Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bring_v	great_a	reason_n	1,648	5	4.3830	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63736	A true relation of the wonderful cure of Mary Maillard, lame almost ever since she was born, on Sunday the 26th of Nov. 1693 with the affidavits and certificates of the girl, and several other credible and worthy persons, who knew her both before and since her being cured : to which is added, a letter from Dr. Welwood to the Right Honourable the Lady Mayoress, upon that subject.	Welwood, James, 1652-1727.	1694 (1694)	Wing T3073; ESTC R13174	22,424	50

against the one and the other There are two extreams of Opinion that relate to these opposite Ranks of Men. Some are inclinable to believe every matter of Fact that 's told them which seems to serve their particular Opinions or Notions of Religion They do as easily believe the Fact in question as they are forward presently to ascribe it to a Supernatural Cause And conclude a man to be an impious person that shall dare to question either the one or the other that shall either doubt of the Fact or shall go about to shew from what Natural Causes it might have arisen Others again take up a form'd Resolution to disbelieve ev'ry thing they cannot account for or explain And let it bear never so many Signatures of Truth and of its being effected by a Supernatural Power they are resolv'd either to cry it down as an Imposture or otherwise if there be no place for denying it to ascribe it to some Natural Cause to the force of Imagination Accident and I know not what It is not easie to determine which of these two Extreams ought the most to be shunn'd or discovers the worst Temper The first arises out of a weakness of mind or a partiality to Opinions For the very same Person who does easily believe an extraordinary thing when it seems to favour his own Sect is as positively determin'd against believing it if it had happen'd out of that Communion to which he belongs The other discovers a prophane Arrogance of Temper and an impious aversion to ev'ry thing which may strengthen mens Persuasions about Religion which he hates of all sides reckoning that the Priests of all Religions are the same The mean betwixt these two is to resolve on believing nothing that is extraordinary but upon very great and full evidence In short men are apt even to lie or amplify which is a lying in some degree and therefore we have a right to suspend our belief and to examine well the Fact when any strange thing is told us and this is what every wise man ought to do But when the averment of the Fact is full then every Enquirer into Nature ought to consider how far the Powers of Nature may have co-operated to the Effect in question As for instance Imagination has certainly great force in giving a strong motion to the Blood and Animal Spirits which may clear Obstructions alter the mass of Blood and allay its fermentations There are also great Secrets in Nature and many wonderful Vertues in Plants and Minerals as well as in Animals which Observation as well as Lucky Accidents bring every day to our knowledge So that we cannot certainly define the Extent of Nature or the Compass of Second Causes yet from Theory and Observation we may come to frame a general Scheme of what lies in the road and course of Nature and what is so much out of it that we have reason to ascribe it to a Superior and Supernatural Power To be slow in believing and severe in inquiring after unusual things carries with it the Characters of a truly Inquisitive and Philosophical Mind Yet after all To reject a thing when the truth of it is apparent and to impute it to Second Causes when we do not see the least shadow of any one gives a strong presumption of a secret hatred of all Religion and Vertue that I had much rather fall under the Censures and even the Scorn of that Tribe than be corrupted by so Pestilential and spreading a Contagion To come to the Case of the French Girl your Ladyship has seen her as she is now and has heard it sworn by several persons whom you have no cause to disbelieve how she was before It 's certain she was monstrously Lame from her Childhood till the 26th of November last And it 's as certain since that time till now she goes streight How she came to be cur'd in an Instant is the Question and such a one as I am not able to determine But to give your Ladyship all the satisfaction I can in so difficult a matter and that you may be better enabled to judge of so surprizing an Effect I shall in as few words as possible set down the Manner Causes and Consequents of her Lameness so far as they occur to me from any thing I know in Anatomy and in the next place shall inquire how far the Cure of it as it 's sworn to can be ascrib'd to a natural Influence For the first It appears by the Affidavits you sent me That when she came to be about Thirteen Months old she was then first observ'd to be Lame and some time thereafter there appear'd a Hollowness in the place where one usually finds tht knitting of the Thigh-bone to the Hipp as also a considerable swelling a little above that place to give it in their own words In process of time she grew worse and worse and not onely the Thigh-bone became both higher up and shorter than it us'd to be but her Knee and the Ankle-bone of that Leg turn'd inwards so that she went upon the Ankle the Sole of her Foot turning upwards and all this attended with a great deal of pain Here Madam you have the History of the Disease and all these symptoms are the natural and some of them the necessary Effect of a dislocation of the Thigh-bone To render this the more intelligible give me leave Madam to lay down a short hint of the natural structure of the parts here affected The Thigh-bone has at the upper end a round head This is receiv'd by a large Cavity of the Hipp-bone and is detain'd and fix'd therein by two strong Ligaments one that encompasses the brim of the Cavity and another that springs out of the bottom of it and is inserted into the tip of the round head of the Thigh-bone in order to the movement of the Thigh and consequently of the whole Body Nature has wisely accompany'd these Bones with Cartilages Muscles Tendons and Ligaments which are all of them so variously plac'd and situated as to answer every beck of the sensitive Soul in moving either backwards or forwards to the inside to the outside or obliquely This being the natural structure of the parts a dislocation of the Thigh happens when the round the head of the Thigh-bone is by some violence displac'd out of that large Cavity of the Hpp bone This cannot happen but by some violent force because of the strength of the Muscles that help to keep the Bone in its proper place of the depth of the Cavity where it is lodg'd and the strength and shortness of the Ligaments I have nam'd The longer such a dislocation lasts the less it is curable seeing by it the Ligaments and Muscles must be greatly relax'd and so much the more if the Patient walk about as this Girl did For the more stress she puts on that Leg the more must these parts be relax'd they bearing in such a Case most if