept the sight yet it cannot be a disease Therefore they have feigned a certain Being of reason and an imaginary relation or obstruction which might contain every property of a disease and might be truly a disease the Cataract being rejected And so by degrees a disease comes down unto non-beings and privations And now and then they for the essence of a disease do ridiculously distinguish a simple distemperature from a conjoyned one and again both of them from a humourous one when as a humour should be a substance void of degrees Indeed they have distinguished the societies of proportionable and disproportionable mixtures of the first qualities into pedigrees and then they have thereby erected specious Schemes and at length they have filled whole Volumes with those fables But at leastwise they have never admitted an evil or vitiated humour to be bred in us which may not presuppose some elementary distemperature to be mother unto it Wherefore a distemperature in the Schools shall be onely the cause of the cause and of the thing caused but it shall not be the thing caused it self or the disease nor in
the next place the immediate and connexed cause of the disease Oft-times again the opinion of their minde being changed they have withdrawn those qualities out of the account of diseases and causes and have undistinctly banished them into the troop of sumptomes and co-incident things onely being altogether doubtfull what a disease what a cause causing or what a sumptome should be But of the internal occasional causes of diseases which in the Book of Fevers I first brought into open view and of the equivocal or various kinds of products of diseases nothing hath been heard in the Schools For besides heats colds pains weaknesses and co-incidents of that sort they have known no other fermental effect of a disease whereunto at length for a conclusion they have brought death And so they have confusedly joyned privative things to positive In the mean time they have doubted to what predicament they might ascribe diseases For they oft-times denominate a disease to be a quality otherwise also a certain relative habitude or disposition of body oftentimes also to be a quality of the number of actions they do often say it to be of the predicament of quantity to wit while they say that diseases are not the first qualities themselves but their distemperature or degree or excess onely and while they bring a sixth finger into numbers But being unmindfull of what they said before they will have a certain disposition resulting from a hurtfull quality of humours to fill up both pages or extensions of a disease to wit so as that that disposition may be the daughter of the hurtfull quality as of the diseasifying cause And so then a disease should supply the room rather of an action hurt than of the hurter of actions And likewise a disease should not be any longer a distemperature or the excess of a quality but another product as yet unnamed from the distemperature it self to wit a hurtfull quality of humours shall generate the disposition which onely and alone should at length be truly the disease For truly a man that hath the falling Evil a mad man a gouty person and one that hath a Quartane Ague besides and out of the fit are diseasie and do nourish the disease within Yet they have not such a diathesis or disposition for if the Schools do believe diseases to be meer accidents surely these know not how to sleep neither are they while they do not act in the time of rest from invasion Therefore at least-wise in that sort of sick folks the disease shall by no means be such a dispositive disposition Again they being unmindfull of themselves do will that if that disposition be small it is not to have the reason or essence of a disease but therefore that it then doth bring forth a neither state or an hermaphroditical Being between a disease and not a disease so that its essence doth for the half of it partake of a non-being and that as well in the state of declining as of recovery And which more is they reckon such a small diathesis not among diseases but with the weaknesses of a state of neutrality and among symptomes And that there it doth patiently wait until that having obtained a degree of a symptome it be made a disease And so a diseasie disposition is not a disease if it hath not as yet manifestly hurt by its excesse wherefore also not the disposition it self but the excess thereof is the disease of a proper name in the Schools The correllative whereof is that the degree onely of some qualities doth make and change the essence and species of its own self neither shall a species therefore have its own thinglinesse in its being specifical but onely in the point of excesse So at length a disease shall wander from a quality into the predicament in relation In the next place if a disease be an effect immediately hurting action they ought even from thence at least to acknowledge that the Archeus himself or the maker of the assault while he is irregularly moved to wit while Scarr-wort doth embladder a living body not likewise a dead carcass and layes aside and loseth a part of himself for this purpose ought to be the universal and primary disease of all Even as I have threatned to demonstrate concerning Feavers They likewise ought to acknowledge if material causes do by themselves and primarily suffice for an immediate hurting of the functions themselves to wit as a Cataract before the apple of the eye doth by it self and immediately bring forth blindness even as the cutting off or mayming of a tendon doth take away motion without the intervening of a disposition really distinct from the curtailing wound that there is no need of feigning such a disposition for there is not any stoppage or diathesis which stops up the passage of the urine if the stone alone doth immediately do that and materially stop and doth so perfectly and really contain the whole foundation of a relation in it self that the disposition or stoppifying action proceeding from the stopping stone is nothing but a relation and meer Being of reason which in diseases in time of healing as also in true Beings and things truly existing hath no place wherefore extrinsecal diseases such as are wounds and what things soever do intercept any passage seeing they do not arise from a seminal beginning nor do nourish a cause which may stir up the Archeus they are the clients of another Monarchy But for seminal diseases it is a nearer thing in nature and motion to suppose the Spirit the Archeus as it is the efficient beginning of feeling and motion to be immediately and most nearly affected by hurtfull things and that that occasional cause and the Archeus do mutually touch each other in a point whence a disease For the occasional matter whether it be brought to within or be bred within or be coagulable or putrifiable lastly dispersable or waxing hard doth alwaies onely occasionally stir up the Archeus that he may thereby be astonied or sore afraid and wax diversly wroth To wit under whose perturbation an Idea is bred informing some part of the Archeus And that thing composed of the matter of the Archeus and the aforesaid seminal Idea as the efficient Beginning is in truth every seminal disease Therefore the Schools being seduced by their own proper liberties of dreams have thought that because the consideration of Causes and Principles differs from the consideration of the thing produced by them therefore from a necessity formally causing all Causes ought in making being operating and remaining to remain perpetually separated from the things caused not heeding that for the most part the consideration of Causes and Principles doth not otherwise differ from the consideration of the thing caused than by the relation of a mental Being the which although it be received in Science Mathematical and discoursary things yet not in the course of Nature Therefore the Schools being deluded by such faulty
Predicaments through the ignorance of which or one only point heathenisme hath overwhelmed the Schooles of Medicine with the contagion of blindness And all curing hath been believed to be subject unto naked qualities excesses of degrees relative respects and actions For from hence they have feigned Contraries to be Remedies of Contraries and no Disease to be mitigated by the goodness of Nature the mildness of Medicines and by the appeasing and repentance of the Archeus that was first disturbed but only by fighting skirmishing and war to be reduced into a mean or temperature of the first qualities So that seeing they think every Disease to be a Disposition likewise that all Remedies ought to be a naked Disposition or they are deceived in their position whence it follows that the taking away of the stone out of the Bladder shall never be able of it self to import a cure of the sick For truly seeing it is a Remedy onely privative whereunto an appeasing of the Archeus belongs but it is not a Disposition contrary to the Stone And much lesse a prohibitive of the foregoing matter which they suppose of necessity to be supplied from elsewhere uncessantly to flow thither nor to cease the Stone being taken away by the knife to wit if the Disposition generating the matter whereof shall not first cease Therefore according to the Schooles He that is cut for the Stone should be cured onely for a little space to wit as the Impediments of Functions are taken away otherwise produced and cherished by the Stone being present and also as the disposition mentally interposing is secondarily casually and by accident obliterated But the mattter is far otherwise For truly a seminal Disease is a creature which made and found out its own matters and its own Idea's in us after sin by an hereditary right of the Archeus neither had he it originally in Nature And therefore the root of Diseases ought totally to be unknown to all Heathenisme And seeing an essential definition is not to be fetched from the Genus of the thing defined and its constitutive difference even as I have taught in the Book of Feavers by reason of the manifold perplexities of Errors and ridiculous positions but altogether from a connexion of both Causes which are Beings in Nature and therefore that the primitive and Ideal cause of Diseases hath stood neglected hitherto It follows also that the definition knowledge essence and roots of a Disease have remained unknown And finally that curings have been instituted by accident with an ignorance of the universal disposition of internal properties their efficacie and interchangable course Truly I know as a Christian that a Disease is not a Creature of the first Constitution because it is that which hath taken its rootes from sin in the impurity of Nature which afterwards in their own spring have at length budded in Individuals For neither were created poysons Diseases as long as they were without us but then when the Archeus of the same was made domestical unto us through the forreign disposition of its middle life it raised up seminal Idea's in our Archeus even as Fire is struck out of a Flint Then I say Diseases are made unto us the fore-runners of Death from an occasional poyson Diseases therefore do continue with us when they have their provoking occasions subsisting in our Nature until neither their occasional matter be wasted away or at least until the Archeus be rid of his own perturbations or of his office For Diseases indeed came on us by Sin and afterwards in Nature now corrupted by Sin the ferments and ready obediences of matter waxed strong and so they pierced into the number and catalogue of Nature and even unto this day do most inwardly persevere with us after a singular manner Yet alwayes distinct from other created things in this that the created things of the first constitution have a proper existence in themselves but diseases neither are nor are able to subsist without us Because they proceed as it were from a formal light and the vital constitutive Beginning of us And therefore the natural Archeus and a Disease do pierce each other because they have a material co-resemblance But the Schooles when they heeded that Diseases do never exist without us supposed that our Body was the subject of Inhaesion of Diseases and consequently that Diseases were only accidents and therefore to be stirred up from an elementary distemperature because they apprehended them in a most prompt and rustical sence also for that cause they hoped that they should sufficiently and over vanquish Diseases by Heats and Colds And therefore they likewise decreed that every refreshment aid and help which nature being informed did require of the Physitian was not to be administred in shew of a refreshment in peace and tranquility but herein onely to prevail and that wars strifes contraries and discords were to be appointed whereby the hostile elementary qualities being cobroken in us they might by constraint return into a mediocrity of temperature that so they may restrain the injuries of Nature now corrupted by contrary injuries and subdue them by revenging Which thing surely they have thus judged nor have otherwise understood because that they knew no other action than that which from a superiority of the agent rules over the patient But surely those things do not savour of an help neither is the Law of Christ by whom all things were made conformable to those Lawes of the Schooles And so as elsewhere more largely either Christ is not the parent of Nature or an adversary to himself in Nature or such Heathenish speculations of healing are rotten The Schooles therefore have not considered that the matters of many Beings do not consist but in a strange Inne whereunto they were appointed Wherefore by reason of their different kind of manner of existing they thought a Disease to be a meer accident but predicamentally seperating the matter which a Disease might carry before it from a Disease As if an Embryo should be an accident because it is no where but in the womb Indeed it pleased the revenger of sin that Diseases with their matters as well that occasional as that equal and inward unto them should not subsist but in those whose the Diseases and offence should be and that without respect of the Being of one unto another For neither have the Heathenish Schooles ever considered as neither the Moderns who have been established on Paganish Beginnings that this relation of existence came unto them from the condition of sin and the procreation thereof from the Archeus sore shaken with perturbations Because such thoughts never entred into Heathenisme neither is it a wonder that the Gentiles knew not the force of Transgression although they do deliver by the Fable of Promotheus and Pandora that they learned something from the Hebrews Yet it is a wonder that they were ignorant that a Disease before it should be made ours ought to proceed from the
most inward Beginning of Life and to be incorporated in us neither therefore that occasional Causes can be the connexed and constitutive Causes of Diseases for truly those Causes do as yet remain after life and yet Diseases cease But we must in no wise indulge Christians who are thorowly instructed by the Scriptures that they have even until now esteemed it for an honour to have delivered their minds bound unto the hurtful stupidities of Heathens They took notice indeed that there was that affinity of some Diseases with us that they were so connexed unto our Body in respect of an occasional matter that they could scarce be divided from a consent of the mind or be seperated from a hurt action as in Wounds instrumentary Diseases those deprived of the strength of Seeds For the Haw upon the Coat Cornea is that which immediately hurteth the sight as also the Stone doth without a medium stop up the passage of the Urine But the obstruction flowing from thence is a relation and Being of Reason the which as it acteth nothing so neither hath it the reason nor consideration of a Disease in Nature Nevertheless the Modern Schooles had rather to commit the Essences of Diseases unto Elementary discords than that they would confess the Bodies of Nature to bespeak nothing else besides a connexion of both constitutive Causes to them unknown For that reason miserable mortals have hitherto groaned under this burden of blindness expecting Cure from those who were fully ignorant of the constitutive Causes of Diseases Wherefore seeing a Disease ought to contain its own efficient Cause and its own matter within it self Hence it easily appears that hunger although like a very sharp Disease it kills in very few dayes yet is not a Disease because it doth not consist of Diseasie Causes whether it be considered as a sorrowful sense of the number of Symptomes or next as it consisteth of real defects Because for as much as the soure ferment of the Stomack even as in the Treatise concerning Digestions wanting an Object whereon it may act yet cannot therefore take rest it attempts by resolving the secondary humour and immediate nourishment of the Stomack for the Archeus is as well in hunger as in fullnesse the cause not onely of a Disease but of Health it self But a want of the matter of Food bespeakes a privation but not a Disease Wherefore we must altogether exactly note that Hunger although it doth cruelly slay as if it were a Disease yet that it is not a Disease in that respect to wit because the Archeus is in no wise diseasie in hunger From whence it ought to be clearly manifest that every Disease doth primarily and essentially respect its efficient Archeus For that cause it was rightly decreed by Hippocrates to the carelesnesse of the Schooles that hot cold moist or dry not indeed as such and concrete or composed are not Diseases or the causes of these but sharp bitter salt brackish c. For peradventure in the age of Hippocrates the occasional cause was not yet distinguished from a true Disease Indeed he knew a twofold excrement to be in us One indeed natural and ordinary and so ours but the other a diseasie one from its mother errour and a hostile propagation and the which we Christians know to have proceeded from the vigour of sin For when the oldman had distinguished this by forreign savours he supposed that if it were not a Disease it self at leastwise it was the adequate or suitable occasion of Diseases not yet then distinguished from a Disease The removal whereof at least should open both the folding doors of Healing But it is matter of amazement that he whom the Schooles do boast to follow as their Captain they have skipped over this his Text through sluggishness as also another Standard-defender of the same Captain wherein he hath declared that every motion unto a Disease Death and Health is efficiently made by the Spirit which maketh an assault And likewise wherein he saith that Natures themselves are the Physitianesses of Diseases and by consequence the makers also of Diseases if that assaulting spirit by its disturbance doth work all things whatsoever are done or made in living Bodies Indeed the Schooles have passed by many such things which did deserve to be accounted like Oracles because they being deluded and bewitched by four feigned Humors being traduced by the deep shipwrack of sleepiness drousiness and sluggishness have neglected the liquors which he himself nameth secondary ones as if a Disease might not be as equally possible in those as in the four feigned primary humours Therefore have they also neglected the Diseases arising from the retents or things retained of Digestions and transplantations because also they have been utterly ignorant of the Digestions and Fermentations themselves even as I have taught in its place Alas How penurious a knowledge hath graced Physitians hitherto whom otherwise if they had been true Physitians the most High had commanded to be honoured For they have considered a Disease to flow forth as an accident produced by its Agent a diseasifying matter wherein therefore that its own efficient is they have in the enterance been ignorant and the patient which they say is the Body of Man First of all They do not distinguish the Agent from the Matter which is most intimate hereunto Secondly Then They deny a Disease to be material because it is that which they suppose to be a meer Quality Thirdly Neither do they distinguish provoking Occasions from the internal Efficient because with Aristotle they suppose every Efficient Cause to be External Fourthly They separate the constitutive Causes from the thing constituted Fifthly They know not the Chain of Efficient Causes with their Products Sixthly They for the most part confound Occasional Causes with their Diseases and Symptomes Seventhly They somtimes look upon a Disease as a Disposition skirmishing between the Orders of Causes and the Body of Man Eighthly They had rather have that very later disposition arisen as they say from the fight of Causes to be a Disease the which to wit should immediately so they say hurt the actions whether in the mean time it be contrary unto a vital action or indeed it be the effect of that contrariety which shall offend the functions But I do not heed the hurtings of Functions for the Essence of a Disease but the operative disturbances extended on the Archeus do I contemplate of in Diseases For he doth often die without a sense of action being hurt who indeed suddainly falls down being in the mean time long diseasie or he that perisheth only by a defect of Nature Wherefore also I reckon it among other impertinencies to have tied up the Essence of Diseases unto the hurtings of the functions seeing that is accidental and latter to Diseases but not alwayes a concomitant Yea truly because a voluntary restoring of the enfeebled faculties doth follow health hence the Schooles have measured the Essence
Heavens And a man by a voluntary Blas and likewise the Archeus by an ideal and seminal Blas stirs up divers alterations But a seminal Agent being inordinate doth through a strange Blas bring forth a Monster which is properly a Disease For although a Disease according to its causes be natural yet in respect of us it ceaseth not to be against nature as well in as much as it began from a forreign Blas as that it carrieth a hostile Blas and raiseth it up from it self And therefore neither doth this Monster generate a Young like it self unless it by serments doth transfer its own seminal contagion and so causeth Diseases in others by accident But as to that which belongs to the efficient cause of Diseases There is in an abortive Birth a certain efficient cause bred within as is a Cataract in the eye the stone in man a Feverish matter the which although it be called by the Schools the efficient immediate and containing cause of a Disease yet it is only the occasional cause of Diseases and external in respect of the life wherein every Disease alway is And therefore neither can such a visible matter not only obtain the reason of a true efficient but neither also can it be of the intrinsecal matter of a Disease it self to be any part thereof It remains therefore the conciting and occasional cause of Diseases Because the efficient and seminal matter if it ought immediately to reach and pierce the vital faculties and so also the life even as also in a point it is altogether necessary that it doth contain a resembling mark of life Even so that also that thing is perpetual in seminal Diseases that a Disease as it is never in a dead carcass so it cannot but be in a living Body Furthermore of efficient causes there is a certain one which is and remaineth external As a sword having obtained an impulsive force maketh a Disease in the divided matter which is called a wound After the like manner is the fretting of the bladder which is made by the Stone For although some external efficients have their own seminal Beginnings whereof they are generated as the Stone yet in respect of the Disease which they produce they want Seeds and therefore are they external and forreign to the Disease it self But internal occasionals have a Seed whereby they nourish the Disease stirred up by them and are also oft-times shut up or finished in their being made As is manifest in a Fever an Imposthume c. In the next place there are occasional efficients which do defile by a continual and fermental propagation As Ulcers the Jaundice c. And there are internal occasionals which do now and then sleep a long time As in the Falling-sickness Gout Madness Asthma Fevers c. Of internal occasional causes also some do uncessantly labour that they may estrange the matter of our Body from the Communion of life Whereto if a Ferment shall come which thing Hippocrates in Diseases calls divine co-meltings of the Body are made But in a Fever the efficient occasional matter according to its double property doth stir up the Archeus unto a propulsion or driving out for the consuming of it self Wherefore neither doth it leave any other product behind it unless a new Idea shall from the Archeus being provoked spring forth by accident In like manner as the Dropsie followeth Fevers c. But let pains drowsinesses watchings weaknessses c. be symptoms and dispositions so also a strange seminal efficient doth beget the Stone and there ceaseth although it thenceforth stirs up troubles every moment and new motions But the product of the Stone are excoriations or gratings off of the skin and new Diseases which are Monsters unlike their Parent For in speaking properly the generation of the Stone is not a Disease and much more the Stone it self which in it self is a natural composition but in respect of us diseasie Wherefore also in the Chamber-pot or Urinal and without the life it is generated by its own causes of putrifaction or stonifying And so it is a monstrous and irregular Disease because it is that which is bred in us by accident and without the life In the next place as soon as the effect or product in its being made hath lost its occasional efficient that product is no longer the very connexion of both causes or the former Disease but it hath its own causes more latter than the connexion of the first causes For so an Imposthume hath brought forth an Ulcer but this weeps a poysonsom liquor this in the next place doth oft-times excoriate changeth the former Ulcer or raiseth up a new one But it nothing pertains unto the causing Ulcer whether its liquor doth afterwards ulcerate or not because there is not in it an effective intention to produce an Ulcer by the liquor Because the corrupt Sanies or liquor it self is the product of the Ulcer causing it which received its effective and seminal intention in its own essence but not for the propagation of a new Ulcer which is therefore unto it by accident The Stone also is the product of its constituting causes which it encloseth and terminates in it self Because the causes thereof being brought unto the end of their effecting do cease in the product and are shut up as if they were buried Although that Stone be an occasional means whereunto the generation of a new Stone happens by growing In the mean time it is to the Stone by accident if it produce other Diseases more cruel than it self yea than death it self But in the Dropsie the efficient Archeus of the Reins in the conception of an Idea begotten by his own perturbation closeth up the Kidneys and a Dropsie is made Yet the former efficient doth not cease even unto the strangling of the person In that Dropsie being caused and the water being produced and dismissed there is not a further intention to produce any other thing After another manner oft-times the product of a Disease seeing it is an in-bred Monster it hath an occasional propagative faculty from the property of the efficient Archeus not enclosed or bound up in the product but free in the Organs of life Whence indeed other products do now and then successively spring forth At least-wise the lavishments of the faculties and life ought not so much to be accounted the products of Diseases as their ordained fruits and symptoms and the periods of these Neither in the mean time is that a Disease by a less priviledge which is produced by a diseasie ferment than was the Disease the Parent of that Product Neither indeed doth it more sluggishly corrupt some vital thing or part by strange efficients being received than that in the primary efficient of whose action the Disease it self is But the Schools do suppose a contrariety of the Disease with health with life and again with the Remedy it self Therefore unto one term they apply many contrary
now made cold then afterwards hot that the whole Body may be cold and hot at the successive change thereof But they are the works and signatures of life not the properties of diseasie Seeds in the matter but meer pessions of the Body thus moved by a Blas from the heat and cold of the Archeus And therefore neither do they any longer happen in a dead carcass as neither after a Disease obtains the Victory neither also when the Disease ceaseth the occasional matter in the mean time remaining 3. That the very thing which worketh heat in us doth efficiently also produce cold Not indeed privatively in respect of heat because cold is a real and actual Blas of the Archeus 4. That no curing is made by contraries as neither by reason of like things because a Disease consisteth essentially in the seminal Idea and in the matter of the Archeus but at leastwise substances do not admit of a contrariety in their own essence 5. That a Disease is primitively overcome by extinguishing of the Idea or a removal of the essential matter thereof 2. Originally by allaying and pacifying of the disturbed Archeus And 3. From a latter thing to wit if the occasional matter be taken away which stirs up a motive and alterative Blas of entertainment that the Idea or Disease may be efficiently made 6. That both the inward causes connexed in the Archeus is the very substantial Disease having in it its proper root But the occasional matter however it be received in the Body is alwayes external because it is not of the inward root and essence of a Disease 7. That Symptoms are accidents by accident breaking forth by excitation or stirring up according to the variety of every Receiver And it is rather a wandring error or fury of our Powers 8. That the Archeus which formed us in the Womb doth also direct govern move all things during life Therefore occasional causes are perceived only in the Archeus who afterwards according to the disturbance thereby conceived doth bring forth his own Idea's which immediately have a Blas whereby they move direct and change and finish whatsoever happens in health and Diseases But the parts of the Body as well those containing as those contained and likewise the occasional causes of Diseases of themselves are dead and idle neither can they move themselves or any other thing Seeing nothing is moved by it self which is not by it self and primarily vital except weight which naturally falleth downwards 9. That the products and effects of Diseases are seminal generations so depending on the Seeds that they do shew forth the properties of these 10. That heat cold heates c. seeing they are not the proper causes of a Disease nor the true products of Diseases but only the symptomatical accidents and signatures of Diseases therefore also neither do they subsist by themselves but they do so depend on Diseases that they depart together with them like a shadow Because they are the errors of a vital light or an erroneous Blas stirred up from Diseases 11. That Diseases are seminal Beings except extrinsecal ones wounds a bruise or stroke burning c. and therefore effects of the Archeus resulting in a true action from the occasionals of the exciter accidentally sprung up in an Archeal error of our Powers 12. That although without the will of a living Creature contraries should be found in nature yet by these there should be no possible restauration of the hurt faculties as neither a pacifying of the Areheus and by consequence no curing if that be even true That Natures themselves are the Physitiannesses of Diseases and that the Physitian is their Minister Truly that thing is proved by the Fire the which by reason of the most intense coldness of the Aire which I have elsewhere proved to be far more cruel than the cold of the Water doth the more strongly flame and burn So far is it that Fire should be exstinguished by cold which is falsly reputed its contrary And moreover neither have the Schooles known that Fire is not extinguished by Water because it is cold moist or contrary to it but by reason of choaking onely The which we daily see in our Furnaces For as the Fire is momentany and connexed unto it self by a continual thred of exhalations hence it is stifled almost in one only moment for so the water because it is fluid enters into the pores of the burning matter and by stopping them up doth suffocate or quench the Fire so also a Mettal or Glasse being fired and burning bright do shine long in the most cold bottom of the Water and in the mean time a Coal being fired is choaked in an instant under the Water Because the pores thereof are presently stopped Therefore Copper burning bright is sooner extinguished than Silver and Silver than Gold But Glasse being fired because it wants pores shines longer under the Water than a like quantity of Gold Yea hot Water doth sooner quench Fire than cold because it sooner pierceth the pores Therein also they have remained dull that they considered our heat alwayes by making a comparison of it with Fire For although the Fire be a Being of Nature yet because it was directed by the most High for the uses of Mortals that it might enter into Nature as a Destroyer and might be as it were an artificial Death therefore it prosecutes its own artificial ends but hath not any thing in its self which may be vital or seminal There is therefore no Fire in Nature if it hath not first arose unto a due degree for a Destroyer wherein it is nothing or little profitable for the speculation of Medicine Surely our heat is not graduated and therefore neither is it fiery neither doth it proceed from the Fire as being weakened or diminished but it is the heat of a formal light and therefore also vital neither therefore doth it subsist in its last or highest degree even as the fire doth For it admits of a latitude and its degree is made to vary according to the provocation if its Blas For although it be from a formal light and in that respect doth live yet through a Blas it doth oft-times ascend higher or is pressed lower as well in healthy persons as in sick folk In the next place it more highly deviates through furies and then it as burnt up uncloaths it self of a vital light and assumes a Caustical or burnt Alcali which thing is seen in moist and compressed Hay where Fire voluntarily ariseth So in Escarrie effects our heat being forgetful of its former life passeth into a degree of fire For through a congresse of lightsome beames and a degeneration of the salt of the Spirits even as in Hay true Fire is bred and would burn us if the Archeus should expect this end of the Tragedy before death Our heat indeed is in the Fire as the number of Two is in the number of Forty yet the Fire is not in
known that the same Humours do become degenerate in the passage of Digestions and are the occasions of many Diseases But that the Liver alone in Vices of the skin doth bear the undeserved blame that is a thing full of ignorance and worthy of pity I will at length moreover commune with Christian Physitians by one only Argument To wit Iâ— is of Faith that God made not Death for Man Because Adam was by Creation Immortal and void of Diseases For concerning long Life I have explained after what manner a Disease and Death at the eating of the Apple as an Effect unto a second Cause have entred into Nature Therefore in this place it hath been sufficient to have admonished That the Concupiscence of the Flesh arose from Transgression and also to have brought forth the flesh of Sin and therefore that Nature being corrupted produced a Disease through Concupiscence I could wish therefore that the Schooles may open the Causal Band and Connexion between the forbidden Apple and the Elements or the Complexions of these Whether in the mean time they are lookt upon as the Causes bringing Diseases or as Diseases themselves To wit let them teach If the Body of Man from his first Creation did consist of a mixture of the Four Elements after what manner those second Causes or co-mixt Elements onely by eating of the Apple which else had never been to fight the Bonds of Peace and Bolts of humane Nature being burst asunder at length naturally exercise hostilities and all Tyranny What common thing I say doth interpose betwixt the Apple and our constitutive Elements But if this came miraculously and supernaturally to passe that Death was made a punishment of sin Then God had made Death Efficiently but Man had given onely an Occasion for Death But this is against the Text yea and against Reason Because Death was made with Beasts in the Beginning even as also at this day unto every one happens his own Death that is by a natural course and a knitting of Causes unto their Effect It must needs be therefore according to Faith that Death crept naturally into Nature so that man was made Mortal after the manner of Bruits For it is certain that at the eating of the Apple the brutal concupiscence of the Flesh was introduced Neither do we read at length of any other knowledge of good and evil to have been brought in which was signified under the opening of their Eyes than that they knew themselves to be naked and then it first shamed them of their nakedness Wherefore I have long stood amazed that the Schooles have never examined the aforesaid Text that they might search out the Disposition or Respect of the Cause bringing a Disease unto its natural Effect In what day soever ye shall eat of the forbidden Fruit ye shall die the Death Which indeed is not so to be taken as if God had said by way of threatnings If ye shall eat of the forbidden Tree I will create or make Death in you Diseases Paines Miseries c. for a punishment of sin or that through a condign curse of my indignation ye and your posterity shall die For such an Interpretation as that resisteth the divine goodness because that for the sin of our two Parents he had equally cursed all their posterity with an irrevocable curse of his Indignation who after sin commited and the Flood it self readily blessed Noah by increase and multiply c. Wherefore those words Ye shall die the death did contain a fatherly admonition To wit that by eating of the Apple they should contract the every way impurity of Nature as from a second Cause seated to wit in the Concupiscence of the flesh of sin But seeing such a concupiscence can never consist in elementary qualities it is also sufficiently manifest that a Disease and Death are not connexed as Effects to the Elements and the qualities of these But the concupiscence of the flesh as it infected onely the Archeus even so also it did onely respect the same In the Archeus therefore every Disease afterwards established it self and found its own onely and immediate Inne And so also from hence the Archeus is made wholly irregular inordinate violent and disobedient Because he is he who from thenceforth hath framed inordinate images and seales together with a spending of his own proper substance as it were the wax of that seal For images or likenesses are at first indeed the meer incorporeal Beings of the mind but as soon as they are imprinted on the Archeus they cloath themselves with his Body and are made most powerful seminal Beings the sealing dames mistresses and architectresses of any kind of passions and inordinacies whatsoever which thing I will hereafter more clearly illustrate in the Treatise of Diseases Finally the adversaries will be able to Object That it would be all as one whether a Disease be accounted a disposition or a distemperature of the first qualities or a disproportionable mixture of humours or lastly whether it be called an indisposition or confusion and likewise that it is as one whether the Cause which brings a Disease he called the occasional or the material Cause of Diseases or the internal and conjoyned Cause thereof For truely the one onely intention of Nature and Physitians on both sides is conversant about the removal of that matter for the obtainment of health Therefore that I am stirred about nothing but an unprofitable brawling concerning a Name I Answer Negatively and that indeed because both the suppositions are false For as to the First For that doth not onely contain a manifest fault in arguing of not the Cause as of the Cause and of a non-Being for a Being But besides the Destruction and Death of mortal men doth from thence follow For for that very Cause for which a Remedy is administred to correct the distemperature of a Discrasie or the abounding or disproportion of humours because of things not existing in Nature they at least cannot deny that our Disputation is of things but not of a Name onely when as to wit they accuse cure or undertake to cure the Disease for the Cause or this for it They handle I say things that are never possible as if they were present And then also they presse a falshood Because indeed I never said that a naked confusion or indisposition of the Archeus is a Disease but I affirme that the immediate and internal matter of a Disease is to be drawn from the masse of the Archeus himself But I call the imprinted seminal Idea which springs from the disturbances of the Archeus the efficient Gause but as to what appertaines to the other supposition the occasional or inciting Cause and the internal containing Cause or the very Body of a Disease do far also differ from each other For example The occasional Cause of intermitting Fevers is present out of the fit which should not be if the occasional Cause were the very internal matter of
Fevers For I have seen some hundreds cured of divers Diseases by some Simples hanged on the Body without any removal of the occasional matter To wit Nature being busie about the rest Thirdly the fits of Diseases are oft-times ended the occasional Cause being present and remaining but it is altogether impossible for that to be while the containing and internal matter of the Disease is present In the next place there are Diseases which have no occasional Cause whose own connexed matter is neverthelesse excussed or struck out about the time of their period even as fire out of a flint They not having I say any other occasion of them besides Ideal impressions such as is the Gout falling-Evil Madnesse Asthma c. To wit whose perfect Cure consisteth in the removal of the seminal Character and incorporeal Ferment not likewise in the sequestration of any matter For so a certain odour being drawn thorow the nostrils hath strangled many without a material vapour or moist sent unto the Paunch However therefore they may strive with me they shall discern and confess with me that hitherto none hath come unto the knowledge of Diseases and that there hath been blindness in Healing hitherto Give leave to the truth It hath therefore been sufficient for me to have demonstrated that Diseases do lead their Armie into us by unknow Seminaries and invisible Beginnings according to that antient Maxim That every direction of Sublunary things depends on an invisible World Hence it hath come to pass that although Diseases have oftentimes been silent and have wholly ceased to be under the uncertain Cures of experiments yet nothing hath been hitherto acted from a fore-knowledge of the means and ends in Diseases of nature standing or sitting Because also they do very often of their own voluntary and free accord hastily run unto the end of their race But in Diseases of nature laying along or prostrated nothing hath been heard hitherto besides the despaires of incurable Diseases and the Lamentations of miserable men What things therefore have been assayed before touching the nature of a Disease let them be Prologues unto those things which remain to be by and by spoken concerning Diseases Where I shall professly touch at or reach the causes of all Diseases in the point of Unity Here only handing forth by the way that Diseases do now issue into depraved and impure nature plainly after the same manner wherein they at first began to be framed and issue And the Schooles will not deny that that thing lay hid to the Heathens and their followers Last of all new Diseases have lately happened unto us and antient ones do hereafter scarce any longer answer unto the names and descriptions of our Ancestours Because they have put on strange signes and properties whereby they go masked and deceive Physitians under the precept of the Antients For I conjecture that from thence there will be almost the greatest destruction of Diseases and so also that from hence the mercy of God will be so much the nearer unto Mortals For it hath pleased the most High to have sent Paracelsus in the forepastage who might propose unto the World the more profound preparations of Medicines so far as it was lawful But at this day afterwards he hath vouchsafed also to open the knowledge of Diseases Wherefore I shortly expect another to come whose Schollar I am not worthy to be For neither therefore hath the most High permitted my self to hope for the coming of the same man who hath sent me before as the publisher of his Praise For truly with him every Disease shall equally find its own remedies under the Stone or Harmony of unity together with the speculative knowledge of Diseases and Remedies I intreat the thrice most great and excellent God that he would preserve the same man from the vanity of arrogancy and from sudden Death sorely threatned unto him by hateful men CHAP. LXIII The Dropsie is Unknown 1. At length the Author shewes that there is the same ignorance of the Dropsie as of other Diseases 2. The Distinctions of Names used by the Schooles 3. He must first strive with the Schooles about the difference of occasional Causes 4. The hurtful ignorance of the humour Latex 5. The Errour of the Schooles is shewit with the finger 6. A cruel Remedy 7. A ridiculous Opinion 8. Some absurd Concomitants 9. A History 10. Absurd Anatomy 11. Some remarkable Histories 12. The Root of Grasse is examined 13. A Stumbling of the Schooles that they may fall 14. The Author answers by Eighteen Arguments 15. The occasional Cause is meditated of 16. The occasional cause is proved 17. Paracelsus is taken notice of 18. A most secure Remedy of Mercury described by Paracelsus 19. Some remarkable things 20. The Dropsie is described by its Causes and by Nineteen Positions 21. An Objection of Paracelsus is refuted 22. The poysonous furie of the Archeus of the Reines 23. A Maxime is preserved 24. The carelesness of the Schooles are to be admired at 25. The Author narrowly searcheth into some hidden things 26. The examination of a thing or matter which seems repugnant unto Science Mathematical 27. The difference of the Latex from the Urine 28. The use of the Kidneys being neglected hath brought forth the ignorance of the Dropsie 29. An Explanation of a new Question 30. The furie of the Reines is the Efficient Cause of a Dropsie 31. The manner of making in a Dropsie 32. It is prooved by a voluntary Cure 33. What the abstinence from Drink in a Dropsie may effect 34. Thirst doth in no wise dry up a Dropsie 35. After what manner the abstaining from drink hath cured the Dropsie 36. All thirst ariseth from the the Reines but not from the Liver as from the slender Veines according to the Schooles 37. The ignorance of Causes hath rendred the Dropsie neglected 38. The Vanity of Hydragogals or Medicines drawing out Water 39. A Remedy of the Dropsie 40. A remarkable thing concerning Briony 41. That the government of the Reines hath hitherto remained unknown 42. A Definition of the Dropsie by its Causes and manner of making 43. An examination of the Tympany 44. A History hath proved to the Nostrils what hath been said 45. The vanity of Carminating Medicines 46. Why Paracelsus perswadeth Dungs 47. Mercury is commended 48. A Bastardly and new Dropsie 49. The preparation of Precipitate and of the Arcanal or secretous Remedies of the Dropsie 50. Universal and pacifical secrets do as yet more powerfully operate I Have made a Treatise concerning Feavers and seeing that no seldome Dropsie is the Metamorphosis of malignant Feavers it seemed meet to me to subjoyne the Treatise of the Dropsie to Feavers yet afterwards when I saw that the Dropsie was solved or loosed by the Reins or Kidnyes I doubted whether the Dropsie were rather to be considered after the Treatise of the Disease of the Stone or whether by way of example I should subjoyn it to the
Treatise of Diseases For truly if the Belly swell through a defect of the Urine therefore the Dropsie seemed to be referred unto the forgetfulness of the Reines But the Stone hath expelled the Treatise of the Dropsie therefore it hath made a Treasie singular to it self But I shall be the less solicitous of order so my proposed Scope of curing be reached with fruit I have made it manifest that the causes of Feavers the Disease of the Stone Apoplexie Palsey Lethargie Leprosie Convulsion Plague Jaundice Colick Flux and other like Diseases are unknown Then in the next place I have alreadie atchieved to demonstrate the same ignorance to be about the knowledge of a Disease in general Now moreover I will shew that the same thing doth happen concerning the Dropsie as it were the heire of many Diseases In the Schools a Threefold Dropsie is observed to wit Anasarca a water between the Skin and the which they call a Leuco or white Phlegmacie as if it did arise from Phlegme and for the most part they confound it with a local Oedema or Phlegmatish tumour And then Ascites follows which is the Dropsie of a proper Etymology being forthwith manifest in the Belly and Legs And the Third is a Tympany or windie Dropsie concluded only in the Belly Because indeed the Abdomen or neather part of the Belly doth extend it self from a Flatus alone or being mixed with a little wheyishness and that no otherwise than as through water and at length that it doth miserably kill by choaking The Tympany is more rare and cruel than Ascites and is easily from the beginning distinguished from an Ascites Because the Patient being rowled on his side doth not feel the water to floate even as otherwise that thing is manifest in an Ascites yea truly Authors do scarce distinguish an Anasarca from an Ascites in its causes or place especially while this begins about the Ancles in the same seminarie place with an Anasarca and Oedema The which if they do enter the deeper into the Belly then they name them Ascites the name of Anasarca and Oedema ceasing And so the degree onely doth varie the species of the Disease in the Schooles But if the whole habit of the Body doth appear Swollen as it were through a poyson being taken they presently think that Phlegm hath committed the crime and do call it a Leuco-phlegmacie Wherefore the water between the skin seemeth again to be distinguished from Ascites onely by degree and therefore they have accused the Liver to be the one only Fountain of them both With the Schools therefore I will talk concerning the occasional causes for why seeing the ignorance of the immediate efficient cause hath hitherto made the Dropsie an unknown guest in us But I could never conceive that the Liver should be the cause of the Dropsie if the whole Dropsie be solved by the Urine and so the Liver doth not offend in generating Urine because it is that which is a natural product of the constitution of our nature so much as the Reines do offend in not emulging or sucking it out Wherefore the vice hath seemed to me to subsist rather in the Kidney than in the Liver And therefore I wholly even from the beginning do decline from the Schooles in the Seminary and Fountain of the Dropsie For because they blame Phlegme in an Anasarca Leuco-phlegmacie Oedema and a Cacochymia or an affect of bad juice that doth not seem to touch an Ascites the which they think to be bred from heaped up Urine or a certain whey of the Blood seeing in very deed they with an earnest countenance distinguish the Urine which they also signifie to be the whey of the venal Blood from Phlegme in its whole principles To wit while Urine is an excrement in its original But Phlegme is called venal Blood being not yet cocted unto maturity For therefore this swims in the Blood throughout its whole for such is their pleasure and is an entire part hereof Whereas in the mean time the Urine wheyie Latex and an Excrement was never fit for or dedicated to nourishment for we must not jest in the principles of Medicine in the Rules in the Causes of Diseases For truly it is seriously treated concerning the skin of man of subverting families yea and of the damnation of Souls For it is not all one whether the Dropsie doth depend on Phlegm or on a vriny Liquor and on both sides to have accused the vice of one Liver For there is a sluggish and stumbling progresse in the searching into Diseases while they refer perhaps two hundred Diseases unto the distemperature of one Liver They have forgotten the while the manners of making and sending Phlegme or Urine unto the bottom of the Belly and not far of elsewhere They have thought therefore that the water of the Dropsie is meere Urine or a metamorphyzing of Phlegme melted into Urine after an unheard of manner hitherto But at leastwise they have been Ignorant of the Latex to be distinct from the Urine among the principles of natural Phylosophy For even as the food is not dung although this be afterwards made of food So neither is the Latex Urine Furthermore it is so confessed that the Dropsie doth universally arise from the error of the Liver alone that when I had once Judged in a written consultation that Count Destaires or Stegrius did labour with a Dropsie of of his Lungs extended from the left part of his Midriffe into a swollen Arm the chief Physitians hissed out this my Paradox with loud laughter because I sought the seate of the Dropsie out of the Liver Yet when after death his Breast was opened perhaps two buckets of water flowed forth the which had run out or digressed between the left part of his Midriffe and Breast into his Arm and Fingers Anasarca therefore seeing it was as it were a lesse and beginning Dropsie it was derived by opening things into the Liver And likewise they hope that the remaining white Phlegme the more crude Blood Urine and Dropsical whey they confound those four in this place will be hereafter dried up by the one onely abstinence from Drink as a capital remedie For in the evening they see the Shanks or Legs that are Swollen in the morning as slender to have fallen They say therefore that the Blood is concocted in sleeping but to be wasted or consumed afterwards into nourishment neither dare they to affirm neither do they say whither it hath departed Neither also do they dare to say that in so small a space of the body and time so such Phlegme being turned into Blood is expelled out of the Legs by an unsensible transpiration of the Skin if they shall not maintain that two buckets of Blood are dayly consumed in a like proportion of one and every night and of the whole Body They are therefore constrained to feign that the more crude Blood or Phlegme being now once hunted out in the habit of
that the Liver being cooled doth afterwards generate the more cold Blood for all Blood being deprived of vital spirit naturally waxeth cold because it is a dead carcase But that a more cold Liver doth melt fleshes into a Dropsical water that can be founded upon no reason 18. The Schooles cannot deny but that a Dropsie is sometimes solved by the Kidneys But there is no reason why the Reines do stubornly close themselves even untill Death because the Liver was more cold than was meet Let these arguments onely as yet suffice the Humourists which are distempered with cold that the Liver may be from a mortal offence Now I will over-add somethings concerning the occasional Cause I will therefore resume the fact of our Treasurer who shewed nothing memorable in this dissection beside Blood out-hunted and hardned in his Kidney to be the occasional Cause of his Dropsie and Death yet while the Stone plentifully stopping the Kidney doth not produce a Dropsie yea although the whole Kidney shall wax brawnie or hard with little Stones and shall reserve nothing of its substance besides skin Therefore the obstruction of the Kidney as such is not the occasional cause of Dropsie But the out-chased venal Blood For so the Woman of Sixty years old having dashed her self against a corner of the Table contracted a Dropsie So those that are wounded in their Abdomen and badly Cured do become Hydropical So out-chased venal Blood lighting and laying on the Menynx or Coate of the Brain doth presently render the countenance swollen with a Dropsie So at length great gripings of the Guts do pour forth Blood out of the Veins into the space bordering on the hollow bending Bowel So those that have the Bloodie-flux And so Drinkers do enter into a Dropsie as something of blood is co-heaped in the hollow Bought of the Bowel But this thing I learned in a Fracture of the Scull and in a Dropsie of the Lungs For there the Blood making oftimes a stop blows up the whole Head and Face as it were with a Dropsie But here I have observed the Blood to have consisted or remained about the conduit of the arterial Vein for neither doth the venal blood degenerate in the form of corrupt Pus unless it be cocted in the hollowness of the Flesh but without the Flesh in a free place the Blood presently waxeth clottie and straight way after it being made more dry is hardened and presently conceives a Poysonous ferment Whence the Archeus stirs up a Dropsie Indeed our Treasurer hath taught me that the blood being hunted out and become clotty causeth a Dropsie of the Belly and besides that the Kidney is an Adequate or suitabl Aertificer Causer Executer and Judge or Arbitratour of a true Dropsie That thing hath confirmed it to me because at the time of a Dropsie the Kidney scarce makes Urine and on the other hand because the Kidney being excited to restore the Urine himself doth empty the whole Dropsie out of the Belly Wherefore also that the water is brought back into the Abdomen by the arbitration of the Kidney Vain therefore is the devise of Paracelsus that the Star Zedo is the one only and singular Architector of the Dropsie For the cause is in our innermost parts and in the very Beginnings of Life but not to be so far fetched and Cured For the Dropsie is not the workmanship of the Stars neither is there such an ordination of the Stars neither is that of concernment although Mercurie being seperated dead from its Vein doth truly and perfectly cure the threefold Dropsie For Mercurie is an Analogical and feigned Name neither doth it denote a Star but a running Mettal For what doth a Name that is Metaphorically feigned belong unto the feigned Star of Zedo For metallick Mercury is neither a Star nor kills a Star nor hinders its operation nor dis-joynes the conjunction of a Star with us if there were any For the Stars are the occasions of Meteors but of Diseases occasions onely by accident For primarily they are the Causes of times or seasons and of the Blas of a Meteor but secondarily and by accident they disturbe our Bodies proyoke Diseases or ripen the occasional matter But Causes by accident do not respect Cures but fore-cautions especially where Causes per se or by themselves do operate with or in us by a proper motion and appointment of their own seeds For indeed the left Kidney of the Treasurer is stuffed or condensed with the more dry Blood the left part of his Abdomen is extended and presently waxeth hard the right part being safe His Leg also presently swels and afterwards his Thigh on his left side and therefore the extension of his Belly is extended not by reason of the quantity of water onely but his Membranes are extended from the Disease it self no otherwise than as the Artery under a hard pulse But the Membranes are extended and contracted also before a plenty of water by the same workman which begets the Dropsie Indeed it contracts all the pores of the Membrane that they cannot transmit or send the Wind or Liquor thorow them when as otherwise in those that are alive that is healthy the whole Body is perspirable and conspirable or inspirable The Treasurer therefore first of all makes a little water the Dropsie straightway invades him by degrees and begins on his left Side And therefore presently after its Beginning his left Leg is besieged by an Oedema and afterwards his whole Body becomes swollen But why doth not his right Kidney draw the Urine nor transmit it the which otherwise happens when but one Kidney is besieged by the Disease of the Stone For therefore there is a double Kidney by Nature and a single Spleen or Milt that one may relieve another in their troubles and banishments of an Excrement Yea and from hence it is sufficiently manifest that the Spleen is not a sink nor emunctory Therefore in the Blood being chased out of the Veins deteined and condensed there is an exciting ferment such as is wanting to the Stone I will therefore declare the whole order of the matter so far as my Observation hath taught me For the Liquor Latex unknown to the Schooles as long as it is carried with the Blood in the Veins or to the Glandules it enjoyes a common life neither doth it obey the rules of water-drawing Organs But it knowes not upwards and downwards because it hath it not But it being once rejected out of the fellowship of Life now it undergoes the nature of an Excrement and hastens downwards as being burthened with its own weight Therefore the Latex is of a vile esteem And therefore as oft as every Bowel is ill affected it presently neglects the Latex and excludes it from the company of its Venal Blood and findes business enough for it self at home for its own defence The Latex therefore being once divorced elsewhere and spoiled of the society of Life doth presently receive
the importunity of times or seasons quantities and strength In the next place there are occasional defects which seeing Good doth bring forth Evil by accident and doth oft-times proceed from our own vital powers are endowed with properties of their own as it were their seminal Beginnings therefore they immediately tend unto the vanquishing of our powers as their end The which therefore I elsewhere call Diseases Potestative or belonging to our Powers But neither is that a Potestative Being which the Schooles do call A Disease by consent and do think to be made by a collection or conjunction of Vapours But a Potestative Being contains the government of a constrained faculty as well in respect of the authority of Life as of the diseasie Being it self the which indeed is born by a proper motion to stir up a Potestative Disease of its own order Just as a Cantharides doth stir up a Strangury And that also is done through a power of internal authority and by the force of parts on parts So an Apoplectical or Epileptical Being being as yet present in the Stomack or Womb shakes the Soul yea and from thence transports the Brain together with its attending powers will they nill they into its own service A Potestative Being therefore doth not only denote a hurting of the Functions but also a government of the part and an occasioning force of a Diseasifying Being prorogued or continued on the subordinate faculties as on the vassals of an Empire It being all one also whether the parts are at a far distance from each other or whether they are near For they are the due Tributes of Properties Yea truly Hippocrates first insinuated that Diseases are to be distinguished by their Inns and Savours And I wish his Successors had kept this tenor But that Old Man being as it were swollen with fury presaged of the future rashnesses of the succeeding Schools and precisely admonished them That they should not believe that Heats Colds Moistures Sharpnesses or Bitternesses were Diseases But Bitter Sharp Salt Brackish c. it self But he sung these things before deaf or bored ears For truly the long since fore-past Ages being inclined unto a sluggishness of enquiring and an easie credulity snatched up the scabbed Theorems of Heats and Colds and subscribed unto them by reason of a plausible easiness and bid Adieu to their Master who having supposed that Diseases were to be divided according to their Innes divided our body into three ranks to wit into the solid part containing or the vessel it self into the thing contained or liquid part and into the Spirit which he said was the maker of the assault The which indeed is an Airy or Skiey and Vital Gas and doth stir up in us every Blas for whether of the two ends you will Which division of Diseases although he hath not expressly dictated yet he hath sufficiently insinuated the same For he wrote onely a few things and all things almost which are born about are supposed to be his And therefore I wish that posterity had directed the sharpnesses of their Wits according to the mind of that Old Man Peradventure through Gods permission they had extracted the understanding of the Causes of Diseases But they afterwards so subscribed unto the Authority of one Galen that they as it were slept themselves into a drousie Evil being afrightned while they are awakened by me But in the Title of Causes I understand in the very inward or pithy integrity of Diseases the matter being instructed by its own proper efficient Cause to be indeed the inward immediate Cause and to arise from a vital Beginning Wherefore also I name those external and occasional Causes as many as do not flow from the root of Life it self And therefore I treat of Causes which are the Disease it self For Bread being chewed and swallowed is as yet external because it may be rejected or cast up again So also the Chyle thereof being cocted in the Stomack is as yet external Yea and which more is after that it is become domestical and although it be made a more inward citizen of our family administration Yet while it is separated from that which is living and rusheth into the Kitchin of Diseases for that very Cause as it is become hostile so also it is to be accounted External in respect of Life So also a pestilent Air being attracted inward although it hath spread its poyson within and in respect of the Body be internal yet it is not yet internal in respect of Life And so neither yet is it the Disease it self to wit whereof it contains only an occasion in it self neither shall it ever lay aside that same occasionality But the Plague is while the Archeus the contagion being applyed unto himself doth separate a part of himself it being infected from the whole For the banishment whereof the remaining part of the Archeus doth Co-laborate and is earnestly careful that it may not be pierced by the Symbole or Impression and perish A co-like thing happens almost in the rest of Diseases For truly the Life is not immediately hurt but by a certain poyson of its own and proper to it which it hath suffered to be applyed unto it self CHAP. LXVII The Subject of inhearing of Diseases is in the point of Life THe Life which is perfectly sound hath no Disease because health presupposeth an integrity which a Disease renteth And so health and a Disease do contradict each other Also Life being extinguished is not a Disease neither doth it admit of a Disease into it Because in speaking properly that Life is a meer nothing and no longer existing But a Disease is hoc aliquid or this someting Thirdly in the next place a dead Carcass however poysonous it be or infected with corruption yet it is no way capable of Diseases Wherefore although a Body while it lives be the mansion of Diseases yet it is not the true internal efficient of Diseases much less also indeed have filths or excrements which are thought to be the constitutive Humours of us a right or property of Diseases But if any part of a Disease be to be ascribed unto inordinate fecuencies or dregginesses truly that tends wholly unto an occasional Cause For truly a Disease is a Being truly subsisting in a Body and composed of a matter and an internal seminal efficient and so also in this respect doth it far sequester it self from occasional Causes Especially because the internal beginnings of things do constitute the Being it self and are unseperably of its essential thingliness So indeed that if we speak of the Body or Soul as Humane both of them is rightly called a man although not an entire man So indeed the matter of a Disease is truly a Disease Even as also the seminal efficient thereof is truly a Disease although it be not properly an entire Disease Therefore seeing that a Disease is only in a live Body but not in a dead one it must needs be
that the Life is the immediate mansion of a Disease the inward subject yea and workman of the same But seeing Life is not essentially of the Body nor proper to the Body but that a Body without Life is a dead Carcass and a Disease is in the Life Of necessity also every matter or mansion and efficient Cause of a Disease doth not exceed the Limits of Life That is of necessity every Disease doth inhabite within the Case of the Archeus who is the alone immediate witness executer instrument as also the inne of Life but Apostemes Ulcers Filths Excrements c. Are only either the occasions of Death and Diseases or the latter products of the same raised up into a new scene or stage of the Tragedy Neither surely is it therefore a wonder that together with the Life all Diseases do depart into nothing if the Life be the immediate subject and mansion of Diseases But I long since admired that no Physitian hath hitherto known in what the essence of Diseases should shine But that they have wandred about Elementary qualities Humours Complexious Contrarieties and Dispositions Neither that indeed they have once observed that as filths are not Diseases so neither are Diseases in filths but that they live only in the Life it self and being included in the same do so arise grow and perish that seeing they are no where out of the Life they ought to be the intimate and domestick Thieves of the Life These things be spoken of the proper receptacle of Diseases Furthermore seeing a Disease is without controversie admitted to be a Being existing in us as in an inne and doth enjoy its own and singular properties and different Symptoms A Disease of necessity is not of the number of accidents because an accident is not of an accident combined with it and distinct from it self in the whole Species For truly sharpness or bitterness is not a property of whiteness blackness lightness or heat But every one of them do stand by themselves Wherefore if a Disease be a Being and not an accident if in the next place it produceth from it self not only alterations diverse dispositions weaknesses c. But moreover doth generate substances degenerating from the ordinary institution of their own nature of necessity also it ought to consist of matter and its own internal or seminal efficient Lastly seeing a Disease is internal as to the life it self it also follows of necessity that the matter of a Disease is Archeal and its efficient cause is vital And that I may speak more clearly every Disease is of necessity an Ideal efficient act of the vital power cloathing it self with a Garment of Archeal matter and attaining a vital and substantial form according to a difference of the slowness and swiftness of Ideal seeds which things indeed have been hitherto unknown by Mortals and those things which follow are as yet more largely supported with this position God made not Death and so far is he alwayes estranged from Death that he refuseth to be called the God of the Dead First of all also although Death doth sometimes invade without a Disease yet for the most part Death follows Diseases so that none doubteth but that that Death is the daughter of Diseases or the second Cause whereby and by means whereof the Life is extinguished That is Death is present but seeing God is not in any wise the Author of Death to wit by whom Death entred into Man who else was immortal and that no more or by a stronger right in the beginning of the World than at this day A Physitian must diligently enquire from whence Death doth causally invade from the beginning and even unto this day that it may from thence be manifest from whence a Disease hath drawn its integrity For truly although it be sufficiently apparent that Death doth contain as it were a privation or exstinction of Life so neither in it self or for its existence it doth not require any substantial form and much less a vital one But surely a Disease as such doth not bespeak a privation but a Being truly subsisting acting by an hurtful act of Life and ensnaring the Life So also it behoveth a Disease to consist in the form of its own thingliness which the Life can receive into it and be informed by it But seeing a Disease arose from the same Beginning as Death did neither is God ever the Author of Death It by all means follows that God is not the Author or Creator of Diseases neither therefore although a Disease hath a certain substantial form Yet it hath not Life nor a vital Light but what it hath borrowed from the Life it self to wit so far as it glistens in the Light of our Life or in that of Cattel But not that a Disease doth require or hath begged a vital Light from the Father of Lights for the being of its seed the which in it self is rather to be named a deadly or mortal thing and altogether estranged from the goodness of God the Creator Therefore although God alone doth create all the forms of all things and the Father of Lights doth give every essential form to wit a vital substantial form and so also the formal substance without any mutual competitor yet that hath not place in Diseases in the forming of which indeed man alone is chief Because the Life of Man alone containeth the second Causes of Diseases and Death Therefore because the Creator God denyeth that he made Death therefore also a Disease For a Disease standeth in the Life of Man and therefore all its quiddity or thingliness depends on the Life of man and that not only Seminally even as otherwise it is proper to all the seeds of any things whatsoever But besides also formally so that the Life of the Archeus or his Flesh and Blood are and do remain the whole formal Cause of Diseases or the effective Cause of the formes of a Disease For he who from the beginning refused to have effected Death or Diseases will never at length thence-forward be willing to have made Death nor Diseases For the Father of Lights will not give his Honour of Creating formal Lights unto any Creature except the Mortal formes of Diseases whereof as neither would he be called the God of the Dead Therefore Man remains the workman of his own Death who the day before was immortal as also of his own Diseases as if he were the Creator of Death So indeed that whereas God hath made vital Lights Man Createth Diseasie Obscure and deadly Idea's or Shapes and such an Idea doth as much differ from a vital Light as a black heat doth from Light Therefore the formal act of Death and Diseases sprang from the action of original Sin and shall so spring even unto the end of the World For the same Cause which in the beginning of the World made Death or the same second natural Cause which gave a natural entrance of Death into
the Generater so also from the impurity of Nature he hath reserved every riotous and voluptuous inordinacy of Concupiscence which is plainly never laid aside as long as there is a living in the flesh of Sin Because it is altogether proper to Nature defiled in Passions For so the Archeus is after some sort sorrowful angry hateth is vexed dispaireth and is burdensome to himself although a man shall procure no such thing to himself or feel it in himself Indeed exundations are made in the Archeus hitherto unnamed because they are proper unto him and not even so much a-kin to humane disturbances whence also excentrical and poysonous Images do bring forth meer Poysons For they are as it were voluntary griefs which gnaweth the Life as the Moth doth the Garment according to the Wise Man These are indeed unnamed Idea's which do bring forth a Disease otherwise lying hid or an hereditary Character to light But if the Brain Heart Spleen c. are the Courts wherein the Prince the Archeus doth celebrate his Counsels Why hath not the very Principal Original Being the Motive one of the Imaginative Faculty also a Phantasie proper or natural unto it self And they do afford in Nature corrupted by Concupiscence irregular exorbitances in that Being especially while he doth as it were withdraw himself from the Commands of the Soul and had rather be of his own right Neither doth it hinder that such Passions of the Archeus are not properly felt in a man which otherwise might seem to be required if they ought to draw out Diseasie and Sealing Idea's But certainly dis-harmonies proper to the Archeus which happen without the commerce of an Organ and the Soul are never felt in a man Neither indeed seeing we know not most dreams yea neither do we know our selves to have dreamed unless there be made a certain mutual passing over of Faculties into an Inne For doth the Generater perceive that he doth form an Idea which shall a while after build so proud an Edifice For doth he once think at least-wise of forming the young things to be done For in the lust or desire the mind is after some sort alienated and doth as it were withdraw it self in the mean time while the Archeus doth imprint his own Image without the imaginative faculty The Archeus therefore being retired without the assemblies of his Court is molested or vexed within his own possession as it were with a certain wearisomness for neither do the irregularities of the Archeus strain themselves unto the rules of passions and of mental Idea's especially while he doth violently wander from his Offices yea and from the command of the mind whence there are Idea's which are the authoresses of sloath and from hence is slowness of digestions negligence omission with a certain unappetite of Life c. Of what sort are the immoderate desires of eating bearing rule knowing having or possessing subduing revenging enjoying c. And so the Idea's of these conceptions do beget dissolutenesses desires lavishments and unsufferances From whence at length there are neglects of the digestions of distributions and government expences voluptuous provocations irresolutions loads or burdens crabbishnesses c. Whence at length Plagues also unknown Monsters of Poysons venoms and likewise dissolute or wasting Diseases and the poverties of an Atrophia or lack of nourishment for that sort of Idea's are destitute of counsel and formed without his wonted Courts And therefore their Matrimonies and Ministeries are no more regular than the nativities of the same Therefore the Archeus having slidden into his own proper and riotous irregularities being wholly Symptomatical and impatient is as it were mad doth sometimes forsake the rains of government the which otherwise can never be idle sometimes snatcheth them up again being interrupted sometimes operates more slowly and is hastily affected with his own heaviness or weariness Yea in the midst of the fulness of his pleasures he stirreth up torments to himself as a being plainly irrational for the exercise of the Digestions being interrupted a nourishable Humour being detained in the sixth digestion through to much delay conceives the forreign ferment of an abounding digestion and is frustrated of its end For from hence again the Archeus being as it were greatly affrighted and as it were repenting him of his carelesness doth rashly move all things But I cannot meetly explain the means whereby the Archeus doth make his own voluntary excentricities nor decypher the Idea's of these by a proper Etymologie if they are invisible unpercievable and made in the withdrawing of the Archeus from corporeal Offices For I have not known the manner or mean whereby seminal Beginnings do express their natural endowments the which is plainly unknown unto me from a former thing or cause For I counterfeit it by conjectures only attained from a similitude or like thing Indeed by things regular in Man I have made conjectures which another more judicious than my self may explain but it hath seemed to me that it would not be worth my labour for these things to be now wholly searched into according to individuals but that it is sufficient as well in knowing as in healing to have withstood generated Idea's and to have taken away all disorder from the Archeus peradventure by one only Arcanum or Secret of which hereafter more largely Therefore ye that will give a wished peace to your Studies and to the complaints of the Sick seek and ye shall find But besides all potestative Diseases do assent to the Doctrine already delivered and those which do as it were wax fresh again without any co-touching of filths And of that sort are first of all hereditary Diseases infused by the generater with the seed To wit whose Idea's do patiently wait for some years before they are manifested in the off-spring yea and sometimes in a late Nephew Secondly Diseases which do sleep through long silences of dayes and which do now and then relapse do convince of the same thing Thirdly con-centred Diseases which I else where call the tortures of the Night And Fourthly Diseases of a disproportioned virtue do declare the same the which I call an unequal strength But as to what concerns hereditary and posthume Diseases It is certain that a Diseasie Idea is transplanted being decyphered in the seed of the Parents Not indeed that the generater hath the character of any conceived passion or Disease proposed unto himself in generating from an appointed end But as I now attend to speake the Archeus in the act of generation conceiveth a pleasure whereby he being withdrawn from the Body into his own center ought by so much the nearer to reflect himself on the Soul as it were another extream from the Body from whence he receiving a vital Light cannot but be filled with Vigour and receive his own seminal Image indeed the cause of fruitfulness For it is proper to him in all his pleasures to contemplate on himself with a well-pleasing in his
constancy but not a hastened Corruption And it hath compleated its circle of generation through a long favour of the Heaven and it seemeth to be that which by a particular ordination is directed by the Almighty for the help of the Miserable and Poor 2. Drif is not of those unwonted Arcanums not bestowed by God but on a very few Adeptists they only being certain of his choice Disciples For truly our Drif seemeth to be only ordained for the comfort of the Poor 3. Drif requireth that it be indeed of a Natural Body partaker of a Metallick bounty but that before it be first made obedient and openea by Death not indeed with an extinguishment of its Virtues or Faculties or like a Carcass dying of its own accord but the benefits of its natural Endowments being retained that it be unlocked by the Artificer being free from its bolts and as it were raised up again yea that it be an enriched and plainly a new Being and rising afresh from the fire 4. And therefore it ought to have risen again being as it were altogether Volatile after Death and spiritual or to be twice or thrice sublimed with other things added unto it 5. But because volatile things do soon perish are dispersed and dissolved even before they are admitted within do pierce and draw their excellencies out of their Bosome or so are able to pacifie the Archeus therefore Drif requires that after its volatility being obtained it be connexed unto a certain friendly Body whereby it may be detained and in its Bride-bed be communicable unto mans Body and grateful and familiar unto our Archeus And therefore it ought to obtain that thing as it were a middle place between a Body that is easily and not easily difflable or to be blown away And likewise it ought to be connexed unto its mean while its heat being now almost at the highest it shall be mild to wit least the volatitle Body in the co-kniting do in a great part of it fly away 6. And for this cause it ought to be plainly fermental not onely in its constancy of Body but in the extension of its virtues so that through the least participation of its Odour it may be able to extend its virtues into the Archeus and to sleepifie and asswage the same In which Six Particulars as Drif is described so in a like Number its Composition is discovered First of all In the Book of the Disease of the Stone in the dainty dish for Young Beginners I have explained a manner of Distilling whereby the Spirit of Sea-Salt is drawn or allured forth with Potters Earth being dried For the Salt of the Sea is akin unto us and desireable by us neither is it adverse unto us in any of its Tenour Therefore for Drif the residing Salt of the Sea remaining in its Dreg is required to wit it being extracted from its Dreg or Lee which is called the Caput Mortuum or Dead Head That Salt I say being now spoiled of its Spirits doth desire strange ones and doth lay them up within it self yet it doth not altogether stubbornly fix them 2. I have likewise taught That the first Being of Venus or Copper cannot be sequestred but by the Death and Separation of its Mercury from its Sulphur But moreover that neither is that Sulphur to be had but in the possession of Adeptists whose number as it is choice and most rare so also it is altogether small 3. I have taught moreover That in Vitriol however its Venus being now depraved and the more often distilled yet that the very actual Venus doth as yet remain 4. Wherefore Drif it self requires at least-wise a Sequestration of the Venus from the Feces or Dreg of the Vitriol which is not otherwise compleated than by Subliming 5. Which Sublimation is also of necessity made and perfected by a forreign fermental Being yet altogether friendly to the Archeus 6. Therefore the Sea Salt extracted out of its Dreg being poured forth before its every way co-thickening Let about a threefold quantity of the Being of Venus being raised again by Subliming and accompanied with its strange or forreign Ferment be co-mixed with it and presently let the roof be covered But when they shall become wholly cold beat them into a Powder under Marble and adjoyn thereto about a tenfold quantity of Usnea or the Moss of a Dead Man's Skul in respect of the Ens or Being of Venus Which Powder compact thou into Trochies upon a Stone with mouth or fish-glew being dissolved And thou hast a Noble Medicine CHAP. LXXX Of material things Injected or Cast into the Body 1. What material things are Cast in from without 2. Some Histories 3. The Matter of the Deed is admitted yet it is Disputed concerning the Manner of Injection 4. The penury of Judgement in a Searcher out of Magical things 5. That it doth not exceed Nature that a solid Body is derived without breaking by a Passage far more narrow than it self 6. A History rehearsed by Cornelius Gemma 7. Some Histories of the piercing of Bodies 8. The piercing of Bodies in passing thorow to a Place is proved 9 The same thing in passing thorow out of a Body 10. There hath been a familiar piercing of the Dimensions of humane Nature 11. The same Property doth sometimes persist in the Seeds of things 12 After what manner those things may naturally happen 13. By a like Example in dark Bodies which cease to be seen 14. A Reason by a Conjecture 15. There is an especial and free force concurring in Enchanting and therefore also natural unto man 16. A man as he is the Image of God doth create some Beings which are something more than Non-beings 17. In an imagined Being or a formed Idea there is a right of Entity or Beingnesse 18. After what manner an Idea may fall out from the Imagination 19. How the Soul of man doth create Images 20. An Objection is Solved 21. Some Paradoxes of the imagining Soul for the constituting of an Idea ANd then also there are things Injected or cast into the Body which do suppose a visible matter Of which sort are Darts or Arrow-heads Sharp Thornes Chaffs Haires Sawings little Stones shels of Eggs and earthen Pots Parings or Shels and Husks Insects Naperies or pieces of Linnen Cloath Needles Instruments of Artificers the which are indeed unsensibly darted into the Body and do enter altogether after an invisible manner yet are they detained and cast forth with cruel Torments And it may be are oftentimes greater than their hole whereby they are sent in For of late there was part of a Buffe or Oxe Hide Injected thorow the pores of the skin the skin remaining entire the which the Chyrugion drew out with his Tongues unto the bigness of the Palme of ones hand Yet an Aposteme was first ripened But a Witch being burnt at Bruges confessed that she had cast in that piece of Hide into the good Man So in times past we
speedy adhering of Smoaks in our Pipes But they having gotten possession within they will not refuse it by Vegetables For they will scarce receive a healing Medicine unless by Secrets of the same Monarchy Wherefore I have not found any help from the Manna of a Nettle and likewise from Semper-vive boyled in the beestings or first-stroakings of Milk c. The which I with the leave of Paracelsus do thus maintain and they who shall be willing to make tryal I trust will subscribe with me CHAP. LXXXVI Things Suscepted or Undergone THe fourth kind of things Received I call things Suscepted such as are Wounds made by a Point or a Cut or Stroak by Darting Beating Casting Renting Biting Bruising Congealing Scorching or Burning or Straining Likewise breaking of a Bone Displacing Binding close Pressing together and in brief whatsoever things are immediately subjected unto the Chyrurgion For truly Ulcers which are bred not by a Wound rashly cured seeing they are nourished by an internal Principle they singularly have respect unto a Physitian And by so much the more evidently because any kind of Ulcers and how malignant soever are perfectly cured by Arcanums taken in at the mouth Therefore Arcanums being obtained the Chyrurgion being in penury will at sometime be idle who is to be occupied in manual labour only about things Suscepted or undergone But because the fulness of dayes hath not yet brought Arcanums into use hence there is a Liberty for Chyrurgions to invade the Physitian In the mean time I stay not in the difference between Diseases of the similar and organical members which is so greatly enlarged in the Schooles Because I measure a Disease by its Archeal and immediate Causes but not by the hurtings of the Functions Especially because all parts how organical soever do not depart from their homogeniety or sameliness of kind For neither do I judge it to be of concernment whether many Offices do concurre in one part or whether there be a particular defect of particular Offices Because the eye being thrust out a Disease doth not succeed but a Death of the power of Seeing And therefore an incarnating being introduced over it causeth an healing of the Wound but doth not restore the Death Neither likewise do I clash with my self although I have elsewhere said that all Diseases do arise and are nourished from seminal Beginnings But I will teach in this place that Wounds undergone by a Sword do operate in entering after the manner of artificial things Because the Diseases of things Suscepted are not so long as they are in their being made but after their being undergone For things suscepted have that thing peculiar unto them that by themselves they rather introduce Death than a Disease For it is by accident that a Wound doth cut asunder the fleshy part or the Heart it self or an Artery And therefore a Wound in its beginning doth threaten Death on the part whereon it is inflicted and Susceptions do alwayes savour of the nature of artificial things For Susceptions have first of all deceived the Schooles For they have argued after this manner A Sword woundeth that which is continual or holding together being divided is wounded But dividing is nothing but a relation of terms and yet a Wound is a Disease Therefore every Disease consisteth onely in a relation or at least-wise in a disposition or effect of that relation Which is to say That a Disease is either a Being of Reason or a Non-Being such as is the relation of Terms or that a real Being doth arise from the Being of Reason But I who do not destinguish Internal connexed Causes from the thing it self do call Poysons Foods a Sword c. Occasions I call a Wound an absolute or sore threatned Death of that which is continual But when they have brought their force into the Archeus so that this shall be wroth through things applyed unto himself I referre that which is imprinted by things Suscepted among Primary Diseases For as soon as a Sword hath divided that which held together the action of a violent occasional Cause being darted into the Archeus is present and this Archeus soon begins his tempests that is Diseases CHAP. LXXXVII Things Retained in the Body THe Treatise of things Received being finished I now proceed unto things Retained But in things Retained let it be sufficient once and seriously to have admonished of this That although they are onely the occasional Causes of Diseases yet I have been willing to distinguish of Diseases according to the things Retained that I might Retain the antient names of Diseases But that the Chapter whose Title is That the Knowledge of a Disease in its universality hath remained unknown hitherto is sufficient for a fore-caution of those things which are to be spoken of things Retained Whither I refer the Reader For truly all particular things which are Retained do stir up their own Invasions on the Archeus and from thence also the differences of Diseases But those are things Retained which are either taken into the Body from without or are bred as domestical things within by an internal inordinacy For seminal things whether they shall be forreign or homebred do on both sides stir up a memorable effect of their disorder on the Archeus Which thing is easie to be seen even in a simple Lacryma or Tear of the Eye Because it is that which by a healthy motion of the Spirit is wholly discussed or blown away without feeling or trouble The Spirit of the Eye being badly disposed it is wholly thickened waxeth clotty or is changed into a gnawing Liquor In the next place things Retained do not onely vary in their unlikeness of Form but also are changed by reason of the dispositions of the Body For the Body as it is more or lesse transpirable doth vary Diseases For some things retained are discussed neither do they leave behind them the Root of stirring up a Relapse Sometimes also they are forgetful of this bounty they leave an occasional matter and herewith oftentimes fermental adulterous impressions as off-springs which do stir up new Heirs or Products from themselves in the Archeus Because the inward pores also do sweat as the whole Body is transpirable and as liquid things are derived into a strange harvest The which because they are brought out of their own cottages they are therefore soon spoiled of their common Life are most speedily coagulated as I have said concerning the Tear of the Eye or do remain resolved into a liquid Poyson For so the matter of Coughs the Dropsie Pose Flux Pissing-Evil Apostems and Ulcers are bred For the retained curdlings of some things do stick the more stubbornly fast are slowly or never resolved or they do of their own accord think of a dissolving and melting or they leave an impressional symptome in the Archeus introduced for a perpetual remembrance of relapses For so the seeds of Diseases being ready to depart elsewhere do depart awry or
mishapen And so in the next place Diseases do vary in respect of a six-fold Digestion being hindred inverted suspended extinguished or vitiated Diseases also do vary in respect of the distribution of that which is digested For a proportioned distribution doth exercise the force of distributive Justice due to every part But if they are disproportioned now there is an infirm and necessitated distribution and that as well in respect of the natural functions which are never idle as of a continual transpiration and from thence for the sake of an uncessant necessity But that disproportion is voluntary and as it were an overflowing distribution in respect of a symptomatical expulsion by reason of a conspirable animosity of the disturbing Archeus or at length the distribution is disproportioned as it is necessitated in respect of penury or scantiness whence at length also no seldom dammage invadeth the whole Body To wit while in some part the nourishment degenerateth is ejected and so is wasted Such as is the Consumptionary spittle in Affects or Ulcers of the Lungs a Snivelly Glew in the Stone in the Gonorrhea or running of the Reines c. For seeing the part its nourishment being once defiled and degenerate is thenceforth never nourished but despiseth and thrusts that forth yet by reason of a sense of penury that ceaseth not continually with importunity to crave new nourishment from the dispensing faculty and to obtain it by its importunity that it may satisfie its thirst Therefore new nourishment is many times administred unto it and is withdrawn from its other chamber-fellows because a sufficient nourishment for all parts is wanting From thence therefore is Leanness an Atrophia a Tabes or lingring Consumption and an impoverishment of all necessary nourishment So indeed Fluxes Bloody-Fluxes Aposthems Ulcers and Purgative things do make us lean and exhaust us For the infirm parts are like the Prodigal Son because they do waste and unprofitably cast away being those which have badly spent whatsoever was distributed unto them and the other parts do lament that lavishment Things Retained that are taken into the Body offend onely in quality or quantity or indiscretion or inordinacy For if they are immoderate in quantity if frequent or too rare for numbers are in quantities also one onely error doth sometimes give a beginning unto a Disease whereas in the mean time otherwise Nature makes resistance for some good while But Poysons received Solutive Medicines and likewise altering things which are too much graduated do chiefly hurt in quality Discretion also doth offend in things assumed if they are taken rashly out of their hour and manner As if the Menstrues be provoked in a Woman with young or in a Womb that doth excessively flow For indiscretion doth every where bring forth a frequent inordinacy when as any undue thing is cast into the Body or required the scopes of Causes and betokenings of being unknown Also harmless things which are cast into the Body are vitiated onely by their delay and long continuance of detainment And they become the more hostile by how much they shall be the more familiar or the further promoted for truly by reason of a mark of resemblance sometime conceived they do the sooner ferment and more deeply and powerfully imprint their enmities And as by things Assumed things Retained are sometimes at length made inbred So by things inbreathed Diseases are oft-times made like unto those made by things Retained For some inspired things are Retained and do affect the same parts which things Retained do Otherwise they differ in their internal Root as much as breath doth from drink and as much as food from blood But before I descend unto inbred Retentions it is necessary to represent the unknown Tragedy of the chief or primary Diseases Because inbred Retents do for the most part take their beginning from primary Diseases For indeed I have already before distinguished of all Diseases that they do either affect the Archeus implanted in or inflowing into the parts Although in both cases Diseases do proceed by the forming of Idea's The which I will have to be understood of primary ones To wit out of whose bosom superfluities do arise or degenerate which give an occasion for new Idea's or onsets of Diseases For it is scarce possible that the Archeus being remarkeably smitten by a voluntary Idea of a Man or the Archeus a lot of Disaster should not arise in the inferiour family-administration of the Body from whence the Digestions themselves first of all wandering from their scope do frame the pernitious collections of Superfluities whereby the primary distemperatures of the Archeus are nourished to wit if they shall proceed from the same root That is if the root of a primary Disease shall produce its like to wit the former Idea of exorbitancy persisting or the new off-springs of Diseases are stirred up But at leastwise after either manner the aforesaid Excrements are the Products of primary or the chief Diseases But primary Diseases are either of Idea's Archeizated to wit by the proper substance of the influous Archeus issuing into the composure of the Body the which indeed he by reason of his madness wasts And such kind of Diseases are oft-times appeased by Opiates yea are also utterly rooted out Because they are for the most part the off-springs of a more sluggish turbulency The flame of the chaffe either ceasing from a voluntary motion or being silent at the consuming of the Archeus informed by the vitiated Idea But Idea's arising from the implanted afflictions of the vital Spirits whether they are the governing Spirits of the similar or organical parts they do for the most part disturb the family-administration of Life especially if the Archeus being badly disquieted in some principal bowel shall form the Idea's of his own hurt For then he brings forth most potent afflictions Yea sometimes those remaining safe for term of Life For as they are the Rulers of a greater nobleness and more eminent power So also they draw forth the more efficacious Idea's and do propagate Diseases of a prostrating nature Because the Powers themselves the In-mates of the more noble parts are defiled with the same Images as it were with Seals the which diseasie Products arising from thence the foot-step of the Seal being as it were received into themselves do afterwards linkingly expresse through the ranks of the Digestions For so the primary Diseases of the Bowels do abound neither do they hearken unto Remedies but of a more piercing wedlock yea and do bequeath their inheritances on Nephews The Arcanums of which sort I have reckoned up in the Book of Long Life to wit the which do every one of them represent the Majesty of an universal Medicine Although I will not deny but that there is that Majesty in some the more refined Simples which can heal particular primary Diseases The Galenists do laugh at the promise of a generality but every Bird doth utter his voice according to
changed for those only shall rise again changed who shall rise again glorified in the Virgin-Body of Regeneration which change the Apostle understood because that He who is not born again cannot enter into the Kingdom of God And therefore He that shall rise again being not born again by consequence also shall not be changed from his antient Being if he shall rise again from Death neither therefore also shall he have entrance unto Gods Kingdom because by the new Birth the whole Man is made Spirit And therefore he which shall rise again from the new Birth shall rise again in a spiritual Nature Otherwise He that is born of the Flesh and not born again of the Spirit shall hear indeed the Voice of him that is born of the Spirit but shall not know from whence it may come or whither it may go This indeed is the changing of Bodies into Spirit and the change of Bodies in the Resurrection or it is the Glorification of those that are to be saved after the Resurrection But other Sins were expiated indeed through Repentance with the victory and triumph of the Lamb but the loss of that Virginity and primitive Purity doth without Regeneration reserve an Eternal Spot of Impurity and Uncapacity No otherwise than as a virginal conservation and Integrity of the re-born Faithful gives unto Virgins that are born again a Golden or Laurel Crown equalized unto Martyrdom Christ therefore as he is the Father of this Virginity so also the Father of the Age to come But those that are to be saved are his own new Creature and new Regeneratition Who to wit hath given them Power to become the Sons of God unto these who believe in his Name who are born not of Bloods nor of the Will of the Flesh nor by the Will of Man but of God after a most chast manner of the holy Spirit by whom before the brutal Concupiscence of the Flesh arose it was decreed that altogether every Man ought to be born of his Mother being a Virgin Therefore Christ being the Top and Lover of Chastity doth distinguish Men as well in this Age or Life by Chastity as in Heaven and will grace them with an unimitable and eternal Priviledge For a great Company followed the Lamb whithersoever he should go and Sang the Song which no other was able to Sing But these are they who are not defiled with Women For there are Virgins of both Sexes Because there shall not be there Jew or Greek But they are all one in Christ For the Almighty hath chosen his Gelded Ones who have Gelded themselves for the Kingdom of God its sake of whom is the Kingdom of Heaven Therefore married Persons are reckoned to be defiled with Women and Mothers to have conceived their off-springs in Sin and in this thing are far inferiour to Virgins For indeed because the Gospel promiseth unto Mortals not only that the Son of God was Incarnate and suffered for their Salvation But that moreover these two Mysteries least else they should be frustrate are to be applyed unto individual Persons I indeed contemplate thus of this Application that as man through the Sin of lust brake no less the Intent of God than his Admonishment and the humane Nature was therefore afterwards radically Corrupted and that thereupon another and almost brutal Generation thereof followed Therefore the joyful Message hath included as well an Abolishment of Original Sin as of other Sins consecutively issuing from thence Who by dying destroyed our Death not his own because he had none The which is not understood of temporal Death for the righteous Man as yet to this day dyeth just even as before the Passion of the Lord but of Eternal Death Therefore seeing man since the Fall ought to be Born Increase and Multiply no longer from God but from the Bloods of the Sexes by the Will of the Flesh and of Man nor from thence could ever be able to rise again of himself and to re-assume his lost and antient purity nor cease that he might again begin to be otherwise and better therefore the joyful message hath brought an assurance unto us that Baptisme should be unto us for the remission of sins through a new birth of Water and of the holy Spirit That our mind as it were through a new Nativity of its Inne by Regeneration might be partakers of the unspotted Virginity and humanity of our Lord. Which New-birth doth indeed repose the Soul into its former state to wit by taking away the sin or debt and the stinks or noisomenesses thereof but by reason of the continuance of Adamical flesh in which the Immortal Mind liveth the antient possession or inclination unto sin is not taken away nor is there a translation of the corruption drawn from the impure original of the blood of Adam But that this is really so we are perswaded to believe For God doth manifestly daily grant a testimony of that actual Grace and attained Purity to be derived into the Body of those that are Baptized through a true and substantiall Regeneration as well in Body as in Soul For truly for this end and in this respect alone Mahometans are Baptized for a proper reproach because Baptisme from the fact or deed done however unlawfully it be administred and received takes away from them for the future the noisomness inbred in them otherwise to endure for their Life time such as in all the Hebrews or Jewes in many places up and down we do daily observe to be with loathing and weariness The true effect therefore of Regeneration and its co-promised character doth much shine in Baptisme even outwardly also in a defectuous Body And the enemies of the Christian Name do serve us for unvoluntary witnesses unto this thing Yea the perpetuity of the same Effect confirms the unobliterable Character or Impression of Baptisme and the wickedness of it being repeated But the New-birth by Baptisme doth not yet for that Cause take away a necessity of Death For Baptisme forsaketh its own with the fardle of a defiled and Adamical body begotten by the Will of Man And for that Cause also the Soul as subject unto the Vices of the corrupted Body and of a Will long agoe corrupted Wherefore by reason of the frailty of Impure Nature also an easie inclination and frequency of Sinning Baptisme hath been scarce sufficient for those of ripe years otherwise for the more younger sort it is abundantly sufficient Therefore the Sacrament of the Altar is Wine which buddeth forth Virgins Which is as much as to say the end and scope of the Lords Incarnation or of the instituted Sacrament of the Eucharist should bud forth Virgins as demonstrating that the intent of the Creator from the beginning esteemed of and reckoned upon Virginity alone and of how great abhorrency Numb 25. Luxury is in the sight of the Lord. For although Bigamy or a Plurality of Wives and likewise a dismissing of ones Wife and much loosing of
Errour of the separating Faculty doth reach to the Urin-pipes The matter is thus Surely the Urin-Vessels consist of a moist Membrane whereinto as nothing which is not of its own Nourishment doth the more piercingly enter So the Oyle although it should wholly washingly flow thither it should not performe that in a living Membrane which otherwise it might do in dry and dead Parchment So far is it that the Urin-Vessels being fore-occupied and moistened with their own Nourishment and Urin can receive or assume unto them any oylie Substance For truly there is not an easie Combination of Oyl with Water and the too much swift Passage of the Oyl should come as slow for the enlargment of the Urin-pipes Let us therefore account them to be sent Dreams because the Urin-Vessels are never enlarged or extended but by a more gross compaction of a Body but that was not the Office of Oyl or Liquor For indeed a Urin-vessel is loosely and softly moist of it self and being content with its own Urin refuseth any further Liquors Therefore it is enlarged only by the Stone that is by the diseasie Cause and being once amplified it doth not fall down or contract again As may be seen that Stones being by degrees increased are more easily expelled than when long before being the least Ones But they will say loosening Medicines being drunk up that is such as extend the Urin-pipes the miserable Diseased are sometimes holpen Wherefore enlargments of the Urin-pipes do also happen I wish that he may want successes whosoever he be that thinks Deeds are to be taken notice of in Phylosophy from the event which Deeds an Effect by it self is never wont to attribute unto Causes by accident For any the more sweet Liquor shall perhaps infect the Urin and shall render it more washy through its mixture these things indeed shall be for a delight and refreshment in re-pressing the Cruelty of Symptomes but it is not therefore lawful to infer that the more sweet Juice being drunk the Stomack Veins or Urin-pipes are either enlarged or at least-wise more apt for Enlargment For if any thing that is drunk should render the Urin-Pipes more extensive in their Latitude Truly that shall dissolve and enlarge the Stomack because it being deputed for the sustaining of a greater weight of Foods shall on every side suffer an Extension and as yet so much the rather because that at the time of the head-long violence of the urgent Stone much Vomiting doth excessively molest the Stomack and therefore should pluck it abroad even unto a tearing Hitherto nothing of Remedies hath been heard of in so great a Calamity Wherefore we coming nearer unto a censure of those Medicines which have hitherto seemed by a gentle Abstersion also those which by a certain Property have seemed to drive out the Stone with leave we will ingeniously declare For although the Powders as well of Herbs Seeds Fruits Liquors and Waters as of Stones and Minerals the Cruelties of Symptoms being appeased have at length brought forth the Stones and Sands what I pray you more famous thing hath even there been done besides a curing of the present Fit Surely we have done no otherwise than he who hath appeased a Fit of the Falling-sickness I say we have on both sides plucked off only some one particular Fruit of the Disease the Tree being un-touched by the Axe and the Root remaining safe Therefore whatsoever things we hope shall chiefly profit those that have the Stone we will perfectly teach in two Heads First That an Expulsion of the Stone be not intended for something less cruel becomes a Physitian than that which Nature her self almost failing under her weight is voluntarily buised about as being disturbed by the sting of Symptoms but it s one only Dissolution The Bolts of coagulation I say being loosed the Stone is by a solution to be reduced into a Liquor by a retrograde Conversion to wit into the matter from whence it grew together by a Composition or Conjunction Let the second Head be and that indeed a more famous one That the stonifying Inclination be taken away To wit the which even still persisting nothing worthy of returning thanks is done For indeed it is manifest by the Example of the Urin abovesaid that every Man hath a potential Stone in his Urin for that thing the Condition of the Microcosm or little World did require if it ought on every side to express the Macrocosm or great World but that he is only miserable to wit in whose Urin a Power of stonifying lying hid is actually unfolded within his Skin Therefore it is altogether necessary that there be in the Powers of the things or parts of that miserable Man a certain Impression I say a sealing Gorgon-Mark by reason whereof the Powers themselves also are too exactly exquisitely stickingly and thorow searchingly incumbent about the separation and examination of the Urin from whence there is then in that Shop made an actuating of that Tartar which before did grow as a watery Matter throughout the whole Urin. But seeing that the sealing Notes and Impressions of Diseases do not co-here with Species but with Individuals only we must never despair but that the Impression being brought in may as vanquished give place unto a certain more strong and bountiful Ascendent it holding its Inn in manner of a Tyrant An Inclination therefore unto the Stone shall be wholly taken away if the Power it self doth no more hereafter labour in an actual Separation of the Tartar from the Urin. Therefore that over-exquisite separating Faculty is to be laid asleep And that in no wise surely by an induced Drowsiness of Opium or by the sloath negligence and rest of the like Stupefactives Far be it But there is a Planetary Power in the Remedy of Casta Venus or Agnus Castus by a specifical Property so restraining all elaboration of Urin in the Reins that the Kidneys being for the future through a sweet idleness as it were occupied in sleep do give them to rest indulging only their own Nourishment This therefore is the golden Peace in us which in Politicks commands every one to attend only his own Offices but not to be intent on the Offices of others that he may obtain rest or quietness Where it is to be noted That the action and permanent Operation is to be dispatched not on the Powers of Bodies but indeed of Powers if the vanquishing Faculty shall so overome the vanquished one that it shall for the future yield it self into the Army of the Victress Under which by-work it is plainly enough to be seen that the chief Crases or constitutive Mixtures of Medicines are not but in the most refined Liquors because the Spermatick and first constituting things have not any commerce with the more gross compaction of Bodies Furthermore for the obtaining of that wished for peace in the Reins we have succesfully hitherto used and enjoyed the Medicine of Aroph or Man-drake by
Paracelsus described in his Books of the Faculties of the Members I here do hear Whisperers who are wont to swallow nothing but afore-chewed things accusing the unthought of darkness of Words Those Coale-men they say do expose their Medicines unto us hand to hand and afford unto us ocular Demonstrations But that is a new rule of learning the Phylosophy of Pythagoras Let them first buy Coals and Glasses and let them first learn those things which watching successive Nights and Expences of Moneys have afforded us the Gods do sell Arts to Sweats not to Readings alone Therefore the Example of Acâ—aeon affrighteth me from daring indeed to expose Diana to an open view being spoyled of her Garment He that can apprehend it let him apprehend it Depart thou therefore from thine own self and bid farwell to accustomed things who presumest by an easie Compendium of readings to search into the innermost Chambers of Nature But besides whereby we may give satisfaction unto the former head of a full Cure a searching out of a Medicine for the every way safe and secure Dissolution of the Stone did remain 1. Therefore it is fit that it be changed into Urin to wit that it may touch the Place affected 2. That it have in it a Power of loosing the Bolts of the Stone For it is the Gift of God which Art doth not provide but only sequestreth and extracteth 3. That it possess that thing in a specifical and appropriated Property but not in second Qualities because they are for the most part frail things failing in time of Preparation or Infamous through the Cruelty of Qualities 4. That it be subtile that it pass on every side and be able to demolish its Object at a far distance 5. That it be friendly to Nature least indeed it pervert all things For not every Messenger approacheth unto the Mines of Stones but he alone who being loosed from his Bands hath known the wayes being fited for his Journey being a Friend to the Places and which hath Virtues They erre therefore who ascribe this single Combate only unto Corrosives to wit they too much trusting unto second Qualities as being badly secure do sleep thereupon and through a neglecting of specifical Properties also appropriated ones which are only extended on their proper Object being sleighted they have gone into Obscurity For the Oestrich doth not break or digest Iron or little Birds Flints Unions small Stones through an emulous quality of Corrosion There is a Virtue of loosing the Bars and Bolts of Tartar It is convenient this Virtue to meditate of and this to imitate I have spoken Blessed be ye God of Wonders who at sometime converteth the Waters into Rocks and at sometime the Rocks into Pooles of Waters CHAP. CI. The Understanding of Adam ADam put right Names upon all living Creatures and therefore he had an intimate or intuitive or clear speculative Knowledge of these which is called the Attainment of Nature Perhaps he had likewise a most full knowledge of Herbs Minerals yea and of the Stars For truly an Object not before seen being presented unto him he had known the innermost Properties thereof From hence therefore many do conclude that the same Knowledge is given to us by a natural Property as to the successive Heirs of Adam but to be obscured through Sin But others contend that it is wholly withdrawn through eating of the Fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Of these things I being long since badly perswaded alass I also believed them For I left something untryed that I might reach unto the promised Labour of Wisdom the Paradise of Long Life through the knowledge of Adam But at length I observed many things which might subvert these very principles For First of all I could scarce perswade my self that Adam in the State of Innocency knew those Things and more which afterwards he through eating of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil was ignorant of That indeed was when he had eaten of the Apple of Oblivion Drowsiness or Ignorance But not when he had eaten of the Apple of Knowledge But if in Original Sin the Original Transgressour and Defiler of humane Nature himself as yet knew what he knew before after what manner indeed by a super-attained new Knowledge and that of another Disposition being as it were laid up in the forbidden Fruit had he withdrawn all knowledge from his Posterity And moreover how had not he who from his Creation had all Knowledge except that which by a hidden Paraphrase and Emphatical manner of speaking is called by the holy Spirit The knowledge of Good and Evil traduced this likewise on his Posterity For if through eating of the Apple His Eyes were opened the which was even made known to him before after some sort they were closed and he became a knower of Good and Evil and saw himself to be naked why was there not at least-wise in his Seed as much knowledge as there was in the Apple Why if through his Seed Sin be translated is not also Shame translated that it might naturally Shame the Indians of their Nakedness That likewise a Child of three years old should be ashamed of its Nakedness no otherwise than Adam was presently after the Apple was eaten In the next place if he were endowed from his Creation with the knowledge of the Natures Societies and Properties of Animals and from hence it was pithily essential unto him How had God who is so great a Lover of us withdrawn our essential intellectual and natural Gifts whereby he will be worshipped in the Spirit of Man but hath left natural Gifts unto the evil Spirit the most vile despised and worst of Creatures Had he so greatly impoverished our Spirit and favoured the Devil more than the Sons of Men with whom to be he cals it his Delights I indeed after that I conceived in my Soul the Knowledge of long Life and the Causes of Death knew that as long as Adam was Immortal his Mind did immediately quicken his Body and governed it Yea that for that Cause also he perfectly understood whatsoever things are read to have been put under his Feet But after that the sensitive Soul was seminally introduced as a Mean between the Mind and the Body Adam afterwards lived in the Soul and middle Life that is after a modern or mean manner And his Mind for the support of the sensitive Soul dispersed from it self only a darksom Light through the Mists of the Flesh upon the Life of a new and impure Generation But the former Knowledges which he had before the Fall were in the sensitive Life laid up though remembrance yet over-clouded with the Dim and wretched Discourse of Reason when as he had now generated after the manner of Bruit-beasts and had seminally transferred a middle Life then all his Knowledge as well former as latter of Good and Evil to wit the remembrance of the same were obliterated and Man thereby was
from it Self I could scarce discern by reason of the superlative lustre or brightness of the Christaline Spirit contained within it Yet that I observe that the Mark of the Sexes was not but in the Husk but not in the Chrystal The Seal whereof was an unuttered Light so reflexed in the Chrystal that the Chrystal it self was made incomprehensible and that not indeed by a Negation or Privation because they are those things which are in respect of our Weakness so called but it represented a famous being which cannot be expressed by Word And it was said unto me This is that which thou once sawest thorow the Chink But I intellectually saw those things in the Soul which if the Eye should see it should afterwards cease to see The Dream therefore shewed unto me that the Beauty of the Soul of Man doth exceed all Conception At least-wise I comprehended the Vanity of my long desire therefore I desisted from the wish of seeing my soul For however beautiful that spiritual Chrystal was yet my soul retained no perfection unto it self from that Vision even as otherwise after an intellectual Vision the Mind is adorned with much Perfection of Knowledge I knew therefore that my Mind in that Dreaming Vision had acted the Person of a third and so that it was not worth the labour of so great a Wish But as to what hath regard unto the Image of God in the Mind I according to my slenderness confess that I could never conceive any thing whether it were a Spirit or a Body or in the Understanding or in the next place in the Imagination or in a meer intellectual Vision which through the same endeavour may not represent some Figure of it self under which it might stand in the considerer Because surely whether I conceive a thing by its Image or Likeness or whether the Understanding transchangeth it self into the Thing understood At least-wise I cannot consider this thing to be done unless it should wander from it self into the thing understood with an interchangable course of it self the which seeing it hath a certain actual Being it hath alwayes stood with me under a certain Figure or Shape For indeed although I conceived the Mind to be an incorporeal and immortal Substance Yet I could not assoon as I thought of its individual Existence consider of the same as deprived of all Figure Yea nor indeed but that it would answer unto the Figure of a Man For as oft as the Soul that is separated seeth another Soul Angel or evil Spirit that must needs know that these things are present with it that it may distinguish the Soul from the Angel and likewise the Soul of Peter from the Soul of Judus Which Distinction cannot be made by Tasting Smelling Hearing and touching but only by a proper Vision of the Soul Which Vision or Sight doth of necessity include an interchangeable course of Figure For seeing an Angel is so in a Place that he is not at once in another Place Therein also is of necessity included a certain figural Circumscription no less than a local one And then I have considered the mind of Man to be figured after this manner For the Body of man as such cannot give unto it self an humane Shape For therefore it had need of an external Engrave which should be enclosed within the Matter of the Seed and which had descended into it from elsewhere Yet for as much as that Engraver was of a material Condition he was not able to draw a Virtue as neither an Image of figuring either out of himself nor from the Masse of the Body it behoves therefore that something doth precede which was plainly immaterial yet a real and effective Beginning whereunto a Power should be due of figuring by a sealing impression on the Archeus of the Seed The Soul of the Begetter therefore while it slides downwards and through natural Lust doth lighten the Body of the Seed it delineates the Figure of its Seal and the Seal of its Figure there which is the one only Cause of the Fruitfulness of Seeds from whence therefore ariseth so lofty a Stature of a Young For if the Soul it self were in it self not figured but that the Figure of the Body should arise as it were of its own accord a Trunk in any Member could not but generate a Trunk Because the Body of the Generater not being entire doth at least-wise faile in the implanted Spirit of that Member If therefore a Figure be implanted in the Seed certainly it shall receive that Image from a more vital and former Beginning But if the Soul doth imprint a certain Figure on the Seed it shall not counterfeit a forreign or strange Face but shall decypher its own Likeness For so also the Souls of Bruit-beasts do And although our Soul by reason of its Original be above the Laws of Nature Yet by what foot it hath once entered the threshold of Nature and is incorporated therein it is afterwards also constrained to stand to its own Laws because there is a univocal or simple Progress and end of vital Generations For neither otherwise doth it want Absurdities that an Operation of so great a Moment as is the Generation of Man should happen without the consent and co-operation of the Mind which if it be so it must needs be also that fruitfulness is given to the Seed by the Soul by a Participation of its Figure and other vital Limitations Indeed every Soul doth to this end Seal the Image of it self in the Spirit of the Seed that the matter being reduced unto a requisite Maturity shewing a delineated Beauty and also the similitude of the Begetter may be able to beg a formal Light from the Creator or a Soul of that Species whose similitude is expressed in the Figure For we believe by Faith that our mind is a true Substance which is not to die but that the new Creation of a Substance out of nothing doth belong to God alone From whence there is not many but one only spiritual Father of all Spirits who is in the Heavens who if it hath well pleased him to have adopted the mind only into his own Image it seemeth also to follow that the vast and unutterable God is also of a humane Shape and that from an Argument from the Effect Seeing that the Body is like wax on which the Seal of the Image of the Mind is imprinted but the mind hath its Image and essential Perfection from him whose Image it beareth before it But because the Body is now and then defectuous and like unto a Monster Most have thought that the glorious Image of God doth wholly consist in the rational Power or Power of Reason They not considering that the Image of God doth in the nearest and more perfect manner consist in the Soul and from thence also in the Body being formed after the exemplary Character of the Soul In Operation of the Figuring if there be an Errour that
cannot cause the Plague 119. Why the blood of a Bull is mortally venemous 120. Why the fat of a Bull is in the Sympathetical Unguent to wit that it may be made an Oyntment of Weapons 121. Why Satan cannot concurre unto the Unguent 122. The Basis or Foundation of Magick 123. From whence Vanities are accounted for Magick 124. A good Magick in the holy Scriptures 125. What may be called true Magick 126. The cause of the Idolatry of Witches 127. The Sirrers up of Magick 128. Satan excites it imperfectly 129. From whence beasts also are Magical 130. The Kingdom of Spirits nourisheth strife and love 131. Why man is a Microcosm or little World 132. The mind generates real Entities 133. That Entity or Beingness is of a middle nature between a Body and a Spirit 134. The descending of the Soul begets a conformed will 135. The cause of the fruitfulness of Seeds 136. Why Lust doth as it were estrange us from our Mind 137. A Father by the Spirit of his Seed generates out of himself in an Object presently absenting it self 138. What Spirit may be the Patron of Magnetism 139. The Will sends a Spirit unto the Object Unless the Will did produce some real thing the Devil could not know of or acknowledge it and unless it did dismiss it out of it self the Devil being absent could not be provoked thereby Where therefore the Treasure is thither doth the Magical spirit of man tend 140. Magnetism is made by sensation 141. That there are many perceivances in one onely subject 142. From the superiour Phantasie commanding it 143. Why Glasse-makers use the Load-stone 144. The Phantasie of attracting things is changed 145. Inanimate things have their Phantasie 146. Why some things by eating of them induce madness 147. Why a mad Dog by biting of a Man introduceth madness 148. The Tarantula by his stroke or sting causeth a madness 149. Why other bruit beasts do not defend themselves against a mad Dog 150. The Sympathy betwixt Objects at a distance is made by means of a certain Spirit of the world which Spirit also governing the Sun and the Sunny Stars is of a potent sense or feeling 151. The Imagination in Creatures endowed with choice is various at pleasure but in others it is alwayes of a limited identity 152. The first degree of power dwelleth Magically in the forms of the three Principles 153. The second degree is by the phantasies of the Forms of the mixt Body the which to wit being destroyed the Principles do as yet remain 154. The Third degree ariseth from the Phantasie or Imagination of the Soul 155. What Bruits are Magical and do act out of themselves by beck alone 156. The fourth degree of Magical Power is from the Understanding of Men being stirred up 157. The word Magick is a proportionable answering of many things unto some one third thing 158. Every Magical power or faculty rejoyceth in a stirring up 159. What may be called a subject capable of Magnetism 160. How Magnetism differs from other formal Properties 161. Humours and Filths or Exâ—rements have their Phantasie 162. Why the Scripture attributes Life to the Blood rather than to any other juyces of the Body 163. The seed possesseth the Phantasie of the Father by traduction or derivation from whence nobility ariseth 164. The skins of the Wolf and Sheep have retained through impression an hostile Imagination of their former Life 165. What the Phantasie of the Blood being freshly brought into the Unguent can effect The manner of the Magnetism or attraction in the Ointment 166. The difference between a Magnetical Cure which is done by the Unguent and that which is done by a rotten Egg. 167. The notable Mystery of humane imagination is the foundation of natural Magick 168. The Understanding imprinteth the Beingnesse which was procreated or produced on the outward object and there it really continues 169. How efficacious Seals or Impressions may be made 170. The Imagination holds fast the Spirit of a Witch by a nail as it were a Medium 171. If Satan doth naturally move a Body without a corporeal touch or extreamity why not also the more inward Man and why not rather also the Spirit of the Witch 172. The virtue of the Oyntment is not from the Imagination of the compounder but from the Simples co-united into one 173. The Author makes a profession of his Faith IN the eighth year of this Age there was brought unto me an Oration Declamatory made at Marpurg of the Catti wherein Rodolph Goclenius to whom the profession of Phylosophy was lately comitted paying his first-fruits endeavours to shew That the curing of Wounds by the Sympathetical and Armary or Weapon Unguent invented by Paracelsus is meerly natural Which Oration I wholly read and I sighed within my self that the Histories of natural things had lighted into the hands of so weak a Patron The Author nevertheless highly pleased himself with that Argument of Writing and with a continued barrenness of proof in the year 1613. published the same work with some enlargement There was very lately brought me a succinct Anatomy of the aforesaid Book composed by a certain Divine rather in the form of a fine or jocond censure than of a disputation my judgement therefore however it should be was desired at least-wise in that respect that the thing found out by Paracelsus concerned himself and me his follower I shall therefore declare what I think of the Physitian Goclenius and what of the Divine the Censurer First of all the Physitian proposeth and boasts that he will prove the magnetick or attractive cure of Wounds to be natural But I found the Promiser to be unfit for so great a business Because that he no where or at least but slenderly makes good his Title or Promises He collecting many patcheries here and there whereby he thinks he hath sufficiently proved that there are certain formal virtues in the nature of Things which they call Sympathy and Antipathy and that from the granting of those the Magnetical Cure is natural Many things I say out of the Aegyptians Chaldeans Persians Conjurers and Jugling Impostors he gathers into one whereby he might prove or evince the Magnetism which himself was ignorant of Partly that by delighting mindes that are greedy of novelties of things he may seduce them from the mark and partly that they may admire the Author that he had rub'd over not onely trivial Writers but also any other the more rare ones Wherefore the Physitian doth rashly confound Sympathy which he after divers manners and fabulously often alledgeth with Magnetism and from that concludes this to be natural For I have seen also that Vulnerary Oyntment to cure not onely Men but also Horses between whom and us certainly there is not so great affinity unless we are Asses that therefore the Sympathetical Unguent should deserve to be called common to Us and Horses In like manner the Physitian badly confounds Sympathy or Co-suffering with Witchcraft
the buisie enquirers of the unexpected chance of which thing it was found that the Porter gave up the Ghost perhaps at the same moment wherein the Nose grew cold There are those yet surviving at Bruxels that were eye Witnesses of these Things Is not that Magnetism of manifest affinity with Mummy whereby the Nose by the right of ingraftment rejoycing for so many Months in a common Life Sense or Feeling and vegetative Faculty suddenly mortified on the further side of the Alpes What I pray is there in this of Superstition What of a fond Imagination The Root of the Carline-thistle which is that of Chamileon being plucked up when full of Juice and Virtue and co-tempered with the Mummy of Man doth as it were by a Ferment exhaust all the Powers and natural strength out of a Man on whose shadow thou treadest into thy self But this thou wilt say is full of deceit because Paradoxical as if the same Leprosie were not tranferred out of Naaman into Gehazi and the same numerical Jaundises transplanted into a Dog for a Disease is not in the Predicament of Quality but all the Predicaments are in every particular Disease For truly it shall not be lawful to accommodate or suite things to names but names to things The Solisequous or Sun-following Flowers are carried after the Sun by a certain Magnetism or Attraction not indeed by reason of his heat which they may desire for in a cloudy and more cold day they also imitate the Meeter of the Sun nor also by reason of his Light are they the Lackeys of the Sun for in the dark night when they have left the Sun they incline from the West to the East Thou wilt not account this to be diabolical because there is another privie Shift at hand to wit that there is a Harmony of superiour Bodies with Inferiour and an attractive Faculty plainly Celestial in no wise to be communicated unto sublunary things As if indeed the Microcosme or little World being unworthy of a heavenly Condition could in his Blood and Moss take notice of no revolution of the Stars I might speak of Amorous or Love-Medicines which require a Mumial co-fermenting that Love or Affection may be drawn unto a certain Object But it is more Discretion to pass them by when I shall first have mentioned this one only Example I have known an Herb in many Places easie to be seen the which if it be rubbed and cherished in thy Hand until it shall wax warm and thou presently shall hold fast the hand of another Person until that also grow warm he shall continually burn with a total Love of thee for some dayes I held in my hand the Foot of a certain little Dog and this Dog presently so followed me a stranger that his Mistris being renounced he howled in the night before my chamber Door that I might open unto him There are some present at Bruxels who are my Witnesses of this deed For the heat first heating the Herb I say not a bareheat but being stir'd up by a certain Efflux of the natural Spirits limits the Herb unto it and individuates it to it self and this ferment being received doth by Magnetism draw the Spirit of that other Person and subdue it into Love I leave the Cures of many Sicknesses which the secret of humane Blood doth magnetically perfect For unless the Blood yea the corrupt Pus or Matter of Wounds or Ulcers the Urin and transpirable Efflux through the Pores of the Skin shall continually mow down or carry away with them something of the Vital Spirit and there were in these a certain Participation of the whole Body when they are out of their natural composed Body surely the dayes of Man should not be so short For this indeed hath been the cause of our intestine Calamity The herbs Arsmart or Water-Pepper Comfry Flixweed or Luskewort Dragon-Wort Adders-Tongue and many others have that peculiar Endowment that if being cold they are steeped in Water for a felled Oake when the North-Wind blows will grow wormy if not forthwith sunk under Water and if being for some time applyed on a Wound or Ulcer they grow warm and are presently buried in a muddy place When they begin to putrifie they are also busie in drawing from the sick Party whatsoever is hurtful unto him And that thing the Herbs accomplish not as long as they grew in the Earth nor also as long as they remain in their antient Form for it behoves the Grain to die that it may bring forth Fruit but in the Putrefaction of their Body their Virtues being now as it were loosed from the Bolt of their Body do freely uncloath themselves of that Magnetism otherwise sleeping and hindered and according to the contagion and impression received from the wounded or ulcerated Place do suck out much remainder of Evil even at a far distance If any one in gathering the Leaves of Asarabacca shall pluck them upwards they will purge another that is a third Person who is ignorant of that drawing by Vomit only but if in cropping they are wrested downwards they will expurge only by Stool Here at least-wise doth no Superstition subsist or lurk for why do I here make mention of Imagination seeing ye grant that nothing can thereby operate on a third Object especially where that Object is ignorant of the manner of gathering which the Cropper used Wilt thou perhaps again accuse of an implicite compact and lay hold on the sacred Anchor of ignorance But here lurks no vain observance especially when as the gatherer shall pluck off the Leaves either upward or downward the receiver being ignorant thereof Truly besides Asarabacca and the outmost parts of Elder no other purging Medicines have that Endowment the which after what manner soever they are gathered do alwayes univocally or singly operate But in Asarabacca in the entire Plant a magnetical Property shines forth and so it variously endoweth its Leaves according to the sense of their gathering But that not only Plants but also almost all created things have a certain delineation of sense they do largely confirm as well by Antipathy as Sympathy which cannot consist without sense which thing we shall by and by teach Another new Fit of the Gout surprized a noble Matron of my acquaintance after one Fit had departed and that Gowt by an unwonted recourse molested her for many Months without remission But she not knowing from whence so great and unexspected a relapse of the Disease befel her at length now rising from her Bed as oft as the heat of the Fit was slackened sate down in a seat wherein her Brother being Gowty and that in another City had in times past wont to sit and indeed she forthwith found that from thence the Disease did revive a-fresh Verily the Effect is in no wise to be ascribed to Imagination or scrupulous Doubt because both these were such as were much more modern than the Effect But if in the same Seat
also conceived it within and doth not that Knowledge presuppose a Phantasie proper to its kinde for so some Simples induce an Alienation of the Mind but some others a Madness or maddish Fury not indeed through a Destruction of the Brain or a dispersing of its Spirits for then at least the Strength and most strong Faculties of the mad or furious Person would not remain but by a strange kind of and furious Phantasie of those Simples being introduced which being victress subdues ours and keeps the same a Servant it self for a time as in Doatage the Phrensie c. Sometimes also perpetually as in lunatick and mad or Bedlam-persons Doth not the Madness of Dogs thus pass over into Man For the maddish Phantasie of Fury is transplanted into the Spittle of their Tongue which as victress soon triumphs over the Blood of that Animal which the Skin being opened it shall never so slenderly touch Then indeed the antient Phantasie of the whole Blood gives place and will it nill it assumes an hydrophobial Phantasie or an estranged Imagination of the fear of Water From whence at length comes a Binsical Death that is from the sole Sickness of the Mind to wit the magical Virtue of the Dog being exalted and excited or stirred up above the non-excited but drowsie Imagination of the Animals Plainly after the same manner is the Phantasie of the Tarantula imprinted by a slender stroak of his Sâ—ing and the Wounded or Stung Persons being presently alienated in their Mind fall a dancing and leap hugely yet the Venom of the Tarantula differs from that of a mad Dog in this that this acts by a Magical Power being stirred up and so by the Magick of a true name But the other by a drowsie Magical Faculty even as the same difference is manifest in Wolâ—s-bane and other destructive Plants which kill with a very small quantity because no living Creature Secures or defends himself against a mad Dog because there is in him a binding magical Power against which Teeth or Horns do not prevaile which cannot be said of the Poyson of the Tarantula In the External Man therefore even as in his fellow Animals the magical Power is as it were laid asleep neither can it be stir'd up only in Man although indeed much more easily in him but in some living Creatures his Consorts Yea neither is it sufficient that Spirits do observe this Law of Concord and single Duel with Spirits but moreover there lurks a certain Spirit in the whole Universe which we call the great Magnal or Sheath which being the Pander of Sympathy or Fellow Feeling and Dyspathy or difficulty of suffering doth exist as a Communicater and Promoter of Actions and by reason whereof Magnetism or Attraction is by a Vehicle or Instrument of conveyance extended to an Object at a distance That thing is proved to our sight For if thou shalt place a slender Straw upon the Cord or String of a Lute hanging with a doubtful extremity or with an equal weight in the Air like a Ballance and shalt strike the like string of another Lute that is aloof off when the Tunes do co-agree in the eighth Note thou shalt see the Chaff to tremble but when the Tunes or Notes agree in a Unisone then otherwise the string of the quiet Lute being impatient of delay quavets or hops a little skips for joy and shakes off the hated Straw by its jumping Shall here also Satan be the Fidler in their esteem Which Straw doth not happen to leap although all the Strings of the other Lutâ— be unanimously strongly and near at hand struck upon Nor also doth the naked Tune constrain the other and quiet string to leap a little for then every Note would effect that but it is only the Spirit which is the common Pander inhabiting in the middle of the Universe which being the faithful executer and assistant of natural Actions derives promotes and also causeth the Sympathy Why are we so sore afraid of the name of Magick Seeing that the whole action is Magical neither hath a thing any Power of Acting which is not produced from the Phantasie of its Form and that indeed Magically But because this Phantasie is of a limited Identity or Sameliness in Bodies devoid of choice therefore the Effect hath ignorantly and indeed rustically stood ascribed not to the Phantasie of that thing but to a natural Property they indeed through an Ignorance of Causes substituting the Effect in the room of the Cause When as after another manner every Agent acts on its proper Object to wit by a fore-feeling of that Object whereby it disperseth its Activity not rashly but on that Object only to wit the Phantasie being stirred after a sense of the Object by dispersing of an ideal Entity and coupling it with the Ray of the passive Entity This indeed hath been the magical Action of natural things yet the Magick and Phantasie that is properly so named is in Creatures enlarged or ennobled with a Power of choice I will go thorow them according to their ranks The formal Properties therefore which issue from the Forms of the three Principles Salt Sulphur and Mercury or Salt Fat and Liquor from whence every Body is composed and again resolved into the same and the Mercury or Liquor is so often diverse as there are Species or particular kinds of things let the same Judgment be of the Salt and Sulphur Those Properties I say flow from the Phantasies of these Forms the which because they are exceeding corporeal and do as yet stick in the Bosom of the Elements therefore they are called formal and occult Properties by reason of the Ignorance of the Forms which otherwise are magical Effects propagated from the Phantasie of the said Forms but they are ignoble and very corporeal ones yet abundantly satisfying the ends which they have respect unto Of this kind are the subductive or loosening Property of the Belly the sleepifying Property c. in things There are also besides these other more noble Properties arising from the Phantasie of the Forms of the mixt Body and those of this sort are in the whole composed Body by reason of its Form as the Magnetism of the Load-stone the Virtue of Tinctures Likewise all specifical and appropriated Things or Medicines which happen by reason of the whole homogeneal Mixture or of the Form of any one entire part but not of some one principle alone such as those are which are seated in the Flesh or Trunck Root Leaves and Fruit and not in any one of the three Principles being separated there-from Likewise Antimony as long as it remaines in its Form obtaineth most excellent Properties the which it never attaineth in its Principles and these are also from a corporeal Bosom and therefore the spiritual Magick is also hidden in these and is thought to be due only to Nature by unfitly distinguishing this in opposition to Magick So the Leaf of the Rose hath another kinde of
less may be washed off So also the Infant growes and waxeth of ripe Years without Diseases and is made capable of a Remedy for a Life of long continuance Therefore also according to the Letter it is not badly read concerning the thrice glorious Messias being incarnated That he shall eat Butter and Honey For truly the one contains the Glory of a Dew together with the extraction of Flowers But the other is the Magistery almost of all Herbs Therefore he shall eat Butter but not Milk From whence the discerning of the Good from the Evil and the sharpness of Judgment is promised But the strength of dayes increasing let our Child accustom himself to the more vigorous and hard Meats yet I fitly praise a Mean or Moderation But let him take twice every day four Drops of the Tree of Life CHAP. CXV The Arcanums or Secrets of Paracelsus BUt moreover we believe by Faith that the Life of men was by the divine Will shortned but that the Sins of mortal Men gave an occasion hereunto The Will or Command of the Lord hath entred into Nature and the Reasons of Death which it found not it made before the Floud as it were in a successive order the Life was continually changed by Off-springs at length it was extended unto the hundred and twentieth Year And last of all the Dayes of a Man were seventy Years which moreover is a Misery except in the Powers which he would should attain unto eighty Years This therefore is a short Life an ordinary Life unto which Man necessary supplies being brought unto him doth by the free will of Nature flow and come the which was by a divine Testimony out of the holy Scriptures appointed The Roots therefore of short Life have henceforward a place in Nature First of all the Mind which knowes not how to die waxeth not old But the sensitive Soul although it be at length extinguished like Light yet the Light it self doth not wax old because it cometh not unto it by Parts or Degrees For if the sensitive Soul or the vital Light it self should wax old seeing nothing can be added unto this perishing which may be of the Disposition thereof I should meditate of long Life in vain Therefore the vital Powers only wax old which are implanted in every Organ under the Beginnings of Generation The which I do not contemplate of as naked Qualities but I behold them as Governours failing by degrees in an aiery Body and therefore also that the Powers of the Spirits do follow the Nature of that Body which is worn out by little and little For Sorrow gnawes the Life no otherwise than as the Moath doth a Garment So also the Inordinacies of Living do violently overthrow the Life In the next place Man is a Wolfe to Man Which things surely do mow down the Life in many being as yet in its flourishing estate Neverthelese these are not the natural Reasons of a short Life as neither the necessities of a connexed Species or of an inbred shortness Surely besides accidentary Contingences we do bear about with us the Cause of short Life in the middle of our delights For first of all the memory decays and then the sight taste hearing and walking wax dull For to savour doth not undeservedly signifie as well tasting as a judgment of the Mind without distinction because they oftentimes die together but the Taste first fails in the Stomack by reason of the Spleen Wherefore I have elsewhere sufficiently distinguished the tasting of the Tongue and the tasting of the Stomack Presently by reason of the unequal strength of the Parts the inbred Ferments of the Shops do here and there by degrees fail but the Ferment of the Spleen being astonied the Power of the first Conceptions goes to decay And old Men are said to become Children For the Schools grant a lively Memory to be in Children by reason of the tenderness of their Brain easily receiving any kinde of Seales but that the Brain being the harder through dryness the Impressions of the Seals should be by so much the harder by how much the more stubborn they are from dryness to retain the marks of Conceptions But the Comparison of the Schools is frivolous that the Brain should have it self after the manner of Wax as neither do the cogitations express the interchanges of a Seal For first of all there should scarce be a fit place for ten Seals For if those kind of Seals should be so corporeal as that they ought to follow the disposition and alterations of the Brain they shall of necessity square themselves unto the extension of the place because Place is more difficulty sequestred from a Body than to be hard or moist And therefore let the Schools shew how great an extension all particular Seals of Conceptions in the Brain may require Doth the Memory for the seal of a Conception require a bigger place in the Brain of an Horse than that which is of a Mouse or Flie Therefore also consequently the extension of place in the Brain for a Horse should be also ten thousand times bigger than for a Mouse and so the whole Brain should scarce suffice for the remembring of two Horses That since place should fail I should rather remember the good things of the middle half than of the whole Yea I should far better remember things past for one Year agoe than those things which at sometimes happened unto me in my Childhood For I have seen a Boy who at the second time had learned the Aeneides of Virgil by way of Memory who scarce understood the hundredth Verse And so every particular Word did require as many Seales and Places of these But if the Seals of Conceptions should require no place nor do occupy an Extension of themselves in the Brain Therefore nothing is sealed and there is no Seal and also the Comparison of the Schools is dull For the Schools are too muddy who ascribe the Offices of the vital and principal Powers unto the first or second Qualities But what will the miserable Schools do if they scarce dare to withdraw their Finger from these accidents of Bodies Therefore Scholastical Respects of hardness dryness and tenderness being neglected I descend unto the Cause of short Life I have said indeed that from a decaying Vigour of the vital Powers the Life is of necessity and proportionably diminished From whence I will truly repeat that the Powers themselves wax old as it were with a covered Rustiness and do by little and little cease because the Arterial and Venal blood are at length successively transchanged into the nourishment of the Parts to be nourished and the growth of youth being finished truly the Juice that is prepared from thence is bedewed or besprinkled on all the solid Parts and a certain muscilaginous and spermatick or seedy Liquor is glewed unto them but it doth no more long remain with them but being consumed and concocted by the Ferment of the parts
and Herbs are far less Arcanums than those aforesaid Lastly the volatile Salts of Herbs and Stones do shew forth a precise particularity neither do they reach unto the efficacy of Universal Medicines But his Corollate the which one alone is purgative by Stool cures the Ulcers of the Lungs Bladder Wind-pipe Kidneys by purging so that it also utterly roots out the Gowt Indeed it is the Mercury of the Vulgar from which the Liquor Alkahest hath been once distilled and it resides in the bottom coagulated and powderable being not any thing inâ—reased or diminished in its weight From which Powder the Water of the Whites of Eggs is to be cohobated until it hath attained the colour of â—oral I praise the Lord of things in an Abject or lowly Spirit because he reveals his Secrets unto the little Ones of this World and doth alwayes govern the Stern least these his benefits should fall into the hands of the unworthy I have therefore discerned that the Secrets of Paracelsus do take away Diseases but that they reach not unto the Root of long Life I have also discerned that Mineral Remedies unto whatsoever the highest degree they are brought yet that they are unfit for yielding Nourishment unto the first constitutive Parts because they reserve the middle Life of the concrete Bodies from whence they were extracted For for that cause they never wholly lay aside a mineral Disposition Yea and therefore they depart from the tenour of long Life Yea neither shall I ever be easily induced to believe that the Phylosophers Stone can vitally be united with us by reason of its exceeding immutable substance which is incredibly fixed against the tortures of the Fire being undissolvably homogeneal or simple in kind that is by reason of its every way impossibility of separation destruction and digestion so far is it from conducing to long Life Histories subscribe unto me that none who obtained that Stone enjoyed a long Life but that a short Life hath befalleâ— many by reason of the dangers undergone in labouring But moreover neither let Hucksters hope that Meats which do mightily nourish will perform long Life For although they may afford strength unto those that are upon recovery yet they afterwards weaken them being nourished The which Caesar also testifies For the more tender Meats are easily consumed breed tender Flesh and suffumigate or smoakiâ—e the vital Powers through their more greatly adust savour But the Studies of Physitians are buisied about the delights of the Kitchâ—â— which they name the Dietary Part for they have been misled into errour by thinking that if Food of good Juice and tender being administred in a due dose doth profit those upon recovery they have thought also that the more strong Persons being manifoldly nourished with the same Food shall be raised up into the highest increase of strength For there is not a process made in seeding as in Arithmetick where ten Pounds lift up nine and by donsequence a hundred Pounds ninety But he that eats very much and drinks abundantly shall not therefore become stronger than he that shall live more moderately For truly Nature keeps noâ— so much the proportions of Numbers as the proportions of the Powers of things alterable according to the Power of their own Blas However it is at least-wise it succeeds with Physitians according to their desire Because plenty of venal Blood breeds Excrements Physitians are called for and so they command the rules of Food at least-wise to profit themselves and they shorten the Life in those that live medicinally and miserably CHAP. CXVI The Mountain of the Lord. VVHo shall ascend into the Mountain of the Lord Or who shall stand in his holy Place He that is innocent in his Hands and of a clean Heart who hath not betaken his Soul to Vanity nor hath sworn in deceit to his Neighbour this Man shall receive the blessing from the Lord and mercy from God his Saviour The Words sound Eternal blessedness It is so Notwithstanding nothing hinders but that that figural and typical Speech may also unfold its Truth according to the Letter seeing it must needs be that the Type doth co-answer to the thing signified by the Type Truly I have alwayes observed that almost all the Mysteries of God were celebrated in mountains For Abraham was commanded to ascend a Mountain and there to sacrifice his only begotten Son for a Figure of the Sacrifice that was to be offered in Mount Calvary God commanded Moses to ascend up into a Mountain that he might talk with him and he gave him the Law And Moses talked with him face to face for the space of forty dayes and nights In Mount Horeb the Lord was transfigured c. All which things might have been done in the Desart and the God of Armies could have encompassed Moses with Lightning and Fire as well in a Plain as in a Mountain that no Mortal might have approached thereunto but a Mountain was alwayes chosen from a priviledge And the blessing from the Lord is promised in ascending unto the Mountain of the Lord For the Lord could have signified his Precepts unto Moses in a shorter space neither was there need of forty continual Dayes and Nights but that also delay might by its weight for delay in natural things is required for a just or due Efficacy of the maturities of things denote some hidden Mystery For naturally I understand that in Mountaines wanting an endemical malignity there is not only a most pure Air far remote from Dreg and Corruption commonly seperated from Errours and Defects and by reason of Colds most refined from all defilement but also that there is the Place from whence through the continuation of its Magnal there is a most dispatched in-beaming of the heavenly Bodies or Influences because a drinking in of a most pure Skie For I remembred that one Morning I being fasting felt in the Alpes the sweetness of an inbreathed Air the which I never before nor after felt in all my Life For it is certain that the Almighty hath not framed so great a Bunch in Nature in vain And it is certain that all the Riches of the World are issued out of Mountains And then the best Fountains and most famous Rivers are conversant with us out of Mountains by reason of their steepness In the next place all Nations which are the inhabitants of Mountains are of an hardier Body and of a more vigorous or flourishing Life than those who inhabit pleasant Fields Which Effects do manifest their Causes because a more sweet and purer Air is there in-breathed and every Gas being deprived of its Filths returns into the pure matter of Water But that God lifts up so great an Earth or the very face of the Earth into an heap or hath built so many great or rocky Stones upon the same or hath conjoyned it into one rocky Stone nor yet hath enriched it with any Mineral in which respect he might seem to have collected so
by heat alone becomes a stone as they will themselves For because a stone melts not by fire even as otherwise mettals do therefore they conjecturing of Nature from a Negative have supposed they have untyed every knot And this grosse wit ought to have been suspected by every one long since if they all did not sleep a diseased drowsie sleep For what will they say of Sulphur which flowes or melts with the fire Hath frozen water or earth given a beginning to Sulphur because it melts Or what will they say of the condensing or co-thickning of Glass which is again dissolved by the same heat whereby it is made And what lastly concerning Salt which by one degree of heat is coagulated and waxeth dry and by another degree thereof is melted and a gain is dissolved by moist things Surely it is a shame to stay any longer in Aristotelical trifles and the Fables of Elementary qualities while we must diligently search into the causes and original of things Wherefore Paracelsus first taught our Ancestors that all Minerals which he believed to be materially made of the conjunction of the four Elements and elsewhere onely of the three Beginnings consisted chiefly of water and so that they are the fruits of the Element of water no otherwise than as Vegetables are the fruits of the earth But it hath not been alway unknown to me that all Bodies which are believed to be mixt are materially onely of water none excepted But that their Body is constrained or coagulated by the necessity of a certain proper and specifical seed for Ends known onely to the Creator from their cause which proposition I have proved to the full in the beginning of Natural Philosophy It hath also been hitherto neglected after what manner these seeds of things may come to light may cover themselves with the wrapperies of Bodies and dispose the same and how those very seeds may at length of necessity hearken to the importunities of Bodies Wherefore neither shall it be unacceptable in this place briefly to repeat the progress and flux of Seeds to their form and their maturities in Minerals out of the Doctrine by me elsewhere more largely delivered For indeed if a Stone be not made of a Stone it must needs be that stonifying includes the Generation of some certain new Being but every Generation presupposeth some kind of seed which may dispose the matter to a Being in potentia or possibility seeing nothing which is not vital is able to promote it self to perfection And therefore it would be a foolish and accidental perfection which should proceed from a Body without an internal Guide and an end appointed unto it Therefore if a Body be dispositively distinguished from the internal Efficient and doth issue in its production unto ends proposed unto it in Nature then also the Etymologie of a seed doth of right belong unto it because it proceedeth wholly from an incorporeal Beginning But this Beginning shall easily be granted by me to issue forth in vital things from the Image or according to the Idea framed by the Conception or cogitation of the Generater which therefore is called the imaginative power or faculty But that inanimate things have seminal Gifts implanted in their first Beings which after the manner of the Receiver do also proportionably after some sort answer to the Imagination the Sympathy and Antipathy of inanimate things do teach For a non-sensitive Body namely the Loadstone must needs after some sort feel the Scituation of the Pole or North star if it direct it self of its own accord unto it but is not drawn by the Pole even as in the Book of the Plague I teach by manifest Arguments Likewise that it feels or perceives Iron if neglecting the Pole it by a Choice inclines it self to the Iron which particulars least they should be here after a tedious manner repeated by me it is sufficient thus to have supposed them by the way Moreover This very Idea and perfect act of a new Being to wit the seminal efficient cause doth even in unsensitive things perform its office no otherwise than if it were strong in Life and Sense which Idea or imaginous likenesse cloathes it selfe with the Ayr of its own Archeus and by meanes thereof doth afterwards perfect the dispositions and Organs of the Body and at length compleateth those things which in the delineation of its own seminal Image are designed it for Ends known to God alone And in this respect also every Creature depends originally on God For this God hath freely put into living Creatures and plants a seminal faculty of framing such an Idea that is a fruitfulnesse of multiplying and raising up Of-spring by vertue of the Word Encrease and multiply to endure for Ages The which under the correction of the Church I thus borrow from the Scriptures In the Beginning the Earth was empty and voyd For surely it was beset with a double emptinesse or vacuity The which notwithstanding is not so said of the Element of water For the earth had not as yet minerals in its Bosom if it were void Indeed the earth was a meer and pure Sand not yet distinguished by a numerous variety and ranks of minerals But the Spirit of the Lord was carried upon the Great Deep of the Waters Not indeed that that carrying was not an empty idleness wanting a mysterie or a voluptuous ease of swimming but it contained the mysterie of a Blessing whereby the water might replenish the vacuity of the earth in one of its emptinesses with Fruits But on the other hand might satisfie the vacuity of the earth and fill up its emptinesse by Vegetables and living Creatures Therefore before the Light sprang up all mettals and minerals began at once in the floating of the divine Spirit Of which thing first of all the hidden lights of mettals imitating the Stars and the foregoing Testimonies which are wont to shine by Night in Mine-making Mountains do perswade me At leastwise the Spirit of the Lord which filled the whole earth being now earnestly desirous of Creating sealed by its Word the fruitfull Idea of its desire in the Spondill or Marrow of the Abysse of the Waters which in an instant brought forth the whole wealthy diversity of Stones Minerals and Mettals whereby it replenished the emptinesse of the earth with much usury which vaculty indeed living Creatures and plants were not able sufficiently as neither suitable to fulfill But the Pavement or Pantafle of the earth which this most rich of-Spring of waters was entrusted with for the filling up of its vacuity is called by Paracelsus the Trival-line the Womb that was great with Child with the seeds of minerals wherein the Lord implanted Reasons or Respects Endowments and seeds that were to be sufficient for Ages For so indeed the wealthy seed of Rocky stones and minerals is implanted in the Water that it may receive its determination and Ferment in the womb of the Earth But what the Virgin
condensing 7. In the lime of rocky stones there are two divers salts for neither could it otherwise ever become a stone 8. The errour of Galen concerning Ashes 9. The Author when he had learned nothing from coagulated Bodies at length examined divers spirits 10. The errour of Paracelsus concerning Tartar 11. An examination of salts 12. The highest vertue of Vegetables 13. From whence a salt ariseth in urine 14. Duelech doth not stonifie after the manner of lime 15. What the Sunovia is 16. An examination of fermental savours 17. Paracelsus is taken notice of concerning Mercuries 18. An abuse in forbidding the use of salt 19. The handicraft Operation of the salt of urine 20. The vanity of Turnheisser his signifyng by the urine 21. Two the more fixed salts in urine 22. The differences of both those salts 23. The difference of the Volatile from the fixed salt of the urine 24. The ferment of the stomach is not any kind of sharpnesse whatsoever 25. Burnt vrine yielded not an Alcali to the Author 26 The Vulnerary drink of a certain Country man 27. That an Alcali doth not fore-exist but is made in burning 28. A digression Unto some ranks of Simples 29. The calcining of Harts-horn is a thing of notable blockishnesse 30. Sea-salt whether it hurt those that labour with the stone 31. That salt is not to be forbidden for its owne sake as neither for its spirit-sake 32. The fittest salt for eating 33. A wonderfull handicraft Operation in the distillation of urine 34. The judiciary part in Vrines why hitherto false 35. What the stone being distilled may teach 36. Earth together with the spirit of Vrine never makes Duelech 37. The constituting principles of Duelech 38. How sands are made in the Vrinal or Chamberpot 39. The Confirmation of the stone is fabulous 40. A stone of a wonderful bignesse 41. Paracelsus is ridiculous in the stone of a Thunderbolt 42. Duelech is made of meer volatile things 43. Three spirits concurre in the Vrine for the nativity of Duelech 44. Volatile Bodies are oft-times through their concourse presently fixed together at once WEE read in our Furnaces that there is not a more certain kind of Science in Nature for the knowing of things by their radical and constitutive causes than while it is known what and how much is contained in any thing So indeed that the knowledge and connexion of causes are not more clearly manifest than when thou shalt so disclose things themselves that they bewray themselves in thy presence and do as it were talk with thee For truly real Beings standing onely in their owne Original and succeeding principles of seeds and so in a true substantial entity do afford the Knowledge and produce the cause of knowing the nature of Bodies their middle parts and extremities or utmost parts Because they are the cause of the Generation existence and thorow changing of them according to their Root Because as Raymund testifies However a Logitian may have a profound wit discourseable or natural concerning things without Yet he shall never by any reason which comes unto sense be able directly to know nor judge with what kind of nature or vertue through a fortitude or strength within the multiplication of grain possesseth it self so as to grow or increase upon the earth unless by reason of a similitudinary example drawn from observation Neither shall he ever know after what manner a seed buds growes and collects fruits in the earth unless he shall with an experimental Doctrine first enter into our natural Philosophy and not that Sophistical discursive one which is bred in Logitians by divers phantastical presumptions who with the Prognostications of Sequels contrary to the power of Nature make many stubbornly to erre in the sophistication of their mind Because by our handicraft knowledge the understanding is rectified by the force of experience in respect of the sight and of a true mental Knowledge Yea our experiences stand over the head of the phantestical or imaginative proofs of Conclusions and therefore neither do they endure them But they shew that all other Sciences do livelily enter into the understanding From whence we afterwards understand that thing within what it is and of what sort it is Because by such knowledge the Intellect stands uncloathed of superfluities and errours which do ordinarily remove it from the Truth by reason of presumptions and prejudiced or fore-judged things believed in the conclusions For from hence it is that our Philosophers or followers have directed themselves to enter through any kind of Science into all experience by Art according to the course of Nature in its Univocal or single Principles For Alchymie alone is the Glass of true understanding and shews how to touch and see the truths of those things in the clear Light Neither doth it bring Logical arguments because they are too remote and far off from the clear Light And therefore the Smaragdine Table hath it By this kind of demonstration all obscurity will free from thee and all the strong fortitude of strength which vanquisheth subtile things and pierceth all solid things will be attained by thee Wherefore I am called Hermes Trimegistus as having the three that is all the parts of Philosophy and the perfection of the whole world Thus he Between praying therefore and knocking a mean in naturals namely of seeking by the fire is supposed I indeed hoped by searching into the Contents of urine visibly to know it no otherwise surely than by a true solving or resolution of urine Therefore first of all I distilled my own urine being first kept in a wooden Vessel untill that at length it voluntarily conceived a ferment and boyled up no otherwise than as Wines do so that my ear could perceive the boyling About the end whereof there was a little burning water distilled from thence But of the remainder I collected a most white salt of a sharp and uriny stinking odour But I know not whether there be any thing more subtile in the whole nature of things It being a noble Remedy against the Jaundise and other Diseases I endeavoured by this Salt to dissolve Duelech in a Glass But the event answered not my attempt Again my own urine was putrified anew in Horse-dung That the unlike part thereof might incline to a separation of its last life Then I distilled it by cohobating it four times according to the prescription of Paracellus and I found frequent Crystals therein being yellow and of a sharp top The which although they might be of conducement against the old obstructions of Excrements yet of none against the affect of the Stone Thirdly I mixed the spirit of my Urine with Aqua vitae dephlegmed or refined and in a moment both of them were coagulated together into a white lump or gobbet yet wondrous swift or volatile and subtile My Eye in the first place there taught me That the spirit of Urine was an unparallel'd and great Runnet because it was
temperature of the seeds of their composed Bodies But the spirit of mans urine is neither sharp nor Alcalized but meerly salt even as also that of Horses is And that for this cause because the Volatile sharp matter of the Chyle of the stomach is by vertue of another ferment transchanged into a Volatile salt Even as elsewhere concerning the digestions of Animals I here give thee to observe by the way that in things transchanged there is not an immediate regresse or return unto that from whence they were transchanged no more than from a privation to a habit For that in transchanging the last life of the thing perisheth because the whole disposition of the middle life of the former Being is at once taken away by reason of the extinguishment of its former seed For therefore things transchanged do keep the essence of a new Being with a neglect of their former composed Body Therefore have I found any Remedy whatsoever unprofitable which I otherwise had believed to be very likely a dissolver of the Stone from its former composed Body Yet that is a truth that the spirit of Urine in the fundamental point of its nativity is salt and that by reason of that salt it doth more readily coagulate other Spirits than any sour or sharp spirit doth Milk Neverthelesse the spirit of urine doth not coagulate milk or the venal Blood Because the spirit of the venal blood yea and our vital Spirit is salt after the manner of Urines From hence indeed the spirit of the urine hath it self after the manner of an excrementitious spirit cut off from the blood and so by reason of a co-resemblance it is its Chamber-fellow neither do they act on each other And then also I observed that the spirit of Urine doth not more strongly coagulate those things which were already before coagulated For Bole Clay or the rocky or Chalk-stone do by degrees degenerate by the spirit of urine into a nitrous Salt and are rather dissolved Since therefore the spirit of Urine doth not coagulate Bodies already coagulated such as are Bole Clay c. As neither Bodies coagulable such as are Milk and the venal blood but it coagulates the spirit of Wine or the like thing which is entertained with it in the urine for as was shewn above after the fermenting of urine that urine containes also a spirit of Wine or Aqua vitae I desisted not seriously to enquire after what manner the stone is coagulated in us and in our urine 1. First of all it is an undoubted truth that Duelech is not of a calcinous or limy condition however Paracelsus may be carried on the contrary 1. Because a calcining degree of heat is wanting in us 2. And then because every Alcali is rather that which is destructive to a rocky stone than a Coagulater thereof 3. Because a Calx or Lime presupposeth a Chalky-stone and therefore Duelech should be calcined before it were a stone 4. From the composing parts of Duelech it shall by and by be made manifest that it is not possible for Lime to be in it yea nor that Duelech himself is calcined or doth send forth a Lixivium or Lye Likewise neither is Duelech of the nature of a gowty Chalk because he growes together in the midst of the urine but that Chalk is coagulated from the Sunovia But the Sunovie is a living seedy muscilage which degenerated in the journey of nourishment and from a transparent and Crystaline matter hath passed over into a thick white and slimy matter as of Gouty persons elsewhere from a matter without savour I say it is transplanted into a sharp one though the tartnesse whereof indeed it hath attained a thickness or grossness For then also it is unfit for a total diflation or transpirative dispersing of it self To wit whereby the nourishable Liquor is wholly consumed without any remainder But the Sunovie being once infected with a tartness its watery parts are pufft away but the gross remainder waxeth dry by degrees into the utmost dryth and hardnesse of a Sand-stone But Duelech attaines to the utmost hardness of it self in one onely instant of time The Gouty Chalk therefore differs from Duelech in its whole matter and efficient cause For therefore such a Chalk is hardned out of the water because indeed by drying Neither for that cause doth it imitate the hardness of a rocky stone but onely of a sandy stone I have spoken these things to that end that it may be manifested that Duelech differs from any other coaguted Bodies whatsoever in its different kind of Agent and matter And seeing notwithstanding I as yet knew not the manner or process of the birth of Duelech but I knew in the mean time that Bodies do nor receive the limitation of their hardning but by the actions appointments and properties of their own seeds Lastly Since I knew that whatsoever things do act corporally are altogether sluggish slow and idle as for the coagulation of Duelech therefore I enquired into fermental savours and Odours as the Authors of many seeds Therefore I found the savours and actions of Salts to be indeed famous ones but not any thing reaching the vertue of the salt of Urine And then also I beheld the more weak or feeble Salts which might follow the Race of Sulphurs But Mercury although it alone according to Paracelsus did contain the whole perfection of the thing yet I found it to be slow and feeble For as oft as I distinguished Salts and Sulphurs from their Mercuries I admired at their sluggishnesse and indeed at the dignities of these two Principles Wherefore I stuck in Salts for the searching out of the nativity of Duelech I confess indeed that Mercury being a flowing mettal in its nature and properties is never sufficiently known But that body hath deceived Paracelsus through a similitude of proportion he thinking because his Device had pleased him because he had endowed the watery matter of things with the name of Mercury that therefore the properties of Quick-silver and its natures without a peere being never to be sufficiently searcht into did agree as suitable to all Liquors which may be drawn out of Simples For all the Philosophers of former Ages confess that nothing in the Universe is not so much as by far to be likened to Argent Vive Yet it hath not been hitherto sufficiently unfolded that Argent-Vive or Quick-silver is a Simple actually existing body but not a constitutive part of things And so that there hath been nothing but a meer abusive passing over of a Name For this cause I as yet perswaded my self that seeing a non-Duelech was made of Duelech that ought to be done by the action of an Agent on a disposed matter And although I knew these and many the like things yet I discerned that I therefore knew nothing the more Wherefore I as yet more detested a wording or discursive Philosophy because it was that which stayed me before the Threshold of Nature
although I knew mans urine to be onely in our species and that the spirit of mans urine alone was in the possession of man Yet I examined Horse-pisse in the name of the bigger Cattel as being carefull whether perhaps there might not be another like coagulating spirit which by reason of Impediments co-bred with it could not every where obtain the command of coagulating But however I laboured I found not that spirit the Coagulater in Horse-pisse As neither the spirit of a ferment or of Aqua vitae Therefore I found a potential Aqua vitae intimate with mans urine and that a pliable one between that spirit the Coagulater and the putrified spirit the Receiver of the aforesaid Runnet or Coagulum And it is chiefly to be noted that the spirit of urine doth not coagulate but by the Wedlock of Aqua vitae the which I have often approved by distilling There are therefore three things in the urine of man which must of necessity concur and by so much the more powerfully by how much every person troubled with the stone doth now bear no light or small principle of corruption in his urine as presently in its place from whence indeed a ferment is swiftly stirred up in the urine for the aforesaid Aqua vitae that is capable of Coagulation For neither doth it withstand these things that as well the spirit of Life as the Aqua vitae it self are exceeding swift of flight and so scarce fit for the stubbornnesse of Duelech for it is certain that the spirit of Vitriol doth most swiftly flye from its volatile Companion yea and that it is presently fixed by the swift Sal Armoniack So that it undergoes a fusion or liquidnesse of substance whereby our followers being perfectly instructed do presently cease to wonder which things otherwise affect the ignorant with amazement CHAP. IV. A processe of Duelech 1. The manner of making Duelech 2. It is a singular Being nor having its like 3. A mechanick or handicraft Operation of the Fountaines of the Spaw 4. Oker in the Fountaines of the Spaw might have scared Paracelsus from his device of Tartar 5. A dissection in the actions of Spirits 6. The Fire-water that hath not an homogeneal Being like unto its self 7. The difference of the aforesaid dissolving liquor with all others of the whole Universe 8. Some Oyl of Gold is of a Pomegranate or light-red colour 10. What the generation of Duelech may bespeak 11. The action of Bodyes on Bodyes of what sort it is 12. The Doctrine concerning the action of Bodyes and Spirits 13. The participations of faculties out of mettals without a metalick matter 14. The delusion of the Alchymist 15. Diseases are appointed for a punishment and Reward 16. Some exercises beginning from salts 17. The spirit of salt is made earthly 18. A trivial Question 19. The device of frosty Tartar 20. From whence the Strangury of old people is 21. Four remarkable things issuing from thence 22. A second Question 23. A third 24. A fourth 25. Catarrhs or defluxions of the Bladder are ridiculous 26. A fifth Question 27. A sixth 28. Astrologers are taken notice of 29. Paracelsus is noted like as also Galen 30. The solving of a question proposed 31. The heedlessnesse or rashnesse of Galen THe spirit of the Urine laying hold of the volatile earth that was procreated by a seed and a hoary and putrifying ferment stirs up the spirit of Wine the inhabitant of the Urine as yet laying hid in Potentia or possibility by the which as it were by two Sexes concurring the certain aforesaid earthly spirit drinks in the one onely aforesaid Coagulater by reason of which reciprocation or mutual return a most thorow connexion of them both ariseth in acting because they conjoyn in manner of spirits throughout their very least parts And so the Coagulater doth at one instant coagulate the spirit of Wine that was potentially stirred up in the putrifying ferment whereunto when the hoary or fermental putrified Masse hath applyed its matter they are condensed or co-thickned together into a true Duelech surely a Monster this new something coagulated in the middle of the urine Nor therefore capable of being again resolved into water For it is a rocky Animal Being like unto no other and the which therefore Paracelsus names Duelech And that Being will the more easily enter into the mind by a daily example which the Fountaines of the Spaw present unto us For they have a sulphureous spirit manifestly tart from whence they are called the sharp Fountaines and also a vein of Iron For both being of an imperfect and immature shape are contained as dissolved in the simple water Therefore they both begin mutually to joyn their reciprocal forces against each other And at length when as their strength being tyred they have desisted from their action they are condensed into a stony body which affixeth it self to bottles in the form of Oker and so the water returns into its antient Element as uncloathed of every strange quality Which Sharpish Fountaines if Paracelsus had sufficiently contemplated of or he had neglected the history of the Tartar of Wine borrowed from Basilius Valentine for he had known that there is not the like birth of Oker and of Tartar of Wine At leastwise he might have been with the more difficulty convinced Because Tartar is resolved into water but Oker is not as neither is the stone For neither have I ever attempted to deny that solid bodyes are constituted of Liquors But I refuse tartarous liquors they being forcibly brought into the Causes of Diseases as in the Treatise concerning Tartars but on the contrary I have reverently admired the activities of spirits on spirits Truly since Oker growes out of the waters of the Spaw or since a stony crust is spread over bottles throughout their whole hollownesse let it first of all be wickednesse to give the water of the Spaw to drink if we believe that Tartars are made just as Oker is in the Spaw-water That is if we believe that there is Tartar in the water of the Spaw which is presently to be coagulated in the Drinker he commits wickednesse who gives the Spaw-water to drink For while the acide or tart salt of Wine corroded the Lee that salt indeed which before was tart and not coagulated remaines tart and is coagulated Neither doth it change the essence of Salt although that salt which before was fluide be constrained or bound fast together In like manner also although the Lee hath supt up the acide spirits and coagulated them into it self yet a solid body remaineth while the spirit of the acide salt is coagulated into the solid body of Tartar of Wine Yea before that it be fully coagulated it affixeth it self to the Vessel For in the Generation of Tartar of Wine the spirit acteth on a body and there is altogether a far different action while two spirits act on each other For in this action even
reason of the suppressing of their urine when as the other of their Kidneys yielded a sufficiency of urine but they dye onely through a cruel Convulsion which Cramp is again loosened about the time of Death Wherefore the Dissection presented nothing besides a small stone of a Hook-like form which brought death upon them I said at the beginning that the curing of Duelech did consist as well in the abolishment of the inclination as in the melting or dissolving of the stone both whereof the Schooles deny to be possible and so we stand in opposite termes Therefore we must come unto Reasons unto Witnesses or Deeds and unto Charters or Letters Patents and that my Right being proved the ignorances of the Schooles also may be made manifest First of all Seeing that of a Non-being or of that which is impossible to be there is not any positive Conception and so neither is there any knowledge thereof Therefore the Schooles confess that there can be no Science or knowledge unto them and that they do deny those things to be possible which they confesse themselves to be ignorant of But the Reasons which have dasht the Schooles unto an impossibility are these but frivolous enough Our Experience the Mistress of things hath not yet made it manifest unto us that the evil inclination can be taken away since that according to Galen a Distemper being turn'd into a Nature cannot be cured according to the Proverbe Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurret Though Nature with a Fork thou dost expell Yet still she will return into her Cell But most especially in the part that is filled with a continual Excrement to take away the confirmed distemper is altogether impossible But as to the Stone being confirmed however great a noyse the specious boasting of Stone-breaks may make yet it is nothing but the vain Boasting of Empericks The braggings of Idiotisme and nothing else For the Physitian can onely stir and drive forth the stone by Urine-provokers and loosen the passages by moystening Emollients Yea since Diuretick Medicines are full of danger nothing is more meet for a Physitian to do in the Disease of the stone than to enlarge the Urine-pipes by moystening them and to take away the incumbent filths by Clysters from the Bowels but the smoak-selling Chymists boast that they will dissolve the stone being confirmed in the Bladder by a Retrograde Resolution and so they procure nothing but disgrace to themselves from their own mouth But our Philosophy promiseth nothing beyond the strength of Nature and therefore it remaines Reverenced among Learned men and hath taken firm Root for so many Ages already past For who sees not that the stomach it self ought of necessity to be sooner broken to pieces and dissolved than the stone which is an hundred times harder than the stomach being so far remote from the mouth But because the Chymist is for the most part ignorant of Philosophy he boldly promiseth any thing that he may wipe Moneys from the miserable and credulous sick The which he knows not how to provide by his Gold-making Art For if there could be any thing in Nature which would dissolve a confirmed Duelech so many Princes and Peers and so many various Wits of Physitians had not hitherto wanted so happy a Remedy These are the lofty Looks Decrees and Calumnies of the Schooles The which notwithstanding being well weighed are found to be the true priviledges of opposite men For first of all if any one by offending may contract a Disease Why by a well-healing may he not take away the same radically and wholly Root out the Characters that were once imprinted on the part For I have freed many from the Disease of the stone to the which they had for some yeares been obedient so as that they lived for the future plainly free there-from The Remedies of whom thou shalt by and by find under the penalty of my infamy or disgrace For I easily indulge the Schooles because they speak according to their own experiences and ignorances of the Causes and deny that the Impression translated on the powers of the Members is to be taken away To wit seeing they hitherto acknowledge nothing but raw and sluggish Remedies But in the mean time they are wallowed in an unexcusable Errour who despair that any one should be wise beyond themselves When as in the mean time they cease diligently to search and all their life long addict themselves onely to Gain The Judgements of the Schooles have regard unto the Writings of Ancestours who were subscribers to Heathenism but our Judgements have respect unto the first Being of Bodyes they being freed or dispatched from their Wrapperies whereby they are hindered from proceeding unto the first Constitutives of us wherein they are able to strangle the hurtfull Impressions which are introduced into the middle Life and for that cause to take away those Impressions which seem to be converted into a Nature As to the taking away of the inclination first of all the Medicine Aroph of Paracelsus which sounds as the Aroma or sweet Spice of the Philosophers so called by reason of its Golden Tincture being prepared under Dung with the mixture of Rye-bread and afterwards extracted with spirit of Wine cures an antient inclination unto the stone of the Kidneys A certain man called Baio our Countryman while as he had for some yeares in his Embassage into England been many times molested with the stone in his Kidneys with the greatest pain and through my perswasion making use of the aforesaid Liquor Aroph twice every week was afterwards free from that affect of the stone for the space of eighteen yeares and at length dyes in the 83 year of his age and his dead Carkase being dissected shewed not so much as a small sand or little stone who before while he was stony whether he were carried in a Coach or soberly walking had alwayes pissed bloudy urine His Heires do now as yet survive who are witnesses hereof I remember also the Counsellour of whom I before made mention concerning his eating of Asparagus For he when he was wont miserably to lay down at every fifteen dayes having afterwards used Ale wherein Daucus or wild Carrot-seed was boyled hath lived now for some yeares free from the Disease of the stone The Experiments and Testimonies of whom do make the Schooles to blush Since there is Truth in their mouth Paracelsus also called the Beings of Gemms and Stone-breaks unto his ayd and at length by the one onely Remedy of Ludus promiseth and attained both the ends of Curing The Schooles Deny that to be possible which they cannot perform their Testimony is full of arrogancy and blockishnesse For truly as oft as they admire at the feeble help of Stone-breaking things attempted with their crude Remedies and also their vain effect thereof they bend their Brows lift up their Shoulders as astonished being asked are silent but being constrained sâ—ye back to an
the vital Archeus but not in the feigned phlegme of that bosome there is hid an effective reason why the Archeus being Apoplectical doth alwayes bend the Palsey its Lackey unto the side but it is a mockery whatsoever the Schooles have dreamed of the fourth little bosome The whole reason of Truth therefore depends in these same Diseases as the Archeus forms and perfects a Seminal Idea the which he for the most part finds somewhat cadaverous or mortified in meats and the transmutations of these For then he causeth giddinesses of the head and the more tough ones if the same thing happens in the excrements in the passage from Food into nourishment and that Apoplexy is most exceeding readily inclined which forms it sealing Idea in the very Archeus of the Duâ—mvirate Because the whole Archeus in the Bowels is straightway as it were mortified At length from sundry particulars laid down I conclude That an Apoplexy is in no wise a privative Disease and that the stoppages of the sinews do far differ here-from as in the writhing or wresting aside of the turning Joynts in hanging c. Also that neither of them doth arise from an obstruction of the fourth bosome in the Cerebellum at the beginning of the Thorny marrow But the Apoplexy is generated occasionally from a poysonous stupefactive and mortified beginning of matter fore-conceived in the Midriffs The which when it hath in the same place attained its perfection and requisite maturity it infects the Archeus of the place which presently for that very cause vanquisheth and sore troubleth the powers of the Brain but not that the Brain doth primarily labour and draw the parts put under it into the conspiracy of its own Death But that the Palsie is a Contracture of the sensitive parts caused by Terrour alone But that thing is manifest in particular resolvings of the members To wit wherein the local Generations of the aforesaid Apoplectical poyson are made Furthermore the Schooles have made mention of one onely Anodynous poyson which is sleepisying stupefactive and distinguished onely in degree between Opium Mandrake and Henbane not that they therefore deny although they pass by many others in Simples For there are some which in a small space of duration do take away Sense and the health of the Mind Motion being left even as in affects of the Falling sicknesse Some do overshadow or Eclipse the Motion onely others both and very many also do befool Sense and Motion being left Neither therefore are they to be named even as neither others which are bedrunkening ones But besides the humour that is to be assimilated unto us is easily infected from the Image of a mortal Anodynous poyson of the Archeus conceived in the Midriffs wherewith a various condition of poyson is co-bred for Company and is frequently beheld in the Plague But elsewhere it strikes not the head but is sealed in the habit of the body where also now and then the freezing poyson of the Leprosie is bred by the same priviledge of degenerating But a stupefactive poyson in the Duumvirate violently dejects the Brain and according to its difference generates giddiness the Falling-Evil Heart-beatings Swoonings Catochus's and the Apoplexy and as fears of the parts so also Palseys accompany this Apoplexy But out of the Duumvirate it mortisies its Seat with an astonishment and a cold Gangreen c. They therefore notably err who are busied in restraining madness by Opiates seeing every Opiate is in it self mad because madness is nothing besides a waking Dream For truly scarce a ten-fold Dose of Opium procures sleep to a mad person but in a lesser Dose nothing is effected But if indeed through increasing of the Dose sleep creepes on the mad person it shall now increase the waking sleep and divers unlike vanities of vain Dreames But sleep coming on a mad man of its own free accord hath deceived the Schooles For that as it proceedes from a good cause so also as a fore-running Betokener of health it promiseth that the madnesse will be solved Add thou that in Opium besides a sleepifying there is another poyson connexed whence deadly Poppies for sleep are much sung of by Poets But in the sulphur of Vitriol there is a Sugary sleepifying Being which brings on sweet sleep together with a restoring of the principal Faculties There is the like in Sulphur for which things sake it is commended in affects of the Lungs if it be so prepared as that it may be able to play together with us Sleep that brings labour or trouble such as is from Opiates is evil Which poyson denotas sore disturbances and Tempests Therefore sweet sleep creeping on the party is to be dedicated unto favourable Causes Therefore I will say it again the Apoplexy Falling-sickness Coma or sleeping-Evil giddiness of the Head trembling of the Heart c. have their own singular and those anodynous poysons The Veâ—tigo indeed doth sometimes prostrate a man like the Apoplexy but without a Palsie Because it hath not a Cadaverous stupefactive poyson but a be drunkening one such as is in Tobacco But if it shall become the more hurtfull in degree number or quantity it is also made apoplectical But moreover concerning Garlick and Aqua vitae I have spoken and of the unsensibleness thereof yet it is not apoplectical because a poyson and constant Root is absent At least by way of impertinency I will add to this That Anodynous things although they stupifie like cold yet that they are erroneously placed by the Schooles among things that are cold in the highest degree And moreover neither is the sleepifying sulphur in Opium cold but it is exceeding bitter and the salt thereof is sharp and Sudoriferous But bitter things in the Schooles are notably Hot. Therefore the sleepifying matter as well in Opium as elsewhere is a power and specifical Gift of the Creatour but not an effect of Cold Even as I have elsewhere profesly manifested concerning sleep But the stupefactive poyson in the Epilepsie differs from an Apoplectical one because in the chief part of it it is a be-drunkening one Spare me Reader for that I denominate the faculties of things from the similitude of Simples for truly proper Names are waning as also the knowledge of Properties from a former Cause which ought to dictate Names After the Treatises of unsensibility of Anodinous things and of some poysons pain is to be re-sumed by me I repeat therefore That pain and sense are made immediately in an injured place or Center a consent of the Brain being not required For it is sufficient that the vital Light of the sensitive Soul it self is diffused into all parts on every side according to the requirance of necessity For any Ruler of parts ought also to be a Noter and Discerner of Objects Because it hath the Soul on every side present with and President over it For after what sort shall the Soul manifest that it feeles things hurtfull unlesse it shall
readily burnt But let us suppose dead flesh to be first made lukewarm and to be in the same degree of heat no otherwise than if it did live yet it is not therefore easily scorched or burnt nor after the same manner wherein live-flesh is Therefore the aforesaid evasion hath no place Wherefore seeing that from the agent of a single degree of heat divers operations do happen in the same subject of flesh being distinct only in life Therefore it must needs be that the life is the only cause of that diversity which is to say that the life is the proper agent of Sennsation in Sesitive Creatures and that the life is such a cause which besides hath a power of making burnings or scorchings in live bodies and in the matter of Medicine yea also of resisting or not Wherefore I find Life to be the first or chief and immediate Efficient of Sense and pain For truly the force of fire being received and introduced into a dead Carcase is not to be felt yea neither properly is it a Scorching or burning one such as is in live bodies but rather a roasting and parching one For in live bodies the liquor of flesh is through an indignation of the Sensitive Soul most speedily converted into a sharp liquor and substantially transchanged the which in dead bodies is not subject unto a vital transmutation And so by boyling and frying it parcheth and roasteth fleshes between the Fibers For flesh that is dead suffers by degrees the which other bodies not sensitive do suffer after a single manner from the fire But in live bodies even boyling water presently produceth bladders and then the solid part is swiftly contâ—acted and burns Therefore that action of scorching or burning in live and and sensitive bodies is made efficiently by the Life it self but by the fire effectively by way of an active occasional and external mean To wit the life it self feeling the rigour of the fire sharpens its own liquor and transchangeth it into a bladdering one and afterwards into an Escharrotick liquor And as much indeed as is snatched by the fire so much afterwards is by a disposition that is left corrupted because it is dead But because of sensible things known by Sense touching is the chief Judge therefore a demonstration hath scarce place and the history and root of pain by its causes hath hitherto remained neglected Therefore I will repeat some things which in so great a Paradox I wrote before in a more contracted speech Wherefore for the searching into the proper agent in pain I have considered that Frogwort Smallage Scarwort c. do not embladder in a dead Carcase yet they embladder live flesh I judged therefore that in the very sensitive soul the difference of this act consisted and not primasily in the Scarwort Because it is that which embladders only so far as by a biting more sharp than is meet it thus molests the Sensitive spirits the which that they may mitigate blunt or extinguish the perceived sharpness the soul rageth in them and therefore resolveth the proper vital substance of the members into a corrosive liquor even as elsewhere concerning the Plague wherefore the sensitive Soul it self as it is the immediate sensitive substance so it is the efficiently effective cause of the bladder But the Scarwort which operates nothing in a dead Carcase is the effective occasional external and excitative cause By reason whereof the Schools being astonished have taught that Medicines are wholly sluggish and as it were dead unless they are first prepared by our heat as it were by a Cook and being stirred up are sharpned thereby The which thing surely wants not its own perplexities For they have determined of that very thing as Medicines being assumed or applied should not forthwith display their faculties on us like fire but as they should have need of a certain space of time wherein they might produce their own effects by foregoing dispositions notwithstanding if a space be required that an altetation may made which is the effect of the medicine Surely that not any thing proves the action of a Medicine otherwise necessary to be from our heat that the Medicine may obtain the gift of its own nativity or a liberty of acting the which it obtained safe full and free to it self by Creation But as I have said it operates after another manner yea oft-times a far other thing in live bodies than otherwise in dead or unsensitive ones And so the effects of Medicines are not wrought unless they are first duly applied and afterwards by a more exact appropriation they do imprint their power on us to wit that from thence a disposition may arise which the sensitive soul stirs up by its own judgement and afterwards also unfolds and perfects For the Schools have erred in Medicinal affairs because they have beheld external and occasional causes for principal and vital ones Therefore they have neglected to connex in live bodies and in cures themselves things effected unto their proper efficients by the due journeys of degrees Wherefore be it a foolish thing that Pepper Vinegar c. ought to borrow their activities and gifts received for acting from our heat As if one only heat should be the primary cause of so many-form effects Because in very deed that a thing may act on us it hath no need of another forreign thing out of it self for this purpose but as primarily so it without delay presently uncloaths its faculties by the moments of dispositions if it be duly applyed even as I have demonstrated at large as well concerning the action of Government as in the Treatise that heat doth not digest in sensitive Creatutes But because the sensitive Soul which the Schools shamefully confound with heat applyeth the received faculties and from thence frameth a certain new action proper to it self and wholly vital Therefore the faculties which the Sensitive soul receiveth from the medicine are the effective and occasional causes only and it might if it would pass by and neglect the same The which is manifest in the more strong persons who digest laxative medicines even violent ones without trouble and drink being in vain as if they were foods And likewise in dying persons unto whom indeed there is an application of Medicines but not an appropriation to wit by reason of a neglect and defect of the sensitive power For in the more strong folks an exciting heat is not wanting and yet thâ—re is no effect For otherwise the vertues of a Medicine are presently received and do pâ—oceed by degrees more and more and then those powers being received into the sensitive Soul this sensitive Soul presently behaves it self well or ill toward them If well then it useth its own Objects for the cherishment of their powers or for the vanquishment of that which is hurtful But if amiss now the sensitive life carries it self foolishly furiously angrily vexingly c. And it spreads the seminal Idea's of these
the dayes of Galen wherein surely I am amazed at the great sluggishness of wits as to a diligent search they assenting unto false principles lest the right of disputing against denyers should be forestalled from them I will therefore no longer speak to Galen but unto the Schooles I wish therefore that they may explain to me by what Conducter manner and passage a putrified humour may at every fit come from the shops of the humours unto the utmost parts of the veines which are terminated into the habit of the Body or into the flesh and skin For if it were putrified before it came unto the slender and utmost extremities of the veines why is one alone to wit Choler or Phlegm separated from its three fellowes that as a banished humour it may putrifie far from its own Cottages Or who is that silly Separater which plucks the harmless humour from its own composed body for so absurd ends Why therefore the same Separater remaining for Life doth not the same Fever continue for Life What School-master admonisheth this Separater of his Errour that he may seasonably repent At leastwise if the utmost parts of the veines do not corrupt that putrified humour the veines themselves shall be more putrified and so they shall labour with an unexcusable Gangreen But if the Cause which calleth the guiltless humour unto it self subsisteth in the very extremities of the veines that it may putrifie the same in its own possession Yet by a greater breviary it should execute that in the Bloud nigh to it self over which it hath a stronger Right and from whence it hath as well a liberty to separate Choler or phlegm as the same thing is otherwise proper unto a solutive Medicine Again If it listeth it to have prepared a putrified humour out of the nigh bloud it shall in vain expect an agreeable quantity of Choler for full two dayes space But if that humour shall putrifie before it could reach to the utmost parts of the veines then the Schooles contradict themselves and the seat of intermitting Fevers shall not be in the habit of the Body but in the first shops of the Humours In the next place If at one onely turn of a fit the whole putrified humour be dispersed out of the veines into the habit of the Body even for the consumption of it self why at least shall that Separater or Driver seeing nothing is moved by it self which is not vital be less generous in the Bowels than he that is placed in the utmost parts of the veins At length for what end of Doatage shall there be this passage of the putrified Humour from the Mesentery through the Liver and Heart even unto the extremities of the veines It is a matter full of danger and it is to be feared but that by its frequent passage it may soon defile the whole blood with its corruptions and deadly gore For let it either be a great lye of Galen or humane nature voluntarily meditates of its own ruine And by this meanes the necessity of Revulsion boasted of by cutting of a veine falls to the ground For truly the putrified humour is by the voluntary force of intermitting Fevers at set hours Revulsed or pulled back from the Nest of its Generation Yea it issues of its own accord unto the utmost parts of the veines unless perhaps that Revulsion be accounted dangerous which wholly ought to be made by the Heart through the hollow vein as well in intermitting Fevers as by the cutting of a vein And then either the feverish matter is at every fit wholly drawn out of the Nest of its nativity or not wholly if totally there shall be no cause of return if not totally it is exhausted Why shall a new humour which putrifies at every future fit no more move an Aguish fit by its putrefaction than by its expulsion For truly there is greater labour and pain while corrupt pus is in making that when the pus is made Why in that case shall not the seat of Fevers be rather in the place of putrefaction than in places through which it passeth while it is expelled Why I say the appetite returning Thirst and Watchings being absent To wit in the resting dayes of intermitting Fevers shall Choler or phlegm putrifie in the Bowels And why doth not the putrefaction thereof disturb the Family administration of the shops of the Humours Why shall black Choler which should be made on the second day of the week putrifie in two dayes space into a ripe putrifaction and that which should be made on the followng day putrifie as much in one onely day as the former putrified in two dayes If that which was joyned of them both causeth the fit of a Quartane on the fourth day of the week Why doth not that which is made on the second day stir up its own fit on the fourth day and that which is made on the third day not likewise stir up its own Tumult on the fifth day And consequently if any be made on the fourth day of the week why doth it not frame a fit on the sixth day The shoulders of Physitians are lifted up their Browes are bent and hidden properties are accused while as they are constrained to answer unto things known by Sense by believed and supposed madnesses Why at length in the rigours or shaking fits of a Tertian will they have that which is vomited up about their Beginnings to be Gaul and say that Nature bends that same way if on the contrary the guidance of Nature doth in the same interval of time proceed from the Center unto the utmost parts of the Veines because Nature doth not at one onely instant stir up two opposite motions within and without especially from the cause of one Excrement which is accounted the Gawl Why doth not that vomiting take away as much from the sharpness of the fit as there is a plentifull expulsion of that excrement which they suppose to be the very matter of a Tertian But if in a Tertian a residing Choler remaineth in its own shops after the fit why doth it rather putrifie new Choler than the humours radically annexed to it self After what manner do bitter Vomiting Thirst and so great Tokens of hurts molest the stomach while as most of the Balast of the malady shall passe over unto the extream parts of the veines that it may provoke Rigours But those who carry the marks of a Cautery do see that two dayes after Fevers a spare quantity of or no excrements are wiped off the which surely should be many if so many feverish filths should at every fit slide unto the utmost parts of the veines and habit of the Body The Schooles triumph in the Causes of Rigour they being as prettily feigned as blockishly believed But why doth Galen give more heed unto the quantity of an humour than to the ready obedience of the same Should not Choler although lesse in quantity by reason of its heat and
out of the veines be not putrified truly now Nature is mad and outragious because she rather dissolves the Bloud that she may have that which may putrifie for the continuation of a future Fever But the Schooles of Galen confess that Choler to be putrified and that a putrified humour is poured out through the veines at every fit and brought into the slender extremities of the veines and that is the cause of the trembling of the fit and great cold To wit the putrefaction of which humour when it is the more intense or heightened in the same place that it straightway after causeth so great a heat I have accounted these Doctrines to be dry stubbles unworthy Fables miserable old Wives Fictious and ignorances most pernicious unto mankind But surely Fernelius first discovered this Ignorance of the Schooles Wherefore Rondeletius and the followers of Galen inveigh against Fernelius as a forsaker of and an Apostate from the School of Medicine Fernelius therefore first smelt out the Nest of intermitting Fevers to be about the stomach Duodenum and Crow and indeed he fixed the seat of continual Fevers about the heart but he durst not to decline from the ancient Rule of curing Feuers For he had begun openly to dispute against the foregoing Schooles for the Nest of Fevers but afterwards he hid himself among retired places for he not being able to rid himself of the strawy Bonds of putrified Humours suffered the essence and knowledge of Fevers to be snatched away from him But Paracelsus being affrighted with the Rigour of Fevers perswading himself that he held the knowledge of a Fever by the eares and pleasing himself with his own Allegorical invention of a Microcosme defines a Fever to be a Disease of Sulphur and Niter and elsewhere again to be the Earth-quake of the Microcosme As if Sulphur and Nitre were made far more cold than themselves while they are separated from the mud or Limbus as he saith of the Microcosme and moreover after some hours were of their own accord inflamed with the fire of Aetna For as Galen every where stumbled in the searching into Causes and so therein bewrayed himself not to be a Physitian the Name of whom he saith is the Finder out of the occasion So Paracelsus by a wonderfull Liberty slid into the Similitudes or Allusions of a Microcosme or little World unworthy a Physitian Because that was a hard Law which had violently thrust man into the miserable necessities of all Diseases nakedly that he might resemble the Microcosme or great World I certainly gratifie my Soul that I shew forth the Figure of the living God but nor of the World This good man was deceived because he knew not that fire doth no where kindle unless it be first inflamed neither however he hath feigned that there is a Flint and Steel in us and also a Smiter in the point of rubbing of the Flint Surely there was no need of these things as neither of Gun-pouder for a feverish heat unless we are burnt at the first stroak and cleave asunder in the middle An actuall matter therefore of Sulphur and Salt-peter is wanting in us a connexion of them both is wanting an actual fire is wanting And lastly a Body is wanting which may undergo that kindling at one onely moment Therefore let the Causes and originals of Fevers in the Schooles be Trifles and Fables CHAP. IV. Phlebotomy or Bloud-letting in Fevers is examined 1. One onely reason against humours others elsewhere 2. A universal proposition for Bloud-letting Galen being the Author 3. A Syllogisme against the same Galen 4. A Logistical or rational proof 5. That a Plethora or abounding fulnesse of good bloud is impossible 6. That corrupted bloud doth never subsist in the veines 7. That there cannot be said to be a Plethora in a neutral state of the bloud 8. That cutting of a vein is never betokened by the Positions of the Schooles 9. What a Cachochymia or state of bad juyce in the veines may properly be 10. That co-indications instead of a proper indication and those opposite to a contrary indication or betokening do square amisse 11. A proposition of the Author against cutting of a veine in a Fever 12. The Schooles disgrace their own laxative Medicines by their tryals of the cutting of a veine 13. The ends of co-betokenings 14. A fore-warning of the Author 15. After what manner the letting out of bloud cooleth 16. A miserable History of a Cardinal Infanto 17. We must take special notice against Physitians that are greedy of bloud 18. A guilty mind is a thousand witnesses 19. An argument drawn from thence 20. The essential state of Fevers 21. An explaining of the foregoing argument concerning cooling and the privy shifts of the Schooles 22. That there is not a proceeding from one extream unto another is badly drawn from Science Mathematical into Medicine 23. It is a faulty argument in healing 24. The argument from the position of the Schooles is opposed 25. The false paint of the Schooles from stubborn ignorance 26. The faculties obtain the chiefdom of betokening 27. Hippocrates concerning great Wrestlers or Champions is opposed but being badly understood 28. The differences of emptyings 29. A Fever hurts lesse than the cutting of a veine 30. The obligement of Physitians 31. A general intention in Fevers and the cutting of a veine opposite thereunto 32. Science Mathematical proveth that cutting of a veine doth alwayes hurt 33. The uncertainty of Physitians proves a defect of Principles 34. Cutting of a veine cannot diminish the cause of Fevers 35. An argument from a sufficient enumeration 36. Another from the quality of the bloud 37. Whither the Schooles are driven 38. Vain hope in the changes of bloud let out 39. That the co-indication of Phlebotomy for Revulsion is vain as well in a Fever as in the menstrues 40. Derivation in local Diseases is sometimes profitable but in Fevers impertinent 41. Cutting of a vein is hurtfull in a Pleurisie 42. The Schooles may learn from the Country Folk that their Maximes are false 43. Revulsion a Rule in Fevers 44. What Physitians ought to learn by this Chapter BEfore I proceed unto further Scopes I ought to repeat what things I have elsewhere demonstrated in a large Treatise To wit That there are not two Cholers and phlegme in Nature as the constitutive parts of the venal blood but that the Treatise of Fevers required me to be more brief especially because those very things do of themselves go to ruine in this place where there is no mention made of Humours except putrified ones since an Animal or living Creature that is putrified is no longer an Animal I will therefore examine onely the two universal Succours To wit Bloud-letting and Purging as the two pillars of Medicine and the which being dashed in pieces the whole Edifice falls down of its own accord as it were into Rubbish and these Succours being taken away Physitians may forsake the sick they not
words in the confession of Physitians 9. An argument against black Choler in the Spleen and the privy shifts of Physitians 10. The true reason whence the Spleen waxeth hard about the end of a Quartane Ague and the errour of the Schooles is discovered 11. Some remarkable things in a Quartane 12. The manner of be-drunkenning and the Organs thereof 13. A notable thing concerning a Vegetable Spirit of VVine out of Juniper-berries 14. VVhy VVines are ordinarily gratefull to Mortals 15. After what manner the Arteries draw their Remedles 16. An impediment in abstracted Oyles which is not in the Salts of the same 17. The manner of making of the Cardiack or Heart-passion which they also call the Royal Passion 18. Divers Chronical Diseases are from the Stomach 19. The ignorance and sincerity of the age of Hippocrates 20. There is no Seat for a Quartane left in the Schooles 21. A few remarkable things concerning Madnesses are declared 22. The Seat of foolish Madnesses SUrely I have demonstrated in an entire Treatise that there never were Humours in Nature which the Schooles of Medicine presuppose for the Foundation of their Art and that Treatise should profesly have respect hitherto unless it had been erelong to be repeated in a work of other Diseases Because they have every where named all Diseases by those Humours But it shall be sufficient in this place to have demonstrated by the way That Fevers do in no wise owe their original unto those Humours whether they are entire or putrified ones Now I will speak something concerning a Quartane Ague but not that it differs from its Cousin-German Fevers in its matter and efficient cause or is cured otherwise than after one and the same manner and by the same meanes whereby other Fevers are overcome but because a Quartane hath never been vanquished by the broken forces of the Schooles and so it hath made mocks at the Commentaries of Physitians and their vain Speeches concerning black Choler concerning the Spleen as the sink of black and burnt Choler and of loosening Medicines bringing forth black Choler by a Choyce A Quartane Ague therefore hath long since exposed the Doctrine of the Universities and the promises of these unto Laughter as being vain Trifles and wan Fables without strength For truly a desperate curing by Arts hath made manifest the feeble help of Medicines the vain promises of Dispensatories and the undoubted ignorance of the causes of Fevers Good God! it is now manifest that Physitians cannot onely not cure the Leprosie Gout Palsey Asthma Stone Falling-sicknesse and other Diseases conteined under the large Catalogue of uncurable ones which are never cured of their own accord but they have not known how to take away so much as a Quartane Ague which patiently expects and deludes every endeavour of Physitians The which notwithstanding Nature cures by her own power to the disgrace of the Schooles For they who attempt their Cures onely by the cuttings of a vein Sarrifyings Leeches Vesicatories and purgings of the Belly and so by diminishments of the Body and Strength and stick wholly in Heathenish Doctrines are even excluded by Nature from the true knowledge of Causes and Remedies Because first of all None of their Medicines reacheth unto the Seat of a Quartane but it first paying Tribute through the Toles or Customes of every Digestion is stript of every Faculty requisite unto so great a malady For neither ought I to draw out that thing from elsewhere or to prove it by many Arguments Be it sufficient That the Succours of Physitians have been hitherto unprosperous For they purge and cut a vein and then they leave the rest to be boren by Nature And in the mean time they certainly know that they shall profit nothing by Remedies of that sort nor that they ever have profited thereby I wish at least that they had not done hurt They ought therefore to confess that Remedies and also all the suppositions of Art faileth them in this Disease Yea neither that the wonted privy evasion of uncurableness in other Diseases is of value unto them For all the powers of the Universities being conjoyned cannot perform so much as Nature can and doth do without them of her own free accord But moreover The same shamefulnesse of ignorance and every way impotency which a Quartane hath discovered in the Schooles They should be compelled to confesse in the other curings of Fevers also if those did not hasten to an end of their own accord Wherefore I now conjecture That the out-law a Quartane in the Age that is forthwith to come shall distinguish false Physitians from true ones whom the Almighty hath Chosen Created and Commanded to be Honoured The Schools therefore define a Quartane according to the account of other Fevers by a heat kindled besides nature first in the heart from the humour of black Choler being putrified and diffused by the utmost small brances of the veins into the habit of the body The seat of which putrified Choler they nevertheless acknowledge to be in the Spleen I importunately crave at your hands I beseech you let the profession of Medicine tell me what harmony they can ever utter from so great dumness And whether it be not to have blinded the minds as well of the sick as of young beginners with prattle Let them explain why that heat is not first kindled in the Spleen where the cause or humour sitteth which by its putrefaction as they say is the cause of an unnatural heat even as while a Thorn being thrust into the finger sticking fast therein the finger it self first rageth with heat and that long before the putrefaction of inflammation Why is a Quartane so stubborn if at every fit nature opens a passage for it self whereby it may disperse the putrified black Choler thorow the veins into the habit of the body even in the very rigour of cold and straightness of the veins After what manner shall the same black Choler in number be as yet putrified after a year and an halfs space and afford an hard Spleen if at every fit it be dispersed into the habit of the body How if it was from the beginning in the Spleen with so daily a fornication of putrified matter hath it not long since putrified the Spleen The which especially is accounted by the Schools to be nothing but a sink of the worst excrement After what manner doth a Quartane after so many moneths retire as better of its own accord to the disgrace of Physitians while as notwithstanding it shall of necessity be more dry gross and shall more putrifie than at its first fits Again What humour which from its rise is evil and putrified can be at length digested Doth nature become foolish that she at length after a divorce and a year an a halfs time begins to digest the humour which in the beginning she had refused to digest it being already before of necessity plainly putrified What reason is there of the
black Choler and jesting or merry ones from blood Surely otherwise we should all of us be daily jocound doaters or deprived of blood For feverish doarages are especially fetcht out of a feverish matter creeping into the shops of dreams and not from elsewhere But not that it forsakes the body that it may enter into the mind And likewise a doating delusion should never happen in a burning Fever in a Synochus or continual Fevers but alwayes in Quartanes and black Cholery Diseases Truly a Doatage is already from the very Beginning of Fevers To wit where the Fever and the Cause of the Doatage are jointy in the Root For the malice being encreased and the Organs weakened by little and little the Doatage or Delusion ascends unto the maturity of its own perfection So in Wine and also in some Simples yea and likewise in feverish Excrements a hidden Doatage is covered neither doth it bewray it self unlesse the power thereof shall ascend into a Constitutive mixture At leastwise all things do by the same Royal wax according to the Genius of their own malice Rage on the Organs of the Phantasie even as elsewhere concerning Madnesses The Seed therefore of the doating Delusion lurked from the Beginning in the feverish matter which at length is promoted unto its due malignity If therefore Madnesses differ in their matter and efficient cause That is in their whole Species and Being Surely the Falling-sicknesse and Madnesse do much farther differ from each other and do more differ in a forreign Seed than that one onely black Choler being exorbitant in its Seats should bring forth both Even as elsewhere concerning the Dunmvirate Madnesses I will say in one word are all nourished by the arteries and in the Inn of the Hypochondrial or Midriffes According to that saying In whom a vein beats strongly in the Midriffs those are estranged in their mind Therefore also they oft-times want an exciting disturbance before they relapse into a Mania or bruitish madness Because this is bred by a perturbation very like unto that CHAP. VII The Succours of Physitians are weighed 1. Of what sort the Succours of Physitians are 2. The vanity of the same 3. The hurt of local Medicines and their feigned derivation 4. The water in Vesicatories was meer venal blood 5. An Objection solved 6. A Vesicatory or embladdering Medicine is more cruel than the letting forth of blood 7. To what end Vesicatories were devised 8. A Clyster why hostile to the bowels 9. A Clyster never reacheth unto the gut Ileon 10. Laxatives in a Clyster are the more sharp being hurtful as purging things are but less hurtful 11. A poyson hurts to have taken it inwards by whatsoever title and entrance 12. That Fevers are never drawn out by Clysters 13. They therefore hinder long life 14. A Clyster how it names Physitians 15. A fore-knowledge from the use of Clysters 16. It is a blockish thing to nourish by Clysters 17. A conjecture 18. The common sort of Physitians are taken notice of I have determined to examine the common Succours before I determine of the nature of Fevers But those are Scarifications openings of the Fundament-Veins Vesicatories and others of that sort and they all concut unto the diminishments of the blood strength and body And the which therefore have already been sufficiently condemned under universal Succours They are indeed foolish aids about the superficies of the body when as the Central parts labour and are besieged and the which not being freed from the enemy it is vain and hurtful whatsoever is attempted by the gestures of such Apes Surely it is a vain rudiment of hope to be willing by consequence to remove the root out of its place by taking away the guiltless blood from the skin which thing Prince Infanto the Cardinal by his exhausted veins the Circuite of his Tertian Ague nevertheless remaining hath confirmed to Anatomists with a mournful spectacle And likewise a Paracenthesis or opening of the belly nigh the navil in the dropsie ought long since to have extinguished the like kind of hope For there it is plainly an easie thing to draw out waters from the nigh Center and daily to draw from the fruit a part of the water at pleasure But in vain because not any thing of the root departs And so incision nigh the navil doth only protract life for a few dayes But let Vesicatories or embladdering Medicines be alwayes exceeding hurtful and devised by the wicked spirit Moloch For the water dropping continually from thence is nothing but venal blood transchanged For while any one scorcheth his hand or leg the fire calls not the whey of the blood unto the burned place Neither doth that water lurk in any other place and waiting to run to it with loosened rains while the skin should be at sometimes scorched The water should be deaf at the call of the fire neither should nature obey a commander from without What if a water swims on the blood which they call Choler surely that floats not as being separated from the blood except after its Coagulation or Corruption Embladderers therefore intend this but not Preservation and Healing That salt water therefore is not but is made it is not separated I say from the Blood but the Blood thereof is transchanged into water very like unto the Dropsie Flux and the like defects By so much therefore are Vesicatories fuller of danger than the cutting of a vein Because this is stopped at pleasure but that not the which after the cuttings of a vein and vain Butcheries of the body is at length dreamed of for the hinderances of a Feverish Coma and so for the adulterating of a latter effect For they rejoyce to awaken the sleepy or deep drowsie sick by reason of the pain of so many Ulcers And however thou considerest of the matter it is a cruel torture of Butchers For neither is the drowsie sick ill at ease because he sleepeth But he sleepeth because he is ill at ease And so to hinder the sleep is not profitable But that only prevaileth to take away the root of drowsiness They therefore who suspend the sleep only by pains do cruelly drive the sick headlong into death For they flatter the people in being cruel toward the sick party In the mean time they persevere in the office of a cruel and unfaithful Mercenary Helper For if the drowsie feverish person sleep or being pulled be daily awakened such stupid allurements perform not the least thing in Fevers Wherefore I am wont to give my remedies in at the mouth and food at set hours nor to regard whether he shall sleep or not I say that antient saying with the Apostles If Laxarus sleep therefore he shall be healed For the tortures brought on him that hath a Fever have never profited any one But as to what pertains to Clysters it is a frequent and shameful aid of Physitians I at leastwise in times past never perswaded and described Clysters
those shall either be ungrateful to the nature of the stomach and therefore they stir up vomit and stools So that only the incongruity malignity and ingratitude of things taken into the body are the cause why they move vomiting and stool and are forthwith expelled with those things which they threw down into their own Faction Therefore they procure perplexities and troubles But if the things dissolving are acceptable to Nature they are willingly admitted inwards yet the composed body suffers not any thing thereby as well in respect of the thing dissolving as of that which is dissolved For truly both of them are undigestible Therefore that composure remains safe as before it passeth through all the shops of the veins and at length for truly it cannot be changed nor by consequence pass over into the Family of Life is expelled with the sweat by transpiration In which journey whatsoever of filths those famous Secrets do touch at they dissolve them and snatch them away with themselves and so they heal Fevers and most Chronical diseases Whosoever therefore ye be who in healing have cordial charity towards your neighbour learn ye a certain Dissolver which may be homogeneal or simple in kind unchangeable dissolving its Objects into their first liquid matter and thou shalt obtain the innermost Essences of things and shalt be able to look into the natural endowments of these But if ye cannot reach unto that Secret of the Fire learn ye at leastwise to render the Salt of Tartar volatile that by means hereof ye may perfect your dissolutions The which although as being digested in us it forsaketh its dissolved bodies that are safely or unharmedly homogeneal yet it hath borrowed some of their vertues which it conveighs inward as the subduers of most diseases But for the obtainment of these things it is not sufficient to rub over Books but moreover it behooves you to buy coals and vessels and to spend watching nights in order So have I done thus have I spoken let the praise be unto God Because the Universities in their eighth Potion forbid to wit the Cutting of a vein except in the fulness of blood but they admit of it only in this because then the vice of Blood-letting cannot be sufficiently manifest and because in their tenth Position they now implicitely grant a Fever not to be a meer heat but that it is to be cured by heating and corroborating remedies they being all hot things Surely one of the two must of necessity be true To wit either that a Fever is not heat in its root or that they must not heal by contraries any longer Out of the Positions of Lovaine disputed at Lovaine under the most discreet Sir D. Vopiscus Fortunatus Plempius on the 26. of November in the year 1641. CHAP. XVI The Essence of Fevers is discovered 1. The life of Mortals is the efficient cause of Diseases 2. Herein is the raging Errour of the life 3. A proof of the foregoing particulars 4. The Authour wherein he disagreeth from the Antients 5. The internal efficient and its matter are proved 6. In what sort the Thingliness or Essence of Fevers may be formed 7. A Proposition 8. That Immortality once consisted from a natural cause 9. The Original of diseasie Idea's 10. What hath deceived the Antients 11. That the Archeus in his own Idea's of perturbations imitates the Imagination 12. The aforesaid Proposition is proved 13. A two-fold fountain of the Beginning of Idea's 14. A necessity of Idea's in a Fever is proved 15. The same thing by a numbring up of parts 16. An examination of the occasional cause HItherto I have disputed against the Schools as if I dared not to teach the Essence of Fevers Therefore since the fruit discovers its tree I am compelled for the sake of the Lovers of Medicine to add a supply whereby the Essence of Fevers being hitherto unknown may be the more illustrated and a manner of distinguishing between Judgement and Judgement and Remedy from Remedy may be granted to the young Beginner First of all I have shewn ably enough that the definition of Fevers have been hitherto unknown and therefore that the Essence and essential causes of those are as yet unknown And seeing the knowledge of things is not granted unto us from a former cause at leastwise it is strongly to be admired at that nothing hath been devised for the Essence of a Fever besides heat while as notwithstanding the History it self of Fevers might have been able sufficiently to have opened the Necessities Agreement and Constancy of Causes and at leastwise to have reduced Mortals from the ridiculous errour of heat unless a sluggishness it self of Mortals had been allured through the tediousness of a diligent search and the easiness of subscribing First of all I speak of the nature of man being corrupted such as it continues since transgression successively For a Disease was as yet an Exile as long as death was absent So indeed that a disease had not yet any hope for it self in possibility But after that death entred into the life every disease stood in a powerful army directed against the life it self so as that a disease intended to establish its nest in the vital Beginning not indeed by fighting as a certain external thing on and against the life But the forreign Guest drew his sword in the very life it self whereby he might cut off the Life his Inne and the Patron of his Essence For such was the corruption of mans immortality that he afterwards drew his own death out of the life it self For neither do I speak in jest far be it when I write of preserving the life of Mortals For indeed every Disease perisheth presently together with the life For neither do matters however hostile they may be feigned to be combate or wax hot any longer after death Wherefore every direction of the internal efficient cause ought to depend on the life it self For that which the Ancients have even hitherto before me called the Duel of nature also the lot of an Elementary complexion with solitary qualities or with the very offensive matter of supposed humours among each other All that I affirm to proceed effectively efficiently and immediately from the principle of life that is from the inordinacy indignation tumult terrour and abhorrency of the vital spirits But the excrementous matter and that which they have thought to be and called the offending or diseasie matter I call that which is produced detained or introduced besides nature from an erring or forreign occasional cause And so I call all such matter only the occasional matter indeed the inciting one and plainly external to a Disease because the presence of which matter as yet remaining the whole Fever doth oft-times cease and utterly perisheth Therefore the internal efficient and immediate formal Being is the very life it self and the immediate matter thereof is drawn and departs from the vital air as to a part of it wherein the
its shop 28. From the impertinencie of the supposed position 29. From a convenient or agreeing thing 30. From the Gowt and wringings of the bowells 31. From an Erisepelas 32. From Causticks 33. From an Evangelical word 34. From a defect of the seperater 35. From the nourishing of the similar parts 36. From an impertinency 37. The deformity of a formed argument of the Schools 38. From a like thing 39. From the nature of an Element 40. From the simplicity of its end 41. A denyal of a position 42. From a Phylosophical maxim 43. From tast and properties 44. Who was the inventer of humours 45. What a diversity of Soiles may argue 46. From the blood of an Aethiopian 47. Whence the venal blood is the more red in its superficies 48. From a like thing 49. Whence there is a change of colours in things 50. From a shew of the deed in many things 51. The childish in inspection of the Schools of out-issuing blood 52. Miserable impostures 53. A ridiculous omission of the Schools 54. The judgment of Physitians fights against it self 55. Privy shifts sliding from unvoluntary cheeks 56. A cruel or hurtfull little book concerning the nature of man 57. From effects and fear 58. From the confession of Physitians 59. Dunghill Physitians distinguish not men but by dungs 60. A ridiculous argument of the Schooles 61. An argument on the contrary from a maxim of naturall Phylosophy 62. A convincing argument 63. Galen ridiculous about the cause of the variety of humours 64. The perplexities of Galen 65. Refutations by the Beginnings of natural Phylosophy 66. An errour of Paracelsus 67. The Schools are ignorant of the venal blood 68. An argument against the position 69. A false and ridiculous supposition of the Schools concerning the supplying office of the Spleen 70. Absurdities 71. A handicraft demonstration 72. Against the position concerning black Choler 73. Many absurdities follow 74. The Schools do most miserably prove their position for black choler 75. Some defects following thereupon 76. A convincing argument 77. An Idiotisme of Paracelsus 78. Sharpnesse doth not ferment Earth 79. From an impertinency 80. A convincing argument 81. From an impossibility 82. A ridiculous supposition of the Schools and four absurdities thereof 83. Some absurdities accompanying the opinion concerning the hony of Galen 84. From things implying 85. By a convincing argument from the supposition of a falshood concerning the Elements 86. From a number of the Elements 87 A bruitish objection 88. If we must not proceed by humours how therefore must we cure 89. The praise of the valatile salt of Tartar I Have sent forth an unheard of Doctrine of Fevers that I might hear what the more fruitful wits might teach me For there were some who had promised that they would be arbitrators or judges in the Case whom notwithstanding I conjecture so long to be silent untill I had set forth a treatise of humours which I had promised to gather out of my great works For truly they could not be ignorant that if I could sufficiently demonstrate that the humours accustomed in the Schools besides blood were never or never to be in nature they also were to have no contention with me concerning Fevers And that thing I now promise ingeniously to performe not indeed as that I may be glorious by the name of a Paradox but altogether from compassion towards young beginners that are badly instructed and toward the sick that are badly handled under the device of humours Therefore I will state the forme of the matter For indeed the Chyle or juice of the stomach being supt up into the veines of the mesentery they affirme the same chyle to be conveighed unto the Port-vein of the Liver to wit a trunk arising out of the small branches distributed through the mesentery into the intestines or bowels And that that Chyle in the time of its passage through the slender trunks of the veins extended into the liver is by the power of the Liver converted into blood and also into phlegm and a twofold choler And that this choler is afterwards seperated partly into the spleen and partly into the litle bag of the gawl To wit that they may be the keepers of both their own superfluous choler but that the two natural Cholers as the entire and constitutive parts of the blood are co-mingled together with the blood for the necessities of the parts to be nourished in the due proportion of the quaternary of which humours that as health doth consist So on the other hand that in an undue proportion thereof all diseases are entertained But that an undue proportion thereof proceedeth as well from the perpetual strife and hostile and unwearied contrariety of the four repugnant Elements as from the voluntary distemperature and inbred fight stirred up of things received into the body Truly I have already in the Beginnings of natural Phylosophy and rise of medicine sufficiently removed the foregoing cause of so great a fiction To wit where I have sufficiently demonstrated that there are not four Elements in nature and by consequence if there are only three that four cannot go together or encounter Therefore that the squadron being broken cannot cause four unlike Elementary combates temperatures mixtures contrarieties hatreds strifes c. For I have taught cleerly enough that the fruites which antiquity hath believed to be mixt bodies and those composed from a concurrence of four Elements are materially of one onely Element In the next place also that those three Elements are naturally cold nor that native heat is any where in things except from light life motion and an altering Blas And so that heat in the Elements is a meer Relolleum In like manner also that all actual moisture is of water but all virtual moisture from the property of the seeds Likewise that drynesse is by it self in the aire and earth But in fruites by reason of the seeds and coagulations Therefore that it is a false doctrine which is celebrated concerning the Elements mixtures qualities temperaments discords degrees in order unto diseases and the curings of these I have also profesly demonstrated that there are not contraries in nature That health is opposed to a disease with relation of that which is entire unto that which is defectuous To wit that remedies do take away a disease not by the force of contrariety as neither by reason of a naked similtude or likenesse but by reason of a meer gift of goodnesse restoring nature by helping her the which otherwise is the Physitiannesse of her own self These things surely were sufficient and might be able to take humours out of the way unlesse an opposite custome had as it were tied up the mind least it should hasten unto the knowledge of the truth For it is a very difficult thing to disaccustome those who are confident in themselves that by those humours they have long since compendiously viewed every catalogue of a disease Wherefore unto those that
of the necessities of agents and ends Truly on both sides great trifles do involve great cares and great absurdities The which if they put on obstinacy they now nourish madnesse if not also malice The trifles of Humours therefore being invented by the evil spirit were derived into Pagans and hitherto subscribed by the Schools For they were fit for the Devil because they contein confusions in healing fallacies and lyes and therefore they produce dayly deaths they obscure the light of nature they presuppose plausible fictions and are destitute of all examples from their like and by so much the more dry stupid dangerous and rash those fables are by how much they are the more toughly believed for the destruction of Mortals Galen therefore is wholly giddy who affirmes Hony to be totally turned sometimes into blood and sometimes into Choler 1. First a messenger hath been wanting unto this rash asserter which might the more surely certifie him what and how much was made from the totalnesse of Hony And so he is wholly suspected of rashnesse and a fiction 2. Truth is wanting to the affirmer For truly in nature Choler failes and therefore also a Cholerick complexion 3. For he who throughout his great volumes attributes the properties of the members unto Elementary qualities alone constantly writes that a quaternary or fourfold number of Humours are framed onely by the actual heat of one Liver in one onely action of Sanguification When as notwithstanding actual heat cannot but be simple in one onely member at one and the same time Let Galen therefore learn to dream more truly concerning Hony and Sanguification Neither let him depart unto childish principles by believing that four conquering and contrary complexions of Elements do remaine at once in the Liver every one whereof formeth to it self its own Humour out of the single or simple Chyle which is connexible into the one only Subject of blood and falling down from thence at the pleasure of a loosening medicine Let him therefore desist from believing that Humours are made to vary out of one only Hony or Chyle by reason of heat alone and that a simple one seeing that wretched Prince of medicine doth not consider that hereby there is required in a temperate heat of the Liver as many heats at once for so many Humours diverse in making warm from the supposition of their Being Take notice my Companions that we are in no wise constrained unto the fiction of four Humours For those things which are voided forth in the Flux the disease called Choler and dreggishnesses of vomits are not Humours boasted of by the Schooles but they are excrements which the revenging disease frameth and expelleth even as those which laxative medicines do eject are the corruptions of sound or entire blood And that which the revenging disease there acteth That the Laxative medicine here executes indeed with much brevity For neither is the gate of diseases shut by the feigned perswasions of Humours Since that according to Phlosophy Those things are never drawn out of a transchanged Being from whence it is naturally constituted in its making Moreover although I have sufficiently proved elsewhere that there are not four Elements nor the combating congresse of the same for the framing of bodies which are believed to be mixt And that it followes from thence that there is not an unlike action of the Liver in the alway procreation of four Humours Yet whereby the Schools may see with what a prop their whole foundation in healing is supported I will treat from their own meer granted and delivered doctrine For truly if the Elements do not with their Formes remain in the mixt body neither also could their properties remain therein seeing the forms themselves are the immediate subject of inherency of their own properties But if they had rather have the Elements to remaine with their formes in the mixt body Now even the formes of those Elements shall not be substantial acts but only the bonds of the Elements For they shall alway return entire from every sore shaking of the supposed mixt bodies To wit the formes of the Elements shall soundly sleep so long as they shall have rule over the forme of the mixt body Since therefore the Form of a mixt body is of necessity a pure and simple ultimate act it cannot be fourfold yea although the material and remote principler of that matter should be the very actuall Elements and by consequence there is no reason of feigning a Quaternary of Humours in respect of the agent Because the action of sanguification is in no wise Elementary but vital and of the Ferment of the Liver The every way simplicity whereof could not finally respect a quaternion of Humours to arise out of an uniform and most exactly united Chyle So that although there were in a mixt body twenty Elements there should not therefore be as many necessary productions of Humours It is therefore a blockish speculation and of a divelish perswasion which saith that of three Elements never concurring unto the mixture of bodies four Humours in number ought always and ordinarily to proceed and that from thence one only venal blood is regularly constituted To wit that from thence the necessities of curing and of diseases are dictated Perhaps they will object thou admittest that the hurtfull cause is to be driven away thou forbiddest laxative medicines because they are poysonous and indeed do withdraw the blood and vital strength But from a Hungarian horse they have learned the cuttings of a vein from a bird Clysters c. Therefore I may say truly with the Prophet Do not ye become as the horse and mule which have no understanding Do not ye learn of such Masters For the half part of the Continent will subscribe to my desire Because under the Ottoman Abyssine or Aethiopian Empires and the chief part of the Indies the cutting of a vein is unusual Yet the strengths nimblenesses readinesse vâ—gâ—ancy of these nations and constancy of their labours as well to do as to suffer learn ye out of Histories And ye will deservedly lament with me that the Nations which in times past were formidable in war have at this day by degrees under Physitians become ready to dye at every turning of the wind For the North and West which were wont to disperse their warriours into the whole world do henceforth by reason of these follies of the Schools dye as soon as the army is marched far from home Lastly they will object If thou takest away universal succours neither directest thy self unto the withdrawing of Humours by what meanes therefore wilt thou overcome diseases I answer with the aforesaid Nations that Nature is the Physitianesse of diseases therefore that she is to be comforted and not dejected That there is need of a promotion of ends For if excrementitious filths shall adhere unto the first dens or privy places of the Body we must insist on resolving and cleansing medicines nature being safely
Anthonies fire c although the mouth might sometimes be bitter yet the liquour issuing from an Erisipelas is not bitter but plainly of sharp is become salt That Humour I say of whose burning heat the Schools complain in an Erisipelas is called a most sharp one when as in the mean time it bears neither any sharpnesse nor bitternesse before it And they are unconstant in this when as notwithstanding the sharpness of Humours ought to differ as much from their bitterness as Pepper doth from Coloquintida or from wild Cucumber And so the Schools have treated thus carelessely and unconstantly concerning the properties of their own Choler Because in Law a varying witness is unworthy of any credit he is accounted for an unsavoury or foolish or false witnesse and he is constrained to restitution by how much hurt he hath brought unto another by his testimony But come on then let us suppose but not believe that the liquour swimming on the blood is Gauly Choler and of the natural composition thereof At leastwise that blood on which that Choler now swims should be no longer blood if one of its four constitutive parts hath failed it and there be made a seperation of the Marriage bed to wit a real seperation of things composing for Cheese from which the Wheyinesse is withdrawn is no longer Milk For neither do I deny that the whole entire body subsisteth from an union of Heterogeneal parts but the integrity of the former composed body ceaseth assoon as one of its constitutive parts hath retired The Schools indeed suppose a permanency and co-knitting of four Humours for the constitution of the blood Yea besides this simple and vain supposition nothing hath been hitherto proved by the Schools which may not be more worthy of pity than credit Therefore I deny their blockish supposition not proved to proceed unto the false derivations of Choler and embassages of these into the diverse parts and passions of the body If they shall not first make it manifest concerning the question whether there be any Choler requisite for the constitution of the blood Therefore Choler hath not place in the constitution of the blood although a uriny wheyishnesse swim upon blood let out of the veines For that whyishnesse is unto the blood by accident which thing the blood of those who have drunk little and laboured and sweat much doth sufficiently prove For oft-times the blood of such being taken away by Phlebotomy wholly wants all Wheyishnesse And by consequence it should be deprived of Choler And likewise neither doth that blood cease to be blood the which doth not admit of Wheyishnesse but by accident The which I have in the Chap. of the Liquour Latex hitherto unknown to the Schools concerning the rise of medicine elsewhere demonstrated For the Latex is left in the blood for its own ends the ignorance whereof therefore hath hitherto secluded Physitians from the signification of the urine and the knowledge of many diseases I will therefore re-sume by supposing That yellow Choler is naturally a watery liquor swimming on the blood Let the Schooles therefore at least reach if Choler be an Humour most fiery representing fire and conteining it in substance and properties how fire can glister in a meer salt water How is it that it is not stifled in that water After what manner do fire and water co-suffer with each other under the famlinesse of unity as also the air immediately under Phlegm What have they any where found in nature which may constraine fire to conjoyn in salt water They will finde at length that they are driven to believe these trifles by reason of a Quaternary of Elements and a necessity of mixed bodies Both which after they have been oppressed by demonstrations propter quid or for what cause the world will Sue for my writings The very Schools themselves and all posterity will laugh at the blockishnesses of Ancestours which have hitherto been so stubornly defended they being so pernicious in healing and false in instructing Because will they nill they they ought to swallow two Maxims of mine elsewhere demonstrated One whereof is That there is no Element of fire and that kitchin or artificial fire is not a substance And consequently that if more things than one should concurre unto the composition of the blood at least wise that four Elements could not flow together thereunto And therefore that the fiction of four Humours doth badly square for our blood for mixture tempering strife and likewise for the truth existence actuality diversity and healing of diseases and cures But the other of my Maxims is elsewhere sufficiently proved That every sublunary visible Body is not materially composed of four as neither of three co-mixed Elements They must therefore seriously repent Because the fire is neither an Element as neither a substance neither is a salt watery liquour to be called into the composition of us for the feigned comparison of a Microcosme or little world that it may represent the form of fire Again I by way of connivance suppose That nature scarce makes enough blood of all the food dayly even as in the book of the unheard of doctrine of Fevers At least wise nature approves of that since she hath hitherto appoynted no place of entertainment for superabounding blood Yet she alwayes prepares out of all food both Cholers abundantly and super-fluously which the Schools prove by the tincture of the urine and filths of the belly therefore at least wise the nature of the Liver daily erreth and is founded in errour and offends also in abstinent persons fishes and Nations that are satisfied with the drinking of water only Because indeed it generates the least of a super-abounding fiery and earthy humour and yet more than it hath need of for its own nourishments Why therefore doth not nature offend rather in quality even as she daily without distinction offends in quantity Why also in the place of blood to wit the fourth ordinary Humour doth she not likewise in offending produce a certain abortive excrementitious blood to be sent away into banishment as she daily actually banisheth the two excessive Cholers out of the composition of the blood and fellowship of life Why also doth she daily bring forth more of malignant humours and those to be expelled out of good and much juicy meats moderately taken than out of the best blood Since as Galen is witnesse in hot natures hony which otherwise in temperate and therefore in Sanguine persons is totally turned into blood is wholly turned into yellow Choler To wit it s other three companional Humours being excluded Whence it followes That the framing of Humours proceeds not from the complexion of the food but altogether from the condition of the Liver From whence consequently if more of both Cholers than is meet be daily made that all that is to be attributed unto the offence and vice of nature And therefore that every naturall complexion of the Liver is vitious
of good juice must be used that a good fire must be made and that any kind of filths must be avoided and that Triacle must often be used whereinto when enough simples have not yet been cast every one may heapingly add new Genturies or Hundreds at pleasure thereunto and so that is reckoned the most excellent Antidote which containeth the collected heap of a thousand simples and they hope that one of a thousand may perhaps help at leastwise that it will not hurt For those are Magistral Antidotes or medicines against the poyson so that if in the mean time the matter shall the less luckily succeed according to desire at leastwise he who hath compiled so many the most select simples together and those commended by Renowned Authors is free from blame they being badly mindful of their own lyes prescribe also grateful suffumigations of vinegar and Odours of Spices as if such feeble remedies could prevail against their own principles that is against poysons diffused from the heaven throughout the whole air For if by reason of those odours either the beard or nail of the hand or lastly the marrow ceaseth to grow it might infuse some confidence of hope that the pestilent seed might be overcome by the wan remedy Therefore if there were any causative reason of the plague in the heavens that by a stronger right should belong unto man over the heavens if a wise man shall have dominion over the stars but not the stars over a wise man For a wise man is able in some respect to change the significations of the stars although not the motion of the stars But that thing is as greatly impertinent in this place as is the false accusation of the heavens For truly if the stars should causatively work their own effect on us verily a wise man might be able to mitigate it and Physitians do by their accusing of the heaven falsly endeavour to excuse themselves for an impossibility There is not I say any action of the stars on us besides that of a Meteor for Astrologers feign many things which they have known to be false yea and impossible the which in the speculations of the Planets are on either side easie to be seen notwithstanding neither Nature nor therefore medicine to admit of the rule of falshood as neither of the suppositions of Science Mathematical Therefore lastly if a popular plague should slide out of the heaven it should of necessity be that the heaven should resist and hinder also according to the same root and not as to the latter product and so the whole Art of Healing should prescribe nothing but altogether vain remedies for the prevention of the plague But the Schools commit not themselves unto so great wickedness and they more willingly rush unto impossibilities that they may make a Buckler for their own ignorance and may send any ignorant drinkers and Cup-shot tormentors of mortals against the plague At leastwise it is manifest from hence that they do not hitherto assault the causes of the plague before but behind and that they have had respect only unto the effects thereof and so that whatsoever hath been spoken concerning its prevention hath in it the meer deceivings of their Neighbours For they imitate the Countryman endeavouring to exhaust a Brook where it hastens into the Sea nigh the shoar but not by stopping up the Fountain Therefore either they do not believe the plague to arise from the heaven or their remedies are full of despair and deceit Furthermore if the heaven as it were an angry Parent as it pleased Paracelsus to dream takes notice of our crimes and is defiled with our impieties and therefore as a Revenger wounds us with its darts and so miserably kills us Certainly it shall either be some Deaster or sensitive living creature which arrogating the office of God unto it self and envying the office of the smiting Angels teacheth us that envy is a Celestial thing as also the revenge of the creature on man But why doth it note our crimes if in taking notice thereof it be defiled and how shall it be defiled if sin be a meer non-being how shall that Archer perceive a meer non-being how shall it judge of the departure of mans will from God for if it be angry with us and inflamed for revenge by reason of that nothing how shall it not rather be angry with us when it shall perceive that we imitate its own actions and do stop or prevent them to wit while the heaven being appeased we form the plague in us by our own terrours and it should far more harshly bear it that man against the will of the heaven should heal the plague that he overcomes his own wounds and prevents or hinders its offices in despite of the heaven Again if the Plague could by an orderly motion of the stars be declaratively and as it were yearly foretold even as I have already before declared the informations of others concerning Aegypt but our offences want a set orderly day number and measure For sins depend on the heart of man and a free will therefore that cause is not beseeming for its effect and a sign thereof But Divines deny the future effects of free-will to be fore-known by the stars and so neither that knowledge nor understanding dwells in the heavens and inanimate bodies Therefore neither indeed do they denounce the plague wars c. to come from sins fore-known unto them Be it sufficient that the plague is denounced not as for an inciting cause but because it hath so pleased the Eternal That every guilty person may examine himself and amend neither is there need of feigning belyed naughtinesses and ill wills to be in Saturn or Mars if our sins are the effectual cause of contagion and so Astrologers and medicinal Diviners contradict themselves For neither otherwise should it be of necessity to feign an Executioner to be angry with the guilty person although he kills the same I pray why shall our iniquities rather provoke Saturn and Mars than the Moon which is neerer by some thousand miles Why should Saturn who is most remote be a more potent Revenger of our crimes than the Moon For if any star were pestilential certainly it should chiefly be that which bears rule over the night rest and reducement into the first matter In the next place if the plague doth invade us as a punishment or be sent by Angels his messengers the movers of the Orbs Surely none shall be natural and the prescriptions and rules of the Schools as well for prevention as for curing shall voluntarily acquiesce The heaven therefore is a presager of fore-shewing a thing to come and it affords signs of the plague which God reveals to his own But the heaven is not the effective principle of a present plague as neither the fore-knower thereof For truly otherwise as well the heaven as the directive Angelical intelligency should erre as oft as it should punish a
they are opened thou Paracelsus callest Ulcers and distinguishest against wound and thy own self Too fabulously therefore is the heaven defiled with out corruption and is a revenger of these injuries even as also a Notary and wounder of our crimes That was an invention of Heathenism in times past that it might blasphemously extol the heavens and starry Gods into a worship Four Elements also are blasphemously and foolishly brought in by Paracelsus who was wont to laugh at the Relolleous quality of them especially because in the original of our medicine a Quaternary or four-fold number of Elements is taken away as well in the nature of the Universe as in the constitution of mixt bodies For how ignorantly is a Quaternary of Elements suited with the aforesaid Ternary of emunctory places For Paracelsus having obtained Arcanums plainly heroical for the supplanting of diseases and being destitute of medicinal Science descending from the Father of Lights and of his own accord assuming to himself the Title of the Monarch of secrets and from this boldness invading the principality of healing treated of the Plague as it were of an enemy unknown unto him Therefore he ascribeth the Plague sometimes to the heaven at another time to the Sun and sometimes to the elements alone and oft times to Pythonisses or women of a prophecying spirit witches and to spirits as well those infernal as elementary Deasters being for the most part forgetful of the doctrine of his own Paramire where he proposeth plagues of the being of nature of the being of poyson as if any Plague could exist void of poyson or as if some poyson were not natural of the being of the Stars as though the Stars were above nature or without it of the being of witches these he attributes unto Incubi or devils in mens shapes hobgoblins sylphs c. he distinguisheth them also against the being of the Stars least peradventure witches may be the wise men which are said to bear rule over the Stars and of a God-like being and he there forgat his own and an imaginative being the remembrance whereof notwithstanding he ought to have had before the rest unlesse he had rather that an imaginative being cannot cause disease or that it is no where vigorous but in the possession of Witches And moreover as I judge a plague sent from the hand of God to despise the remedies of nature so also if there were any proper unto devils or witches which is not a thing to be believed yet at least it should in no wise owe its original unto the heaven For otherwise if there were a witch Plague it would be far more cruel than accustomed ones are by reason of an external poyson being adjoyned and a readinesse of its acting speedied and enlarged through the wrath of the evil spirit P. Boucher a Minorite Frier in his oriental or Eastern pilgrimages tels as an eye-witnesse That although Egypt be otherwise exceeding subject to the Plague yet that every year before the inundation of Nile a singular dew falls down which they call Elthalim at the coming whereof as many as lay sick of the Plague are readily and universally cured and are preserved as healthy there from by the same dew For if this be true neither hath it been sufficiently searched into by Prince Radzvil yet not any thing can be drawn from thence whereby we may know that the Plague is naturally caused by the heaven since from thence at least it follows that some meteors are healthy but others hurtful to some which none hath hitherto denied For although the Sun the day before the inundation of Nile returns every year almost unto the same place yet the same stars do not return as companions together with him And then that dew is not the off-spring of the heavens or stars nor of a meteorical Blas of the heaven but the day before the inundation of Nile the more high land of Aethiopia being more hot and southern was long since overflown which sends forth a great vapour from it filled with Nitre for the whole water of Nilus is nitrous which vapour is not only resolved into a dew the dew elsewhere weepes Honies Tereniabin or the fatnesse oftwood hony found in good quantity in the summer months with a manna-ie Being and Laudanum being as it were gummy things and among us the May dew daily abounds with a sugary salt and accompanies Nile running but it well washeth the whole aire of Aegypt even by moistening it and refresheth the bodies of the sick not much otherwise than as a shower doth the earth after long driths At leastwise I being admonished by the holy scriptures despise the sooth-sayers of heaven Therefore if the heaven be the cause of a destroying or devouring Plague it ought likewise to be the cause of every other Plague Because the same Being in the Species obtaines the same constitutive causes from which the Species it self recieveth its identity or samelinesse Therefore I constantly deny that a pestilent poyson is bred by the heaven or dismissed from the stars but all Plagues which are not singularly sent from God for a scourge are either endemical ones or proper to a Country or framed by a certain terrour But those which are borrowed as being drawn in from contagion do follow their own seed and ferment But an endemical Plague although it be drawn in from without occasionally yet it is not to be reckoned for the plague unlesse the terrour of our Archeus do first frame a poysonous Idea of sore fear conceived from the endemical Being even as shall by and by be manifested I deny moreover that any Plague is endemical For although the aire may myire the bodies of many unto diverse confusions of putrefaction yet it is in no wise the original cause of a Postilential poyson For as all putrefaction differs from the Plague so in like manner also the poyson of the Plague differs from any corruption that is the daughter of a thereor The which unlesse it be rightly and perfectly known the nature of the Plague also shall not be able to be any way understood and much lesse a radical healing of the same promoted For a conclusion of this Chapter I will adde an argument which is drawn from the bank of rivers For I have seen those who that they might avoyd houses infected with the Plague departed from Antwerp others who fled from the Smalpocks through which two years before they as yet carried about with them a face he potted with the scats thereof which were smitten in the river Scalds it self with the diseases which they presumed they had avoyded and had withdrawn themselves as healthy I remember also that a certain girle was cured by me of the Leprousy at Vilvord who when shew is now accounted to have been whole for the space of seven weeks and returned to Antwerp she presently felt in the River it self the Leprousie to bud again upon her throughout her whole body Who at
is not more hurtful then the Plague yet they beware of and defend themselves from wild beasts England also hath hitherto wanted the proper name of the Pâ—st and the which from times past it nameth Plaga the Plague or stroake As to what pertains to the causes thereof the Greeks first and afterwards the Arabians and whosoever have dedicated themselves to either of these two do collect the Pest or Plague into two causes The first whereof they name Catarctical or fore-going causes but the latter connexed conjoyned containing and immediately accompanying ones and indeed when they saw the body of man by its individuals and places of its habitations to differ in great variety they devised a universal cause for the plague to wit they being seduced by Astrologers blamed the heaven that by its hurtful light and motion it be sprinkles the air with a cruel gore the poyson whereof they have therefore named an Epidemical or universal one and alâ—â—hugh they saw diseases infamous in contagion to arise through occasion of Pools or Lakes Caves poysonous soils Minerals Filths Mountains the natural moistnesses of the earth of a valley or sink or privy from whence divers puâ—refactions sprang yet they never esteemed the disposition of these diseases â—â— be the Pestilence but by a separated name they called them Endemical ones which distinction presently laid every doubt asleep and they themselvâ— have snorted in this deep sleep being glad that they had banished their own ignorance unto the heavens for a universal â—ault and they thought themselves secure not any thing distrusting that the heaven could vindicate it self from blame but them of ignorance They likewise separated the dead and those that were about to die in detesting their obediences that it might not be heard of neither that they might accuse the carelesness and ignorance of Physitians Especially when as the chief Physitian always runs away forsaking his own sick Patient iâ— his despairing of life Wherefore they call the Diviners of the stars together for their aid that seeing the world defends the errours of these men they may defame the heaven with a conjoyned accusation of a fault that it defiles the air and water with the consumptive poyson of an abstracted light But Paracelsus being much more bold than his Predecessors would have the heaven to be really infected with our contagion to note our sins with a pen of iron and unwillingly to receive them therefore to be a revenger and to stir up deaths But that the Plague is a meer wound that it is darted from heaven that the stars by wounding and in running do us hurt and that these wounds are made only in three places and not in more as not knowing that these are our emunctory places to wit behind the ears under the arm-pits and in the groyn In another place also he appoints not three buâ— four plagues according to the number of the Elements that every one of them are to be vanquished by a four-fold and much different remedy But elsewhere he also deviseth a fifth plague being sent into us by Gnomes Sylphs Nymphs Satyrs Hobgoblins Gyants or Faunes because perhaps he supposed these to be a fifth Element Moreover he being entreated by the City of Stertzing for a choice Antidote against the poyson of the Pest forsaking his former staâ—ry and Elementated remedies in the end wholly trusted to a drink of Triacle Myrrhe Butter but root Terra Sigillata Sperma ceti the herb Asclepias Pimpernell Valerian and Camphor with the best Aqua vitae to wit through inconsiderateness he as unmindful being snatcht away into a hundred confusions of simples by him many times and seriously detested but a little before In the next place neither do those things agree together that he elsewhere hath often not any thing distinguished the Element of fire from the heaven and nevertheless that he hath delivered four plagues distinct in their original cause and remedies the which he had dedicated unto one heaven which in another place he would have to be the only Author of the Pestilence He willeth also that Christal Aâ—â—es and likewise Gemms are bred in the air and do fall down from heaven the which he as unmindful of himself nameth the fâ—â—its of the water as willing Christal to be nothing but meer ice constrained by cold At length the Pest seeing it is a malady of the heaven and of the fourth degree yet he saith that the tincture of Gemms is the best solidative medicine of that wound and so also that a remedy of the second degree should cure the plague of the fourth degree I also pity the vain â—iresomeness about remedies which among a thousand Alchymists scarce one prepares For it is a frivolous thing to compose so many books and at length to have run back unto remedies which are scarce to be gotten in a popular disease and every where obvious For it is a frivolous thing in a wandring plague to nourish a whole Country with the fleshes of the Stork which flies away about Autumn or with a Lyons Tongue hung on the body For all such things discover ignorant boasting but not a common charity in so miserable a grief For neither hath Hippocrates chased away the plague out of Greece by such remedies For otherwise the poor man if the plague should be put to flight by precious remedies and victuals should with the despairing of his life the unequality of Fortune much bewailing and just grief ponder God to be a respecter of persons and remedies to be denied unto him I therefore shall never believe that God in Nature was less careful in curing the poor man than the rich For the history of Lazarus and the rich Glutton doth wonderfully comfort the poor Lastly Paracelsus hath set forth books of a plague generated by Pythonesses and Hobgoblins By Hobgoblins I say Satyrs c. which he denieth to bâ— evil spirits which he maketh coequal unto Witches in generating of the plague Yet hath he neglected to add remedies for such a pestilence as though the title of the Monarch of Secrets being presumptuous on himself it had been sufficient for him not to have â—rod in the footsteps of those that went before him and to have stirred up very much smoak and little fire and to have exposed the memory of himself â—nto laughter For his books of the Plague of Tartars of Minerals c. do contain much of prattle but little of trusty aid CHAP. VI. The Pest divided THe Paramire of Paracelsus is totally employed in perswading that every disease without exception and by name the Pestilence is in its whole species five-fold to wit being distinct in its causes original properties and remedies But the first kind he calls a Natural Being originally proceeding from elementated fruits and this plague he hath described in his books of the plague and pestilentialness wherein he is there his own Interpreter But since it is manifest that the fruits which the Schools have believed to
readily and fully sequester the offending filth It should follow that their universal succours to wiâ— purgings and cuttings of a vein are the most potent helps of the plague The which notwithstanding are already many times found to hasten on death That supposition also of necessity falls down together which introduceth corrupt humours for the immediate cause of the plague For in very deed the Pest doth rather infect the nourishable humours than that these are the cause of the Pest Otherwise I have elsewhere made it sufficiently manifest that nature doth not acknowledge nor ever had humours in the constitution of the bloud Wherefore neither are these able to cause any thing because they are non-beings Again if humours in the making of their putrefaction should be the connexed cause of the Pest at leastwise the Schools ought to have set forth the name of that humour and likewise to have expounded the manner and process whereby those humours are corrupted and how they being now corrupted are the conjoyned cause of the plague and also after what sort they may be speedily sequestred together with the hinderance of their impression on the vital parts It had behoved them in the next place to point out the place wherein the assembly of the foregoing pestilent corruption as it were in a Nest was held For if this center be the veins or bowels to wit where the first sequestration of excrements happeneth all sweat should be altogether hurtful because it is that which should bring the poyson from the stomach or liver through the vital bowels and not pour it forth neerer thorow the accustomed sinks For so the Lues Venerea only by a Gonorrhea chusing its mansion in the Testicles if by solutive medicines it be drawn back from the shops of the urine that it may go back through the veins into the paunch It spreads a necessary Lues only by that passage into the whole body Much more therefore should the Pest if it had defiled the humours in their own shops and should be bâ—ought sorth in passing thorow by sweats infallibly defile all of whatsoever is vital within But if indeed the habit of the body be the place of the putrefaction of pestilential humours now the Diet of Physitians shall be ridiculous which is believed to hinder the generating of putrifiable humours In the next place from what and from whence putrefaction in good juicy blood should arise in the habit or also in the center of the body before the plague not any thing hath been determined by the Schools concerning all thesâ— things as thinking it sufficient to have said by the way that the corruption of humours is the conjoyned cause of the plague because run away Doctors have never beheld this but asquint For when they observed that a laxative medicine being drunk up the flesh and blood being consumed by that venom and a yellow humour or pale snivel or the more dark blood not yet fully transchanged did flow forth they affirmed that not only the venal blood but the whole body did consist of four humours differing in kind and that they were again resolved into them Even so that they have supposed this putrefaction for the Pest to be begun in yellow Choler being compared to fire or in black Choler and therefore called melancholly as being neerer to earth Saturn and malignity Truly although I have elsewhere abundantly demonstrated four humours as a frivolous and hurtful invention yet let us now grant by way of supposition of a falsehood that the blood did consist of a commixture of those four humours yet when the blood hath now ceased to be and is by a formal transmutation changed into a nourishable and vital liquor which immediately nourisheth increaseth and cherisheth every member it at leastwise fights with the truth of Phyloâ—ophy that that nourishable liquor being degenerated from blood by a formal transchanging had not yet forgotten its former condition and compacture Suppose thou if Wine Ale the liquor of flesh with the juice of poâ—herbs be drunk at one meal and changed into blood certainly that constitution of the blood is not one as long as it consisteth of those four divers things being as yet co-mixed but those four are made only one while as by a formal transmutation they are made a new product which is blood In like manner therefore although the blood should consist of a connexion of four humours yet seeing they are now one and no longer four that one thing constituted shall be no longer that thing connexed of the four original liquors granted Neither can the diseases resulting from thence either insist or be accounted as humorous in healing they not bâ—ing any more able to return back into those four feigned humours although they are granted to have been real ones than the blood that is once made can return into the former Wine Ale Broath of fleshes and juice of potherbs It is manifest therefore that the Schools contrary to all Phylosophy are ignorant that there is a formal transmutation while blood is made of meats and while of blood a nourishable liquor is made And it is manifest from the aforesaid blindnesses that the greatest part of diseases hath been committed upon trust unto the ignorance of principles in the Schools But I ingeniously protest that I have never found even the least tittle of assisting aid in any books of Ancestours For although many being as it were holpen did recover nevertheless I have seen ten-fold more who from the beginning of the invasion of the plague had made use of the fame remedies to have unhappily perished For Triacle for a long time ago hath always promised help and the water thereof is now accounted every where more excellent although they know who have known the properties of the Pest that they contain a vain help For Antidotes which restrain poyson have nothing of certainty against the plague and therefore University-Physitians daâ—e not expose themselves to the contagion of the plague under the unfaithful safeguâ—â— of Triacle because the poyson of the Pest is a far secret one from any other But some Religious persons in a City leaving nothing unattempted whereby they might obtain moneys or esteem profess to sell the most choice Triacle at a great price But since none going to warfare in Christ infolds himself in secular affairs I exhort every one chiefly to beâ—are of such pompous Boasters For why they enter not in by the door but above by the roof being not called they intrude themselves into medicine For these will almost say with Tully We have deceived the people and have seemed most famous Apothecaries For Triacle was as yet unknown unto Hippocrates the subduer of the plague It receiveth a three-fold quantity of honey according to the plenty of all simples Also sixty simples being at discord being dry hard shut up crude excrementous and for the most part inveterate from the age of two years These Simples I say are rendred much
barren from the mixture of â—oiled honey They require also a mixture and digestion from the feeble Feverish person â—especially from the stomach being vitiated by poyson and from the Archeus being inwardly prostrated and confusedly tumulting Wherefore they perform little of help and the least of comfort For the cocted Trochies of the Viper since by the admonition of Galen they are the Capital Simple of Triacle do easily teach that the water of Triacle is plainly ridiculous For if the Viper stated the Triacle water with virtue in distilling why have the Trochies of the Viper in its first and Galenical cocture put off all that prerogative of healing What therefore shall I do with those who are always learning and never coming unto the knowledge which they profess to teach For most men as Seneca witnesseth have not attained unto that Science because they thought that they had attained it At length neither hath it been sufficient to have concealed the names of those humours which they have imagined to putrifie before the plague and to be the accompanying cause hereof But moreover in skipping over that they pass over the very thingliness of the corruption which now and then finisheth its Tragedy in a few hours For Physitians seem to have rested on a soft pillow while their Neighbours house is on fire and their head being once elevated on their elbow to have declared the Arrest The plague is a contagious disease from putrified humours being connexed to a Fever most sharp and exceeding dangerous which being said they having very well fed to have bent down their head again for their afternoon sleep which sleep under so great light hath again closed their eyes The world in the mean time bewails its condition seeing the effects not the causes as neither in the next place the remedies to be noted by this judgement Wherefore the Country people with both hands scratching their hair on their Temples pronounce another Arrest There is no need say they of much study nor of so many books that any may say the Plague is mortal and contagious the which every one hath learned by his own malady Therefore it shall be better to ask counsel of faithful helpers no longer of drowsie ones who are Fugitives from the Plague and ignorant of remedies CHAP. VIII The Seat prepared IT is not sufficient to have demonstrated that the causes of the Pest are unknown to the Schools unless I shall declare my own experiences the cause of the plague its divers progresses in the making its strange properties in its being made its preservations and cure At first therefore I will repeat what I have demonstrated elsewhere to wit that in Nature there are at least two causes and no more Indeed the matter and efficients which efficient in the plague I call the Archeus Vulcan or Seed at leastwise for the matter there is not a certain undistinct hyle or matter which never existed nor will be in nature and it serves for Science Mathematical and not to a contemplater of Nature Therefore I behold the matter of the pestilence with relation unto its internal efficient The matter therefore of the plague is a wild spirit tinged with a poyson But that matter tends unto the end proposed to it self after a three-fold manner because it either comes to us from without and being totally and perfectly pestiferous exhaling from a pestilent sick person or dead carkass or place or Utensile being defiled or it is drawn inwards being as yet crude from a Gas of the earth putrified by continuance which afterwards receives an appropriative ferment within and at length by degrees attains a pestilent poyson in us Or also a total destruction of us is now and then materially and formally finished within without an external assistance But that there are not more manners whereby the plague is made is manifest from the division For either it is wholly generated within without a forraign aid or it happens on us from without and that is either perfect in the matter and form of a poyson wanting only appropriation and application or it is as yet crude imperfect and as it were an Embryo Whence at leastwise first of all it becomes easie to be seen that the Pest doth not always first invade the heart For I have seen him who in touching pestilent papers at that very moment felt a pain as it were of a pricking Needle and straightway he shewed a pestilent Carbuncle in his fore-finger and after two daies died Furthermore the aforesaid three-fold matter however plainly venemous the first is yet on both sides it holds it self within the number of an antecedent cause For no otherwise than as poyson taken in at the mouth is not the disease it self or death but only the occasional cause thereof For not any thing that is corporeal acteth immediately on the liâ—e oâ— vital powers because they are those which are of the nature of Coelessial lights but first it is received and made as it were domestical and when some poyson is now made a Citizen of our Inn to wit it being swallowed or attracted notwithstanding also it cannot as yet enter or be admitted unto the hidden Seminaries of the vital powers because it is in its whole essence external but first the poysonous quality by acting on the life stirs up the Archeus otherwise the Author and workman of all other things to be done under his own government into its own defence For otherwise a pestilenâ— poyson acteth not like a sword which equally wounds all it toucheth at in the same moment of it self but the pestilent poyson is not able to strike any The Archeus therefore since from his own disposition he hath animal perturbations passions confusions and interchangeable courses he suddenly brings forth the image of his own alteration conceived and decyphers that Idea in the particle or small portion of his own proper substance wherein it is conceived which Image of Death being thus furnished is the Pest or Plague it self For truly I do not judge the plague to be a certain naked quality although it existeth not elsewhere than in a body as it were accidents in a subject of inherency but the plague is a Being a poyson of Nature subsisting by it self in us and consisting of its own matter form and properties the which I have elsewhere most fully demonstrated in the Treatise of Diseases But here it is sufficient to have admonished that the life operates nothing by conquering or destroying unless by the vital motions of the sensitive Soul which is not wont but to operate by Idea's on the Archeus the Executer of any motions whatsoever even as neither doth the Archeus operate after any other manner on the body Wherefore it is to be noted by the way in this place that the inward material and immediate cause of a disease is the disease it self 〈…〉 wise than as the material cause in a man is his very body persevering from the 〈…〉 unto old
age but not that there is any conjoyned material cause of a man besides his body it self which is the very product of generation to wit from a material cause and seminal internal efficient which things have hitherto been vailed from the Schools and so they have reputed the internal occasional causes of diseases to be the immediate and conjoyned ones being as yet plainly distinct from the disease produced Wherefore that is also next to be repeated in this place which I have taught in my discourses of Natural Phylosophy to wit that there are six digestions in us For in the three former that there are their own Retents and their own excrements the which seeing every one of them are in themselves and in their own Regions troublesom yea by a co-inâ—olding and extravagancy they have become hateful they degenerate into things transmitted and transchanged and do from thence induce divers diseases occasionally But in the fourth and fifth digestion I have shewn that not any perceiveable excrement is admitted But in the sixth digession which is that of things transchanged that very many voluntary dungs do through the errour of the vegetative faculty offer themselves Moreover that some are transmitted from some other place as also that not a few do degenerate through a violent command of things suscepted or undergone which things have been hitherto unknown by the Schools and therefore also have been neglected and the which therefore have wanted a proper name and the diseasie effects of these have been ridiculously translated and adjudged unto the four feigned humours of the Liver Wherefore although I as the first have expelled the diseasifying causes of Tartar yet least I should seem to make new all things from animosity I will here call these filths the Tartar of the blood although by an improper Etymology because for want of a true name Such excrements therefore whether they are brought into the habit of the body from elsewhere or next made under transchanging by a proper errour of the faculties or lastly through a violent command of external things being there degenerated I name them the Tartar of the blood 〈…〉 that in very deed they are Tartars in the matter and manner of the Tartar of Wine but because of good nourishment being now defiled that which before was fruitful and vital hath afterwards become hostile And these things I have therefore fore-admonished of that ye may know that the Tartar of the blood is the product of the plague and that that is easily made from efficient pestilential causes And moreover it is not yet sufficient to have said that the Tartar of the blood is the product of the Pest but besides I ought to prefix the place thereof For I will by and by teach that the Plague is a poyson of terrour and therefore I have noted that the Seat or primitive Nest thereof is in the Hypochondrial or Midriffs to wit where the first conception of humane terrour is whether it happen from external disturbances or next of its own accord from the motions of things conceived Wherefore there are present in the plague vomiting doatage headach c. the which in its own place I have decyphered in the Commonwealth of the Spleen Therefore if the Schools had put this Tartar of the blood for a conjoyned cause we had as yet notwithstanding been differing from each other as that which with them had been a connexed cause is with me a product of the plague for the Pestinvades us after an irregular manner neither is it s conjoyned matter a certain solid body or visible liquor as neither therefore any putrefaction plainly to be seen but only a Gas separated and degenerated from the substance of the Archeus But whatsoever visible thing offers it self as vitiated in the Plague is not of the matter of the plague it self nor of the matter whereof but it is either the occasional matter of which before or it is the product or off-spring wherein the plague sits as it were in a nest Wherefore the Carbunole Bubo or Escharre are not the original matter of the Pest but the effect and product which the Pest â—ath prepared to it self For the plague is for the most part so cruel and swift that as soon as it is introduced into the Archeus it cannot omit but that it subjecteth some part of the nourishable humour unto its tyranny and dwells therein Wherefore if the putrified humour should be the immediate cause of the plague truly it had been putrified before it had putrified To wit seeing the Pest it self prepares that vitious product for it self which the Schools call humours they being as yet undefined For Fernelius would be a little more quick-sighted than the Schools and therefore he knew that the plague was not bred or did conâ—ist of the putrefaction of four seigned humours as neither of the heat of the air or of the cold thereof but of a certain poyson the Foster-child of hidden causes Again we must take notice that when the 〈◊〉 of the blood or dross of the last digestion being vitiated hath received a pestileâ—â—â—â—ment it hath a priviledge of exhaling through the pores no less than other transchanged excrements without any residence left behind it or remaining dead-head So the Chymists call the dreg which remains after distillation to wit if the humours shall be alimentary but not if the substance it self of the solid parts be scorched into an Escharre or Carbuncle for so the much more hard dungs of the Lues Venerea being as it were equal to bones the counsel of resolving being snatched to them do wholly vanish But although the Tartar of the blood doth also rejoyce in the aforesaid prerogative as oft as it is banished as infamous out of the family-administration of life yet while it is transchanged into a corrupt mattery or thin sanious poyson it gnaws the skin into the shape of an Escharre before that it can sweat thorow the pores in manner of a vapour And that indeed by reason of the imprinted blemish of a strange ferment whereby it degenerated into a formal transmutation But if indeed the Tartar of the blood shall draw the odour of the ferment but is not yet transchanged Glandules Buboes c. are made which are oftentimes ended by a plentiful Flux of sweat without opening of the skin whereas the other aforesaid products cannot obtain that and almost all these are by the Schools banished into Catarrhs The whole Tartar of the blood therefore is indeed bred at home but it is a Bastard which is intruded by force destruction and errour But since the remedies of Nature are subject unto so many Courts of digestions and bodies of so eminent an excellency do possess a violence and strength of acting and likewise have filths admixed with them or difficult bolts truly the art of the fire is never sufficiently esteemed which now and then graduates one Simple to that height that it persecutes with revenge all the excrementitious
the air water or earth that that can neither be a disease in it self nor the containing cause thereof Yea whatsoever is marked with the name of antecedent causes is nothing but the occasional cause causing nothing by it self but by accident nor any thing without an appropriation received in us Wherefore they neither betoken nor desire nor prescribe a cure but only a caution or flight The occasions therefore of the Plague are to be considered as the occasions of diseases being sometime entertained do passe into the order of causes First of all therefore I have already sufficiently taught that the Pest is not sent down from the Heavens And seeing every effect is the fruit or product of its own and not of anothers tree therefore every cause produceth its own and not anothers effect therefore the Pest hath a specifical proper and not a forreign cause For neither may we distinguish of Plagues by their accidents concomitants or signates because they are those which flow immediately from the diversity of subjects because they diversly vary after the manner and nature of the receiver according to the custom of the Beings of nature Wherefore also the Pest consisting of matter form essence a seed and properties requires also to have its own and one onely species seeing the very essence it self of things or defects is most near to individuals But if it either happen from without or be generated within that is all one seeing from thence the Plague is now constituted Again if it do the more swiftly or slowly defile its issue be the more violent and speedy do invade diverse parts or diversly disquiet the body yet that doth not therefore change the species of the poyson For they are only the signs of quantiry co-mixture of a ferment appropriation and incidency on the parts receiving Otherwise the internal and formal poyson of the Pest and that which conteins the thingliness thereof is 〈◊〉 â—ys singular in every individual Because the essence or Being of things consisteth in the simplicity of their own species as there is the same essence of fire on both sides whether it be great or little whether quiet or driven with the bellows or lastly whether the flame shall be red yellow green or sky-coloured Therefore the remote crude and first occasional matter of the pestilence is an air putrified through continuance or rather a hoary putrified Gas which putrefaction of the air according to the experience of the fire which Adeptists promise hath not as yet the 8200. part of its own seminal body The which thou shalt the more easily comprehend if thou considerest a hoary putrified vessel and hogs-head of wine now exhausted without any weight of it self to corrupt new and old wines infused in the hogs-head For I have treated in my discourses of natural Phylosophy concerning the nature of a ferment putrifying by contmuance and after what sort vegetables do arise from an incorporeal and putrified seed that from hence the progeny of the Pest may be the more distinctly made manifest Moreover I have shewn that the earth is the mother of putrefaction through continuance that we may know that popular Plagues do draw their first occasional matter from an earthquake and from the consequences of camps and siedges For therefore as much as the earth differs from the heaven so much also is the occasional matter of the Pâ—st remote from the Heaven But I call this first matter that incorporeal hoary puâ—rified poyson existing in the Gas of the earth And so I substitute this poyson as theremoâ—e matter under another more near poyson which disposeth the matter of the Archeus whereby he may the more easily assent and conceive in himself a pestilent terrour that at length a formal pestilential essence may suddenly come upon the previous dispositions hereof But besides if I must duely Phylosophize concerning the infections of the Air I ought of necessity to repeate the Anatomy thereof from the fore assayed doctrine of the elements in my treatise of natural of Phylosophy The air therefore in it self is one of the first-born elements being transparent and void as well of lightnesse as weight unchangeable and perpetual being endowed with natural cold unlesse it be hindered by the strength of scituations and things co mixed with it but being every where filled with pores and for this cause suffering an extension or pressing together of it self The porosities whereof are either filled with vapours and forreign exhalations or remayning in their integrity they plainly gape being void of a body the which I have elsewhere demonstrated in the treatise of a necessary Vacuum For in very deed if the air were without pores that are empty of every body vapours could not be lifted up without a penetration of bodies But since a most manifest enlargement and com-pression of the air is granted as I have elsewhere fully demonstrated an emptinesse also is of necessity granted For such porosities in the air are as it were wombs wherein the vapours the fruits of the water are again resolved into the last simplicity of waters from whence they proceeded and are spoyled of any signatures of their former seeds whatsoever But those effluxes in the air are forreign â—y accident and various according to the disposition of the concrete body from whence they exhaled First of all they are the vapours of pure and simple water and then of the waters of the salt sea which season the rain with their vaporous brine and for that cause preserâ—e it from corruption For otherwise by reason of the societies of diverse exhalations being admixed with it rain waters would of necessity putrifie and stink no lesse than clouds in mountains and most miâ—â—s The poysons therefore of the air being drawn in are partly entertained in manner of a vapour in its porosities and do partly defile the very body of the air without a corporeal mixture even as glasse conceiveth odours which defilement hath of right the name of an impression I have an house in a plain field being rich on its South-side in a wood of oakes but on the north it respecteth pleasant meadows moreover toward both the mansions of the Sun it hath hils that are fruitful in corn But linnen cloaths being there washed and â—â—nced in the fountain being hung up in the loft look most neatly white while the North wind blows and here and there also from east to west or on the other hand from west to east But the south-winde only blowing and the southerly windowes being opened they are notably yellow with a clayie colour For from the numerous oakes a tinging vapour is belched forth into the air and I have learned that this vapour is breathed in by us as also drunk up by the linnen And also thus from Groves of oakes after the Summer solstice an hidden vapour doth exhale which inâ—ecteth an unwonted countenance and neck with a frequent itching pustule or wheale and afterwards they becoâ—â— plainly visible in the
but in the making of its increase but not in its product being made because of that which is corrupted there are no longer preservatives but onely healing remedies by extirpation We must not therefore believe that bad Antidotes although they were the most potent poysons could drive away the terrour as neither the pestilent effect of the terrour For truly the poyson of the pestilence is irregular and different from other poysons in this that it issues from the terrour of the Archeus as it were fire out of a flint For if the Archeus being terrified yield up the field verily the body which being considered in it self is a meer dead Carcasse cannot receive comfort Furthermore if the Archeus be so considered to retire that a poyson enters in his place and in this respect shall supplant the Archeus himself how shall sweet odours and incenses prevent the poyson especially if the very excellentest of sweet smels are also capable of receiving a pestilent contagion Therefore let it be a part of Christian piety and compassion studiously to contemplate with me how blockishly and unexactly so many Simples have been heaped up together for preserving and curing and how much their unfaithful succours have deluded ten thousands of men and their expectations because they have every where mocked mankind in a true remedy by reason of the grosse ignorance of causes For indeed a curative remedy of the plague being present presupposeth that which a preservative remedy prevents for the future Therefore a proper curative remedy is convenient onely as by slaying of the product which is the pestilent poyson it self it annihilates it in the matter wherein it resides In the next place also another curative remedy being conjoyned with it is employed in expelling the subject of the poyson it self which is to be attempted by-sweat Moreover a third is that which takes away and lessens the co-suiting of causes unto their products the which also hath in it the nature of a preservative The Pest therefore which is drawn in from without from an infected body garment or place hath indeed in it an absolute and formal pestilent poyson which presupposeth not a fore-existing fermental putrefaction and therefore it suddenly invadeth with no fore-going complaints and it utters future signes but onely it hath need of an appropriation which kind of preserving in making of the Pest a rectifying of the air familiar to Hipocrates conteineth of which in its own place no otherwise than as in a popular plague To wit that the poyson it self in the air may be killed and the air also originally so disposed that it suffers not the nourishable humour to be mumially corrupted or to snatch unto it a fermental putrefaction These things of a remedy for the future Otherwise when as the pestilent poyson is now received within it lurketh and is unknown and also is fitted and sealed in the Archeus and that by reason of the singular swiftnesse of its poyson But then defensive remedies alone do come too late unlesse they are also healing ones First therefore every cure of preserving is busied that the body may be always actually hot and kept in transpiration and that the mind may be disposed unto a cheerfulnesse opposite to terrour even as I have already before cited concerning wine out of the holy Scriptures But what thou readest concerning the rectifying of the infected air it hath respect not so much unto the air as to the points thereof to wit in whose vacuities or hollow empty spaces the vapour of contagion sits or floats Furthermore those remedies which take away a putrefaction through continuance and poyson out of the air but terrour out of the mind and lastly mumial co-fittings or suitable coniunctions out of the body these are preservatives For the perfumes or suffumigations of Hipocrates freeth not onely the encompassing air but also the air that is attracted inwards yea and the co-agulated vapour from the poyson and together also from a fermental putrefaction no lesse then as it hinders the mumiâ—l ferment from being applyed to which ends also Antidotes Zenextons or external preservative Pomanders do conduce which are able to kill the image of terrour and pestilent poyson in the proper subject of the vapour or Tartar of the bloud and in this respect also to divert and hinder the terrour of the Archeus But if indeed the Pest be conceived by a proper errour within other preservatives are required than when as we must live about infected places or persons But the plague being formed moves the same to go with a speedy course in a retrograde order from a poyson formed unto a corruptive vapour Therefore also neither are amulets or preservative pomanders occupied about an inferiour and remote preparation of the pestilent matter that is to be averted but for the overcoming of the formal and ultimate poyson and suiting of the Archeus with the Tartar of the bloud in the one extream and in the other with the poyson drawn in And so an amulet keeps a curative betokening in preserving yet it is excedeed by a curative remedy in this that healing remedies ought not onely to kill the poyson but also to thrust it out by sweat Indeed both betokenings ought to concut in curative remedies For otheâ—wise in vain doth the body flow down with much moisture of sweat if the Tartar of the bloud be not resolved but is rather continued by the continued terrour of the Archeus Truly the causes as well the constitutive as the occasional one being known afterwards the indication oâ— betokening of things to be done coariseth onely by the conduct of reason For if a fermental putrefaction hath given a beginning unto and caused the first disposition of the matter places putrified through continuance as also nourishments easily putrifying are to be avoided An open air is healthful to healthy persons because it hath the power of an elementary consuming but the air as it is such doth no lesse obey contagion than other bodies and it conteineth in its own Magnal of the air as it hath hollow poâ—es the whole contaâ—ion the which at length by pining away in the same place doth for the most part die not but of its own accord in the space of 40 dayes and by an elementary power is spoyled of the poysonous seed of a ferment For the seeds of things conceived do by little and little decay in the air as they being shut up in the hollow places of the air as it were in wombs do return to the last disposition of corruption and the first generation of watery matters All sorrowful things also are to be removed not onely because they are near unto fear and terrour but especially because they do forthwith produce a sensible fermental putrefaction the mother of sighs about the mouth of the stomach The places therefore and objects of a sorrowful remembrance as also such fellowships are to be avoided no lesse than sorrowful messages and discourses of History
it demonstrates that the strange fable and tumult of Phaeton and that the name of Electrum or choice remedy hath not vainly been co-incident unto it Let him laugh who will at the rubbings of amber on our pulses let him run back unto magnum oportet and at least he shall admire at the rubbings of apples for the abolishment of warts not without fruit For truly if a towel being rub'd on a pestilent Bubo doth snatch to it and propagate the contagion why may not also frictions or rubbings for a good end bring a mumial co-suiting of disposition who I pray you may not suspect amber that is rub'd on a pestilential emunctory and if the poyson why also by a like processe is he not at least in doubt that it hath contracted a mumial co-resemblance For I remember that cheese being carried about under the aâ—mpit and swallowed by a dog it served instead of a snare or bait and that he so left his own Master that he believed him to be carrâ—ed away by a stranger in a ship Truly if bruiâ— beasts will they nill they do feel this limitation of the mummy and do obey it yet they enjoy a much more free choice than those things which from an Archeal conception fall under a Zenexton I see not why it shall be wickednesse to have attributed the same limitation unto Amber For it is a thing that grows unto admiration being in times past brought unto us for the rosin of a tree at length being believed by others to be a mineral yet is it sweat out of the Danish sea At leastwise nothing is more acceptable to the stomach bowels sinews yea and to the brain than amber being dissolved in the spirit of wine Cease thou therefore to wonder that so singular an increaser being also endowed with so singular a comfortative and preservative faculty and signed with so singular and attractive a faculty is able to root out the Pest from our places and members for the comforting whereof it grows by a singular goodnesse of divine providence For neither doth it favour of all unlikelihood of truth that amber doth by rubbing attract an odour by reason whereof it is rather appropriated to this individual than the other For it is plainly a porous and volatile Gum and therefore the receiver of a mumial odour which â—t received by rubbing For I have known a method whereby the virtue of an herb and animal is imprinted on precious stones and so that however exactly they are washed afterwards yet the imprinted faculty remains resident and safe For a yellow Topaz as through a moderate heat of asheâ— it loosâ—th its yellownesse so by the heat of the Sun it recovereth the yellownesse which it had lost in the ashes through the same degree of heat Red Coâ—al by rubbing it on a woman that is sick of her womb contracteth a remaining paleness but if it be rubbed on the flesh of a healthy woman it recovers the ancient rednesse of its brightness In the next place glasses the most closed or shut up of solid bodies wherein the essences or Magisteries of Civet c. had been I have seen to have kept those forreign odours after repeated and tedious washings yea and a glasse so to have kept the attractive power of a loadstone because a magistery of the loadstone had been framed in it If therefore such things are wrought in a glasse why not also in amber which by reason of its porous and volatile matter hath it self in manner of a hogshead which being new reserves the odour that once seasoned it Therefore it 's no wonder if amber retain seasoning odours especially if it be born about by the same person whose mumial exhalations it received by friction Nor also is it of much concernment if it divorceth the testimonies of the nostrils For we also do not discern by a footstep whose footstep it may be For if the holy Scripture do commend a great virtue in stones they do not understand that of dissolved stones for the art of resolving them was not as yet then commonly made known not of the powders of Stones being drunk the virtue whereof being not co-mixed with the dungs but for a little while slides away in passing thorow the body Therefore the speech is of entire stones which ought to be as well the attractives as the expulsives of the malady and therefore their virtue is commendable for a Zenexton If therefore a stone hath great virtue for the use of man and the hardest of precious stones themselves are by the testimony of the wise man fruitful in virtue that must needs happen by beaming into the body which they touch at well nigh like unto the stars and therefore also amber through its irradiating transparency and a more inclining obedience of effluxing shall in no wise be more sluggish than gems and the faculty thereof which otherwise sleeps as it were bedrowsied no wonder if it be stirred up by rubbings and heats especially because an Adamant or Diamond although it lose nothing of it self yet by rubbing it also allureth chaffs For neither doth amber draw chaffs or moats unlesse it be first rubbed For it is a signate teaching that frictions ought to go before if the bedrowfied power thereof ought to be stirred up by aâ—akening it out of its sleep and to influx it s ordained office of succour into us At leastwise I testifie that a piece of amber as it resembles a gem or precious stone yet can be much more easily attained by the poor man than precious stones And moreover Paracelsus highly boasteth of the invention of the magnet or loadstone of man whereby he supposeth that the Pestiferous air is uncessantly introduced and so he promiseth more powerful virtues to be in his Zenexton of drawing outwards than there are belonging to our feigned magnet of drawing inwards But surely that man hath seemed to me to be â—ittle constant unto and little expert in his own doctrine concerning the Plague divulged in so many books to wit while he maketh the heaven to be the Archer of the plague and that this plague is nought but a wound of the heaven as an angry parent which thing if he judgeth to be true that poyson at least is not drawn by our Magnet which is darted into us from so many thousand miles space and either the Magnet is undeservedly accused while as it is without fault and his Zenexton is in vain directed and hung on the out-side of the body against the drawing of a feigned Load-stone or he understood not the causes of the appropriation of a Zenexton or at leastwise he might think that he had dictated but dull causes of the Pest To what end therefore doth the remembrance of that Magnet conduâ—e in this place the praise of that invention For truly a Zenexton hath nothing common with that Magnet nor against the same Be it so for let there be a Magnet let us grant it by supposing a falshood
this be not to be attributed unto the Image but unto other Causes issuing from elsewhere Furthermore how much is to be granted unto the rational Faculty for the denominating of the Image of God I have taught in its own tract concerning Reason Yet the more learned Part of Christians hold that the Soul doth most nearly express the Image of one and a trine God by a single simplicity of its Substance and a ternary of its Powers to wit of Understanding Will and Memory which Similitude hath alwayes seemed unto me Improper that the Mind should be the Image of God from an excelling nigh and singular Ability For truly an Image involveth a Likeness of Figure but not an equality of Numbers And moreover if the Soul doth in its Substance represent the holy sacred Trinity but understanding Will and Memory a Ternary of Persons it must needs be that the three Powers of the Soul are not Properties or Accidents of the Soul Yea that those Powers are the one only Substance of the Mind or such an Image doth badly square with the Type whose Image it is believed to be I therefore consider that not indeed the Mind of Man alone but that the whole Man was framed into the Image of God Wherefore although the Soul in this sense doth express a certain Ternary in its Powers yet in no wise Personalities And then because no Person of the holy sacred Trinity doth represent the Will alone or the Will a Person no Person doth resemble Memory as neither any one being separated from the other two the Understanding in Property Then also because the three Powers of the Mind are considered for the most part as it were Accidents of the Soul surely these cannot in any wise express an Image or any nearer supposed thing besides a naked Ternary of Accidents collected into the Substance of the Soul In which sense the Soul doth less denote the Image of God than any piece of Wood The which sheweth by its Analysis only Salt Sulphur and Mercury but not three Powers only like the Mind in the aforesaid similitude of the Vulgar Three Substances I say being concluded under the Unity of a composed Body and diverse the which notwithstanding in their connexion made one only Substance of Wood. Furthermore Taulerus divides the Soul into two Parts to wit the Inferiour or more outward Part which he calls the Soul and the other the Superiour and Bottom which he calls the Spirit In which Part he saith it doth specially represent and contain the Image of God Because the Devil hath not access thereunto the Kingdom of God being there But unto both Parts he assigneth far different Acts and Properties whereby he distinguisheth both But at least-wise that good Man blots out Homogeniety or Simplicity of kinde from the Soul wherein notwithstanding it ought chiefly to express the Image or Similitude of God Yea in this respect he not only denies the Image of God to be propagated in the whole Man but also in the whole Soul Surely I shall not easily believe a duality in the Soul nor admit of the interchange of a Binary if in its Essence it ought to express the Image of the most Simple Divine Nature But rather it behoves that it stand in a most simple Unity and an undivideable Homogeneity of Immortality and mark of indissolution out of all Connexion or Interchange I say therefore that the glorious Image of God is not only in the Soul but the very Mind it self is essentially the glorious Image of God And therefore the Image of God is as intimate to the Soul as the Soul it self is to it self For I consider the mind as a Homogeneal Simple Immortal Undivideable Spirit to wit one only Being whereunto Death adds nothing or takes nothing from it which is natural unto it in its Essence of Simplicity But next as a Partaker of Blessedness because Damnation is unto it by accident besides it appointment and by reason of a future Defect Such a Soul therefore being separated from the Body makes no more use of Memory nor of Remembrance through a beholding of the Place where it was or of Duration But the one only Now doth there contain all things Therefore if any Memory should remain unto it it should be in vain yea burdensome for ever The same thing is to be judged of Remembrance or calling to Mind Because it is that which breaks forth into Act only through a Discourse of Reason and therefore in Eternity it hath no longer Place where the Soul through the beholding of naked Truth without declining Wearisomeness and Defect stands out of necessities of remembring The blessed Soul therefore should stand out of the aforesaid Ternary of Powers and therefore neither should it any longer represent the Image of God for which Cause alone it was created Yea by a more full looking into the Matter I do not find Memory to be a singular and separated Power of the Soul but a naked manner of Remembring For therefore forgetful Persons do by the help of Imagination which is the Vicaress of the Understanding frame an artificial Memory unto themselves and they learn a far more strong one than otherwise their natural Memory would be And moreover Will departs from the Soul together with the Life because it came accidentally to the Soul Seeing that God after the Creation placed Man in the hand of his own free Will which thing surely denotes that the Will is not after a proper manner essential to the Mind but from a grant that it may be instead of a Talent and that he may follow the way which he had rather chuse Otherwise seeing nothing is more pernicious than Free Will beause it is that alone which breedeth all discord between God and Man surely such a Faâ—â—lty cannot have place in the blessedness of Eternity Because the freedom of willing being taken away the very Will it self perisheth For otherwise what shall a power of willing avail where there is no longer a liberty of being able to will But say they in Heaven the Will is confirmed That is the heavenly Wights cannot will but what God willeth For they that are in Charity cannot but will those things which belong to Charity Which is as much as to say The heavenly Wights can no longer will but God alone doth there will and nill Therefore the Will ceaseth while as a liberty of willing is dissolved For truly the Will cannot be serviceable or profitable unto a blessed Soul to Eternity while as neither is it able to be brought forth into Act And such a Will should be onely a wishing The which surely is not in Heaven where there is a full satiety of all desirable things with all abundance The Will therefore should be rather a burdensome Appendency of a blessed Soul Let it be sufficient therefore that in this Life men by a Power of Willing have well deserved and have treasured up their Talents for advantage Indeed I