kind is when onely the Spirits are enflam'd and 't is call'd Ephemera because it continues but one day unless the Humours too become of the party as it falls out usually and it admits of three differences according to the three sorts of Spirits Animal Vital and Natural The Humoral Fever is either Simple or Compounded The Simple is either Continual or Intermitting The Continual is caus'd when the putrefaction of the Blood possesses the great Vessels or some noble Part. The Intermitting produc'd by the three other Humours putrefying out of the Veins is either Quotidian which is produc'd by Phlegme or Tertian by Choler or Quartane by Melancholy The Compounded or complex Humoral Fever is caus'd by the mixture of those Humours which then cause a double Quotidian double Tertian and double Quartane yea sometimes but very rarely a Quintane and others of longer interval which may be attributed to all the different from which Fevers arise The Efficient causes is in my opinion the strength of Nature and every one's particular Temper as he who is more robust and upon whom the disease is more violent will have longer Fits the Fight of Nature with the Malady being more stoutly maintain'd by the parties and consequently shorter intervals because that which increases to the one decreases to the other The Cholerick will have longer Fits of a Tertian Fever and shorter of a Quotidiane The Material Cause contributes very much herein being that which supplies Ammunition to this intestine War which is continu'd or discontinu'd according to the proportion and quantity of the Matter 'T is more easie to name the Formal Cause then to understand it But as for the Final 't is certain that Nature makes the intervals of Fevers purposely to rally and recruit her strength as truces and cessations of Armes use to be made when the Country is almost spent or the Souldiers too much harrass'd and out of heart The Second said That the Periods of Fevers have been matter of torture to the best wits who could not without admiration consider how e. g. one sick of a Quartan and appearing to day at the point of Death should nevertheless for two days together perform all his actions perfectly and then upon the fourth many times too at the same hour in more contumacious Fevers become in the like pitiful condition again Now the Cause hereof is commonly attributed to the time which is requir'd for producing the matter of the Fever and consuming it They hold that it is so long in consuming as the Fit lasts the the end whereof is the Crisis like as the ancient water-clocks of the Romans did not signifie nor strike the hour till the vessel was full Some have imputed the cause to the motion of the Humour and believ'd that as the humid mass of the Sea hath its flux reflux and interval so have the Humours of our Bodies when the natural heat which regulated them being disorder'd and its effect suspended by the disease governes the same no longer but abandons them to their own Capricio Of which motion 't is no easier to render a reason then of that of the Sea the Load-stone and all other occult motions Hence many have recurr'd to the Asylum of Last Differences the knowledge whereof is interdicted to Humane Capacity And therefore they have ventur'd to assign no other cause saving that the Interval of these Fevers being their most proper Difference it must not be wonder'd if we understand their nature as little as those of all other things in the world The Third said That the time which is requisite for generating the Humour cannot be the cause of these Intervals since the Fits of a Fever are longer or shorter though the Fever change not its Nature yea it will become double or trebble sometimes and still keep the name of a Quartan As on the contrary when there is so little matter left for it that it is almost quite gone yet it alwayes returnes on the fourth day although the Fit lasts a shorter time Yea it comes to pass oftentimes that he who hath had a Quartan and is cur'd of all other Symptomes of his Ague yet for a long time after feels the chilness and weariness at the same day and hour that his Disease was wont to seize upon him In the mean time while 't is manifest that the Fever being gone the Melancholy Humour is no longer gather'd together in sufficient quantity to produce it and therefore the cause cannot be attributed to the Melancholly Humour since it no longer causeth the fever Whereby we may judge that the quantity of the matter contributes to the lengthening or diminishing of the fit but gives not the fever its name or form Now as for the motion which they attribute to the Humour like that of the Sea and their calling this Interval the form of the Fever 't is a confession of their Ignorance but not a solution of the Question Galen in the second Book of the Differences of Fevers and the last Chapter refers the cause of these regular and periodical motions to the dispositions of the parts of the whole Body which being distemper'd cease not to transmit or receive generate or attract superfluous and excrementitious humours and he holds that so long as the cause of these dispositions lasts so long the circuits continue and consequently the reason why a Tertian which is caus'd by Choler returnes every third day is because the distemper'd parts transmit or receive or generate bilious humours and excrements every other day But the question remains still whence it is that these parts are affected in such manner that they cause such just and regular periods For though it be true that the parts by reason of pain or heat e. g. yellow putrid Choler nevertheless this doth not infer that they attract the same rather the third day then the fourth or every day as they ought to do since the cause being alwayes present viz. the pain or heat which incessantly attracts this humour the effect should alwayes follow and make a Quotidian circuit although indeed 't is but once in three dayes The Fourth said That as Physitians refer the unusual motions of Epileptical and the violent sallies of the Frantick not barely to the phlegmatick or atrabilarious humour but to a certain quality of it so ought we to do touching the periodical motions of Fevers which proceed not simply from the humours corrupted but from a particular condition and virtue of each humour whereby it is that putrifying Phlegme makes its approaches every day Choler every third and Melancholy every fourth day And as these humours so long as they retain their natural constitution have a regular motion which carries one into the Bladder of Gall and the Guts the other into the Spleen and the other into the Stomack so being corrupted each acquires a certain new quality and putrefaction which is the cause of other periodical motions namely those of Fevers The Fifth
melancholy the latter least of all in regard of the solidity and dryness of their brain and the thickness of their blood Although there is a sort of melancholy not-natural much abounding in serosities and for that reason styl'd Aqueous by Hippocrates Now weeping is caus'd in this manner A sad subject seising upon the Heart the Arteries carry the fuliginous vapours thereof to the brain which discharging the same into the sink call'd the Infundibulum or Tunnel they seek issue at the next passages which are the mouth the nose and the eyes at the great angle or Canthus where the Glandula Lachrymalis or Weeping Kernel is seated which hath a hole like the point of a needle This Glandule is made very small whereas the Spleen which causeth Laughter and the Liver which causeth Love are very large because Man might possibly want subjects for the two former and consequently ought to be provided for but not matter of sadness The Second said As amongst Animals Man hath the greatest brain so he needs the most Aliment and consequently makes more excrements then any other these are collected in the anterior Ventricles and between the membranes where they remain till the Expulsive Faculty incommoded by their too great quantity or pungent quality expells them by the usual passages and thus they supply wax to the Eares mucosity to the Nose and tears to the Eyes Whereby it appears that tears are not alwayes signes of Pusillanimity since they proceed from causes which no body can avoid Moreover Joy as well as Sorrow expresses tears though by means wholly contrary For Joy dilating and opening the passages by its heat causes those humidities to issue forth and Grief compressing the passages forces the same out as a spunge yields forth the water which it had imbib'd if you either dilate it or squeeze it Their saltness bitterness and acrimony is common to them with all the serosities of the body which they acquire by their continuance they make in the brain as their heat by the spirits which accompany them For the tears both of Joy and Sadness are hot or rather tepid though those shed in Joy seem cold because the cheeks are warme in Joy which draws the heat and spirits from the centre to the circumference and in Sadness they appear hot because they drop upon the cheeks which are cold through the absence of the heat and spirits caus'd by sadness to retire inward But those Tears which proceed from a disease as from a defluxion or distillation are really cold because they are caus'd by the crudity of the humours The Third said That Tears of sorrow come not from compression for we cannot weep in a great sadness but from a particular virtue which grief hath to send them forth For Nature being willing to drive away the cause of Grief sends the heat and spirits towards it which heating the external parts attract the humours thither Hence it is Onyons lancinating the Eyes by their sharp spirits cause weeping as smoke likewise doth and the steadfast beholding of an object and too radiant a light by the pain which they cause to the sight Nor do's this hold good onely in pain but in grief particularly in compassion which is a grief we resent for anothers misery For the consideration of a sad object setting the humours in motion and attenuating them causeth them to distill forth by the Eyes mouth and nose This is also the reason why those who run impetuously on horse-back or afoot sometimes drop rears for the heat excited by this motion draws sweat forth over all the body and tears to the Eyes being of the same nature with sweat Unless you rather think that this may be caus'd by the coldness of the new Air which condenses and presses forth these humidities Wherefore we cannot absolutely pronounce that tears are Symptomes of Pusillanimity seeing 't is not in our power to restrain them what ever courage we have and oftentimes example no less invites us then duty obliges us to let this torrent take its course The Fourth said If it be true that the most couragious are of the hottest constitution 't will follow that tears are rather a sign of Magnanimity then of Cowardice since they are most frequent to such as abound in heat and moisture For as water issues out of green wood heated by the fire so tears are forc'd out of the Eyes by the internal heat excited by Joy Grief Anger or other disorderly motion For through the immoderateness of this heat the coldness of the Brain is increas'd by Antiperistasis and endeavours to with-stand it for which purpose it collects together abundance of cold vapours which the heat over-powering causes that cloud of humour condens'd by cold to distill by the Eyes in a showre of tears Yet if this be done too often then the same happens to the man as doth to a stick or cudgel which being too much bow'd one way and the other is at length broken In like manner a couragious person often provok'd so farr as to weep at last becomes relax'd and softned through the loss and consumption of his spirits which are the instruments of Courage Therefore to weep too often is a sign of Pusillanimity and softness never to weep is stupidity to weep sometimes for the miserable estate whereinto this valley of tears reduces us 't is necessity Indeed Our Lord wept often Saint Peter so courageous that he struck the onely blow mention'd in the Gospel wept bitterly And Alexander wept for the death of Darius as his own Triumphs caus'd Caesar to weep in whom it was accounted Humanity that he wept at the sight of Pompey's head as David did for the death of Saul The Fifth said That as griefs are diminish'd by weeping so it may seem that tears should soften the courage which proceeds from anger as most doth And as pity is opposite to revenge so tears seem contrary to valour since they are so both to revenge and choler which are the effects of magnanimity Add hereunto that we live by example and therefore seeing tears more frequent to weak and effeminate persons then to others we easily draw a general consequence although the same admit many exceptions CONFERENCE L. I. Whether Colours are real II. Whether is better to speak well or to write well I. Whether Colours are real THe knowledge of men is never compleat what they know in one manner they are ignorant of in another Nothing is so manifest to the sense as colour nothing so obscure to the Understanding which doubts whether it hath a real existence or whether it only appears such to us according as bodies variously receive the light Indeed Green and Blew seem all one by a candle and the same colour seems different from what it was by day-light which again makes the species vary according to its diversity for we judge of them otherwise in the twilight in the Sun and in the shadow otherwise beholding them slopingly directly
that of the six sorts of Motion the Spirits can act onely by the Local how they can touch a Body to remove it locally since there is no Contact but between Bodies To the first I answer that there is no need of union such as that which joynes the Soul to the Body for joyning the Act with its true Power if there be any in us it must be that which we see is necessary for the communion of Action For when Actions cannot be exercis'd but by two parties of different Nature there is found an Union between those different Natures which is very natural and founded upon the necessity of such Action Wherefore I am so far from thinking the union of the Soul with the Body a strange thing that I should wonder more if there were none For the better understanding whereof it is to be observ'd that our Soul hath two sorts of Actions one peculiar to it self as to Will and to understand the other common with the Body as to See Hear Feel c. These latter are as much natural as the former And as if it were in a State in which it could not exercise the former that State would be violent to it and contrary to its Nature so it is equally troublesome to her while she cannot exercise the latter Since therefore it is a part of the Nature of the Soul to be able to exercise its functions it is consequently natural to it to be united to the Body seeing without such union it cannot exercise those functions Now I am no more solicitous to know what this union is then to understand what that is which unites one part of an essence with the other since the Body is in some manner the essence of the Soul making one suppositum and individual with it and the Soul hath not its Nature intire saving when it is united with the Body I pass to the Second and say that supposing two sorts of Contact one of a suppositum the other of Virtue the Spirits touch the Body which they move locally by a Contact of Virtue by impressing the force of their motive faculty upon the Body which they will move as my hand impresseth its motive virtue upon the ball which I fling which virtue though extrinsecal persists in the ball as long as it moves even when it is distant from my hand And although there is some disparity inasmuch as the hand and the ball are both corporeal which a Spirit and a Body are not yet since our Soul applyes its motive virtue to the Body which it animates it is probable there are many qualities common both to Spiritual and Corporeal Substances as is the power of acquiring habits And it is also likely that the power of moving from one place to another which is in a Spirit is not different in specie from that which is in a Horse although their Subjects differ If therefore the motive faculty of Bodies is that of the same species with that of Spirits why should we account it strange that that of a Spirit should be communicated to a Body The Fourth said That the Example of our Lord carried by the Devil to the top of a Mountain and of a pinnacle of a Temple shews sufficiently that Daemons can act upon Bodies and that all natural things falling under the cognisance of Sense are moveable in their activity yet not at once and in gross but one thing after another For an Angel not being an Informing Form ty'd and connected to any particular sensible Nature as the Rational Soul is but an Assisting Form that is an External Agent which moves and agitates it to pleasure it is indifferent and can determine to move what Body it pleases But sensible things are not subject to Spirits saving so far as Local Motion For the Devil acts either upon the Body or upon the Soul as it is in its Organs If upon the Body he either doth it alone or by the intervention of another Agent If the latter then there must be a Local Motion to apply the same to the Body upon which he causeth it to act for the tormenting or moving of it If he doth it by himself immediately and causeth pain in the parts it is either by solution of continuity or by distention of those parts or by compression of them All which is no more but dislocating them and moving them out of their right situation If he causes a Fever it is either by collecting the humours from all the parts For Example Choler which congregated together in too great quantity distempers the Body or else by restraining the perspiration of the fuliginous vapour which is the excrement of the third Concoction and being with-held within causeth the putrefaction of the humours and all this is local motion too By which also he produceth all the diseases which he is able to cause inspiring a putrid Air which like Leven sowers and corrupts the humours If he acts upon the Senses and the Passions he doth it either outwardly by some mutation of the Object or inwardly by some alteration of the Faculty If the former it is because by a Local Motion he formes a Body heaping together uniting and adjusting the materials necessary thereunto as the Air an aqueous vapour a terrene and unctuous exhalation and the heat of the Sun or some other which he employes artificially according to the experience which he hath acquired throughout so many Ages till he make them correspond to the Idea of the Body which he designes to form All the Actions of Men are perform'd in like manner by putting together conjoyning or retrenching or separating things In one word by apposition or separation If he acts internally upon the Faculty 't is either upon the Phancy or the Appetite or the External Sense Upon the Phancy either by compounding one Phantasm of many as it happens in sleeping or else by acting upon a single one to make it appear more handsome or ugly More handsome by the concourse of many pure clear refin'd Spirits which enliven and embellish that Phantasm as we see a thing appear more handsome in the Sun More ugly by the arrival of certain gloomy and dark Spirits which usually arise from the humour of Melancholy In the Appetite if he excites Love there 't is by the motion of dilatation expanding the Spirits and making them take up more room If Hatred or Sadness it is coarcting the same Spirits by compression He can also cause a subtile mutation in the outward Senses internally especially upon the sight As we see those that have a suffusion beginning imagine that they see Pismires and Flyes which others besides themselves behold not Moreover Melancholy persons often terrifi'd with various frightful representations the cause whereof is an humour extravasated between the Tunicles of the Eye under the Cornea before the Crystalline which disturbs the sight with various shapes by reason of its mobility as the Clouds appear to us of several figures
Christ-mass day exercise many cruelties even upon little children and those who in our time confess that they have put on the shapes of Wolves Lyons Dogs and other Animals that they might exercise their cruelty upon Men with impunity For I am not of their mind who think such transformation is made by natural causes To which neither can that be attributed which the Scripture relates of Nebuchadonozor K. of Babylon who became an Ox and ate the grass of the field for the space of nine years and afterwards resum'd his former shape that the rods of the Aegyptian Magicians were turn'd into Serpents as well as that of Moses that Lot's Wife was chang'd into a Statue of Salt no more then the most fabulous metamorphoses of Niobe into stone Lycaon Demarchus and Moeris into Wolves the companions of Vlysses into sundry Animals by the Enchantress Circe those of Diomedes into Birds Apuleius into an Ass that an Aegyptian Lady became a Mare and was restor'd into her former shape by S. Macarius the Hermite as the Historian Vincent reports in his 18. Book Seeing a Rational Soul can not naturally animate the Body of a Wolf The least distemper of our Brain suffices to hinder the Soul from exercising its functions and can it exercise them in that of a Beast 'T is more credible that some evil Spirit supplies the place and acts the part of the Sorcerer who is soundly asleep in his Bed or in some other place apart from the commerce of Men. As it happen'd to the Father of Praestantius mention'd by St. Augustine in his Book De Civitate Dei who awaking out of a long and deep sleep imagin'd himself to have been turn'd into a Horse and carry'd provisions upon his back to Soulders which he obstinately believ'd though his Son assur'd him that he had not stirr'd out of bed Nevertheless the thing was verifi'd by witnesses but it was done by an evil Spirit who on the one side personated him abroad and on the other so strongly impressed those species upon his Phancy that he could not be disswaded from the error For otherwise how should the Sorcerer reduce his Body into so small a volumn as the form of a Rat Mouse Toad and other such Animals into which it sometimes is turn'd Now if it happens that the wound which the Devil receives under that form is found upon the same part of the Sorcerers Body this may be attributed to the action of the same evil Spirit who can easily leave his blow upon such part as he pleases of the Body which he possesses For want of which possession all his designes upon those whom he would injure become ineffectual notwithstanding the imposture of all their waxen Images But if 't is the Sorcerer himself that hath the form of a Wolf either he clothes himself in a Wolf's skin or else the Devil frames a like Body of Vapours and Exhalations and other materials which he knows how to choose and can gather together with which he involves the Sorcerer's Body and fits the same in such manner that the Eye of the Beast answers to that of the Man and so the other parts according to the measure requisite to represent a Wolf Or else that subtile Spirit deludes our Eyes The Second said If the Proverb be true That one Man is oftentimes a Wolf to another we need not recur to extraordinary causes to find Men-wolves Now the word Wolf is here taken for mischievous because the wealth of the first Ages consisting in Cattle they fear'd nothing so much as the Wolf As for the causes of this brutish malady whereby a Man imagines himself a Wolf or is so indeed they are of three sorts the biting of a mad Wolf the atrabilarious humour or the Imagination perverted It seemes at first very strange that a drop of foam entring into the flesh of a Man at an orifice made by the point of a tooth should have the power to convert all the humours into its own nature But seeing the stroke of a Scorpion which is not perceivable to the sight kills the strongest person that admiration ceases at the comparison of a thing no less marvellous For 't is no more wonder that the humour which issues from an Animal imprints its Image other where then that it kills an other When the foam drop'd from a mad Wolf produces its like with its furious spirits it doth nothing but what other animate bodies with other circumstances do Thus the kernel of the Pear or Apple which subverts our Senses call'd therefore malum insanum so well containes in power the Pear or Apple-tree which produc'd it that it reproduces another wholly alike yea the salt of Sage Marjoram Baum and some others being sown produces the like Plants without slip or seed The atrabilarious humour sending up black and glutinous fumes into the brains of melancholy people not onely make them to believe that the species represented thereby to them are as true as what they see indeed but impresse an invincible obstinacy in their Minds which is proof against all reasons to the contrary because Reason finds the Organs no longer rightly dispos'd to receive its dictates And if he who sees a stick bow'd in the water can hardly rectifie that crooked species in his Common Sense by reasons drawn from the Opticks which tell him that the visual ray seemes crooked by reason of the diversity of the medium how can he whose Reason is not free be undeceiv'd and believe that he is not a Wolf according to the species which are in his Phancy But can the Phancy alone do all this He who feign'd and frequently pretended that he was one-ey'd by the power of Imagination became so indeed and many others whom Phancy alone makes sick and the fear of dying kills sufficiently shew its power which causes that these distracted people perswading themselves that they are Wolves do the actions of Wolves tearing Men and Beasts and roaming about chiefly in the night which symbolizes with their Humours Not but that a fourth cause namely evil spirits interposes sometimes with those natural causes and particularly with that gloomy black Humuor which for that reason Saint Jerome calls Satan's bath The Third said That besides those causes the food taken from some parts of Aliments contributes much to hurt the Imagination of Men in such sort that they account themselves really brutes Thus a Maid of Breslaw in Silesia having eaten the brain of a Cat so strongly conceited her self a Cat that she ran after every Mouse that appear'd before her A Spaniard having eaten the brain of a Bear thought himself to be one Another that had very often drunk Goats milk fed upon grass like that Animal Another who had liv'd long upon Swines blood rowl'd himself in the mire as if he had been truly a Hogg And 't is held that especially the arterial blood of Animals as containing the purest of their Spirits produces such an effect But to believe
blemish Cato's reputation by making him appear 46 times in full Senate to justifie himself from the accusations Envy had charg'd upon him made him more famous And the poyson which it made Socrates drink kill'd his body indeed but render'd his memory immortal The truth is if the Greek Proverb hold good which calls a life without envy unhappy Envy seems in some manner necessary to beatitude it self Whence Themistocles told one who would needs flatter him with commendations of his brave actions that he had yet done nothing remarkable since he had no enviers The Fourth said 'T is such an irregular passion that it seems to aim at subverting the establish'd order of nature and making other laws after its own phancy yea so monstrous that 't is not a bare grief for another's good or a hatred of choler or such other passion but a monster compos'd of all vicious passions and consequently the most mischievous and odious of all CONFERENCE LXXIV I. Whence comes trembling in men II. Of Navigation and Longitudes I. Whence comes trembling in men THe correspondence of the great to the little world requir'd that after the tremblings of the earth those should be spoken which happen to men some of which seize but one part of the body as the head lips hands or legs some the whole body with such violence sometimes that Cardan relates of a woman taken with such a trembling that three strong persons could not hold her 'T is a symptom of motion hurt in which the part is otherwise mov'd then it ought being sometimes lifted up and sometimes cast down For in trembling there are two contrary motions One proceeds from the motive faculty endeavouring to lift up the member which is done by retraction of the muscles towards their original which by shortning themselves draw their tail to the head and at the same time what is annex'd thereunto This motive power serves also to retain the elevated member in the posture wherein we would have it continue the abbreviation of the Muscles not suffering it to return to its first situation The other motion is contrary to the will and to that of the motive power the member being depress'd by its own gravity From which contrariety and perpetual war of these two motions arises trembling one of them carrying the part as the will guides it and the other resisting thereunto which is done more speedily then the pulse and with such short intervals that the senses cannot distinguish any middle and makes us doubt whether there be two motions or but one as a ball sometimes returns so suddenly towards him that struck it that the point of its reflexion is not perceiv'd The causes are very different as amongst others the debility of the part and of the animal faculty as in decrepit old men impotent persons and such as are recovering out of long and dangerous diseases or who have fasted long the weakness of the Nerve the instrument of the animal spirits its obstruction contraction or relaxation the coarctation of the Arteries which send the vital spirits to the Brain there to be made animal spirits and proper for motion as in fear which puts the whole body into an involuntary trembling An Ague also do's the same the natural heat which resides in the arterial being carri'd to the relief of the labouring heart and so the outward parts particularly the nerves whose nature is cold and dry becoming refrigerated and less capable of exercising voluntary motion The Second said That the actions of the motive faculty as of all others may be hurt three ways being either abolish'd diminish'd or deprav'd They are abolish'd in a Palsie which is a total privation of voluntary motion They are diminish'd in Lassitude caus'd either by sharp humors within or by tension of the muscles and tendons or by dissipation of the spirits They are deprav'd in trembling convulsion horror and rigor or shivering Convulsion is a contraction of the muscles towards their original caus'd either by repletion or inanition Rigor shaking and concussion of all the muscles of the body accompani'd with coldness and pain is caus'd according to Galen by the reciprocal motion of natural heat and its encounter with cold in the parts which it endeavours to expell or according to some others by any sharp mordicant and troublesome matter which incommoding the muscles and sensitive parts the expulsive faculty attempts to reject by this commotion Horror differs not from Rigor but in degrees this being in the muscles and that only in the skin produc'd by some matter less sharp and in less quantity But trembling being a depravation and perversion of motion cannot be known but by comparison with that which is regular Now that voluntary motion may be rightly perform'd the brain must be of a due temper for supplying animal spirits and the nerves and parts rightly dispos'd Hence the cause of tremblings is either the distemper of the brain or the defect of animal spirits or the defect of animal spirits or the bad disposition of the nerves and parts A fitting temper being the first condition requisite to action every intemperature of the brain but especially the cold is the cause it cannot elaborate spirits enough to move all the parts But this defect of spirits comes not always from such bad temper but also from want of vital spirits which are sent from the heart to the brain by the arteries to serve for matter to the animal spirits These vital spirits are deficient either when they are not generated in the ventricles of the heart through the fault either of matter or of the generative faculty or are carri'd elsewhere then to the brain by reason of their concentration or effusion As in all violent passions these spirits are either concentred in the heart as in fear and grief or diffus'd from the centre to the circumference as in joy and not sent to the brain and in these cases the motive faculty remains weakned and uncapable of well exercising its motions Lastly the nerves being ill dispos'd by some distemper caus'd either by external cold or other internal causes or else being shrunk or stop'd by some gross humors not totally for then there would be no motion at all they cause tremblings which are imperfect motions like those of Porters who endeavouring to move a greater burthen then they are able to carry the weight which draws downwards and the weakness of their faculty which supports it causes in them a motion like to those that tremble The Third said That to these causes Mercury Hellebore Henbane Wine and Women must be added For they who deal with Quick-silver who have super-purgations use stupefactives and things extreamly cold and Venery in excess and Drunkards have all these tremblings according to the diversity of which causes the remedies are also different Gold is an Antidote against Mercury which will adhere to it Repletion against the second Heat Continence and Sobriety against the rest Galen saith that blood
several species of Leprosie according to the humour by adustion whereof that black choler is generated whether blood melancholy yellow choler and salt phlegm The first being less malignant makes red Leprosie and the blood having acquir'd excessive acrimony by adustion amongst other effects corrodes the root of the hair and makes baldness The second caus'd by torrefying of melancholy makes black green or livid Leprosie which is call'd Elephantiasis because it renders the skin rough like that of Elephants The third produced of yellow choler burnt makes yellow Lepers and is call'd Leonine from the terrible aspect of those that are tainted with it or from the lips and forehead which it makes them elevate like Lyons The last caus'd by salt phlegm makes white Lepers The Third said That the material cause of Leprosie being any gross humour and the efficient a vehement heat when both these causes meet in a sufficient degree Leprosie is contracted by the ill habit of the body Hence men are more obnoxious to it then women who have less heat for want of which Eunuchs are also free from it and many have voluntarily made themselves such to avoid it Men of perfect age as between 35 and 48 years hot and dry fall most easily into this disease And of these Southern people more then Northern Whence Alexandria yea all Egypt and Judea were most pester'd with it but especially the latter where even the walls and vessels contracted leprosie Which Interpreters more admire then comprehend and gave occasion to Manetho the Historian who is refuted by Josephus to say that this Leprosie forc'd the Egyptians to drive the Jews out of their Country On the contrary Germany knew it not for a long time nor Italy before Pompey in whose time his Souldiers brought it from Egypt the Kings whereof as Pliny relates were wont to asswage the malignity by an inhumane and abominable remedy a bath of little childrens blood But the Scythians were always free from it as well by reason of the coldness of their climate as the familiar use of milk whose thin and wheyie part hinders the generation of melancholy and the other parts moisten and temper heat 'T is also produc'd by food of gross and glutinous juice as Swines flesh for this cause forbidden to the Jews by the Hemorrhoids stop'd and other suppressions of blood Now 't is not so frequent in these days as of old first because being brought hither by strangers it appear'd upon them and some of their descents but could not long consist with the mildness of our air and so became extinct of it self by the separation of such as were most infected with it as Peaches are poyson in Persia but delicious fruits amongst us Secondly because it being ignominious to be separated from all society the few Lepers that remain'd would not appear unless they were forc'd whilst in the mean time the revenues of Hospitals design'd for their support have been seiz'd by such as favour'd their concealment the better to enjoy the same The Fourth said The decreasing of this disease as well as of other Epidemical diseases is to be attributed to certain Constellations Besides perhaps the ignorance of former times took the Pox for the Leprosie and so not knowing how to cure the Pox so well as at this day it was communicated to more persons The accidents of these two diseases are almost the same both are cur'd with Mercury whose excessive coldness and humidity corrects the heat and dryness of the Leprosie and by its extream tenuity penetrating the more solid parts wherein the Leprosie lies more successfully encounters this atrabilarious venome then Mithridate and Vipers do although much commended by Galen who relates five stories of such as were cur'd therewith but we have experiences to the contrary in these latter ages refrigerating and humecting Medecines having been found more profitable then drying as Vipers are which whether our climate or some other unknown cause occasion the alteration rather increase then diminish this evil Nevertheless what is reported of the means to cure the Leprosie especially if hereditary or inveterate must be understood of a palliative or preservative not of a perfect cure which is difficult in the beginning of this malady when only the bowels are tainted very difficult in its increase when the signs begin to appear outwardly impossible in its State when the members come to be ulcerated and desperate in its declination when they begin to drop off Although Paracelsus by his great work promises to cure not onely men but also all imperfect metals which he termes leprous II. Of the wayes to render a place populous Upon the Second Point it was said All our great designes aim at Eternity and among the means of attaining thereunto Princes have found none more magnificient and correspondent to their grandeur then to build Cities after their own names Such was that of Alexander in the founding of Alexandria of Constantine in that of Constantinople of the Caesars in so many Cities of their names and in our time of the King of Sweden in Gustavousburg of the King of Spain in Philippa of the Duke of Nevers in Charle-ville and of some others But to accomplish this great design 't is to be consider'd that the business is to be done with men who are drawn by as many wayes as they consist of parts to wit Body and Soul And because most men are sensual therefore things relating to corporeal conveniences are most attractive Amongst which regard is principally to be had to the Air as that which we breathe incessantly to meat and drink which are of daily necessity Hence we see few healthful and fertile places desert whereas barren and desert places what ever care be taken alwayes return to their first nature If those conveniencies be wanting in the place they they must at least be near hand and attainable by commerce of Seas and Rivers which also are advantageous for the vent of home-bred commodities But the most necessary condition of all is safety which hath render'd Holland the Adriatick Gulph and almost all Islands populous as it sometimes assembled many out-laws and miserable persons at the first building of Rome the same course being also practis'd by Timoleon to populate Syracuse For Man being naturally a sociable creature the cause of their assembling together was not the casual concourse of atoms as Epicurus feign'd nor the wonder of fire as Vitruvius saith nor their meeting near pits and springs much less Musick Eloquence or Philosophy but onely their natural inclination to preserve themselves and be secure first against wild beasts and then against their enemies who were kept off with walls Yet as a fortress needs a strong bulwark so a frontier Town cannot easily become populous the guarding of it diverting its inhabitants from attending more necessary Arts as Agriculture Manufacture and Trade For most Cities are render'd populous by some Manufactures both buyers and sellers resorting to such places where there
Jeremy Constantine saw S. Peter and S. Paul and according to the opinion of many Samuel appear'd to Saul and foretold him of things which were to befall him though others conceive 't was a corporeal apparition which also is much more certain because souls either appear with their true bodies although this is very rare too yea and unbecoming happy souls to rejoyn themselves to putrifi'd carcases or most commonly assume bodies of air The cause of which apparitions is ascrib'd to the union which is between the soul of the dead person and that of the surviving to whom it appears whether the same proceed from consanguinity or identity of manners great familiarity and friendship which seems to make but one soul of those of two friends so that the soul finding it self in pain either through present or future evils especially when it sees it self oblig'd to the performance of some vow neglected during life God for his own glory the ease of his creature and the conversion of sinners permits it to manifest it self by ways most convenient CONFERENCE LXXX I. Of the Epilepsie or Falling Sickness II. Whether there be any Art of Divination I. Of the Epilepsie or Falling Sickness THe vulgar Maxime is not always true That a disease throughly known is half cur'd For this disease though known to the most ignorant is of very difficult cure and therefore was call'd by antiquity the Herculean disease that is to say unconquerable the Sacred disease because of its dreadful symptoms and Lunatick because those who are born either in the Full or New Moon or during its Eclipse are troubled with this malady which hath great correspondence with the motions of the Planet 't was also call'd Morbus caducus or Falling Sickness by reason that it makes the person fall to the ground and Comitialis because it interrupted Assemblies lastly 't is call'd Epilepsie because it intercepts the functions of the mind and senses 'T is defin'd the cessation of the principal actions and of sense and voluntary motion with convulsion which is not continual but by internals The true and proximate cause of it is either a vapour or an humour pricking the membranes of the brain which endeavouring to discharge the same contracts it self attracts the nerves to it these the muscles and parts into which they are implanted causing hereby those convulsive and violent agitations of the Epilepticks Sneezing and the hickcock have some resemblance of it the latter being caus'd by a sharp vapour sent from the stomack or other place by sympathy to its upper orifice which it goadeth with its acrimony and thereby forces it to contract it self in order to expell the same the former call'd by Avicenna the lesser Epilepsie differing not from the greater saving in duration is also caus'd by some vapours pricking the former part of the brain which contracts it self to expell the same by the nostrils The Second said That the unexpectedness of this malady and the Patient 's quick recovery may justifie the vulgar for thinking that there is something divine in it Since nothing amazes us more then sudden uncomprehended alterations Therefore in Hippocrates days they us'd to make expiations and incantations for this disease which he derides saying that the bad Physitians promoted this false conceit that they might get the more honour for the cure or be more excusable for not effecting the same The Third said That the Epilepsie and Apoplexie differ onely in degree both having the same cause namely abundance of gross humours either phlegmatick or melancholy which if it wholly fills the brains ventricles and makes a total obstruction so that the Animal Spirits the instruments of voluntary motion and sense be obstructed it causes an apoplexie which is a total abolition of sense and motion in the whole body with laesion of the rational faculty The Heart continues its pulse for some time till the consumption of what Animal Spirits were in the Nerves serving to the Muscles for respiration But if the obstruction be not perfect and the crass humour over-loads the ventricles then they contract themselves and all the Nerves which depend upon them whence comes that universal contraction of the limbs as one cover'd in bed with too many clothes pulls up his legs bends and lifts up his knees to have more air and room under the load which presses him The Fourth said That as the brain is the moistest of all the parts so it abounds most in excrements the thinnest of which transpire by the sutures pores but the grosser meeting in great quantity in the brain melt its substance into water which coming to stop the Veins and Arteries hinder the commerce of the spirits whether this pituitous matter be deriv'd from the paternal or maternal geniture or whether the part of seed which makes the brain happen not to be well purg'd in the womb where the rudiments of this malady are first laid or whether the brain purge not it self afterwards sufficiently by its emunctories and the scabs usual to Children Hippocrates saith this malady cannot begin after twenty years of age when the constitution of body is become more hot and dry and many Children are cur'd of it onely by the desiccation caus'd by the alteration of age seasons and manner of dyet The Fifth said That a gross humour cannot be the cause of those quick and violent motions of the Epilepsie nor be collected and dissipated in so short a time as the duration of a Paroxisme Therefore the cause of it must be some biting and very subtile matter for no such gross obstructive matter is found in the brain of those that dye of this malady but onely some traces or signes of some malignant vapour or acrimonious humour as black spots a swarthy frothy liquor an Impostume in the brain some portion of the Meninx putrifi'd corrosion of the bone and such other things evidencing rather the pricking of the brain then stopping of its passages The Sixth said That were the Epilepsie produc'd by obstruction it would follow that as a total one in an Apoplexie abolishes all sense and motion so the incomplete one of the Epilepsie should onely diminish not deprave motion as it doth So that the Epilepsie should be a symptom like the Palsie or Lethargy from which nevertheless 't is wholly different Nor can it be simply the mordacity or malignity of an humour since malignant and pestilential Fevers hot and dry Aliments as spices mustard salt garlick onyons and the lke biting things cause not this Evil. The truth is there is a specifical occult quality of the humours particularly disposing to this disease the Chymists call it a Mercurial Vapour that is an acid penetrating and subtile spirit a Vitriolike Spirit a biting and corrosive salt which makes not men onely but Quailes Dogs Sheep and Goats subject to it And as some things beget this malady by an occult Epileptical quality as Smallage Parsly a goats liver roasted and stinking smells as horn pitch
with Affirmation or Negation The Third is a right disposing of those Propositions and their Consequence which if it be necessary it is call'd Demonstration And the Fourth is the Series of those Demonstrations in such manner that those on which others depend are the first as it is seen in the Elements of Euclide Also the Lord Montagne's Method was alledg'd who learnt the Latine Tongue from the Cradle no person speaking to him but in that Tongue So was the Cyropaedia of Xenophon where the Lessons are the Practice of Political and Military Vertues which serve more to form the Judgement of Children then the Memory II. Of Entity The First Hour being spent in these Remarks the Second was imploy'd in discoursing concerning Entity which was explicated by this Series so much the more agreeably to the Company for that they observ'd such a Contrivance of it that the end of the preceding Period is the beginning of the ensuing All Power requires to be reduc'd into Act Act is a Perfection Perfection is the accomplishment of that which is wanting There is wanting to Man Felicity Felicity is to be united to his Principle He is united to his Principle when he is made like unto it He is made like unto it by Science Science is acquir'd by Demonstration Demonstration is the knowledge of a thing by its cause To know a cause it is requisite to seek it It is sought when we admire it We admire that of which we are ignorant We are ignorant because of difficulty Difficulty among other causes ariseth from Disproportion Disproportion procedeth from hence that our Mind is one and finite and the things which it ought to know are various yea infinite Wherefore it ought to reduce all things to one general which is Entity called by the Latines Ens Which being known and subdivided imparteth to us the distinct knowledge of all things which depend thereon The second added That Entity is that which is For the knowing of it 't is requisite to consider its Principles its Proprieties and its Species Principles are of two sorts viz. Either of Cognition or of the Thing A Principle of Cognition is That which causeth us to know a thing As That the Whole is greater then it's Part. The Principle of a thing is that which constitutes it as the Rational Soul and the Humane Body are the Principles of Man The Principle of the Cognition of Entity which is the sole Principle in Metaphysicks is this It is impossible for one and the same thing to be and not to be at the same time The Principles of the Thing are Essence and Existence Essence is that which causeth a Thing to be that which it is As Reasonable Animal or Living-creature is the Essence of Man because it causeth a Man to be a Man Existence effecteth that a Thing exists forth of its causes The Proprieties of Entity are Three One True and Good One that which is not divided in it self but is different from every Thing else True is that which falleth under knowledge Good that which is convenient or sutable to each thing Entity is divided into Real and Imaginary Real Entity is either actually or in power Actual Entity is either Increated or Created Created Entity is either Substance or Accident Substance is that which subsisteth by it self Accident that which cannot be naturally but in another Substance is either Incomplete which is but a part or Complete which is a Whole The Incomplete are the Matter and the Form The Complete that which is compounded thereof As the deduction of each of the above-mention'd points was going to be made it was Remonstrated That these Matters being not easie to be apprehended nor otherwise express'd then in Scholastick termes which we would avoid it seem'd meet to pass to things more pleasant running over the rest as lightly as possible And yet to pursue both the Methods above mention'd The Company therefore concluded to treat Of Principles and Of the End of all things in general at the next Conference At the hour of Inventions one presented himself and made this overture I offer to cause any one whatsoever Man or Woman of competent age to comprehend in eight hours viz. one hour a day for avoiding the ryring of the Mind a perfect Logick wherein shall be contained all the Precepts of well Defining Dividing and Arguing All the kinds of Arguments and the places from whence they are drawn Namely the Definitions and Divisions of the Vniversals of the Causes of the Opposites of the Whole c. Their Axiomes and the limitations of the same with an Abridgement of Categories I offer likewise to teach perfectly the Sphere and all the Principles of Geophraphy in two hours so that afterwards the person shall be able to make use of Maps and Books for knowing the Circles Zones and Climates besides the Parallels and Meridians for finding the degrees of Longitude and Latitude and other things pertaining to Geography I will also teach Moral Philosophy in twelve hours Metaphysicks in ten but for Natural Philosophy I ask four times as much time Another said That to let pass these Undertakings which he judg'd very daring there is a great difference between VVisedom and Knowledge Memory principally contributing to the Latter as Judgement to the Former That he propos'd a Method to instruct a Child in Wisedom the Guide and Sterne of Humane Actions That all things in the World are either Necessary or Contingent The former are immutable the Rules concerning them few the seeds of them within our breasts consequently soon learnt and easie to retain Provided the unconstant and irregular multitude of contingent things come not to interrupt the Production and Growth thereof As it happens by the thornes of Sciences which Solomon for this reason saith were invented to serve for a vain Labour to Men. Sciences in which there is alwayes room for disputing because if you except their Principles which they borrow from that Wisedom all the rest in them is but probable and problematical I conceive therefore that the true Method of Instructing a Child is to begin by informing his Judgement with the Rules of things Necessary For which purpose he must be taken void of all bad impressions between six and seven years is a fit Age. In the smooth Table of this Mind is to be written in good order the service of God and the King Honour Justice Temperance and the other Virtues When this Mind hath been educated in the Maximes appertaining to each of those Heads As That nothing is hidden from God That 't is better to dye then to revolt from the service of the King That after Honour there is no more loss It will be requisite to draw for him out of History Examples of such as have been rewarded for performing the same and punish'd for failing therein In the mean time care must be taken that no evil or dishonest thing be spoken or done before him if it happen otherwise
differs from Principle because every Cause is real and imparts a being different from its own which Privation being a Principle hath not And so every Cause is a Principle but every Principle is not a Cause Now a Cause is That which produceth an Effect There are Four Matter Form the Agent and its End Which Number is not drawn from any real distinction between them Seeing many times one and the same Thing is Form Agent and End in several respects So the Rational Soul is the Form of Man the Efficient Cause of his Ratiocination and the next End of the Creation But it is drawn from the four wayes of being a Cause which are call'd Causalities whereof one susteineth the Forms to wit the Matter An Other informeth that Matter and is the Form A Third produceth that Form and uniteth it to the Matter and is the Agent or Efficient Cause The Fourth by its goodness exciteth the Agent to act and is the Final Cause The Second said That the Causes are handled diversly according to the diversity of Sciences The Logician speaks of them so far as he draws from them his Demonstrations Definitions and Probable Arguments The Natural Philosopher inasmuch as they are the Principles of all kind of Alterations hapning in natural bodies The Metaphysitian as Cause is a Species of Entity which is generally divided into Cause and Effect In which consideration Supernatural Things have also some Causes but not all Wherefore in my Judgement said he Cause taken in general cannot be divided into the Four Species above mention'd because Spirits have no Material Cause but it ought to be first divided in reference to Immaterial things into Efficient and Final and into the four abovesaid in respect of Material That Efficient Cause is the first principle of Motion and Rest and is of two sorts viz. Vniversal or Equivocal and Particular or Vnivocal The former can produce several effects of different Species whether it depend not on any other as God and is then call'd the First Cause or depend on some other and is call'd a Second Cause As the Sun which together with Man generates Man The Particular otherwise Univocal Cause is that which produceth one sort of effect alone As Man generateth Man The Material Cause is that of which something is made The Formal Cause is that which causeth the Thing to be that which it is whether Essentially as the Soul makes the Man or Accidentally as a round form makes a Bowle The Final is that which incites the Agent to act as Gain doth the Merchant to Traffick The Third said Matter and Form being parts of the whole cannot be Causes thereof because then they would be Causes of themselves which is absurd Neither is the End a Cause but onely the term and rest of the Cause Besides there are some Ends which are impossible to obtain and are nothing of reality such as a Cause ought to be as when Heliogabalus propounded to himself to become a Woman others to fly to become invisible and the like absurdities So that there is but the Efficient Sole Cause of all Things which is the Internal Idea in God which is nothing else but that Fiat which created the World 'T is that very Cause which produceth all things in all different times and places and acts upon Art Nature and Nothing whence it is that All Entity conformable to that Increated Exemplar beareth those three Characters Truth Goodness and Vnity which all things are bound to represent under the Penalty of becoming Nothing out of which they were produced 'T is a Circle according to Trismegist whose Centre is every where and Circumference no where which possibly mov'd Galen to term Man the Centre of Mixt Bodies and all Antiquity a Little World and made Saint Thomas say that Man hath been united hypostatically to God the Son who is the Idea of the Father for the rejoyning of all the productions of the world to their first Principle Here he fell into Divinity but he was admonish'd to observe the Rules appointed by this Assembly to keep as far off as possible from such Matters and so he ended when he had mention'd the order that is observ'd in the actions of that Idea which said he acteth first upon the Intelligences as nearest approaching to its pure Nature they upon the Heavens these upon the Elements and these upon mixt bodies The Fourth added That that Idea is a Cause not onely in Natural Things but also in Artificial As in the building of a House the Idea which the Architect hath in his Mind excited his Will and this commands the Motive-faculty of the Members or those of his Laborours to dispose the Stones Timber and Morter which entring into the Composition of the Building cannot for the Reason above-mention'd be Causes of it as neither can the proportion and form An Other said That if the Idea be a Cause which cannot be but in Artificial Things it must be the Formal and not the Efficient since it is nothing else but an Original in imitation of which the Artificer labours and since the work derives its form from that Idea which is the Copy It was added by a Sixth That the Idea is not Cause but the true Essence of Things and the first objective Verity which precedes all Knowledge Humane but not Divine and is onely hereby distinct from Nothing in that it is known by God which suteth not with Nothing from which any thing cannot be distinguish'd but it must be if not in Act at least in Power The Seventh amplifying touching Ideas said That upon the Knowledge of them depend all Sciences and Arts but especially all what Men call Inventions which are nothing less then such because 't is no more possible to invent some thing new then to create some substance and make some thing of nothing But as all things are made by Transmutation so no Novelty is produc'd by Imitation either of things which are really existent or which our Mind frames and connects as of a Mountain and Gold it makes a Golden Mountain Thus the four most Excellent Inventions of the Modern Ages The Compass the Gun Printing and Perspective-glasses the two former were deriv'd from Experiments of the Load-stone from the effect of shooting Trunks and Fire As for Printing what is the Matrice wherein the Founders cast their Characters or those Characters compos'd in a flat Form as also Copper-cuts but a perfect Exemplar and Idea which is communicated fully to all its individuals And Perspective-glasses are nothing but ordinary ones multiply'd Another said That Causes cannot be known at all whence it comes to pass that we have no certain Knowledge Now to know is to know a thing by its Causes For the Vniversal Efficient Cause is above us and surpasseth the capacity of our Understanding and hence all the other inferiour and subordinate ones are unknown because their Cause is not known The Final is not in our power and being not so
them So Man not judging as he ought deviates out of the way which leadeth to his End This is it which makes him so sensible of the sleighting of his advice which sleighting seems to conclude that he hath ill judged and is a Lyar in his Knowledge And hence it is said that our French cannot endure a Lye by which a Man is imply'd to have no Understanding nor ability to judge seeing a Lye is opposite to that Truth which I spoke of For the same Reason a Man is ossended with being called Fool that is stupid and unable to judge in Revenge of which Injury and to render the like he often gives a Cuff which stricketh upon the Seat of Wisedom the Face for according to Solomon the Wisedom of a Man shineth in his Countenance Therefore our Lord saith in the Gospel that he who calleth his Brother Fool is liable to Hell for that he impeacheth the goodly lustre of Gods Image which consisteth in Judgement and Knowledge which he who calleth Fool obscureth and bringeth in doubt The Third said That the Reason why we are so zealous for our Opinions is For that we love all that proceedeth from our selves and particularly our Children in whom we see pourtray'd somewhat of our own Images So our Opinions and Conceptions being the fruits of our Mind we love them with Passion Whence also Men are more lovers of the wealth which they have acquir'd themselves then of that which they inherit But the Reason why we are so zealous of our opinions though we know they are false is That the more false Things are the more they are their own For a true Opinion is ours indeed but not altogether for it is also in the Thing Whereas that which is false is onely ours since it hath no foundation in the Thing but meerly in our Mind which imagines it to be though it be not Whence it is that there is no Religion nor Heresie so false but have had their Authors and followers Yea 't is chiefly in this kind of Judgement that we will not be controll'd But Authorities Reasons Experiences and also punishments being ineffectual cause it to be conjectur'd that there is something more then Humane therein For our Mind which of it self is pleas'd with sublime Things such as they are which concern Religion is the more zealous of them the more false they are as being altogether our own The following Speakers refer'd the Cause to the difficulty of defacing that which is engraven in our Understanding To our being grounded in Different Principles to the habit which some have of contradicting all proposals of others like the Woman of whom Poggio the Florentine speaks who being drowned her Husband went to seek her up the stream because she fell into the River far below and to those who advertis'd him to seek her downwards he answer'd That they did not know his wives Humour For since others floated down according to the current of the River she would infallibly ascend against the stream of the water The Third Hour was spent in the Report of the Poem deliver'd to be examin'd in the preceeding Conference the Author of which was the more commended for so great a Performance in that there hath not appeared in our Age so long-winded a Poem Whereof the fault was attributed to the niceness of the Witts of these Times impatient of long reading and the too exact manner of writing wholly turn'd into points the continuation of which is next to impossible Amongst other Inventions was offer'd that of an Instrument which so magnifieth a species that a Flea appears in it of the bigness and form of a Rat and the little wormes which are found in all kinds of good Vinegar of the bigness of Eeles For that One had spoken otherwise of the First Matter then they do in the Schools and there had not been sufficient Information of the Proposal made in the last Conference touching a Perpetual Motion they were appointed for the Subjects of the next CONFERENCE IV. I. Of the First Matter II. Of Perpetual Motion I. Of the First Matter THe Entrance into the former of these Subjects was made in this manner We should be too sensual Philosophers if we believ'd nothing but what we see though also we see the First Matter but 't is as the Ancients said Proteus was seen namely in so many formes that there was not one of them his own and yet he was never destitute So I see the First Matter under the form of a Man a Horse a Tree a stone and yet the stone Tree Horse Man are not the Form of that First Matter for it hath none Otherwise if I conceive it cloth'd with one single Form 't is then call'd Second Matter Nevertheless they differ not really one from the other no more then a Man naked and afterwards clothed The First is the common Subject of Substantial Formes and remaineth both before and after Corruption The Second said That as God is Incomprehensible by reason of his exceeding Grandeur so is this First Matter by reason of its baseness and lowness which makes it of all Things of the world neerest to Nothing conceivable by its obscurity alone as the night which we begin to see when we no longer see any thing else Whence it followes that we cannot say what it is but onely what it is not The Third said That as Inachus Father of Io seeking his Daughter found her Name written every where For being turn'd into a Heifer whose Foot is cloven with the Pastern she grav'd an O and with the cleft an I and so form'd Io. Nevertheless her Father knew her not for she was under a form which cover'd and hid the shapes and lines of her visage Just so is the First Matter found written every where For of it better then of Jupiter we may say that it is whatsoever thou seest and whatsoever is mov'd is Matter But being cover'd with a form and involv'd with the attires that follow it it cannot be seen in the pure and naked Nature of First Matter And just as in a loaf of Bread the Leven which fermented it is there though kneaded and temper'd in the mass of Meal in which it seemeth lost For being dissolv'd it turnes to it self and into its own Nature the whole Mass wherein it is incorporated And as in Cheese the Rennet though dissolv'd and mixt in the Milk ceases not to be there yea draws to its Nature the substance into which it was liquifi'd So the First Matter though it seem to have lost its being by entring into the Compound retaines the same notwithstanding and also draws all to it self rendring material what ever it is joyn'd to And although it be not visible or perceptible when 't is alone yet it is real in the Compound in which it puts off the Name of First and takes that of Second We prove this First Matter from the Necessity of a Common Subject in all Mutations
nothing but Water rarifi'd and subtiliz'd by heat as also when they are reduc'd into Water by condensation this Water is nothing but Air condens'd And so Air and Water differ not but by Rarefaction and Condensation which are but Accident and consequently cannot make different species of Element Both the one and the other may be seen in the Aeolipila of Vitruvius out of which the heat of Fire causeth the Water which is therein to issue in the form of Air and an impetuous wind which is the very Image of that which Nature ordinarily doth I conceive also that the Air is neither hot nor moist nor light as Philosophers commonly hold For as to the First the Air is much more cold then hot and for one torrid Zone there are two cold Besides Heat is but Accidental to it being caus'd by the incidence and reflections of the rayes of the Sun So that this cause failing in the night when the Sun shines not or in Winter when its rayes are very oblique and their reflection weak or in the Middle Region whether the Reflection reacheth not the Air becometh cold and consequently in its natural quality since there is no External Cause that produceth that coldness As for the Second The Air dryeth more then it moistneth and if it moistneth it is when it is cold and condensed and consequently mix'd with many particles of Water and when it dryeth it is by its own heat For the Definition which Aristotle giveth of Humid and Moist is onely proper to every thing which is fluid and not stable and in this respect agrees to the Air which is fluid and gives way to all sorts of Bodies As for the Last which is its levity the harmony of the world by which all things conspire to union and so to one common Centre seemeth to contradict it For if the Air hath its Motion from the Centre the parts of the world might be disunited For the Air would escape away there being no restraint upon it by any External Surface Moreover if we judge the Air light because we see it mount above water we must also say that Wax and Oyle are light since we observe the same in them But that which they do is not mounting above the Water but being repell'd by the Water And so the principal of Motion being External the same is violent and not natural Whereas when the Air descends into the Well it descends thither naturally there being no External Cause of that descent For Vacuum not existing in Nature cannot produce this Effect Since according to the received Maxime Of a Thing which is not there can be no Actions Besides it would be it self-cause of its own destruction and do contrary to its own intention preserving Nature by this Action whereas it is an Enemy to it and seeketh the ruine thereof Lastly Since many Particles of Air being condens'd and press'd together give ponderosity to a thing as is seen in a Baloon or foot-ball it must needs be ponderous it self for many light Bodies joyn'd together are more light The Second said That the difference between Water and Air is as clear as either of those Elements For that the Vapours which arise from the Water by means of the Suns heat and the wind which issueth out of the abovesaid Vessel full of Water and placed upon the Fire cannot be call'd Air saving abusively But they are mixts actually compos'd of Water and Fire For the rayes of the Sun entring into the Water raise it into Vapour And the Fire infinuating it self by the Pores of the Vessel into the Water which it containeth causeth the same to come forth in the form of wind which is compos'd of Fire and Water Of Fire because the property of Fire being to mount on high it lifts up that subtiliz'd Water with it self Of Water because this Vapour hath some coldness and humidity whence meeting with a solid Body it is resolv'd into Water because the Fire alone passeth through the Pores of that Body Besides Water being moist and Air on the contrary dry as the precedent opinion importeth they cannot be the same thing And since all Alteration is made between two different things Water and Air transmuting one into another as it hath been said cannot be the same Lastly as there are two Elements whereof one is absolutely light as the Fire the other absolutely heavy as the Earth So there are two which are such but in comparison with the rest The Water compar'd with the Earth is light because it floateth above it The Air in comparison of the Water is light too because it is above it So that when it descendeth lower then the Water into the Caverns of the Earth 't is Nature that obligeth it to renounce its proper and particular interest for preserving the general one which is destroy'd by the Vacuum not that the Vacuum is the Cause thereof for it hath no existence And the Air wherewith the Baloon is fill'd rendreth the same more heavy because it is impure and mixt with gross Vapours Which it would not do were it pure and Elementary such as is that of which we are speaking which is not to be found in our Region The Common Opinion hath also more probability which holdeth that the Air is hot and moist Hot because it is rare and light which are effects of heat Moist because it is difficultly contain'd within its own bounds and easily within those of another Thence it is that the more Bodies partake of Air the more they have of those qualities As we see in Oyl which is hot being easily set on flame And Moist in that it greatly humecteth and easily expandeth it self on all sides But if the Air seemes sometimes to be cold 't is by accident by reason of the cold vapours wherewith it is fill'd at that time The Third said That he conceiv'd that contrarily the Air is cold and dry 1. Because it freezeth the Earth and Water in Winter and therefore is colder in either of them 2. Because it refresheth the Lungs and by its coolness tempereth the extreme heat of the Heart and of the other parts which it could not do if it were hot 3. Inasmuch as hot things expos'd to the Air are cooled which they would not be but at least preserve their heat being in a place of the same Nature 4. The more it is agitated the more it refresheth as we see by Fans because then the unessential things being seperated from it it is more close and united quite contrary to the other Elements which grow hot by being agitated 5. In the night time the more pure and serene and void of mixtures the Air is the colder it is 6. Thence it is that flame burnes less then boyling water or hot Iron because in flame there is a great deal of Air which being colder then Water and Iron represseth more the strength of the Fire Lastly since according to Aristotle Air doth not putrifie what is
Mind or the Body being moderate and indifferently temper'd with each of those Liquors may be supported by Men Pleasure and Good as the more natural much more easily then Evil and Pain which are destructive to Nature But when both of them are extreme and the sweetness of Pleasures and contentments is not abated by some little gall nor the bitterness of displeasures sweetned by some little Honey then Men cannot rellish this Potion because they are not accustom'd to things pure and sincere but to confusion and mixture and cannot bear the excess of Grief or Joy the extremities of which are found to be fatal As first for Grief Licinius finding himself condemn'd for the crime of Cheating the publick dy'd with regret Q. Fabius because he was cited before the Tribunes of the People for violating the Law of Nations Caesar's Daughter at the sight of the bloody garments of her Husband Pompey And in the last Age one of the Sons of Gilbert Duke of Montpensier going into Italy dy'd with resentment at Puzzole upon the Sepulchre of his Father whom he went thither to see Then for Joy Diagoras Rhodius seeing his three Sons victorious in one day at the Olympick Games dy'd with Joy The same Fate befell Chilo the Lacedemonian upon the same victory of one of his Sons Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily and the Poet Sophocles having heard that they had won the bayes for Tragedies dy'd both immediately And so did the Poet Philippides upon winning that for Comedies The Painter Zeuxis having made the portraiture of an old woman very odly dy'd with laughing at it To which Paulus Jovins produces two like examples of later date one of Sinas General of the Turk's Gallies upon the recovery of his onely Son whom he accounted lost and the other of Leo X. upon the taking of Milain which he had passionately desir'd both of which dy'd for Joy Thus each of these Passions have great resemblance in their excesses They equally transport a Man beyond the bounds of Reason The one by its pleasingness makes him forget himself the other by its bitterness leads him to despair Grief destroyes Life either by the violent agitation of the Spirits or by their condensation which stopping the passages hinders respiration From whence follows suffocation and death Pleasure and Joy produce the same effect by contrary causes namely by too great a dilatation of the Spirits which causes weakness and that weakness death It may be doubted under which rank they ought to be plac'd who dye for Love But the sweetness of this kind of death is too much extoll'd by the Poets that being to choose said he I should prefer it before the others The Second said They who dye for Joy are of a soft temper and rare contexture and their Hearts being too easily dilated and expanded by it the Spirits evaporating leave the same destitute of strength and so the Ventricles close together and they perish under this Passion On the contrary they who dye with grief and sadness have the Pores more closed but are of a very hot temper which requires room and freedom for the dilatation of the Heart which becoming compress'd by sadness which like Fear stops and refrigerates and renders the Spirits too much throng'd ad condens'd among themselves the Spirits having their avenues obstructed and their commerce with the Air hindred stifle the Heart That nevertheless the Passions of Joy are much less then those of Grief because Evil more vehemently moves the Appetite then Good For Grief destroyes the simple and absolute Existence of a thing Pleasure brings onely a transient and casual effect and is but a redundancy or surplusage An Animal hath its perfect essence without it but Grief puts its Being into evident danger and changes it essentially II. The preservation of an Animal for which Nature endu'd it with the Passion of Grief is the highest internal end whereunto also Pleasure is ordain'd as a means the pleasure of the Taste for the preservation of the Individual that of the Touch for the preservation of the species In fine Delectation is a Female Passion or rather but half a Passion for when its Object is present it is languid and asswag'd and hath no more but a bare union with the Object that is the present Good which is rather a Rest then a Motion of the Sensitive Appetite Whereas Grief which respects a present Evil is not onely redoubled by the presence of the same but summons all the other Passions to its Relief Anger Audacity Courage and all the Faculties to revenge it self The Third said That if we consider these two Passions as streams running within their ordinary channels and do not respect their inundations then Grief seemes to be more powerful then Joy for it causeth us to break through all difficulties that might stop us it rallies the Forces of Nature when there needs any extraordinary performance gives Armes to extremities and renders Necessity the Mistress of Fortune On the contrary Pleasure and Joy abate the greatness of the Courage enfeeble a Man by exhausting his Spirits and emptying his Heart too much thereof The Fourth said Pleasure and Grief are two Passions of the Concupiscible Appetite the former of which is the perception of an agreeable Object the latter of a displeasing one For all Sensation is made by a Mutation and that either from Good to Evil whence ariseth Grief and if it persisteth Sadness or from Evil to Good whence springeth Pleasure which if it be lasting causeth Joy which are to be carefully distinguish'd They easily succeed set off and give conspicuousness one to the other Socrates would never have found pleasure in scratching the place where his fetters fastned his Legs if he had not borne those shackles a long time in Prison Their vehemence hath commonly reference to the Temper Pleasure hath more dominion over the Sanguine The Melancholy Man makes more reflexion upon Grief But considering them absolutely it seemes to me more difficult to support Ease then Disease Joy then Sadness Pleasure then Grief First because Hope the harbinger of good and contentment hath greater effects then Fear which fore-runs Evil and causeth to undertake greater things for all glorious and Heroical Actions have Hope for their impulsive cause whereras commonly Fear produceth none but servile Actions Secondly a Passion is term'd strong or violent when by the impression of the species of the Object first upon the Senses and then upon the Phancy it becometh so much Mistress of Reason that it hinders the Man from freely exercising the functions of knowing aright and doing aright Now Pleasures and Contentments cause Men not to know themselves but to forget God and run into Vices whereas Grief and Afflictions usually retain them within their duty in the Fear of God and in the exercise of the Virtues of Patience Obedience and Humility Many persons have bravely and couragiously resisted torments and yet yielded to Pleasure And that Emperour of whom Saint
as Imprisonment solitary and gloomy places immoderate watchings Agitations and Motions of Body and Mind especially Sadness and Fear immoderate fasting the use of base and black Wines gross food as Pulse Coleworts Beef especially salted and Animals that have black hair such as are the Stag the Hare and all Water fowle Aristotle conceiv'd that this Natural Melancholy was the fittest humour to make Men ingenious as he treats at large in his Problemes and shews that the greatest persons that have excell'd in Philosophy Policy Poetry and other Arts have partaken most of it yea of the atribilarious Humour as Hercules Ajax and Bellerophon And before him Hippocrates in his Book De Flatibus saith That nothing contributes more to Prudence then the blood in a good consistence as the Melancholy Humour is Galen will have Dexterity to proceed from Choler Integrity and Constancy from Melancholy The first reasons are taken from the similitude which Melancholy hath with Wine I. First as Wine is stronger upon its Lee and keeps longer so is the blood upon Melancholy II. The Spirit which is drawn from Wine mingled with its Lee is far better then that which is drawn from Wine alone So the Spirits which proceed from blood joyn'd with Melancholy are much more vigorous thereby III. As it easier to leap on high when one hath his foot upon firm ground then in a fluid place So Melancholy being more firm then the other Humours makes the Spirits bound the higher and they are also better reflected as the rayes of the Sun are better reflected by the Earth then by the Water IV. Melancholy persons have a stronger Imagination and so more proper for the Sciences because Knowledge is acquir'd by the reception of Phantasines into the Imagination V. Old Men who are prudent are Melancholy Whence came that saying The prudent Mind is in a dry Body And the blood of studious and contemplative persons becomes dry and Melancholy by study Therefore Plato said That the Mind begins to flourish when the Body is pass'd its flower In fine the Melancholy are very patient and are not discourag'd by any obstacles which they meet with And as they are very slow in taking resolutions so when they are once taken they perform them notwithstanding what ever difficulties they encounter therein The Second said He could not conceive how this Humour which causeth the greatest diseases in the Spleen and in the Veins the Hypochondriacal Dotage and the Quartan Ague in any part the Scirrhus and the Cancer and in the whole Body the Leprosie and other incurable diseases should increase Wit and contribute to Prudence For considering it even in its natural constitution it renders those in whom it predominates of a leaden colour pensive solitary slow in motion sad and timerous and causes them to have a small Pulse which is an argment of the weakness of their Spirits On the contrary the Sanguine Humour opposite to it hath none but commendable signes and effects a rosey colour a cheerful aspect a sociable humour an active promptitude In brief all actions in perfection Whence it follows that the Humours of a well temper'd Man being more exquisite the Spirits which proceed from purer blood must be also more more refin'd The Third Said That to know whether the Melancholy Temper be most proper for Prudence it behoveth to consider the nature both of Prudence and of Melancholy and see how they agree together Prudence is the Habit of acting according to Reason Whereunto is requisite a clear Knowledge of the End of Man and of his actions as also of the Means which conduce to that end together with an integrity and firmness of Mind to guide a Man in the election and practice of those means Wherefore it is not without good reason that Prudence is accounted the Queen and Rule of all Virtues and that all of them are but species or kinds of Prudence Whence he that hath all the Virtues and hath not Prudence cannot be said to have any Virtue For indeed it is to Action what Sapience or Wisedom is to Contemplation Melancholy not-natural which becometh such by adustion of the natural of the Blood Choler and salt Flegme is easily inflam'd and being inflam'd renders Men furious and so is very contrary to Prudence which requires a great tranquillity and moderation of Mind for right judging of the End of things and of the Means to attain thereunto Choler indeed makes good Wits capable of well judging of the End and the Means yea it gives Courage for the execution But the bilious Spirits are usually fickle and want constancy in resolutions and patience in executions which defects are very remote from Prudence The Flegmatick have as we say ny bouche ny esperon neither counsel nor dispatch They are dull both of Body and Mind and incapable of understanding and performing well The Sanguine have Wit good enough and gentle qualities but they they are too sensual and tender by reason of the softness and mildness of the numour which ought to be moderated in a Prudent Man But Natural Melancholy gives a solid Judgement Gravity Constancy Patience and Temperance which are the principal pillars of Prudence So then the Melancholy Temper alone is proper for it and of the rest that which nearest approacheth it namely the Sanguine Now every Temper being compounded of the Four Humours that in which Blood and Natural Melancholy predominate will be the most proper of all for Prudence For these two Humours make a very perspicacious Wit and a profound and solid Judgement Melancholy when moderately heated by the Blood and Choler carries a Man to undertake and execute boldly and confidently because it is with knowledge of the End and Means Thus I have given you the Common Opinion But I esteem it absurd to believe that the Elementary Qualities cause such noble Effects as the Inclinations to Prudence Magnanimity Justice and other Virtues For they are caus'd by the Influence of the Stars as is found most evidently in Nativities by which without seeing the person or his temper one may tell his Inclinations But because in every Generation the superior and inferior causes concur together and the temper almost alwayes corresponds to the Influences thence Aristotle and Galen who understood not the true Science of Coelestial Powers have affirm'd the former in his Physiognomy That the Manners of Man follow his Temper And the latter That the Temperament is by it self the first and true efficient cause of all the actions of the mixt Body and consequently of the Manners of a Man Whereby they ascribe that to the Temper which ought to be attributed onely to the Influences And indeed the Hermetick Philosophy assignes to the Elementary Qualities no other Virtues but of heating cooling moistning drying condensing and rarifying Now according to Astrologers Prudence is from the influence of Saturn and Jupiter who preside over Melancholly and Blood according as those Planets reign or favourably regard all the points
fast that he might be accustom'd to abstinence betimes that Age being no more capable of a Habit then of Discipline Do Children use more solid food Hippocrates saith they bear fasting more uneasily then grown Men and these then Old Men because they abound more with natural heat especially they saith he who have the best Wits Moreover Tempers Seasons Countries different exercises diversity of Food Custome and the disposition of Health and the Organs make a notable difference herein Of Tempers the Cholcrick is the most impatient of fasting They cannot sleep unless their Belly be full and by its mild vapours temper the acrimonious exhalations of their Choler which otherwise causeth the exasperated Spirits to move in the Arteries and in the Organs of the Senses instead of filling them with the benigne vapours which cause sleep Hence the Proverb Choler and Hunger make a Man fretful and the Hungry Belly hath no Ears Likewise the Sanguine is not very fit for long abstinence The Melancholy bears it better but above all the pituitous and Flegmatick To these one day's fasting is no more trouble then to the others to want a Break-fast Yea should no other consideration lead them to fasting they would be sick unless they sometimes debar'd themselves from a meal or two a day Examples of fasting are afforded by Bears Sea-calves Dormice Snailes Serpents and other Insects which remain for several Moneths hid in their Cavernes using rest instead of food their natural heat being then so weak that the fat or viscous flegme wherewith they are provided suffices to support them all that time Of the Seasons Winter causes such as fast to think the dayes longer then the Sun makes them because the natural is then most vigorous Next Winter Autumne is least proper for the same reason and because the Spirits need reparation of the loss caus'd to them by the Summer The Spring is more fit in regard of the plenty of Blood which then boyles in us But Summer most of all because there needs less fewel for a less fire as our internal heat is at that time Of Regions the cold and Northern are less compatible with abstinence the hot and Southern more but the temperate most of all Whence we see that the Orientals fast more easily for many dayes together then we one single day Of Exerises as the more violent disturb the digestions as we see in those that ride post the moderate promote them and make room for Aliments so they who use little or none at all need the less food Solid Victnals are longer before they be subdu'd in the Stomack then liquid the fat and of oiley afford most nourishment Therefore Bread hath a great stroke in digestion as being all Oyle As is seen in the correction of some Medicaments which is done with burnt Bread for a piece of Bread as big as ones thumb being set on flame will burn as long as the same weight of Oyl Whence Abstinence is more supportable after such kind of food then after broth or potch'd eggs But Custome is so considerable in this matter that those who are us'd to make four meals a day are no less troubled with intermitting them then others are one of their two ordinary repasts And experience shews that if you take up an ill custome of drinking at bed-time without necessity you must use violence to your self to break it off Yet the disposition of the Body is the main matter whether we consider the diversity of Organs destinated for nutrition whence those that have large stomacks and Livers sooner yield to hunger or whether we divide Bodies into such as are healthy which dispense with less eating and such as are distemper'd with diseases the actions whereof are depraved Amongst which we should speed ill if we look'd for abstinence in those who have a Boulimie or Canine Hunger proceeding either from the too great suction of the Mesaraick Veins of which the Stomack is made sensible by the Nerves of the sixth Conjugation or because the Melancholy humour design'd to stimulate the stomack and provoke Appetite by its acrimony continually flows thither and not after the concoction is perfected The cure of which Malady consists in eating and chiefly in drinking pure Wine which is distributed more speedily then any nourishment But when those Mesaraick Veins suck no more Chyle either because their passages are stop'd or for that the above mentioned acide liquor is diverted elsewhere then ariseth a disease call'd Anorexie or Nausea whereunto the abstinence of those must be referr'd who have continu'd some weeks yea moneths and years without eating and drinking For we may well wonder at that Hydropick Person to whom his Physitian having forbidden drink he went to him at the years end to ask him whether it were time to drink But we may wonder more at what we find in Histories even of our own time which are full of relations of persons of either sex that lived some years without taking any Aliment M. Cytoys Physitian to the Cardinal Duke of Richelieu a Learned Man and who needs no other Elogium but the choice of such a Master publish'd a very ingenious treatise above twenty years since concerning a young Maid of Confoulans in Poictou which liv'd many years in that manner And lately there was such another in the Province of Berry Some have conceiv'd such persons to be nourish'd with thick Air by the Lungs taking that for a Maxime which is not agreed upon That Inanimate things and much less the Elements can nourish Some ascribe the cause to the relaxation of the Nerves which hinders the stomack from being sensible of the suction of the Mesaraick Veins But in my conceit the reason is because their Bodies are almost indissoluble and so compact that nothing exhales from them Whereunto adding a viscous and tenacious flegme a very small heat and no exercise the case will be the same as 't is in a fire-brand of Juniper So we see fire lasts not so long in fifty faggots of straw as in an Arm-full of Match Yea not to detract from Miracles whereby God so reserves to himself the doing what he pleaseth that he doth not forbid our inquiring into Natural Causes since it is held that there have been found sempiternal lamps and other lights the oily humidity not exhaling out of the vessel the same may seem more possible in the proportion of our natural heat with its radical moisture For besides those Examples we have that of some Animals and Butter-flies flie engender and live a long time without nourishment Which is also seen more particularly in Silk-worms the most exquisite Emblem of the Resurrection that is in Nature From which disproportion which appears so great between those who cannot bear one day's fasting and others who pass years without eating we may easily conclude to the end where I began that there is no limited time as to the question propos'd For though it be ordinarily bounded within seven days yet
cannot be without great resentment of grief and sadness since its natural Colour is its brightness and to deprive the Soul of brightness and splendor is to deprive it of Life II. Why Men love Musick Upon the Second Point the First said That if Musick be not natural to the Heavens considering the regularity of their Motions which the custome of alwayes hearing hinders us from perceiving yet it is so to Man since he takes such Pleasure therein that Nurses quiet the frowardness of their Children in the Cradle by their Songs the Devotion of grown persons is increased by singing of Psalmes the Pipe and the Drum animate the Souldier to War and even Horses become more courageous by the sound of the Trumpet Not to mention David's Harp which drave away the evil Spirit from Saul nor the cure which Hoboys effect in those that are stung with the Tarantula causing them to dance till they sweat by which means they are cur'd of what otherwise would be mortal All which seemes more to be admir'd then explicated The Second said That the Solution of the present Question depends upon this other namely why certain Objects excite Pleasure and others Grief The truth is Nature hath joyn'd Grief with Hurtful Objects and Pleasure with profitable For otherwise having plac'd Living Creatures amidst Life and Death it might have hapned that through want of knowledge or else through intemperance some Creature might neglect the things which are profitable to it or made use of such as are hurtfull It is not to be fear'd that an Ox will eat Worm-wood or that an Animal will not pluck its leg out of the fire For Pain admonisheth both the one and the other to abstain from those Objects as on the other side Pleasure attracts us to those which preserve our Nature This Pleasure is not onely in the Object as it is suitable to our Nature but also in the Action it self As it is a very sweet thing to live so it is a great pleasure to exercise the Actions of life more or less according as the same are noble or necessary Whence it is that Nature hath placed more Pleasure in the Action which tends to preserving the species of Men then in that which preserves every individual in particular and yet more in this latter then in that of Seeing Tasting and the rest because that which regards the preservation of the individual namely Eating and Drinking is considerable in reference to Life and Being which it preserves but the rest are onely for well-being But in the Sense of Hearing there is not observ'd any Pleasure or Pain arriving by reason of the Object because in Hearing as well as in Seeing the Objects act onely intentionally not really and corruptibly Now Pain and Pleasure are not excited on the part of the Objects but by real Actions which cause alteration in their subject But the Hearing is capable thereof because it is a Natural Action and every Natural Action is perform'd with Pleasure Whence then cometh the Pain which our Ear receiveth with the sound It must be observ'd that the Sense of Touching is diffus'd through all the Body and every sensible part admits Pain which is an Accident of Touching Upon which account the Ear is endew'd with Two Senses it receives not onely sounds but the Tactile qualities Sounds of themselves excite neither Pain nor Pleasure but if together with sound the Air enters into the Organ and strike it too vehemently or stretches the Membrane more then its Nature is able to bear Pain is excited in the Ear not as it is the Instrument of Hearing but as it is endew'd with the Sense of Touching Moreover Pain may be excited in the Sense of Hearing another way For the understanding whereof it is to be noted that it is not sufficient that the word of him that speaks be formed and articulated in his Mouth by the help of the Teeth and the Tongue but the Ear must form it anew that you may hear it For which end it is contriv'd in form of a Snail-shell at the bottome whereof is plac'd a Drum an Anvil and a Hammer for the formation of sounds anew Now as we see the Organs which form words one after another are troubled and discompos'd when they are to form certain sounds which have any Cacophonia or uncouth sound amongst them as when I say il alla à Alenson I feel a certain unaptness in my Organs of speech and the reason of this unaptness is because the sequel or coherence of those sounds together doth not well sute with the manner of the Organs operation in regard it is natural to shut the Mouth after wide opening it as we do in the pronuntiation of A. Now if another A must be pronounc'd immediately after there is need of more force which is troublesome or else time must be allow'd between both to shut the Mouth without speaking a word which is also tedious to the Organ of speech which hastens as much as he can to pronounce the words intended So when the Ear comes to form the sounds anew as I said it doth if two or more happen together which require to be formed at once as they do which have the same tone or which gives not the Organ leisure to rest from one end to the other it resents the same unaptness and inconvenience Hence certain Concords in Musick please the Ear and others displease it This is seen ordinarily that it is displeasing to the Ear to form many sounds at a time as when two persons speak together or if it happen that the two sounds presented together to be formed are wholly opposite one to the other as one grave and the other sharp the Organ cannot form them both at once because they require two different wayes of operation to which the Ear cannot attend at the same time For it operates otherwise in forming a sharp sound then a grave and they both strike the Organ and rend it each after its own mode Whereby it is constrain'd to form them but as it is by force so it is not without Pain But when those two sounds the grave and the sharp are united in one proportion so that the sharp serves as it were for salt to the other and they are blended together this conjunction makes them consider'd but as one sound which the Ear finds very agreeable because it formes the same not onely without difficulty but also with Pleasure Hence the good Concord of Musick delights our Ears so much The Third said We have suffer'd under the Tyranny of the Peripateticks too long whereas the other Philosophers afford us excellent reasons Plato and Pythagoras will have all things to be Number or at least a participation and similitude of Numbers Aristotle agrees too that Musick is Number Now the perfect Number according to Pythagoras is that of Ten seeing all other Numbers are but repetitions of the first Ten. Of these Numbers the first pair is Female
as Cardan conceiveth For on the contrary all things become Hot by motion the Lead upon Arrows is melted and the Wood fired Water becomes thinner and hotter But the cause thereof is for that a strong Wind or Hot Air driven violently draws all the neighbouring Air after it which Air is Cold and we feel the coldness thereof Whence all strong Winds are alwayes cold The Third said We ought not to seek other causes of Natural Winds then those we find in Artificial Wind because Art imitates Nature Artificial Winds such as those of our Bellows the most common instruments thereof are caus'd by a compression of the Air made by two more solid Bodies then themselves which thrust the same thorow a narrower place then that of their residence For the Bellows having suck'd in a great quantity of Air when it s two sides draw together they drive out the same again with violence And this is that which they call Wind. In like manner I conceive two or more Clouds falling upon and pressing one another impetuously drive away the Air which is between them So we blow with our Mouths by pressing the Air inclos'd in the Palate and shutting the Lips to streighten its eruption Hereunto they agree who desine Wind to be Air stirr'd mov'd or agitated But if it be objected that the Clouds are not solid enough to make such a compression the contrary appears by the noise they make in Thunder-claps The Fourth alledg'd That Winds are produc'd in the World as they are in Man namely by a Heat sufficient to elevate but too weak to dissipate Exhalations whether that Heat proceedeth from Coelestial Bodies or from Subterranean Fires Wherefore as Hot Medicaments dissipate flatuosities so the great Heat of the Sun dissipates Winds The Fifth added It is hard to determine the Original of Winds after what our Lord hath said thereof That we know not whence they come nor whither they go and what David affirmeth That the Lord draweth them out of his Treasures NevertheIess I conceive that different causes ought to be assign'd of them according to their different kinds For although Winds borrow the qualities of the places through which they pass whence the Southern and Eastern are moist and contagious because of the great quantity of Vapours wherewith they are laden by coming over the Mediterranean Sea and the Ocean yet some Winds are of their own Nature Hot and Dry making the Air pure and serene being caus'd by an Exhalation of the like qualities Others are so moist that they darken the Air because they are produc'd of Vapours Some places situated near Mountains and Rivers have particular Winds But as for those which blow at certain Periods either every year or every second year or every fourth year as one that blows in Provence I refer them to the Conjunction of certain Plants which reign at that time The Sixth said That Air hath a natural motion of its own as the Heavens have otherwise it would corrupt but meeting some streights and finding it self pen'd up it rallies and reunites its forces to get forth as it doth with violence and set it self at Liberty And this with so much the more vehemence as the places through which it passeth are streighter Whence it is that we alwayes perceive a Wind near a Door or Window half open or the mouth of a Cave which ceaseth when they are set wide open The Seventh continu'd That which is most difficult to conceive in reference to the Wind is its violence which I hold to proceed from the Rarefaction of a matter formerly condens'd and from the opposition of a contrary For the place of the Generation of Wind being either the Cavernes of the Earth or the Clouds the vaporous matter becoming rarifi'd so suddenly that it cannot find room enough to lodge in breaks forth impetuously as we see the Bullet is by the same reason violently driven forth by the Air enflamed in the Cannon Some think that Winds arise also from the Sea because a Wave is alwayes seen upon the changing of the Wind to rise on that side from whence it is next to blow The Eighth said That their motion is a direct line because it is the shortest way but not from below upwards by reason of the resistance they meet with in the coldness and thickness of the Middle Region of the Air whence the same thing happens to them that doth to smoak or flame which arriving at a ceiling or vault is constrain'd by the resistance it finds thereby to decline on one side Also their violence is increas'd by the adjunction of new Exhalations as Rivers augment theirs by the access of new streams II. Why none are contenteà with their own condition Upon the Second Point it was said That since the inferior World follows the course of the superior and Coelestial it is not to be wonder'd if the latter being in continual motion and agitation the former whereof Man makes the noblest part cannot be at rest For the Starrs according to their several Positions Aspects or Conjunctions move and carry us to desire sometimes one thing sometimes another The Ambition and Ignorance of Man are of the party too The former makes him alwayes desire to have the advantage above others to pursue Honours and Dignities and to think that to acknowledge a greater then himself is to own fetters and servility The latter represents things to him otherwise then they are and so causes him to desire them the more by how much he less understands their imperfections Whence many times by changing he becomes in as ill a case as Aesop's Ass who was never contented with his condition But the true Cause in my opinion is because we cannot find in this World a supreme temporal Good whereunto a concurrence of all outward and inward goods is requisite and were a Man possess'd thereof yet he could have no assurance that he shall enjoy it to the end of his Life whence living in fear of losing it we should be prone to desire something that might confirm it The Dignity of the Soul furnisheth me with another reason of our discontentment For she being deriv'd from Heaven and knowing that this is not her abiding City she may taste of terrene things but findeth them not season'd to her gust as knowing that frail and mortal things are not worthy of her nor sutable to her eternity And as a sick person that turns himself first on one side then on the other to take rest so the Soul finds her repose in motion And as morsels swallow'd down have no more savour so the present goods which our Soul possesseth give her no pleasure but like a Hunter she quits the game which she hath taken to pursue another The Second said Though by a wise Providence of Nature every one loves his own condition as much or more then another doth yet there being alwayes some evil mix'd with and adhering to the most happy state in the world
that evil is the cause that we are never contented therewith I add further If it were possible to heap all the goods of the world into one condition and all kind of evils were banish'd from the same yet could it not fill the Appetite of our Soul which being capable of an infinite Good if she receive any thing below infinite she is not fill'd nor contented therewith Nevertheless this dissatisfaction doth not proceed from the infirmity and ignorance of the Humane Soul but rather from her great perfection and knowledge whereby she judging all the goods of the world less then her self the goods intermingled with miseries serve her for so many admonitions that she ought not to stay there but aspire to other goods more pure and solid Besides these I have two natural reasons thereof First Every Good being of it self desirable every one in particular may desire all the goods which all Men together possess Yet it is not possible for him to obtain them wherefore every one may desire more then he can possess Whence there must alwayes be frustrated desires and discontents Secondly The Desires of Men cannot be contented but by giving them the enjoyment of what they desire Now they cannot be dealt withall butas a bad Physitian doth with his Patients in whom for one disease that he cures he causeth three more dangerous For satisfie one Desire and you raise many others The poor hungry person asketh onely Bread give it him and then he is thirsty and when he is provided for the present he is sollicitous for the future If he hath money he is troubled both how to keep it and how to spend it Which caus'd Solomon after he had deny'd his Soul nothing that it desir'd to pronounce That All is vanity and vexation of Spirit The Third conceiv'd That the Cause of this Dissatisfaction is for that the conditions of others seem more suitable to us and for that our Election dependeth on the Imagination which incessantly proposeth new Objects to the Soul which she beholding afar off esteemes highly afterwards considering them nearer sees as the Fable saith that what she accounted a treasure is but a bottle of Hay The Fourth said That because every thing which we possess gives us some ground of disgust and we do not yet perceive the inconvenience of the thing we desire therefore we are weary of the present and hope to find less in the future Whence we despise the one and desire the other The Fifth added That Man being compos'd of two parts Body and Soul which love change it is necessary that he love it too Choose the best posture and the best food you will it will weary you in a little time Let the most Eloquent Orator entertain you with the most excellent Subject suppose God himself you will count his Sermon too long if it exceed two hours or perhaps less Is it a wonder then if the Whole be of the same Nature with the Parts The Sixth attributed the Cause of this Discontent to the comparison which every one makes of his own State with that of others For as a Man of middle stature seemes low near a Gyant so a Man of moderate fortune comparing his own with the greater of another becomes discontented therewith Wherefore as long as there are different conditions they of the lowest will always endeavour to rise to the greatest and for the taking away of this Displeasure Lycurgus's Law must be introduc'd who made all the people of Sparta of equal condition If it be reply'd that nevertheless they of the highest condition will be contented I answer that our Mind being infinite will rather fancy to it self Epicurus's plurality of worlds as Alexander did then be contented with the possession of a single one and so 't will be sufficient to discontent us not that there is but that there may be some more contented then our selves The Seventh said That the Cause hereof is the desire of attaining perfection which in Bodies is Light whence they are alwayes chang'd till they become transparent as Glass and in Spirits their satisfaction which is impossible For Man having two principles of his Actions which alone are capable of being contented namely the Vnderstanding and the Will he cannot satiate either of them One truth known makes him desire another The sign of a moderate Mind is to be contented with it self whereas that of a great Mind is to have alwayes an insatiable appetite of knowing Whence proceedeth this It is for that it knows that God created every thing in the world for it and that it cannot make use thereof unless it have an exact and particular knowledge of the virtues and properties of all things It knows also that it self was created for God and the knowledge of the Creatures is nothing but a means to guide it to that of God So that if it take those means which lead it to the end for the end it self it deceives it self and finds not the contentment which it seeks and will never find the same till it be united to its First Principle which is God who alone can content the Vnderstanding His Will is also hard to be satifi'd The more goods it hath the more it desires It can love nothing but what is perfect It finds nothing absolutely perfect but goodness it self For the Light and knowledge wherewith the Understanding supplieth it discover to it so many imperfections and impurities in the particular goods it possesseth that it distasts and despises them as unworthy to have entertainment in it Wherefore it is not to be wonder'd if Man can never be contented in this world since he cannot attain his utmost End in it either for Body or Soul CONFERENCE XIX I. Of the Flowing and Ebbing of the Sea II. Of the Point of Honour I. Of the Flux of the Sea THe First said That if there be any other cause of this Flux then the heaping together of the Waters from the beginning under the Aequinoctial by Gods Command whence they descend again by their natural gravity and are again driven thither by the obedience which they owe to that Command which is so evident that they who sail under the Aequator perceive them selves lifted up so high by the currents that are usually there that they are many times terrifi'd thereat there is none more probable then the Moon which hath dominon overall moist Bodies and augments or diminishes this Flux according as she is in the increase or the wane The Second said That the Moon indeed makes the Flux and Reflux of the Sea greater or less yea she governes and rules it because being at the Full she causeth a Rarefaction of its Waters But this doth not argue that she is the Efficient Cause of the said Flux The Sea rises at the shore when the Moon riseth in the Heaven and retires again when the Moon is going down their motions are indeed correspondent one to the other yet I know not how
that of the Moon is cause of that of the Sea For if it were then when the Moon is longest above our Horizon as in long dayes the ebbing and flowing would be greatest but it is equal and regular as well when the Moon is below the Horizon as above it And why also doth not she move the other Seas and all sorts of Waters as well as the Ocean The Third said That there are two sorts of Water in the Sea one terrene thick and viscous which contains the Salt the other thin sweet and vaporous such as that which Aristotle saith enters through the Pores of a vessel of wax exactly stop'd and plung'd to the bottome of the Sea This thin Water being heated is rarifi'd and turn'd into vapours which consequently require more room then before They seek for it but being restrain'd and inclos'd in the thick and viscous Water can find no issue and therefore make the Water of the Sea to swell and rise till that Exhalation be disengag'd from those thick Waters and then the Sea returnes to its natural state by falling flat and becoming level This is abundantly confirm'd by the Tydes which are alwayes greater in March and August then at other seasons because at that time more abundance of vapours is drawn up But why have not Lakes also an Ebbing and Flowing Because their Water being more thin le ts pass those vapours which the Sun hath stirr'd and so not being hinder'd from going away as those of the Sea are they do not make the Water rise and swell So Heat having subtiliz'd and converted into vapours the most tenuious parts of the Milk upon the Fire the thicker parts of the same coming to enclose them are the cause that it swells and rises up But when it is remov'd from the fire or its vapours have gotten passage by agitation it takes up no more roome then it did at first But it is not so with Water plac'd upon the Fire the rarity of its Body giving free issue to the vapours which the Heat excites in it The Jewish Sea is bituminous and therefore no more inflated then pitch possibly because the parts thereof being Homogeneous cannot be subtiliz'd apart For as for the Mediterranean Seas having no Flux and Reflux I conceive it is hindred by another motion from North to South because the Septentrional parts being higher then the Austral all Waters by their natural gravity tend that way The Fourth said I acknowledge with Aristotle that 't is partly the Sun that causes the Flux and Reflux of the Sea because 't is he that raises most of the Exhalations and Winds which beating upon the Sea make it swell and so cause the Flux and soon after failing the Sea falls again which is the Reflux Nevertheless because this cause is not sufficient and cannot be apply'd to all kinds of Flux and Reflux which we see differ almost in all Seas I add another thereunto Subterranean Fires which sending forth continually abundance of Exhalations or subtile Spirits and these Spirits seeking issue drive the Water of the Sea which they meet till it overflows and thus it continues till being deliver'd from those Spirits it falls back into its channel till it be agitated anew by other Exhalations which successively follow one another and that more or less according to the greater or lesser quantity of those Spirits The Tydes which happen every two hours are an evidence of great quantity those which happen every four hours of less and those which happen every six of least of all So there is made in our Bodies a Flux and Reflux of Spirits by the motion of Reciprocation call'd the Pulse consisting of a Diastole and a Systole or Dilatation and Contraction caus'd by the Vital Faculty of the Heart the Fountain of Heat Moreover as the Pulse is ordinarily perceiv'd better in the Arms and other extreme parts then in the rest of the Body So the Flux and Reflux is more evident at the shores then in the main Sea Therefore Aristotle proposing the Question why if some solid Body as an Anchor be cast into the Sea when it swells it instantly becomes calm answers That the solid Body cast into the Sea makes a separation in the surface thereof and thereby gives passage to the Spirits which were the cause of that Commotion Now if it be demanded Why such motion is not so manifest in the Mediterranean Sea and some others as in the Ocean it is answer'd that the reasons thereof are 1. Because Nature having given sluces to the Mediterranean higher then to the Ocean it hath not room wherein to extend it self so commodiously 2. Because the Subterranean Fires being united and continually vented forth by the Out-lets which they have in Aetna Vesuvius and other Mountains within or near that Sea there remains less then is needful to make a rising of the Waters The Fifth said I conceive there is as little cause and reason to be sought of the Flux and Reflux of the Sea as of all other motions proceeding from Forms informing or assisting the Bodies which they move As it would be impertinent to ask what is the cause of the motion of a Horse seeing the most ignorant confess that it is from his Soul which is his Form So there is more likelihood of truth in attributing the motion of the Sea to its Form then to any other thing Yet because they who assign a Soul to the World and all its parts cannot make out such a proportion therein as is requisite to the parts of an Animal I think more fit to affirm that the Sea hath a Form and Intelligence assisting to it which was assign'd to it by God from the beginning to move it in the same manner as the Intelligences according to Aristotle are assistant to the Coelestial Orbes and continue their motion II. Of the Point of Honour It was said upon the Second Point That since Contraries give light to one another we may better understand what Honour is by considering the Nature of Dishonour For where ever there is Blame there is also Honour opposite to it Now there is no Man that sees a vile action as amongst Souldiers Murder or Cowardice Collusion or Perfidiousness in Justice but he blames the same and judges the Author thereof worthy of Dishonour On the conrary a brave Exploit and a Courageous Action is esteemed by Enemies themselves The incorruptible Integrity of a Judge is oftentimes commended by him that â—oses his Suit and the Courageous Fidelity of an Advocate in well defending his Client receives Praise even from the Adversary so odious is Vice and so commendable is Virtue Wherefore every one abhorring Blame and Dishonour doth so vehemently hate the memory and reproach of any thing that may bring it upon him that many imitate what the Fable telleth of Jupiter who going to shake off the ordure which the Beetle had laid upon the skirt of his garment by that means shook out the Eggs
since the in extinguishable thirst after the Future hath induc'd all Ethnick Antiquity to feed Fowls for Augury to immolate Sacrifices for presaging their good or bad Fortune there is some ground to pardon them and all others who seek some glimmerings of the future in Dreams I conceive the most Incredulous reading in the Scripture that seven lean kine devouring so many fat ones presag'd seven years Famine which consum'd all the store of seven other fertile years and moreover the truth confirm'd by the event of the Dreams of so many others cannot but have them in some reverence But on the other side when every one considers how many Phancies come into our heads in sleep both sick and well the truth whereof is so rare that it may be compar'd to that of Almanacks which setting down all sorts of weather sometimes happen right upon one or to those bad Archers who shooting all day long glory if they once hit the mark he presently concludes that credit is not lightly to be given to them Wherefore I think after explication how Dreams are caused it will be fit to examine whether there be any connexion or affinity between the things which we dream and those which are to come to pass as there was between the Aegyptian Hieroglyphicks which the things signifi'd by them and as there is at this day in the Characters of China and in the Signatures observ'd by some Physitians between some Plants and the Parts or Diseases to which they are proper For it is not without some hidden reason that Experience hath caus'd so many persons to take notice that as for example Death and Marriage make a great stir and alteration in the house where they happen so the one is usually the indicatour of the other that because the Hen makes a cry when she layes her Eggs from whence is produc'd a Chicken that cryes too therefore Eggs signifie brawls or quarrels that Pearls signifie Tears because they resemble them that as the Serpent is alwayes mischievous and moves along with little noise so he denotes secret Enemies and the cutting off his head the getting the better of one's Enemies that as our Teeth are not pluck'd out without pain so to dream that they fall out prefigures the death of a Relation and other such things which cannot be number'd but by a Calepine much less the interpretation thereof unfolded The Second said That Dreams are caus'd by the rising of vapours from the Stomack to the Brain by whose coldness they are condens'd and then falling like a gentle dew upon the Nerves and stopping the passages by which the Animal Spirits issue to the outward senses the species of objects which we receiv'd awake and were then confus'd and agitated by heat settle by little and little and become as clearly discern'd as when we were awake Or else our Imagination which as Aristotle saith is like a Painter who makes a mixture of divers colours joyning several of those species together formes chimera's and other strange images which have no antitype in Nature Just as a Child drawing accidentally certain Letters out of a heap mingled together joynes them and formes words of them which have no sense And as dirty or stirred waters doth not represent any Image or very badly so the Imagination being embroil'd and agitated by the gross fumes of the meat which arise after the first sleep represents ill or not at all the images of things which it hath in it self Hence it is that Drunkards and Children dream little or not at all and that the Dreams of the first part of the night are turbulent and those of the morning more tranquil and quiet to which alone therefore credit is to be given So that Interpreters of Dreams account the same nearer or farther from their Effect according as they more or less approach the day-break The Third said That Dreams are different according to the different Causes whence they proceed which are either within us or without us That which is within us is either Natural or Animal or Moral from which arise three different kinds of Dreams The Natural are usually suitable to the complexion of the Body and constitution of Humours Thus the Bilious or Cholerick dreams of fire and slaughter The Pituitous or Flegmatick dreams that he is swimming fishing or falling The Melancholy sees sad and dismal things in his sleep The Sanguine hath pleasures and jollities in his Phancy The Animal proceed from our ordinary employments and cause the actions on thoughts of the day to be represented again to the Imagination in the night The Moral follow the good or bad inclinations of every one Thus the Voluptuous person dreams of Delights and the Ambitious of Honours The external cause of Dreams is either God or Angels and these either good or bad and they either imprint new species upon the Phancy or dispose those which are in it before so as thereby to advertise us of things which concern us These alone in my opinion are those that are to be taken notice of The Fourth said That besides these causes of Dreams there are also some corporeal causes as the temper of the Air or the constitution of the Heavens and the nature of places to which is to be refer'd the relation of Ammianus Marcellinus That the Atlantick people have no Dreams as also the common report that they who lay Lawrel-leaves under their heads when they go to sleep have true Dreams together with the Observation of Aristotle that if a Candle cast the least glimpse before the Eyes of such as are a sleep or a little noise be made near them they will dream that they see Lightning and hear Thunder it being proper to the Soul when we are a sleep to make an Elephant of a Flie. The Fifth said That the chief inquiry in this matter is How any Dreams can signifie that which is Future and what connexion there is between the figures which Dreams represent to us and the thing signifi'd to us by them For it is certain in the first place that Dreams have some affinity and conformity with our Temper This with our Manners our Manners with our Actions and finally our Actions with the Accidents which betide us Whence it appears that according to this series Dreams have some great correspondence with those Accidents For the Soul which knows our Temper and by necessary sequel our Manners and Actions beholds in those three together the Accidents of our Life which are annex'd represented and contained potentially in them as Fruits and Trees are in Flowers and Seeds But as Flowers and Seeds are very different in Figure from the Fruits and Trees which they produce so the Characters of the Accidents of our Life being contained or rather produced by our Temper our Manners and Actions are represented to the Soul under the various species of things which are to befall us because being linked by a streight bond to this corporeal mass it cannot judge
Inclinations of the Soul cannot be ascrib'd to a corporeal cause such as the Stars are For if all were govern'd by their influences we should see nothing but what were good as being regulated by so good causes I acknowledge but two virtues in the Heavens Motion and Light by which alone and not by any influences of occult qualities they produce corporeal effects Thus ought Aristotle to be understood when he referreth the cause of the continual Generation of Inferior things to the diversity of the Motions of the First Moveable and the Zodiack And Hippocrates when he foretelleth the events of Diseases by the several Houses of the Moon The Fourth said It is impossible to make an Art of predicting by the Celoestial Motions for five reasons besides the dominion which our Will hath over Effects without which it were free 1. The Connexion that is between the Celoestial Bodies and the Sublunary is unknown to Men. 2. The diversity of the Celoestial Motions causeth that the Heaven is never in the same posture as it ought to be for the making of a sure and certain Art grounded upon many repeated Experiments according to which like Effects are to be referr'd to like Causes 3. The extreme rapid and violent turning about of the Heavens doth not afford to find the precise minute of a Nativity for drawing the Theme or Figure of the true state of Heaven which they say is necessary 4. As of sixteen Consonants joyn'd with five Vowels are made words without number so of a thousand and twenty two Stars and more with seven Planets may be made Conjunctions and Combinations to infinity which surpass the comprehension of humane wit there being no Art of things infinite 5. Two persons or more born at the same time under the same Elevation of the Pole and disposition of the Heavens as they speak yea two Twins as Jacob and Esau are found oftentimes different in visage complexion inclination condition and end But is it probable that a hundred Pioneers stifled in the same Mine or ten thousand Men dying at the same battle have one and the same influence The Fifth said God having from all eternlty numbred the hairs of our Heads that is to say foreseen even the least Accidents which ought or may befall Men he hath establish'd an order for them in the Heavens disposing the course aspects and various influences of the Stars to draw out of Nothing those accidents at the time that they are to happen to Men whom they incline to meet the same yet so as to leave it in the power of their Free-will to avoid or expose themselves unto them without any constraint This truth is sufficiently confirm'd by the exact and admirable correspondence which is found between the most signal accidents of our lives and the hour of our Nativities so that Astrologers not onely conjecture by the time of the Nativity what is to come to pass but they also come to the knowledge of the true minute of the Nativity by the time at which accidents arrive and take this course to correct Horoscopes and Figures ill drawn And although long Experience may attest the certainty of this Art yet I confess since the faculties and qualities of the Stars are not perfectly known to us and we cannot alwayes precisely know the disposition of Heaven much less all the combinations of the Stars Astrology in respect of us is very uncertain and difficult but not therefore the less true and admirable in it self It is like a great Book printed in Hebrew Letters without points which is cast aside and sleighted by the ignorant and admir'd by the more intelligent So the Heavens being enamel'd by Gods Hand with Stars and Planets as with bright Characters which by their Combinations figure the various accidents which are to befall Men are never consider'd by the ignorant to dive into their Mysteries but onely by the Learned who themselves many times commit mistakes when they go about to read them because those shining Characters have no other Vowels or rather no other voice but that of God who is the true Intelligence thereof The Sixth said Three sorts of persons err touching the credit which is to be given to Astrological Predictions Some believe them not at all others believe them too little and others too much As for the first since they cannot deny that the Stars are universal causes of sublunary effects that such causes are of different natures and virtues and that their action and virtue is dispens'd by the motion which is successive and known they must of necessity confess that knowing the disposition of sublunary subjects the nature of the Stars and their motion many natural effects may be fore-seen and fore-told from them The Devil himself knows no future things certainly but by foreseeing the effects of particular causes in their universal causes which are the Stars They who believe too little confess that the Stars act upon the Elements and mixt Bodies for very Peasants know thus much besides many particular effects of the Moon But as for Man whose Soul of it self is not dependent upon any natural cause but free and Mistress of its own actions they cannot or for Religion's sake dare not affirm that it is subject to Coelestial Influences at least in reference to manners Yet it is no greater absurdity to say that the Soul is subject to the Stars then to say with Aristotle and Galen that it is subject to the Temperament of the Body which also is caus'd by the Starrs from the influence and action whereof the Soul cannot exempt its Body nor the Temperament thereof by which she acts Lastly they who give too much credit to the Stars hold that all things are guided by a fatal and irrevocable order of Nature contrary to Reason which admits the Author to be the Master of his own work and to Experience which assures us of the standing still of the Sun for Joshuah of his going backward for Hezechiah and of his Eclipse at full Moon during the Passion The Fourth Opinion is certain that there is truth in Astrological Predictions but it behoveth to believe them onely in a due measure since the Science of it self is but conjectural II. Whether is less blameable Avarice or Prodigality Upon the Second Point it was said That Avarice is less blameable then Prodigality For the latter is more fertile in bad actions then the former which though otherwise vicious yet refrains from the pleasures and debaucheries in which the Prodigal usually swims The Holy Scripture intending to set forth an example of Infinite Mercy relates that of the Prodigal Son who obtain'd pardon of the sin which is least worthy of it Moreover Prodigality doth far less good then Covetousness for this always looks at its own profit and takes care for its own benefit and the preservation of its dependents so that it exerciseth at least the first fundamental of Charity which is to do well to those who are nearest
afforded before God had curs'd it and so inseparably connected man's labour with those fruits that now a days to express a hundred acres of Land we commonly say A hundred acres of Labour And as a place ceases to be the Court when the King is no longer in it so the Divine Benediction withdrawn from the Earth it ceas'd to be Paradise Yea Adam having ceas'd to be King of it and by his sin lost the Dominion which he had over all even the fiercest Creatures the Earth became no longer a Paradise to him But if I be requir'd to assign a particular place to this Paradise leaving the description of places which I never saw to the belief of Geographers I find none more fit for it then France Its Climate is temperate especially towards the East and South It hath four Rivers which bring into it Gold and all the other Commodities attributed unto Paradise by the first Historian It so abounds with all sorts of flowers that it hath taken three Lillies for its Arms And with fruits that it hath for it self and its Neighbours yea above any other it produces every Tree fair to look upon and good for food to use the Scripture-words One interpos'd That he should think 't was Normandie so fruitful of goodly Apples were it not that no Vines grow there whose fruit is so pleasant to behold The fourth said As there is no great certainty in the consequences drawn from Allegories so neither are Allegories very successfully drawn from Histories and substituted in their places I know not what History is if that of our first Father be not nor where to stop if people will subtilize upon the first circumstance of his Creation and what he did afterwards But if we find difficulty in according the Geographical Tables of the present time with the truth of that why do not we likewise make Allegories of the Creation and all its sequels which are so many Miracles If we see no Angel that guards the access to it no more did Balaam see that which stood in his way though visible to his Asse And being the space of the Garden of Eden is not determinately set down nothing hinders but that it might be of very vast extent and this takes away the scruple of those who object the distance which is between all those great Rivers Besides being Enoch and Elias were since Adam's fall transported into this Paradise where they must be till the coming of Antichrist 't is a certain Argument of its real subsistence II. Of Embalmings and Mummies Upon the second point it was said That the Ancients were much more careful then we not only to preserve the Images of their Fore-fathers but also to keep their Bodies which they variously embalmed The Grecians wash'd them in Wine mingled with warm Water and then put them them into oyl of Olives Honey or Wax The Aethyopians first salted them and then put them into Vessels of Glass In the Canary Islands they season them in the Sea and afterwards dry them in the Sun The Scythians place them upon Mountains cover'd with snow or in the coolest Caves Indeed every one knows there is a Cave at Tholouze which hath a particular virtue to preserve carkasses from corruption and in which is seen at this day the entire body of the fair Saint Baume and many others dead above 200 years ago The Indians cover'd them with ashes The Aegyptians conceiving that bodies corrupted rose not again and that the Soul was sensible of the Bodies corruption did not yield to any people in curiosity of preserving them they fill'd with Myrrhe Cinamon and other Spices or with Oyl of Cedar then they salted them with Nitre whose aerimony consumes all the superfluous humidities which cause putrifaction 'T is from these bodies that we have that excellent Mummie whose admirable effects I ascribe to sympathy But concerning what is affirm'd that being transported by Sea they cause tempests and strange agitations in the Ship 't is an effect which is to be attributed to a more occult cause The Second said Man is so admirable an Edifice that even his Ruines have their use His Fat is one of the most excellent Anodynes His Skull serves against the Epilepsic This liquor which is drawn from his Tomb hath several vertues and the reasons of the great and admirable effects imputed to it as the healing of inwards Ulcers and Contusions of Blood arriving to such as have fallen from on high seem to me imputable to three Causes a Spiritual a Celestial and an Elementary The first ariseth hence that so perfect a Form as the reasonable Soul having inform'd part of this Compositum which by the mixture of some Ingredients as Myrrhe and Aloes hath been preserv'd from corruption the same thing arrives to it which the Chymists say doth to their white Gold when they have extracted its Sulphur and Tincture For being re-joyn'd to other Gold it easily resumes the same form and is sooner and more inseparably combin'd with it then any other thing as having been of the same species So when you put Mummie into a body of the same species it takes part with the nature whence it proceeded and siding with it incounters the disease and its symptomes like Succour coming to relieve a besieged City with provisions and ammunition The Celestial cause is drawn from the Heavens for that the light and influence of superiour bodies act upon all the sublunary but by the consent of all none is so susceptible of their actions as man and if his soul be not subject thereunto yet his body is undoubtedly to each part of which each part of Heaven not only answers as some hold but the whole to all Whence is seen the diversity of disposition inclinations and manners such and so great that 't is a palpable mistake to attribute the same to the meer mixture of the Elements Now Mummie having receiv'd not only while it was animated but afterwards all the influences whereof the humane body is susceptible it becomes as it were the abstract of all the Celestial powers and better then Talismanical figures communicates the same to him that uses it The last reason drawn from the mixture of the Elements and their qualities might suffice alone without the preceding For Man being the abridgement of the world ought also to contain all the faculties of it and his Mummie being inanimate but having liv'd the life of a plant an animal and a man it contains all these natures eminently The Third said That Man affecting nothing so much as immortality because he fears nothing more then death and being unable to secure himself from it do's all that he can to perpetuate himself in some fashion since he cannot wholly The desire of supporting his Individual person and defending it from all inconveniences which may abridge his life makes him count nothing difficult In Propagation he seeks the eternity of his species And though he is assur'd by Reason of
Fifth said 'T is more fit to admire these secret motions which depend only on the good pleasure of Nature who alone knows wherein consists the proportion correspondence which makes bodies symbolize one with another then to seek the true cause of them unprofitably And Aristotle himself confesses that he knew not whereunto to refer the Antipathy which is between the Wolf and the Sheep so strange that even after their deaths the strings of Instruments made of their guts never agree together as the feathers of the Eagle consume those of other Birds Likewise the subtile Scaliger after much time unprofitably spent acknowledges that he understands it not They who go about to give reasons of it are not less ignorant but more vain then others The Sixth said Words are frequently abus'd as for example when 't is attributed to Antipathy that the Dog runs after the Hare whereas 't is for the pleasure that he takes in his smelling which is an effect of Sympathy But they who refer almost every thing to Occult Proprieties are like the Country-man who not seeing the springs of a Watch thinks it moves by an occult vertue or who being ask'd why it thunders answers simply because it pleases God Wherefore instead of imitating the ignorant vulgar who are contented to admire an Eclipse without seeking the cause the difficulty ought to inflame our desire as we use more care and diligence to discover a hidden treasure nothing seeming impossible to the Sagacious wits of these times The Seventh said That according to Plato the reason of Sympathies and Antipathies is taken from the correspondence and congruity or from the disproportion which inferior bodies have with the superiour which according as they are more or less in terrestrial bodies and according to the various manner of their being so the same have more or less sympathy For as inferior things take their source from above so they have one to the other here below the same correspondence which is common to them with the celestial bodies according to the Axiom that things which agree in one third agree also among themselves Thus amongst stones those which are call'd Helites and Selenites Sun-stone and Moon-stone are luminous because they partake of the rayes of those Luminaries and the Helioselene imitates by its figure the Conjunction of the Sun and Moon Amongst Plants the Lote or Nettle-tree the Mari-gold and the Heliotrope or Sun-flower follow the motion of the Sun Amongst Solar Animals the Cock and the Lyon are the most noble and the Cock more then the Lyon he alwayes gives applauses to the Sun when he perceives him approaching our Horizon or Zenith Whereupon the Lyon fears and respects him because things which are inferior to others in one and the same degree yield to them though they surpass them in strength and bigness as the arms which fury hath put into the hands of a mutinous multitude fall out of them at the presence of some man of respect and authority though they be a thousand against one II. Whether Love descending be stronger then ascending Upon the second Point it was said Although this be a common saying and it seems that Love ought rather to descend then ascend yea that Fathers are oblig'd to love their children even with the hatred of themselves yet I conceive that the love of children towards their fathers surpasses that of fathers towards their children inasmuch as the latter proceeds from the love which the fathers bear to themselves being desirous to have support and assistance from those whom they bring into the world and in them to perpetuate their names honours estates and part of themselves But the love of children to Fathers is pure and dis-interested as may be observ'd in many who having no hope of a patrimony love and honour their parents with most respectful kindness Moreover the supream authority and absolute power of life and death which the Romans and our ancient Gaules frequently us'd against their children shows their little affection For not to speak of those Nations who sacrific'd theirs to false gods nor of Manlius Mithridates Philip II. King of Spain and infinite others who put them to death Fathers anciently held them of worse condition then their slaves For a slave once sold never return'd more into the Seller's power whereas a son sold and set at liberty return'd thrice into the power of his Father As also at this day in Moscovia Russia and particularly in Cyprus Rhodes and Candia where 't is an ordinary thing for fathers to sell their sons to marry their daughter which made Augustus say having heard that Herod had kill'd his own son that it was better to be the Swine then son of a Jew But Patricide was unknown to ancient Legislators and Lycurgus never ordain'd any punishment against such criminals not imagining that such a crime could come into the mind of a lawful child whom the Persians conceiv'd to declare himself a bastard by such an action For that foolish custom which reign'd some time at Rome of precipitating men of sixty years old from the bridge into Tyber is no sign of the cruelty of children towards their fathers since they imagin'd that they did an act of piety and religion therein by delivering them from the miseries of this life The Second said None can know how great a love a father bears his children but he that hath been a Father Paternal tenderness is so vehement that all the passions and affections of the soul give place to it Prudence and Philosophy may preach to us restraint and moderation but a father's love admitting no rule caus'd a King of Sparta to run with a stick between his legs a Grand Cosmo to whip a top and the wisest of all the Grecians to play at Cob-nut to make pastime to their children experiences sufficient to gain the cause to paternal love though it were not back'd by these reasons 1. That love being the issue of knowledge the more there is of knowledge the more there is of love Therefore fathers having more knowledge then their children have also more love 2. As man desires nothing so much as immortality so he loves that thing especially which procures the same to him and hating death more then any thing in the world extreamly loves what seems to keep him from dying as his children do in whom he seems to revive Whence also the Pelican feeds its young at the expence of its own blood On the contrary Man being the most ambitious of all creatures hates nothing so much as to see himself subjected to another Wherefore children that the benefits which they receive from their fathers may oblige them to gratitude and subjections they perform the same indeed but with much less love then their fathers 3. God ha's given no commandment to fathers to love their children knowing that they lov'd them but too much but he hath to children to love and honour their fathers as having need to be invited
this disdain is not call'd cowardize But when a man doth not revenge himself if it be through inability 't is prudence if through fear 'ts pusillanimity Yet Alexander was deceiv'd herein for when two Dogs of extraordinary stature were presented to him by a person who made great account of their courage and he saw that one of them did not defend himself against other Dogs he commanded him to be kill'd and would have done as much by the other had not he who presented them alledg'd that the Dog's neglect of revenging himself proceeded from eontempt of his opposers Whereupon the King caus'd a mad Bull to be turn'd loose to the other Dog who finding a subject fit to shew his courage upon flew upon him and tore him in pieces It appears therefore that there is some resemblance in the action of him who forbears through poorness of spirit to revenge himself and of him who doth it through greatness of courage The sole difference consists in the power which the latter hath to vindicate himself and the others wants 'T is demanded which of the two is most honourable in him who is able to do either I conceive Pardoning the more honourable not only because it includes in it self the power of revenge but because it shews a greater strength to overcome one's self then the strongest things in the world and so become master generally of bodies and minds together The Second said That although at the first view it may seem that a man ought rather be inclinable to Pardon then Vengeance because Nature hath for this purpose furnish'd him with Reason as his principal weapon to which Forgiveness is an action particular as proceeding from ratiocination or at least from humanity yet the desire of Revenge hath not been given us by Nature for a useless faculty and such as ought not to be reduc'd into act For this Desire is so great in us that it extends even to inanimate things And to pass by the follies of Xerxes who caus'd the Sea to be beaten with stripes and writ a challenge to mount Athos in revenge of the fear which they had given him and that of Cyrus who amuz'd his whole Army a long time about the river of Gnidus for the same cause do we not see that little children are pacifi'd when the table which hurt them is beaten and that Gamesters many times tear the Cards in pieces with their teeth and cast the Dice out of the window to be reveng'd of their loss Hence Anaxagoras said that even they who pardon always revenge themselves because the satisfaction given them or their remission of an offence supplies the place of punishment The Third said 'T is indeed natural to man with all other living creatures to preserve himself which cannot be done but by repelling the injuries which are offer'd to us nor this but by revenge For an injury is like fire which burns and reduces all into ashes unless it be timely remedied one tolerated produces another and by degrees brings us into the scorn of the world Therefore the Divine Law agrees with the Lex Talionis or Law of Requital eye for eye tooth for tooth And as this vengeance is one of the principal qualities which God reserves to himself so it is one of the chief parties both of publick and private justice He who is remiss in revenging affronts done him is injust first to himself in being careless of maintaining his honour and then to others in that he suffers the respect to be violated which men owe one to another yea to him too who offends him because he gives him encouragement to do as much to others while he findes he may do so without impunity The Fourth said That Revenge is an encroachment upon the Authority of Laws both Divine and Humane God hath reserv'd it to himself wherewith to defend us and yet himself revengeth no further then to four Generations and pardons to a thousand He hath as strictly bound us to forgiveness as to our own safety since he permits us to pray to him daily for no more pardon then what we grant to those who offend us Moreover he who takes satisfaction in stead of executing it cannot more palpably declare the ill opinion he hath of the Laws under which he lives and which he annihilates as far as lyes in his power 'T is this accursed Mis-conceit which hath opened so wide a door to our duels and re-encounters as can hardly be shut at this day by many Ordinances and Edicts And if it imports the publick as the Lawyers hold That no man abuse his own goods how much less his life whereof he hath but the use and which is due to the service of his God and his King Add hereunto that as every thing which is violent is an enemy to Nature and of no long duration so people seldom find constraints and rigours to answer their purpose Man never suffers himself to be wholly subdu'd and bound no more then the Oxe saving by the strongest part the one by the horns the other by the will Which caus'd Livia the wife of Augustus when she saw that the more he punish'd those who conspir'd against him the more new enemies he procur'd to himself to advise her husband to try upon Cinna one of them whether pardon would not have better effect then Proscription He did so and this Conspirator became thereby so great a lover of the Emperour that he afterwards merited by his services to be made his heir The Fifth said That there ought to be made a distinction of conditions because 't is as dangerous in a publick person to be gentle and merciful as 't is commendable in a private The mildness of a Judge towards a Robber is cruelty to the publick impunity being the Nurse of Vice Moreover among private persons too their several professions are considerable Socrates purposing to make himself an example of moderation had reason to slight the kicks that were given him as he would have done the winsings of an Ass. But the Captain that should suffer so much must have otherwise given the world such testimony of his valour as to avoid the imputation of cowardize And therefore that man had no bad conceit who seeing his friend perplex'd for that he understood by the Horoscope of his two children that one of them would be the greatest coward and the other the greatest thief in the world counsell'd him to make the one a Church-man and to put the other to a profession whereunto the word Larron is an Epithete being the latter would thereby turn the prediction into a mockery and the defect of courage in the other would be attributed to the gentletleness whereunto Ecclesiasticks are more oblidg'd then any others The Sixth said That without some vengeance we should not understand what Forgiveness means as God's justice is that which sets off his mercy Wherefore being these two actions mutually contribute to either's lustre it cannot be known
seen in our days a dumb man who answer'd pertinently to all that was spoken to him only by beholding the motion of the speaker's lips which is also the reason why blind men attending only to improve the sense of Hearing best observe all differences of speech Whence I draw this consequence that the same may be practis'd in all other things which signifie by humane institution and so there may be an universal Language But the easiness every one finds in making himself understood by the Language and Writing which is familiar to him renders men careless of advancing this excellent Design which would be a means to spare the best time which our youth spends in learning the words of strange Tongues instead of applying themselves solely to the knowledge of things The Fourth said That the possibility of this Project appears in that there is an order in nature or at least consequent to the very nature of things according to which we may place next after the Creator the created spiritual substances then the corporeal one after another according to their dignity particularly the corporeal according to their place as the Heavens first and in them the Stars according to their dignity the Earth and its Animals the Sea and its Fishes the Plants according to their magnitudes those which are equal therein according to their vertues and other accidents doing the same with Metals Minerals bodies perfectly and imperfectly compounded by nature and by art and with the Elements then we may come to the Categories of accidents to which every thing in the world may be reduc'd and put in its right place Whereby it is evident that not only all things have their order but also that he who learns them according to this order easily avoids confusion the mother of ignorance It remains now to find out an order of words too which answers to that of things the first to the first and the second to the second which order is so natural to them that children make use of it to find out every thing which they seek in Dictionaries and Lexicons according to the order of the Alphabet And I know not whether we ought not to begin this handsome gradation and situation of all things in their rank correspondent to the order of the letters with the style that God gives himself Alpha and Omega But it cannot but be admir'd that the first combination of the letters makes Ab and Aba which signifies Father the first place being due to the Author and Father of all things II. Whether is to be preferr'd a great Stature or a small Upon the second Point it was said That largeness of body seems to be preferrable as well because the word Magnitude or Grandeur always includes some perfection in it self as because the Gods were anciently represented of a size exceeding the ordinary Which made Aristotle say that not only the greatness of the Heroes render'd them famous of old but that their Figures and Statues are venerable at this day Moreover we see that Saul the first King chosen by God for his own people was taller by the head then all the rest of the Israelites And amongst the conditions of Beauty magnitude so universally holds the first place that women advance themselves upon high Shooes and Patins that they may seem the handsomer How well shap'd soever a little man be he is never of so majestical a presence as one that is taller Whence you see little men affect to seem greater but never any tall men desire to be less Now the same Proportion which is between a Man and his habitation is found between the soul and the body which is its Mansion For as he who hath the largest house will be accounted to be better lodg'd then he who dwells in a Cottage though they be persons otherwise of equal condition so 't is probable that souls which are all equal find themselves better lodg'd in a great body then in a small and exercise all their functions with much more freedom The Second said That if magnitude put the value upon men the same should hold in animals nevertheless the Elephant yields to the Fox yea to the Pismire the Estrich to the Nightingale and the Whale is the most stupid of all Fishes Moreover nothing hinders the divine operations of the soul but the load of the body whereby the imperfection of our nature places us below the wholly incorporeal Intelligences and therefore the less the body is the neerer we approach the Angelical nature and our spirit is less impeded by the matter Hence little men are not only the most quick-witted but also the most active and nimble for that the strength is more united in them and diffus'd and dissipated in others Great and robust bodies as being fitter for labour were made to obey the small and tender which have more spirit then flesh Whence the Romans gave the Civil and Military charges to little men and sent the greater to guard the Baggage as those who gave the enemies more aim then the less Nor are the greater more proper for other Arts which made the Poet say as a thing impossible Sambucam potiùs caloni aptaveris alto And Samuel was reprov'd by God for offering to prefer the tall Stature of the eldest son of Jesse before the small size of David his youngest as if the Israelites had been displeas'd with the large body of Saul The Poets could not represent an enraged Cyclops and furious Ajax but under great bodies as on the contrary they made Vlysses very small And indeed natural Reasons agree well herein For amongst the causes of the bodie 's growth the material is a slimy or viscous humidity whence Fish grow most and in shortest time This Humidity is as it were Glew or Bird-lime to the soul hindring it from exercising its functions freely and therefore women being more humid have less wit then men and Fish are less disciplinable then the rest of animals The efficient is a very gentle heat for were it too great it would consume the matter in stead of dilating and fashioning it and dry the solid parts too much upon the increasing of which depends that of the rest of the body This is the reason why all gelt animals grow most and amongst Birds of prey the females are always greater then the males the excess of their heat being temper'd by the humidity of their Sex and young persons are found to have grown extraordinarily after Quotidian Agues which are caus'd by Phlegme so that it is not hard for such pernicious causes to produce a good effect The Third said That every thing is to be commended and esteem'd according to the use for which it is appointed Now Man being born for Reason and the functions of the Mind and having receiv'd a Body to be an instrument to him of Knowledg by making a faithfull report to him of what passes without by means of the species convey'd through the senses into
naturally keep up above the water yet by enclosing it in some sort of vessel you may violently make it continue under the water II. Of the capricious or extravagant humours of women Upon the second Point it was said It is not here pronounc'd that all women are capricious but only the reason inquir'd of those that are such and why they are more so then men To alledge the difference of souls and suppose that as there is an order in the Celestial Hierarchies whereby the Archangels are plac'd above Angels so the spirits of men are more perfect then those of women were to fetch a reason too far off and prove one obscure thing by another more so Nor is the cause to be found in their bodies taken in particular for then the handsome would be free from this vice the actions which borrow grace from their subject appearing to us of the same nature and consequently their vertues would seem more perfect and their defects more excusable whereas for the most part the fairest are the most culpable We must therefore recur to the correspondence and proportion of the body and the soul. For sometimes a soul lights upon a body so well fram'd and organs so commodious for the exercise of its faculties that there seems more of a God then of a man in its actions whence some persons of either Sex attract the admiration of all world On the contrary other souls are so ill lodg'd that their actions have less of man then of brute And because there 's more women then men found whose spirits are ill quarter'd and faculties deprav'd hence comes their capricious and peevish humour For as melancholy persons whose blood is more heavy are with good reason accounted the more wise so those whose blood and consequently spirits are more agile and moveable must have a less degree of wisdom and their minds sooner off the hooks The irregular motions of the organ which distinguishes their Sex and which is call'd an animal within an animal many times have an influence in the business and increase the mobility of the humours Whence the health of their minds as well as that of their bodies many times suffers alteration A woman fallen into a fit of the Mother becomes oftentimes enrag'd weeps laughs and has such irregular motions as not only torment her body and mind but also that of the Physitian to assign the true cause of them Moreover the manner of living whereunto the Laws and Customs subject women contributes much to their defects For leading a sedentary life wherein they have always the same objects before their eyes and their minds being not diverted by civil actions as those of men are they make a thousand reflections upon their present condition comparing it with those whereof they account themselves worthy this puts their modesty to the rack and oftentimes carries them beyond the respect and bounds which they propos'd to themselves Especially if a woman of good wit sees her self marri'd to a weak husband and is ambitious of shewing her self Another judging her self to merit more then her rival not knowing to whom to complain of her unhappiness does every thing in despight And indeed they are the less culpable inasmuch as they always have the principles of this vice within themselves and frequently find occasions abroad The Second said that the word Caprichio is us'd to signifie the extravagant humour of most women because there is no animal to which they more resemble then a Goat whose motions are so irregular that prendre la chevre signifies to take snuffe without cause and to change a resolution unexpectedly For such as have search'd into the nature of this animal find that its blood is so sharp and spirits so ardent that it is always in a Fever and hence it is that being agitated with this heat which is natural to it it leaps as soon as it comes into the world Now the cause of this temper is the conformation of the Brain which they say is like that of a woman the Ventricles of which being very little are easily fill'd with sharp and biting vapours which cannot evaporate as Aristotle affirms because their Sutures are closer then those of men those vapours prick the Nerves and Membranes and so cause those extraordinary and capricious motions Hence it is that women are more subject to the Meagrim and other diseases of the head then men And if those that sell a Goat never warrant it sound as they do other animals there is no less excuse in reference to women Which caus'd the Emperour Aurelius to say that his Father in law Antoninus who had done so much good to others had done him mischief enough in giving him his daughter because he found so much bone to pick in a little flesh Moreover the Naturalists say that the Goat is an enemy to the Olive-tree especially which is a symbol of peace whereunto women are not over-well affected For not to mention the first divorce which woman caus'd between God and man by her lickorishness her talking her ambition her luxury her obstinacy and other vices are the most common causes of all the quarrels which arise in families and in civil life If you would have a troop of Goats pass over any difficult place you need force but one to do it and all the rest will follow So women are naturally envious and no sooner see a new fashion but they must follow it And Gard'ners compare women and girles to a flock of Goats who roam and browse incessantly holding nothing inaccessible to their curiosity There is but one considerable difference between them the Goat wears horns and the woman makes others wear them The Third said There is more correspondence between a woman and a Mule then between a woman and a Goat for leaving the Etymology of Mulier to Grammarians the Mule is the most teasty and capricious of all beasts fearing the shadow of a man or a Tree overturn'd more then the spur of the rider So a woman fears every thing but what she ought to fear The obstinacy of the Mule which is so great that it has grown into a Proverb is inseparable from the whole Sex most of them being gifted with a spirit of contradiction Mules delight to go in companies so do women the bells and muzzles of the one have some correspondence with the earings and masks of the other and both love priority The more quiet you allow a Mule it becomes the more resty so women become more vitious in idleness neither of them willingly admits the bridle between their teeth The Mule is so untoward that it kicks in the night time while 't is asleep so women are oftner laid then quiet Lastly the Mule that hath seem'd most tractable all its time one day or other pays his master with a kick and the woman that has seem'd most discreet at one time or other commits some notorious folly The Fourth said That those who invented the little
this reformation was still imperfect Julius Caesar 670 years after him assisted by Sosigenes a great Mathematician corrected the defect adding three moneths to the year in which he made this rectification which was the 708th year of the building of Rome namely two moneths between November and December one of 29 days and the other of 30 and another of 30 days at the end of December to make up the days which were pass'd So that this year Debtors had three moneths respite Then he divided the year into 365 days for this cause call'd from his name the Julian year But because the Sun is neer six hours more in accomplishing his Period he added a day every fourth year after the twenty third of February which they call'd Sexto Calendas and because in counting it twice they said bis sexto Calendas this year truth thence retain'd the name of Bissextile attributed by the vulgar to sinister and unfortunate things And to confirm the moneths to the Lunations he was contented to observe that every nineteenth year the Moon is found in the same place which was the discovery of another Mathematician of Athens nam'd Meton And forasmuch as they mark'd this number of 19 in their Kalendar with a Cypher of gold thence it came to be call'd the Gold Number The Christians took up this Calculation as the best of all But because there wants eleven minutes every fourth year to make the Bissextile or Leap-year intire it was found that from the time of Julius Caesar to Gregory XIII the Lunations and Aequinoxes had anticipated ten days which render'd the Golden Number useless and remov'd Easter and other moveable Feasts out of their true place Therefore this Pope assisted by Doctor Lilio a Physitian retrench'd those ten days throughout all Christendom except in places who are not pleas'd with novelty unless so far as it displeases the Pope Which anticipation will always oblige future Ages to use a like reformation of the Julian year which we begin from the mid-night which precedes the first Sun-rise of the moneth of January But the most sensible knowledge to be had of the duration and beginning of the Solar year is obtain'd by observing the day on which the shadow of the perpendicular needle of a Quadrant is found longest at noon being a certain sign that the Sun is then most depress'd and consequently that we must there set down the end of the preceding year and the beginning of the next which is visible by the exaltation of the Sun whose shadow will not be found equal again till after the revolution of a just year II. Why the Load-stone draws Iron Had Stones life as Cardan held the solution of the second Question would be easie For the Load-stone's drawing Iron would be no more a wonder then an Animal's going to seek its food Now of those things which draw others some do it for eschewing of vacuity so water and other more ponderous bodies ascend air and other light bodies descend either of them against its proper inclination to prevent a vacuum Others do it out of desire to obtain what they need as their nourishment So Plants attract the juice of the earth the Gall-bladder Choler the Splene the Melancholy humour and every part blood Others do it by the mutual resemblance of the spirits issuing out of them such is the first motion of affection arising between two persons of the same humour and inclination But others are mov'd locally with out any manifest and corporeal cause so are the vapours and the dew drawn up by the Sun straw by Amber the womb by good smells the Load-stone by the North-star the Heliotrope and Selenotrope by the Sun and the Moon whose motions they follow Now in attraction it is requisite that the attractive vertue be stronger then the resistance of the body which is attracted The greatest resistance is from the ponderosity of a body the elevation of which without manifest cause is accounted miraculous and attributed by Divines to the Divine Power alone as when our Lord walk'd upon the water And so indeed would be the suspension of the gravity of iron attracted by the Load-stone if it were not ordinary the cause whereof may be ascrib'd to the meeting of spirits streaming out of the Iron and the Load-stone which being viscous and once joyn'd together are somewhat hard to be separated The Second said That as every body diffuses about it visible odorable and sonorous species which appear not to us unless they be reflected by some body proper to unite them the visible species by a Glass odours by heat sound by a hollow body such as makes the Echo In like manner the Load-stone and the Iron emit attractive species round about which are lost unless these of the one light upon those of the other for then their nature is so to conjoyn themselves that their union is indissoluble otherwise then by violence wherein there seems to be no greater marvel then in all other motions of natural bodies which act variously one upon another according to the disposition of the next matter So the fire acts upon combustible matter and not upon other the reason of these affects depending upon the determination of every particular cause the chain whereof is invisible and conceal'd from men The Third said The Superior bodies act upon the inferior and all motions here below proceed from those of the Celestial Bodies which are therefore purposely contiguous That of the Load-stone and Iron proceeds from the polar Stars which act so sensibly upon this Stone that being hung up in aequilibrio it spontaneously turns one part towards the Arctick and the other towards the Antarctick Pole unless in certain places where it varies between five and six degrees because 't is drawn by a stronger magnetick virtue proceeding from the Earth But this Stone draws Iron the more easily because 't is almost of the same nature with it self and the Magnet is easily turn'd into Iron in the Mines by a coction made by the virtue of the same stars For the liker things are the more inclin'd they are to unite together so Flame unites with Flame the drops of water joyn together a great Load-stone draws the less and Steel attracts the filings of steel The Fourth said As there is a civil converse between men for preservation of society so there is a natural one establish'd by God amongst the other creatures for the support of their common being consisting chiefly in their being mov'd one towards another Fire attracts unctuous exhalations and it self tends towards the Etherial fire the Air is drawn by the Lungs the Sea is drawn up by the Moon which causes its ebbing and flowing straw and dust by the Agate Iron by the Load-stone the virtue whereof together with the occult properties of all other bodies I attribute to that universal Spirit which carries every entity to its particular good The Fifth said If we would understand the causes of the
motion we must first discover their nature which is the principle of motion Now the particular nature of every thing is unknown to all men as well as the proportion of the mixture of their substances whereon their occult properties depend as the manifest qualities do on the mixtion of their first qualities which we are wont to call manifest not but that the reason of them is as difficult as of the rest but because they are more ordinary Which indeed has caus'd us to give them the name e. g. of lightness to the fire heaviness to the earth though no person has hither to assign'd the cause thereof Give but a name to this quality which the Iron hath of moving towards the Load-stone it will be as manifest as the motive virtue which carries a stone towards its centre We may indeed alledge the final cause of both and say in general that 't is the good of the thing mov'd that sets it in motion or on the contrary the good of the thing whereunto it tends that moves and attracts it but the formal cause which we here inquire is equally unknown The Sixth said That Iron is carri'd to the Load-stone as to its good and as the stone to its centre and hence it is that the Iron turns towards the North which is the native place of the Magnet For being a natural not a violent motion the motive faculty must be in the Iron which moves it self the goodness of the object attracting only by a metaphorical motion which supposes a motive faculty in the thing mov'd CONFERENCE LII I. Of a Point II. Whether other Animals besides Man have the use of Reason I. Of a Point IF it be true that there are more wonders in a Hand-worm then in an Elephant because all the faculties which are extended and have their manifest causes and instruments in the latter are found compendiously Epitomiz'd in the former and as it were independent of their organs there will be more wonders in a Point then in all the rest of the bodies which are compos'd of it Indeed there 's nothing so small as a Point and yet 't is the object of most Sciences Grammar treats of the Point of distinction Natural Philosophy of the Point of reflection and that which serves for the Centre of the Earth Astrology of the vertical points Zenith and Nadir and makes use of them to compute the motions of the Celestial Bodies Geography hath its four Cardinal Points All Sciences and Arts borrow this word to give some order to the things whereof they treat Lastly it serves for a principle to Geometry which begins its first Propositions with it And because if we believe Plato every beginning is divine a Point which is the principle of a line as this is of a surface this of a body an instant of time and an unite of number hath something of Divinity which Trismegistus for that reason calls a Centre or Point whose Circumference is no where and therefore they who hear us speak of a Point must not think that it is of an inconsiderable matter The Second said Although much is not to be argu'd from our manner of speaking in which the word Point with us French signifies a negation yet it seems to imply that if it be something it wants but little of being nothing For to speak truth a Point is the mean which is found between nothing and something 'T is not an accident for it doth not betide befall or arrive to a substance but is before and inseparable from the same Nor is it a substance since a substance is infinitely divisible but a Point is that which hath no parts that is to say is indivisible We cannot compare it to an instant in respect of time for the time past hath been instant or present and the future shall be so but a Point is not and never shall be a quantity nor to a Unite in regard of Number since Number is made of Unites and an Unite added to the greatest number whatever renders the same yet greater whereas a hundred Millions of of Points together make but a Point because that which hath no quantity of it self cannot give any Nevertheless 't is most probable that a Point exists really since 't is the foundation of all other quantities and two Spheres exactly round touch one another but in a Point The Third said As there is no mean between contradictories so neither can there be any between nothing and something Entity and Non entity Now a Point being the term of a line and every where in it must consequently be some thing Yea I maintain that it is a body and divisible by this argument One sole Being is not finite to wit the Creator all others to wit the Creatures and every part of them are finite Every finite thing is compos'd of parts being compos'd of ends or extremities and a middle For it would be as ridiculous to say that a thing is finite with out ends as to say that a thing is long without length or hot without heat A mathematical point is a finite thing Therefore 't is compos'd of parts To say that it is finite negatively and not positively cannot hold For as every mensurable solid is compos'd of and terminated by Mathematical surfaces these by lines and lines by points so a point is compos'd of and terminated by its ends which are its parts and extremities these again being compos'd of parts external and internal are also finite and consequently divisible to infinity Therefore a Point is not finite by negation which is nothing since nothing is not the term of a Point Neither is it terminated by it self since every thing is bounded by some term which is without it and if nothing cannot measure it self much less can it bound or perfect it self For 't is so true that every solid how small soever is divisible to infinity that the Naturalists maintain that if by Divine Omnipotence Humane and Angelical power being too short a grain of Millet should be divided into a hundred millions of parts every moment from the Creation to the end of the World the progression would never come to an Indivisible Point This is justifi'd by the Section of a Circle or Globe For if the Diametre of a Circle be divided into two equal parts the Centre of it which is a point will be semblably into two equal parts for it must not be all on one side otherwise the division would be unequal nor must it be turn'd into nothing since 't is not possible for any thing to be annihilated naturally But if those two Semidiametres were re-united as at first the two parts of the divided Point would be rejoyn'd into one point which would make the Centre again In like manner if a Globe perfectly round touch'd a perfect plain all agree that it would be in a Mathematical point which is not indivisible For the point of the plain hath parts since it hath
the Stoicks call a god others a divine member and the Luminary of the little World Theophrastus Beauty because it resides principally in the Eyes the most charming part of a handsome face Their colour twinkling fixedness and other dispositions serve the Physiognomists for certain indications of the inclinations of the soul which all antiquity believ'd to have its seat in the eyes in which you read pride humility anger mildness joy sadness love hatred and the other humane affections And as the inclinations and actions of men are more various then those of other creatures so their eyes alone are variously colour'd whereas the eyes of all beasts of the same species are alike Yea the eyes are no less eloquent then the tongue since they express our conceptions by a dumb but very emphatical language and a twinkle of the eye many times moves more to obedience then speech Plato being unable to conceive the admirable effects of the Sight without somewhat of divinity believ'd there was a celestial light in the eye which issuing forth to receive the outward light brought the same to the soul to be judg'd of which nevertheless we perceive not in the dark because then the internal streaming forth into the obscure air which is unlike to it self is alter'd and corrupted by it Indeed if it be true that there is a natural implanted sound in the ear why may there not be a natural light in the eye considering too that the Organs ought to have a similitude and agreement with their objects And hence it is that the eyes sometimes flash like lightning in the night as Cardan saith his did and Suetonious relates the same of Tiberius and that those that are in a Phrensy imagine that they see lightning For it seems to me more rational to refer this Phaenomenon to the lucid and igneous spirits of the sight which being unable to penetrate the crystalline or vitreous humour by reason of some gross vapours reflect back into the eye and make those flashes then to the smoothness of the eye or to attrition of the spirits or as Galen holds to an exhalation caus'd by the blood which is carri'd to the head though this latter may sometimes be a joynt cause The Third said The Eye is compos'd of six Muscles as many Tunicles three Humours two pair of Nerves and abundance of small Veins and Arteries its object is every thing that is visible as colour light and splendor light in the Celestial Bodies wherein the object and the medium are the same thing since the light of the Sun is seen by it self colour in inferiour bodies where the object and the medium are two for colour cannot be seen without light splendor in the scales of Fishes rotten wood the eyes of some animals Gloe-worms and the like for it is different from their natural colour It s Organ is the Eye so regarded by Nature that she hath fortifi'd it on all sides for its safety with the bone of the Forehead the Eye-brows the Eye-lids the hair thereof the Nose the rising of the Cheeks and the Hands to ward off outward injuries and if Galen may be believ'd the Brain it self the noblest part of the body was made only for the eyes whence Anaxagoras conceiv'd that men were created only to see or contemplate The Eyes are dearer to us then any other part because saith Aristotle they are the instruments of most exact knowledge and so serve not only for the body but the soul whose food is the knowledge which the eye supplies call'd for this reason the Sense of Invention as the Ear is that of discipline 'T is of an aqueous nature because it was requisite that it should be diaphanous to receive the visible species and light for if it had been of a terrestrial matter it would have been opake and dark if aerious or igneous it could not have long retain'd the species air and fire being thin diaphanous bodies which receive well but retain not for though the air be full of the species of objects which move through it from all parts yet they are not visible in it by reason of its rarity It was fit therefore that the Eye should be of a pellucid and dense substance that it might both receive and retain the visible species which kind of substance is proper to water as appears by the images which it represents Moreover the Eye being neer and conjoyn'd to the Brain by the Nerves of the first and second conjugation and to the membranes thereof by its Tunicles could not be of an igneous nature perfectly contrary to that of the Brain as Plato held it to be because of its agility lucidity and orbicular figure like that of fire as he said and because the Eye is never tense or stiff as all the other parts all which he conceiv'd could not be but from fire For the Eyes agility or nimbleness of motion is from its Muscles and its lubricity its brightness from the external light its round figure rather denotes water whose least particles are so then fire whose figure is pyramidal 'T is never stiff because of the fat wherewith it is stuff'd and because it is destitute of flesh II. Of Painting Upon the second Point it was said That Painting is a sort of writing by which many times that is express'd which cannot be spoken witness the story of Progne and Philomel and as the latter represents things by letters so doth the former by their natural figure so perfectly that it is understood by the most ignorant because it exhibits in their proper colour bigness proportion and other natural accidents whereas Writing makes use of characters and figures which have no affinity with the things denoted by them but only signifie the same by the institution of men who therefore differ in Writing but all agree in painting Both the one and the other like all Arts whose scope is imitation as Oratory Statuary Sculpture Architecture and many others depend upon the strength of the Imagination and that Painter succeeds bests who hath in his mind the most perfect idea of his work And because a Painter is to imitate every thing 't is requir'd to his being a Master that he be ignorant of nothing particularly he must know both the natural and artificial proportions and agreements of things with their several modes and uses And where there are three ways of representing the first in surfaces by flat painting the other in bodies themselves which belongs to Statuary and the Plastick Art the third between both as Graving and Carving Painting is the most difficult and consequently the most noble For it must so deceive the sight as to make cavities folds and bosses appear in a flat surface by the help of shadows which although a meer nothing because but a privation of light yet they gave all the gracefulness and value to Pictures For the way of painting without shadows us'd in China being nothing but a simple delineation without hatchment
require so much care to consider the conditions requisite to a happy wedlock In which 't is to be observ'd that both in nature and manners there are tempers of body and habits of soul absolutely good others absolutely evil and others indifferent as the passions The husband or wife whose body is of a perfect temper should seek for the like For temperate added to temperate changeth not its temperature Otherwise 't is fit that the defect of the one be amended by the excess of the other For the production of man being the noblest of all actions requires a most perfect temperature of the four Elements in the seed of the two parents which would not be if both of them be hot and dry or cold and moist The vertuous must seek his like the vicious his unlike for there 's no friendship among the wicked the converse of Thieves not deserving that name As for the passions and the manners commonly following them 't is fit that the husband have such as nature has most commonly given to men and consequently that he be unlike to the wife and she to her husband CONFERENCE LXVI I. Of Drunkenness II. Of Dancing I. Of Drunkenness THe common saying That the more excellent a thing is the more pernicious is its abuse is verifi'd chiefly in Wine which is not only the best of all aliments turning soonest into our substance making fewest excrements and most spirits with which it hath great affinity but also the most excellent and benigne of all medicaments For it so cheers and fortifies the heart that so long as a man is cup-shot he is never invaded by the Pestilence the Wine being his antidote and preservative It tempers the natural coldness of the Brain helps digestion begets laudable blood opens obstructions attenuates gross humours and gives a good habit to the whole body But taken in excess it produces mischiefs without number as the Palsy Apoplexie Epilepsie Convulsions Catarrhes and such other cold Diseases the natural heat being unable to overcome the actual coldness of the Wine in regard of its great quantity Yet this were not much if its disorders did not reach the soul subverting its government and clouding its beauty defacing the character which it bears of the Deity and hindring those excellent functions of the Intellect and the Will So that Mnesitheus the Physitian with good reason term'd Wine the greatest benefit and the greatest mischief of man And therefore as the Philosopher counsell'd such as were apt to fall into choler to behold themselves in a Looking-glass for so the deformity of their aspect would avert them from that vice so he that is subject to be overcome with Wine must like the Lacedemonians behold the turpitude of this vice in others and so abhor it for behold it in himself he cannot because drunkenness prohibits him the use of the Senses The Second said Man being the most intemperate of all creatures has need of vertues to moderate his irregular appetites of nutrition and generation which nature has season'd with pleasure as well as the other animal actions whereof as the moderate use is agreeable to nature so the excess is contrary to reason which not enduring those gross and material pleasures of the Touch and Taste employs Temperance to repress the former by Chastity and the latter by Abstinence and Sobriety the one as the rule for the eating and the other for drinking both of them plac'd between two extreams although their defect be so rare that it hath not yet found a name amongst Philosophers But the excess of eating is call'd Gluttony that of Wine Drunkenness Now habitual Drunkenness Ebriosity is never to be tolerated but Ebriety may sometimes for health's sake be allow'd yea every moneth according to the Arabian Physitians who maintain that it strengthens all the faculties which a regular life renders drooping and languid Whence also Hippocrates pronounces in the end of his third Book of Diet and elsewhere that too exquisite a regiment of living is most dangerous those that are accustom'd to it being less able to endure any errors which they may occasionally commit in their course of Diet. The Third said Drunkenness is a Laesion of the Animal Faculty caus'd by the vapours of some alimentary liquor For medicaments or poysons swallow'd down cannot be said the cause of drunkenness none ever having conceiv'd that Socrates dy'd drunk when he had taken the potion of Hemlock though he had all the same symptomes which a drunken person hath nor is every Laesion of the nobler faculties Drunkenness otherwise the Phrenetick Vertiginous and such as are troubled with tremulation of their members ought to be accounted drunk their Reason Memory Imagination and Motion being either deprav'd or abolish'd like theirs who are intoxicated But such Laesion is not caus'd by the fumes of Wine which alone properly cause drunkenness it deserves rather to be term'd Alienation of the Mind which may be caus'd by other vapours either internal or external as by the smoke of Tobacco the steam of a Cellar or any place where new Wine is boil'd as also that of Char-coal which kill'd the Emperour Jovinian The Oyl of Henbane-seed as Pliny reports being drop'd into the ears causes the same trouble of judgement Matslack and Opium cause the same disorder in the Turks that Darnel mingled with bread doth in our Peasants and Baume Frankincense and the fruit call'd Anacardium mingled with food Among Beasts the Ass is inebriated with Hemlock the Swine with Henbane or the husks of Grapes all Fish with baits made of Oak-bark coque de Levant a small medicinal shell call'd Vnguis odoratus yea Aristotle saith that Flyes are inebriated with the smell of perfumes which therefore they abhor so much that the laying of some neer their resort is enough to drive them away Now drunkenness properly taken is caus'd by the hot and moist vapours of Wine rais'd by the natural heat into the Brain whose temperature they destroy by their heat which renders the motions of the soul violent spoil its structure by repletion of the Ventricles distention of the membranes humectation and obstruction of its Nerves For Wine being hot and moist and inebriating by those two qualities 't is therefore more uneasily born by hot or moist Brains Hence the cholerick children women and old men are less able to withstand its violence and are sooner overcome with it then those whose Brain is of a middle temper between hot and moist who are therefore said to have good Brains For which reason stout drinking hath been so much esteem'd by some Nations and Cyrus found no better argument to evince himself worthier of command then his brother Artaxerxes then that he was a better drinker Moreover Philip Alexander and Mithridates counted it a glory to drink well but Socrates Plato Xenocrates and many other Sages of Antiquity disdain'd not to carouse sometimes And Homer speaking of the wise Hector seldom forgets his great goblet The Athenians
The contact above spoken of hath no difficulty nor yet the objection why other wounded persons residing in some intermediate place between the anointed Instrument and the Patient are not rather cur'd then he considering that the same thing is observ'd in the Load-stone which draws not the wood or stone laid neer it but the Iron beyond them and the Sun heats not the Sphere of the Moon and the other Heavens nor yet the two higher Regions of the air but only ours cross that vast interval of cold and humid air because he finds no congruency thereunto besides the not reflexion of his beams Wherefore the contact of the anointed Javelin and the Wound may as well be call'd Physical as that of the Sun and us which never stirs from his Sphere Besides that we have examples of many contacts made without manifest mediums as those of pestilential and contagious Fevers of blear'd-eyes of the Wolfes aspect causing hoarsness and the killing looks of the Basilisk And indeed if you take away all cures that are wrought by occult and inexplicable means there will be nothing admirable in Physick The Fourth said That in assigning the reason of effects men ordinarily mistake that for a cause which is not so The Rose is not cold because it is white for the Red-rose is so too Spurge is not hot because it hath a milky juice for so have Lettice Eudive c. which are cold Aloes is not hot because it is bitter for Opium which kills through its coldness is of the same taste They also erroneously attribute the cure of diseases to sympathy to the power of characters words images numbers celestial figures and such other things which have no activity at all and most extraordinary cures are effects of the strength of the Mind which is such that where it believes any thing firmly it operates what it believes and that with efficacy provided the subject on which it acts do not repugne But if it comes to have a firm belief of the effect then it follows far more easily For if the understanding is identifi'd with what it knows why shall it not make things like to it self To which firm belief I refer the magnetick cure of wounds and not to that sympathy of the blood on the weapon with that in the veins since if two parts of the same body be wounded the healing of the one will not suffice to the healing of the other and yet there 's more sympathy between the parts of the same body animated with the same form then they have with a little extravasated blood which hath lost all the dispositions that it had like the whole mass II. Of Anger Upon the second Point it was said That Nature has so provided for the contentment of animals that she has given them not only an appetite to pursue good and avoid evil when both may be done without difficulty but also a different one to give courage to the former and to surmount the difficulties occurring in the pursuite of that good and the eschewance of that evil term'd the Irascible appetite from anger the strongest of its passions which serves to check the pungency of grief as fear and boldness come to the assistance of flight and desire is guarded with hope and despair This is the opinion of Plato who makes three sorts of souls one which reasons another which covets and the third which is displeas'd the former of which he places in the Brain the second in the Liver and the last in the Heart Anger then is a passion of the Irascible Appetite caus'd by the apprehension of a present evil which may be repell'd but with some difficulty It s principle is the soul its instrument the spirits its matter the blood its seat the heart not the will as Cardan erroneously conceiv'd for the actions of the will not being organical make no impressions or footsteps upon the body It proceeds either from a temper of body hot and dry and easie to be inflam'd or from the diversity of seasons times ages and sexes Hence the cholerick and young persons are more inclin'd to it then the phlegmatick and aged because they have a temper more proper to this passion Women and children are easily displeas'd through weakness of spirit as 't is a sign of a sublime spirit not to be troubled at any thing but to believe that as every thing is below it self so nothing is capable to hurt it Which reason Aristotle made use of to appease the choler of Alexander telling him that he ought never to be incens'd against his inferiors but only against his equals or superiors and there being none that could equal much less surpass him he had no cause to fall into anger The Second said That the Faculties extending to contraries the eye beholding both white and black and the ear hearing all sort of sounds only the sensitive appetite is carri'd both to good and evil whether accompani'd with difficulties or not as the will alone is carri'd towards all kind of good and evil And as the same gravity inclines the stone towards its centre and makes it divide the air and water which hinder it from arriving thither so the sensitive appetite by one and the same action is carri'd to good flees evil and rises against the difficulties occurring in either Thus anger and grief are in one sole appetite yea anger is nothing but grief for an evil which may be repell'd For it hath no place when the offender is so potent that there is no hope of revenge upon him although 't is rare that a man esteems so low of himself as not to be able to get reason for a wrong done him or apprehended to be done him this passion as all others being excited by causes purely imaginary Thus a single gesture interpreted a contempt offends more then a thrust with a sword by inadvertency And this the more if the contemners be our inferiors or oblig'd to respect us upon other accounts Which makes the enmities between relations or friends irreconcileable For as a good not foreseen rejoyces more so the injury of a friend displeases us far above one done us by our enemies against whom he seem'd to have some reason who implor'd not so often the aid of Heaven because he said Nature taught him to beware of them as against his friends because he did not distrust them The Third said Anger may be consider'd two ways either according to its matter or its form In the former way 't is defin'd an Ebullition of the blood about the Heart In the latter a desire with grief to be reveng'd for an injury done to himself or his friends whom a man is oblig'd to uphold especially if they be too weak to avenge themselves Injury consists either in deeds or words or gestures The first is the most evident and oftimes least sensible for words offend more because being the image of thoughts they shew us the little esteem made of us
to another till they be come to the last step of the Ladder which is call'd Climax by the Greeks hence the name of Climacterical comes to be given to the years at which these changes are observ'd The most general opinion refers them to that number of seven though some have attributed them to the ninth others to every other second year but especially to the product of the one multiply'd by the other which is sixty three compos'd of nine times seven or seven times nine and therefore the most dangerous For seven and nine as Fermicus Maternus saith being very pernicious of themselves their malignity is conjoyn'd in that number of sixty three call'd upon this account the grand Climacterical as 7 14 21 28 35 41 49. very considerable amongst them for being the square of seven and 56. are call'd less Climactericals but 126. the greatest Climacterical of all because it contains the grand one twice being compos'd of eighteen Septenaries Now all these Climactericals are call'd Hebdomaticks because they go upon seven as those which are counted by nine are call'd Enneaticks amongst which the less are 9 18 27 36 45 and 54 the grand one is again 63 made also of nine multiply'd by seven the rest are 72 81 very notable too for being the square of nine 90 99 and so to the greatest Climaterical 126 made of twice nine Septenaries Amongst all which years 't is further observ'd that those are the most dangerous which ascend either by three weeks or three novenaries of years as 21 42 63 in the Hebdomaticks and 27 54 81 in the Ennecaticks The Second said That as the Septenary is considerable so is that of Nine for the number of the Hierarchies and Celestial Spheres together with the common number of moneths of womens pregnancy the time between the conception and the birth having a great resemblance with the remainder of Man's Life Likewise the Ternary proper to the Deity being multiply'd by it self must contain what ever wonder and efficacy there can be found in numbers since it belongs to innumerable things and nothing can be consider'd but with its three dimensions and its three parts beginning middle and end past present and future hence the assigning of three faces to Janus three names and three powers to the Moon according to its own that of Diana and that of Hecate together with the fiction of three Graces In brief as the three greatest changes came to pass in each of the three times of the world before the Law under the Law and after the Law so it seems just that this ternary number divide the actions of the less world as it hath done of the great The Third said That he accounted it more reasonable to make this division by the quaternary number comprehended in the ineffable name of four Letters the Elements and Humours to the contract or amity of which we owe our health our diseases death and all the accidents of our lives And the slowest motion of the dullest and most malignant of these humours is made in four dayes the reduplication whereof hath given ground to the error which attributes the Crises and indications of diseases to other numbers The fourth day is acknowledg'd the first of Natures motion and serves for a measure and foundation of all others The Crises of diseases are unanimously attributed to the Moon which hath but four quarters distinguish'd by as many faces which being denominated from the quaternary argue its power over that Planet and consequently over every thing that depends upon it And as there are four noble parts in Man comprehending with Galen those which preserve the species so there are four in the world East West North and South four parts of the earth Europe Asia Africa and America and four Monarchies But the considerableness of this number appears in that our Lord having been ask'd five questions namely of the time of his Death his Ascension the Calling of the Gentiles and the destruction of Jerusalem they were accomplish'd in the number of four times ten For he continu'd dead 40 hours he ascended into Heaven at the end of 40 dayes the vocation of the Gentiles typifi'd by the vision of unclean beasts offer'd by the Angel to Saint Peter to eat was at the end of 40 moneths which are about 3 years and a half so long also as Antichrist is to continue and the destruction of Jerusalem came to pass at the end of 40 years Whence some suspect that the end of the world which was another question made to him will probably happen after 40 times 40 years which added to the preceding would fall about the year 1640. Moreover the quaternary is not onely a square number but causing all others to be denominated such the cause of the change which happens in this number is for that a Cube cannot be vari'd and mov'd but with difficulty so that great causes are requisite to produce those changes which producing great effects become more sensible and remarkable then the ordinary ones which more easily cause variation in other numbers remote from the cubick figure The Fourth said That the Prince of Physitians having affirm'd that the Septenary is the dispenser of life and author of all its changes seven must be the true Climacterical For in seven hours the Geniture receives its first disposition to conception in seven dayes it is coagulated in seven weeks it is distinguish'd into members The Infant cannot come forth alive sooner then the seventh moneth and anciently it was not nam'd till after seven dayes being not accounted fully to have life till it had attaind that periodical day The Teeth spring out at the seventh moneth they shed and are renew'd in the seventh year at which time the Child begins to speak articulately and to be capable of Discipline At twice seven years it is pubes At twenty one the beard sprouts forth At twenty eight growing ceases At thirty five a Man is fit for marriage and the warrs At forty two he is wise or never At 49 he is in his Apogee or highest pitch after which he grows old and changes alwayes by Septenaries till he have accomplish'd the years of his life which Hippocrates for this reason distributes into seven Ages The virtue of this Number appears likewise in divine things God having sanctifi'd the seventh day by his own rest and ours and all Nations measuring their time by weeks But 't is not without mystery that Enoch the seventh after Adam was translated into Heaven that Jesus Christ is the seventy seventh in a direct line from the first Man that he spoke seven times upon the Cross on which he was seven hours that he appear'd seven times and after seven times seven dayes sent the Holy Ghost That in the Lords prayer there are seven Petitions contain'd in seven times seven words The Apostles chose seven Deacons All the mysteries of the Apocalypse are within this number mention being there made of seven seals
of the Book of seven horns of the Lamb and seven eyes which are the seven Spirits of God sent throughout all the earth of the seven heads and seven questions of the Dragon of the seven heads of the Woman which are seven hills of seven Kings seven Angels seven Trumpets seven vials seven plagues The Scripture makes mention of seven resurrections to that of our Saviours The 1. of the Widows Son of Sarepta by Elias The 2. of the Shunamite's Son by Elisha The 3. of the Souldier who touch'd the bones of that Prophet The 4. of the Daughter of the Ruler of the Synagogue The 5. of the Widows Son of Naim The 6. of Lazarus And the 7. of our Lord. The Rabbins say that God employ'd the power of this Number to make Samuel so great as he was his name answering in value of the Letters to the Hebrew word which signifies seven whence Hannah his Mother in her thanks to God saith That the barren had brought forth seven Solomon spent seven years in building Gods Temple Jacob serv'd seven years for Leah and as many for Rachel The wall of Jericho fell down at the sound of Joshuah's seven Trumpets after the Israelites had gone seven times about it on the seventh day Nabuchadononosor did penance for his pride seven years amongst the beasts Moreover there are seven Penitential Psalms The Nile and the Danow have seven mouths There are seven hills at Rome Prague and Constantinople Noah entred into the Ark with seven persons and seven pairs of all clean Animals After seven dayes the waters fell from Heaven during seven times seven dayes On the seventh moneth the Ark rested upon the Mountain of Ararat The Ecclesiastes limits mourning to seven dayes There were seven years of plenty and as many of famine in Aegypt There were seven Lamps in the Tabernacle typifying seven gifts of the Spirit The Jews ate unleavened bread seven dayes and as many celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles They let their land rest every seventh year and after seven times seven had their Jubilee The strength of Sampson lay in seven locks of his Hair There are seven Sacraments in the Church as in Heaven seven Planets seven Pleiades seven Stars in the two Bears The Periodical course of the Moon is made in four times seven days at each of which septenaries it changes its face In brief there were seven miracles of the World and seven Sages of Greece There are seven Electors seven liberal Arts seven pairs of Nerves seven Orifices serving for gates to the Senses Natural sleep is limited to seven hours and this Number is by some justly esteem'd the knot or principal band of all things and the symbol of Nature The Fifth said It was not without cause that Augustus was so extreamly fearful of the Climactericals that when he had pass'd his 63d year he writ in great joy to all his friends but he dy'd in the second Climacterick after his 77th year consisting of eleven septenaries which was also fatal to Tiberius Severus T. Livius Empedocles S. Augustin Bessarion as the sixty third was to Aristotle Cicero who also was banish'd in his Climacterick of 49 Demosthenes Trajan Adrian Constantine S. Bernard the blessed Virgin and many others And the next Climacterick of 70 to three of the Sages of Greece to Marius Vespasian Antoninus Golienus David who was also driven from his Kingdom by his Son at his sixty third year and committed his adultery and homicide at his forty nineth both climactericals And as much might be observ'd of the fates and actions of other men were regard had of them Our first Father dy'd at the age of 931 years which was climacterical to him because it contains in it self seven times 133. Lamech dy'd at 777 years climacterical likewise as Abraham dy'd at 175 which contains 25 times seven Jacob at 147 consisting of 21 times seven Judas at 119 made of 17 times seven the power of which Climactericals many make to extend to the duration of States which Plato conceiv'd not to be much above 70 weeks of years The Sixth said That regular changes proceeding necessarily from a regular cause and no motion being exactly regular in all nature but that of the Heavens supposing there be climacterical years and not so many deaths and remarkable accidents in all the other numbers of days moneths and years had they been all as carefully observ'd as some of them have been their power of alteration cannot but be ascrib'd to the celestial bodies That which befalls us every seventh year arises hence as every Planet rules its hour so it makes every day moneth and year septenary beginning by Saturn and ending at the Moon which governs the seventh and therein causes all mutations which acquire malignity by the approach of Saturn presiding again over the eighth which is the cause why births in the eighth moneth are seldom vital II. Of Shame Upon the second Point it was said That the Passions consider evil and good not only absolutely but also under certain differences Desire hath regard to absent good not in general but in particular sometimes under the respect of Riches and then 't is call'd Covetousness sometimes of Honour and then 't is call'd Ambition sometimes of Beauties and then 't is an amorous inclination So grief looks upon present evil if it be in another it causes compassion in us if in our selves and apprehended prejudicial to our honour it causes shame which is a grief for an evil which we judge brings ignominy to us a grief so much the greater in that no offence goes more to the quick then that which touches our reputation It occasion'd the death of a Sophist because he could not answer a question and of Homer because he could not resolve the riddle of the Fishers and of others also upon their having been non-plus'd in publick For as nothing is more honorable then vertue and knowledge so nothing is so ignominious as ignorance and vice nor consequently that makes us so much asham'd being reproaches of our falling short of our end which is to understand and to will and so of being less then men but as Plato said Monsters of nature But amongst all the vices Nature hath render'd none so shameful as that of lasciviousness whereof not only the act but also the gestures and signs cause shame Hence an immodest or ambiguous word and a fix'd look make women and children blush whom shame becomes very well being the guard of chastity and the colour of vertue as it ill becomes old men and persons confirm'd in vertue who ought not to commit any thing whereof they may be asham'd The Second said That shame is either before vice and the infamy which follows it or after both In the first sence shame is a fear of dishonour In the second 't is a grief for being fallen thereinto Neither of the two is ever wthout love of honesty but lies between the two extreams or sottish and rustick
and jet burnt whence the Ancients being about to buy a slave made him snuff up smoak of brimstone to try whether he were not subject to this disease so many Antepileptical remedies cure it but that which proceeds by sympathie from the stomack or other parts more easily then that which is idiopathical and radicated in the brain As the shavings of man's skull not buried drunk with water of Teile-tre and Paeony so contrary to this evil that it cures the same by being hung about the neck II. Whether there be any Art of Divination Upon the Second Point 't was said That Man who alone understands the nature and difference of Time is more solicitous about the future then about the present which is but a moment or the past which concerns him only historically Hence arises his ardent desire of presaging to satisfie which he makes use of every thing in the world Which is an infallible argument of the vanity of this Art of Divination because effects cannot be fore-told by all sorts of causes but onely by those wherewith they have connexion and wherein they are potentially contain'd as leaves and fruits are in the seeds and 't is receiv'd a Maxime that when an effect may be produc'd by sundry causes none of them is the true cause since we cannot from such an effect proceed to the knowledge of its cause Now Divination is not taken here as Hippocrates speaks of it in his Prognosticks when he saith that nothing is makes Physitians more resemble Gods then the foretelling of what will befall and hath already befallen their Patients For there he speaks of the predictions of Physick but here to divine is to affirm an event whereof we see not any cause or probable sign For if by seeing a Rain-bow I prognosticate rain or that a tree will bear fruit when it is well blossom'd or that a sick person that rests ill the night before the seventh day will have a Crisis this is not Divination But if not knowing a prisoner nor his affairs I fore-tell that he will be set at liberty or not that an unknown person will be married and how many Children he will have or such other things which have no necessary nor yet contingent causes known to me this is properly to Divine Whereby it appears that there is no Art of Divination Art being a body of precepts tending to some profitable end whereas were Divination certain it would cause nothing but either despair or negligence and precepts being of things hapning necessarily or most commonly that whose cause we know not cannot be known by precepts And therefore all your Soothsayers Augurs Sorcerers Fortune-tellers and the like are but so many Impostors The Second said That Divination which is a prediction of future things remote from our knowledge is of three sorts Either from God as Prophecy from Devils as Conjuring or from causes purely natural which is Prognostication or Conjecture Prophecy is a divine inspiration whereby one fore-sees and declares remote things infallibly 'T was exercis'd at first by the Priests of the Law with the Vrim and Thummim which were twelve precious stones in the high Priests Ephod and afterwards by the Prophets instructed in dreams or visions whence they were call'd seers Diabolical Divination depends upon some compact either tacite or express with the Devil who being able to declare such things as have appear'd by some outward act as the authors of robberies things lost or such futurities as depend on natural and necessary causes but not such as proceed from causes purely free or contingent the Soothsayers his servants can know no more concerning the same then their Master This Divination is of two sorts The first is call'd Daemonomancy when the Devils themselves give answers out of Caves or Images sometimes by beasts men or most frequently by women rendring oracles by their mouths stomacks or bellies but for the most part ambiguous and doubtful for fear of being mistaken The other is call'd Mangania or Goetia the most detestable species of which is Necromancy which draws answers from the mouths of the dead Others more remarkable are 1. Hydromancy or Divination by water into which they pour drops of oyle or cast three little stones observing the sections of the circles which they describe 2. Lecanomancy by a basin of water at the bottom of which the answers are heard after casting thereinto some plates of Gold and Silver and precious stones engraven with certain characters 3. Gastromancy by glass bottles full of water in which a big-belly'd woman or an innocent child beholds images 4. Catoptromancy by Looking-glasses 5. Crystallomancy by crystal cylinders 6. Dactylomancy by enchanted Rings like that of Gyges 7. Onychomancy by anointing the nail of a child with oyle or tallow and holding it towards the Sun they see in it what they demand 8. Aeromancy by conjurations of the Air. 9. Coscinomancy by a sieve and sizzars All which species of Divination presume either an express or tacite compact with the Devil But there were three without compact 1. Aruspices who drew conjectures from the entrails and motions of beasts sacrificed from the figures made by melted wax cast into water call'd Ceromantie or Daphnomancy from the crackling of burning Lawrel Omphalomancy when by the knots and adhering to the navil and secundines the Mid-wives fore-tell how many Children the new deliver'd woman shall have afterwards Amniomancy foretelling the Childs fortune from the red or livid colour of the coat Amnios Parthenomancy to discover Virginity by measuring the neck or drinking powder'd Agat which she that is no Virgin vomits up again 2. Augures or Auspices who divin'd from birds beasts prodigies and accidents as Pliny reports of the Servilii that they had a piece of brass money which they fed with Gold and Silver and it increas'd when any good was to befall their Family and diminish'd upon some approaching evil 3. Unlawful Lots are Cleromancy which comprehends Homer and Virgil's Lots Alectriomancy by a Cock eating corns of wheat lay'd upon the Letters of the Alphabet Oniomancy by names Arithmancy by numbers Lastly Natural Divination which is Conjecture either taken from the Stars as Judiciary Astrology the Air and its several dispositions the Sea and Trees as when a Plague is fore-told by the flourishing of Roses or Violets in Autumn Animals also supply some presages as Mice running away from an house presignifie its downfall or burning and Sparrows delinquishing a Country denote the Pestilence and infection of the Air. The Third said That the Soul being immortal is also capable of knowing things after the manner of eternity which being a total and simultaneous possession of endless life knows all things at once things future and past as present which knowledge is like that of a man who beholds a whole Army at the same time from the top of a Mountain and that of time in which things are seen successively is like that of him who through a hole sees every
constitution inclines them before the contraction of any habit vertuous or vicious some of courage others of timidity some of modesty others of impudence and as soon as they begin to speak some are lyers others love truth And of two children taught by the same Master the hardest student is many times a less prosicient then the other who hath a temper proper for learning and is as inclin'd to it as another is to Merchandize Mechanicks Travel War or this will be quarrelsome the other respectful and discreet one is born to servitude and the other prefers his liberty before a Kingdom So that not only the moral actions of the will but also those of the understanding absolutely depend on the body the soul being of a spiritual nature which of it self can never produce any sensible effect without the mediation of some body not so much as exercise its proper actions of Willing and Understanding both which depend on the phantasms which are intellectual species fabricated by the agent intellect in the Patient upon the model of those that were brought by the senses into the imagination hence if these be alter'd or deprav'd by the spirits or humous flowing to the brain reasoning becomes either diminish'd or deprav'd or else wholly abolish'd the spirits so confounding these phantasms that the intellect cannot make its reviews nor compose or divide them in order to elicite its conclusions and frame its notions For souls differ only by the spirits the tenuity and lucidity whereof is proper for contemplation their abundance makes a man bold their inflammation renders him frantick their defect causeth sloth and cowardize and being design'd to serve equally to the actions of the soul and body they were made of a middle nature between body and spirit whence they are called spiritual bodies and are the cause of union between them and mutual communication of their passions and affections So the bodies diseases affect the soul and disturb its operations the spirits abandoning the brain to succour the grieved parts the bilious humour in the ventricles of the brain or a tumour and a Sphacelus cause madness the blood overheated causeth simple folly accompani'd with laughter melancholy produceth serious folly In like manner the body resents the passions of the soul fear causeth trembling and paleness shame blushing anger foaming and all this by the spirits The Fifth said If manners depended on tempers vertues might be easily acquir'd by the course of diet which seems ridiculous For then the divine faculties of the soul should depend not only upon meats but upon all other things not natural which would be to subject the Queen to her servants to enslave the will and take away its liberty which makes it to be what it is Besides Theology cannot consist with this conclusion which would acquit persons of blame and lay it upon nature as its author For he that should commit some evil cholerick action or other sin could not avoid it being lead thereunto by the bilious humour produc'd by nature whereunto 't is almost impossible to resist and so he would seem innocent and unjustly punish'd for what he committed not voluntarily though without the will there is no sin Moreover men would not be variable but always the same the bilious always angry the sanguine ever in love c. and yet we see men exercise all sorts of virtues and capable of all vices Many beasts have not only the same constitution of brain but also external shape like that of man as Apes whose bones are so like those of men that in Galen's time Anatomists consider'd only their Sceletons yea the same temper and all internal parts alike as Swine and there 's little or no difference between the brain of man and a calf and yet none of these animals have actions like those of men which being purely spiritual and intellectual must depend upon another cause the rational soul whose actions are not any way organical for then it should be corporeal because proceeding from the body and consequently mortal II. Of Sights or Shews Upon the second Point 't was said That the communication of the ills and goods of the soul and body has put men upon searching what may relieve the languishing strength of either And as the soul is delighted by bodily pleasures so it also in gratitude returns the like pleasure to the body by the contentment which it receives in acquiring knowledge the least laborious of which is that most recreative as that is which is convey'd by the sight For the hearing makes us know things only one after another but the sight shewing them all at once more fully satisfies our natural desire of knowing Hence all people from the highest to the lowest are so delighted with shews or spectacles that the Romans kept Actors and Comedians with publick pensions and Cicero publickly commended Roscius who alone had 12000 crowns for a stipend from the Roman people They employ'd the incomes of the woods about Rome dedicated to their gods for the maintaining of Theatres Amphitheatres Cirques and other places destinated to shews wherein the Senators and Knights had the fourteen first ranks or seats for whose conveniency Q. Catulus cover'd the Scene with veils of sine linen Lucius and Cinna made a versatile or shifting Scene P. Claudius was the first that adorn'd it with pictures and tables C. Antonius cover'd it with silver Murena made one of pure silver Trebonius one guilded others inlay'd with Ivory Nero sprinkled all the place of the Cirque where the horses run with gold-sand and cover'd it with veils beset with stars in form of a sky Heliogabalus made an Euripus of wine at the Circensian plays in which he caus'd a Naval Battle to be represented as if the wickedest Princes could not have cover'd their enormities with a more specious liberality or more agreeable to the people These spectacles were likewise us'd at the funerals of great Princes and made part of their service of the gods They divert the great make the miserable forget their affliction are the true physick of the soul the book of the ignorant and the only way truly to revive the transactions of former ages The Second said Nothing is so destructive to good manners as the frequentation of Theatres and most other spectacles which is the most dangerous for that things represented to the eyes make deeper impression in the mind then by any other sense Which made Aristotle advise the prohibiting of Comedies and S. Augustin declare them contrary to piety and honesty The same is the opinion of all the Fathers particularly Tertullian who in an express treatise blames all sort of spectacles as proceeding from the superstition of Paganism causing troubles and quarrels yea rendring men capable of all sort of wickedness by the impression of their examples For the sights of Mimes and Pantomimes are ridiculous Rope-dancers unprofitable Farces or Enterludes dangerous and enemies to purity Comedy the least dangerous of all sights
sought onely in the continuance of the Suns action during the Spring and half the Summer whereby the Air is hotter then when he was neerer us So 't is hotter at two a clock in the afternoon then at ten in the morning although the Sun be at the same distance yea then at noon although he be then nearest of all and we read that an Ambassador of Presbyter John dy'd with heat as he landed at Lisbone although the heat be not so great there as in his Country but of louger continuance If it rains sometimes during the said season 't is by reason of too great attraction of Vapours by the heat of the Sun as is seen in the torrid Zone where when the Sun is in the greatest Apogaeum it rains continually The Second said That the Longitude of the Dog-star call'd by the Arabians Athabor is at this day about the 9. degr of Cancer and its meridional latitude 39. degr and a half Now the Ancients observing the greatest heat of the whole year to be commonly when the Sun is at the end of Cancer and beginning of Leo and at the same the Dog-star to rise with the Sun which the Astronomers call the Cosmical Rising nam'd those dayes Dog-dayes which begin with us about the two and twentieth of July whether they believ'd the cause of this heat to be that star assisting the Sun or else according to their order of distinguishing seasons before years and moneths were regulated by the course of the Sun they denoted those dayes by the rising of this star conceiving that it did not change place any more then the other stars of the Firmament As not onely the Poets but also Hippocrates distinguishes the four Seasons of the year by the rising and setting of the Pleiades and Arcturus And thus the name of the day hath remain'd to these dayes although the star be not in the same place following Ages observing that besides the eight motions admitted by the Ancients in the Heavens namely of the seven Planets and the First Mover there 's another peculiar to the starry Heaven which is finish'd according to some in 36000 years whereby it comes to pass that the Dog-star is no longer in the same place where it was at the first observation of these Dog-dayes For 't is about two thousand years since this star arose exactly with the Sun in the dayes which we call Canicular the heat whereof hath alwayes continu'd and yet the star hath pass'd forward and at this day rises not with the Sun till about the eighth of August when the Dog-dayes and strength of heat begins to expire Since therefore the effect continues and the pretended cause exists not at that time as the Astronomical Tables justifie it follows that it is not the cause of that effect Wherefore some have conceiv'd that the star which made the Dog-dayes was another star in the little Dog call'd Procyon But this Procyon did not rise with the Sun in the dayes of the Ancients till about the beginning of July which is three weeks before the Dog-dayes which consequently cannot be attributed to the fix'd stars by reason of their particular motion which causes them to vary situation the Dog-star by its proper motion proceeding 52. min. every year which make about 1. degr in 70. years 3. degr in 200. years and one sign in 2000. Besides if the stars had any force the same would be sensible at their coming to the meridian of the place with the Sun then when they rise with him because their greatest strength is when they are under the meridian being then in their greatest elevation above the Horizon and nearest the Zenith and consequently most active as experience shews in the Sun Therefore the true cause of the heat of Dog-dayes is because the Sun being towards the end of Cancer and the beginning of Leo we have more causes concurring together to produce heat then in any other season of the year namely the elevation of the Sun above the horizon the length of the days and shortness of the nights For then the dayes are not sensibly diminish'd nor the nights sensibly encreas'd the Sun hath not yet suffer'd any considerable change in his altitude above the Horizon but above all the preparation of the earth which hath been heated during the three moneths of the Spring and a moneth and half of the Summer whereby all the aqueous humidity which refrigerates is dissipated and the heat so far impacted into the earth that the night it self is less cold then in any other season The Fourth said As 't is absurd to seek in the stars for causes of effects when we see them manifest in the qualities of inferior bodies and the various concourse of so many different natural causes So 't is stupidity to deny all virtue to those great superior orbs rejecting wise Antiquity and all the most learned judiciary Astrologers who ascribe a particular virtue to each star as to the Dog-star to heat and scorch the Air. Moreover the Divine Hippocrates lib. de Affect inter Sect. 5. affirms that the disease call'd Typhos happens commonly in Summer and in these Dog-dayes because it hath a power to stir the choler through the whole Body And in his book De Aere locis aquis he adds that the rising of the stars is diligently to be observ'd especially that of the Dog-star and some few others at which times diseases turn into other kinds for which reason he saith Aph. 5. Sect. 4. That purging is dangerous when the Dog-star rises and some while before The Fifth said That all purging medicaments being hot t is no wonder if they are carefully to be manag'd during very hot weather in which there is a great dissipation of the spirits and strength so that our Bodies being then languid cannot be mov'd and agitated without danger Not that the Dog-star contributes any thing thereunto but onely the heat of the season caus'd by the Sun which attracting from the centre to the circumference and purging from the circumference to the centre there are made two contrary motions enemies to Nature which is the cause that many fall then into fevers and fainting fits II. Of the Mechanicks Upon the Second Point 't was said That as the object of the Mathematicks is two-fold either intellectual or sensible so there are two sorts of Mathematicks Some consider their object simply and abstracted from all kind of matter namely Geometry and Arithmetick others consider it as conjoyn'd to some matter and they are six Astrology Perspective Geodaesie Canonick or Musick the Logistick and the Mechanick Art which is nothing less then what its name imports being otherwise the most admirable of all because it communicates motion which is the most exquisite effect of Nature 'T is divided into Organical which composes all instruments and engines of war sordid which makes utensils necessary to the uses of life and miraculous which performs strange and extraordinary things 'T is this
of the Sun and Moon the former is caus'd by the shadow of the Moon upon the Earth and the latter by that of the Earth upon the Moon by reason of their vicinity For the Sun's course being alwayes in the Ecliptick of the Zodiack which they ordinarily but improperly call a line being rather a plane superficies and a great circle cutting the sphere into two equal parts in which the Sun ascends in his Apogaeum and descends in his Perigaeum The Moon likewise according to her proper motion is found every moneth in the same sign with the Sun which is call'd her Conjunction and makes the New Moon Yet with this difference that she is either in the South or the North in respect of the Sun in the same sign unless when passing from one to another she crosses the Ecliptick wherein the Sun makes his course in the middle of such sign in which intersection is made the Eclipse of the Sun the Moon being then directly between the Sun and our sight This point of intersection is call'd the Dragon's head when she moves from the South to the North and the Dragon's taile when from the North to the South Now forasmuch as the Lunar Body is less then that of the Earth and much less then that of the Sun scarce taking up the latitude of the pyramide form'd by the visual rayes hence the Suns Eclipse is never either total or universal the Moon not being capable to hide the body of the Sun from those who behold him from the Earth in another situation After her conjunction with the Sun she with-draws from him by little and little increasing in roundness and light till she become fully opposite to the Sun at which time half of her Globe is perfectly enlightned and then 't is Full Moon Now because in this perfect opposition the Earth casts its shadow upon that part of the Ecliptick which is opposite to the Sun if in this opposition the Moon happen to cut the Ecliptick she enters into the Earths shadow and becomes darkned by privation of the Suns light So that the Moon is never eclips'd but in her opposition when she is at the Full nor the Sun but at New Moon when she is in conjunction Whence that eclipse of the Sun which appear'd at our Lords death was miraculous the Moon being then naturally unable to eclipse the Sun by her interposition because she was directly opposite to him and at the Full. The Second said That in this common explication of Eclipses the Parallaxes of the Sun and Moon cause many difficulties in their calculations being the cause that the same Eclipse is total to some partial to others none to others and to some sooner and longer then to others besides that 't is requisite to have as many new calculations as there are different places But a general way whereby to explicate Eclipses so perfectly that one single calculation may suffice for the whole Earth and oftentimes for several Eclipses cannot be had without knowledge of the distances magnitudes and shadows of the Sun the Earth and the Moon which are these the Sun is distant from the Earth about 1200. semidiametres of the Earth which amount to almost 2000000. of our leagues The Moon is distant from the Earth near 56. semidiametres of the Earth making about 90000. leagues or the two and twentieth part of the Sun's distance Whence at New Moon the distance of the Moon from the Sun is 109000. leagues and so the Sun is distant from the Earth twenty one times more then the Moon As for the magnitude of these bodies the Diametre of the Sun is about six times as big as that of the Earth and twenty one times as great as that of the Moon and consequently exceeds the one five and the other twenty times Whence it follows that the length of the shadows of the Earth and the Moon being proportionate to their distances from the Sun as their Diametres are to that Excess the shadow of the Earth shall have in length the fifth part of its distance from the Sun namely 400000. leagues and the shadow of the Moon the twentieth part of her distance from the Sun namely 95500. leagues These shadows of the Earth and the Moon are of a conical figure the base whereof is one of the circles of the Earth or the Moon and the cusp is the point remov'd from their bases according to the abovesaid distances Which figure proceeds from the Sun 's being greater then the Moon or the Earth and all three of a round or spherical figure and the conical shadow is a perfect shadow admitting no direct ray from the Sun but there is an imperfect shadow about the same admitting rayes from some parts of the Sun but not from all And as the imperfect shadow diminishes conically so the imperfect increases conically so that the Moons imperfect shadow reaches 90000. leagues which is the distance of the Moon from the Earth occupying round about the perfect shadow near 1000. leagues on each side because 't is in proportion to the Diametre of the Sun as the distance of the Earth from the Moon is to the distance of the Moon from the Sun Now since the shadow of the Moon which is 95500. leagues reaches further then the Moons distance from the Earth which is but 90000. leagues it follows that at New Moon when she is directly between the Sun and the Earth which happens when the Moon is twenty degrees before or after either the head or the taile of the Dragon the point of her shadow reaches to the Earth covering sometimes near 30. leagues round of Earth with perfect shadow which is surrounded with another imperfect one of a thousand leagues And as the Moon by her proper motion passes beneath the Sun from West to East so her shadow traverses the Earth from the West part to the East so that whereever the point of the perfect shadow passes there is a total Eclipse of the Sun and where the imperfect shadow passes the Eclipse is onely partial but greater according as you are nearer the perfect shadow From these consequences may be drawn That the Eclipse of the Sun is seen sooner in the West part of the Earth then in the East by almost five hours which is the time that the shadow of the Moon is crossing the plane of the Earth That one and the same Eclipse of the Sun cannot be seen in all parts of the Earth because though as the shadow moves it crosses from West to East yet it is not large enough to cover the whole Earth from North to South That in one and the same year there are at least two Eclipses of the Sun visible in some parts of the Earth sometimes three and four at most For every half year in which the Sun passes by the Dragon's head if the New Moon be made at the same head there will be an Eclipse which will be total in the torrid zone and partial
likewise by contrary qualities Besides the Spirits being igneous cannot be corrupted and the corruption observ'd sometimes in the humors is not essential to the Pestilence but onely accidental and however but an antecedent cause For if putrefaction were the conjunct cause then putrid Fevers and the Gangrene which is a total putrefaction should be contagious Wherefore it appears that the cause of this diseases are as occult as its effects are sensible and that 't is chiefly in this kind of malady that 't is to be inquir'd as Hippocrates speaks whether there be not something divine Which we are not to understand as he doth concerning what proceeds from the Air seeing God threatens in Ezechiel to cause the third part of his people to dye of the Pestilence as in one night he caus'd all the first born of Egypt to perish and in three dayes under David seventy thousand Israelites The Fifth said That to attribute the cause of the Pestilence to putrefaction without assigning the degree of it is to say nothing more then to recur to the properties of substance and less then to seek it in the divine Divine Justice these terms manifesting our ignorance rather then the thing inquir'd Moreover the signes of this malady are all equivocal and common to other diseases yea oftentimes contrary one to another in some a pulse is violent bleeding at the nose thirst the tongue dry and black delirations purple spots and buboes in others a small pulse vomiting tongue yellow livid and sleepiness And some sick are cur'd by remedies which kill others as by Vomits Purges and bleeding Even of Sudorificks the most sutable to this disease some are temperate and others hor. So that 't is no wonder if a disease so irregular being known to us onely by the relation of people oftimes ignorant the skilful being unwilling to venture themselves makes such havock since the small pox and other diseases would make no less though possibly in longer time if they were as little understood II. Of the wayes of occult writing Upon the Second Point 't was said That the Ancients deservedly reckon'd secrecie amongst their fabulous Deities under the name of Harpocrates the God of silence since 't is not onely as the Poet saith the God of the master of Gods that is Love but the Governour of the mysteries of Religion the Guardian of Civil Society and as the Philosopher speaks the God of the publick and private Fortune which is maintain'd by secrecie the Soul of the state and business whence cyphers and occult ways of writing took their birth The Hebrews were the first that practis'd cyphers of which they had six sorts L'Etbah by transposition of Letters Themurah by their commutation Ziruph by combination and changing of their power Ghilgal by changing of their numeral quotitié Notariaszon putting one Letter or one Syllable for a word and Gematry which is an equivalence of measures and proportions But these sorts of cyphers have been found too troublesome and equivocal and besides more recreative then solid The truncheon encompassed with a thong which was the Laconick Scytale the cypher of the Lacedaemonians that of Julius Caesar who put D for A and E for B and so of the other Letters and the odd figures given by others to the twenty four Letters are too gross to be well conceal'd The Dactylogie of Beda is pretty whereby we speak as nimbly with the fingers as with the tongue taking the five fingers of one hand for Vowels and the several positions of the other for Consonants But it can be us'd onely in presence They talk also of the same way by bells trumpets arquebuses fires torches and other such means but because they depend on the sight and the hearing which act at a certain distance they cannot be useful in all cases The transmission of thoughts and spirits contriv'd by Trithemius and Agrippa and that invention of quadrants whereby some have phancy'd it possible to speak at any distance by help of a Load-stone are as ridiculous as that of Pythagoras to write with blood on a Looking-glass and reflect the same upon the face of the Moon For besides that the Moon is not alwayes in a fit position could a fit glass be found the writing would not be secret because that Luminary is expos'd to the Eyes of all the world No cypher is comparable to that of writing when 't is well contriv'd to which purpose they make use of keys to cypher upon the Alphabets which are infinite depending upon every one's phancy being sometimes either one Letter or one word or altering in the same discourse and at every word Sometimes they divide the discourse and one half serves for a key to the other sometimes they put key upon key and cypher the key it self with other keys They put Naughts at the end of words to distinguish them or every where amongst the Letters to deceive the Decypherer and under these they cypher another hidden sense by other keys yea they insert other Naughts amongst them for a third sense or to cause more difficulty Some make use of numbers abridge or multiply the Alphabet and prepare tables wherein they put three Letters for one In fine humane wit hath left nothing unattempted for the concealment of thoughts under the veil of cyphers of which the most perfect are those which seem not to be such hiding under a known sense and an intelligible discourse an other sense unknown to all others besides the correspondents such is that of Trithemius by those three hundred seventy five Alphabets of significative words each expressing one single Letter The Second said All the several wayes of occult writing depend either upon the matter or the form To the first belong the sending of Swallows Pigeons or other birds as also the inventions of writing with Salt Armoniack Alumn Camphire and Onyon which appear onely at the fire The formal depends upon cyphers which are fram'd either by the fiction of Characters or by their commutation using three or four Letters to write every thing with some dashes or aspirations which yet may be easily decypher'd by reason of the frequent repetition of the Vowels and those which are thought impossible to be discover'd are commonly subject to great ambiguities and so are dangerous The Third said Of the three Authors which have writ concerning this matter Baptista Porta teaches rather to decypher then to cypher and all his inventions are little secrets as to write with Alumn Those of Trithemius are very gross of which nevertheless he hath compos'd three Books the two first intelligible enough but the third so obscure and promising so many miracles that Bellarmine and many others thought it full of Sorceries which yet are nothing but the same secrets mention'd in the two foregoing Books but hid under more suspicious words amongst which that of the Spirit which is very frequent signifies the Alphabet or the Key of the Secret and to look under a stone and
countenance Yet besides this change of the natural colour which is red it hath divers other symptomes whereof the chief are a perverse appetite call'd Malacia or Pica Nauseousness Tension of the Hypochondres faintings and palpitations of the heart difficulty of breathing sadness fear languishing weakness and heaviness of all the members an oedematous humour or bloatiness of the feet and the whole face of which accidents those of the alteration of colour being the most perceptible and the pathognomonical signes of this disease have with the vulgar given the denomination to it This malady is not to be sleighted as people imagine being sometimes so violent that the peccant humours being carri'd to the head render the Maidens distracted and mad yea sometimes they dye suddenly of it the heart and its vital faculty being stifled and oppress'd by it For this symptome hurts not only the functions of one part or faculty but invades the whole oeconomy causing an evil habit which degenerates into a Dropsie especially that which the Physitians call Leucophlegmatia or Anasarca when the flesh like a spunge imbibes and attracts all the aqueous and excrementitious humidities The antecedent and prime cause of this malady is the suppression of the menstrual blood the conjunct and proximate is the collection of crude and vicious humours in all the parts of the body which they discolour Now when the blood which serves in women for the principle of generation becomes burdensom to nature either by its quantity or its quality which happens commonly at the age of puberty she expells it by the vessels of the womb which if they be stop'd that blood mingled for the most part with many other excrementitious humours which it carries along with it as torrents do mud returns the same into the trunk of the hollow Vein from thence into the Liver Spleen Mesentery and other Entrails whose natural heat it impairs and hinders their natural functions as concoction and sanguification and so is the cause of the generating of crude humours which being carried into all the parts of the body are nevertheless assimilated and so change their natural colour Of which causes which beget those obstructions in the Vessels of the Matrix the chief are a phlegmatick and viscous blood commonly produc'd by bad food as Lime Chalk Ashes Coals Vinegar Corn and Earth which young Girles purposely eat to procure that complexion out of a false perswasion that it makes them handsomer Yet this malady may happen too from a natural conformation the smalness and closeness of the aforesaid Vessels whence the fat and phlegmatick as the pale are are more subject to it then the lean and brown The Second said 'T is an opinion so universally receiv'd that the Green-sickess comes from Love that those who fight under his Standards affect this colour as his liveries But 't is most appropriate to Maidens as if nature meant to write in their faces what they so artificially conceal and supply for their bashfulness by this dumb language Whereunto their natural Constitution conduecs much being much colder then that of men which is the cause that they beget abundance of superfluous blood which easily corrupts either by the mixture of some humour or for want of free motion like standing waters and inclos'd air and infects the skin the universal Emunctory of all the parts but especially that of the face by reason of its thinness and softness And as obstructions are the cause so opening things are the remedies of this malady as the filings of Steel prepar'd Sena Aloes Myrrhe Safron Cinamon roots of Bryony and Birth-worth Hysope wild Mecury the leaves and flowers of Marigold Broom flowers Capers c. The Third said That the vulgar opinion that all Green-sickness is from Love is a vulgar errour For though the Poet writes that every Lover is pale yet hatred causes paleness too and the consequence cannot be well made from a passion to a habit Besides little Girles of seven and eight years old are troubled with this disease and you cannot think them capable of love no more then that 't is through want of natural purgation in others after the age of puberty for women above fifty yeers old when that purgation ceases have something of this malady Yea men too have some spices of it sometimes and yet the structure of their parts being wholly different from that of females allows not the assigning of the same cause in both Yea did the common conceit hold good that those who have small vessels and as such capable of obstruction are most subject to it yet the contrary will follow to what is inferr'd to their prejudice For they will be the less amorous because the lesser vessels have the lesser blood which is the material cause of Love to which we see sanguine complexions are most inclin'd II. Of Hermaphrodites Upon the second Point 't was said That if Arguments taken from the name of the thing be of good augury Hermaphrodites must have great advantage from theirs as being compounded of the two most agreeable Deities of Antiquity Mercury or Hermes the Courtier of the Gods and Venus or Aphrodite the Goddess of Love to signifie the perfection of both sexes united in one subject And though 't is a fiction of the Poets that the Son begotten of the Adultery of Mercury and Venus was both male and female as well as that of the Nymph Salmacis who embrac'd a young man who was bathing with her so closely that they became one body yet we see in Nature some truth under the veil of these Fables For the greatest part of insects and many perfect animals have the use of either sex As the Hyaena by the report of Appian one year do's the office of a male and the next of a female as the Serpent also doth by the testimony of Aelian and as Aristotle saith the Fish nam'd Trochus and 't is commonly said that the Hare impregnates it self Pliny mentions some Nations who are born Hermaphrodites having the right breast of a Man and the left of a Woman Plato saith that Mankind began by Hermaphrodites our first Parents being both Male and Female and that having then nothing to desire out of themselves the Gods became jealous of them and divided them into two which is the reason that they seek their first union so passionately and that the sacred tye of Marriage was first instituted All which Plato undoubtedly learn'd out of Genesis For he had read where 't is said before Eves formation or separation from Adam is mention'd That God created Man and that he created Male and Female The Second said That Natural Reason admits not Hermaphrodites for we consider not those who have onely the appearances of genital parts which Nature may give them as to Monsters two Heads four Arms and so of the other parts through the copiousness of matter but those who have the use and perfection of the same which consists in Generation For Nature having
and imperfect and so is a second in Musick Three is the first Male and the first degree of perfection hence a Third is agreeable to the Ear. The Fourth is so likewise because it makes up the Ten. Add 1 2 3 and 4 and you have the grand Number of Ten the Father of all others Also a Fifth pleases the Ear wonderfully because it is an Abridgement of the grand Number and the marriage of the Male and the first Female The other Numbers are useless except the Eighth because Musitians call it Identity or Unity which is a Divine Number or rather no Number nor is the Eighth as delightful as it is accounted by Musitians amongst their Concords The Fourth said That the Reason why some Notes are agreeable and other unpleasing in Musick is because the former move the Faculty of the Soul after a manner sutable to it and the latter do not as we see an Example of it in Ballads and Dances where when the Violin or Minstrel hath sounded a braul which goes well to the cadence not onely the Members of the Dancers comply therewith and follow the same readily but also the Souls seemes to dance with the Bodies so great Sympathy have they with that Harmony But if on the contrary the power of the Soul be otherwise agitated at the same time that Harmony how regular soever will displease us Witness the displeasure taken at cheerful aires by those who are in Mourning to whom doleful notes better agree which on the other side are disagreeable to such as are merrily dispos'd Add hereunto the humour of the Phancy which hath an aversion to some sounds as well as to some smells For as for Discords janglings and other troublesome sounds no other cause of their general inacceptableness ought to be sought then that disproportion and deformity which is sound in things Natural and Artificial the former being more intollerable then the latter because the Eye is not struck with the visible species as the Ear is with sound and can turn away from the Object which displeaseth it which the Ear cannot and is clos'd with much more difficulty CONFERENCE XVIII I. Of the Original of Winds II. Why none are contented with their Condition I. Of the Original of Winds THere is more resemblance then one would imagine between these two poynts The Wind of the Air and that of Ambition to which the discontent of Men with their condition is commonly ascribed As for the First Some have held that all Wind even that which blows upon the Sea comes from the Earth and that the first conjecture which was entertain'd of the Region of the West Indies was taken from the Wind perceiv'd to come from that quarter But the History of Christopher Columbus attributing the discovery to Chance thereof cannot consist with that opinion There is no Meteor whose effects have more of Miracle which is defin'd An Effect whereof no Natural Cause is seen For even the Lightning is seen by the brightness of the fire which accompanies it But the effects of this aim at the highest things which it overthrows and you neither see the Agent nor understand it Yet the Sagacity of Humane Wit is admirable Sins have serv'd to clear Cases of Conscience Arsenick Sublimate and other poysons are converted by Physick into Cauteries and other profitable remedies The Civil Law hath by occasion of evil manners receiv'd addition of good Laws The Winds which drown Ships are so managed by the Art of Navigation which divides them first into four principal North East South West and then into eight by the addition of four half points and hath at length subdivided them into 32. that by their help Men sail upon the main Sea and provide forreign remedies for Physick Sugar and spices for Kitchins and employments for many other professions The Second said That though many causes may agitate the Air yet all of them are not sufficient to raise a Wind but the Air must be agitated by some Fume which is raised either from the Earth and is called an Exhalation or from the Water and is called a Vapour either of which partakes of the Nature of the Element from whence it proceeds A Vapour is moist an Exhalation dry An extrinsecal Heat which predominates in them gives them all their motions and makes them mount on high And because it is the property of Heat alwayes to move and act therefore these Fumes are so long in action as the Heat lasts They arise in company together and are carry'd upwards but are presently separated For the moisture of the Vapour quencheth the Heat which animated it so that the sole absence of the Sun or the occurse of the least Cold depriving the Vapour of the little Heat which was left in it and made it still ascend upwards it becomes more condens'd and falls down in Rain But an Exhalation hath a greater degree of Heat which is render'd more active by the driness and tenacity of the matter Therefore it ascends till it meets with the Air of the Middle Region which is thick and congeal'd by which being hinder'd â—o pass further it seeks a passage on one side or the other Many times when it strives to rise higher it becomes engag'd among Clouds which inclose it on all sides Being thus inclos'd and straitned it becomes united together and thereupon being inflam'd breaks the Clouds and causes Thunder or if it â—ind less resistance towards the Earth it descends with violence to the place from whence it arose and makes Whirl-winds But if such Exhalation have not time enough to mount as far as the Middle Region as it happens most frequently but as soon as it is drawn up be hinder'd and inclos'd by the Vapour turn'd into thick and cold Air in the Lower Region of the Air then Winds are produc'd in this manner This Exhalation being unable to mount upwards because the whole Region is full of thick Air which resists it it must go either on one side or other wherefore it tends that way where it meets least resistance And whereas there are certain seasons wherein the Air is sometimes less thick towards the South others wherein it is so towards the North and the other quarters of Heaven thence it is that the Winds blow there most usually Moreover the reason why the Wind hath a kind of whistling is because the Exhalation clasheth with violence against that thick Air. Hence also it is that Winds are more ordinary in the Night and about Evening because in those times the Vapour looseth its Heat through the Suns absence and so being become a thick Air better incloseth the Exhalation and resisteth the same with more force But as the Air which issueth out of our Lungs is hot yet if it be sent forth with some little violence it becometh cold So though the Exhalation which causeth Wind be never without Heat yet we never feel the Wind hot Not that the Air loseth its Heat by motion
and the holiest mysteries of Religion not onely by the Delians who accompany'd all their prayers with dancing and the Indians who ador'd the Sun by dancing and imitating the course of that luminary but also by the Prophet David before the Ark and by Saul who being full of the Spirit of God fell to dancing with the Children of the Prophets as also did Miriam the sister of Moses Judith when she had kill'd Holofernes and infinite others in testimony of their thanksgiving to God The Muses themselves are painted by the Poets dancing about their fountain upon Mount Helicon Apollo is call'd dancer by Pindar and the Graces are represented dancing Proteus so celebrated by the Poets became famous onely by this Art and which he so excell'd that his nimble in strange postures gave occasion to the fable of turning himself into all kind of shapes because sometimes he counterfeited the fluidity of the water sometimes the lightness of fire the bending of trees the rage of the Leopard the cruelty of the Lyon and in brief the nature of every sort of things The Third said That Dancing is compos'd of three parts Motion Gesture and Indication For there is first a stirring up and down then a representing things by the Gestures of the Body chiefly by the Hand which Art is call'd Chironomy and those which are expert in it Chirosophers that is wise by the Hands Hence Dancing is defin'd a motion of the Body according to rule and number imitating by gesture things or persons either with singing or without As Motion 't is very delightful to Nature which is as much pleas'd therein as rest is disagreeable to it Nor is it less so as it includes an harmonious proportion of measure having this correspondence with Musick Poetry Eloquence Painting Comedy and all other Arts whose end is the delight of man But as it is an imitation it delights marvellously we loving nothing so much as to imitate or to see some thing imitated Hence works of Art please us more then those of Nature because Art doth nothing but imitate her Besides its delightfulness 't is also profitable and honest It s usefulness is sufficiently known to Physitians who make it a part of their Gymnastick Physick which treats of the exercises and motions prescrib'd in order to health and is divided into Palestrical and Saltatory Moreover Galen affirms that he cur'd many Patients by appointing them to dance which is an exercise of all parts of the body whereas walking exercises onely the legs riding the intestines bowling the reins going by ship the stomack and brain 'T is also very honest or decorous since it formes and fashions the body giving it a good grace one of the principal points of handsomeness For the Soul having the Sciences to instruct the Understanding and the Moral Virtues to rectifie the Will the body its dear partner needs some habit to regulate its defects the rather because they have influence upon the Soul it being very difficult for the motions of the Soul to be regular so long as those of the body are not Therefore Plato in the seventh book of his Laws requires that the instructers of youth have equally care of the body and the soul and for this purpose teach them Musick to regulate the motions of the Soul and dancing to frame those of the body and give it gracefulness as wrastling gives it strength CONFERENCE LXVII I. Of Death II. Of the Will I. Of Death AS Being is the first and greatest good because the foundation of all other goods so speaking absolutely upon a natural account the first and greatest of all evils is the privation of that Being which is Death so terrible that not onely brutes abhor the sight of their dead fellows through fear of the same death of which they behold an image of their carcases but men likewise although their name of Mortals be a token of the necessity of their dying yet use all the vain attempts they can to avoid that death which they fear as the most terrible of terrble things Yea all their great and violent actions and passions take their source from this fear which is so much greater as the evil is phancy'd nearer Whence old or sick persons have more apprehension of it then then those that are young and in health The vulgar commonly labours onely through fear of starving A man that is decrepit yet is willing to part with a limb if he may by the loss respite his death apprehended so terrible by some that the fear of it has kill'd some criminals before execution and carry'd others to such madness as to kill themselves for fear of dying Nevertheless he that shall consider Death more nearly will find that being but a privation it is nothing and that what we fear so much is onely the way to this death or the sequel of it the former in respect of irrational animals and both in reference to man who apprehends in the other life the judgement of the actions of this Otherwise Death being onely a poynt and a moment which hath neither quantity nor extent but approaches to Nothing hath therefore nothing in it self for which it ought to be feared For so long as the Animal hath sense it is not dead and so soon as 't is dead it hath no more And because 't is a motion and passage from Being to not Being between which two there is no medium or middle therefore 't is a pure nothing and consequently hath no foundation saving in the troubled Phancy Since upon due perpension of things that which is not is no-wise to be fear'd by those that are insensible yea that exist no more The Second said That to maintain Death to be nothing is to accuse not onely all men of folly in fearing what exists not and consequently is not capable of producing any effects or passions but likewise Nature of imprudence in having imprinted this apprehension in all creatures for their preservation As therefore Reason and Experience teach us that there are substantial generations so the same shew us the true and substantial corruptions of all compounds which corruption in a thing endu'd with life is call'd Death which is the separation of the Soul from the Body For the Platonists are ridiculous when they make two kinds of this separation namely that of the Soul from the Body which they call Extasie and that of the Body from the Soul which alone they say is to be call'd Death For they are both one and the same thing and Extasie is not a separation of essence but of power hapning when the Soul is so glu'd to an object in the contemplation whereof it employes all its powers that there remains none for corporeal functions the Eyes not perceiving what is then presented to them Whence the Soul being more where it loves then where it lives is also more where it understands Now Death is either natural or violent The former caus'd by the consumption
of the radical moisture of plants and animals For they alone are capable of dying as they are of living what they attribute to Fire the Load-stone and some other inanimates being purely Metaphorical Violent death is produc'd either by internal causes as diseases or by external 'T is caus'd by destroying the harmony of the parts and humours which constituted life after which destruction the Soul not finding the organs longer meet for exercising its functions as Fire that wants unctuous and combustible humidity forsakes its matter to retire into its own sphere And though the corruption of one be the generation of another there being no matter but hath alwayes some form as Bees are generated out of dead Oxen yet there is this distinction that the progress of a form less noble to one that is more is call'd generation or life as when an Egg is made a chick but when this progress is made from a more noble form to a less as from a man to a carcase then 't is call'd Corruption and Death if the form preceding were vital Thus all are wayes of Death which lead to corruption The first of these wayes is life for nothing comes under its Laws but is subject to those of Death considering the wayes that we dye as we are borne and that our end depends on our original as there is no harmony but must end in discord the latter note not being capable to accord with the first rest which is the end or death of harmony whereunto our life is not onely compar'd but may be fitly defin'd by it that Galen enlightned by Reason alone conceiv'd the Soul to be nothing else The Third said That onely in the death of men there is a separation of the Soul from the Body seeing that after the death of animals and plants there still remain faculties in their bodies which cannot depend on the sole mistion of the Elements but must be referr'd to some internal principle which can be no other then their Soul Yet with this difference that as during life these faculties were as formes in their matter so after death they are as substances in their place though without any activity for want of necessary dispositions which return afterwards by generation or the action of the celestial bodies producing wormes and other animals which come of themselves and never but from a nature formerly animated not receiving by this new generation any substantial form but onely making the Soul appear which was kept as 't were buried before this resuscitation Thus the death of plants and beasts is the privation of their vegetative and sensitive actions the principle of those actions alwayes remaining But that of men besides this privation of their actions causes the dissolution of the Soul from the Body which is properly death The inevitable necessity whereof is by Avicenna deriv'd from four chief causes I. From the Air which alters and dryes us II. From our own heat which by accident destroyes it self III. The continual motion of our bodies furthers the dissipation of that heat IV. The various Inclination of the Elements some of which are carry'd upwards others downwards and so break the union which preserves our life Albert the Great assignes a fifth cause namely the contrariety of forms and qualities death happening when humidity hath given place to drynesse But because this excesse of drynesse might be corrected by its contrary therefore the Moderns lay the fault upon the radical moisture Which some of them say we receive from our Parents and is continually impair'd without being at all recruited from the birth But this is absurd for then the Son must have infinitely lesse then his Father because he receives but a very small portion which besides cannot be distributed through a great body nor afford supply to so many actions Others more probably affirm that the Humidum which is repair'd is not of the same purity with that which we derive from the principles of our birth by reason of reaction and its being continually alter'd by our heat But that which indubitates this reason is that the Elements do not maintain themselves but by reaction notwithstanding which they cease not to be alwayes in the same state Fire as hot Air as moist as ever it was Inasmuch as the substantial forms expell all Qualities which are not suitable to themselves and recover their natural ones without other assistance Moreover when old men beget children they communicate to them an excellent radical humidity otherwise there would be no generation and consequently they can do as well for themselves as for their posterity But if they give them such as is bad and corrupt it follows that their children who live after their death re-produce much better by their nutrition then that which they had receiv'd and consequently the radical humidity may not onely be repair'd but meliorated And there 's no reason why an exact course of dyet may not keep a man from dying as the Chymists promise I had therefore rather say that as the union of the Soul with the Body is unknown to humane wit so is their disunion which I ascribe rather to the pleasure of the supreme Ruler who causes us to abide sentinel as long as he thinks meet then to any natural thing which is the reason why those that deprive themselves of life are justly punish'd because they dispose of what is not their own although it seemes to the vulgar that they do wrong to none but themselves because 't is by their own will and act The Fourth said What is compos'd of contraries between which there is continual action necessarily receives sundry changes and alterations in its being which by degrees bring it to a total corruption This is conspicuously seen in the life of man the ages and all other mutations whereof are as so many steps towards death 'T is the most worthy employment of a man to consider that he dyes every day For as Seneca saith that which deceives us is that we consider death as afar off whereas a great part of it is already pass'd for it already possesses all the time that we have been which is the cause that instead of employing our time profitably we consume a great part of it in doing nothing a greater part in doing ill and all in doing other things then ought to be which proceeds from not thinking often enough upon death as which no Preacher is so powerful For the fear it imprints in the soul vertue it self cannot wholly eradicate the sole aspect of the shades of the dead or their voices imprinting paleness upon the countenance of the most resolute Therefore the Philosopher holds that the fear of death is not only competible with courage but that he who fears it not at all rather deserves the name of mad then valiant The Fifth said That they who have had recourse to death to deliver themselves from their miseries as Brutus Cato his daughter Portia and some others have