Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	soul_n	spiritual_a	1,721	5	6.6792	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35532	Selēnarhia, or, The government of the world in the moon a comical history / written by that famous wit and caveleer of France, Monsieur Cyrano Bergerac ; and done into English by Tho. St Serf, Gent.; Histoire comique des états et empires de la lune. English	Cyrano de Bergerac, 1619-1655.; St. Serfe, Thomas, Sir, fl. 1668.	1659 (1659)	Wing C7719; ESTC R18714	59,111	189

thereof and converts it to a part of himself and a man eating this hog warms again this dead flesh joyns it to his own and thereby revives the Animal under another species so that this man you see may be was threescore yeers agoe a turf in my Garden which is the more probable because that the Metempsicous opinion of Pythagoras sustained by so many great men is likely to have come to our ears only to oblige us to search out the truth as in effect we have found that all things that are feel or vegetate and that in fine when all matter is arrived to that Period which is its perfection it descends and returns to its inanity to reach the same parts again I descended very well satisfied into the garden and I began to tell my Companion what our young Master had taught me when the Physiognomist arrived to lead us to supper and afterwards to rest In the morning assoon as I wak'd I went to call up my Antagonist It is said I in accosting him as great a miracle to finde a great Wit like yours buried in sleep as to see fire without action He smil'd at this ill Complement But cry'd he with a Cholerick kinde of love Will you never leave these fabulous terms Know that these names defame the name of a Philosopher and as the Wise man sees nothing in the World but what he conceives and judgeth may be conceived he ought to abhor all those expressions of prodigies and events of Nature which stupid puppeys have invented to excuse the weakness of their understanding I thought then I was bound in Conscience to take up the disconrse that I might rectifie his opinion Though you be reply'd I very obstinate in your Tenents yet I have plainly seen things supernatural come to pass You say so continued he but you know not that the force of the imagination is able to cure all Diseases you entitle by the name of supernatural by reason of a certain natural Balm containing all the contrary qualities to each Disease that molests us which arrives when our imagination advertized by pain presently seeks out the particular remedy for the ill For which reason a learned Physician of your World counsels the Patient rather to take an ignorant Doctor that he doth beleeve otherwise then a learned one whom he shall beleeve ignorant because he thought that our imagination labouring our Cure if it have Medicines to help it may effect its design But that the best Remedies were in vain without the help of imagination Do you wonder that the first men of your World lived so long without skill in Physick No And what do you think was the reason that their Nature was yet in its force and that Universal Balm not yet dissipated by the Drugs wherewith your Physicians now consume you needing as then nothing to regain your health but strong wishes to that effect and imaginations that you were cured And so their vigorous fancies plunging their selves into that Vital Oyl did attract the Elixir and applying the Active to the Passive they found themselves as well as before almost in the twinkling of an eye which in despight of Natures depravation is seen now a dayes though I must confess but seldome But the vulgar call it a Miracle whereof for my part I believe nothing and I ground my self upon something more then that wherewithal these Doctors are cozened that it is so hard to be done For I will ask them he that is recovered of a desperate Fever did heartily wish it is likely in the time of his sickness to be cur'd and may be made vows to that effect so that necessarily he must have died remained sick or be cured if he had died they would have said that the Heavens had put a period to his pains nay and according to the Deceased his prayers they would have said he had been cured of all Diseases if he had remained infirm they would have said he wanted faith But because he is cured they straight cry that it is a visible Miracle Is it not likelyer that fancy being excited by the violent desires of health hath done its operation for yeeld that he scap'd why must it be a miracle since we see many people who had made as large vows die miserably with all their promises But at least said I if what you say of this Balm be true it is a sign of the discussive faculty of the Soul since without using the instruments of our Reason without relying on the conjunction of our Will she acts of her self by applying the Active to the Passive as if she was separated from us then if being separated from us she is reasonable she must necessarily be spiritual and if you confess her spiritual I conclude her immortal since death happens to the Animal but by the change of forms of which onely matter is capable The young man then gracefully placing himself upon his bed and making me sit down discours'd after this manner For the Souls of Beasts which are corporeal I do not wonder they die since they are composed harmonically of four qualities a force or vigour of blood and a Proportion of Organs well converted but I much wonder that ours being intellectual incorporeal and immortal should be forced to dislodge by the same cause that makes that of a Beast perish Hath he contracted with our bodies that when they received a thrust through the heart or a Bullet-shot into their Brains or through their bulk she should then quit her mansion house And if this Soul be spiritual and subsistent of its self so reasonable that she is as capable of intelligence being separated from us as joyned to our mass Why cannot blinde men born with all those lively advantages of an intellectual Soul imagine what seeing is As if because they are not deprived thereof by the death of all their Senses why then I cannot make use of my right hand because I have a left And in fine to make a just comparison and what will destroy all you can say I will content my self to lay before you the example of a Painter who cannot work without his Pencil the Soul is the same deprived of Corporeal senses Yes but answered he But yet they will have it that the Soul which can but imperfectly act having lost one of her tools in the course of life can hereafter act with perfection when after our decease she hath lost them all yet you will tell me that she hath no need of those instruments to perform her functions I 'll answer you that the Hospital of blinde men ought to be extirpated for counterfeits He would have continued in these impertinent Arguments when I closed his mouth by praying him to leave them off as he did for fear of quarrelling for he perceived I began to grow warm after which he went away and left me admiring the people of that World in whom amongst the meanest sort so much natural wit

they might spare themselves the trouble of so long a conference they had with Cardan But straight added I I can never be fully cleared of this doubt without ascending thither But I presently asked my self Why not Prometheus heretofore durst steal fire out of Heaven it self Am I less daring then he Then why should I fear a less favourable success To these conceits which may be perchance called the effects of a feverish distemper succeeded the hopes of effecting this fine journey so that I shut my self up in a Countrey-house distant from any resort to accomplish my wishes where having flattered my Fancy with some means proportionate to that subject at last I resolved upon these for my Heavenly voyage I had fastned about me a many small vials filled with Dew upon which the Sun darting most violent Beams the heat whereof attracting as it doth the grossest Clouds drew me insensibly above the middle Region but as this attraction was somwhat too rapid and in stead of approaching the Moon as I pretended I found my self further off then at my departure I began to break some of my glasses till I found that my weight had mastered the attraction so that I began to descend towards the Earth I was not mistaken for a little after I landed and to reckon the hour I departed at it should have been midnight yet there I perceived the Sun in the height of the Horizon which made it noon I leave you to imagine how my astonishment was really so great that not knowing to what I should attribute this wonder I was tempted to beleeve that in favour of my boldness God had repeated that Miracle and once more fixt the Sun to the Hemisphere to give light to so worthy an enterprize but what more amazed me was that I knew not the Countrey where I was for ascending in a direct line as I thought I did imagine that I should have fallen just where I took my rise yet equipaged as I was I walked towards a kinde of desart ground from whence I perceived some smoak I was hardly within pistol-shot when I saw my self surrounded by a number of naked men they seemed much startled at the rencountre for I beleeve I was the first they had ever seen garnished with bottles and to overthrow all interpretations might have been given to that clothing they saw that in my march I scarce touched the ground for they did not know that with the least shake of my Body the ardor of the Midday-Beams drew me and my dew upwards and had not most of my bottles been broak I might have soared into the Air before their eyes I would have accosted them but in a moment as if their fear had lent them wings they flew into the next forest yet I catcht one whose legs betray'd his heart I askt him with a great deal of trouble for I was quite out of breath how far he reckoned it from thence to Paris and how long people had gone naked in France and why they so frightfully avoyded me This old man to whom I talkt was of an Olive-colour who presently cast himself at my feet and joyning his hands behinde his head opened his mouth and shut his eyes he mumbled a great while betwixt his teeth but I could perceive no distinct articulation so that I fancied his discourse to be like the confused blattering of a dumb-man A small while after I perceived a company of Souldiers marching towards me to the sound of a Drum some of which did separate themselves to take a view of me when they were neer enough to hear what I said I humbly interrogated where I was You are in France answered they But who the Devil hath put you in this condition and how comes it that we are not acquainted with your Worship Are the Ships arrived and are you going to advertise the Governour And pray why have you divided your Aquavitae into so many bottles To which I answered that it was not the Devil that had put me in that condition that they did not know me because they could not be acquainted with all men and that I never knew that the River of Seine was navigable to Paris that I had nothing to say to the Marshal de l'Hospital and that I was not laden with aqua-vitae Ho ho Blade cry they You 're a merry Gentleman the Governour will go neer to know you i'faith Then they conducted me to their squadron by the arm where I was given to understand that I was really in France but with the addition of Novella so that some while after I was presented to the Viceroy who enquired of my Country my name and quality and after I had satisfied him in all and related the agreeable success of my Voyage whether he beleeved me or whether he onely seemed to beleeve me however he had the goodness to command me to be lodg'd in his own Appartement it was no small addition of my good fortune to meet with a man capable of lofty imaginations and who was not amazed when I said that the world had turned about in the time of my elevation being that I rose within two leagues of Paris and fell as it were in a perpendicular line in Canada At night when I was just going to bed he came into my chamber saying I should not have come to disturb your rest if I had not beleeved that a man who had found out the secret of riding so much way in half a day could not be ignorant of a means not to be tired But you know not continued he the pleasant quarrel which I have had about you with our Fathers who will needs have you to be a Magician nay the greatest favour they can allow you is to beleeve you an Impostor and in effect that Notion which you attribute to the Earth is a nice Paradox and for my part I tell you truly the reason why I am not of your opinion is that though you parted from Paris but yesterday yet you might arrive as you did in this Countrey without the motion of the Earth for the Sun that drew you up by the means of your bottles might bring you hither since according to Ptolomy and the modern Philosophers he hath that Circular motion which you attribute to the Earth and what solid Reason can you give for the Suns stability when we see his motion or for the rapid motion of the Earth when we find it so firm under us Sir answered I these are the reasons as neer as I can judge which tie us to this belief First of all Common sense obliges us to beleeve that the Sun is placed in the Centre of the Universe being that all the Bodies which are in nature have need of that Radical heat and that he inhabits the heart of the whole that he might the radier satisfie each part and that the cause of Generation is placed in the midst of all Bodies to act with more equality and agility

in such things I shall always submit my reason to faith He told me that his Question was to be blam'd but I reassumed my Idea and added that all those other Worlds which we do not see or which we but imperfectly beleeve are nothing but the froth or foam of the Suns purgations for how could those great fires subsist if they were not fastned to some matter capable of their nourishment as fire rejects the ashes that smother it or as gold doth separate it self in the crucible when it grows to perfection from the Marcasite which lessens his Carat or again as our hearts disingage themselves by vomit from the indigested humors which assault them so those Suns every day disgorge and purge themselves of all matter obnoxious to their fires but when they have quite consumed that matter which entertains them you need not doubt but they will scatter themselves about to seek a new pasture and fasten upon the Worlds they have formed heretofore and particularly to the neerest then those great fires confounding afresh all those bodies will eject them higgledy-piggledy from every part as before and so purifying themselves by little and little begin to serve for Suns to those little Worlds they have created by the vomit of their own spheres which was certainly the cause why the Pythagoreans foretold the general confusion This is no ridiculous imagination for this new frame where we are produceth a convincing reason the vast continent of America is the one half of the Earth which in despite of our Forefathers who had rounded the Ocean a thousand times was not discovered Neither was it any more then many Isles and Peninsula's and mountains which have swell'd in our Globe when the Sun hath purged himself of Rusts which have been rejected and condens'd into bodies capable of attraction from our Centre may be a little after in less particles or may be all together in a mass this is not so unreasonable but that St. Augustine would have given his applause to it if these countreys had been discovered in his dayes since he whose genius was very clear sighted assures us that in his time the Earth was flat like an Oven and that it swam on the water like half an Orange But if I have ever the honour to meet you in France I will let you see by the means of an admirable glass that certain obscurities which from hence seem spots are Worlds that are framing My eyes which were almost closed with the period of this discourse obliged the Viceroy to leave me the next day and some other days following we had entertainments of the like nature but some while after the troublesome affairs of the Province disturbed our Philosophy and I revived my curiosity of visiting the Moon Assoon as she appeared in our Nocturnal Hemisphere I went musing up and down the Woods my fancy still agitating my propounded enterprise and at last one Midsummer Eve when they were at Counsel in the Fort to determine whether they should succour the Savages of the Countrey against the Europeans I stole behind our habitation to the top of a small hill where you shall hear what I executed I had fram'd a Machine which I did suppose capable of raising me as high as I pleased so that nothing of what I thought was necessary being wanting I placed my self in it and precipitated my self from a Rock into the Air but because I had not well taken my measures I rudely saluted the valley with my Bulk yet all bruised as I was without being abashed I returned to my chamber where I took beef-marrow and anointed my Body for I was mortified from the Noddle to the Heel and after having fortifyed my heart with a bottle of cordial Essence I returned to seek my Engine but in vain for certain Souldiers who were sent into the Forrest to cut wood for the Bon-fire of that day having found it by chance had brought it to the Citadel where after many explications of what it could be and at last having found out the spring some were of opinion that fire-works should be fastned unto it being their rapidity and the springs agitating its large wings would elevate it mightily so that none should see it without beleeving it a fiery flying Dragon In the mean time I sought it with all diligénce and for a period to my labour found it in the Market place of Lebee just as they were giving fire to their squibs The grief of finding the labour of my hands in so imminent danger did so transport me that I 'gan to seize the arm of the Souldier who was to be engineer I snatcht his match from him and flung my self furiously into my Engine to dash in pieces the Artifice with which they had adorn'd it But I arrived too late for scarce were both my leggs in when I was snatcht up in a Cloud the horrour with which I was surrounded did not so much confound the faculties of my soul but that I remember every thing that happened in that instant for assoon as the flame had devoured one rank of crackers which they had disposed by six and six and a priming to each half dozen another rank began to play the Devil and another so that the Salt-petre taking fire did by increasing avoyd the danger the consuming of the matter was the reason that the Artifice failed and when I thought of nothing but leaving my head upon the top of some mountain I found without stirring my self at all my Elevation continued and my Engine taking a farewell of me I perceived it to fall towards the Earth again This extraordinary adventure did swell my heart with so high a joy that ravisht to see my self delivered from certain danger I had the impudence to Philosophy upon it so as examining with my eyes and thoughts what should be the cause I perceived my skin all puft up and greasie with the Marrow I had applyed to the bruises of my last plunge I found that the Moon being in the decline and in that quarter using to exhale the Marrow of Animals she suckt mine with which I was anointed with so much the more force as her Globe was neerer to me and that no interposition of Clouds did weaken her vigor When I had shot thorow according to the calculation I had more then three parts of the distance betwixt the Earth and the Moon I found my feet turn over of a sudden without any apparent jerk nay I had not perceived it if I had not found my head loaden with the rest of my body truly I found that I did not tumble towards our World for though I found my self betwixt two Moons and that I noted how I in going from the one approached the other yet I was certain that the biggest was our Globe because that after a day or two's voyage the distant refractions of the Sun coming to confound the diversity of bodies and climates it appeared to me like a large