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
Others dying with laughter That some pass through others without mixing therewith That others are so ponderous that no Body whatsoever can sink to the bottome Some on the contrary are so light that nothing can swim upon them and infinite other such proprieties 'T is that which seemes to surpass ordinary Ratiocination Of this kind is that which is said of a certain River in Sicily the Water whereof cannot be brought to mingle with Wine unless it be drawn by a chaste and continent Woman To which was added for a conclusion that if the Water of Seine had this property we should be many times in danger of drinking our Wine unmixt The Second said That nothing could be more natural and methodical then to treat of Water after Air. For as in the Composition of a Mixt Body the moisture which is predominant in the Air unites and knits the matters which are to be mixed So the Cold which predominates in the Water closes them and gives them consistence And as in Drawing and Painting the Embroiderer and Painter passeth not from one light colour to another without some intermediate one but he loseth the same insensibly in another more duskish out of which the bright breaketh forth again by little and little to the middle of his ground So Nature doth not pass immediately from the extreme humidity which is in the Air to the extreme coldness which is in the Water but causeth that the moisture of the former abateth its great vigour at the approach of the moisture which is in the Water in a weak and remiss degree before it meet with the Cold of the Water whereunto it is to be joyned Without which humidity of the Water in a weak and remiss degree the Cold could not compact the parts which the moisture united So that this humidity is found in two Subjects one subtile which is the Air the other more gross which is the Water As it happens also in the Fire which is partly in a rare Subject namely the fat and unctuous vapour whereby it flameth and partly in another solid and gross which is Wood Iron or Coal As Flame it is more apt to shine and burn penetrating the pores of the wood to find its Aliment there which is the interior Oyle As Coal it acts more powerfully and is more durable So if there were in the Mixt Body no other humidity but that of the Air the same inconvenience would befall it that doth a Conquerour who having subdu'd a Country reserveth no place of Retreat for the keeping thereof For at the first opposition which he meeteth he is constrain'd to let go his hold So if moisture were not in the Air it would indeed penetrate the Compounded Bodies still as it doth as readily but it would suddenly dislodge again if it had not its refuge in the Water which is more proper to preserve it The Third said That Water cannot be cold in the highest degree First because if it were so it could generate nothing Cold being an Enemy to all Generation because it locketh up the particles within As on the contrary Heat is the Proximate Cause thereof by the extension and attraction which it causeth outwards Nevertheless we see Plants and Animals in the Waters Secondly If it were so cold being moist too it would be alwayes frozen since according to Aristotle Ice is nothing but an excess of coldness with moisture Thirdly Those qualities which are attributed to Water are common to many other things besides As to the Air when it is cold and do not necessarily belong to it but may be separated from it since remaining Water still it may become hot by the Fire and frozen by the Air and so be found destitute of its fluidity and humidity If it be said That it loseth not its qualities but by accident and that of its own Nature it is cold I answer That the Natural and Necessary Proprieties of Things proceding immediately from their Essence such as those of Water are held to be cannot be taken from them but by Miracle And on the contrary That it is not cold but by the vicinity of the cold Air which encompasseth it and not of its own Nature Whence the surface of the Water is cold in Winter and sometimes frozen the bottome remaining warm And therefore the Fish do not come much to the upper part of the Water in Winter but stay below where it is in its own Nature and is not so easily alter'd with forrein qualities Moreover since we know the Qualities of a Thing by its Effects the Effect of Water being even in the Judgement of Sense to moisten more then any of the Elements it ought to be held the Chief or First Humid Body If it be said that it moistneth more then the Air because it is more gross and compact as hot Iron burneth more then flame I answer That although it may owe that humidity to the thickness of its Matter yet the same is not the less essential to it since Matter is one part of the Element And besides it proceedeth from the Form too since it can never be separated from it Water alwayes necessarily moistning whilst it is Water Which cannot be said of its coldness for when it is warm it doth not lose its name of Water though it be no longer cold but it is alwayes moist The Fourth said That to speak properly Water is never hot in it self but 't is the Fire insinuating and mingling it self with the little Particles of the Water that we feel hot and accordingly that Fire being evaporated the Water not onely returneth to its natural quality but also the Fire leaving its pores more open renders them more accessible to the Air which freezes the same in Winter sooner then it would do otherwise And this is no more then as Salt and Sulphureous Waters are made such by the Salt and Sulphur mingled therewith Which being separated from them they lose also the taste thereof And as Wine mingled with Water is still truly Wine and hath the same Virtue as before though its activity be repress'd by the power of the Water So Water mingled with Salt Sulphur and Fire is true Water and hath intrinfecally the same qualities as before that mixture though indeed its action be retarded and its qualities be checked and rebated by the other contraries which are more powerful In like manner Water is not cold of it self but by the absence of Fire As it happens in Winter that the igneous beams of the Sun not staying upon the Water it persisteth cold and so that coldness is but a privation of heat As appears in the shivering of an Ague which proceedeth from the retiring of the natural heat inwards and deserting the external parts But if there happen a total privation of those igneous parts which are infus'd into it mediately or immediately by the Sun then it becometh frozen And because those fiery Particles occupied some space in its Body
becomes oblig'd by the various contingencies of War when the Leaders miscarrying or being elsewhere employ'd the Souldier must supply the place of Captain to his Companions and himself This hath mov'd almost all the Oriental Nations and particularly the Turks to abstain from Wine though they also adjoyn reasons for it drawn from their false Religion to confirm their Minds more in conformity to this piece of Policy Therefore Mahomet to induce them to it by their own experience invited the principal Persons of his Army to a Feast where he caus'd them to be served with the most exquisite Wines First they all agreed upon the Excellency of Wine but having taken too much of it there arose such a tumult amongst them that he took occasion thence the next morning to represent to them that Wine was nothing else but the Blood of the first Serpent whose colour it also beareth as the stock of the Vine which produceth it retaineth the crooked form of that vile Animal and the rage whereinto it putteth those that use it doth testifie And to content them that still lov'd the taste of it he promis'd them that they should drink no-nothing else in their Paradise where their Bodies would be proof against its violence Which Prohibition hath been the most apparent cause of the amplification of his Empire and propagation of his Sect not onely because Wine was by its acrimony dangerous to the most part of his Subjects of Africa and Arabia where such as are addicted to it are subject to the Leprosie and that his people who cultivated Vines might employ themselves more profitably in tilling the Earth but principally it hath been more easie for him and his successors to keep 200000 men of War in the field without the use of Wine then for another Prince as potent as he to keep 50000 with the use of Wine which besides is difficult to transport and incumbreth the place of Ammunition which is absolutely necessary The Third said That Mahomet was not the first that prohibited Wine for before him Zaleucus forbad the Locrians to drink it upon pain of Death The Lacedemoniaus and the Carthaginians as Aristotle reporteth had an express Law by which they forbad the use of it to all people that belong'd to War And the wise man counselleth onely the afflicted to drink it to the end to forget their miseries But for all this he conceiv'd that it ought not to be prohibited now to our Souldiers since it augmenteth Courage envigorateth strength and taketh away the fear of danger though indeed it is fit to forbid them the excess thereof if it be possible In Conclusion It was maintain'd that Wine ought to be forbidden not onely to Souldiers but to all such as are of hot and dry tempers and use violent exercises because it hurts them as much as it profits weak persons Wherefore Saint Paul counselleth Timothy to use it for the weakness of his stomack But God inhibited it to the Nazarens and to those which enter'd into his Tabernacle under pain of death Moreover you see that Noah who us'd it first abus'd it And anciently it was to be had onely in the shops of Apothecaries because 't is an Antidote and most excellent Cordial provided its continual use render not its virtue ineffectual our Bodies receiving no considerable impression from accustomed things Therefore Augustus gave ear to all the other complaints which the Romans made to him but when they mention'd the dearness of Wine he derided them telling them that his Son in Law Agrippa having brought Aquaeducts to the City had taken care that they should not dye of Thirst. At the Hour of Inventions amongst many others these two were propos'd The first to prepare common Water so that it shall dissolve Gold without the addition of any other Body c. The second to make a Waggon capable to transport by the help of one Man who shall be in it the burdens of ordinary Waggons in the accustomed time of which the Inventers deliver'd their Memories and offer'd to make the experiments at their own charges These Subjects were propounded to be treated of at the next Conference First The Earth Secondly What it is that makes a Man wise CONFERENCE IX I. Of the Earth II. What it is that makes a Man wise I. Of the Earth UPon the first Point it was said That the Earth is a simple Body cold and dry the Basis of Nature For since there is a Hot and Moist it is requisite for the intire perfection of Mixts that there be a Cold and a Dry to bound them and give them shape This Earth then upon which we tread is not Elementary for it is almost every where moist and being opened affordeth water which was necessary to it not onely for the union of its parts which without moisture would be nothing but Dust but also in regard of its gravity which I conceive cometh from humidity because as the lightest things are the hottest and driest so the heaviest are usually the coldest and moistest Besides gravity proceeding from compactedness and compactedness from moisture it seemeth that moisture is the cause of gravity Which is prov'd again by the dissolution of mixt Bodies whereby we may judge of their composition For the heaviest Bodies which are easily dissolvable are those from which most Water is drawn whence it is that there is more drawn from one pound of Ebeny then from twenty of Cork From this gravity of the Earth its roundness necessarily follows For since 't is the nature of heavy things to tend all to one Centre and approach thereto as much as they can it follows that they must make a Body round and spherical whereof all the parts are equally distant from the Centre For if they made any other Figure for Example a Pyramide or a Cube there would be some parts not in their natural place i. e. the nearest their Centre that might be Moreover in the beginning the Earth was perfectly spherical and the Waters encompassed it on all sides as themselves were again encompassed by the Air. But afterwards these Waters to make place for Man retiring into the hollows and concavities made for that purpose in the Earth it could not be but that those parts of the Earth which came out of those cavities must make those tumours which are the Mountains and Hills for the convenience of Man And nevertheless it ceaseth not to be Physically round although it be not so Mathematically As a bowle of Pumice is round as to the whole though the parts are uneven and rough They prove this roundness 1. By the shadow of the Earth which appearing round in the Eclipses of the Moon argueth that the Body whence it proceedeth is also round 2. Because they who travel both by Sea and by Land sooner discern the tops of Mountains and the spires of Steeples then the bottome which would be seen at the same time if the Earth were flat 3. Because according as
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
into Water but this moist Air is full of damp vapours which are nothing but Water rarifi'd and which meeting with those cold and solid Bodies are condens'd and return'd to their first Nature Wherefore the Air is so far from being the cause of so many Springs and Rivers which water the Earth that on the contrary all the Air in the world provided it be not mixt with Water cannot make so much as one drop It is more probable that in the beginning of the world when God divided the Elements and the Waters from the Waters which cover'd the whole surface of the Earth he gather'd the grossest and most unprofitable water into one mass which he called Sea and dispersed through the rest of the Earth the fresh Water more clear and pure to serve for the necessities of the Earth Plants and living Creatures Moreover the Scripture makes mention of four great Rivers issuing out of the terrestrial Paradise and a Fountain in the middle of it which water'd the whole surface of the Earth from the Creation In not being possible that Air resolv'd into Water could make so great a quantity of waters in so little time The Fifth added That those Waters would soon be dry'd up without a new production for which Nature hath provided by Rain which falling upon the Earth is gather'd together in Subterraneous Cavernes which are as so many Reservers for Springs according to Seneca's opinion This is prov'd 1. Because in places where it rains not as in the Desarts of Arabia and Aethiopia there is scarce any Springs on the other side they are very frequent in Europe which aboundeth with rain 2. Waters are very low in Summer when it rains but little and in Winter so high that they overflow their banks because the season is pluvious 3. Hence it is that most Rivers and Springs break forth at the foot of Mountains as being but the rain water descended thither from their tops The Sixth said That it is true that Rivers are increased by Rain but yet have not their original from it For were it so then in great droughts our Rivers would be dry'd up as well as the Brooks As for Springs they are not so much as increas'd by Rain for we see by experience that it goes no deeper into the earth then seven or eight feet On the contrary the deeper you dig the more Springs you meet with Nor is the Air in my judgement the cause thereof there being no probability that there is under the earth cavernes so spacious and full of Air sufficient to make so great a quantity of Water since there needs ten times as much Air as Water to produce it Neither can the Sea be the cause of Springs since according to the Maxime of Hydraulick Water cannot ascend higher the place of its original but if Springs were from the Sea then they could not be higher then the level thereof and we should see none upon the tops of Mountains Now that the Sea lies lower then Springs and Rivers is apparent because they descend all thitherwards The Seventh said That Waters coming from the Sea and gliding in the bowels of the Earth meet with Subterranean Fires which are there in great quantity whereby they are heated and resolv'd into Vapours These Vapours compos'd of Water and Fire mounting upwards meet some Rocks or other solid Bodies against which they stick and are return'd into Water the Fire which was in them escaping through the Pores of those Bodies the Water trickles forth by the clefts and crevisses of the Rocks or other sloping places The Eighth said That as Art can draw forth Water by Destillation Expression and other wayes taught by Chymistrie so by stronger reason Nature cannot want wayes to do the same and possibly in divers sorts according to the various disposition of places and of the matter which she employes to that use II. Whether there is any Ambition commendable Upon the Second Subject it was said That there is some correspondence between the two Questions for as Water serves for a Medium of Union in natural Composition so Ambition serves to familiarise pains and dangers in great enterprizes For it makes Children strive to get credit in little exercises and Men think nothing so high but may be soar'd to by the wings of Ambitior Juvenal indeed gives Wings to necessity when he saith A Hungry Greek will fly up to Heaven if they command him and Virgil saith Fear adds Wings to the heels of the terrifi'd but those of Ambition are much more frequent in our Language 'T is true Ambition may many times beat and stretch forth its Wings but can no more exalt it self into the Air then the Estrich Sometimes it soars too high as Icarus did and so near the light that it is burnt therein like Flyes For the ambitious usually mounts up with might and main but thinks not how he shall come down again This Passion is so envious that it makes those possess'd therewith hate all like themselves and justle them to put them behind Yea it is so eager that it meets few obstacles which yield not to its exorbitant pertinacy insomuch that it causeth Men to do contrary to do what they pretend and shamefully to obey some that they may get the command over others The importunateness of Ambition is proof against all check or denyal and the ambitious is like the Clot-burr which once fastned upon the clothes is not easily shaken off When he is once near the Court neither affronts nor other rubs can readily repell him thence And because his Essence consists in appearance he many times wears his Lands upon his back and if he cannot at once pride himself in his Table his Clothes and his Train yet he will rather shew the body of a Spaniard then the belly of a Swiss At his coming abroad he oftentimes picks his teeth while his gutts grumble he feeds upon aiery viands When he ha's been so lucky as to snap some office before he ha's warm'd the place his desires are gaping after another He looks upon the first but as a step to a second and thinks himself still to low if he be not upon the highest round of the ladder where he needs a good Brain lest he lose his judgement and where it is as hard to stand as 't is impossible to ascend and shameful to descend Others observing That Honour is like a shadow which flyes from its pursuers and follows those that flie it have indeed no less Ambition then the former for I know no condition how private soever that is free from it but they artificially conceal it like those who carry a dark Lanthorn in the night they have no less fire then others but they hide it better They are like Thieves that shooe their Horses the wrong way that they may seem by their steps to come from the place whither they are going or else like those who hunt the Hyena This Beast loves the voice
not attribute this impediment of generation to charms and enchantments but rather to the power of the Imagination which is of great moment in this case as we see also in Love or Hatred which though by several ways render a man incapable of this action For if one be sollicited by a woman whom he thinks unhandsome and hates he cannot satisfie her because sadness makes his spirits to retire Another being surpriz'd with the enjoyment of some rare beauty becomes alike impotent because joy dissipates the same spirits The desire of doing well and the fear of failing are also frequently obstacles to it witness the impotence of Ovid Regnier the man mention'd in Petronius the Count spoken of by Montague and many others Now these passions making an impression in the Phancie disturb and hinder it from moving the Appetite and consequently the motive faculties depriving them by this means of their ordinary functions The Third said There are two sorts of Impotence one natural and the other supernatural The first happens two ways either through want of matter which is the geniture and spirits or through defect of emission The former not to mention the parts serving to generation happens through the extinction of virility and that by reason of old age sickness violent exercises aliments or medicaments cold and dry and generally by all causes which dissolve the strength and dissipate the spirits and flatuosities as Rue according to Aristotle The second defect proceeds from the obstruction of the Vessels or from a Resolution or Palsie befalling the foresaid parts That which is supernatural is acknowledg'd according to the Canon by the practise of the Church which ordains the two parties to be unmarried if at the end of three years they cannot undo this Gordian knot in the presence of seven witnesses It is made by Sorceries and charms which indeed have no action of themselves yet when men make use of them the Devil according to a compact either tacite or express acts with them imploying to that end the natural things whereof he hath perfect knowledge and hinders generation in two manners either by disturbing the phancie with some images and species of hatred and aversion or else by suspending the generative faculty by the dissipation of flatuosities retention of spirits and concretion of the geniture Now natural impotence is discern'd from supernatural because the first is alwayes alike towards all sort of persons but the second is onely in reference to some particular Woman the Man being well enough dispos'd for all others But change is to no purpose when the impotence is natural The Fourth said That Ligature is a subverting of the order establish'd in order by which all things are destinated to some particular action and are lead to what is sutable for them 'T is an impediment whereby the actions of agents as it were repress'd and restrain'd and 't is either Physical or Magical The former proceeds from a particular Antipathy between two Agents the stronger whereof by some occult contrary property extinguishes and mortifies the virtue of the weaker Thus Garlick or a Diamond hinder the Loadstone from attracting Iron Oyle keeps Amber from drawing straw and the spirits of the Basilisk fix those of a Man The second of which kind is the tying of the Point is done by Magick which thereunto employes certain words images circles characters rings sounds numbers ointments philtres charmes imprecations sacrifices points and other such diabolical inventions but especially barbarous names without signification yea sometimes to that degree of impiety as to make use of sacred things as the divine appellations prayers and verses taken out of the Holy Scripture which it prophanes in its charmes and fascinations Because as Saint Augustine saith the Devils cannot deceive Christians and therefore cover their poyson with a little honey to the end that the bitterness being disguis'd by the sweetness it may be the more easily swallow'd to their ruine These Magical Ligatures if we may credit those who treat of them are almost infinite For there are some particularly against Thieves restraining them from carrying away any thing out of the house others that hinder Merchants from buying or selling in certain Faires and retain ships in the Port so that they cannot get out to sea either by wind or oars or keep a mill from grinding the fire from burning the water from wetting the Earth from producing fruits and upholding buildings swords and all sorts of weapons and even lightning it self from doing mischief dogs from biting or barking the most swift and savage beasts from stirring or committing hurt and the blood of a wound from flowing Yea if we believe Virgil there are some which draw down the Moon to the Earth and effect other like wonders by means for the most part ridiculous or prophane Which nevertheless I conceive are to be referr'd either to natural causes or to the credulity of those who make use of them or to the illusions of the Devil or to the hidden pleasure of God sometimes permitting such impostures to deceive our senses for the punishing of the over-great curiosity of Men and chastising of the wicked For I see not what power of action there is in a number even or odd a barbarous word pronounc'd lowdly or softly and in a certain order a figure square or triangular and such other things which being onely quantities have not any virtue power or action for these belong onely to Qualities The Fifth said That we ought not to do as the vulgar do who refer almost every thing to supernatural causes If they behold a Tempest or Lightning fall down upon any place they cry the Devil is broke loose As for effects which are attributed to Occult Properties 't is Sorcery as they say to doubt that the same are other then the works of Sorcerers But we must rather imitate true Philosophers who never recurr to Occult Properties but where reasons fail them much less to supernatural causes so long as they can find any in nature how abstruse soever they may be Those of this knot or impotence are of three sorts Some proceed from the want of due Temper as from too great cold or heat either of the whole constitution or of the parts serving to generation For a good Temperature being requisite to this action which is the most perfect of any Animal immoderate heat prejudices the same as much as cold because it dries the Body and instead of producing consumes the Spirits The Second Cause is in the Mind for the Body is of it self immoveable unless it be agitated by the Soul which doth the same office to it that a Piper doth to his instrument which speaks not a jot if he blow not into it Now the Phancy may be carri'd away else where or prepossess'd with fear or some other predominant passion Whence he that imagines himself impotent and becomes so indeed and the first fault serves for a preparatory to the second Hereupon
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
or through a colour'd glass or neer some other lively colour Are any colours fairer then those of the Rain-bow and yet they are no more real then those of the Clouds The whiteness which we behold in the milky way ariseth only from the light of many small Stars The necks of Pigeons seem of a thousand more colours then they have The Heavens the Air and the Water have none but what we phancy or what their depth and the weakness of our sight gives them The scales of Fish some small worms and certain kinds of rotten wood shining in the night seem to us to be colour'd And Pictures are apprehended well or ill drawn according to their situation The Second said The object of Vision is colour the Organ the Eye the medium is a Diaphanous body illuminated Provided these three be rightly dispos'd the Organ and the medium free from all colours and the object at a convenient distance all men will necessarily behold colours as they are and always alike which would not be so if they were imaginary or fortuitous Besides being the object of the sight the surest of all Senses they ought to have a real existence as all the objects of the other Senses have For the object of the outward sense must be real otherwise it cannot act upon the Organ and the Agent and the Patient ought to agree in the same genus The Third said Colours as all other second qualities have a real existence since they arise from the commixtion of moist and dry caus'd by heat and determin'd by cold The first thing that happens in this mixtion is that the humidity is thickned by the accession of some dry substance and of this co-agulation is made a green colour which therefore is the first of colours as may be observ'd in water the grosser parts of which become green moss and in Plants when they first spring out of the earth But if heat exceed in the mixtion then ariseth the Red Purple and other lively and bright colours which according as they degenerate attain at length to Black which is made by adustion But when mixtions take a contrary course by cold then arise all dead colours which terminate in black too by a contrary cause namely the total extinction of heat as 't is seen in old men and dead persons who are of a leaden and blackish colour As therefore green is the first so Black is the last of colours yea 't is properly no colour especially when the humidity is already all consum'd as in coals or is separated from the dry parts as in things become black by putrefaction as the gangrenous parts of an animal Neither is white a colour but a mean between colour and light The rest are true colours The Fourth said Colours cannot proceed from the temperament or mixture of the four first qualities because mixt bodies of different temperature have the same colour Sugar Arsenic and all Salts are white the Crow and Raven are black and on the contrary one and the same mixt body of the same temperature in all its parts is nevertheless of several colours which it changes without mutation of its temper Ebeny is black in its surface and grey within Marble Jasper and Porphyry delight the sight chiefly by the variety of their colours yellow Wax grows white and white becomes black in the Sun Nor can any one say that the part of a Tulip which differs in colour from all the rest is therefore distinct in quality Wherefore since colours proceed not from the first elementary qualities they are no more real then the intentional species of the sight yea they are the very same thing for the visible species are nothing else but qualities streaming from every terminated body which alter the medium filling the same with their images which they diffuse even into the Organ Now colours are the same being qualities which actually change and alter the Diaphanous and illuminated body The Fifth said This argues that we are ignorant of the reason of the mixtion of every body and why such a body hath such a colour but not that colours are not true and real Yet with this distinction that the colours alone which are seen with the conditions requisite to sensation are real that is to say exist really and not in the Imagination For if it were not so we should see them as well by night as by day and with our eyes shut as open as that foolish Antiphon did who thought he always saw his own image before him And a sensible faculty ought to have a real and sensible object since the object must be of the same nature with the faculty But there are colours which are not really in the surface of bodies though they appear so to us by reason of the divers reception of light or of some other extrinsecal colour of a transparent diaphanous body or some other external cause which hinders the eye from discerning the true colour of the mixt body which colour though appearing otherwise then it is yet really exists but is hidden under another apparent one which continues as long as its external causes And colour'd bodies are no less so by night then by day but because vision cannot be made unless the medium be illuminated 't is only through the want of light that we see them not in the night For although we perceive in the dark the eyes of Cats Toad-stools Worms certain horns and rotten wood yet 't is not their true colour but a certain splendor different from colour which proceedeth either from their igneous spirits or because they approach neer simplicity There is therefore reality in colour but it is consider'd two ways either as a quality resulting from the mixture of the four Elementary qualities in which sence 't is defin'd by Aristotle the extremity of a perspicuum terminated or as being simply visible and is defin'd by the same Philosopher a motive quality of a body actually diaphanous In the first signification the colours seen in the Rainbow or the yellow colour cast upon a white wall by the Sun-beams passing through a glass or other medium of the same colour are no more real and true colours of those subjects then the blackness upon Paper by reason of the ink hiding its natural whiteness But in the latter signification every colour whatsoever is real since the one is as well visible as the other The Sixth said Colour differs not from light saving that colour is the light of mixt and light is the colour of simple bodies which the more simple they are they are also more luminous But if they communicate not their light 't is for want of density which is the sole cause of all activity The parts of Heaven are equally luminous and yet only the more dense and thick as the Stars can diffuse their light to us If this light grows weak it degenerates into a white colour as we see in the Moon and Stars if it be
of action as neglect of a salutation makes men go to the field Yea all the professions of the world borrow their praise or their blame from Phancy And who is there amongst us but would account it a grievance and make great complaints if that were impos'd upon him by command which his phancy makes him extreamly approve The studious person rises in the night to study the amorous spends it in giving serenades In brief the Proverb that saith None are happy or unhappy but they who think themselves so abundantly evidences the power of Imagination The Fourth said All Animals that have outward senses have also Imagination which is a faculty of the sensitive soul enabling them to discriminate things agreeable from the contrary Therefore those Philosophers who deny'd this power to Worms Flyes and other insects which they affirm'd to be carried towards their good by chance and not by any knowledge of it besides their derogating from divine providence were ignorant that the smallest animals cease not to have the same faculties as others at least confused as their Organs are which contain the more marvels in that they serve to more several uses Moreover Experience shews us that they well distinguish what is fit for them from what is not yea they have their passions too for choler leads the Bee to pursue the enemy that hath pillag'd its hive their providence or fore-cast since both that and the Pismire lay in their provisions and observe a kind of policy among them the former acknowledging a King which they could not do without the help of Imagination although the same be not so strong in them as in perfect animals among whom even such as have no eyes or want the use of them as the Mole are much inferior to others in Imagination which is chiefly employ'd about the Images whence it takes its name whereof the sight supplies a greater quantity then all the other Senses So that every animal being naturally lead to its own good needs an Imagination to conceive it such but all have not Memory which being given only to enable animals to find their abode again which they are oblig'd to quit for some time in quest of food those who change not their residence as Oysters or which carry it with them as Snails and Tortoises have no need of it The Fifth said That the Imagination is a cognition different from that of sense for it knows that which is not but the Sense doth not from Science and Intelligence because these are always true but that is sometimes true sometimes false Nevertheless 't is not opinion because opinion produces a belief in us which presupposes perswasion and this is an effect of Reason whereof brutes are not possest although all of them have more or less some Imagination It s object is of so great latitude that it goes beyond that of entity since that which is not as well as that which is the false as well as the true are under its jurisdiction for it composes divides and runs over all nature and what is out of nature herein almost like the Intellect which owes all its highest notions to it since it can know nothing without the phantasmes of the Imagination which on the contrary depends not any ways upon the Understanding in its operations The Sixth said The Imagination although very active and carri'd in a moment from the lowest stage of the world to its highest stories and to those spaces which it phansies above the heavens yet cannot comprehend where it self is lodg'd But the quality of the Brain most proper for it is heat For besides its great activity whereby it is necessarily alli'd to fire the phanciful persons are most subject to burning Fevers the cholerick excel in this faculty of which on the contrary the phlegmatick are worst provided Whence perhaps Poets who owe their best Verses to the Phancy heighten the heat of their Brain by drinking the best liquors Moreover 't is the strongest of all the Souls Faculties and involves every thing here below It disorders and quiets Nations making them undertake wars and desire peace it awakens and stills our passions and as if nature were not powerful enough to produce all things necessary to the perfection of the world it daily frames new ideas and makes other worlds to its curiosity 'T is this that blinded him of whom Pliny speaks who having dream'd in the night that he had lost his sight found himself blind when he wak'd 't is this that gave a voice to Croesus's son which nature had deny'd him which chang'd L. Cossutius from a woman into a man which made horns grow out of the forehead of Cippus after his dreaming of the Oxen whom he had seen fighting all the day before In brief 't is this that made Gallus Vibius become foolish by having mus'd too much upon the causes of folly But it acts not only within both upon the body and the soul it diffuses its power beyond its own mansion For to it is attributed that wonder of the Tortoises and Estriches which hatch their egges by the sight as also that of Hens which breed Chickens according to the colours laid neer their Nests and sometimes of the shape of a Kite if they have been frighted by that bird whilst they were hatching 'T is also to the power of Imagination that what my Lord Bacon affirms is to be referr'd namely That it is dangerous to be beheld by our enviers in extream joy as 't is reported that certain Scythian women murder'd only with a single aspect and possibly to this cause better then to any other the bleeding of a murder'd body in the murderer's presence may be imputed as also that the most vigorous have been found cold and impotent and other effects the cause whereof may be better referr'd to this Imagination and the connexion and coherence of this cause with those effects demonstrated II. Which is most powerful Hope or Fear Upon the second Point it was said That fear being of two sorts one filial mix'd with respect proper to the ingenuous the other servile arising only from the consideration of punishment it appears hence that fear is more effectual then hope which is not often found but in good persons whereas fear is found both in the wicked and the good The Laws seem also to decide this question there being none that encourages vertue to hope for any thing but all infuse an abhorrence of crimes by the fear of punishments Moreover both the Indies would not suffice the least Commonwealth if profitable rewards were to be given to every good action perform'd in it and honorable recompences being valu'd only for their rarity would be no longer so if they came to be common Therefore there is but one Treasurer of the Exchequer in office but Judges Counsellors Archers and Serjeants innumerable Moreover there is always more to be fear'd then hop'd For he who hath an estate and honour may more easily lose
then the Sword as recover it according to the advice of the Arabians and other Physitians who all acknowledge intemperance for their best friend and are wont to prescribe Diet in the first place to which belong primarily Fasting then Medicaments and lastly Cauteries There is also a moral fast which is a vertue which in eating observes a measure sutable to nature and right reason for the taming of the sensual appetite and encreasing the vigour of mind which is enervated by plenty of meats A vertue which S. Austin calls the keeper of the memory and Judgement Mistress of the Mind Nurse of Learning and Knowledge But the Fast of Religion is the most excellent of all because it refers immediately to God who by this means is satisfi'd for sins because it abates the lust of the flesh and raises the spirit to contemplation of sublime things purifying the soul and subduing the flesh to the spirit but particularly that of Lent whose sutableness is manifest in that this time is the tenth part of the year which we offer to God as from all antiquity the tenths of every thing were dedicated to him Moreover 't is observ'd that Moses and Elias who fasted forty days the longest fast mention'd in Scripture merited to be present at our Lord's Transfiguration The Second said Fasting is an abstinence from food as to quantity or quality As to the first some have abstain'd long from all kind of food as Histories assure us and Pliny tells of the Astomi a people of India neer the River Ganges who have no mouths but live only upon smells But 't is abstinence too when we eat little and soberly and only so much as is needful for support of life such as were the abstinences of the Persians and the Lacedemonians with whom it was a shameful thing to belch or blow the Nose these being signs of having taken more food then nature is able to digest The Gymnosophists Magi and Brachmans rigorously observ'd these fasts In quality we abstain from some certain meats Thus the Jews abstain'd from all animals except such as chew'd the Cud and were cloven hoof'd And amongst them the Nazarites were forbidden by God to drink Wine or any inebriating liquor as the Essceans a Sect of Monasticks besides Wine abstain'd from flesh and women Pythagoras abhorr'd Beans as much as he lov'd Figs either because the first were us'd in condemning criminals or because they excited lust by their flatuosity None of this Sect touch'd fish out of reverence to the silence of this animal and they made conscience of killing other creatures in regard of their resemblance with us which was also observ'd by the first men before the Flood for 2000 years together the Law of Nature which then bore sway making the same abhor'd But this fast is much harder in our diversity of fare then when only Acorns serv'd for food to our first Fathers when the Athenians liv'd of Figs alone the Argians and Tirynthians of pears the Medes of Almonds the Aethiopians of Shrimps and the fruits of Reeds the Persians of Cardamomes the Babylonians of Dates the Egyptians of Lote as the Icthyophagi of Fish of which dry'd and ground to powder many Barbarians make bread at this day and their meat of the fresh For in those days people liv'd not to eat as many do in these luxurious times but eat to live The Third said That fasting is as contrary to the health of the body as conducive to that of the mind The best temper which is hot and moist is an enemy to the souls operations which require a temper cold and dry which is acquir'd by fasting hence choler being hot and dry gives dexterity and vivacity blood hot and moist renders men foolish and stupid and the cold and dry melancholy humour is the cause of prudence But this is to be understood of fasting whereby less food is taken then nature is able to assimilate not of that which observes a mediocrity always commendable and good for health Moreover the right end of fasting is to afflict and macerate that body by abstaining from the aliments which it naturally desires But as in drinking and eating so in abstinence from either there is no certain rule but regard must be had to the nature of the aliments some of which are more nutritive then others to that of the body to the season custom exercises and other circumstances so they who eat plentifully of ill-nourishing meats or whose stomacks and livers are very large and hot or who are accustom'd to eat much will fast longer then those that eat little but of good juice or who have not much heat and use but little exercise Growing persons as children though plentiful feeders yet oftentimes will fast more then those that eat less In Winter and Spring when the bowels are hotter and sleep longer fasting is more insupportable because the natural heat being now stronger then in Summer and Autumn consumes more nourishment Wherefore only discretion can prescribe rules for fasting If it be for health so much must be given Nature as she requires and no more the first precept of Hippocrates for health being Never to satiate one's self with food If 't is intended to purge the soul then 't is requisite to deny something to nature the sucking which is felt in the stomack serving to admonish reason of the right use of abstinence For temperance must not be turn'd into murder and fasting only macerate not destroy the body The Fourth said That by fasting Socrates preserv'd himself from the Plague against which we are erroneously taught to make repletion an Antidote when 't is manifest man's fasting spittle is found to be an enemy to poysons to kill Vipers and mortifie Quick-silver Moreover we may impute the false consequence which is drawn from the true Aphorisme of Hippocrates That Eunuchs Women and Children never have the Gout and the production of so many modern diseases to gluttony and the frequency of meals our fore-fathers being so well satisfi'd with one that Plato wonder'd how the Sicilians could eat twice a day CONFERENCE LXX I. Of Climacterical Years II. Of Shame I. Of Climacterical Years MAn's life is a Comedy whereof the Theatre or Stage is the World Men the Actors and God the Moderator who ends the Play and draws the Curtain when it seems good to him When 't is play'd to the end it hath five Acts Infancy or Childhood Adolescence Virility or Manhood consisting of middle age and old age each of 14 years which multiply'd by 5 make 70 years the term assign'd to humane life by the Royal Prophet These acts are divided into two Scenes of as many septenaries in either of which considerable alterations both in body goods and mind also are observ'd to come to pass For seeing many persons incur great accidents at one certain number of years rather then another and if they scape death fall again into other dangers at certain times and so from one degree
that two Spheres may be so contiguous as the Celestial are that there can be no air between them yet they might nevertheless be mov'd and heated yea much more then if there were air interpos'd between them The Third said As a form cannot be receiv'd into any subject without previous dispositions so when they are present they suddenly snatch the form to themselves Those of fire are rarity lightness and dryness of which the more bodies partake the more they will be susceptible of the nature of fire Therefore what is capable of being heated by motion must be dry not moist whence fire is never produced by water any more then of air agitated by reason of their excessive humidity perfectly contrary to the dryness of fire But that which is extreamly dry is half fire needing no more but to become hot as happens necessarily when it is rarefi'd and attenuated by motion and consequently inflam'd every substance extreamly tenuious and dry being igneous since in the order of nature all matter necessarily receives the form whereof it hath all the dispositions For there being a separation and divulsion of parts made in every sort of motion as is seen in water when it falls from on high it follows that they are render'd more rare and capable of being converted into fire The Fourth said That motion rarity and heat ordinarily follow and are the causes one of another Thus the Heavens by their rapid motion excite heat in all sublunary bodies and this heat as 't is its property opening the parts rarefies the whole Water receiving the rayes of the Sun is mov'd and agitated by them this motion produces rarity this heat which makes the subtilest parts ascend upwards as on the contrary heat being the most active quality is the cause of motion this of rarity by collision attenuating the mov'd parts So that motion is not more the cause of heat then this is of motion The Fifth said That heat and fire which is only an excess of heat are produc'd four ways by propagation union putrefaction and motion In the first way one way generates another fire a thing common to it with all other bodies in nature which is so fruitful that even the least things produce their like In the second manner when the Sun-beams are reflected by bellow glasses they burn in the point of union provided the matter be not white because whitenesse takes away the reason upon which they burn which is their uniting whereas white disunites and disgregates the rayes To which manner that of antiperistasis is also to be referr'd when external cold causes such a union of the degrees of heat that it becomes inflam'd The third cause of heat is putrefaction proceeding from disunion of the Elements amongst which fire being the most active becomes becomes also more sensible to us The last is motion by which bodies rub'd or clash'd one against another take fire by reason of the Sulphur contain'd in them which alone is inflamable as we see Marble and Free-stone yield not fire as Flints do whose smell after the blew seems sulphureous For if only the air be fir'd whence comes it that in striking the steel the sparkles of fire fall downwards contrary to the nature of fire which ascends besides the air would be turn'd into flames not into sparkles and two stones rub'd one against the other would cause as much fire as steel and the flint or other stones out of whose substance these igneous particles are struck Whence according to their differences they make different sparkles If the stones be hard and struck strongly they render a sprightly fire if soft they either render none at all or such as is less vigorous Moreover the observations of fire issuing forth upon the rubbing of a Lyon's bones as also Laurel and Ivy and Crystal with Chalcedon and that which comes from stroking the back of a Cat in the dark and from the casting a drop of rectifi'd oyl of Vitriol into cold water evidence that this fire is produc'd out of the bosom of the matter which is more dispos'd thereunto then any other not from the encompassing air But that which serves most to shew that 't is from the matter this fire of motion comes is the duration of the Heavens which being in all probability solid would have been set on fire were it not that they are not of a combustible matter nor apt to conceive fire for how little soever that heat were there would be more neer the Sphere of the Moon then at the Centre of the Earth and nevertheless the air is frozen while heat causes corruptions and generations upon the earth and at the centre of it and this heat having been always encreasing as is that of the motion would be insupportable II. Of Chastity Upon the second Point it was said That Reason regulates the inclinations of the appetite by the vertues amongst which temperance serves to moderate that of eating by abstinence and of drinking by sobriety as also the concupiscence of the flesh by chastity which is more excellent then the two former in that its business lies with more powerful adversaries which assail it without as well as within by so many avenues as there are senses amongst which the hearing and sight receiving the poyson of glances and words cause chastity to stagger and languish but it receives the deadly blow when the touch surrenders it self to the inchantment of kisses and the other delights which follow them Moreover the necessity of natural actions being the standard of pleasure and generation which concerns the general being more necessary then nutrition which relates only to the particular it hath also more pleasure and consequently being more hard to withstand chastity which surmounts it not only deserves Palmes and Triumphs in the other world but also in this hath been rewarded by God with the gift of Prophecy in the Sibyls and is honour'd by all even the most wicked for its rarity which made the Poet say that there was none in his time chaste but she that had not been tempted Now Chastity is of three sorts Virgineal Conjugal and that of Widows to which the Fathers attribute what is said of the grains of Corn which brought forth one a hundred other thirty and other sixty For Virgineal Chastity in either sex consisting in integrity of body and purity of soul and in a firm purpose to abstain from all sort of carnal pleasures the better to attend divine service is more worthy then the other two and prefer'd before any other condition by S. Paul who counsels every one to desire to be like him in this point Hence the Church hath chosen it and is so immutably affected to it to the end souls freed from worldly care might be more at leisure for divine things from which Matrimony extreamly diverts The chastity of Widows hath for pattern the Turtle and the Raven who having lost their mates live nine ages of men without coupling with
others and the Apostle saith Widows in deed are worthy of double honour The Conjugal hath also made Penelope renown'd and hath for example the Etnaean fish of which the male and female never part The Second said Virgineal Chastity is not absolutely vertuous of it self having been practis'd by Pagans and Idolaters who devoted themselves to their false gods and being found in children newly born which cannot be said of vertues which are acquir'd by precepts and good manners not by nature Moreover it may be lost without sin as in Virgins violated or those that are married yea sometimes with merit as when Hosea the Prophet took a Harlot to wife by God's express command And being once lost it cannot be repair'd by repentance as other vertues may Whence S. Jerome writing to Eustochium saith that God who is able to do all things yet cannot restore virginity 'T is therefore commendable so far as it is referr'd to God in which case 't is a most admirable thing and the more because 't is above nature which by Marriage peoples the Earth but Virginity peoples Heaven where there shall be no marrying but we shall be as the Angels of God who being a pure Spirit loves purity above all things The Third said That Virginity is wholly contrary to the nature of man who desires nothing so much as immortality which being not attainable in his own person he seeks in his successors who are part of himself Yea it seems to have somewhat of insensibility the vicious excess of temperance since it wholly abstains from all pleasures some of which are lawful Therefore Plato sacrific'd to Nature as if to make her satisfaction for his having continu'd a virgin all his life and the Romans laid great fines upon such as would not marry as on the other side they granted immunities to those that brought children into the world whence remains at this day the right of three four and five children observ'd still amongst us those that have five children being exempted from Wardships Yea among the Jews it could not be without reproach since sterility was ignominious among them and was accounted the greatest curse Moreover Marriage not only supplies Labourers Artisans Souldiers and Citizens to the State but Kings and Princes to the People Prelates and Pastors to the Church and a Nursery to Paradise which would not be peopled with Virgins did not the married give them being Whence S. Austustin justly makes a Question Who merited most before God Abraham in Marriage or S. John Baptist in the Virgineal State The Fourth said That being things are term'd vertuous when they are according to right reason which requires that we make use of means proportionately to their end therefore Virginity is a vertue and the more sublime in that it is in order to the most excellent end namely the contemplation of Divine Mysteries For amongst the goods of men some are external as riches others of the body as health others of the soul amongst which those of the contemplative life are more excellent then those of the active As therefore 't is according to right reason that external goods are made subservient to those of the body and these to the goods of the soul so is the denying the pleasures of the body the better to intend the actions of the contemplative life as Virginity do's which freeing us from carnal thoughts affords us more convenience to mind the things of God and to be pure in body and spirit 'T is therefore the end which makes Virginity to be vertuous Whence those Roman Vestals and the Brachmans among the Indians who abstain'd wholly from Marriage nevertheless deserve the name of Virgins And Spurina mention'd by Valerius Maximus so chaste that perceiving himself as much lov'd by the Thuscan Ladies as he was hated by their Husbands disfigur'd his face with voluntary wounds had indeed some shadow but not the body of this vertue The invention of Gaila and Papa Daughters of Gisuphe Duke of Friuli was much more ingenious who at the sacking of their City beholding the chastity of their sex prostituted to the lust of the Souldiers fill'd their laps with stinking flesh whose bad smell kept those from them who would have attempted their honour The fifth said That the excellence of Virgineal Chastity is such that it hath no vitious excess for the more we abstain from pleasures the more pure we are And as it is blemish'd many wayes so it is preserv'd by many others Amongst which is first Employment or Business whence Cupid in Lucian excuses himself to his Mother that he could not wound Minerva because he never found her idle Modesty is also the Guardian of it as to appear seldome in publick whence the Hebrews call'd their Virgins Almach which signifies Recluses Moreover dishonest gestures words and looks are to be avoided And amongst corporeal means Abstinence and Maceration of the body are very effectual as amongst Aliments such as are cold as Nenuphar or Water-lilly call'd therefore Nymphaea and Lettice which the Pythagoreans for this reason Eunuch and under which upon the same account the Poets feign Venus to have hid Adonis As likewise the leaves of Willows bruised the ashes of Tamarisk and the flowers of Agnus Castus which is a sort of Ozier so call'd by the Greeks because the Athenian Ladies lay upon them during the festivals of Ceres to represse the ardour of Love whereof they say such are not sensible as have drunk wine wherein the fish nam'd Trigla is suffocated or who have eaten Rue But because these remedies are not infallible Origen took another course making himself actually an Eunuch for fear of losing that rare treasure of Virginity whose loss is both inestimable and irreparable CONFERENCE LXXII I. Of Thunder II. Which of all the Arts is the most necessary I. Of Thunder AS Water and Earth are the grossest of the Elements so they receive most sensibly the actions of the Celestial Bodies chiefly the Sun's heat which exhaling and drawing up their purer parts vapours from the Water and exhalations from the Earth forms meteors of them And as the cold and moist vapours make tempests dew and frost in the lower Region and in the middle clouds rain hail snow Exhalations if fat and unctuous cause Comets in the higher Region and in the lower the two Ignes Fatui if dry and subtile they make Earth-quakes in the bowels of the Earth in its surface winds and tempests in the middle Region of the Air Lightning Fulgur or the Thunder-bolts and Thunder For these three commonly follow and produce one another Lightning is the coruscation or flashing of the matter inflam'd And though produc'd by Thunder yet is sooner perceiv'd then the other heard because the Sight is quicker then the Hearing by reason its object the visible species are mov'd in an instant but sound successively because of the resistance of the Air its medium Thunder is the noise excited by the shock and shattering of the
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
longitude which under the Aequator makes sixty English miles and so also if you erre four minutes of an hour either in the time of the Tables or in the time of the observations and if the error of time be double treble or quadruple the error in longitude will likewise be multipli'd Now the Tables neither are nor can ever be exact nor the observations made punctually enough for this operation The reason of which latter is that 't is not sufficient to observe the Moon but you must at the same time with her observe one or two fix'd Stars And which is most difficult you must not only observe the body of the Moon but her Centre Now to have the Moon 's Centre you must have her Diametre which appears at the same time greater to some and lesser to others according as the observer's sight is more or less acute And the Parallaxes with the Refractions interposing too render this practice unprofitable for these parallaxes and refractions are different in the very body of the Moon the inferior part having greater refraction and parallax then the superior Whence we never have any sure knowledge from the said refractions and parallaxes For as for Parallaxes we have indeed very handsome Theories of them but such as cannot be reduc'd into practice with the preciseness requisite for Longitudes And as for the refractions of the air they are yet more incertain considering that we neither have nor ever can have any theory of them by reason of the continual variation of the density and rarity of vapours So that 't were requisite to have Tables for every Horizon made by the experience of many years and yet they would be very uncertain because the mutations hapning in the air would render them unprofitable Whence not only at sea but also at land 't is impossible to have exact observations of the Moon 's Centre so that Cespeda a Spanish Author had reason to say that this operation requir'd the assistance of an Angel From the defect of observations proceeds in part the defect of the Tables of the Moon 's motion I say in part for supposing the observations were exact yet we could not have exact Tables unless we had the true Hypothesis of the Moon 's motion and course Whence the Tables will be different among themselves which are made upon the same observations but several Hypotheses Thus we see Origanus and Kepler agree not in their Ephemerides but differ sometimes ten minutes though both made them upon the same observations of Tycho Brahe but upon different Hypotheses And thus there being no true Hypothesis of the Moon we can never have exact Tables though the observations should be such and consequently since the ways of finding Longitudes by the Moon are Observations and Tables and neither the one nor the other can be so exact as they ought men can never find Longitudes this way unless God afford them some other light of which they have not hitherto the least glimmering Wherefore Appian Veret Kepler Metius and many others who have spoken of the means of ascertaining Navigation by the Moon had reason to judge the practice thereof impossible as was remonstrated two years ago to one that here made a proposal of it as his own of which we are not likely to see the execution The most sure way we have to find these Longitudes is by help of the Lunar Eclipses For the beginning of them being observ'd in two different places the difference of the times of their beginnings will give the difference of the Meridians But this is an expedient more profitable to rectifie Geographical Charts then serviceable to Navigation CONFERENCE LXXV I. Of the Leprosie why it is not so common in this Age as formerly II. Of the ways to render a place populous I. Of the Leprosie FOr right understanding the nature of this disease 't is requisite to know that as the Brain is the source of cold diseases so the Liver is the furnace of hot such as this is although its debilitation of the faculties makes some account it cold For albeit the first qualities be rather the supposed then true parents of diseases yet being more perceptible to us then other causes and always accompanying them therefore our reason more readily pitches upon them Now the Liver either by its own fault or that of the preceding concoction which it cannot correct begets adust blood and this by further adustion in the Veins through the same excess of heat which it derives into them becoming atrabilarious is as such attracted and retain'd by every part of the body yet not assimilated as it ought to be in colour and consistence but turn'd into a scurfie black and putri'd flesh If that impure blood be carri'd but to one part and make a tumour in it it makes a Cancer in it either open or occult and not ulcerated which Hippocrates accounted so desperate an evil that he counsels not to meddle with it whence 't is vulgarly call'd Noli me tangere So that what a Cancer is in some part of the body as in the Paps or Breasts by reason of their spungy substance more dispos'd thereunto that is a Leprosie in the whole body The Second said No humours in the body are so malignant as to cause a Leprosie unless they be infected with some venomous quality The melancholy humour in whatever quantity causes only Quartan Agues or if it degenerate into black choler it causes that kind of folly which they call melancholy The bilious humour causes Frenzy never the Leprosie how adust soever it be without a pestilential and contagious quality whence Fernelius defines it a venemous disease in the earthy substance of the body whose nature it wholly alters For the melancholy earthy humour having once conceiv'd this poyson derives it to the bowels and all other parts which being corrupted and infected with it by degrees turn all food into a juice alike venemous wherewith the whole body being nourish'd acquires a like nature and retains the same till death that gross humour being more apt then any other to retain the qualities once imprinted on it Now this disease comes either by birth or by contagion or by the proper vitiosity of the body As for the first 't is certain if the Parents be infected with this venemous disease they transmit the same to their children the formative faculty not being able to make any thing but sutably to the matter it works upon Many hold but groundlesly that women conceiving during their purgations bring forth leprous children As for the second Leprosie hath this common with all other contagious diseases to communicate it self not only by contact of bodies but also by inspiration of the air infected with the breath of the leprous or the virulent smell of their Ulcers As for the third which is the proper vitiosity of the body 't is produc'd when a great quantity of black choler putrifies and becomes venemous And there are
besides loss of time renders mens minds soft and effeminate and more susceptible of the passions represented therein Tragedy is too sad to serve for divertisement to the soul. If you proceed to Gladiators is any thing more inhumane and that renders men more barbarous then to see our fellow-men kill one another in cold blood and expose themselves to wild beasts and 't is always a dangerous practise to accustom the eyes to murders and bloody spectacles nature being easily perverted by custom Moreover all these Mimes Actors Sword-players and the like were always held infamous and incapable of publick charges insomuch that the Emperor Theodosius Arcadius and Honorius in L. 4. C. de Spectaculis Scenicis and Lenonibus forbid to defile their sacred images by the society of those people who act upon the Theatre ranking them with the corrupters of chastity And the Romans who practis'd the same more then any Nation felt the inconvenience of them when the most potent became masters of the Commonwealth by means of the spectacles wherewith they allur'd the people to their party as Julius Caesar who being Aedile and having given Gladiators Huntings Sports Races and sumptuous Feasts to the people of Rome they created him Chief Pontife although Q. Catulus and Servilius Isauricus two great personages were his competitors which was his first step to Sovereignty and Suetonius observes that the conflux of people was so numerous that many and amongst the rest two Senators were smother'd in the throng The Third said That Spectacles or Shews are good or bad according to the things which they represent But absolutely speaking they ought to be permitted not only for the diversion of men but also for the exercising of youth and animating them to courage by rewards for their fortitude as the Greeks sometimes appointed Statues Crowns of gold Olive Palm Smallage and other such guerdons to those who overcame in Running Wrastling Caestus or fighting with Whorlbats and such exercises carrying them in a triumphal Charriot to the Town of their Birth shewing themselves so careful of the Olympick Games that they committed the charge thereof to the Sicyonians after Corinth the place where they were formerly celebrated had been raz'd by the Romans who transferr'd those Plays into their own City by the perswasion of Cato for the same end of educating their youth For as profit delights some spirits so pleasure allures all and of pleasures none is more innocent and communicable then that of the sight CONFERENCE LXXXVI I. Of the Dog-days II. Of the Mechanicks I. Of the Dog-days THat the Stars act upon sublunary bodies is agreed upon but not the manner some holding that they impress some qualities by motion others by light others by their influence others by both together producing heat by the two first and other more extraordinary effects by influences For every thing that is mov'd heats as also all sort of light united even that of the Moon whose rays may be made to burn with glasses as well as those of the Sun But because natural agents cannot act beyond the natural bounds of their power therefore heat produc'd of light and motion here below can produce only its like heat or such other alteration in inferior bodies not those strange and irregular changes not only in the temper of the air but of every other body As that it is sometimes hotter and sometimes colder in the same elevation of the Sun cannot be attributed to his approach or remotion or to the incidence of his perpendicular or oblique rays but it must proceed from the conjunction opposition or several aspects of other Stars Amongst which the Canicula or Dog-star hath very extraordinary effects as to weaken mens bodies to make dogs run mad to turn the wine in the vessel to make the sea boile to move lakes to heat the air so much that Pliny affirms that Dolphins keep themselves hid during the 30 Dog-days at which he wonders the more because they can respire neither in the water nor upon the earth but partly in the air partly in the water Moreover Experience shews that the Hyades or Pleiades stars in the back of the Bull have such a moist quality that they alwayes cause rain at their rising which happens in November as Arcturus never rises without bringing hail or tempest the Moon being full Oysters Muscles and the sap of Trees are so too and therefore being cut at this time they soon rot and Pliny counsels to cut them during the Dog-dayes when the heat of the season ha's dry'd up all their aqueous moisture which is the cause of their corrupting The Second said That the vanity of Astrologers who have phancy'd monsters and sundry figures in Heaven and attributed imaginary effects to them the better to amuse mens minds with some resemblance of the truth hath also feign'd two dogs there one less consisting of two stars and another of eighteen the the greatest of which is the brightest in our Hemisphere and is in the tongue of this Dog whom the Greeks and Latins call Sirius and ascribe so much power to him that they conceive his conjunction with the Sun in the East causes the scorching heat of Summer yea the people of the Isle of Cea near Negropont as Cicero reports took their presages of the whole year from the rising of this star determining the same to be rainie in case this star appear'd obscure and and cloudy and the contrary But this cannot be true as well in regard of the great distance of the fix'd stars which also being of the same substance cannot have contrary qualities as also by reason of the retrogradation of their sphere which hath a motion contrary to that of the First Mover namely from West to East which motion though insensible in few years yet amounts to much at the end of many Ages As is justifi'd by the Dog-star which Ptolomy in the tables of his time places at 18. degr 10. min. of Gemini Alphonsus King of Castile at the 4. degr of Cancer and now 't is found at 9. degr 54. min. according to Tycho and at 9. degr 30. min. according to Copernicus Whereby it appears that after many years this star will be in the winter signes and that at the Creation it was in Aries at the Vernal Equinox and that consequently the Dog-dayes will be in the time of the greatest cold In brief were there such power in this conjunction the Dog-dayes would be hot and burning and yet in some years they are cold and rainie Which the Astrologers attributing to the several Aspects of Saturn or other cold stars see not that by weakning the force of some by others they subvert all Wherefore the Dog-star is at present the sign but not the cause of hot dayes that is the hapning of this Constellation in the Summer signes and its conjunction with the Sun during hot weather ha's been erroniously believ'd the principal cause thereof which in my judgement is to be
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
to weep and a time to laugh as the Wiseman testifies so that to do either continually is equally vicious Yet laughter being most sutable to man who is defin'd by the faculty he hath to laugh and not by that of weeping which is common to Harts and Crocodiles who shed true tears and other beasts weep after their manner but none laughs I conceive that the laughter of Democritus was lesse blameable then the weeping of Heraclitus whose tears render'd him odious and iusupportable to all the world which on the contrary is greatly pleas'd with the company of laughers and easily side with them Moreover their Jovial and sanguine humour is always to be preferr'd before the Saturnine and melancholy humour of weepers who are their own greatest enemies exhausting their moisture and by concentration of the spirits hindring the free functions of reason Whereas laughter which is a sign of joy and contentment dilates the spirits and causes all the actions of life to be perform'd better And the laughter of Democritus exciting the like motion of joy in the spectators their joy dilated their spirits and render'd them more docible and capable to receive his counsels The Third said That as a Physitian were no lesse impertinent in laughing at his Patient then imprudent in weeping for the malady which he sees him endure So Democritus and Heraclitus were as ridiculous the one as the other in laughing at or lamenting the misery of men Moreover it seems to be a sign of repentance that he put out his own eyes and not to Philosophize the better otherwise he should have done as one that cut off his own legs that he might leap the better since the eyes are the windows of the soul whereby it admits almost all its informations Heraclitus therefore was more excusable because tears proceed from charity and compassion but laughter is an effect of contempt and procures us as much hatred as the other do's affection Besides Democritus's laughter could neither make others better nor himself for what profit can be made by the ironies and gibes of a mocker On the contrary tears are so perswasive that Augustus as subtle as he was suffer'd himself to be deceiv'd by those of Cleopatra and believ'd her willing to live when she had resolv'd to dye The Fourth said That both of them had reason considering the vanity of the things of the world which are equally ridiculous and deplorable For though laughter and weeping seem contraries yet they may proceed from the same cause Some Nations have wept at the birth of their children whereas we make exultations Many have laugh'd at Alexander who wept because he had no more worlds to conquer Xerxes wept when he beheld his goodly Army of which not one person was to be left after a hundred years whilst a Philosopher of his train laugh'd at it And in both passions there is a retraction of the nerves whence the features of the countenance of one that laughs are like those of him that weeps Moreover the three subjects which may oblige men to laughter namely the crosses of furtune and what they call Virtue and Science afford equal matter of laughing and weeping When fortune casts down such as she had advanc'd to the top of her wheel are not they as worthy of commiseration as of derision for having trusted to her inconstancy When our Gentry cut one another's throats for an ambiguous word lest they should seem cowards are they not as deplorable as ridiculous in taking the shadow of virtue for it self And as for Science should these two Philosophers come from the dead and behold our youth spend ten years in learning to speak and all our Philosophy reduc'd to a bundle of obscure distinctions would not they dye once more with equal reason the one with weeping and the other with laughing CONFERENCE XCI I. Whether heat or cold be more tolerable II. Who are most happy in this World Wise Men or Fools I. Whether heat or cold be more tolerable COmparison moves us more then any other thing And though no sense be less fallacious then the Touch yet 't is guided by comparison as well as the rest Thus Caves seem cold in the Summer because we come out of the hot air and hot in Winter because the same air which we forsake is cold the Cave remaining always in the same temper without recurring to those Antiperistases which have no foundation in the thing the organs of the Touch being the sole competent judges of the several degrees of tangible qualities the first of which are heat and cold provided those Organs be neither too obtuse as in the Paralytical nor too exquisite as when the nerve lyes naked 'T is requisite also that the man who judges be in health for he that has an Ague thinks nothing too cold in his hot fit and nothing too hot or so much as temperate during the cold fit so the phlegmatick and melancholy bear heat better then cold the bilious and sanguine the latter better then the former as correcting the excess of their own temper Now at first sight heat seems more supportable because more congruous to life which consists in heat by which Galen defines the soul as death in its contrary cold Moreover nature hath made the hot Climates more large and capacious then the cold which are two very streight ones although she hath supply'd those Regions with the remedy of Furs all the rest of the world is either hot or temperate and always more hot then cold Nevertheless I conclude for cold because heat joyn'd to our heat renders it excessive whereas cold being encounter'd by it there results a temperate third Besides the opposition of cold redoubles the natural heat whence we have greater appetite in Winter then in Summer sleep longer and perform all natural functions better and are more cheerful in mind whereas in Summer our bodies and minds are languid and less capable of labour and 't is more dangerous in reference to health to cool our selves in Summer then to heat our selves in in Winter the first occasioning the latter preventing most diseases The Second said That cold being an enemy to nature it excess must be more hurtful and consequently more insupportable then that of heat particularly that of the Sun For this grand Luminary the soul of the Universe and whose heat is the cause of all generations must also be that of their preservation not of their destruction Whence the excess of his heat is much more tolerable then that of cold Moreover hot Countries are more fertile and the Scripture teaches us that the first Colonies came from the South Yea some Doctors place the Terrestrial Paradise under the Aequinoctial whence it follows that hot Regions having been first inhabited have also been most habitable even the Torrid Zone thought unhabitable by all antiquity experience hath found very populous whereas the cold are but very little habitable and not at all beyond the 78 degree The
Third said That the heat which preserves our lives is natural gentle and agreeable not extraneous as that meant in the question is Therefore external cold must be compar'd with heat likewise external and extraneous not with the vital heat which is of a more sublime order then these elementary qualities Now 't is certain external heat is more powerful and active then external cold since it consumes and dissolves Metals which cold cannot and is more hurtful because it dries up humidity which is the foundation of life 'T is also less tolerable for we can bear the touch of the coldest body in the world namely Ice yea eat it without harm but none could ever resist flames Whence fire is the cruellest of punishments not cold from which besides we may more easily defend our selves then from excessive heat which may be abated a little by winds shadows or other artifices but not wholly as cold is by help of fire clothes and motion The Fourth said If it be true which Cardan saith that cold is nothing but a privation of heat Nature which dreads nothing so much as non-entity must abhor it most nor can it be any way active since that which exists not cannot act But I will suppose as 't is most probable that both the one and the other are positive entities since cold enters into the composition of bodies as well as heat the bones membranes skin nerves and all but the fleshy parts being cold as also the brain the noblest part of man And I conceive that heat and cold consider'd either as internal principles of a living body or as two external agents enemies of life cold is always more hurtful then heat On the one side hot distempers alter the functions but cold abolish them depriving us of sense motion and life as in the Lethargy Apoplexie Epilepsie and other cold diseases And on the other external heat indeed draws forth part of our spirits and thereby weakens us whence come faintings after too hot a bath or too great a fire but it never wholly quenches and destroys them as the light of the Sun drowns that of a Candle at noon but do's not extinguish it The Fifth said Because as Hippocrates saith in his Aphorisms some natures are best in Winter others in Summer as old men are not much inconvenienc'd by the most vehement heats whereas cold kills them on the contrary young people of hot tempers endure heat more impatiently then cold and there is no temperament ad pondus or exact Reason must be call'd to the aid of our senses not only to judge of moist and dry as Galen thinks but also of hot and cold which being absolutely consider'd in their own nature without respect to us I conceive heat much more active then cold and consequently less supportable because the more a thing hath of form and less of matter 't is the more active the one of these principles being purely active and the cause of all natural actions the other simply passive Thus the earth and water are dull and heavy elements in comparison of the air and fire which are less dense and material Heaven the universal cause of all sublunary things is a form without matter as Averroës affirms Now heat rarifies and dilates its subject and seems to make it more spiritual and so is more active then cold which condenses and stops all the pores and passages Which also appears in that the hottest diseases are the most acute and if cold diseases kill sometimes they charm and dull the senses and so render death more gentle and supportable On the contrary the cruellest deaths great pains and the most violent diseases are ordinarily caus'd by some hot humour Hence it is that no person dyes without a Fever and Hippocrates affirms that the same heat which generates us kills us In fine God who is the prime Reason hath judg'd heat more active and less supportable then cold since he appoints fire to torment the devils and damned souls II. Who are most happy in this world Wise Men or Fools Upon the second Point 't was said As there is but one right line and infinite crooked so there is but one wisdom and one way to attain it namely to follow right reason but follies are of all sorts and of as many fashions as there are different minds which conceive things under divers apparences of goodness So that the number of fools being greater then that of wise men these will always lose their cause Moreover if happiness be well defin'd by contentment who is there but accounts fools more happy then the wise Witness he who otherwise intelligent enough was a fool in this only point that he would diligently repair alone to the Theatre and phancy that he saw and heard the Actors and applauded them although no body was there besides himself but being cur'd of his folly he complain'd of his friends in stead of thanking them for having been too careful to render him miserable being a happy man before Besides folly hath this priviledge that we bear with that truth from the mouth of a fool which would be odious in another and the tribe of fools is indeed exceeding great since we are born such for a child is agreeable upon no other account but its simplicity which is nothing else but folly by which many faults are excusable in youth which are not to be endur'd in other ages And those whom we account happiest and that dye of old age end thus and are therefore call'd twice children and folly serves to take away the sense of all the discontents and incommodities of old age Yea he that more neerly considers the course of our life will find more of folly in it then of wisdom For if self-conceit play love and the other passions be so many follies who is free from it The Second said That wise men alone are happy is justly accounted a Stoical Paradox since 't is contrary to true natural sentiments which shew us that the happiness of this life consists only in two points namely in the privation of grief and the possession of good As for the first not to speak of bodily pains from which the wise are no more exempt then fools the strongest minds are more intelligent by their more vigorous reasoning and consequently more susceptible of inward grief and affliction of hope fear desire and as other passions besides that they are ordinary of a melancholy temper and more fix'd upon their objects then fools who are more inconstant to say nothing of the scruples of conscience which many times rack their spirits of the points of honour of civilities nor of the knotty questions in the Sciences As for the latter the possession of good fools have a better share then the wise because there is no absolute but onely relative good in this world whence proceeded the many different opinions touching the chief good and the saying that none is truly happy unless he thinks himself
take thence a charme which the Spirit left there or to invoke the same Spirit signifies that you must go and take from under a stone agreed upon the cypher'd letter and decipher it by the same alphabet upon which it was cypher'd Vigenarius spends half his Book in speaking of the Cabala of the Jews and the Caldeans and the other half in many Alphabets of all sorts with Key and without he hath indeed abundance of Cyphers which seem undecypherable which he makes to depend on three differences 1. On the form of Characters which comprehends several figures lines and colours 2. On their order and situation but changing the Alphabet almost infinite ways 3. On their value and power giving such signification to one letter or character as you please All which are easily known for cyphers The second condition of a cypher and which follows that of secresie being not to appear such the least suspicion causing the stopping of the paper and so rendring it unprofitable to the writer which has given occasion to some to cover characters drawn in oyl with something that might be wash'd off besides other such inventions to take away suspicion such as that of having two Books of the same impression and under pretext of sending Tables of Astrology or Merchants Bills to design by cyphers the letter of the Book which you mean to express the first cypher signifying the fourth page the second the fourth line and the third the fourth letter of that line which you would denote CONFERENCE XCIX I. Of Ignes fatui II. Of Eunuchs I. Of Ignes fatui 'T Is a question whether 't would be more advantageous to mans contentment to be ignorant of nothing since then he would admire nothing which is one of his greatest pleasures Hence a Peasant beholding a flake of fire following him or going before him in the night time will be otherwise ravish'd with it then a Philosopher who knows or thinks he knows the cause of it there being little difference herein as to our satisfaction They conceive it to be an unctuous exhalation apt to be inflam'd like the fatty steam of a Candle newly put out which instantly conveighs down the neighbouring light to seek its aliment But the same example shews us that fire very suddenly devours its aliment when it is subtile and thin So that if a fire of straw which is much more material then an exhalation vanishes so quickly that we express the most transient momentary things thereby how can a far thinner exhalation keep this foolish fire so long which besides burns not as appears by its sticking innoxiously upon the hair of men and manes of horses and yet Aqua-vitae never so well rectified will singe the hair as was sometimes verified to the great prejudice of one of our Kings which would make me think that as all fire is not luminous as a hot dunghil burns your finger and fire excited by motion burns much more without blazing so there are some lights which are not igneous as in Heaven the Stars and in Earth some rotten woods certain fishes worms eyes flesh of animals and other more such subjects which cannot be more susceptible of those lights which burn not then the Air which is the prime diaphanous body and consequently most capable of receiving them although possibly we cannot truly know what temper the Air must acquire to become luminous no more then what is fit for it in other subjects For to attribute the cause thereof to purity or simplicity signifies little for earth and ashes are more simple then the flesh or other part dead or living of an Animal and yet this shines and those not The Second said That these fires may be referr'd to four sorts The first resemble falling Stars or lighted Torches which Plutarch saith were seen to fall upon Pompey's Camp the eve before the Battle of Pharsalia The second is that kind of flame which has appear'd upon the heads of some as of Ascanius in Virgil and of Servius Hostilius which was an omen to them of Royalty The third are those which appear at Sea about the Masts and Shrouds of the Ships named by the Ancient Castor and Pollux when they are two and when but one Helena and by the Moderns the fire of S. Elme The last are those which are seen in the Country in the night time and are thought to drive or draw Travellers into precipices As for the first 't is certain that the same exhalation which makes Comets in the highest Region of the Air and Thunders in the middlemost is also the matter of these falling Stars and being rais'd in small quantity from the earth is condens'd by the cold of the middle Region where finding no cloud strong enough to uphold it 't is inflam'd by the antiperistasis of its contrary or the swift motion of its fall by reason of its great heat and siccity And as they proceed from the same cause as dry winds do so they presage winds and drought especially in that quarter from whence they fall But as for the other sorts I conceive they are only lights and not fires For the Air being transparent and the first subject of Whiteness as Aristotle saith hath likewise in it self some radical light which is sustein'd by that of the Stars which shine in the night And this whiteness of the Air is prov'd by the appearance of it when t is enclos'd in moist bodies as in froth snow and crystal which whitness is very symbolical to light which it preserves and congregates as is seen by the same snow in a very dark night Yea to speak plainly whiteness is nothing else but light extinct luminous bodies appearing white neer a greater light and white luminous in darkness So 't is possible that the thinner parts of the Air being inclos'd in these unctuous vapours they appear enlightned and shining as well by reason of the condensation of its body as the inequality of its surfaces like a diamond cut into several facets or as the Stars appear luminous only by being the denser parts of their Orbs. And this kind of light has been seen upon the heads of children whose moister brain exhal'd a vapour proper for it such also as that is which forms the Will-i'th'-Wisp which may also proceed from the reflection of the Star-light from the Sea or Rocks For That two of these fires bode good to Seamen and one ill is but one of the superstitions of Antiquity unless you think that the greater number of fires argues greater purity of the Air and consequently less fear of tempest The Third said He accounted the common opinion more solid which teacheth two material principles of all Meteors Vapour and Exhalation but one and the same efficient the heat of the Sun which lifts the thinner parts of the water in a vapour and those of the earth in an exhalation the former hot and moist the latter hot and dry borrowing their heat from an extraneous heat but
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
crowned Or. Holland Or a Lyon gules Bavaria fuselé argent and azure of twenty one pieces placed bendwise Ireland gules a Harp Or. CONFERENCE XCVIII I. Of the causes of Contagion II. Of the ways of occult Writing I. Of the causes of Contagion DIseases being accidents must be divided as other accidents by their first subjects which are the solid parts the humours and the spirits and by their several causes some of which are manifest others unknown the malignity of the causes which produce them and the manner whereby they act being inexplicable Which diversity of causes depends upon those of mixtions which are of two sorts one of the qualities of the elements which makes the difference of temperaments the other of the elementary forms which being contrary only upon the account of their qualities when these put off their contrariety by alteration the forms easily become united and as amongst qualities so amongst forms one becomes predominant the actions whereof are said to proceed from an occult property because the form which produces them is unknown to us So Arsenick and Hemlock besides the power which the first hath to heat and the second to refrigerate have a particular virtue of assaulting the heart and killing speedily by a property hitherto unknown Such also are contagious and venomous diseases some whereof are caus'd by the inspir'd air as the Pestilence because air being absolutely necessary to the support of our natural heat if when it is infected with malignant and mortal vapours it be attracted by the mouth or the pores of the skin it corrupts the mass of the spirits as a crum of bread or other extraneous bodies makes milk or wine become sowre Others infect by bodily contact as the Itch the Pox the Measles and the Leprosie A third sort proceed from a venomous matter either communicated outwardly as by poyson and the biting of venomous beasts or generated in the body as it may happen to the blood black choler and the other humours being extravasated The Second said That diseases proceed either from the corruption and vitiosity of particular bodies some of which are dispos'd to the Pleurisie others to the Flux others to the Colick call'd therefore sporadical or dispers'd and promiscuous diseases or else from some common vitiosity as of the air aliments waters winds or other such common cause whereby many come to be seiz'd upon by the same disease at the same time so after Famines bad nourishment gives a great disposition to the Pestilence These maladies are fix'd to a certain Country seldom extending beyond it as the Leprosie to the Jews the Kings Evil to the Spaniards Burstenness to Narbon the Colick to Poitou the Phthisick to the Portugals the Pox to the Indians call'd by them Apua and brought by the Spaniards into Europe and such other diseases familiar to some particular Country and call'd Endemial Or else they are Epidemical and not ty'd to a certain region but produc'd by other external causes as pestilential and contagious diseases which again are either extraordinary as the Sweating-sickness of England the Coqueluche which was a sort of destillation or ordinary which manifest themselves by purple spots carbuncles and buboes But as the causes of the Small-pox and Measles are chiefly born within us being produc'd of the maternal blood attracted in the womb and cast forth by nature when become more strong so though the seeds of contagious diseases may come from without yet they are commonly within our selves The Third said That Contagion is the communication of a disease from one body to another the most violent so communicable is the Pestilence which is defin'd a most acute contagious venomous and mortal Fever accompani'd with purple spots Buboes and Carbuncles 'T is properly a species of a Fever being a venomous and contra-natural heat kindled in the heart manifesting it self by a high frequent and unequal pulse except when nature yields at first to the violence and malignity of the disease and then the pulse is slow small and languishing but always unequal and irregular Oftentimes it kills the first or second day scarce passes to the seventh if it be simple and legitimate but when 't is accompani'd with putrefaction it reaches sometimes to the fourteenth It s malignity appears in its not yielding to ordinary remedies which operate by their first qualities but only to medicaments which act by occult properties an argument that the cause of these diseases is so too Now four things are here to be consider'd 1. That which is communicated 2. The body which communicates the same 3. That to which it is communicated 4. The medium through which the same is done A thing communicated against nature is either the disease or the cause of the disease or the symptom Here 't is the cause of the disease which is either corporeal or incorporeal The incorporeal in my opinion are the malignant influences of the Stars as of Mars and Saturn and during Comets and Eclipses For since their benigne influences preserve motion and life in all things of the world by the reason of contraries the malignity of the same aspects may be the cause of the diseases and irregularities which we behold in it The corporeal cause must be moveable an humour a vapour or a spirit which malignant evaporations kill oftentimes without any sign of putrefaction or if there be any it proceeds not from the corruption of the humours but from the oppression and suffocation of the natural heat by those malignant vapours and then the humours being destitute of the natural heat and of that of the spirits which preserv'd them turn into poyson There must be some proportion between the body which communicates this vapour and that which receives it but the same is unknown to us and this proportion is the cause that some Contagions seise only upon some animals as Horses Dogs and Cattle others upon Men alone Children Women old Men Women with Child and their burthens others seize only upon certain parts as the Itch is communicated only to the skin the Phthisick to the Lungs the Ophthalmia to the eyes and not to the other parts The medium of this communication is the air which being rare and spongy is very susceptible of such qualities which it easily transmits by its mobility And these qualities happen to it either extrinsecally as from faetid and venomous vapours and fumes exhal'd from carrion marshes impurities and openings of the ground by Earth-quakes which are frequently follow'd by the Pestilence or else they arise in the Air it self in which vapours may acquire a pestilential malignity of which a hot and moist intemperature is very susceptible The Fourth said That the Pestilence is found indifferently in all seasons climates sexes ages and persons which argues that its proximate cause is not the corruption of the humors and intemperature of the first qualities Otherwise the Pestilence should be as other diseases whereof some are hot others cold and be cur'd
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