my structure But I will lay them so well and so firmly that there will be no great difficulty to grant them These Principles shall be like the wheels of Archimedes by the advantage whereof a child might be capable to hale a shore the bigest Carack of King Hieron which a hundred pair of Oxen with all the Ropes and Cables of his Arsenal were not able to stir so by the strength of these Principles I hope to waft my conclusions to a safe Port. The first Principle shall be That the whole Orb or Sphere of the Air is filled with light If it were needful to prove in this point that the Light is a material and corporal substance and not an imaginary and incomprehensible quality as many Schoolmen averre I could do it evidently enough but I have done this in another Treatife which hath been published not long since And it is no new opinion for many of the most esteemed Philosophers among the Ancients have advanced it yea the Great St. Augustin in his Third Epistle to Volusion doth alledge that it is his sentiment But touching our present businesse whether the light be the one or the other it matters not t is enough to explicate her course and the journies she makes whereunto our senses bear witnesse T is clâ—ar that issuing continually out of her source which is the Sun and lancing her self by a marvailous celerity on all fides by streight lines there where she rancounters any obstacles in her way by the opposition of some hard or opaque body she reflects and leaping thence to equal angles she takes again her course by a streight line untill she bandies some other side upon another solid body and so she continueth to make new boundings here and there until at the end being chased on all sides by the bodies which oppose her in her passage she is tyred and so extinguisheth In the like manner we see a Ball in Tenis Court being struck by a strong arm against the walls leaps to the opposite side that sometimes she makes the circuit of the whole Court and finisheth her motion near the place where she was first struck Our very eyes are witnesses of this progresse of the light when by way of reflexion she illuminates some obscure place whither she cannot directly arrive Or when issuing immediatly from the Sun and beating upon the Moon or some other of the Planets the rayes which cannot find entrance there bound upon our earth otherwise we should not see them and there she is reflected broken and bruised by so many bodies as she meets in her diversity of reflexions The second Principle shall be that the light glancing so upon some body the rayes which enter no further and which rebound upon the superficies of the body loosen themselves and carry with them some small particles or atomes just as the ball whereof we have spoken would carry with it some of the moisture of the wall against which she is banded if the plaister thereof were also moyst and as in effect she carryed away some tincture of the black wherewith the walls are coloured The reason whereof is that the light that subtill and rarified fire coming with such an imperceptible hast for her darts are within our eyes as soon as her head is above our Horison making so many million of miles in an inimaginable space of time I say the light beating upon the body which opposeth her she cannot chuse but make there some small incisions proportionable to her rarity and subtility And these small Atomes being cut and loosened from their trunk being composed of the four Elements as all bodies are the heat of the light doth stick and incorporate it self with the most humid viscuous and gluing parts of the said Atoms and brings them along with her Experience shews us this as well as Reason for when one puts some humid cloth to dry before the fire the fiery rayes beating thereon those which find no entrance but reflect thence carry away with them some small moist bodies which make a kind of mist betwixt the cloth and the fire In like manner the Sun at his risig enlightning the earth which is humified either by rain or the dew of the night his beams raise a mist which by little and little ascends to the tops of the hills and this mist doth arifie according as the Sun hath more force to draw it upwards until at last we lose the sight thereof and that it becomes part of the air which in regard of its tenuity is invisible unto us These Atoms then are like Cavaliers mounted on winged coursers who go very far untill that the Sun setting takes from them their Pegasus and leaves them unmounted and then they precipitate themselves in crowds to the earth whence they sprung the greatest part of them and the most heavy fall upon the first retreating of the Sun and that we call the Serain which though it be so thin that we cannot see it yet we feel it as so many small hammers which strike upon our heads and bodies principally the elder sort of them for the younger sort in regard of the boyling of their bloud and the heat of their complexion thrust out of them abundance of spirits which being stronger than those that fell from the Serain they repulse them and hinder them to operate upon the bodies whence these spirits came forth as they do upon those that being grown cold by age are not warranted by so strong an emanation of the spirits which come out of them The wind which blows and is tossed to and fro is no other than a great River of the like Atomes drawn out of some solid bodies which are upon the earth and so are banded here and there according as they find cause for that effect I remember to have once sensibly seen how the wind is ingendred I passed over Mount Cenis to go for Italy towards the beginning of Summer and I was advanced to half the hill as the Sun did rise cleer and luminous but before I could see his body because the Mountains interposed I observed his rayes which did guild the top of the Mountain Viso which is the Pyramid of a Rock a good deal higher than Mount Cenis and all the neighbouring Mountains Many are of opinion that it is the highest Mountain in the World after the Pic of Tenariff in the gran Canarie and this Mount Viso is alwayes covered with snow I observed then that about that place which was illuminated by the Solar rayes there was a fog which at first was of no greater extent then an ordinary boule but by degrees it grew greater that at last not onely the top of that Mountain but all the neighbouring hills were canopied all over with a cloud I was now come to the top of Mount Cenis and finding my self in the streight line which passeth from the Sun to Mount Viso I stayed awhile to behold it while my people were
Chambers or as from the beds which appropriated unto them by an exact justnesse when they come back to their ancient habitations viz. to the pores which are left in the dead heads they accommodate themselves and amiably rejoyn and comensurate together The same happens when it rains after a long drouth for the earth immediately drinks up the water which had been drawn up by the Sun whereas any other strange liquor would enter with some difficulty Now that there are differing pores in bodies which seem to be homogeneous Monsieur Gassendi affirms it and undertakes to prove it by the dissolution of salts of differing natures in common water when saies he to this effect that when you have dissolved common salt as much as it can bear if you put onely a seruple more it will leave it entire in the bottom as if it were sand or playster neverthelesse it will dissolve a good quantity of salt-peter and though it toucheth not this salt it will dissolve as much of Armoniacall salt and so others of different figures In so much as I have observed elsewhere we see plainly by the aeconomy of Nature that bodies of the same figure use to mingle more strongly and unite themselves with more facility which is the reason why those that make a strong glue to glue together broken pots of porcelain or chrystal or such stuff do alwayes mingle with the glue the powder of that body which they endeavour to raccomodate And the Goldsmiths themselves when they go about to sodder together pieces of gold or of silver they mingle those bodies alwayes in their own dust Having hitherto run through the reasons and causes why bodies of the same nature draw one to another with greater facility and force than others and why they unite with more promptitude le ts now see according to our method how experience confirms this discourse for in natural things we must have recourse on dernier ressort to experience And all reasoning that is not supported so ought to be repudiated or at least suspected to be illegitimate T is an ordinary thing when one finds himself burnt as in the hand he holds it a good while as near the fire as he can and by this means the ignited atomes of the fire and of the hand mingling together and drawing one another and the stronger of the two which are those of the fire having the mastery the hand finds it self much eased of the inflammation which it suffered T is an ordinary remedy though a nasty one that they who have ill breaths hold their mouths open at the mouth of a privy as long as they can and by the reiteration of this remedy they find themselves cured at last the greater stink of the privy drawing unto it and carrying away the lesse which is that of the mouth They who have been pricked or bit by a Viper or Scorpion hold over the bitten or pricked place the head of a Viper or Scorpion bruised and by this means the poyson by a kind of filtration way went on to gain the heart of the party returns back to its principles and so leaves the party well recovered In time of common contagion they use to carry about them the powder of a toad and sometimes a living toad or spider shut up in a box or else they carry arsnick or some other venemous substance which draws unto it the contagious air which otherwise would infect the party and the same powder of toad draws unto it the poison of a pestilential cole The scurf or farcy is a venemous and contagious humor within the body of a horse hand a toad about the neck of the horse in a little bag and he will be cured infallibly the toad which is the stronger poyson drawing to it the venome which was within the horse Make water to evaporate out of a stove or other room close shut if there be nothing that draws this vapor it will stick to the walls of the stove and as it cools it recondenseth there into water but if you put a bason or bucquet full of water into any part of the stove it will attract all the vapor which filled the chamber and so doing no part of the wall will be wetted If you dissolve Mercury which resolving into smoak doth passe into the recipient put into the head of the limbick a little thereof and all the mercury in the limbick will gather there and nothing will passe into the recipient If you distill the spirit of salt or of vitriol or the baume of sulpher and leaving the passage free betwixt the spirit and the dead head whence it issued forth the spirits will return to the dead head which being fixt and not able to mount up draws them unto it In our Country and I think t is so used here they use to make provision for all the year of Venison Pasties at the season that their flesh is best and most savory which is in Iuly and August they bake it in earthen pots or Ryecrust after they have well seasond it with salt and spices and being cold they cover it 6 fingers deep with freshbutter thatthe air may not enter Neverthelesse t is observed after all the diligence that one can make that when the living beasts which are of the same nature and kind are in Rut the flesh which is in the pot smells very rank and very much changed having a stronger tast because of the spirits which come at this season from the living beasts which spirits are attracted naturally by the dead flesh and then one hath much to do to preserve it from being quite spoiled but the said season being passed there is no danger or difficulty to keep it gustfull all the year long The wine Marchants observe in this Country and every where elsewhere there is wine that during the season that the Vines are in flower the wine which is in the Cellar makes a kind of fermentation and pusheth forth a little white lee which I think they call the mother of the wine upon the surface of the wine which continueth in a kind of disorder untill the flowers of the Vines be fallen and then this agitation or fermentation being ceased all the wine returns to the same state it was in before Nor is it now that this observation hath been made but besides divers others who speak hereof St. Ephrem the Syrian in his last Will and Testament some 1300 years ago reports this very same circumstance of wine which sensibly suffers an agitation fermentation within the vessel the same time that the Vines seem to exhaletheir spirits in the Vineyards He makes use of the same example in dry onions which bud in the house when those in the garden begin to come out of the earth and to embalm the air with their spirits shewing thereby by these known examples of nature the communication between living persons and the souls of the dead Now those winy spirits that issue from
execution of a Criminal who had his neck broken according to the laws of France whereof the took such an affrightment that made so deep a print upon her imagination that presently she fell in labour of her child and before they could carry her to her lodging but she was brought to bed before her time of a child who had his head severed from his body both the parts yet shedding fresh bloud besides that which was abundantly shed in the womb as if the headsman had done an execution also upon the tender young body within the matrix of the mother These three Examples and many others truely alleadged which I could produce although they mainifestly prove the strength of the imagination would engage me too far if I should undertake to clear the causes and unwrap the difficulties which would be found greater then in any of those instances wherewith I have entertained you because that those spirits had the power to cause such essential changes and fearful effects upon bodies that were already brought to their shapes of perfection and it may be well believed that in some of them there was a transmutation of one species to another the introduction of a new informing form in the subject-matter totally differing from that which had been introduced at first at least if that which most Naturalists tell us at the animation of the Embryo in the womb be true but this digression hath been already too long Est modus in Rebus sunt certi denique fines Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere Rectum To return then to the great channel and thread of our Discourse the examples and experiments which I have already insisted upon in confirmation of the reasons which I have alleadged do clearly demonstrate that the bodies which draw the atomes dispersed in the air attract unto themselves with a greater power and energy such as are of their own nature then other heterogeneous and strange atomes As wine doth the vinal spirits The oyl of tartar fermented by the levain of Roses draws the volatil spirits of the rose The flesh of deer or vemson buried in crust attracts the spirits of those beasts and so all the other whereof I have spoken The History of the Tarantula in the kingdom of Naples is very famous you know how the venome of this animall ascending by the hurt that the party hath received being pricked therewith towards the head and the heart doth excite in their Imagination an impetuous desire to hear some melodious aires and most commonly they are delighted with differing aires Therefore when they listen to an aire that pleaseth them they begin to dance incessantly and thereby they fall a sweating in abundance in such sort that this sweat makes a great part of the venom to evaporate besides the sound of the musick doth raise a movement and causeth an agitation among the aerean and vaporous spirits which are in the brain and about the heart and diffused up and down through the whole body proportionably according to the nature and cadence of such musick as when Timotheus transported Alexander the Great with such a vehemency to such and such passions as he pleased In the like manner also when it happens that one Lute doth sound it makes the strings of the other to shake by the motions and tremblings which it causeth in the air though it be not touched otherwise at all We find also oftentimes that the sounds which are no other thing than the motions of the air cause the like movement in the water as the sharp sound which is caused by rubbing hard with ones finger the brim of a glasse full of water doth excite a noise a turning and boundings in the water of certain drops as if the water did dance according to the cadence of the sound The harmonious sounds also of bells in those Countries where they use to be rung to particular tunes doth make the like impressions upon the superficies of the rivers that are nigh the steeple specially in the night time when there is no other movement which stops or choakes the other supervenient one For the air being contiguous or rather continuous with the water and the water being susceptible of movement there 's the like motion caused in the fluid parts of the water as began in the air and the same contact which is betwixt the agitated air and the water which is by this meanes also moved happens also to be betwixt the agitated air and the vaprous spirits which are in those bodies who have been bit by the Tarantula which spirits by consequence are moved by the agitated air that is to say by the sound and that the more efficaciously that this agitation or sound is proportioned to the nature and temperature of the party hurt And this intern agitation of the spirits and vapours helps them to discharge the vapourous venom of the Tarantula which is mixt among all their humours In the like manner that standing puddle waters and corrupted aires being putrified by long repose and the mixture of other noisome substances are refin'd and purifi'd by motion but winter approaching which devoures these bealts people are freed from this malady but at the returne of that season when they used to be pricked the mischief comes again and they must dance again as they did the year before The reason is that the heat of summer doth stir and raise up the venom of the beast whereby it becomes as malignant and furious as it was before And the poison being heated and evaporating it self and dispersing in the air the levain of the same poyson which remaines in the bodies of them who have been hurt drawes it unto it self whereby such a fermentation is wrought which infects the other humours whence a kind of smoake issuing and mounting to the braines of these poor sick bodies doth use to produce such strange effects It is also well known that where there are great dogs or mastiffs as in England if any be bitten perchance by any of these dogs they commonly use to kill them though they be not mad for fear that the levain of the canine choler which remaines within the body of the party bit draw unto it the malignant spirits of the same dog which might come to distemper the spirits of the party And this is not onely practised in England where there are such dangerous dogs but also in France according to the report of father Cheron provinciall of the Carmelites in this Countrey in his examen de la Theologie mystique newly imprinted and which I have lately read I will say nothing of artificiall noses that are made of the flesh of other men for to remedy the deformity of those who by an extream excesse of cold have lost their own which new noses do putrifie as soon as those persons out of whose substance they were taken come to die as if that small parcell of flesh engrafted upon the face did live by the spirits
A LATE DISCOURSE Made in a Solemne Assembly of Nobles and Learned Men at Montpellier in France By Sr. Kenelme Digby Knight c. Touching the Cure of WOUNDS by the Powder of Sympathy With Instructions how to make the said Powder whereby many other Secrets of Nature are unfolded Foelix qui potuit Rerum cognoscere causas Rendred faithfully out of French into English By R. White Gent. London Printed for R. Lownes and T Davies and are to be sold at their shops in St. Pauls Church yard at the sign of the White Lion and at the Bible over against the little North Door of St. Pauls Church 1658. TO THE Most Noble and Heroick Gentleman IOHN DIGBYE Esq. at Gothhurst SIR By making this Dedicatory Addresse unto you I may truely say t is done to the Renowned Authour Himself for besides the ordinary relation of Father and Son betwixt you there was never I dare boldly say such a perfect exact similitude twixt any two since the World began For you resemble him not onely in the outward Symmetry in that goodly proportion and comportments of your body You are like him not onely in Physiognomy of face having the same spacious front the same perspicacious eyes with other visible parts so marvalously alike but the tone of your voice the accent of your words your very breath and articulate sounds are the same with his insomuch that it being well observed this admirable similitude or rather Identity may be called one of the greatest wonders of these times Now Sir this Resemblance being so exact through all the outward parts Capapee It may be well presumed that you are also like him in the Idaeas of your soul and the intern motions of your mind and consequently in his sublime speculations Therefore I hope that neither the World will accuse me of Impertinence or your self of presumption that I make this Dedication and thereby stile my self Highly Honoured Sir Your most humble and ready servant R. WHITE An Extract of the Royall priviledge in France for printing the said discourse BY the Grace and priviledge of the King given in Paris the one and twentieth of December one thousand six hundred fifty seven It is permitted to Iohn Ancelin to cause to be printed sold and uttered by what Bookseller he shall think fit a Book intitled A discourse made in a famous Assembly by Cavalier Digby Chancellour to the Queen of Great Britain touching the cure of wounds by the Powder of Sympathy c. And this during the time and space of ten yeares with prohibition to all Booksellers and Printers to counterfeit sell or utter the said Book without the consent and permission of the said Ancelin or of those who shall derive a right from him under the penalty of one thousand five hundred Liures and of all expences damages and interests as it is more amply contained within the Letters of the said Priviledge The said Ancelin hath transmitted the right of the said Priviledge to Augustine Courb and Peter Moet Marchants of books in Paris according to the Agreement betwixt them His Majesties Library is furnished with two Exemplars accordingly An Information to the Knowing Reader THis Exquisite philosophical Discourse was made lately by that Renowned Knight Sir Kenelme Digby in one of the most famous Academies of France It contains a variety of many recondit and high mysteries of Nature which are all here unmasked And as all that great Scientifical Assembly composed of the choicest wits under that Clime stood then astonished at the profound speculations of the Author which were delivered by way of Oration and taken in short writing upon the place as t was uttered so I believe it will work the same effect in any Iudicious Soul when he hath seriously perused it R. WHITE A DISCOURSE Touching the cure of WouNDS by the Powder of Sympathy My Lords I Believe that you wil remain all in one mind with me that to penetrate and know a Subject it is necessary in the first place to shew whether the thing be such as it is supposed or imagined to be For would not one unprofitably lose both his time and labour to busie himself in the research of the causes of that which peradventure is but a Chimera without any foundation of truth I remember to have read in a place in Plutarch where he proposeth this question Wherefore those Horses who while they are Colts have been pursued by the Wolf and saved themselves by force of running are more fleet than other Horses Whereunto he answers That it may be that the searing and affrightment which the Wolf gives unto the young beast makes him try his utmost strength to deliver himself from the danger that follows him at the heels therefore the said fright doth as it were unknit his joynts and stretch his sinews and makes the ligaments and other parts of his body the more supple to run insomuch that he resents it all his life afterwards and becomes a good courser Or it may be sayes he that those Colts which are naturally swift save themselves by flying away whereas others who are not so are overtaken by the Wolf and so become his prey and so it is not because they have escaped the Wolf that they are the more fleet but it is their natural swiftnesse which saves them He affords also other reasons and at last concludes That it may be the thing is not true I find it not so fit my Lords to reply hereunto at a Table Discourse where the chief design of conversation is to passe away the time gently and pleasantly without medling with the severity of high fetcht reasons to wind up the spirits and make them more attentive But in so renowned an Assembly as this where there are such Iudicious Persons and so profoundly learned and who upon this rancounter expect from me that I pay them in solid reasons I should be very sorry that having done my utter most to make it clear how the Powder which they commonly call the Powder of Sympathy doth naturally and without any Magick cure wounds without touching them yea without seeing of the Patient I say I should be very sorry that it should be doubred Whether such a cure may effectually be performed or no In matter of fact the determination of existence and truth of a thing depends upon the report which our senses make us This businesse is of that nature for they who have seen the effects and had experience thereof and have been carefull to examine all necessary circumstances and satisfied themselves afterwards that there is no imposture in the thing do nothing doubt but that it is real and true But they who have not seen such experiences ought to refer themselves to the Narrations and authority of such who have seen such things I could produce divers whereof I was an ocular witnesse nay Quorum pars magna fui But as a certain and an accounted example in the affirmative is convincing to
coming up the hill behind for having more men to carry my chair than they had I was there sooner It was not long that I might perceive the said fog descend gently to the place where I was and I began to feel a freshnesse that came over my face when I turned it that way When all my Troup was come about me we went descending the other side of Mount Cenis towards Suze and the lower we went we sensibly found it that the wind began to blow hard behind our backs for our way obliged us to go towards the side where the Sun was We met with Passâ—ngers that were going up and we down they told us that the wind was very impetuous below and did much incommodate them by blowing in their faces and eyes but the higher they came it was lesser and lesser and touching our selves when we had come to the place where they said the wind blew so hard we found a kind of storm and it encreased still the lower we went untill the Sun being well advanced drew no more by that line but caused a wind in some other place The people of that Country assured me that it was there alwayes so if some extraordinary and violent accident did not intervene and divert his ordinary course which is that upon a certain hour of the day the wind doth raise it self to such a rumb or point when the Sun is come to auother point another wind riseth and so from hand to hand it changes the point till the Sun set which alwayes brings with it a calm if the weather be fair and that alwayes comes from the Mount Viso opposite to the Sun They told us also that the daily wind is commonly stronger towards the bottom of the Mountain than towards the top whereof the reason is evident for the natural movement of every body natural doth encrease always in swiftnesse according as it moves forward to its center and that in an unequal number as Galileo hath ingeniously demonstrated I did it also in another Treatise that is to say that if at the first moment it advanceth an ell in the second it advanceth three in the third five in the fourth seven and so it continueth to augment in the same manner which proceeds from the density and figure of the descending body acting upon the cellibility of the medium And these smal bodies which cause a wind from Mount Viso are thick and terrestrial for the snow being composed of aquatical parts and of earthly united by the cold when the heat of the Solar beams doth disunite and separate them the viscous parts flie with them while the terrestrial being too heavy to fly upward fall presently downward This makes me remember a very remarkable thing which befel me when I was with my Fleet in the Port of Scanderon or Alexandrette towards the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea there they use to disimbark when they go to Aleppo or Babylon I had done already what I had intended to do in those seas and happily compassed my design so it imported me much to return to England as soon as possibly I could and the rather because my Ships were battered by a great fight which I had had a little before against a formidable power which although I had obtained the better yet in so furious a dispute my Fleet was in some disorder and my Ships full of wounded men To advise therefore of the most expedient road to come to some harbour where I might repair my Ships and be in surety I assembled all my Captains Pilots and Mariners the most experienced of my Fleet and having propounded unto them my design they were all of an unaminous opinion that the surest course was towards the South and to coast upon Syria Iudea Egypt and Africa and render our selves at the streight of Gibraltar and sailing so near the body of the earth we should have every night some small briezes of wind whereby we should in a short time make our voyage And besides we should not be in any great danger to meet either with Spanish or French Fleets for England was at that time in open war with both those Kings and we had advise that they had great Fleets abroad to vindicate some things we had done in prejudice of them both those sixteen moneths that we remained Master of those seas therefore it concerned us to make towards some safe Port where we might both refresh our men and repair our battered Vessels My opinion was clean contrary to theirs for I believed our best course were to steer our course Westward and to saile along the coasts of Cilicia Pamphylia Lydia Natolia or Asia the Lesse and to traverse the mouth of the Archipelago leave the Adriatick on the right hand and passe by Sicily Italy Sardinia Corsica the Golps of Lion and so coast all Spain telling them that it would be a great dishonour unto us to forsake our best road for fear of the enemy for our chief businesse thither was to find them out and the protection which it pleased God to afford us all along in so many combats in going was cause to make us hope that the same providence would vouchsafe to guide us as we should be returning That there was no doubt but the road which I proposed unto them considered simply in it self was not without comparison the better and the more expedit to saile out of the Mediterranean sea and gain the Ocean because said I that although we have the briezes from off the earth as long as we were upon the coasts of Syria and Egypt we shall not have them at all while we saile upon the coasts of Lybia where there are those fearfull sands which they call the Syrtes which are of a great extent the said coast having no humidity for there is neither tree nor herb grows there for there is nought else but moving sands which covered and enterred heretofore at one glut the puissant Army of King Cambyses Now where there is no humidity the Sun cannot attract to make a wind so that we shall never find there specially in Sommer time any other wind but that Regular wind which blows from East to West according to the course of the Sun who is the father of winds unlesse some extraordinary happen either from the coast of Italy which lies Northward or from the bottom of Ethiopia where the Mountains of the Moon are and the source of the Cataracts of Nile therefore if we were neer the Syrtes the winds of Italy would be most dangerous unto us and expose us to shipwrack I reasond so according to natural causes while they of my Councel of war kept themselves firm to their experience which was the cause that I would do nothing against the unanimous sense of all for although the disposing and resolution of all things depended absolutely upon my self yet I thought I might be justly accused of rashnesse or willfulnesse if I should prefer my own advise
doth tarnish it by degrees and although one should lock up his Chamber and come not thither a good while and keep it never so clean yet at his returne he will find a black kind of thin soot cover all his houshold-stuff as we see in Mills there is a white dust as also in Bakers shops which useth to whiten the walls and sometimes gets into cubboards and chests The said coal-soot also gets abroad and fouls cloths upon hedges as they are a drying as also in the Spring time the very leaves of trees are besooted therewith Now in regard that it is this air which the lungs draw for respiration among the inhabitans therefore the flegme and spittle which comes from them is commonly blackish and fuliginous Moreover the acrimony of this soot produceth another funestous effect for it makes the people subject to inflammations and by degrees to ulcerations in the lungs It is so corrosive and biting that if one put gammons of bacon or beef or or any other flesh within the chimney it so dries it up that it spoiles it Wherefore they who have weak lungs quickly feel it whence it comes to passe that almost the one half of them who dye in London dye of ptisical and pulmonicall distempers spitting commonly bloud from their ulcerated lungs But at the beginng of this malady the remedy is very easie It is but to send them to a place where the air is good many do usually come to Paris who have means to pay the charge of such a journy and they commonly use to recover their healths in perfection The same inconveniences are also though the operations be not so strong in the City of Liege where the common people burn no other than pit coals which they call hâ— ville Paris her self also although the circumambient be passing good yet is the subject to incommodities of that nature The excessively stinking dirt and channels of that vast City mingleth a great deal of ill allay with the purity of the air stuffing it every where with corrupted atoms which yet are not so pernicious as those of London We find that the most neat and polished silver plate exposed to the air becomes in a short time livid and foul which proceeds from no other cause then from those black atoms the true colour of putrefaction which stick unto them I know a person of quality and a singular friend of mine who is lodged in a place where on the one side a great many poor people do inhabit where few Carts use to passe and fewer Coaches his neighbours behind his house empty their filth and ordures in the middle of the street which useth hereby to be full of mounts of filth which is used to be carried away by Tombrells when they remove these ordures you cannot imagine what a stench and a kind of infectious air is smelt thereabout every where The servants of my said friend when this happens use to cover their plate and andirons of polished brasse with other of their fairest houshold-stuff with cotten or course bayes otherwise they would be all tarnished yet nothing hereof is seen within the air yet these experiences do manifestly convince that the air is stuffed with such atoms I cannot omit to adde hereunto another experiment which is that we find by the effects how the rayes of the Moon are cold and moist It is without controversie that the luminous parts of those rayes come from the Sun the Moon having no light at all within her as her ecclipses bear witnesse which happen when the earth is opposite twixt her and the Sun which interposition hinders her to have light from his rayes The beams then which come from the Moon are those of the Sun who glancing upon her reflect upon us and so bring with them the atoms of that cold and humid star who participate of the source whence they come therefore if one should expose a hollow bason or glasse to assemble them one shall find that whereas those of the Sun do burn by such a conjuncture these clean contrary do refresh and moysten in a notable manner leaving an aquatick and viscuous glutining kind of sweat upon the glasse One would think it were a folly that one should offer to wash his hands in a well polished silver bason wherein there is not a drop of water yet this may be done by the reflection of the Moon beams onely which will afford a competent humidity to do it but they wo have tryed this have found their hands after they are wiped to be much moister than usually but this is an infallible way to take away warts from the bands if it be often used Let us then conclude out of these premises and experiments that the air is full of atoms which are drawn from bodies by means of the light which reflects thereon or which sally out by the interior natural heat of those bodies which drive them forth It may haply seem impossible that there can be an emanation of so many small bodies that should be spread up and down the air and be so carried up and down and so far by a continual flux if I may say so and yet the body whence they come receives no diminution that is perceptible though sometimes t is visible enough as by the evaporations of the spirits of wine musk and other such volatil substances But this objection will be null and the two precedent principles will render themselves more credible when we shall settle another viz. That every body be it never so little is divisible ad infinitum not that it hath infinite parts for the contrary thereof may be demonstrated but it is capable to be divided and subdivided into new parts without ever coming to the end of the division And it is in this sense that our Masters teach us that quantity is infinitly divisible This is evident to him who shall consider with a profound imagination the essence and the formal reason of quantity which is nothing else but divisibility But in regard that this speculation is very subtile and metaphysical I will serve my self with some geometricall demonstrations to prove this truth for they accommodate best with the imagination Euclide doth teach us in the tenth Proposition of his sixth book that if one take a short line and another long one and that the long be divided to divers equall parts twixt themselves The little one may be divided also into as many equal parts among themselves and every one of those parts also in others and these last into so many more and so consecutively without being able ever to come to that which is not divisible But le ts suppose although it be impossible that one might divide and subdivide a line so that at last we should come to an indivisible and le ts see what will come of it I say then that since the line doth resolve it self into indivisibles she ought to be composed of them le ts see whether that may
mediation of the Sun beams and of the light use to issue forth out of all bodies that are composed of Elements who throng the air and are carried a marvailous distance from the place and bodies where they have their origen and source the proof and explication of which things hath been the aime of my discourse hitherunto Now my Lords I must if you please make you see how these small bodies that so fill and compose the air are oftentimes drawn to a road altogether differing from that which their universal causes should make them hold and it shall be our fifth principle One may remark within the course and aeconomy of nature sundry sorts of attractions as that of succion or sucching whereby I have seen a ball of lead at the bottom of a long steel exactly wrought follow the air which one sucked out of the mouth of a Canon with that impetuosity and strength that it broke his teeth The attraction of water or wine that is done by the instrument Scyphon is like to this for by means of that one liquor is made to passe from one vessel into another without changing any way the colour or rising of the lees There is another sort of attraction which is called magnetical whereby the loadstone draws the iron Another electrick when the Iett-stone draws unto it straws There is another of the Flame when the smoke of a candle put out draws the flame of that which burns hard by and makes it descend to light that which is out There is another of Filtration when one humid body mounts upon a dry body or when the contrary is done Lastly when the fire or some hot body draws the air and that which is mixed therewith We will treat here of the two first species of attraction I have sufficiently spoken of the rest in another place Filtration may seem to him who hath not attentively considered it nor examined by what circumstances so hidden a secret of nature comes to passe and to a person of a mean and limited understanding to be done by some occult virtue or property and will perswade himself that within the Filtre or strayning instrument there is some secret Sympathy which makes water to mount up contrary to its natural motion But he who will examine the business as it ought to be observing all that is done without omitting any circumstance he will find there is nothing more natural and that it is impossible it should be otherwise And we must make the same judgement of all the profound mysteries and hidden'st mysteries of nature if one would take the pains to discover them and search into them with judgement Behold then how Filtration is made they use to put a long toung of cloth or cotten or spongy matter within an earthen pot of water or other liquor and let hanging upon the brim of the pot a good part of the cloth and one shall see the water presently mount up and passe above the brink of the vessel and drop at the lower end of the piece of cloth upon the ground or within some vessel and the Gardners make use of this method to water their plants and flowers in Summer by soft degrees As also the Apothecaries and Chymists to separate their liquors from their dregs and residences To comprehend the reason why the water ascends in that manner let us neerly observe all that is done That part of the cloth which is within the water becomes wetted to wit it receives and imbibes the water through its spongy and dry parts at first This cloth swells in receiving the water so two bodies joyned together require more room than one of them would by it self Let us consider this swelling and augmented extension in the last thread of them which touch the water viz. that on the superficies which to be distinguished from the rest let it be marked at the two ends as by a line as with A. B. and the thread which immediately follows and is above it let it be C. D. and the following E. F. then with G. H. and so to the end of the toung I say then that the thread A. B. dilating it self and swelling by means of the water which enters twixt it fibres or strings approacheth by little and little to C. D. which is yet dry because it toucheth not the water but when A. B. is grown so grosse and swelling by reason of the water which enters that it fills all the vacuity and all the distance which lies twixt it and C. D. as also that it presseth against C. D. by reason of its extension which is greater than the space was betwixt them both then it wets C. D. because the thread A. B. being compressed the exterior part of the water which was in it coming to be pushed on upon C. D. seeks there a place and entreth within the threeds and wets them in the same manner as at first the exterior and highest part became wet C. D. being so wetted it shall dilate it self as A. B. did and consequently pressing against E. F. it cannot chuse but work the same effect in it which before it had received by the swelling and dilatation of A. B. and so by gentle degrees every thread wets its neighbour untill the very last thread of cloth toung And it is not to be feared that the continuity of the water will break ascending this scale of chords or that it will recoyl backwards for those little ladders so easy to be mounted render the ascent the more easie and the woolly fibres of every thread seem to reach their hands to help them up at every pace and so the facility of getting up contremont joyned with the fluidness of the water and the nature of quantity which tends alwayes to the uniting of substances and of bodies which it clothes when there occures no other predominant cause to break and divide it causeth that the water keeps it self in one piece and passeth above the brink of the pot After that its voyage is made more easie for it goes after its natural panching alwayes downwards And if the end of the cloth hangs lower without the pot then the surface of the water within the pot the water spills on the earth or some vessel placed beneath as we see that a heavier chord being hung upon a pully the longest and heaviest falls upon the ground and carrieth away the shortest and lightest making it passe above the pully But if the outward end of the cloth which is without the pot were horizontal with the surface of the water and did hang no lower then it the water would be immoveable as the two sides of a balance when there 's equal weight in both the scales And if one would powre out the water that is in the pot in such sort that the superficies did grow lower than the end of the cloth In that case the ascending water becoming more heavy than the descendant on the other side without the pot
seems there can be no default stop or interruption in their proceedings But we shall be the better fortified in the belief of their vertue and esticacy and how they come to produce the effects of so many fair cures if we consider that then when some is practised in one of these causes or in all of them together we see and perceive immediately an effect altogether differing from the former If I had not formerly seen a watch or clock I should be justly surprized and should remain astonished to see a hand or a needle so regularly mark the journal hours and motion of the Sun upon the flat of a quadrant and that it should turn and make its round every four and twenty howers there being nothing seen that should push on the said needle But if I look on the other side I see wheels ressorts and counterpoises which are in perpetual movement which having well and soberly considered I presently suspect that those wheels are the cause of the movement and turnings of the said needle although I cannot presently discern or know how those moving wheels do cause a motion in the needle of the quadrant because of the plate that lieth interposed betwixt them Therefore I reason thus within my self That every effect whatsoever must have of pure necessity some cause and therefore that the body moved there ought necessarily to receive its movement from some other body which is contiguous to it Now I see no other body which makes the needle of the quadrant to move and turn then the said wheels therefore I must of force be perswaded to attribute the movement unto them But afterwards when I shall have stoped the motion of those wheeles and taken away the counterpoise and observed that suddenly the needle ceased to move and that applying again the counterpoise and giving liberty for the wheel to turn the needle returns to her ordinary train or by making one wheel to go faster by putting my finger unto it or by adding more weight to the counterpoise the needle doth hasten and advance its motions proportionably Then I grow to be convinced and entirely satisfied and so I absolutely conclude that these wheels and counterpoises are the true cause of the motion of the needle In the same manner if interrupting the action of any of those causes which I have established for the true foundation of the Sympathetical Powder I alter retard or hinder the cure of the wound I may boldly conclude that the foresaid causes are the legitimate and genuine true causes of the cure and that we need not amuse our selves to make indagations for any other Let us then examine our businesse by that bias I have affirmed that the Light transporting the atoms of the Vitriol and of the bloud and dilating them to a great extent in the air the wound or place hurt doth attract them and thereby is immediately solac'd and eased and consequently comes to be healed by the spirits of the Vitriol which is of a balsamical virtue But if you put the bason or Powder with the cloth embrued with bloud within an Armory or into a corner of some cold rooms or into a cave where the light never comes nor fresh air which makes the place corrupted and to have ill smells in that case the wound can receive no amendment nor any good effect from the said Powder And it will fall out in the same manner if having put the bason or Powder in some By-corner and that you cover them with some thick cloth stuffing and spongie which might imbibe the atomes that use to come forth and which retain the the light and rayes which enter there where they are thereby stopped and quite lost Moreover if you suffer the water of Vitriol to congeale into ice or the cloth wherein t is dipped the party hurt shall be sensible at the beginning of a very great cold in his wound but when it is iced all over he shall feel neither heat nor cold in regard that congealed cold doth constipate the pores of the water which neverthelesse doth not cease to transpire and send forth spirits If one should wash the cloth spotted with bloud in vinegar or lye which by their penetrating acrimony transports all the spirits of the bloud before the Vitriol be applied it will produce no effect yet if it be washed but with pure simple water it may neverthelesse do something for that water carries not away so much but the effect will not be so great as if the bloudspotted piece had not been washed at all for then it is full of the spirits of the bloud The same cure is performed by applying the remedy to the blade of a sword which wounds a body if it come not to passe that the sword be too much heated by the fire for then it would make all the spirits of the bloud to evaporate and in that case the sword would serve but little to perform the cure Now the reason why the sword may be dressed in order to the cure is because the subtill spirits of bloud do penetrate the substance of the blade as far as the extent which the sword made within the body of the the wounded party where they use to make their residence there being nothing to chace them away unlesse it be the fire as I said before For experiment whereof hold it over a chafing-dish of moderate fire and you shall discern on the side opposite to the fire a little humidity which resembleth the spots that ones breath makes upon looking-glasses or upon the burnished blade of a sword If you look upon it athwart some glasse which makes the object seem bigger you shall find that this soft dew of the spirits consists in little bubbles or blown bladders and when once they are entirely evaporated you shall discern no more upon the weapen unlesse it were thrust a new into the body of a living person Nor from the beginning shall you discover any such thing but precisely upon the part of the blade which had entred the wound This subtil penetration of the spirits into the hard steel may confirm the belief of the entrance of such spirits into the skin of a woman big with child as I remind to have proposed unto you in my sixth Principle remarkable in its own place Now then while the spirits lodge in the sword they may serve as great helps for the cure of the Patient but when the fire hath driven them all away the remedy applied to the sword will not availe any thing at all Furthermone if any violent heat accompanies these atomes it inflames the wound but common salt may remedy that the humidity of water humectates the hurt and the cold causeth a chilnesse in the party wounded To confirm all these particulars I could adde to those I have already raccounted many notable examples more but I fear me I have already too much exercised your patience therefore I will industriously pretermit the mentioning of them at this time but I offer to entertain any of this Honourable Assembly therewith if they have the curiosity to be informed of them accordingly I conclude then Messieurs by representing unto you that all this my stery is guided and governed all along by true natural wayes and circumstances although by the agency and resorts of very subtil spirits I am perswaded my Discourse hath convincingly shewed you that in this Sympathetical cure there is no need to admit of an action distant from the Patient I have traced unto you a real Communication twixt the one and the other viz. of a Balsamical substance which corporally mingleth with the wound Now it is a poor kind of pusillanimity and faintnesse of heart or rather a grosse ignorance of the Understanding to pretend any effects of charm or magick herein or to confine all the actions of Natre to the grossenesse of our senses when we have not sufficiently considered nor examined the true causes and principles whereon t is fitting we should ground our judgement we need not have recourse to a Demon or Angel in such difficulties Mec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus Insiderit ΤΕΛΟΣ Books printed for and to be sold by Thomas Davis MAster Paul Bains his Practical Commentary on the Ephesians lately reprinted with Additions Fol. Speedells Geometrical Extractions newly reprinted with Additions Quarto Oughtredi Trigonometria the figure