the melancholick besides very nimble and dextrous through the plenty of spirits and as 't is easily disorder'd so likewise 't is restor'd in a little time its maladies being the shortest Moreover its vivacity is much more desirable then the heaviness and lumpishness attending the Melancholy and making the Vulgar think them Sage and prudent though they are only so in appearance whereas the Cholerick are Industrious and Courageous accomplishing whatever they attempt and as amongst Beasts and Birds the noble Lyon and Eagle are of this complexion and according to some our first Parent Adam which signifies Red was in hair and temper bilious whence perhaps also Man is call'd in the same language Ish which signifies Fire whereof choler partakes The Fifth said That indeed his readiness to obey his Wife was an effect of that Temper of which he seems rather to have been then of that laudable and perfectly temperate one which our Saviour enjoy'd But indeed Tempers being the principles of all our functions which must be different in every individual are desirable according to the Places Seasons Employments Age Sex and Inclinations of every one in particular CONFERENCE CXXXV Of Happiness and Vnhappiness and whether men are Happy or Vnhappy because they really are so or because they think themselves so THree sorts of effects are observ'd in Nature Some arise always necessarily as the vicissitudes of Days Nights and Seasons which depend upon the motion of the Stars no more alterable without a miracle then the other effects of Universal Nature Others come to pass often but not always the particular nature which produces them being sometimes hindred by some accident which makes it bring forth Monsters The last happen neither always nor often but seldom as all those which depend upon contingent causes which are of two sorts The first act by a necessity of nature without any election The second by a principle of liberty without choice or deliberation Both when they produce an effect contrary to their intention and primary design are called fortuitous causes And as those which act by natural necessity produce a casualty as when a Stone falls upon the head of any one so when those which operate by election and design produce another thing then what they had propounded to themselves they make fortune or good and ill-luck according to the good or evil arising thence by ways and springs by us unforeseen for in case the cause or motives be known the effects are no longer fortuitous and contingent because they have their manifest and certain cause So when industry labour favour or friendship procure Riches the effect is not to be ascrib'd to Fortune no more then the losses which follow upon the luxury and profusions of a disorderly life but Riches and Honours are fortuitous when they happen to persons altogether incapable thereof as also poverty infamy and contempt also to brave men whose constancy and resolution in undergoing all those disgraces hath made it be commonly said That a wise man is above fortune because he slights her stroaks by the strength of his reason which being alone capable to render us happy since Beasts destitute thereof have neither any share in good-luck or bad-luck I conceive that both the one and the other depends intirely upon our fansie and the reflection we make upon the condition of the thing possessed which appearing sometimes good and sometimes bad makes us accordingly judge our selves happy or unhappy The Second said Diversity is no where more apparent than in humane Actions the incertainty and inconstancy whereof is such that men rarely arrive at their proposed end but oftentimes behold themselves either exalted to an unhoped degree of Felicity or overwhelmed with the Misery which there was no ground to apprehend Which diversity of accidents induced Superstitious Antiquity to set up a blind and flitting Deity constant onely in her inconstancy whom they held the cause of all such effects thus betaking themselves to an imaginary canse in regard they could not or would not acknowledg the true which I attribute to every ones temperament by means of which is produced in the Soul a certain natural motion and impetuosity for obtaining some particular thing without Reasons contributing thereunto and according as a Man follows or resists these instincts and inclinations so he proves either happy or unhappy Thus he who finds himself disposed to Arms if he embrace them thrives better than in a soft and sedentary life whereunto the Melaneholly person is more addicted and prospers better herein Now because dull spirits fools and thick-skull'd fellows easily suffer themselves to be guided by those motions therefore they commonly prove more fortunate than the wise whose Prudence and Discretion causing them to make abundance of reflections upon what they undertake causes them also to lose opportunities which never return For I am not of their Opinion who hold That as there are Spirits which make the Celestial Orbes move and according to Averroes an Intelligence presiding over natural Generations so there is a particular one for the various events of life which it makes to happen according to the different intentions of the First Mover Since without recurring to such obscure and remote causes we carry in our selves those of our Felicity and Infelicity whereof we are the true Artificers which to place in the Phansie alone and not in reality is to say good is not Good since goodness being an essential affection of real entity is inseparable from it and consequently true not barely imaginary The Third said That Good being such onely upon account of its conveniency or sutableness to the Possessor there is not in this world any Absolute Good or Happiness but onely Relative and by Comparison seeing what sutes well with one doth not so with another Riches wherein most Men place their Felicity were cast into the Sea by a Philosopher that he might the better attend Contemplation Honors and Pleasures charms which most powerfully inveigle most of Man-kind are crosses and torments to some others Imprisonment one of the hardest trials of Patience is nevertheless sought by some who prefer Solitude and perpetual Restraint before the vanities of the world To have no Friends is the greatest of infelicities yet Timon made it his prime Pleasure Life the foundation of all goods hath been so tedious to some that to be deliver'd from it they have kill'd themselves and the pains afflictions and diseases leading to death are in the Stoicks account but imaginary Evils making no impression upon the wise The Fourth said Since Happiness and Unhappiness seem to be the Elements composing the Political Life of Men and the two Poles of that Globe upon which the Antients plac'd Fortune their Consideration may be taken two ways either in their Cause or in their Effect As for the first the Stoicks who establisht a Fate governing All by a Series of necessary and determinate Events were as impious as Democritus and Leucippus who on the
but 't is a sign of weakness of sight to see things out of their proportionate distance Much less probable is it that the Cholerick are more ingenious then the Melancholy since reflection is necessary to the making of a solid conclusion which the impatience of Choler cannot endure and indeed never was there seen a man of great parts who was not pensive And accordingly Northern people being more cold and reserv'd will carry it above other hotter Nations The Third said That as to Nations he conceiv'd that as not only the Plants but also the Pearls and Jewels of the East are more excellent and purer than those of other parts of the world so also are their Witts The Reason whereof is That the Sun coming from the East bestows the First-fruits of his own and other Celestial Influences upon the Orientals which Influences like the impression of Perfumes are most vigorous in their beginning Moreover we see that God made use of the excellence of the spirits of those people to make the first and greatest Law-givers and Sages If Authors of new and untrue Religions have been found there this fortifies rather then destroyes this Opinion more Witt being requisite to maintain a bad than a good cause As for Temperaments the Sanguine hath the advantage First because 't is the most healthful Complexion and Health is the principal condition of a good Witt which cannot display it self perfectly in a sick body Secondly because Blood is the proximate matter of spirits and he that hath good Blood must have plenty of spirits Thirdly because this is the Complexion of the amorous who are the most ingenious people of the world Whence the Poet said Quis fallere possit amantem But if the Question be What Exercise or Employment hath the most ingenious people 't is harder to be detemin'd so great Witts being found at this day of all sorts of professions that 't is difficult to judge of which there are most Some will prefer the Scholastick Devines for their subtle disputes and nice distinctions others the Rational Physicians for their discourses and conjectures upon the causes of hidden diseases others the Mathematicians for their curious searches into Heaven it self or the Lawyers who manage their affairs so advantageously above others The Fourth said That absolutely speaking there is no quarter of the world more Oriental or Occidental than another these words having been invented only in respect to Men themselves to some of whom one and the same people is Oriental and yet Occidental to others since the world is round and all the parts of a Sphere are of the same Nature What differences there are must be taken from something else than the four parts of the world and particularly from Cold and Heat Thus those that live under the Poles are of a different Complexion both of Body and Mind from those that are between the Tropicks According to which difference the Inhabitants of the temperate Zones must be the most ingenious Cold being too much an Enemy to Life to advance the Wit and excessive Heat burning the Humors no less within than without as the woolly hair and black skin of the Nations expos'd to it manifest So that 't is no presumption in the French and other Nations under the same Climate to award the preheminence to themselves in this matter For the operations of the Mind as well as the digestions and other natural operations of the Body require a temperate not an excessive Heat And the levity imputed to our Nation is a proof of it since commonly the most ingenious are least stedfast in executing the things they have devis'd But amongst the French I account none more ingenious than the Lawyers who confute the Philosophical Maxim which saith That whatever hath a beginning hath also an end since they render Suits immortal Instead of the four causes taught by Naturalists they create others without number and in spight of the Maxim which saith There is no Vacuum they make one at length in the purses of their Clients The Fifth said That since there are good and bad ingenious and sots in all Lands to be the one or the other dependeth not upon the Climate Heaven from whence the Soul descends being alike in all places Nor is it likely that professions render Men more or less ingenious since those to which people are lead by natural inclination are rather Effects than Causes of good or bad parts As for those to which we are perswaded or forc'd nothing can be inferr'd from them having no affinity with our Nature Lastly nor doth Temper always contribute to render Men ingenious since there are some so of all Tempers Ages and Sexes The true Cause is the proportion which happens to be between the Soul and the Body at the first conformation Whence the surest signs of good parts are taken from the figure of the Body and chiefly of the Head which if sharp never makes a wise man as on the contrary great Heads and broad Fore-heads are always ingenious of whatever Country Vocation and Temper they be CONFERENCE CXCIII Of the Fraternity of the Rosie-Cross I Find that these Brethren being associated in Germany two or three hundred years ago sware mutual Fidelity to observe the Laws of their Fraternity the chief of which was Secrecy never to speak or write but in the Allegories of their Cabal whose pretension is to re-establish all Discipilines and Sciences especially Physick which they say is ignor'd and ill practis'd by all others themselves alone having the Knowledge of so many Secrets that they hold the Philosopers Stone for one of the least and professing to imitate sundry other Societies of ancient time as first that of the Kings Priests and Philosophers of Aegypt under the names of Isis Osiris Apis Anubis and Mercury the mysteries whereof they hid under their Hieroglyphical Letters leaving the use of the common way of writing to the vulgar For proof whereof they alledge that the first Priest of this Fraternity being urg'd by Alexander to discover to him the Secret of Isis and Osiris told him for the whole Secret that they were not gods but men whom they worshipt With which Answer Alexander was so well satisfied that he writ word thereof to his Mother Olympias desiring her to burn his Letter as soon as she had read it for fear of Scandal The second Society which they alledge is the College of the Eumolpides so called from Eumolpus its Author an Eleusinian Priest at Eleusis in Athens in imitation of that instituted in Greece by Orpheus to the honor of Baochus of which Eumolpides the supream Sacrificer carry'd a golden key in his mouth to mind him of keeping the Secret which was not communicated to all the initiated in this Order but only to such as were of approv'd discretion The Third they say was that of the Samothracians who were never troubled with sickness or poverty the two grand scourges of Life maintaining themselves in perpetual
Causes The Second said That the Remora worketh the same Effect upon the Ship that the Torpedo doth upon the hand of the Fisher which becomes stupid when he toucheth the same with a long pole Now of this effect of Remora is not hard to be accounted for if we follow the Principles of Campanella and those who allow sense to all even the most gross corporeal things But this opinion being little received 't is better to say that whereas all natural things subsist only by the vicissitude of motion and rest wise Nature who is the principle of both hath judiciously dispenc'd them that they are found differently in some things and in others and that for the good and ornament of the Universe which requires that as they are bodies immoveable by reason of their scituation or use to wit the Earth and the Poles of the Heavens others always in motion to wit the Heavens Rivers Air and Fire and others endued with an attractive vertue as the Loadstone and Amber so She hath given others a Quality contrary to this Namely the Remora that of stopping the motion of a Ship and because motion and rest are contrary one to the other their principles are no less as well those that are effective of motion as those which cause rest but 't is better to explicate them by their sensible and indubitable effects than by reasons ordinarily frivolous and impertinent The Third said 'T is no rare thing for Ships to be staid in the main Sea whatever pains the Mariners take to make them go forward and how favourable soever the Wind may be the cause whereof is no other but the contrary motion of the waves of the Sea especially in streights and narrow places where there are strong Currents which probably stopp'd Caligula's Ship and those other mentioned in History rather than this little Fish which 't is credible can send so strong a Vertue from its small body as to fix and check the far greater and oftentimes irresistible force of the Winds and Sea Unless you had rather attribute this retardment to the mucosity and other foulnesses wherewith Ships are crusted in long Voyages which hinder their advancing and this Fish being sometimes found in those mucous humidities people mistake it for the cause though it no wise contributed thereunto The Fourth maintain'd according to the opinion of Francastorius That 't is not possible for so small a Fish as the Remora to stop a great Ship at full sail but that this Effect is occasion'd by Rocks indu'd with a Quality like that of the Loadstone upon which this Fish using to reside when a Ship passes near them their Adamantine Vertue attracts the same towards them whence the same thing happens by these two violent motions viz. that wherewith the Vessel is driven along in the main Sea and the attraction of these Rocks as when two equal forces draw a weight two several ways the thing remains unmov'd so that this fish is not the cause but only the sign of this retardment The fifth said That if there were any such magnetical vertue in this case the nails and iron-iron-works of the Ship so stay'd would rather be taken away than its course stopt the latter being more hard to do than the former since a little force sufficeth to pull a nail out of a Ship whose impetuous motion 't is not possible to withhold whence Archimedes's his drawing of a Ship out of the Port into the Market-place by his endless serue pass'd for one of the goodliest secrets of the Mechanicks though indeed it be nothing to the present enquiry And the truth is this strange effect may best be attributed to a hidden property and singular quality of this Fish which being always found sticking to the stopped Ships is more probably the cause of that impediment than any unknown Rocks which ought to do the like to all Vessels that approach them if there were any such For t is a vanity condemn'd by the most intelligent in the secrets of Nature to presume to give valid reasons thereof whilst we have none for the most sensible and ordinary effects for want of knowing the last and proximate differences which constitute every thing in its Essence and distinguish it from others it being easie to know that the Remora after the example of many other which act by a propriety of their form produceth this effect without being needful to trouble our selves to find out the means it imploys in order thereunto CONFERENCE CCXI. Of Negroes NAture loves variety so well that she is not contented with producing a great number of Species of all sorts of Animals differing chiefly according to the Climates which produce them but she hath also pleas'd her self in an innumerable diversity of individuals especially as to colour as cannot be call'd an Accident in Blackamores but an inseparable property which distinguishes them from other men and constitutes the nature of Negroes in whom the Sun's heat produceth an effect contrary to that of his light this brightning the other obscuring the subject upon which it acts Yet it acteth not alike upon all Subjects since the same Star Aethiopian whitens linnen and wax but this blackness happens to the Aethiopians because moisture exceeds and in a manner extinguisheth heat just as we see it come to pass in Charcoals Gangreens and the parts of man's body when struck with Lightning For if the first Quality would take colours no doubt cold would be white as we may judg by Water Ice Snow Gray Hairs and the Animals that live under the Artick Pole which are all white though of the same Species with ours of another colour as Bears and Hares Which is further prov'd by Herbs which grow white under ground and lose as much of their heat and bitterness as they partake of such whiteness witness the stalks of Hartichoaks and Savoury Hot things would be red and of the colour of Fire which we see gives that colour to faces formerly pale to hot Iron and burning Wood but a superfluous humidity supervening stifles and extinguishes this heat and leaves behind it the colour of corruption as we see the whitest skin grows black by heat upon travelling Southwards the contrary happening to those that go Northwards The Second said That if heat alone made Blackamoors those that are most expos'd to the Sun-beams should be the blackest but they are not so there being many Nations of the New World where it is so hot that they go all naked of an olive colour whereas in Guiney Aethiopia and other places inhabited by Moors they are cloth'd and feel more cold And because this colour may be ascrib'd to the reciprocation of heat and cold which is more likely to alter men's bodies in all other qualities than in a permanent one there are found both black and white people under the same parallels and elevation of the Pole as in the Isle of Sumatra where the Inhabitants are white Wherefore this colour must
or destroying of these will contribute to the weakning of the Soul and instead of making a Prophet the transformation will be into some Hypochondriack or extravagant Phanatick as it happens to those who macerate their Bodies by an indiscreet zeal insomuch that having not the perfect knowledg of that Science it were more expedient that men had a recourse to the ordinary means of Morality to regulate the Passions of the Soul and bring her to the pursuance of Virtue Now according to the rules of Morality even those who are good are much inclin'd to evil and find it no easie matter to oppose it The Seventh said That it is as hard a matter for the vicious person to do well as it is for the virtuous to do ill in regard that the inclination which the good man hath to do good and eschew evil is equal to that of the wicked person which is always bent to do evil it being very difficult for him to embrace Virtue by shunning Vice by reason of the aversion which he hath to that which is good And to make this the more clear we commonly find some persons so naturally addicted to the exercises of Virtues that what they do seems to be without any study Whence it may be deduc'd that the first seeds of Virtue and Good proceed from those natural Dispositions which are called Inclinations and consequently the difficulties in both are concluded to be equal And that may also be observ'd in Socrates who himself acknowledg'd that his natural Inclinations were so bent to Vice that if the dictates of Philosophy had not wrought things in him beseeming the person whom the Oracle had declar'd wise he would have been carry'd away with sensual Appetites according to his natural Inclinations there being some Natures truly Heroick and ever doing well and others brutish and always inclin'd to evil To this we are to add the consideration of the persons their qualities and age inasmuch as there being somewhat particular in any of these circumstances it changes the resolution in the general proposition which being universal and of a large extent it were necessary in order to the finding out of the Truth that we confin'd our selves to these circumstances yet still following the forementioned opinion For as fire finds no difficulty to ascend no more than the water does to flow downwards and make towards its centre so every one complying with his own Inclinations stands in an equal bent towards good and evil without any trouble or difficulty but to proceed contrary to that motion the virtuous person finds the trouble attending the doing of a evil action equal to that of the vicious in doing a bad one The Eighth said That this bent of the Inclinations ceases in those who are one while inclin'd to the doing of that which is good another to the doing of that which is evil as may be observ'd in Nero who during the first five years of his Government was the mildest of any of the Emperours yet afterwards gave himself over to all manner of Cruelty For what can be said of this alteration and if a man be naturally inclin'd to good Why is not the same inclination continued in him Does this inconstancy proceed from the mind or from the body If it proceeds from the mind since the powers thereof have a certain knowledge of the Good Why does it not embrace that which is good answerably to its knowledge of the same If it proceeds from the body since this hath a dependance on the mind why does it not follow the impressions which it derives from the other The Professors of Astrology who give so much credit to their Influences affirm that these diversities proceed from those Constellations whereby that change is caused and by which the Will is moved and receives a bent either to good or evil but if Reason have the sovereignty it ought to be conformable and produce such effects as are answerable thereto There is therefore a great probability that the causes of good and bad actions are to be referr'd to the regeneration of the Elect and the reprobation of the wicked who are left to the pursuance of their sensuality and thence it will follow that it shall be as hard for a truly-devout person to sin as for a reprobate to do well and so the Question is to be referr'd to the decision of Theology CONFERENCE CCXXIII. Whether a piece of Iron laid upon the Cask prevents Thunder from marring Wine contain'd within it and why SInce we are always to begin with that which is undenyable in matter of fact whereby we are assur'd that a piece of Iron laid upon a vessel full of Wine prevents its being corrupted by Thunder which without that precaution would cause it some prejudice which precaution hath also the same effect in preserving the Eggs which the Hen sits upon and in keeping Milk from turning all the difficulty of this Question is only in the latter part of it and that is to find out the reason thereof which must either be referr'd to some occult vertue in the Iron or to some of its manifest qualities If it be said that this is wrought by the manifest qualities of that metal it seems requisite that the Iron should be within the vessel with the Wine that so it may oppose the poyson of the Air whereby it is infected But on the other side to alledge those occult vertues is an argument of humane ignorance inasmuch as they are to act by the interposition of some means So that all things considered it is more rationally affirm'd to be an effect proceeding from the manifest qualities of the Iron which prevent and hinder that bad impression of the Air. But to give a more evident reason hereof we are to consult Astrology That Science teaches us that Mars by which Planet Iron is designed hath its House in Aries which is the sign of the Ram and the Naturalists observe that the Sun entring into that House causes the sap and moisture of the Vine to ascend an evident sign that there is a correspondence between Wine and Iron and that the one preserves the other by the natural Sympathy there is between them And to make it appear that the Influences exercise their vertues even upon things inanimate yet deriv'd from the root of what had been Vegetable or Animal we find that Wine though it be carried ever so far is subject to an observable alteration when the grapes of the same Vine are near their maturity that distance of Places and Climates not obstructing the Union and Correspondence which there is between the whole and its part which cannot be joyned together save only by means of the Celestial Influences The Second said That the foremention'd reason deduc'd from Astrology was not evident and that there is more subtilty in it than Truth and consequently that it is to be sought with greater probability to find it out of Natural Philosophy which treats of
remov'd from the place the very next day a great Fire happened in the same City For if every thing below is as that which is above and the effects of inferiour things proceed from the various configuration of the Celestial Bodies as of the different combinations of the Letters of the Alphabet are compos'd infinite Books there may be some proportion and correspondence between those Celestial Figures and such as are made upon fit and suitable materials the knowledg of which sympathetical Correspondences is the true Magick which is by the testimony of J. Picus Mirandula the highest point of humane Knowledg marrying Heaven with Earth as black Magick is detestable shameful and ridiculous The Fifth said That every thing acts in the World by the first or second Qualities or by its Substance whence proceed occult Properties and Sympathies But Talismanical Figures cannot act by any of these ways for 't is certain that they act neither by heat cold hardness softness or such other first or second Quality no more than by their Substance which is different in Talismans of Copper Iron Stone c. Although the Authors of this Art ascribe the same virtue to all provided they be graven with the same Figures and under the same Constellations and Aspects of the Starrs from whom alone they make them derive their strange virtues alledging as a Principle That there is nothing in the World but hath both its Contrary and its Like as well in Heaven as on Earth where we see not only the Marigold and the Sun-flower follow the motion of the Sun the Selenotrope that of the Moon the Cock proclaims the approach of the Sun As also on the contrary Dogs commonly run mad in the Dog-days and Lions under the Sign Leo But also some Persons beheld with an evil eye by some Planets others being propitious So to cure hot and dry Diseases they engrave their Talismans under a Constellation contrary to the Evil as cold and moist having regard to the Signs whereunto every Malady and diseas'd Part is referr'd which is an Invention of Paracelsus who fancies Poles a Zenith a Nadir an Equator a Zodiack and other phantastical Figures in our Bodies answering to those of Heaven without the least proof of his sayings Upon the Second Point it was said Since Man is compos'd of Body and Soul the best Life he can lead is that which is most proper for the perfection and good of both Such is the Country-life being accompanied with the Goods of the Body Fortune and the Mind Those of the Body as Health and Strength are possess'd with advantage by Rusticks who know not so much as the Names of Diseases the cause whereof is their Exercise and Labour which dissipates and resolves the humours that produce most Diseases as also the purity of the Air they breathe which is the more healthful in that it hath free motion and is less confin'd for which reason Physitians send their recovering Patients to confirm their Health in the Air of the Country Which also supplies the Goods of Fortune the true and natural Riches to wit the Fruits of the Earth and the Spoils of Animals Gold Silver and other artificial Goods being but imaginary and useless without those first whereunto they are subservient But above all the Goods of the Mind which consist in Knowledg and Virtue the two Ornaments of its two chief Faculties the Understanding and the Will may be acquir'd much more easily in a Country-life in regard of the purer Air which begets like Spirits as these frame purer Species and Phantasms on which depend the actions of the Understanding which besides cannot meditate nor improve without rest and silence scarce found in a civil and tumultuary Life as that in Cities is which hold our Minds as well as Bodies in captivity depriving us of the free aspect of Heaven the rising and setting of the Sun and Stars and of the means of considering the Wonders of God in the production of Flowers Fruits and Plants Hence the Poets feign'd the Muses the Goddesses of the Sciences living in the Mountains of Helicon and in Woods not in the inclosure of Cities where Virtues are also more difficultly practis'd than the Sciences nothing of them being left there but shadows and phantasms which under veils of Dissimulation Hypocrisie Complements and other testimonies of Virtue cover Injustices Sacriledges Impieties and other Crimes unknown in the Country where Simplicity and Innocence are sure tokens of true Virtue which is also better retain'd amongst the Thorns and Sweats of the Country than in the Luxury and Idleness of Cities And if things may be judg'd of by their beginnings the Sacred History tells That Cain the first Murtherer was the first that built a City named Henoch after the Name of his Son as a little after did the first Tyrant of the World Nimrod who built Niniveh On the contrary all holy Personages have lead a Country-life Adam was a Husband-man and so was Cain as long as he continu'd in the state of Innocence which as soon as he lost he desir'd to become a Burgess Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs his Sons were Shepherds as also the Kings Saul and David and the Prophets Amos Elisha and many others in imitating whose example we cannot erre The Second said That Man being a sociable and political Animal the habitation of Cities is as consentaneous to his Nature as the Country-life is repugnant to the same And therefore Men had no sooner discover'd the inconveniences of the Rustick-life but they unanimously conspir'd to build Cities to the end to supply one anothers Necessities and defend themselves from wild Beasts and their Enemies to whose fury they were expos'd before they liv'd in some Town which is a Sacred Society or Unity of Citizens all aspiring to the conservation of the State to the maintaining of the Laws and Justice and to the publick Ornament and Glory making Arts and Disciplines flourish and procuring Safety to all People by the distribution of Rewards to Virtue and Punishment to Vices which have not their effect but in publick For our Lives would not differ from those of Brutes if we were oblig'd to dwell in Dens or wander up and down Woods as the Barbarians of the new World do whose Brutality Irreligion Cruelty Ignorance and Misery compar'd with the Politeness Devotion Humanity Knowledg and Happiness of others sufficiently manifest what difference there is between a City and a Country-life CONFERENCE CIX I. Of Volcano's or Subterranean Fires II. Which Age is most desirable THe effects of Volcano's and Subterranean Fires are no less manifest than their cause is unknown although the desire of teaching us the same occasion'd the death of Pliny by haying too neer approach'd the Fires of Mont Gibel or Aetna and made Empedocles cast himself head-long into them But the former did not attain it and the latter left us nothing but his Pantofles The Artifice of Man hath indeed excavated the
same be poison to Men some of whom do receive no hurt by poisons as 't is reported of Mithridates whose body was so prepar'd by his Antidote compos'd of Rue Nuts and Figs that he could not kill himself by poison of the Wench presented to Alexander who was fed with Napellus or Monks-hood of the old Woman in Sextus Empiricus who swallow'd 30 drachms of Hemlock without harm of Athenagoras the Argian who was not hurt by Scorpions wherewith the Aethiopians dwelling neer the River Hydaspes are fed as well as with Snakes which Avicenna saith another man kill'd by being bitten with them possibly having his body full of a humour like fasting spittle which Galen saith kills Serpents and other Insects These Poisons and Antidotes are either Natural or Artificial those more frequent in Southern then in Northern Countries are communicated by Potions Powders Juices Vapours Touches and other detestable means The Natural differ either in Matter or in Quantity or in Quality or in Operation The Matter of Poysons which is found almost every where is either within us as the Seed and the Blood which by corruption oftentimes acquire a venomous quality such as also is that of the matter of the Epilepsie and Suffocation of the Womb Or else without us in the Air Water and Earth Fire alone being contrary to Poyson and putrefaction which easily happens to the Air and Water through their great humidity But the Earth by its excrements and impurities supplies most Matter to Poysons which are drawn either from Minerals from Plants or from Animals Arsenic Orpiment Vitriol Plastre Lime Sublimate Borax Verdegrease Quicksilver Cinabar Ceruse and Red-lead are of the first order To the second belong Aconite or Woolf-bane Chamalea or Widow-wayle Yew Spurge-lawrel Thapsia or scorching Fennel Tithymals Hellebores Vomiting Nut Opium Nightshade and many other Plants some of which have only venomous Flowers as certain white Violets others only their Fruits as the Apples of Mandrake or only the juice as Lettice and Poppies or the Seeds as Henbane and Spurge or the Roots as Aconite and Hellebore To the third belong Lepus Marinus the Salamander the Flie call'd Buprestis the Scorpion Viper Asp Adder Toad Tarantula Shrew-mouse and divers others which are venomous either in all their parts as Cantharides and Spiders or only in some as Vipers in the Tail and Head the Hart and Fork-fish in the extremities of their Tails the Wivern in one of its Claws Or in their Excrements as the Gall of the Leopard the Urine of a Mouse the Foam of a Mad-dog the Sweat of an enraged Horse and the Blood of a Bull. As for the Quantity although all Poysons act in a little volume yet some require less Matter as Opium acts in less quantity than Hemlock this than the juice of Leeks and this than the juice of Lettice According to Quality some are hot and either inflame as Euphorbium or corrode as the Lepus Marinus which particularly invades the Lungs the Asp the Liver Nightshade and Henbane the Brain Cantharides the Bladder Others are cold fixing the Spirits and natural heat or hindring their free motion as Opium and the Salt of Lead Others are dry as Lime Vitriol and Arsenic which consume the Radical Humidity For Humidity being a quality purely passive and of it self incapable of causing pain there are no Poysons simply humid They differ also in their manner of acting the cold kill by consopiting or stifling the Heat Hellebore by vehement attraction of the Humours Some corrode the Substance others alter resolve or putrifie it And because all Poisons chiefly attaque the natural Heat and the Heart as the Swoonings Palpitations and Weaknesses accompanying them witness The Antidotes must be Cardiacal or friends to the Heart strengthening it and joyning forces with it to expel or subdue the malignity of the Poyson The Third said Physick opposes Poyson either by Preservatives before 't is taken or Remedies afterwards Preservation depends on the administration of the six Not-natural things as the avoiding of Air and Places infected perfuming them by burning of Wild-Thyme Mountain-Majoran Southernwood Kings Spear or Cedar annointing the Body with Rose-oyl which is an Enemy to Serpents and venomous Creatures and eating in Vessels of Porcellane and the like which discover Poisons Simple Preservatives are either appli'd outwardly as the Topaz Emerald and other Amulets worn next the skin or inwardly as Bezoar-stone Bole-Armenick Lemnian or Seal'd Earth Vincetoxicum Turnep Dittany Garlick Rue Citron Pomegranate c. Of Compounds the most famous is Theriaca or Treacle made of above a hundred Ingredients When Poyson is already introduc'd into the Body whether by biting stinging breathing foam or by the sight as that of the Basilisk or by the touch as that of the Torpedo or by the mouth regard must be had to three things 1. To strengthen the Natural Heat that it yield not but may resist the Poyson and to corroborate the Entrails for fear they receive any malignant impression 2. To destroy the force of the Poyson 3. To evacuate it speedily either by attraction as by Sucking or Cupping or by Incision and Ustion if the Poyson was receiv'd extrinsecally but if 't was taken by the mouth it must be evacuated by Sweat Urine Siege and Vomit which is the speediest and safest provided it be provok'd by familiar Medicaments as Butter Oyl Milk or the like unctuous things These Antidotes are either general resisting all sorts of Poysons strengthning the Heart and Spirits or else peculiar to some certain Poyson General are Blessed Thistle Angelica Valerian Dittany Scabious Devils-bit Pimpernel Tormentil Rue Scordium Wood-sorrel Wormwood Plantane Marigold Fluellin Gentian Juniper-berries Bezoar Treacle Armenian and Lemnian Earths the Horns of Hart and Rhinoceros and Ivory Of Particular Mummy is good against Tithymals the Weesel and Man's Ordure against envenom'd Wounds the Root of Dog-rose against the biting of a Mad-dog the Flower of Water-Lilly against Hellebore Cucumbers against Pharao's Figs Wormwood Garlick and Mustard against Toad-stools Long Birth-wort against Aconites Vipers Flesh and all Precious Stones against Menstrual Blood Baulm and Endive against Spiders S. Katherine's Flower and Dancing against the Tarantula Sea-Crab against Night-shade Citron-pill against Vomiting Nut Origanum or Wild-Majoran against Mezaereon the Seeds of Winter-Cherry against Cantharides and the Salamander's foam a roasted Fox and Oisters against the Sea-Hare Pigeons-dung and Parsley-seed against Mercury Treacle against the Viper Oyl of Scorpions and Wasps against their Stingings by sympathy drawing out the venomous Spirits and rejoyning them to their first Body Of all which effects 't is more expedient to admire than unprofitably search the Cause which hath been hitherto unknown to the greatest Wits and depends upon that of Sympathies and Antipathies The Fourth said There are two sorts of Mistions in Nature one of Qualities the other of Substantial Forms In the first the Qualities being rebated by their mutual encounter an agreeable harmony or temper results in which
And as they are most healthful who use these least so the most flourishing States have fewest Lawyers Wrangling which is the daughter of Law being the most apparent cause of the diminution of the strength of Christendom where for some Ages it hath reign'd either by diverting the greatest number of its Ministers from the exercise of War the principal means of amplifying a State or by unprofitably taking up the people in Sutes And therefore the Spaniards found no safer course to preserve the new World to themselves then by debarring all Lawyers entrance into it The Fifth said That this made for the Physitians For the Spaniards sent many of them to the new World to discover the simples there and bring them into Europe Moreover as 't is more necessary to live and to live in health then to live in society or riches which are the things Law takes care of so much doth Law yield to Physick in this point which Gods Word who commands to honour the Physitian saith was created for necessity Which as plainly decides the Question as that Resolution was worthy of the Fool of Fracesco Sforza Duke of Milan which he gave in the like Dispute of preference between the Physitians and Advocates That at Executions the Thief marches before the Hang-man Moreover Kings who are above Laws subject themselves to those of Physitians whom Julius Caesar honour'd with the right of Incorporation into the City Whereunto add the certainty of this Art which is the true note of the excellence of a Discipline being founded upon natural Agents whose effects are infallible whereas Law hath no other foundation but the will and phansie of Men which changes with Times Places and Persons CONFERENCE CXVIII Of Sea-sickness NAture hath furnish'd Things with two ways of preserving the Being she hath given them namely to seek their good and flee their evil Both which Animals do by attracting what is proper to their nature by right fibers and rejecting what is otherwise by transverse fibers of which the Expulsive Faculty makes use So when the Stomack is surcharg'd with too great a quantity of matter or goaded by its acrimony the expulsive Faculty of this part being irritated by what is contrary to it casts it forth by yexing belching and vomiting Yexing is a deprav'd motion of the upper Orifice of the Stomach which dilates and opens it self to expell some thing adhering to its Tunicles or orbicular Muscles which being commonly a sharp and pungent vapour we see this Hickcock is remov'd by a cup of cold water or else by holding the breath for the coldness of the water represses the acrimony of the vapour'd and the restrain'd Spirits by heat cause it to resolve and evaporate Vomiting is also a deprav'd motion of the Stomack which contracts it self at the bottom to drive out some troublesome matter which if it adhere too fast or Nature be not strong enough causeth Nauseousness or a vain desire to vomit Belching is caus'd when the said matter is flatuous and meets no obstacle These motions are either through the proper vice of the Stomack or through sympathy with some other part The former proceeds sometimes from a cold and moist intemperies Whence man the moistest of all Animals is alone subject to Vomiting except Dogs and Cats but he only has the Hickcock and Children as being very humid vomit frequently Sometimes 't is from a faulty conformation of the Stomack as when 't is too straight or from some troublesome matter either internal or external The internal is a pungent humour and sometimes Worms In short every thing that any way irritates the Expulsive and weakens the Retentive Faculty So oyly fat and sweet things floating upon the Stomack provoke to vomit by relaxing the fibres which serve for retention External causes are all such as either irritate or relax the Stomack as stinking Smells and the sole imagination of displeasing things violent winds exercise especially such wherein the Body is mov'd by somthing else and contributes not it self to the motion as going in a Coach or a Ship for here the Body rests and also the parts are relax'd only the Spirits agitated by this motion act more strongly upon the humours and these are here more easily evacuated by reason of the relaxation of the fibres then in other exercises wherein the Body stirs it self as riding-post or a troat in which the Nerves are bent and consequently all the parts more vigorous and hence vomiting is not so easie 'T is also the equality of the motion which makes persons unus'd to go in a Coach vomit sooner when the Coach goes in a smooth and even field then upon rough ways The same hapning upon the Sea 't is no wonder if people be so apt to vomit there The Second said That neither the agitation of the Air nor the motion of the Body can be the sole cause of Vomiting and other Sea-maladies since the like and more violent at Land as Swings Charets and Posts produce not the same effects For we consider the agitation of the Stomack as the cause of vomiting that of the Feet and Legs being but accidental and experience testifies that 't is not the lifting up but the falling down of the Ship that causes the rising of the Stomack Wherefore I should rather pitch upon the salt-air of the Sea abounding with sharp and mordicant Vapours which being attracted by respiration trouble the Stomack especially its superior orifice the seat of the sensitive Appetite by reason of the Nerves of the sixth Conjugation thus the door being open the matter contain'd in the Stomack which is also infected with the malignity of these vapours is voided by the ordinary ways as happens sometimes to such who only come near the Sea Indeed the bitterness and saltness of the humour in the Mouth which is the forerunner of Vomiting together with the quivering of the nether Lip proceeding from the continuity of the inward membrane of the Stomack with that of the Gullet and Mouth manifests the vapours which excite it to be salt and nitrous Whence also plain water drunk with a little salt causes Vomit Now if this malady happens sooner in a Tempest 't is because those nitrous spirits are more stirr'd in the tossing of the Sea than in a Calm as they say 't is more frequent in the Torrid Zone because there is a greater attraction of the said Spirits by the heat of the Climate which on the other is an enemy to the Stomack extreamly weakning it as cold much helps its functions Such as go into deep Mines are seis'd with the like disturbance to this of the Sea by respiration of the nitrous Spirits which issue out of the entrails of the Earth and are the cause of its fecundity The Third said That Cato who repented of three things 1. Of having told a Secret to his Wife 2. Of having spent a day without doing somthing And 3. of having gone by Sea when he might have gone by
contrary namely Unite the Four Humours in the Veins though different in nature instead of segregating them for in this Case Heat acts not with full authority but as the Soul's Officer following her intentions And the reason is because these four Humours being ingredients into the Nativity of Man they must necessarily pass into his nourishment which they cannot do without being mingled together But when the Blood is out of the Veins then the Heat disengag'd from the Soul's jurisdiction disgregates and separates all four making the Choler float uppermost the Phlegm next then the Blood and lowest of all Melancholy as the dregs Amongst Souls there is the same order of Superiority The Sensitive makes the Vegetative obey it as appears by this that if after meat the Imagination attend much to an object the Concoction of the Food is retarded because all the Faculties of the Soul being united in their Root and Essence of the Soul when she sets her self much upon one object she leaves the other inferiour powers idle they not being able to work but as the Soul their principle employs them Now this premis'd I say when a breeding Woman hath a longing for any thing this desir'd thing is imprinted strongly in the Phancy and this imprinting being made in the Brain the Spirits which flow from thence carry a copy thereof with them For as an intire Looking-glass represents but one Image but every piece of a broaken one hath its whole Pourtrait because the Intentional Species or Images of things though divisible by reason of their subject are yet in themselves formally indivisible being Forms without Matter and consequently indivisible Division proceeding from Quantity a concomitant of Matter So those Spirits which stream from the Brain though they leave there the image of the desir'd thing yet withall they carry the same image with them as being portions of the substance wherein it is engraven and running to the place where the Foetus is form'd by reason of the union of its Umbilical Vessels with those of the Mother they arrive at the Infant and imprint the Characters they bring upon it the Vegetative and Plastick or Formative Vertue suffering it self to be over-rul'd by the Sensitive as this is by the Imaginative and this again by the other superiour powers When the teeming Woman touching her self in any part the Spirits run thither from the Brain either by reason of the touch or the motion both depending upon the Animal Spirits but finding the Mother's flesh too hard and disproportinate to their effect and missing their blow they go to give it upon the tenderer flesh of the Child And as in Generation the Spirits of all the parts of the Body accur to the place where the Seed is receiv'd there to engrave the Characters of the parts whence they flow which afterwards serve for the Formative Vertue every one having his task to make the part from which it issu'd so the Mother's Spirits keep the same course and rule towards the Embryo so that those which serv'd to the Mother's touch go to find that same place in the Child's Body there to mark the Image which they brought from the Brain Nature finding ways for her Intention where none appear The Second said The impotence of that Sex and their weakness of Mind evidenc'd by the violence of all their Passions which know no mediocrity is one of the principal causes of the impetuosity of their desires Now the Species of the thing desir'd being in the Imagination it excites the Appetite which desir'd it this the motive Faculty which employs the Animal Spirits to execute the commands of the Faculties by whom it is set on work And as the Vertues and Images of things generated here below by the heat and influence of the Stars are receiv'd in the Air which consigns them to the Earth so those Spirits receive the Species and Images whereof the brain is full and being directed by the Imagination to the Womb which hath great communication with the Brain by means of the nerves of the sixt Pair as appears by the effects of Odors upon that part there they retrace and imprint upon the Child the Images wherewith they are laden For if it be true that the Imagination can act beyond its Subject as Estriches and Tortoises are said to hatch their Eggs with their Eyes and that Hens hatch Chickens of the colour of such cloths as are laid before them whilest they are sitting much more may the Imagination of a Woman represent upon the tender Fruit in her womb the Images of things which she passionately desires and this is no more strange than the common observation of People falling sick and recovering again meerly by Fancy The Third said That the images of things desired are in the Spirits just as those of sensible objects are in the Air which is full of them But as these that they may be seen must be terminated by a smooth and opake body so that those which are in the spirits may be express'd they must be terminated by a soft tender and capable body as a child's is in the first months of his conformation during which alone he is susceptible of these impressions which are only of things edible and potable being the Child then endu'd only with sensitive Life cannot be affected but by things serving to the Animal Life as aliments are which besides are ordinarily and most ardently desir'd by breeding Women those that long for chalk coals and other impurities being unhealthy and distemper'd Now to give account why the Grapes Mulberries Strawberries Goose-berries and other Fruits delineated upon our bodies ripen and change colour at the same time as the true fruits upon the earth do I shall not recurr to the Stars or Talismanical Figures but more probably to that Universal Spirit which causeth the same fermentation in the spirits of our bodies as in Wine and the Vine when it is in its sap and flower and in Pork or Venison when Hogs and Deer are salt mezled or go to rut The fourth said That some of these Marks adhere to particular Families So the family of Seleucus had an Anchor upon the thigh in Greece some were distinguish'd by a Lance a Crevish a Star c. which marks as Warts and Moles proceed from the Formative Vertue in the seed which containing the Idea of all the parts expresses them to the life in the child Other sorts of Marks are not ordinary but fortuitous and depend upon the Imagination alone which employs the spirits which are common both to the Mother and Child by the Umbilical Vessels and have the same motions so that when the Woman scratches her self in any part of her body the spirits having a like motion are carri'd towards that part and at the same time towards that correspondent part in the child's body whose tenderness is alone susceptible of the image wherewith they are impregnated and which is never to be removed as being from the first
which are turn'd into the substance of Animals whose bodies are again reduc'd into Earth The fifth maintain'd the opinion of Albert the Great who is for the Generation of things which the preceding opinion over throws holding nothing to be new generated He said that Forms are indeed in the Matter yet not entire and perfect but only by halves and begun according to their essence not according to their existence which they acquire by the Agents which educe things out of their causes The Sixth said If it were so then there would be no substantial Generation because Existence is nothing but a Manner of Being adding nothing to Essence nor really distinguish'd from it Wherefore I embrace Aristotle's opinion that Forms are in the Matter but only potentially and as the Matter is capable of them just as Wax is potentially Caesar's Statue because capable of receiving that form This he calls to be drawn and educ'd out of the power or bosom of the Matter which is not to be receiv'd in it or to depend of its dispositions since this belongs also to the Rational soul which is not receiv'd in the body till the previous dispositions necessary for its reception be introduc'd therein but the Matter it self concurrs though in a passive way not only to dispose it self but also to produce the Form and consequently to preserve it Which is not applicable to the Rational soul whose Being depends not anywise upon the Matter The Seventh said Matter being a Principle purely passive and incapable of all action cannot produce any thing much less Forms the noblest Entities in the world 'T is the principle of impotence and imperfection and consequently the ugliness deformity contrary to the Form whereof it should partake if it contain'd the same in power as Wine and Pepper do Heat which becomes actual and sensible when reduc'd into act by our Natural Heat which loosens it from the parts which confin'd it Wherefore Forms come from without namely from Heaven and its noblest part the Sun the Father of Forms which are nothing but Beams of light deriv'd from him as their Fountain whose heat and influences give motion and life which is the abode of Heat in Humidity not Elementary Heat for then Arsenic Sulphur and other Mixts abounding with this Heat should have life but Serpents Salamanders Fishes Hemlock Poppies and other excessively cold Plants and Animals should not Moreover in whatever manner the Elements and their Qualities be mix'd they are still Elements and can produce nothing above their own Nature which is to calefie refrigerate attenuate rarefie condense but not the internal and external senses the various motions and other actions of life which can proceed only from a Celestial Heat such as that is which preserves a Plant amidst the rigours of Winter whose coldness would soon destroy the Plant's heat if it were of the same nature Hence Vegetative and Sensitive Souls having no Contraries because Contraries are plac'd under the same Genus but the Celestial matter whereof these souls are constituted and the Elements are not therefore they are not corruptible after the manner of other Mixts but like light cease to exist upon the cessation of the dispositions which maintain'd them For such is the order of Nature that when a Subject is possest of all the dispositions requisite for introduction of a Form the Author of Nature or according to Plato the Idea or that Soul of the World which Avicenna held to be an Intelligence destinated to the generation of substantial Forms concurrs to the production of the Form as also this concourse ceases when those dispositions are abolisht CONFERENCE CXXIII Whether Lean people are more healthy and long-liv'd then Fat THe Immortality of our souls having an absolute disposition to length of Life it depends only upon that of the Body that we do not live Ages as our first Fathers did For 't is from some defect in these bodies that the differences of life even in Animals and Plants proceed whence some less perfect souls as those of Oaks are yet more long-liv'd then those of Beasts The signs of long and short life are either simply such or also causes and effects Such is the conformation of the parts of our body A great number of Teeth is held a sign of longaevity as well because 't is an effect of the strength of the Formative Faculty and Natural Heat as that thereby the food is better masticated and prepar'd and the other concoctions and functions more perfectly perform'd whence comes health and long life So also the Habit of the body is not simply a sign but likewise an effect of health and cause of long life namely when the same is moderate that is neither fat nor lean which two though comprisable within the latitude of health which admits a a great latitude are yet so much less perfect as they decline from that laudable disposition which is the rule and square of all others Now to make a just comparison we must consider the Fat and the Lean in the same degree of excess or defect from this Mediocrity and compare Philetas the Poet who was so dry and lean that he was fain to fasten leaden soles to his shoos for fear the wind should carry him away with Dionysius of Heraclea who was choakt with fat unless his body were continually beset with Leeches Or else we must observe in both an equality of Vigour in the Principles of Life to wit the Radical Heat and Moisture in the same proportion the same age under the same climate regiment and exercises otherwise the comparison will be unequal and lastly we must distinguish the fleshy great-limb'd and musculous from the fat This premis'd I am of Hippocrates's Opinion Aph. 44. Sect. 2. that such as are gross and fat naturally die sooner then the lean and slender because the Vessels of the latter especially the Veins are larger and consequently fuller of Blood and Spirits which are the Architects and principal Organs of Life on the contrary the Fat have smaller Vessels by reason of their coldness which constringes them as is seen in Women Eunuchs and Children whose voices are therefore more shrill and who have also less health and life The Second said Nature hath furnisht Animals with Fat to the end to preserve them from external injuries and therefore the Lean who are unprovided thereof must be of shorter life for not many besides decrepit old people die of a natural death that is proceeding from causes within whereas most diseases arise from external causes wherewith the Fat are less incommoded especially with cold the sworn enemy of life the smallness of their pores and the fat which environs them excluding all qualities contrary to life and withall hindring the dissipation of the Natural Heat which becomes more vigorous by the confinement just as the Bowels are hotter in Winter because the cold air hinders the efflux of the heat and spirits caus'd in Summer and in lean bodies whose
distill'd Waters difficultly by reason of their simplicity Vinegar though cold never by reason of the tenuity of its parts But the surface of waters being full of earthy and gross parts which could not accompany the Vapours or Exhalations drawn up by the Sun's heat is therefore first frozen even that of running waters though not so easily by reason of their motion makes a divulsion of their parts as neither Oyle very easily by reason of its aërious and unctuous humidity the Sea and Hot Spirits which yet Experience shews are sometimes frozen by Vehement Cold the Poet in his description of the sharpness of Winter in his Georgicks saying that they cleav'd Wine with hatchets and the Northern Navigations of the Hollanders relating that they were detain'd three moneths under the seventy fourth Degree where their Ships were frozen in the main sea The Second said That Heat and Cold are the immediate Causes of Freezing and Thawing but 't is hard to know Whence that Heat and Cold comes Now because Cold is onely the Privation of Heat as Darkness is of Light we shall sufficiently understand the Causes of Cold and of Freezing if we know those of Heat which causes Thawing The truth is the Sun whose approach and remoteness makes the diversities of Seasons according to the different mutations which he causes in the qualities of the Air contribute thereunto but the Earth helps too he cannot do it alone for we see that the Snow on the Mountains which approach nearest Heaven is last melted But the Sun's Rays piercing into the bosome of the Earth draw out that Fire which is inclos'd in its entralls and because the Sun removes but a very little from the Aequinoctial Line therefore that part of the Earth which answers to that of Heaven where the Sun continually resides is alwayes Hot and by a contrary Reason that under the Poles is alwayes extreamly cold And even Country-people observe winds to be the Cause of these Effects for those that blow from the North quarter bring with them an extream cold Air which is the cause of Freezing and those from the South bring on us an Air extreamly heated by the continuall action of the Sun and so are the cause of Thawing The Third said That Winds being continual because their matter never fails it happens that the strongest gets the better of the weakest and they chase one another whence Virgil calls them Wrestlers When the South Winds blow which are more frequent and more gross then the Northern or Eastern by reason of the Sun's strength in the South which opens the Pores of the Earth more the copious Exhalations which issue out of it are hotter than those which come out of the Pores of the Northern Earth which are closed up by Cold whence the Winds blowing from thence are colder and thinner just as our breath is cold when we contract our Mouthes and hot when we dilate them In like manner the Exhalations issuing out of the Earth's Pores are hotter or colder according as the passages out of which they proceed are more or less dilated and consequently cause Freezing or Thawing The Fourth said That the Sun or other Stars are onely remote Causes of Freezing and Thawing namely by their Heat which serves to raise the Vapors which are the next causes thereof according as they partake more or less of that external Heat or as the Chymists say as they are full either of certain nitrous and dissolving Spirits which cause Thawing or of coagulating ones which cause Freezing such as those are harden Plants into Stones which so presently congeal drops of water in Caves and Water-droppings and form the Crystals of the Rock Moreover just before it freezes Sinks and other stinking places smell more strong by reason that the Spirits and Vapors of the Earth are complicated with those stinks as they issue forth The Fifth said That the Cause of Thawing is to be attributed to the Heat of the Earth which exhaling warm Vapors fiâ—st heats the bottome of the Water for which reason Fish retire thither then they mollifie and moisten the surface of the Water or the Earth hardned by Cold. Moreover that Heat which is found in the deepest Mines where the Labourers work naked and most ordinarily in the Water without enduring any Cold the veins of Sulphur Bitumen Vitriol and Arsenick which are found in the entralls of the Earth the Hot Springs and the Volcanoes in its surface sufficiently argue That if there be not a Central Fire as the Pythagoreans held yet there is a great Heat there like that of Living Bodies which concocts Metals and makes Plants grow Hence the changes of Air are first discover'd in Mines by the Vapors arising from beneath which hinder Respiration and make the Lamps burn dim or go quite out Whereby 't is evident that they are exhaled by the Heat of the earth and not attracted by that of the Sun and Stars which penetrate but a very little way into the earth Now as our bodies are inwardly hotter in Winter so this heat of the earth being concentred in it self as appears by Springs which smoke in that season and by the heat of subterraneous places raises greater plenty of warm Vapors which in Winte render the Weather moist and rainy but when rain or the coldness of the air stops those pores then those Exhalations being shut up the Air remains cold and it freezes which frost is again dissolv'd by their eruption For the natural heat of the Earth being constring'd and render'd stronger by the ambient Cold drives out hotter and more copious exhalations which consist either of the rain-water wherewith it is moistned or of other humidities and which arriving at the surface of the Earth which is frozen soften it and fill the air with clouds which always accompany a Thaw as Serenity do's a Frost The Sixth said That as Hail is nothing but Rain congeal'd so Frost is nothing but Dew condens'd by the vehemence of Cold and in the Water 't is call'd Ice which coldness condensing the Water which is a diaphanous body and consequently hath an internal and radical light is the cause of its whiteness which is the beginning of light as the Stars are the condens'd parts of their Orbs. Unless you had rather ascribe that whiteness to the Air included in the Ice which also makes the same swim upon the water An Evidence that Cold alone is not the cause of Freezing for Cold alone render bodies more ponderous by condensing their parts whence Ice should be heavier then Water but there is requir'd besides some hot and dry exhalation which insinuating into the Water gives it levity The Seventh said That such bodies as are frozen are so far from receiving augmentation of parts that they lose the thinnest of their own hence a bottle so close stopped that the air cannot get in to supply the place of the thinner parts which transspire and perish upon freezing breaks in pieces for avoiding
of vacuity And Wine and Fruits lose their tast upon the loss of their spirits when they are frozen which spirits not being able to transpire in Cabbages and other Viscous Plants digest their crudities and by that means render the same Plants more tender CONFERENCE CXXVI Of the Causes of the Small Pox. THe variety wherewith this Malady afflicts or that which it causes in the body hath given it the name of Variolae Variolles or Vairolles as its resemblance to the blisters and to the manner wherewith the Venereous Disease invades the Indians to whom the same is Epidemical being caused by the corruption of the air causes it to be called the Small Pox. These are efflorescences or pustules appearing upon the body especially those of Children by reason of the softness of their skin with a Feaver pain scabbiness and purulent matter This malady comprizes three sorts of Diseases Namely Intemperature in its feaver and inflammation Bad conformation in the little Eminencies and solution of continuity in the Ulcers It s precedent signs are commonly hoarsness of the voice pain of the head inflammation of the whole face yawnings distentions trembling of the whole body sneezings and stitches It s concomitant essential and pathognomonical signs are Deliration frightful Dreams pains of the Breast and Throat difficulty of Respiration and a Continual Feaver which is sometimes putrid sometimes not All which signs proceed from the violent ebulition and agitation of the humours the conjunct cause of this Malady an effect of the natural heat which being irritated by their Malignity drives them outwards to the surface where they raise those little Tumours which if red and less high make the Meazles and when more eminent the Small Pox the Pimples whereof at first appear very small afterwards in time wax red and grow bigger from day to day till they become white then they suppurate and dry and lastly falling off commonly leave marks behind them not to be got away because they have consumed the skin which is never generated anew The second said A common effect must have a common cause Now the Small Pox and Meazles which differ only in that the former is produc'd of thinner and the latter of thicker blood are diseases not only common to many but so few escape them that a general rule here scarce admits any exceptions Two Causes there are the Material or the Efficient The former is the impurity of the Menstrual blood which serves for nourishing the foetus in the womb where at first it attracts the purest and sweetest blood but when grown bigger the gross together with the thin So that as Horses once in their lives cast the Strangles so men must also once purge and void that menstrual impurity which being equally dispers'd over all the body and in small quantity hinders not its functions The efficient Cause common likewise to all men is the Natural Heat which drives these impurities outwards and so they come to appear upon the skin which is the Universal Emunctory of the whole body but especially upon the face by reason of its tenderness and because being the place where all the Organs of Sense terminate 't is fuller of spirits then any other and consequently there is a greater attraction thither of those malignant Vapors Now that it seizes some in their childhood others in their youth some very few in old age and all after a different manner this depends upon our particular Constitutions either natural or acquisititious by custom and a long use of the things not natural For according as the humours reign in the body they give occasion to the eruption of that Venemous quality which before lay hid as Madness and Leprosie sometimes appear not till after divers years Our diet also contributes thereunto for when it symboliseth with that malignant humour it encreases the quantity thereof as on the contrary it corrects the same and retards its motion if it be of a laudable temper or exceed in contrary qualities The Third said What Original Sin is to the state of the Soul that the Small Pox seems to be to the state of the Body for this Disease commonly invades children who never committed any fault in their course of living and whose nature should be so much healthier by how much 't is more vigorous and nearer the principles of their Nativity wherefore it seems rather to proceed from the vitiosity of the Parents And as many hereditary diseases come from the bad disposition of the seed so from the impurity of the blood the material principle of our bodies some may also arise as Tettars Kibes Corns and other deformities of the skin which happen to children very like this Moreover this disease usually breaks forth in the seventh and ninth which are the first climacterical years when Nature endeavours the perfection of her work by purging and cleansing it of all impurities And as New Wine when it comes to work casts forth all the heterogeneous impurities in it's body so doth the natural heat attempt the like by causing an ebullition of the blood and spirits whether this Fermentation happens by the universal spirit of the world as those in other natural bodies or whether as 't is most probable it proceeds from the very strength of nature whose motions although regular and certain are yet unknown to any other besides it self which produces them according to the dispositions of the Subject wherein it resides The Fourth said That being our bodies were always form'd of the maternal blood and indu'd with one and the same natural heat which two are held the material and efficient causes of the Small Pox this Disease should have been in all times and places and yet it was unknown before the Arabians in whose time it began to appear For the little red round pustules and those other like flea-bitings mention'd by Hippocrates Aetius and some other Ancients are nothing less then the Small Pox to which not only Women during their Suppressions but even brute Beasts which have also their purgations as among others the Bitch the Mare and the Shee-Ass ought to be subject On the contrary such as have burning Feavers should be free from it if it be true that the seed and leven of this malady is dissipated by the ebullition of the blood which is vehement in a Feaver But 't is impossible to conceive how a venemous and pernicious matter as that impure part of the blood is said to be can be preserv'd for many years in its Mass for being the blood serves for continual aliment to all the parts these ought to resent something of that malignity yet those that are taken with this disease are usually the most healthy and of a sanguine constitution which is the most laudable For this were to accuse Nature either of Imprudence or Weakness but she is good wise powerful and solicitous for nothing so much as to purifie the body which she doth not only while the child is in
Senses of their party as Vices have The Third said That sensible and palpable things as examples are have more power upon us than bare words which cannot so well perswade a Truth but that they alwayes leave some doubting in us whereas Examples being sensible give us a more entire and perfect Knowledge yea they have influence even upon brute beasts who learn not by Precepts but by Examples which is an evidence of their certainty for a thing is the more certain the more common it is to us with more Hence Plato affirmes That Examples are necessary to perswade high and lofty matters Precepts indeed dispose but Examples animate the Soul to Virtue those admonish these stimulate and guide as in the resolution of doing well Instructions shew the way but Examples drive us with the point of Honour and the force of Emulation Nor do Precepts include Examples but the contrary and every Example comprehends a Document When we see a Good Man square his Life out to his Duty we find I know not what satisfaction and contentment in the admimiration of his Virtue and this pleasure makes us conceive yea strongly perswades us that all Virtues are amiable Even Vicious Examples sometimes make Vice appear to us so deform'd that we detest instead of pursuing it Hence the Lacedemonians setting aside the Precepts of Temperature were wont to make their Slaves drunk that the ill-favour'd spectacle might make their Children abhor that Vice Lastly Our Saviour whose Life was a continued Example of Virtue did more Works to teach us then he gave Words and Precepts most of which are comprehended under Examples and Parables Yea the Devil well knowing that Adam's mind was too strong to be prevail'd upon by Reasons first gain'd that of his Wife which was more weak that he might allure him to sin by her Example The Fourth said The end is not onely more noble but also more effectual than the means for 't is to that alone that they aim and terminate Now the end of all Examples is to deduce Precepts from them which Precepts are general Notions grounded upon many Experiences or Examples either of others or our own but these being wholly particular can have no power upon the Understanding which frames its conclusions onely upon things universally true as Maximes and Precepts are and that more than Examples for these are never perfect but full of a thousand defects those sure and infallible Moreover Precepts move the Understanding which is the noblest of all the Faculties whereas Examples make impression onely upon the outward senses and dull wits The Fifth said That as the Sight and the Hearing know how to put a difference between Colours and Sounds without Learning and all the Faculties can naturally discern their own Objects So the Understanding knows naturally the first Principles and clearly beholds those first Verities The Will hath also in it self the Principles and Seeds of Virtues as the Synteresis and remorse of Conscience in the most wicked sufficiently prove and is of it self carryed to Virtuous Actions without needing either Preecepts or Examples equally unprofitable to the bad who amend not thereby and to the good who want them not The Sixth said That the Question is to be decided by distinguishing of the Minds of Men. Those that excel in Judgement attribute more to Reason than to Examples which being more sensible affect the Imagination of duller heads who are not capable of Reasons So that though Precepts and Arguments be without comparison more perfect than Examples yet because very few are capable of them because the generality of the World is stupid and dull therefore they are not generally so proper to teach as Examples which nevertheless being of no power but serving onely to clear an obscure Truth ought not to have any ascendant over a Mind that is reasonable and furnish'd with Knowledge CONFERENCE CXXVIII Of Incubi and Succubae and whether Devils can generate TWo sorts of people err in this matter the superstitious and ignorant vulgar who attribute every thing to Miracles and account the same done either by Saints or Devils and the Atheists and Libertines who believe neither the one nor the other Physitians take the middle way distinguishing what is fit to be attributed to Nature and her ordinary motions from what is supernatural to which last Head 't is not reasonable to referr diseases and indispositions as the Incubus is call'd by the Greeks Ephialtes and by the vulgar the Night-mare 'T is defin'd An impediment of Respiration Speech and Motion with oppression of the Body whereby we feel in our sleep as 't were some weight upon the Stomack The Cause of it is a gross Vapor obstructing principally the hinder part of the Brain and hindring the egress of the Animal Spirits destinated to the motion of the parts which Vapor is more easily dissipable than the humor which causeth the Lethargy Apoplexy and other Symptoms which are therefore of longer duration than this which ceases as soon as the said Vapor is dissipated Now whereas the Passions of the Mind and Body commonly supply the matter of Dreams as those that are hungry or amorous will think they eat or see what they love those that have pain in some part dream that some body hurts the same hence when Respiration the most necessary of all the animal functions is impeded we presently imagine we have a load lying on our Breasts and hindring the dilatation of the same And because the Brain is employ'd in the Incubus therefore all the animal functions are hurt the Imagination deprav'd the Sensation obtunded Motion impeded Hence those whom this evil seizes endeavor to awake but can neither move nor speak till after a good while And though the Cause of this disorder be within our selves nevertheless the distemper'd person believes that some body is going about to strangle him by outward violence which the depraved Imagination rather thinks upon than Internal Causes that being more sensible and common This has given occasion to the error of the Vulgar who charge these Effects upon Evil Spirits instead of imputing them to the Malignity of a Vapor or some phlegmatick and gross humor oppressing the Stomack the coldness and weakness whereof arising from want of Spirits and Heat which keeps all the parts in due order are the most manifest Causes Much unlikely it is to be caused by Generation which being an Effect of the Natural Faculty as this of the Vegetative Soul cannot belong to the Devil who is a pure Spirit The Second said As 't is too gross to recurr to supernatural Causes when Natural are evident so 't is too sensual to seek the Reason of every thing in Nature and to ascribe to meer Phlegm and the distempered Phant'sie the Coitions of Daemons with Men which we cannot deny without giving the lye to infinite of persons of all Ages Sexes and Conditions to whom the same have happened nor without accusing the Sentences of Judicial Courts
contrary maintain'd that all things were done by Chance in the Universe which they said it self was made by the casual occourse of their Atoms these denying the Providence of God those his Power by subjecting and tying him to the immutable Laws of Fatality But without considering things in reference to God to whom every thing is present and certain we may distinguish them into two sorts Some acting necessarily have alwayes their necessary effects others which depend absolutely upon Man's Will which is free and indifferent have accordingly Effects incertain and contingent Thus the accidents of the Sea where the vulgar believes is the chief Empire of Fortune natural deaths the births of poor and rich have regular and necessary Causes On the contrary Goods freely given or acquir'd with little industry or found have contingent Causes which being almost infinite for there is no Cause by it self but may be a Cause by accident by producing another thing than what was intended they cannot fall within the knowledge of Humane Wit which knows onely what is finite and terminate Other Events have Causes mixt of Chance and Necessity as the death of the Poet Aeschylus hapning by a Tortoise which an Eagle let fall upon his bald Head As for the second manner wherein Happiness may be consider'd namely Whether it render us happy in Reality or in Imagination 't is an accusing all Men of folly to say that Felicity is imaginary and phantastical since Nature which hath given no Desire in vain as she should have done if she had caus'd us to desire a thing that exists not makes all Men aspire to the one and fear the other There must be an Absolute Happiness as well as an Absolute Good namely the possession of this Good as that of Existence is which being the foundation of all Goods must be a Real and Absolute Good Virtue and the Honor attending it being likewise true and solid Goods their possession must adferr a semblable Felicity the verity and reality is no more chang'd by not being equally gusted by all than the savour of Meat or the Beauty of Light would be by not being perceiv'd by a sick or a blind person Yea as he that ha's a rough Diamond is not less the possessor or less rich for not knowing the value of it so he that possesses some Good ought not to be accounted less happy though he think not himself so Moreover 't would be as absurd to call a Man happy or unhappy because he thinks himself so as to believe a fool is a King or Rich because he phansies himself to have Empires and Riches The Fifth said That Happiness which is rather an Effect of our Genius as the examples of Socrates and Simonides prove than of our Temperament much less of the Stars and their influences depends not onely upon the possession of some Good or the belief a Man hath that he possesses it but upon both together namely upon the reflexion he makes upon the Good which he really possesses for want of which Children Fools Drunkards and even the Wise themselves whilst they are a sleep cannot be call'd Happy CONFERENCE CXXXVI Of the Original of Precious Stones A Stone which is defin'd a Fossile hard dry and frangible body is either common or precious Both are compounded of the Four Elements chiefly of Water and Earth but diversly proportion'd and elaborated Coarse Stones are made with less preparation their proximate matter being onely much Earth and little Water whereof is made a sort of Clay which being dry'd by Nature is hardned into a Stone Precious Stones have more of Water and less of Earth both very pure and simple whence proceeds their Lustre which attends the simplicity of the Elements and exactly mixt by Heat which concocting the aqueous humidity purifies and sublimes the same to a most perfect degree by help of that Universal Spirit where-with the Earth and whole world is fill'd on which account the Pythagoreans esteemed it a great Animal The Second said Three things are to be consider'd in reference to the original of Stones their matter their efficient cause and the place of their generation Their remote matter is Earth and Water which two Elements alone give bulk and consistence but their next matter concern'd in the Question is a certain lapidifick juice supplying the place of Seed and often observ'd dropping down from rocks which if thick and viscous makes common stones if subtil and pure the precious Now this juice not only is turn'd it self into stone but likewise turns almost all other Bodies as Wood Fruits Fishes the Flesh of Animals and such other things which are petrifi'd in certain Waters and Caves Their remote efficient cause is Heat which severing heterogeneous bodies unites those of the same nature whereof it makes the said homogeneous juice which is condens'd by cold which giving the last form and perfection to the stone is its proximate efficient cause Lastly their place is every where in the middle region of the Air which produces Thunder-bolts in the Sea which affords Coral of a middle nature between Stone and Plant and Pearls in their shells which are their wombs by means of the Dew of Heaven in Animals in Plants and above all in the Earth and its Mines or Matrices which are close spaces exempt from the injuries of Air Water or other external Agents which might hinder their production either by intermixtion of some extraneous body or by suffering the Mineral Spirits serving to the elaboration of the Stones to transpire The Third said Precious Stones produc'd for Ornament as Metals are for Use of life are of three sorts namely either bright and resplendent as the Diamond Ruby Crystal Amethyst or a little obscure as the Turquois Jasper and other middle ones without perfect lustre as the Opal and all Pearls And as the matter of common Stones is Earth the principle of Darkness so that of the precious is an aqueous diaphanous humour congeal'd by the coldness of water or earth or by the vicinity of Ice and Snow which inviron Mountains and Rocks where commonly their Mines are found and amongst others Crystal which is as 't were the first matter of other precious Stones and the first essay of Nature when she designs to inclose her Majesty in the lustre of the most glittering Jewels is nothing else but humidity condens'd by cold Whence a violent heat such as that of Furnaces resolves and melts it Moreover the effects attributed to these Stones as to stop blood allay the fumes of wine and resist hot poysons argue them caus'd only by cold which also gives them weight by condensation of their parts The Fourth said If Crystals and Stones were produc'd only by cold they could not be generated in the Isles of Cyprus the red Sea and other Southern parts but only in the Northern where nevertheless they are most rare there being Mountains where cold hath preserv'd Ice for divers Ages without ever being converted into
Mixts are compounded The Sun indeed is the Efficient Cause of all productions here below but being a celestial and incorruptible body cannot enter into the composition of any thing as a Material Cause Much less can our common Fire which devours every thing and continually destroyes its Subject But it must be that Elementary Fire which is every where potentially and actually in its own Sphere which is above that of the Air and below that of the Moon Moreover being the lightest or least heavy of all the Elements the Harmony of the Universe which consists chiefly in their situation requires that it be in the highest place towards which therefore all other Fires which are of the same Nature ascend in a point with the same violence that a stone descends towards its Centre those remaining here below being detain'd by some Matter whereof they have need by reason of the contraries environing them from which that Sublunary Fire being exempt hath nothing to do with Matter or nourishment and by reason of its great rarity and tenuity can neither burn nor heat any more then it can be perceiv'd by us The Second said That subtlety one of the principal conditions requisite to the conversion of Matter into Fire is so far from hindring that it encreases the violence and activity of Fire making it penetrate even the solidest bodies whence that pretended Fire not being mixt with extraneous things to allay its heat as that of Aqua Vitae is temper'd by its Phlegm or aqueous humidity but being all Fire in its own Sphere and natural place which heightens the Virtue and qualities of all Agents must there also heat shine burn and produce all its Actions which depend not upon density or rarity or such other accidents of Matter purely passive but upon its whole Form which constituting it what it is must also make it produce Effects sutable to its Nature Wherefore as Water condens'd into Ice or Crystal is no longer Water because it hath ceas'd to refrigerate and moisten so the Fire pretended to be above the Air invisible and insensible by reason of its rarity is not Fire but subtile Air. They who say its natural inclination to heat and burn is restrain'd by the Influences of the Heavens particularly of the cold Starrs as Saturn and the Moon speak with as little ground since the circular motion of the Heavens whereby this Fire is turn'd about should rather increase than diminish its heat And besides Fire being a necessary Agent its action can no more be hindred by such Influences than the descent of a stone downwards Whereunto add that the beams of all Stars have heat and were any cold yet those of Saturn are too remote and those of the Moon too weak in comparison of this Fire the extent whereof is about 90000. Leagues for the distance between the Earth and the Moon is almost as much namely 56. Semidiameters of the Earth from which substracting between 25. and 30. Leagues which they allot to the three Regions of the Air the rest must be occupy'd by the Fire which they make to extend from the Concave surface of the Moon to the convex surface of the Air which it would consume in less than a moment considering the great disproportion between them Moreover were there such a Fire it could not be own'd an Element because its levity would keep it from descending and entring into the Composition of mixts and were it not leight yet it would be hindred from descending by the extream coldness of the Middle Region of the Air accounted by some a barrier to the violence of that Chymerical Fire which ought rather to be reckon'd amongst their Entia Rationis than the Natural Elements whereunto Corporeity and Palpability are requisite For these Reasons I conceive with Pythagoras that the Sun is the true Elementary Fire plac'd for that purpose in the middle of the World whose Light and Heat enter into the Composition not onely of all living things but also of Stones and Metals all other Heat besides that of the Sun being destructive and consequently no-wise fit for Generation The Third said He confounds Heaven with Earth and destroyes the Nature of the Sun who takes it for an Element that is to say a thing alterable and corruptible by its contraries which it must have if it be an Element The Heat of his beams proves it not the Elementary Fire seeing commonly the nearer we are to Fire the more we feel the Heat of it but the Supream and Middle Regions of the Air are colder than ours Besides were our common fire deriv'd from the Sun it would not languish as it doth when the Sun shines upon it nor would the heat of dunghils and caves be greater in Winter than in Summer Wherefore I rather embrace the common Opinion which holds That the heaviest Element is in the lowest place and the leightest in the highest whose Action is hindred by the proportion requisite to the quantity of each Element The Fourth said That the qualities of Fire viz. Heat Dryness and Light concurring in the Sun in a supream degree argue it the Elementary Fire for Light being the Cause of Heat the Sun which is the prime Luminous Body must also be the prime Hot that is to say Fire For as the pretended one above the Air was never yet discover'd so 't is repugnant to the Order of the Universe for the leightest of Elements to be shut up in the Centre of the Earth where some place it We have but two wayes to know things Sense and Reason the latter of which is founded either upon Causes or Effects Now we know nothing of the Sun or any other Celestial Bodies otherwise then by its Effects and sensible qualities which being united in Spherical Burning-glasses as they are in the body of the Sun notifie to us by their Effects the Nature of their Cause The Fifth said That Fire being to the World what the Soul is to the Body as Life is in all the parts of the Body so also is Fire equally diffused throughout the whole World In the Air it makes Comets and other Igneous Meteors In the Earth it concocts Metals and appears plentifully in Volcanoes whose Fires would not continue alwayes if they were violently detained in those Concavities yea 't is in the Waters too whose saltness and production of Monsters cannot be without Heat Yet being the most active of all Elements it is therefore distributed in much less quantity than the rest Nature having observed the same proportion both in the greater and lesser World Man's Body in which there is less of Fire than of the other Elements Otherwise had the Fire been equal to the rest it would consume all living things to ashes Nevertheless as the fixed Heat of Animals requires reparation by the Influent Heat from the Heart the Soul 's principal seat in like manner the Elementary Fire dispersed in all part of this great body of the World needs the
said Reason having been given Man to correct the Inclinations of the Sensitive Appetite 't is that alone must judge whether it be expedient for him to live long not Sense which makes us judge like beasts That nothing is dearer than Life But Reason illuminated either by Faith or by Philosophy teaches us that this World is the place of our banishment the Body the Soul's Prison which she alwayes carryes about with her Life a continual suffering and War and therefore he fights against Natural Light who maintaines it expedient to prolong so miserable a State For besides the incommodities attending a long Life which after 70. years as David testifies is onely labour and sorrow long Life is equally unprofitable towards attaining Knowlege and Virtue He that lives long can learn nothing new in the World which is but a Revolution and Repetition of the same Effects produc'd alwayes by the same Causes not onely in Nature whose course and changes may be seen in the Revolution of the Four Seasons of the Year but even in Affairs of State and Private Matters wherein nothing is said or done but what hath been practis'd before And as for Virtue the further we are from Childhod the less Innocence and Sanctity we have and Vices ordinarily increase with years The long Life of the first Men having according to some been the probable Cause of the depravation of those Ages CONFERENCE CXL Of the Lethargy AS the Brain is the most eminent and noble of all the parts being the Seat of the Understanding and the Throne of the Reasonable Soul so its diseases are very considerable and the more in that they do not attaque that alone but are communicated to all the other parts which have a notable interest in the offence of their Chief ceasing to diffuse its Animal Spirits destinated to Motion Sense and the Function of the Inferior Members Which Functions are hurt by the Lethargy which deprives a Man of every other Inclination but that to sleep and renders him so forgetful and slothful whence it took its Greek name which signifies sluggish oblivion that he remembers nothing at all being possess'd with such contumacious sleepiness that she shuts his Eyes as soon as he ha's open'd them besides that his Phansie and Reasoning is hurt with a continual gentle Fever Which differences this Symptom from both the sleeping and waking Coma call'd Typhomania the former of which commonly begins in the Fits of Fevers and ends or diminishes at their declination but the Lethargick sleeps soundly and being wak'd by force presently falls a sleep again The latter makes the Patient inclin'd to sleep but he cannot by reason of the variety of Species represented to him in his Phansie The signes of this Malady are deliration heaviness of the Head and pain of the Neck after waking the Matter taking its course along the spine of the back frequent oscitation trembling of the Hands and Head a palish Complexion Eyes and Face pufft up sweatings troubled Urine like that of Cattle a great Pulse languishing and fluctuating Respiration rare with sighing and so great forgetfulness as sometimes not to remember to shut their Mouths after they have open'd nor even to take breath were they not forc'd to it by the danger of suffocation The Conjunct and next Cause of this Malady is a putrid Phlegm whose natural coldness moistens and refrigerates the Brain whilst it s put refactive heat kindles a Fever by the vapors carry'd from the Brain to the Heart and from thence about the whole Now this Phlegmatick Humor is not detained in the Ventricles of the Brain for then it would cause an Apoplexy if the obstruction were total and if partial an Epilepsie wherein the Nerves contract themselves towards their original for discharging of that Matter But 't is onely in the sinuosities and folds of the Brain which imbibing that excessive humidity acquires a cold and moist intemperature from whence proceeds dulness and listelesness to all Actions For as Heat is the Principle of Motion especially when quickned by Dryness so is Cold the Cause of stupidity and sluggishness especially when accompanied with humidity which relaxes the parts and chills their Action In like manner Heat or Dryness inflaming our Spirits the Tunicles of the Brain produce the irregular Motions of Frenzy which is quite contrary to the Lethargy although it produce the same sometimes namely when the Brain after great evacuations acquires a cold and moist intemperature in which case the Lethargy is incurable because it testifies Lesion of the Faculty and abolition of strength But on the contrary a Frensie after a Lethargy is a good sign resolving by its Heat and dissipating the cold humors which produce the same The Second said That coldness being contrary to put refaction Phlegm the coldest of all humors cannot easily putrifie in the Brain which is cold too of its own nature much less acquire a Heat sufficient to communicate it self to the Heart and there excite a Fever it being more likely for such adventitious Heat to cause in the Brain rather the impetuous motions of a Frenzy than the dulness and languor of a Lethargy Nor is it less then absurd to place two enemy-qualities in the same Subject to wit Cold and Heat whereof the one causes sleep the other a Fever which I conceive to precede not to follow the Lethargy and which having raised from the Hypochondres to the Brain a Phlegmatick blood mixt with gross vapors there causeth that obscuration of Reason and sluggishness of the whole Body but especially the abolition of the Memory the sutable temperament for which is totally destroyed by excessive humidity Indeed the troubled Urine liquid Digestions Tumors and pains of the Neck bloated Flesh and other such signs accompanying this disease argue that its matter is more in the rest of the Body than in the Brain which suffers onely by Sympathie The Third said If it be true that sleep is the Brother of Death then the Lethargy which is a continual drowsiness with a Fever and Delirium seemes to be a middle Estate between Life and Death which is known by the cessation of Actions most of which fail in those afflicted with this Evil which nevertheless is less then the Carus wherein the sleep is so profound that the Patient feels not when he is prickt or call'd by name but is depriv'd of all Sense and Motion saving that of Respiration which scarce appears in the Catoche or Catalepsie a stranger symptom than any of the former wherein the Eyes remain wide open the whole Body stiff and in the same state and posture wherein it hapned to be when it first seiz'd the same The Cause whereof most say is a cold and moist humor obstructing the hinder part of the Brain but I rather ascribe it to a sudden Congelation of the Animal Spirits as I do the Lethargy to narcotick and somniferous vapors which are the sole Causes of Inclination to sleep which cannot
amounts to 5920. years according to the most probable Opinion which reckons 3683. years and three months to the Nativity of our Lord the Matter may also be decided by Reason provided we lay aside two powerful Passions the one proper to young Men who alwayes value themselves above their Predecessors and like Rehoboam think their own little finger stronger than the whole Body of their Fathers the other ordinary to old Men who alwayes extoll the time past above the present because the infirmities of their Bodies and Minds no longer allowing them the contentment they formerly enjoyed they know not where to charge the fault but upon Time though in truth it lyes upon Themselves For Nature being still as Wise and Powerful as heretofore and the Universal Causes the same their Operations must be likewise as perfect and their Effects as excellent in these dayes as they have been in any Then as for our Minds they are so far from being impair'd that they improve more and more in acuteness and being of the same Nature with those of the Ancients have such an advantage beyond them as a Pigmy hath upon the shoulders of a Gyant from whence he beholds not onely as much but more than his supporter doth The Second said As a Stone hath more force by how much 't is less from the hand that flings it and generally all Causes act more powerful upon their next than upon their distant Effects so also Men are less perfect proportionally to their remoteness from their Source and Original from whence they derive all their perfection This decay is chiefly observ'd in our bodies which are not so sound and well-constituted as those of our Ancestors and therefore 't is no wonder if the Souls where-with they are inform'd have less Vigor though the same Nature For although in order to judge aright of the Excellence of the Souls of one Age compar'd with another we ought to wave that advantage which the later have over the preceding by enjoying the benefit of their inventions whereunto 't is as easie to add as 't is to build upon a good foundation whereof others have firmly lay'd the first stones and Pillars Yet for all those great advantages there hath not in these last Ages appear'd any one equal to those grand Personages of Antiquity who have had the vogue in each Art and Science Moreover want of things made them more ingenious and the Experience of many years render'd them capable of every thing whereas now we cease to live when we but begin to know our selves Indeed they had the true Disciplines and Sciences whereof we have no more but the shadows and instead of real and solid Philosophy such as that of the First Ages was nothing remains to us but an useless Scholastick Gibberish which having been banisht the Company of all discreet people is shamefully confin'd to the inclosure of Colledges where I am confident the Professors will readily yield to Socrates Plato Lycurgus Solon and the Seven Sages of Greece to whose Age which was the year of the World 3400. I clearly give the prize there being no indowment of the Mind preferrable to that of Wisdom The Third said If Wisdom must carry it there is no Age to be compar'd to that of Solomon but because one Swallow makes not a Spring I should prefer before it that of Augustus and Tiberius when the Roman Empire was in its greatest Glory the rather because our Saviour the Paragon of all great Men liv'd in it and Virgil Ovid Cicero Cato besides many others flourisht at the same time Not to speak of the rare Inventions which also then appear'd as Malleable Glass and Perpetual Lights both now unknown The Fourth said If the complaint of the decay of Witts were true and new the World must be very old since Seneca who liv'd 1500. years ago made the same in his time But if the present Wits are not inferior to those of Seneca's time it will follow either that the world grows not worse as is commonly said or that long Series of years which makes above a quarter of the whole Age the world is taken but for one and the same time In which Case the world must be older than religion and truth teach us before it fell into that decay wherein we see it continue for so many Ages But indeed 't is a weakness to imagine that Witts diminish our Natural Inclination to despise what we possess and to regret what is pass'd making us judge to our own disadvantage that we are less perfect than our Ancestors and that our Nephews must be worse than our selves whence arose that Fiction of Four Ages differing according to so many Metals the Golden one by reason of its excellence that of Silver Brass and Iron proportionably as Men fell from the former Perfection of Soul and Innocence of Manners But all this while 't is in the beginning of the World that the weakness of Man appear'd by suffering himself to be govern'd by his Wife and the damnable Resolution of a Fratricide Moreover the Mind of Man being a Power of well Conceiving Reasoning Inventing and doing other Functions whereof he is capable he may arrive to a Supream Degree of Excellence either by the pure and liberal Will of his Maker or by the disposition and concurrence of Natural Causes or by Humane Industry So that God Nature and Art the three sole Agents of this World being the same as heretofore they must produce the same Effects For God creates not Souls now with less advantages and grace than formerly he is as liberal of his favours as ever especially in the Ages of Grace Nor doth Nature and other Second Causes contribute less to the perfection of Souls than heretofore And the Humane Soul however independent of Matter as to its Essence yet is so link'd to the Organs of the Body that it operates well or ill according as those are diversly affected which is what we call Good or Bad Wit whilst we judge thereof by the Actions and not by the Essence For those Organs and Dispositions depend of the Elements and Superior Bodies which are alwayes the same and consequently must produce the same Effects and hence the equal Dispositions of Bodies will inferr equal perfection of Minds But as for the difference of Souls arising from Art and Instruction undoubtedly those of our Age are better cultivated than any ever have been in times pass'd The Fifth said When I consider the high pitch whereunto so many great Men have carry'd the Glory of these last Ages I find more wonders than in the preceding but it pertains onely to the Ages ensuing to make their Elogiums Great Men whilst living being kept down by Envy or Contempt One Age must be let pass before we begin to judge of the worth of it then the following begins to regret what it sleighted it being natural to us to seek onely what is wanting and to be disgusted with plenty And truly I think
't is the multitude of persons excelling in all sort of Arts and especially in the Sciences whereof never were so many Doctors Regents and Professors seen in one single Age as in this that makes us less esteem the ingenious that are now living for 't is onely rarity that gives price to things and that made him pass for a great Clerk a few Ages ago who could but write and read he that spoke Latine was a Prodigy though now 't is a Tongue almost as universal and common as the Native Now Admiration being the Daughter of Ignorance the esteem had of most of the admired in former Ages is rather an Argument of the Rudeness and Ignorance of the Times than of the excellence of their Witts Nor were they better than we in their Manners but onely more simple and yet culpable of as many Crimes But were we the more wicked this were no Argument of want of Witt which is the matter in question And if there have been sometimes a Ceres a Bacchus a Pallas a Vulcan and others advanc'd to Deities for finding out the way to sow Wheat plant Vine-yards spin Wool and forge Iron we have had in these last Ages the Inventors of the Compass the Gun Printing the Tubes of Galileo and a thousand other Inventions both more difficult and excellent the easiest having been first discover'd The Modesty of those that govern us who no less hate the vanity of praise than they know how to exercise Actions deserving it permits me not to shew you that all pass'd Ages have nothing that comes near the grandeur of their Souls and that their conduct is the more to be admir'd in that their business is both to keep themselves up with Friends and give reason to Enemies who also help to verifie that there are greater States-men and Captains in this Age than in any of the preceding CONFERENCE CXLV Of the Serene which is a hurtful Dew falling in Summer Evenings AS Painters find it harder to represent a calm smooth Sea than the rampant foaming billows of a storm which require more variety of Colours and afford the Pencil more liberty and as a History of Peace is harder to write and less pleasant to read than the Troubles and Commotions of Warr So I think it less difficult to describe the several impressions of Tempests than those of a calm Air which nevertheless at certain times produces pernicious Effects so much more remarkable in that they proceed from a very simple Cause no-wise malignant of it self to wit from a clear and serene Air free from Clouds and Vapours which in the Evening being cool'd by the reason of the Sun's Elongation acquires a certain Refrigerating and Catarrhous quality call'd by the vulgar The Serene because it happens either in the Evening or more commonly in fair weather when the Air is serene than when it is pluvious and full of Vapours Which quality some ascribe to the Influence of the Stars especially to the Moon term'd for that reason by the Psalmist Infrigidans which hath indeed a notable dominion over all Humid Bodies particularly those of Men who find sensible alterations in themselves according to the several faces of that Planet But because the Heavens diffuse their Influences upon those that are under covert as well as upon those that are in the open Air where onely the Serene is felt I should rather pitch upon the alterations of the refrigerated Air which acts but so far as it is near us and 't is always more proper to attribute Effects here below to proximate Causes than to recur to the Heaven which is but an equivocal Cause thereof The Second said If Cold were the Cause of the Serene the same should happen where-ever it were cold and be more hurtful according to the vehemency of that quality as towards Midnight or Morning and likewise in Winter Yet the Serene is never spoken of but in the temperate Seasons of Spring and Autumn and some little portion of the Seasons bordering upon them Besides in Summer the air of our cold Caves should be capable of producing it at mid-noon Wherefore I cannot think the Serene an effect of bare cold but of the vapors wherewith the air howsoever apparently pure is always charg'd whence proceeds the diversity of refractions In the Planets especially at Sun-rise and Sun-set which is never without some clouds which vapours being destitute of the diurnal heat and so coming to be condens'd fall down upon our heads just as Dew doth which is produc'd after the same manner but of a matter somwhat thicker and more copious And as there is no Dew so there is no Serene but in temperate Seasons and Regions never in Winter or the midst of Summer for violent cold congeals these vapours into Frost and Ice and vehement heat dissipates and consumes them The practice of our Ladies who use to remain in the Serene thereby to whiten their complexion and soften their flesh shows that this evening-air having a cleansing and levigating vertue must be impregnated with a quality like Dew which is detersive by reason of the salt which it drew from the earth by means whereof it not only whitens Linen and Wax but also purgeth Animals as appears by the fluxes hapning to Sheep driven out to grass before the Sun has consum'd the Dew and by Manna which is nothing but a condens'd dew and hath a purgative vertue The Third said Mans body being subject to the injuries of all external Agents receives so much greater from the impressions of the Air as the same is more necessary to life capable of subsisting for some time without other things but not a moment without Air which is continually attracted into our Bodies not only by respiration but also by insensible transpiration through the Pores of the Body which is pierc'd with holes like a Sieve for admission of air which is taken in by the Arteries in their motion of Diastole or Dilatation And being most agile and subtle it easily penetrates our Bodies altering them by the four first qualities wherewith it is variously impregnated according to the vicinity of the Bodies environing it which make the four Seasons of the Year wherein it variously disposes the bodies upon which it acts changing even their natural temperament And because the parts of a natural day have some proportion with those of a year upon account of the several changes caus'd by the common and proper revolutions of the Sun hence the Morning is like the Spring hot and moist or rather temperate and the Blood then predominates Noon resembles Summer hot and dry at which time Choler is in motion the following part is cold and dry Melancholy and correspondent to Autumn the Evening and whole Night by its coldness and humidity which puts Phlegm in motion is a little Winter the coldness whereof proceeds not from the vapors which are always accompani'd with some extraneous heat whereby they are retain'd in the Air and kept
from falling but from the bare privation of the heat of the Sun who as by his presence he actually causes heat in the Air so by his absence he causes coldness in the same which penetrating our Bodies calefi'd by the diurnal heat easily therein condenses the vapors which are not yet setled or laid and squeesing them out of the Brain and all the parts just as we do water out of a wet spunge they fall upon the weakest parts where they cause a fluxion and pain The Fourth said That the Air being of it self very temperate can never do any mischief unless it be mix'd with some extraneous substances as Vapors and Exhalations which continually infect the first Region wherein we reside And because those subtle parts of Earth and Water exhal'd into it are imperceptible 't is not strange if they produce such sudden and unexpected effects as we see the Serene doth which is caus'd by vapors rais'd after Sun-set by the force of the heat remaining upon the surface of the Earth like those arising from heated water after it is taken off the fire So that the Serene is that vapour whilst it mounts upwards not when it falls downwards for it cannot descend till it be render'd heavier by condensation into Water Clouds or Mists which make the Air nubilous and not serene as in this effect it uses to be But at their first elevation they are more volatile rare subtle and invisible The Fifth said That the chief cause of this hurtful accident is the change of one contrary into another without medium which is always incommodious to Nature who for that reason conjoyns all extreams by some mediums which serve for dispositions to pass from the one to the other without difficulty And as the alteration of the body from cold to hot is painful witness those who hold their cold hands to the fire after handling of Ice in like sort that from hot to cold is very incommodious whence the hotter the preceding day hath been the more dangerous is the serene because the pores of the Body being open'd and all the humors disorder'd and mov'd by the diurnal heat the cold insinuates into and works upon the same with more liberty just as heated water is soonest frozen by reason its parts are more open'd by the heat and consequently more capable of receiving the impressions of Agents Which is also the reason why the first cold hurts us rather then the greatest frosts namely because it finds the body more open then ensuing hard weather doth So though in Winter the air be colder yet because 't is almost continually the same it makes less impression in the evening upon our bodies already accustomed to its rigor and though the air is colder at midnight then at Sun-set yet the serene is only at the beginning of the night when our bodies more sensibly receive alteration from the same Wherefore 't is only the sudden change of the air which makes the serene whereof our bodies are the more sensible according to the openness of the pores and of the futures of the head and the softness of the flesh which renders the body obnoxious to external causes as hardness which secures it from them makes it subject to internal causes through want of transpiration Hence Peasants Souldiers and all such as are hardned by labour and are of a firm and constant constitution feel no inconvenience from the Serene although they breathe an air more subtle and consequently more capable of being impregnated in the evening with qualities noxious to the body CONFERENCE CXLVI Whether the French are Light and Inconstant and why THere is no more perfect Mirror of Inconstancy then Man as appears by the pleasure his body takes in the change of Pasture his mind in that of Objects and both in that of Condition Hence men look not upon present honours but as so many steps whereby to ascend to new the possession of present goods bringing no other satisfaction then that of their Stomack that is till a second Appetite be excited by new Meats Whereunto the nimbleness of their volatile Spirits the fluidity and mobility of their humours which constitute the temperament too notoriously furnish the efficient and material cause to inquire elsewhere for them for which reason the melancholick are less subject to this defect this earthy humour being less susceptible of change whence they prove more wise But amongst all Nations there is none to whom the vice of Levity is more imputed then to the French Caesar who had long convers'd with them frequently objects the same to them and experience sufficiently shews by what is pass'd that they are very far from the constancy of other Nations as not only their Statutes and Edicts which they cannot long observe but all their Modes and Customs and their desire of novelty abundantly testifie The causes whereof are either from the Climate or the Soil For 't is observ'd that where the Heaven is always in the same posture as toward the Poles or where the Sun heats almost in the same degree as near the Equator which makes the days and nights equal the Manners and Inclinations of the People are also equal on the contrary those that by the several remotions and approaches of the Sun have different constitutions of Air receive sutable impressions from the same which are afterwards manifested in their actions And because what is below is the same with what is on high the Earth consequently partakes of the same alterations which the Heaven produces in the Air and retains them longer Thus our Soul being heated and cooled moistned and dry'd in one and the same day suffering contrary changes in a very little time 't is no wonder if the Aliments it affords make the parts humors and spirits like it self that is to say flitting inconstant and mutable which parts being communicated from Father to Son can no more be chang'd by us even by Travels and Alteration of Soil than the Moor can change his skin which the temper of his native climate hath in like manner given him Add hereunto that the French Courtesie receiving all strangers more civilly than any Nation of the World is also more easily lead by their perswasions and examples And whereas the roughness and rusticity of many other people thinks shame and scorn to change as implying preceding Ignorance the sincerity and frankness of the French is such that he easily alters his Mind and way as soon as another seems better to him than his own other Nations what-ever Pride they take in being always constant and equal to themselves and especially more patient than we in our Adversities surpassing us onely in this particular that they better know how to dissemble their discontents The Second said Lightness of Minds is like that of Bodies respective onely not absolute And as Air is term'd Light in respect of Water and Earth so dull people those of the North and such others as would have gravity alone
and the good Constitution of the Brain the fuliginous vapors whereof being repercuss'd by the abundance of Hair cause Vertigoes and pains of the Head not more certainly cur'd than by shaving the Head As for seemliness much Hair is rather frightful than handsome and our Ancestors were no less comely persons than we though they wore short Hair as at this day also do many warlike Nations Enemies of softness and delicacy whereof great Hair is a most certain token being proper to Women as on the contrary the long Beard is a note of Virility For inasmuch as he that loves conformes as much as possible to what he loves we may judge of the softness and dissoluteness of the manners of this time by the desire Men have to render themselves as like Women as they can by wearing like them much Hair and little Beard For when Men wore shorter Hair long Beards were in request and when the Hair ha's been long the Beards have almost ever been short the length of the one recompencing the brevity of the other which would otherwise render Men hideous The Third said If ever 't was true that Custom is a Tyrant 't is in this Case no variation having been so much as in matter of Hair The Scythians and Parthians wore both Hair and Beard long thereby to terrifie their Enemies The Greeks whose Hair is much commended by Homer kept it long to distinguish themselves from their slaves who were shorn as at present are Galley-slaves Artizans and Monasticks for Humility whom also Peter Lombard Bishop of Paris caus'd to shave their Hair and Beard in the year 1160 according to the 44th Canon of the Fourth Council of Carthage which forbids Clerks to wear either Locks or Beards The Aegyptians wear their Hair long and shave off their Beards The Maxii a people of Africa are shorn on one side of the Head and let the Hair grow on the other The Abaudi had the fore-part onely shaven the Antii contrary The Arabians shave even their Daughters round about leaving a Lock on the top The Armenians shave their Hair into the form of a Cross but there is something more majestical in the Beard than in the Hair and even Animals furnisht there-with seem to have some sort of gravity more than others Hence such as have affected the title of Wise have likewise suffer'd their Beards to grow but the Ephori made the Lacedemonians cut theirs as also Alexander and many Captains did their Souldiers lest their Enemies might catch hold of them But as the caprichio of persons of authority especially Courtiers gives the first model of fashions particularly as to Hair and Beard so to wear short Hair now every one's reaches to his waste or a magisterial spade Beard now all are close shaven except such whose Age and Condition exempts them from this Rule were for a Man to make himself taken notice of for things which bring no commendation which hath no place in discreet Minds but argues a phantastical and humorsome person who is commonly appointed contrary to the Modes whereof the present continually out-vie the Antient. The Fourth said Hair which is rather the leavs and boughs than as Plato held the roots of Man's Body which he terms a Tree revers'd having been chiefly design'd for preservation of the Brain from External Injuries they who would have care of their Health must consult the Constitution of their Brain before they determine either for long or short Hair Cold and Moist Brains need store of Hair to fence off the cold Air Hot and Dry the contrary As for the Hair of the Chin it was design'd onely for Ornament and a Testimony of the Authority which the Male hath above the Female whence that part seemeth somewhat sacred it being an Injury to touch one's Beard of which the Emperor Otho made such account that according to Cuspinian he was wont to swear by his own The proportion of it ought to follow the model of others of like condition Wise Men following the advice of the greatest number in matters indifferent provided they be not contrary to Honesty and Health CONFERENCE CL. VVhether Alterations of States have natural Causes STates being compos'd of Realms or Provinces these of Cities and Towns these of Families these of particular Persons and each Person having Natural Causes 't is clear that the Alteration of the Whole is to be attributed to the same Causes which make the change of its parts Thus when all the Houses of a Town are afflicted with Pestilence or consum'd by Fire which Accidents are capable of producing great Mutations in a Common-wealth it cannot be otherwise express'd but by saying that the Town is burnt or wasted by the Plague And as when the particular suffrages of each Counsellor tend to the absolution or condemnation of a Criminal 't were senseless to say that the Sentence of the Court were other than that of the President and Counsellors so also it is ridiculous to say that the Causes of personal mutations are Natural but not those of Political As therefore 't is almost the sole demonstration we have in Physicks that our Bodies are chang'd and corrupted because they are compos'd of the four Elements in like sort I conceive the Cause of alteration befalling the body of a State is to be sought in the Collection of the several members that compose it which coming to lose the harmony proportion and respect which made them subsist they are dissolv'd and corrupted which is a mutation purely natural and of absolute necessity The Second said If God hath reserv'd any thing to his own disposal 't is that of Crowns and the preservation of States which are the first and universal Causes of the safety of every particular person Whence the transferring of those Crowns from one State to another which is a greater mystery is a mutation purely supernatural as not onely God himself hath manifested when he subjected the State of the Israelites first to Judges and Captains which was a kind of Aristocracy and afterwards to Kings reducing them to a Monarchy but also all such as have wrought great changes in States of the World And Legislators knowing this belief imprinted in all Men's Minds have affected the Reputation of being descended from or favor'd by some Deity as did Alexander the Great and Numa Pompilius Moreover the Holy Scripture attributes to God the changing of Scepters and frequently styles him the God of Battels the winning and losing whereof are the most common and manifest Causes of the change of States And 't is a pure effect of the Divine Will that Men born free subject themselves to the Will of one sole or few persons so the changing of that Inclination cannot proceed but from Him who is the searcher of Hearts and gives us both to will and to do If Natural Causes had their effects as certain in Politicks as in Physicks States should have their limited durations as Plants and Animals have and yet
there is such a disproportion in the duration of all States past and present that one hath lasted above 1200. years as the French Monarchy whose flourishing State promises as many more Ages if the World continue so long and another hath chang'd its Form several times in one yeat as Florence Upon which consideration the greatest Politicians have put their States under the Divine Protection and caus'd all their Subjects to venerate some particular Angel or tutelar Saint Thus France acknowledges Saint Michael for its Protector Spain Saint James Venice Saint Mark and even the Ethnicks thought that a City much less a State could not be destroy'd till the Deity presiding over it were remov'd Whence Homer makes the Palladium of Troy carry'd away by Vlysses before the Greeks could become Masters of it The Third said The Supream Cause exercises its Omnipotence in the Rise Conservation and Destruction of States as well as every where else yet hinders not subordinate Causes from producing their certain Effects natural in things natural as in the Life and Death of Men which though one of the most notorious Effects of God's Power and attributed to him by the Scripture and all the World yet ceaseth not to have its infallible and natural demonstrations Inlike manner subordinate Moral Causes produce their Moral and contingent Effects in Moral Things such as that in Question is which Causes depending upon Humane Actions which arise from our Will no-wise necessitated but free cannot be term'd natural and constrain'd unless either by those that subject all things here below to Destiny which subverts the liberty of the Will that is makes it no longer a Will or those who will have not only the manners of the Soul but also the actions always to follow the temperament of the Body which were hard to conceive and yet would not infer a necessity in the alteration of States since the effects of Love and Hatred and other passions which give inclination or aversion are oftentimes prevented by thwarting causes When the Lacedemonians chang'd the popular State of Athens into an Aristocracy of thirty Lords whom they call'd afterwards the thirty Tyrants no other cause can be assign'd thereof but the chance of War which subjected the will of the Athenians to that of the Lacedemonians And the same may be said of all other ancient and modern Revolutions Indeed if the causes in Policy had regular effects or States were subject to natural declinations Prudence which is conversant about contingent things to manage them freely and alter its course according to occasion should signifie nothing 'T is more credible that as in the state of Grace God hath left our actions to the disposal of Free-will that we may work out our Salvation our selves so in the administration of Republicks he hath left most things to chance for imploying men's industry according to their will whose motions being free and contingent are diametrically opposite to the necessity of natural causes The Fourth said That these alterations may be though voluntary yet natural yea necessary too our Will being as inclin'd to apprehended good as our Intellect is to Truth As therefore knowing this truth that 2 and 2 are 4 't is impossible but I must believe it so knowing that such an action will bring me good I shall do it so that the causes of humane actions have somthing of necessity and besides having their foundation in nature may in some sort be term'd natural Moreover since things are preserv'd by their like and destroy'd by their contraries which contraries are under the same genus it follows that all sublunary things having had a natural beginning must also have a like end Desire of self-preservation which is natural gave birth to States but if instead of this desire which renders Servants obedient to their Masters these to the Magistrate and him to the Sovereign Rebellion and Treason deprive their Chiefs of the succour they expect from them and by this means exposes the State in prey to the Enemies it cannot but fall to ruine unless that some other natural cause Perswasion as that of Menenius Agrippa taken from the humane body upon a Secession of the Mechanicks of Rome from the Senate or an exemplary punishment reduce the Subjects to their forsaken duty Whereby it appears that the State resumes its first vigor by as sensible and natural causes as 't is to be perswaded or become wise by others harm Amongst many examples the ruines of Troy and Thebes were caus'd by the rape of Helene whom the injustice of the Trojans deny'd to restore to her Husband and the feud of two Brothers aspiring to the same Royalty then which no causes can be assign'd more natural and more necessarily inferring the loss of a State CONFERENCE CLI Which is more healthful to become warm by the Fire or by Exercise THey who question the necessity of Fire for recalefying our Bodies chill'd by cold the enemy of our natural heat deserve the rude treatment of the ancient Romans to their banish'd persons whom they expell'd no otherwise from their City but by interdicting them the use of Fire and Water knowing that to want either was equally impossible Without Fire our Bodies would be soon depriv'd of life which resides in heat as cold is the effect and sign of death And as Aristotle saith those that deny Vertue would not be otherwise disputed with but by casting them into the fire so would not I otherwise punish those that decry it but by exposing them to freez in mid-winter instead of burning a faggot for them What could little Children and old people do without it For though the natural heat be of another kind then that of our material fire yet this sometimes assists that in such sort that those who digest ill are much comforted by it not to mention weak persons and those that are subject to swoonings Moreover the external cold must be remov'd by an external heat as Fire is which heats only what part and to what degree you please but motion heats all alike As the Sun which some Philosophers take to be the Elemental-fire contributes to the Generation so doth Fire concur to the conservation of Man not by immediate contact but by the heat which it communicates to the Air and the Air to our Body which by approaching or receding from it tempers its excess in discretion and thereby renders it sutable to our natural heat not destroying Bodies but in its highest degree as also the Sun offends those at Noon whom it refreshes at rising and setting The Second said That the violent action of Fire which destroys all sublunary Bodies argues its disproportion with our natural heat which disproportion renders the Stoves and places heated artificially by Fire so noxious and makes such as love the Chimney-corner almost always tender scabby and impatient of the least inclemency of the Air that heat against nature not only destroying the natural but corrupting the humors and exsiccating
referr'd than to the Sun The Seventh said That an univocal and certain cause of whiteness cannot be found in the first or second Qualities Not in Heat or Cold since Snow Sugar and Salt are equally white though the first is cold the second temperate and the third hot Nor in Siccity or Humidity since humid Milk is no less white than dry Chalk and Plaster The density and weight of Silver the rarity and levity of Snow the sweetness of Sugar and the acrimony of Salt in short the examen of all other Second Qualities of white things shews that it depends not on them Nor yet on the third for white Agarick is purgative white Starch and flowr of Beans astringent Lastly what some call Fourth Qualities or Properties of the whole Substance depend as little upon Colours since the same whiteness which is in the Meal that nourishes us is also in the Sublimate that kills us It remains to inquire the reason of Colours and consequently of Whiteness in the proportion between the Sight and the Surface of the colour'd body When therefore it happens that the Visual Ray which issues forth pure and white that is to say colour-less finds no Colour in a Surface if the same be Diaphanous it takes it for a Medium not an Object as is seen in Glass Crystal Air and Water if opake it stops at the said Surface and finding no Colour thereon returns with the Species of the Object to make its report to the Common Sense that it saw nothing and this is what they call Whiteness Hence White so little delights the Sight that it disgregates and wearies it as a false stroke doth that brings nothing Now to apply this to Snow the Visual Ray is indeed stopt by its condens'd Surface but whence should it have Colour since 't is compos'd of Air and Water both colourless The Truth is sutably to its Principles it must necessarily remain without Colour that is White whereby it so disgregates the Visual Rayes that sometimes it blinded a whole Army CONFERENCE CLV Whether Courage be natural or acquir'd COurage being the Contempt of Danger which we naturally fear we cannot be naturally courageous for then two contrary Effects should proceed from the same Cause But the Truth is our Nature is indifferent to every thing whereunto it is lead and fashion'd Thus skittish Horses are made sober by inuring to the noise of Muskets which before they could not endure On the contrary brave Coursers kept in a dark Stable and unemploy'd become resty and jadish Moreover since there is no true Courage without Knowledge of the Danger whence Fools and Drunkards cannot be styl'd courageous this argues that this Virtue hath need of Rules and Precepts as without which our Knowledge cannot but be very imperfect Nor did any thing render the Romans more valiant than the Nations they subdu'd but Military Discipline wherein the Roman Legionary under-went his Apprentisage as other Artificers do in their Trades Which Instruction some of their Descendents despising have shewn thereby what difference there is between themselves and their Ancestours and determin'd this Question to the advantage of Industry At this day our Souldiers are not more strong and courageous than Town-people and the Officers whom alone we see perform all the brave Actions surpass not in Courage ordinary Souldiers saving that these have not been so well instructed as they and reflect not so much upon the shame and loss which they incurr by Cowardize And because that Courage is greatest which makes us contemne the greatest dangers hence that which leads us to the Contempt of Death the most terrible of all things is undoubtedly the greatest But the History of the Milesian Virgins is remarkable who upon the perswasions of a certain Orator were contrary to the natural timidity of their Sex carry'd to so great a Contempt of Death that nothing could restrain them from killing themselves but the example of their Self-murder'd Companions drawn forth-with naked about the streets Whereby it may be judg'd how powerful Perswasion is to encourage us Which Captains and Generals of Armies are not ignorant of who employ all their Rhetorick to impress Audacity in their Souldiers breasts upon an assault or a battel and those that have been in such encounters affirm that nothing conduces more either to inflame the Courage of Brave Men or infuse it into such as have none than an Exhortation well apply'd and suted to the Minds of those that are to be encourag'd sometimes by the Memory of their former Gallant Actions sometimes by those of their Enemies Cowardice sometimes by the greatness of the Danger and the inevitable ruine they incurr in case of turning their backs but commonly by the salvation of their Souls and the good of their Country and always by the fair spur of Honour and Glory Considerations directly opposite to those dictated to us by Nature which tend onely to preservation of the Individuall The Second said If Instruction made Men valiant and courageous than all that receive the same Education learn in the same Academy and fight under the same Captain should be equally courageous Yet there is so notable a difference between them that it cannot be imputed to any but Natural Causes such as are the structure of the parts of the Body the temper of the humors the nimbleness or heaviness of the Spirits and especially the diversity of Souls which inform our Bodies which diversity is apparent even in Infancy before the Corporeal Organs can be suspected to be the Cause thereof One Child is more timorous than another and no sooner begins to go but he beats his Companions who suffer themselves to be beaten by one weaker than themselves the first not quitting his hold for the rod for which another will do more than you would have him The truth is if the Soul be the Architect of her habitation to her must be imputed the Principal Cause of the variety found therein upon that of our Actions visibly depends For as every one readily addicts himself to those employments and exercises of body and mind whereunto he is most fit and which he performs with most ease so he is more easily lead to Actions of Courage whose Organs are best dispos'd for the same And because Children commonly have some-what of the Habit of Body and Temper of their Parents hence Courage seems to come by Descent which possibly renders our Gentry so jealous of the Antiquity of their Families in which they had rather find a Man beheaded for an Action that speaks Courage than a Burgess who had not liv'd in a noble way Moreover to judge well of Courage we must not consider it solely in Man since 't is found so resplendent in Animals incapable of Discipline and Instruction that the certainest Physiognomical Rule whereby to judge of a Valiant Man is taken from the similitude or resemblance he hath with the Lyon Bear or other Beasts of Courage Which shews that the
the Sea drive the Clouds over the Land where being less agitated they resolve into Rain But to continue my reasoning with the same Poets I shall say that having plac'd Aeolus's Palace in the caverns near the sea they have sufficiently proved why the Sea is more troubled with them than the Land For these Winds visibly issue from deep Caverns frequent on the Coasts of the Sea whose continually agitated waves incessantly stir them up 'T is no wonder then if they display their violences on that side which is freest to them Which is experienc'd in great Lakes adjacent to high Mountains as in that of Comum and de la Garde in Italy whose waves and roarings resemble those of the Sea and also in that of Geneva which is troubled extraordinarily Not but that Winds are generated in other Subterraneous places too none of which is exempt from them as appears in Wells and the mouths of Caves But the openings of such places being commonly strait upwards the Wind that come out of them is not so perceptible as that which issues out laterally from high Caverns upon the Sea-shore and they differ in that the Sea Wind is dryer and less corrupting possibly by reason of the saltness of the water upon which it passes The Second said That the difference in Question proceeds from the vast extent of the Sea which gives the Air once agitated more liberty to continue its motion which on the contrary is straitned and repress'd on Land by the occurse of Mountains Trees Houses and other obstacles By the same reason that the waves of a Pool or little Lake are much less than those of the Ocean besides that one and the same Wind hath much greater effect in a smooth and liquid plain which yields to it than upon a rough solid Body upon which burdens are not mov'd but with more force than there needs upon the water as they experience who endeavour to draw a stranded Ship on the Land which they saw move almost of it self whilst it was upon the water The Mechanical Reason whereof is that the water breaking into infinite points scarce makes any resistance to its Agent but the Earth press'd with the same load resists it in infinite points The Third said He that defin'd Wind to be Agitated Air rather spoke its Effect than Cause which is some middle thing between a Vapor and an Exhalation driven violently according to all the differences of place For an Exhalation which always mounts upwards and the Vapor which refrigerated descends downwards cannot separately be the matter of Wind. Hence as soon as the Vapor of a Cloud is resolv'd into Rain the Wind ceaseth the Exhalations not being sufficient to produce it alone as neither the Vapor is Otherwise Winds should be greatest in hot weather when Exhalations are most plentiful Wherefore the Sea having in its Four Qualities the materials of these two Meteors and being otherwise more capable of emitting them through its liquid substance than the Earth is through its hard and solid surface though both be equally heated as well by the Sun as by Subterraneous Fires Evaporations and Exhalations are sooner and oftner made at Sea than at Land The Fourth said That the thickest Air being oftimes the calmest and the clearest the most windy 't is doubtful whether Vapors and Exhalations produce Winds which besides presupposeth actual heat in the Sea which yet is never felt there but onely on Land It seems therefore that the Element of Air being very symbolical to that of the Air by their agreement and moisture they follow the motions one of the other Hence the Air contiguous to the Sea is agitated by it whence ariseth a Wind which again agitates the Sea it being well known that when there are no Waves there is no Wind. On the contrary when the Wind is to change the billows turn first And ordinarily the Winds change with the Tides The Fifth said There are two sorts of Winds upon the Sea Particular which reign in our Seas blowing indifferently from all Coasts and General which blow continually from the same quarter without giving place to their Contraries Such is the Oriental Wind in the Torrid Zone which was call'd by the Latins Subsolanus and by Mariners at this day South-East For it conducts Ships so constantly over the whole extent of Mer du Nord du Sud that without discontinuing Day or Night it exempts the Sea-men from touching their sails especially when they are near the Aequinoctial Indeed in the East Indies this Rule alters for this Wind holds there but six moneths leaving the other six free to its Antagonist The Cause whereof is ascrib'd to the repercussion of the capes and coasts of those Seas as that first Wind is to the motion of the Primum Mobile which together with the inferior Spheres draws the Air along with it in this place where the circumference of its motion is largest There is another general Wind which blows between the Tropick or twenty fourth Degree on this side the Line and the thirty fifth becoming Occidental with the like constancy that the abovesaid Oriental doth This some attribute to a contrary motion which all things have when those nearest them are hurri'd violently as the stream of water running impetuously in the midst makes that near the shores recoil backwards The Sixth said That as Vapours make Mists and Fogs and Sulphureous Exhalations make igneous Meteors so the Nitrous make Wind which keeps the air from corruption as the Earth is kept from it by Nitre and the Sea by Salt Moreover both the Wind and Nitre dry and are the causes of fecundity as is prov'd on the behalf of Nitre by the Nitrous sand of Nilus whose greater or lesser overflow promises to the Egyptians a year proportionably fruitful which is also said of the Rhosne abounding with Nitre And as for the Wind besides that all flatuous Meats provoke lust 't is said that the Mares of Andalusia conceive by the West-wind alone which also is styl'd the Father of Flowers In Brief if Wind be impetuous the effects of Nitre in Gun-powder and Aurum fulminans manifest that Nitre is no less Now Nitre being mix'd with the Air where it is volatile with the Earth where it is fix'd and with the Sea where it is barely dissolv'd no wonder if it exhale more easily from the Sea then from the Land and consequently if more winds be there Whence the reason may be drawn not only of the Sea-winds but also of the tempests and commotions of that vast Element a Tempest being nothing but the rarefaction of the Sea Nitre and the inflation of the Waters at Full Moon in March and September only the fermentation of the same Nitre in the season proper for generation As for that inflation hapning at the time of the Dog-star when the Etesian winds reign it proceeds from the heat of the Air then inflam'd by the rays of the Sun like the ebullition of Honey
and divorce of them asunder Diseases of bare Intemperature which is either simple or with matter the Imagination may produce by moving the Spirits and Humors which it hath power to do For the Spirits being aerious and naturally very hot when they are sent by a strong Imagination into some part they may so heat it as by the excess of their heat to destroy the temper of such part as Anger sometimes heats the Body into a Fever And as the too great concourse of these Spirits makes hot intemperatures so their absence from other parts causes cold Diseases as crudities and indigestions familiar to such as addict themselves to Study and Meditation after Meat the Spirits which should serve for Concoction being carry'd from the Stomack to the Brain In like manner the Imagination having dominion over the Humors which it moves by mediation of the Spirits as Joy Shame and Anger bring blood and heat into the Face and outward parts and Fear and Sadness give them a contrary motion it appears that it hath power to produce Maladies of Intemperies with matter by the fluxion or congestion of the Humors into some part and out of their natural seat But if the Phansie can disorder the work of Conformation in another body then it s own as that of an Infant whose marks and defects wherewith he is born are effects of his Mothers Phansie much more may it cause the same disorder in its own Body whereunto it is more nearly conjoyn'd Wherefore since it can destroy the temper of the Similar parts and the harmony of the Organs it may also cause Diseases and by the same means cure them too for if contraries be cur'd by their contraries then it may cure a cold distemper by producing a hot one and if it hath power to cause by motion of the humors an obstruction in some part it may by the same means return them to their natural place and cure such obstruction 'T was to the Phansie that the cure of those Splenetick persons is to be attributed who were cur'd by the touch of the great Toe of Pyrrhus's left Foot and we see many Cures wrought by Amulets Periapts and other like Remedies which having no vertue in themselves to produce such an effect the same must be referr'd to some other cause Now none hath more empire then the Imagination over the Spirits and other Humours wherein almost all Diseases consist The Second said That the Imagination being a simple Cognoscitive Power cannot of it self produce the effects that are ascrib'd to it For all Cognition is Passion and to know is to suffer and receive the Species of the thing that is to be known whose impression made upon the Organs of Sense is by them carry'd to the Imagination which judges thereof upon their report Moreover there is this notable difference between the Sensitive or Cognoscitive Powers and the Vegetative or Motive which are destitute of all Cognition that the latter are active out of themselves and operate upon the Members which the Motive Faculty moves with full power and upon the aliments which the Vegetative Faculties as the Nutritive and Auctive alter and turn into the nature of the parts But the Sensitive Faculties and all other Cogniscitive Powers have no real sensible action They are active indeed so far as they are powers issuing from very perfect Forms but their actions are immanent and produce nothing beyond themselves and consequently can have no influence abroad So that the Imagination cannot immediately and of its own nature produce either a Disease or Health in the Body but only by means of the Motive Power or Sensitive Appetite the Passions whereof are acknowledg'd by Physitians to be the external causes of Diseases If the Phansie could produce any thing it should be by help of the Species it is impregnated withall which being extracted from things some think that they eminently contain the vertues of the objects from whence they issue and whereof they are Pictures and that hence it is that the Teeth are set on edge upon the hearing of grating sounds that the sight of a Potion purges many and that of salt things makes the Stomack rise in others and that the thought of the Plague oftentimes propagates it more then the corruption of the Air. Nevertheless these effects proceed only from the various motion of Heat and the Spirits caus'd by the Appetite and the Motive Power which are distinct from the Imagination For if the Species had the same power with the objects from which they issue they would not be perfective but destructive of their Organs the Species of Heat would burn the Brain that of Cold would cool it both would destroy it which is contrary to experience For though Heat and Cold are contraries in Nature yet they are not so in the Understanding but rather friendly the one contributing to the knowledg of the other and the end of Intentional Species is not to alter but onely to represent the objects whereof they are copies The Third said That Aristotle hath built his Physiognomy upon the great connection and sympathy of the Soul with the Body which is such that the one causeth considerable changes in the other To which purpose the Soul employes no other more effectual instrument then the Imagination Which power of the Soul upon the Body is evinc'd by the mighty effects of the Passions especially of Fear Love and Anger Fear having kill'd many as particularly St. Valier before the stroke of the Executioner On which account it is also that Mirth is commended for one of the best preservatives from the Plague And we see that Fear and Sadness are no less the causes then the infallible signs of the Disease call'd Melancholy The same is further verified by the strange Histories of those who being become sick by Fancy could not be cur'd but by curing the Fancy first the Remedy being to be of the same kinde with the Disease Thus he who fancy'd he had no head could not be restor'd to his right sense till the Physician clapping a leaden Cap upon him left him to complain a while of the Head-ache And another who having study'd Physick a little and took up a conceit that he had a prodigious excrescence in his Intestinum Rectum could not be cur'd till the Chirurgeon had made semblance of cauterizing it Another Gentleman who durst not piss for fear of causing an universal Deluge was cur'd of his conceit by the Countrey peoples crying out Fire and desiring him to quench it In like manner another believing himself dead would not eat and had dy'd in good earnest had not his Nephew who was reported dead come into his Chamber in a winding Sheet and fallen to eat before his Uncle who thereupon did the like And to go no further the tying of the Codpiece-point is accounted an effect of the Fancy and is cur'd by curing the Fancy alone So likewise a Lord of Quality falling sick accidentally in a
poor Village and complaining less of his Malady then that he should dye without a Physician no other expedient was found but to cloath his Cook in the Curates Gown upon which he presently became half cur'd but causing the Curtains to be undrawn that he might the better see to thank his Doctor he discover'd the deceit and fell sick again more dangerously then before his imagination thus producing the effects both of sickness and recovery CONFERENCE CLXXII Of Fascination or Bewitching FAscination or Bewitching is the doing of hurt to one by sight without Contact mediate or immediate to deny which is to deny common experience the verdict of all Antiquity of the Learned and of the Holy Scripture it self The manner of it is vulgarly thought to be this namely when one maliciously and with a dangerous eye beholding some fair Child whose tenderness of body makes it more subject to hurt then a stronger person hurts it by commending it which Sorcery is thought to be render'd ineffectual by making Children wear about their Necks some preservatives ridiculous indeed yet much in use particularly amongst the Spaniards such as the figure of a thumb between the two fore-fingers in the form observ'd in making a fig for one 't is also a practice to make such a fig when they rise in the morning and to spit three times in the bosom Now this kinde of Fascination the Poet extends even to Beasts in the common Verse Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos Some refer it to Antipathy as they do the Basilisk's killing at a distance and the hoarseness caus'd by sight of a Wolf Plutarch in the fifth Book of his Symposiacks saith That some hurt their Parents and Friends with their Eyes alone and he relates a story of one Entelidas who like a second Narcissus perceiving himself handsome in a Fountain thereupon lost both his health and his beauty whence he concludes that such Fascination proceeds not alwayes from Envy but he refers the cause to the perverse custom some get of doing mischief which being turn'd into nature becomes as necessary to them as 't is to a bowl to roll Others think it an effect purely natural as a Blear Eye infects the beholder with the same evil and Plutarch saith He saw certain ancient people call'd Thibii who by their aspect hurt not onely Children but perfect men the visual rayes being render'd more active by the evil habit of those that have intention to hurt out of envy which is discern'd commonly by frequent beholding the prosperity of a hated person whence comes the word Invidere An example whereof is seen in the little Bird call'd a Witwal which becomes sick by the sight of one that hath the Jaundies whereof the Bird being presently conscious shuts its eyes upon such a persons approach For the poison is communicated onely to such as are fit to receive it even at further distance then fire reacheth Babylonian Naptha And they hold that Envy or some other passion increases its activity the soul promoting the operations of the body as the imagination excites love and eager Dogs sometimes become blinde through the violence wherewith they pursue their Game This opinion is backt by the observation of menstrous women whose aspect alone taints a Looking-glass and also by the effects proceeding from the passion of Love the cause whereof is attributed to the Eyes which are sometimes so disorder'd by erotical Folly that they see not the objects before them which cannot be attributed to beauty alone considering that the fairest women have oftentimes least power to attract Lovers by their looks whence some are found more dangerous to behold then others Besides Plutarch Aristotle and Heliodorus who confirm this Fascination which is deriv'd from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Envy in Deut. 28.56 This word is us'd and translated by St. Austin Fascination and the Chaldeans call'd it an evil-Eye as elsewhere that Eye of the envious Hireling is so term'd But St. Paul speaks plainly of it Gal. 3.1 asking the Galatians Who hath bewitched or fascinated you not to obey the Truth Which St. Anselm interprets thus Who hath hurt you by a livid and envious beholding of your perfection or like Enchanters hath deluded you and made you see one thing for another And Tertullian saith That Fascination which so followeth Praise that the one is taken for the other is a work of the Devil and sometimes also a punishment of God upon such as forget themselves through vanity The Second said That Fascination in the vulgar sense is not onely possible but natural though the cause be occult as also are magnetical and electrical attractions Thus maleficiated persons infect by insensible transpiration what they wear about themselves whereunto the eye's structure and temper renders it the fittest part of the body whence besides Diseases of the eyes we see Tears easily draw others from those that behold them shed Pliny relates that the Tribalians and Illyrians when angry kill'd people by their aspect alone And Olaus That the same is done at this day in some Northern Nations 'T is read of Tiberius that his eyes sparkled in the night insomuch that a Souldier dy'd by beholding him And Pyrrhus so terrifi'd another who came to dispatch him that onely by looking upon him he render'd him unable to touch him For whether vision be by Emission as the Platonists hold the Rayes will carry with them the qualities of the Eye that emits them or by Reception as Aristotle will have it the colours resulting from the impression of the qualities of a visible object will not be destitute of the same qualities or partly by emission and partly by reception according to Galen the rencontre of both sorts of Rayes cannot but be of great efficacy especially when animated by the Passions of Choler which enflames them or of Envy which envenoms them The Third said That there are two sorts of Fascination the one natural performed by natural means as venomous and malignant qualities which are sent from one body to another and infect the same by their malignity the other supernatural and diabolical perform'd by secret means whereby the vulgar believe that Witches can make sick whom they please by touching beholding and speaking to them which three wayes they employ to bewitch those to whom they desire mischief The first sort of Fascination is possible and is founded upon the Antipapathy and Contrariety which is found between almost all Bodies so that even the shadows of some Trees are noxious to some Animals as that of the Yew to Man and that of the Ash to Serpents The Fig-Tree appeases the madness of the Bull when he is ty'd to it by emission of certain vaporous spirits which entring into him temper and reduce him to moderation and from the same reason meat hang'd on a Fig-Tree becomes more tender and delicate to wit by attenuating its grosser parts For the heat of every living body incessantly
raising and sending forth vapors and spirits when these spirits meet others like themselves they serve them instead of a recruit and increase the good disposition of the body wherein they are And 't is this way that old women prejudice the health of Children whilst their vapid spirits are imbib'd by the tender skin of the Infants and so corrupting the humors disorder their natural functions Hence also consumptive persons give their disease to such as breathe near them and so likewise all contagious and occult maladies are communicated by one morbid subject to another dispos'd to receive the same affection But the latter sort of Fascination whereby common people think that not onely men and Animals may be kill'd but also plants dry'd up streams stopt stones broken in pieces and the like is no-wise in the power of nature whatever the Arabians say who ascribe all these effects to imagination whose power they equal to that of Intelligences who are able to move the whole Universe For if it doth nothing of it self in its proper body where it simply receives the species of things it must do less without its precinct Moreover 't is impossible for a sound man to make another sick because he cannot give what himself hath not they in whom by an extraordinary corruption the blood seed or other humors have acquir'd a venomous quality being necessarily sick So that 't is a pure work of Devils who knowing the properties of things apply the same really to the parts of the body without our privity whilst they amuze our senses with other objects as the aspect of another person or some such insignificant thing Besides that children being apt to lose their flesh upon unapparent causes such a change may be purely natural whilst it is by mistake charg'd upon a strangers praises of the Infant who must necessarily grow worse because it cannot become better CONFERENCE CLXXIII Of Amulets and whether Diseases are curable by Words Tickets or other things hang'd at the Neck or applyed to the body of the Diseased THis Question depends upon the Precedent for if 't is possible to make a person sick by the Aspect alone it may seem also possible to cure him by Contact alone In the examining of the matter we must distinguish as elsewhere also supernatural cures from those which come to pass according to the course of nature Of the former sort are all the Miracles of the Holy Scripture and Ecclesiastical History those which Gods power manifests in all times by his Saints and the cure which he hath reserv'd to our Kings by their sole Touch. Some cure may likewise happen naturally by the pronouncing of words when the Patients Fancy is so strong that it hath power enough over his body to introduce some notable change therein whence that Physician cures most in whom most confide Thus I have seen some persons eas'd of the Tooth-ache upon sticking a knife in a Tree and pronouncing some barbarous words But it falls out oftentimes that the effect of one cause is attributed to another Such was the cure of a Gentleman of the Ligue whom the late King Henry the IV. surprized in the Town of Loges as he was shivering with a Quartain Ague and the King in Railery sent him a Receipt against his Ague the sight whereof presently cur'd him through the fear he had of that unexpected approach So also many remedies act by some occult property as Paeony hung about Childrens necks against the Epilepsy and Quick-silver apply'd upon the Breast or hung in a Quill is believ'd a preservative against the Pestilence all precious stones are thought to have some vertue against some indisposition of the body or minde The Eagle-stone apply'd to the Arm retains the child in the Womb and to the knee facilitates Delivery Coral and the Jasper stop Blood the Nephitick Stone is conceiv'd to void the Gravel of the Kidneyes the hinder foot of a Hare carry'd in the Pocket cures the Sciatica of the same side from which it was taken For Remedies whose sole application cures by their penetrating and sensible vertue are not of this rank Thus if Quick-silver apply'd cures the Pox by causing a Flux at the mouth it must not be term'd an Amulet nor Cantharides when apply'd as a vesicatory they cause Urine nor Epithemes apply'd to the Heart or Liver but herbs and other things laid to the Patients wrist may be so styl'd when they have no manifest qualities proper against an Ague The Question therefore is Whether such Applications Suspensions and Wearings have any Natural Effect I conceive they have not For a Natural Action requires not only some Mathematical or Physical Contact but also a proportion between the Cause and its Effect Now what proportion can there be between a Prayer or other Speech most commonly insignificative and the Cure of a Disease much less between a little Ticket or other suspended Body and an Ague what is said of the weapon-salve being either fabulous or diabolical and alwayes superstitious as the Phylacteries of the Jews were Although this Error is so ancient that the Greek Athletae were wont to arm themselves with such things against sluggishness of which trifles their Adversaries also made use to overcome them in Wrastling and at this day some wear certain Chracters about them that they may win at play In like manner the Romans hung Amulets about their Children's necks which they call'd Praefifcini and Fascini and made of Jet as the Spaniards make them at present To which to attribute any power upon the account of their Form Number or other regard beside their Matter is an Error as great in Philosophy as it would be impiety and contempt of the Church to extend his conclusion to Dei's Reliques and other sacred things whose so continual Effect cannot be question'd but by the prophane and heretical The Second said That by the Doctrine lately publish'd in the Treatise of Talismans it appears that not only Matter but also Figure Number and other correspondences with the Celestial Bodies have some efficacy which to question because we know not the manifest Cause would be too great presumption Yea I would not call all such Effects Supernatural since there are so many things feasible whereof we know not the Cause And as to the Supernatural Effects of Amulets they are of two sorts For either they are perform'd by the favour and blessing of God who redoubles yea heightens to a seemingly unpossible degree the Effects of Natural Causes or else changes them Or they are effected by help of the Evil Spirit who is the Ape of Divine Actions As then in consequence of the Sacraments God's Graces are conferr'd upon Christians so the Devil agrees with the Sorcerer or Magician that as often as he shall make such a sign or speak such a word such an Effect shall follow whence 't is no wonder if the Devil though inclin'd solely to Evil sometimes does good as healing a Disease by applying
whom he ravish'd with his Voice and Harp which was first instituted to honour the Gods The Indians perform'd their Worship by Dancing to Songs Cybele's Priests with Cymbals the Curetes with Drums and Trumpets the Romans sung Spondaick Verses whilst they offer'd their Sacrifices and David danc'd before the Ark all his Psalms being fitted to the Harp and other harmonious Instruments of that time And in this see what power Organs have to enflame the zeal of the devout and how melodious voices are with it so that the chief difference of Divine Service is in the Singing And as for publick or private Feasts and Ceremonies nothing renders them more compleat then Musick whence the Verse Convivii citharam quam Dii fecêre sodalem 'T was the custom to present a Lute to the Guests and to him that could not play a branch of Bayes which oblig'd him to a Song But above all the use of Musick is effectual in War whence the Spartans march'd to the sound of Flutes in a kinde of Dance to the end that by the motion of their Souldiers they might discern the valiant from the poltrons The Pythagoreans themselves were lull'd asleep with the Harp to appease the troubles of their minde In short Musick accompanies us to the Graves where people sing Elegies for the deceased Thus the Phoenicians added Flutes to their mournings and the Romans had their Siticines who sung at their Funerals For Musick excites both sadness and mirth And just as Physick either quiets or purges the humors of our bodies so doth Musick the Passions of the minde Plato conceiving that it was given to man not only to tickle his ears but also to maintain the Harmony of the Soul with the Body and to awake our sleeping vertues Thus of divers modes the Dorick makes prudent and chaste the Phrygian excites to War and Religion the Lydian abates pride and turns it into lamentations the Ionick excites to honest pleasures and recreations Hence Aegysthus could never corrupt the chastity of Clytemnestra Agamemnons Wife till he us'd the help of the Poet and Musician Demodocus and the Emperour Theodosius being ready to destroy the City of Antioch was diverted and wrought to mercy by the melodious Sonnets of little Children instructed thereunto by Flavianus their Bishop Yea the Prophet Elisha recommended this Art when he commanded a Harp to be played on before him and then Prophesi'd to Joram the overthrow of the Moabites And Michaia did the like in the presence of Ahab King of Samaria refusing to prophesie till one had played before him upon a Musical Instrument The relation of Saxo Grammaticus in the 12th Book of his Danish History concerning Henry the 2d King of Denmark who being told of the excellent Musick of the Violin desir'd to see the effects of it which were such that at first it put him into a deep melancholly and afterwards chearing him up again rais'd his spirit to such a degree of rage that he slew four of his Guard and at last it return'd him to his first temper serving onely to shew the excellence of Musick when it is rightly us'd The Second said That Musick effeminates mens courage whilst it sweetens like that of Wine taken to excess intoxicates them and transports them out of themselves which hurtful effect gave just cause to the fable of the Syrenes who allur'd Pilots by their melodious voices to split against the Rocks But above all it excites to filthy pleasures and blindes the eyes of the Understanding as Mercury did those of Argus And its great delectation through the dissipation of the Animal spirits which the sweetness of the sound attracts by the ear leaves us less refresht then wearied and incapable of setting about any serious matter It s easing the Sciatica as 't is reported is common to it with every thing that causes great attention whereby the spirits and with them the humors being suspended the fluxion must consequently cease and the Rabbins attribute the driving away Saul's evil spirit not to the Harmony alone of Davids Harp but to the vertue of the Characters of the Divine Name written upon it What did the Sybarites get by training their Horses to the Pipe but this that the Crotonians causing Minstrels to play at the joyning of a Battel render'd their Horses useless to the Fight because they did nothing but Dance Moreover Orpheus one of the most ancient Musicians was torn to pieces by women because he debauch'd their Husbands Whence also Antisthenes said that Ismenias was either a Fool or a bad Citizen because he could play so well upon the Flute and Philip was angry with Alexander for singing too well and Antigonns his Governour broke his Harp Therefore the Egyptians banish'd Musicians as corrupters of Youth and the Lacedemonians were so afraid lest they should grow into credit amongst them that they expelled Timotheus out of their City for adding a string to his Lute Aristotle also places this Art amongst the Ludicrous and blames Painters for representing the gods singing and playing upon Instruments whose goodliest effect is to break silence and waste time leaving no permanent action after it more then the play of Cards Dice and Tennis doth which last is much more profitable for health and is accounted as honourable to be perfectly skill'd in by persons of quality as 't is shameful to be an excellent Musician In fine we read not that our Lord ever Sung nor yet Adam in the state of Original Righteousness but one Jubal the first Bigamer and second Murderer of the world is said to have been the inventer of it CONFERENCE CLXXVII Whether Barrenness is most commonly tht fault of Husbands or of Wives AS Fruitfulness is a power whereby every living thing is able to produce its like so Barrenness is an impotence in it to re-produce is self by the way of Generation by means whereof mortal individuals acquire immortality in their Species to which purpose nature hath furnish'd every one with necessary Organs The generation of perfect Animals requires three things diversity of Sex matter or seed which flows from both Male and Female and contains in it self the Idea and Character of the parts from which it issues and lastly conjunction of both together without which nothing is produc'd And though the defect of Generation may be sometimes on the mans part as well as on the womans yet she is more subject to sterility which is an impotence proper to a woman who after the knowledge of a man in an age and time convenient cannot conceive For those that conceive not after the 50th year or before the 12th are not term'd barren Conceptions beyond the former or before the latter term being supernatural or extraordinary as those of the Manandri and Calingi and that of one mention'd by Savonarola whom he saw big with Childe at nine years of Age as also the miraculous conception of Elizabeth after she was seventy years old The cause of Barrenness is ascrib'd by
of good juice conduceth much to render Women fruitful On the contrary the frequent use of food hot and dry gross and of bad juice may render them barren as Leeks and Garlick do and amongst other Plants Mint which was therefore forbidden to be eaten or planted in time of war wherein 't is needful to repair by Fecundity the loss of Men it causeth In like manner want of Exercise by the heaping up of superfluous Humors and too violent and continual Exercises by desiccating the parts oftentimes occasion sterility Amongst the Passions Sadness is the greatest Enemy to Generation whence Hesiod forbids marry'd people to see one another after a Funeral but only at their coming from a Bath or from places of Mirth In fine what ever is capable to impair the goodness of the Temper is contrary to Fruitfulness and Generation which above all other Natural Actions requires an exact harmony of the qualities and a perfect disposition of the noble parts which supply Matter and Spirits fit for this Action And although Men and Women are alike expos'd to External Causes yet Women being less vigorous are sooner wrought upon by them For to Internal Causes which are the most considerable Women are undoubtedly more subject since beside Seed which they supply as well as Man who to deserve the name of fruitful ought only to supply the same in requisite quantity quality and consistence and place it in convenient Recepticles the Woman must also afford Blood and also a place for receiving and preserving both the Seeds and Blood namely her Womb the least disorder whereof is sufficient to marr the whole work of Generation Wherefore since she contributes most to Generation and there are more Causes in her concurring thereunto if it take not Effect she is more in fault than the Man who hath not so many several concurrences in the business The Fourth said That the Causes of sterility being either Natural or Adventitious and equal in the Man and the Woman nothing can be determin'd upon this Question For in either Sex there are both universal and particular deficiences of right Temper and as many Effeminate Men as Viragoes the one not less unfit for Generation than the other as Aristotle saith Castration is practis'd in both and disorderly living is equal as well in Male as Female in these dayes For if Men exceed in drinking Maids and Women are as bad in Gluttony and Lickerishness If there be any difference 't is from the diversity of Climate Women being found more fruitful in hot Countries and less in cold but Men contrarily the intemperies of either Sex being corrected by an opposite constitution of Air. Hence such Women as have been long barren sometimes become fruitful by change of Air Places manner of Life and especially of Age by which the temperament of the Body being sensibly alter'd it acquires the Fruitfulness it wanted by acquiring the Qualities and Conditions necessary to Generation Many likewise upon the same reason become fuitful after the use of Mineral Waters or Baths and being thereby deliver'd from several Diseases to which barren Women are more subject than such as have Children whom Parturition rids of abundance of Excrements peculiar to that Sex and occasioning many disorders in the barren The Fifth said That the observation made by Bodin in his Republick and several other famous Authors that the number of Women much exceeds that of Men seems to void the Question Nature having thereby sufficiently given us to understand That fewer men are as fruitful as more women Which observation is verifi'd not only in the East and other Countries where plurality of Wives hath places but also in France where there is no Province wherein Virgins remain not unmarry'd for want of Husbands Moreover one man may beget abundance of Children in the space of nine moneths during which a woman breeds but one or two and therefore Man seems more fruitful then Woman who beginning to be capable of Generation but two years before Man doth viz. at 12 years old at the soonest ends 23 years sooner then he for men generate at 70 years of age and more but women end at 50. During which time also they are subject to far more infirmities and maladies than men who have not above four or five whereof women are not capable but women have fifty or threescore peculiar to themselves CONFERENCE CLXXVIII Whether Complaisance proceeds from Magnanimity or Poorness of Spirit COmplaisance is a habit opposite to Roughness the first being a Species of Civility the latter of Rusticity Now since we are complaisant either in good or bad things to be so must be commendable or blameable according to the nature of the object But because no body doubts that we ought to be complaisant in vertuous actions and that they are as culpable who connive at vice as they that commit it It remains to consider of Complaisance in indifferent things as 't is in common practise amongst men and as Juvenal represents it in a person that falls a weeping as soon as he sees his friends tears and when he smiles laughs aloud and if you say you are very hot he sweats if cold he runs to his Fur-gown Now the Question is whether such a man hath more of courage or baseness I conceive he shews himself a very pitiful fellow For this deportment differs not from that servile Vice Flattery which is near akin to Lying and easily turns from an indifferent to a vicious action Thus Courtiers varnish vices with the name of such vertues as have most conformity therewith calling Avarice Frugality Lasciviousness Love Obstinacy Constancy and so in other cases till they render themselves ridiculous even to those they praise who how vain soever they may be yet cannot hear their own praises without blushing at them being conscious that they displease all the hearers Indeed when I am complaisant to any one 't is for fear to offend him and fear was never an effect of Magnanimity To which all that can be excepted is that it belongs also to Prudence to fear formidable things But Fortitude and Courage are never employ'd in the practise of this vertue which therefore is very much suspected and oft-times serves for an excuse of cowardice Hence old men whom their cold blood makes less courageous are esteem'd the most prudent and if they be not the most complaisant 't is to be imputed to the sullenness attending that age as jollity doth youth Moreover as Courage leads us to act without fear of danger what we conceive good and just so it teaches us to call things by their proper names as Philip's Souldiers did On the contrary Complaisance teaches people to admire beauty in a deformed woman to commend a bad Poets Verses and desire a copy of them from him to give fair words to such as we will not or cannot do any kindness to in brief to dissemble all things and to disguise our words contrary to the frequent express
prizes of the Commodity he intends to deal in Which hath gain'd great Credit to this Assembly by the printed Bills it hath sometimes sent abroad containing the currant prizes of all Wares for every week in imitation of the City of Amsterdam For by this means the Merchant needs only discount the charges of transportation and make a Reduction of Weights and Measures to see his evident profit yet alwayes carefully observing to draw a line with some imaginary summ for hazards and contingences which may happen unexpectedly it being impossible what-ever care be us'd to regulate exactly the gain of Merchandize as depending partly on Chance and partly on the Will and Phansie of Men so that a Commodity which for being to day in fashion or otherwise in credit would yield twenty in the hundred profit to the Owner sometimes leaves him a loser or he is forc'd to keep it long in his Ware-house CONFERENCE CLXXIX What are the most common Causes of Law-suits and why they are more now than heretofore PLato designing a Common-wealth whose Citizens might live in good intelligence justly excludes out of it the words of Mine and Thine conceiving that so long as there was any thing to be divided there would ever be Male-contents because Self-love the root from whence the too great desire of keeping and acquiring arises acts variously in Men by main force and strong hand in time of War and in Peace by Law-suits Now the desire of Getting having never been so great as at this day nor so much countenanc'd and rewarded since in consideration of wealth most Offices are dispos'd of 't is no wonder if Law-suits be more numerous at this day than in times past The Second said That Community of Goods feign'd by the Poets and exemplifi'd in the Primitive Church bating the Charity which produc'd it would cause as many mischiefs and consequently Law-suits as there are at present For every one would endeavour to appropriate what should be common and despise it if not able to compass it as we see common Causes are neglected and commonly lost for private interest Whence appears the impertinence of some Legislators and of the Nicolaitans who that the Children might be lov'd the more would have Wives common for common Wives and Children would be own'd by no Body and if such Women as belong but to two or three keep them alwayes in jealousie and many times ingage them in a Law-suit what would those do that belong'd to all the world Wherefore I conceive that if contrary Effects have contrary Causes 't is Plenty and its Daughter Pride that causeth Law-suits and Poverty and Humility makes Peace and Agreements Which the French Democritus intimates where he introduces an old man reconciling two Adversaries but 't is after they are both undone Thus also the Circle of Humane Life represents Labour holding Wealth by the Hand Wealth holding Pride Pride holding Contention which causeth Poverty this Humility which again produces Labour that Wealth and so round again For of fifty Law-suits not one would begin between the parties or at least it would soon be determin'd if either would humble themselves as much one to the other as they do to their Judges yea oftentimes to their Council Wherefore Vanity being greater in this Age than ever it was although with less reason in most 't is no wonder if our times abound more with Law-suits than the former The Third said That such as are at their ease have no mind to Law-suits and therefore 't is not Plenty that begets them but Necessity yet not an absolute one for he that hath nothing cannot go to Law but such that the one cannot pay what he owes and the other cannot be without it In every other Case Accommodements are possible 'T is from this Source that so many Seisures and Sentences proceed which the indebted would never suffer had they wherewithall to pay considering that the whole charges must fall upon themselves Now as there were never so many rich so there were never so many poor as there are at this day in France because every body labours out of the vanity above-mention'd to disable themselves every day more and more laughing at the Constitutions which are made to reduce us to frugality and ascribing all inconveniences both publick and private to any other Cause but themselves The Fourth said That though the Ages past having had the same vicissitudes of Peace and War and of Poverty and Riches yet had they not so many Law-suits as there are at present and therefore some other Cause thereof must be sought which possibly is this That the Spirits of Men are become more refin'd and subtle in the several Ages of the world and consequently advanc'd to a higher pitch of maliciousness whence many difficulties and contest arise in such matters wherein the goodness and simplicity of our Ancestors found none at all Nor hath the multitude and diversity of Laws been a small occasion of this bad event For besides the Roman Laws which lay long in oblivion and were restor'd to light by Veruher in the year 1127. and the Canons compil'd by Gratian whence came the judicial formalities our Customs and our Ordinances and amongst others those made since Charls VIII with long preambles and reasonings in imitation of Justinian have stirr'd up more Law-suits than there were in a thousand years before So that hath been good work for such as were minded to draw profit thereby to make so confus'd and intricate an Art of the Law that there is almost no Case wherein they cannot find some trick to multiply a Suit and render it immortal Moral Reason the foundation of the Law admits a thousand different faces not only in circumstances of Fact but also in matter of Law whence there are few Laws but have their contraries The Fifth said That the multiplicity of our Law-suits is to be attributed to the humor of the French Nation which is desirous of change and naturally subtle and eloquent Whence a Latine Poet stills France the Nurse of Lawyers Likewise the improvement of Learning in this last Age hath contributed much thereunto And the sight of great Estates gotten by the Law hath induc'd many Parents to put their Children to that profession as the readiest way to advancement Such as could not be Counsellors have been made Attornies Solliciters Sergeants and this great number of people employ their inventions to get a livelyhood which they cannot do without Law-suits And therefore 't is no wonder if they advise continue multiply and eternise them as much as they can egging on the Plaintiff by the motive of Profit and the Defendant by that of Self-preservation and refusing to the more simple their writings and other such helps as might bring them to accord The Sixth said That Law-suits increase or diminish according to the diversities of proportions kept in the Administration of Justice For some measure them by the Law of Nature whereby all Men are born equal and
which is so far from being rich enough of its self that it borrows from the Greek and Latine to express the most common things and consequently is not sufficient to teach all the Sciences The Second said The French Tongue is deriv'd from the Greek Latine and Gothick which are Languages much more copious then it and therefore they that will recur to originals will find those Tongues more adapted for teaching the Sciences then the French and yet not any single one of them sufficient for it since the Romans to become and deserve the name of Learned were oblig'd to learn Greek Moreover since Books are the chief instruments for attaining the Sciences the ancient Latine and Greek ones which yet were not sufficient for it are much more numerous than the French and by consequence the French Tongue is not capable to teach every Science and had it more Translations then it hath yet these are but small Rivulets deriv'd from that grand Source of Sciences which is found in the original Languages The Third said If we regard the order of times and particularly that of the Creation when all things were in their perfection and purity 't is most likely that that Language which took birth with Adam and all the Sciences is more fit to teach them then the much more Novel French and since there must be a proportion between Instruments and the Matters upon which they act and this proportion is not found between the French Tongue lately invented and the Sciences which are as ancient as the World who can think it sufficient to teach them and the Cabalists hold that the Language fit to teach the Sciences perfectly must have words adapted to signifie the Vertues and Properties of things which ours hath not The Fourth said That all the Language of Adam who gave names suitable to the nature of every thing being lost except the the name of God for that reason so much esteemed by the Jews The Cabalists in imitation of that Tongue invented one whereof I shall give you a taste It hath five Vowels E A V I O which answer to the Elements and the Heaven E to Earth A to the Water V to the Air I to the Fire and O to Heaven E produceth in pronunciation c d f g l m n p r s t z forasmuch as these Consonants cannot be produc'd without it A produceth h and k v produceth q I produceth nothing because pure and single Fire doth not O likewise produceth nothing because the Heaven only moves and excites Generations whereas E produceth abundance of Letters resembling the Earth which produceth every thing in its bosom being the Centre of Heaven and the Matrix of the Elements Now to form words according to the Elementary Qualities they will have the Vowels which compose such a word answer to the Elements which compose such a mixt body And to specifie degrees because the Vowels whereby they are denoted meeting together would spoil the pronunciation therefore they make foure orders of the sixteen Consonants viz. b c d f denote the four degrees of Fire g l m n those of Air p r s t those of Water x z ss st those of Earth Upon this foundation they build the composition of all their Words which they compose of Vowels according to the Elements predominant in things and of Consonants according to their degree But who sees not the absurdity of this invention which by this means would extend only to corporeal mixts whereof the quality and very degree is known Concerning which Naturalists are so far from being agreed that many attribute most natural effects to other causes as to Occult Properties so call'd in opposition to the Elementary 'T is best therefore not to rove from the common tract which teaches us the Sciences by real Languages amongst which those call'd Dead ones to wit the Hebrew Greek and Latine and others now disus'd suffice not for teaching the Sciences because they are not pronounc'd well and the learned agree not about the importance of many Letters and Syllables Besides the most eloquent express not themselves so naturally in those antick obsolete Tongues as in their own And all confess that in order to obtain the perfection of a Science too much plainness cannot be us'd either on the Teacher's part in establishing their Rules and Precepts or on the Learner's in propounding their difficulties for resolution CONFERENCE CLXXXVII Of diversity of Colours in one and the same subject THe diversity of Colours is commonly deduc'd from the mixtion and proportion of the Elements but more truly from the several degrees of Sulphur which produces them as Salt doth Sapors the most certain indications what degree the quality of a Plant is of For if Colours had relation to the Elements then all red things should be hot and white things cold which is not true in Poppy and Roses on the one side nor Orange-flowers and Jasmin on the other So also green things should be always moist because this colour proceeds from an indigested humidity mixt with a part of putrifi'd earth as appears in standing waters and yet the greenness of Lawrel and Mint hinders them not from being hot and dry nor that of Ranunculus from burning But Colours are either natural or artificial which latter as we find it in Stuffs and Silks is neither the cause nor the effect of their temperament But natural colour such as that in the parts of living Animals is an effect of their Life and alterable after their death Wherefore I conclude that colour and its varieties proceeds from the different degrees of Sulphur in the subject but that one and the same subject is of several colours the causes may be First for that some of its parts are more compact others more loose and so differently receive the impression of the Sulphur and the Internal Fire Secondly the Sun shining more upon one part than another draws the internal colour from the Centre to the Circumference as Apples are colour'd on the side next the Sun Thirdly the same difference which is found between the Root Trunk Leavs Flower Fruit and other parts of Plants and Animals is also found in each portion of those parts as the lower part of the Rose is green the middle part whitish and the top red and the Tulip variegated is compounded of as many several particles which variety of places and matrices serves to determine the colour which Sulphur paints thereon being guided by the pencil of Nature The Second said That this diversity of colours proceeds only from the divers aspect of light which varies the colours of certain Bodies to our Eye as in the Rain-bow the Camelion and the necks of Pigeons in things expos'd to the Sun which seem far brighter than before To which you must add the distance and station of the beholders so water seems black or blew afar off but near hand colourless Turpentine Crystal and the whites of Eggs in several situations do the like
the prejudice of a third Which yet hath not place in all there being found good Judges who would condemn their own Child if he had a bad Cause But to attribute to self-love the defect of clear-sightedness is to speak too Poetically since the Prince of Poets believes it not possible to deceive a Lover and the knowledge we have of others affairs hath no other foundation but that which we have of our own just as self-love is given us for a rule of that of our Neighbour The Third said That which happens most frequently being the rule and the rest the exception and the greatest part of Men resembling that Lamia who being blind at home put on her Eyes when she went abroad it must be agreed that we are less clear-sighted in our own than in others affairs Which is the meaning of the Proverb of the wallet in the forepart of which the bearer puts other Mens matters casting his own into the part behind upon his back Moreover to see clear is to see without clouds or mists such as are those of the Passions Fear Hope Avarice Revenge Ambition Anger and all the rest which suffer not the Species to be calmly represented to the Intellect which receives the same as untowardly as stirred water or a Looking-glass sullied with incessant clouds or vapors receive an Image objected to them 't is true the Passions have some effect upon it in affairs without but as themselves so their trouble is less and he is the best Judge who gives them no admittance at all which cannot be in our own affairs where consequently we are no less clear than in those of others CONFERENCE CLXXXIX Of the Original of Mountains GOD having created the world in perfection it was requisite there should be Plains Mountains and Vallies upon the Earth without which agreeable variety there would be no proportion in its parts wherein nevertheless consists its principal ornament which hath given it the name of world no other beginning of Mountains seems assignable but that of the world Nor is there any possibility in attributing another Cause to those great Mountains which separate not only Provinces and States but the parts of the world all the Causes that can be assigned thereof being unequal to such an Effect Which the discovery of the inequalities of the Celestial Bodies observed in our dayes by Galileo's Tubes in some sort confirmed for by them Mountains are discerned in some Planets especially an eminent one in the Orbe of Mars which Mountain cannot reasonably be attributed to any cause but his primary construction The same may likewise be said of the Mountains of the Earth which besides having necessarily its slopenesses and declivities which are followed by Rivers and Torrents there is no more difficulty to conceive a Mountain then an elevated place in the Earth so that to say that from the beginning there was no place higher in one part of the earth then in another is to gain-say Scripture which saith that there were four Rivers in Eden each whereof had its current which could not be unless the place of their rise were higher then that whereunto they tended The Second said That the proportion from which the ornament of the World results is sufficiently manifested in the correspondence of the four Elements with the Heavens and of the Heavens with themselves yea in all compounds which result from those Elements moved by heat and the Celestial influences without fancying a craggy Earth from the beginning to the prejudice of the perfection which is found in the Spherical Figure which God hath also pourtray'd in all his works which observe the same exactly or come as near it as their use will permit as is seen particularly in the fabrick of Man's Body his master-piece whereof all the original parts have somewhat of the Spherical or Cylindrical Figure which is the production of a Circle And if the other Elements of Fire Air and Water are absolutely round and cannot be otherwise conceived though their consistence be fluid and as such more easily mutable in figure 't is much more likely that the earth had that exactly round figure at the beginning otherwise the Waters could not have covered it as they did since not being diminished from the beginning of the World till this time they are not at this day capable of covering it 'T is certain then that God gave the Earth that Spherical form it being to serve for the bulk and Centre to all the other Elements by means of which roundness the Water covered it equally but when it was time to render the Earth habitable to Animals and for that end to discover a part of it it was to be rendered more hollow in some places and more elevated in others since there is no Mountain without a Valley nor on the contrary Afterwards it came to pass that the Rain washed away whatsoever was fat and unctuous in those higher places and carrying it into Brooks and Rivers and thence into the Sea this Sea by the impetuosity of his waves makes great abyffes in some places and banks of sand in others but the great and notable change happened in the universal Deluge when the many Gulfs below and Windows on high as the Scripture speaks overflowed the whole Earth for forty days and forty nights together the Earth being thus become a Sea was in a manner new shaped by the torrents of the waters and the violence of the same waves which made Abysses in some places and Mountains in others according as the Earth happened to be more or less compact and apt for resistance Which is yet easier to be conceived of Rocks which being unapt to be mollified by either that universal rovage of waters or torrents superven'd in four thousand years since they remain intire and appear at this day as supercilious as ever over the more depressed parts round about The Third said That some Mountains were produced at the Creation others since partly by Rains and Torrents partly by Winds and Earth-quakes which have also sometimes levell'd Hills and reduced them into Valleys so that you cannot assign one certain or general cause of all For there is no more reason to believe that the ravages of waters have produced Mountains then that they have levell'd and filled Valleys with their soil as 't is ordinarily seen that the fattest portion of Mountainous places is washed away by Rain into Valleys and fertilizes the same And the smallness of the Earth compared to the rest of the world permits not its inequalities to make any notable disproportion in it or hinder it from being called Round as appears in Eclipses caused by the shadow of the Earth which she sends as regularly towards Heaven as if she were perfectly round The Fourth said That the waters of the Sea from which according to the Scripture all waters issue and return thither impetuously entring into the caverns of the Earth go winding along there till they find resistance
them to their Society and to none else The Third said That there have ever been spirits extravagant irregular and incapable of all Discipline both Political and Ecclesiastical Hence have risen in the Church Heresiarchs and Schismaticks in the State Rebels and Mutineers in the Sciences Innovators and presumptuous persons who wanting Ability and Constancy to undergo the pains of Study necessary for obtaining the skill requisite to the right exercise of the least Disciplines and Professions take upon them to blame what they understand not and as the vulgar easily close with Calumnies to which the faults of the Professors not the Professions give but too much occasion so they readily prepossess the Understanding of their Hearers For which there is more matter in Physick than there is in any other Profession because the vulgar who judge thereof consider only events which are not in our power but only the application of causes the rest being the work of Nature Hence Paracelsus and others of that gang started up in the world establishing new Principles and vaunting themselves upon the authority of imaginary antiquity And as no Opinion is so erroneous but hath its followers so there have been found people enough of that sort to make a Colledge who forgetting that one of the faults they charg'd upon the Rational Physicians was that in their prescriptions they made use of a strange Language and Cyphers unknown to the vulgar have imitated those above-mention'd Priests of Aegypt who made an outside shew of brave Ornaments which being lifted up you see nothing but a Cat or an Ox at the stall Thus all their discourse is only of Aurum Potabile Mercurius Vitae Magistery of Pearls Quintessences Spirits Extracts which they denote by Cyphers invented at pleasure and apply as they say only according to the mind of Heaven all the cadences whereof they observe and measure for that purpose But if you look to the bottome of all you will see their Hands foul'd with coals or dung their Faces discolour'd by the Arsenical Exhalations of the Minerals they prepare in their furnaces and yet the most pitiful wretch of them all will swear that he knows the great work Indeed this were no great matter if the success of their Practise made amends for the defects of their Theory But seing chief remedies consist in vomiting or purging violently whereof few Bodies are capable no wonder if people use them only in desperate cases Nor is their impertinence sufferable whilst to credit themselves they pretend to be descended from the Gymnosophists from whom 't is to be fear'd they inherit at last nothing else but their nakedness For what better title have they for their succeeding to all those ancient Societies I mean such as were commendable and worthy of imitation than our Faculties have which are authoriz'd by the Laws of the Prince by possession immemorial and a conformity of all Nations which renders their right as strong as that of Nations Wherefore I advise these Brethren if they will not betake themselves to study as as others do to render themselves altogether Invisible as they pretend to be withdrawing from the Commerce of the rest of Mankind The Fourth said Who openly profess'd himself one of this Fraternity said that Doctor Flud of England had ingeniously interpreted these three Letters F. fide R. religione C. charitate though the common opinion prevails which will have them signifie Fratres Roseae Crucis But neither of these interpretations can pass for a great Secret wherefore it appears upon further search that the Cross is truly significative there but in another sense which is that in this †the word LVX is included whence some think that these Brothers took in Spain the title of Illuminati I shall venture further and add that Ros Dew which is the most powerful dissolver of Gold amongst natural and not corrosive Bodies is nothing else but Light condens'd and render'd corporeal which being concocted and digested artificially in convenient time in its proper vessel is the true Menstruum of the Red Dragon i. e. of Gold the true matter of Philsophers Of which Secret this Society desiring to leave Posterity intimation in their Name styll'd themselves Brethren of the Rosie Cross Thus Jacob's blessing upon Esau contain'd only these two matters De Rore Coeli pinguedine Terrae det tibi Deus Whereas this Society is charg'd with pretences of being invisible they mean only that it hath no visible marks to distinguish it from others as other Societies have namely several colours and fashions of habits but 't is known and visible only to those of the Society it self CONFERENCE CXCIV What Paracelsus meant by the Book M. I Shall not stand to consider whether it be true as some say that more persons besides Theophrastus ab Ohenheim bore the name of Paracelsus my present purpose is only to consider a passage lately recited here out of his Archidoxa Atque haec omnia saith he there parùm vulgaria de Medicina supernaturali Magica ex libro secreto ex Arabico idiomate in Latinum verso qui pro titulo habet Literam M. In which words we may observe how remote this Author's manner of Writing is from that of the Doctors of these times yea and of former too if you except the Chymists who mainly aim to speak clearly and to render themselves intelligible many of them professing to wish that things themselves could speak From which practise this Author is so far that he conceals even the Book 's name wherein he studied by a kind of Plagium hiding his Theft lest others should trap him and the same Jealousie runs through all his Works However for Curiositie's sake let us consider what Titles will sute to this Letter Me-thinks the fittest is Mundus that great Book open to all that are minded to read in it that to which Job David and many other Authors sacred and profane so frequently refer us each Element whereof is a Tome every Compound a Book and every part thereof a Letter All other Books are only Copies of this Original to which if they happen to have conformity they pass for good if not they are meer Chimera's having no foundation in the thing Hence ariseth that so remarkable difference between the Theory and the Practise of Arts for almost all Books being false Copies of this of the World no wonder if Book-doctors are most commonly ignorant of Things whose solid Contemplation produces other satisfaction in the informed Intellect than do the empty Phansies of those who either never understood what they writ or had not the gift of right expressing it And certainly we may have more exact and natural information from the species of things themselves than either the Writing or Speech of another person can give us The Second said That this Book M. is the Book of Magick whence many have believ'd Paracelsus a Magician and the rather in that they find him teaching in many places of
his Books to cure diseases by words and to produce men by inchantment in a great bottle with other such abominable proposals not to be accomplish'd but by Diabolical assistance Moreover we seldom see any persons so bold as to attempt to overthrow so ancient an Institution as Physick both in Theory and Practise but who are led to that enterprise either by God or the Devil And the continual calumnies and detractions whereof this evil spirit is the Author and for which Paracelsus and his followers so signalize themselves give farr more probability of the latter than of the former Whence possibly to disguise the matter most Magicians pretend to have learnt their Characters out of some Book as particularly that which they call Clavicula Solomonis The Third said That it may be Magick and yet lawful to wit true and Natural Magick such as was profess'd by the Indian Magi three of whom having discover'd our Saviour's Birth came to worship him the other black and infamous Magick no more deserving that name than Empiricks and Mountebanks do that of Physicians Now Natural Magick is the knowledge of the nature and properties of all things hidden to the vulgar who take notice only of manifest qualities and reduce all to generalities to avoid the pains of seeking the particular virtues of each thing and therefore 't is no wonder if they see only common effects and successes from them Thus Plants bearing the signature or resemblance of a disease or the part diseased as Lungwort Liverwort Pepperwort cure by a property independent on the first qualities though few understand so much Of this kind are many excellent Secrets whose effects seem miraculous and as much surpass those of ordinary remedies whose virtues are collected only from their appearing qualities as the Soul doth the Body and Heaven Earth The Fourth said That by the Book M. cannot be meant Mundus since the World cannot be turn'd into Arabick and Latine and 't is not a Secret but a Figure and Metaphor to call the World a Book If it be lawful to admit a Figure in it I think 't is more likely that this Book is nothing else but a Talismanical Figure or Character engraven in a Seal and employ'd by the Rosie-Crucians to understand one another and call'd the Book M because it represents an M cross'd by some other Letters from whose combination results the mystery of the Great Work designing its matter vessel fire and other Circumstances the first whereof is Dew the true Menstruum or Dissolver of the Red Dragon or Gold In brief so many things are compriz'd in this figure by the various combination of the Letters represented therein that it deserves well to be term'd a Book The Fifth said If this be the Secret of the Brethren of the Rosie-Cross they are Invisible in all their proceedings because no Secret is seen in it but only many absurdities As amongst others to call that a Book which is neither Paper nor Parchment nor Leaf but a Figure in which 't is no wonder if they find what they please since in these three Letters Sic variously interlac'd one with another you may find not only all the Letters but also by their combination all the Books and all the things which are in the World and it requires no more industry than to found all sorts of notes upon a Flageolet Let us therefore rather say That Authors who puzzle their Readers minds with such Figures are as culpable as those are commendable who feed them with true and solid demonstrations and whereas we thought that this M signifi'd Mons we now see that it signifies no more than Mus according to the ancient Fable of the labouring Mountains out of which upon the concourse of people to the spectacle issu'd forth nothing but a Mouse The Sixth said That high Mysteries have alwayes been veil'd under contemptible and oftentimes ridiculous Figures as if the wisdom of the sublimer Spirits meant to mock those of the vulgar who judge of things only by appearance Which may have place in common effects but as for extraordinary things their causes are so too whereof we have experiences in Nature sufficiently manifest There is no affinity between a word and the death it gives to a Serpent yet the Poet attests the thing in this Verse Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur Anguis between the sight of a little bird call'd a Wit-wall and the Jaundies which it cures between the Figure call'd Abacus Lunae and the Meagrim which is also cur'd thereby between a point ty'd and the Generative Power which it hinders In brief the most excellent effects are of this kind and deserve not the name of admirable unless when our mind finds no connexion between the effect and the cause that produceth it Why then may not the same reality be admitted between this Character and the effects pretended by those Brothers of the Rosie-Cross CONFERENCE CXCV. Of the Art of Raimond Lully SOme Wits are fitter for Invention than Imitation and so was that of Raimond Lully who invented an Art how to find many Attributes Propositions Questions and Means of speaking to any Subject propounded to the end to be never surpriz'd but to be and always appear ready By this Art which upon account of its use and because it pretends to shorten vulgar studies he stiles Great he endeavors to out-do Aristotle who having reduc'd all Logick to Definitio Proprium Genus and Accidens and in his Books of Topicks set down some few places out of which to draw Mediums for arguing Lully hath propos'd others not only drawn from all the preceding but increas'd with many others invented by himself This Art he divides into two parts The first treats of simple terms which he calls Principles whereunto he hath joyn'd general Questions and this part he calls the Alphabet because it comprizes each of those terms reduc'd to nine by as many Letters of the Alphabet The second treats of the connexion of these Principles and makes Propositions and Syllogisms of them this part he intitles De Figuris either because 't is illustrated by Tables or Figures representing the combination of those Principles or because Arguments are compos'd of them as the Celestial Figures are of Stars His Alphabet is thus delineated by Pacius b Goodness Difference whether it be 1 c Greatness Concordance what it is 2 d Durātion Contrariety whence and from whō 3 e Power Principle or beginning why 4 f Wisdom Middle how much 5 g Appetite End of what quality 6 h Virtue Majority when 7 i Truth Equality where 8 k Glory Minority how 9 This Table as you see contains three Columns each of which hath Nine Squares and every one of these a word The first Column contains Absolute or Transcendent Principles the second Relative Principles the third Questions On the side of these Squares are set the nine first Letters of the Alphabet namely from b to k because Lully reserv'd a to denote the
Earth and so draw all Loadstones and what-ever Iron is rub'd with them towards themselves The Second said That the Cause of this Motion ought rather to be ascrib'd to some thing in Heaven because in Ships that approach that Island of Loadstone the Needle still tends towards the North and not towards that Island The truth is there is a Sympathy between some parts and things of the world the Female Palm bends towards the Male Straw moves to Amber all Flowers and particularly the Marigold and Sun-flower incline towards the Sun the Loadstone towards the Iron and the tail of the little Bear which if we conceive to be of the Nature of Iron there is no more inconvenience therein than in the other Properties attributed to the rest of the Starrs and Planets The Third said That to wave what other Authors have said this inclination of the Loadstone proceeds from the great humidity of the North which is the Centre of all waters towards which they tend For the Loadstone being extreamly dry and oblig'd to tend some way when it is in aequilibrio it veers towards that quarter to seek the moisture which is wanting to it as also doth Steel heated red hot and suffer'd to cool of it self if it be lay'd upon a piece of the wood floating gently in water The Fourth was of Cardan's Opinion who conceives that stones are animated and consequently that the soul of the Loadstone carries it to the search of its food and its good as the the Eye affects Light a Whelp is carry'd to his Dam's teat and a Sheep naturally eschews a Wolf For it matters not whether we hold That the touch'd Load-stone moves towards the tail of the little Bear which is distant five degrees from the Arctick Pole or Whether it flie and recoil from the part of Heaven diametrically opposite thereunto Now that the Loadstone is animated appears by its being nourisht with and kept in the filings of Steel by its growing old and by the diminishing of its attractive virtue with age just as the virtues of other bodies do Wherefore 't is probable that the Loadstone's soul either with-draws it from that part which is contrary to it or else leads it towards its good Indeed two different inclinations are observ'd in this Stone depending upon the situation it had in the Mine one Northwards whither it turnes the part that once lay that way the other Southwards whither it turns its opposite part But the Experiment of Iron loosing its attraction by being rub'd on the Loadstone the contrary way to which it was rub'd at first is an evident sign of such a soul in it which makes it thus vary its actions The Fifth said That all these accounts leave many difficulties to be resolv'd for if the Loadstone mov'd towards those great Adamantine Mountains of Ilva then they would draw only that and not Iron if Iron too why not before 't is rub'd with a Loadstone Nor doth this inclination of the Loadstone proceed from its dryness for then plain Iron which is as dry Pumice Lime and Plaster which are dryer should have the same effect Besides that there is not such want of humidity as that this stone should seek it Northwards the Mediterranean and the Main Ocean being nearer hand As for Heaven the Cause is no less obscure there and the terms of Sympathy and Antipathy differ not much from those which profess naked Ignorance The second Opinion hath most probability for since the two pieces of a Loadstone cut parallel to the Axis have so great a community of inclinations that a Needle touch'd with one piece is mov'd at any distance whatsoever according to the motion of another toucht with the other piece why may we not admit that the tail of the little Bear or its neighbouring parts are of a Magnetical Nature and have the same community with our Terrestrial Loadstone according to that Maxim in Trismegistus's Smaragdine-Table That which is above is as that which is below CONFERENCE CXCVII What Sect of Philosophers is most to be follow'd ALl the Sciences confess Obligations to Philosophy Divinity draws Ratiocinations from it Eloquence is diffuse Logick and Rhetorick is not to be learnt but after Philosophy Civil Law being wholly founded upon Morality is nothing but an effect of it whilst it teaches us to do voluntarily what the Laws makes us practise by force Physick supposes excellent skill in Philosophy since the Physician begins where the Naturalist ends Now there are so many Sects of Philosophers that to follow them all is to fall into manifest contradictions and to adhere to one alone is to be in great danger of mistaking the worst That which keeps us from being able to make a good choice is the little knowledge we have of these Sects and the Probability each seems to have and therefore 't is requisite to examine them in general in order to drawing a general conclusion And because Saint Augustine cites almost three hundred Opinions touching the Supream Good and as many may be brought touching other points of the Sciences I shall only take notice of the famousest Sects as seeming the most rational and most follow'd And let us compare the always contentious Peripatericks and the Stoicks together The end of the former was to contemplate and understand things the latter aim'd more to do good than to know it their design was Speculation the scope of these Practici I side with the former because that Science which embellisheth Man's noblest part his Understanding is the most sublime and consequently the most considerable And as the Understanding is more excellent than the Will so is Theory in matter Science than Exercise Acts of Virtue depending on the Acts of Reason and those of Reason not depending on those of Liberty Besides that is most to be esteem'd which must render us blessed and that is the knowledge of God and of the Creatures in God and in themselves which is to constitute the Beatifick Vision The Second said That Men ought not to get knowledge only to know but to operate comformably to their knowledge Truth would be either useless or dangerous if it lead us not to practise And though the Will is one Sense subordinate to the Understanding yet it commands the same in another To know how to do well and yet to do ill is a double crime And if knowledge alone could make happy the Devils would be soon in Heaven since Divines tell us the least of them hath more natural knowledge than all Mankind together Now the Opinion of the Stoicks regulating the Acts of our Wills and composing our Manners suitable to Reason seems to place the steps which must raise us to the highest pitch of Felicity Wherefore I conclude that the Curious may follow the first Sect of these namely the Peripateticks but good men must necessarily adhere to that of the Stoicks The Third said That there are three other Sects which seem to comprize all the rest
Liquors represent which Masses he holds between his teeth incorporated with some gum which fastens them there so that as the Water he drinks passes impetuously between his teeth it derives colours and odors from the same Which is the reason why the water he first casts forth is most colour'd whereas if the Dye proceeded from his Stomack it would be deeper at last of all as having acquir'd more digestion by a longer infusion The Sixth said That Histories are full of several particular Constitutions of the Natural Parts witness the example of the Maid mention'd by Cardan who drinking but two pints of water a day piss'd twenty and that of the Emperor Maximinus who commonly eat forty pound weight of meat with proportionable drink and sweat so abundantly that he fill'd 'T is said That Theagenes the Thasian eat a Calf for his dinner and Milo the famous Wrastler of Croton devour'd a 100. pound of Flesh a Hogshead of Wine and Bread proportionable Such was that Parasite who one day at the Table of the Emperor Aurelius eat a Boar a Sheep a Pig and an hundred Loaves and drunk half a tun of Wine All which stories render less strange the quantity of this Maltese's Drink whose colour possibly afterwards he disguises with powders hid in his Handkerchief which he handles so often or by the help of a double Glass of which his Vessels are made or by some other trick whereto he ha's inur'd himself for many years The Seventh said That mineral waters are usually drunk with more ease in great quantity by half than common water can be because their tenuity makes them pass immediately into the habit of the Body And if you consider that this fellow drinks only out of small vessels and those not always full as also with what nimbleness he dispatches his work you will much abate the opinion that he drinks so much as is generally believed Besides though his pail be of a middle size yet 't is never quite full and he spends much water in washing his mouth and his glasses and some too is left behind Nor is it absurd to think that before his shewing himself to drink he swallows a bolus of Brazil or of Alkanet or Fearn Root or of red Sanders or Indian Wood or some such other thing in powder after which drinking two or three glasses of water he interposes some interval that the same may be the better tinctur'd in his Stomack which time being pass'd he drinks about two quarts of water which soon after he brings up red appearing so both in the Air and in the glasses Which colour being weak for want of time to be well imbib'd by the water is wholly lost when the same is powr'd into a vessel wherein there is a little Verjuice Vinegar juice of Citron Spirit of Vitriol or other such acid liquor which is proper to consume the said color And 't is observable that the last water he vomits is continually paler than the first the tincture being diminisht by the quantity of water Add hereunto that 't is likely his glasses are smear'd with some essences which seem transparent to the Spectators for though he makes shew of washing them he only passes the brims dextrously over the water and lets none of it enter into them As for the violence wherewith he spouts forth the water it must be confess'd that the fellow hath a great natural propensity to vomiting which by frequent repetition is become habitual to him Custom being capable to produce such effects that I have seen a Beggar about fifty years old by being exercis'd thereunto piss as high as a pike CONFERENCE CCII. Why dead Bodies bleed in the presence of their Murderers HOnest Antiquity was so desirous of knowing the Truth that when natural and ordinary proofs fail'd they had recourse to supernatural and extraordinary Such was the Jews water of Jealousie which made the otherwise undiscoverable Adulterer burst in sunder the innocent Vestal's Sieve in which being accus'd of Incest she carry'd water without shedding Such also were the Oaths made upon Saint Anthonie's arm of so great reverence that 't was believ'd the perjur'd would burn a year with the fire of that Saint and in our time the excommunication of Saint Geneviesue which those that incurr are commonly reckon'd not to out-live a year In like sort the zeal of Men against that horrid crime of Murder hath made them cherish a perswasion that a Carkase will bleed before its Murderers though most slain Bodies bleed when they are stirr'd that so the Conscience of the Actors being disturb'd they might either by word or gesture be brought to make discovery of themselves For indeed the Blood which was congeal'd in the Veins presently after death becomes liquid again after two or three dayes when it is in its tendency to corruption which Liquefaction and the Inquisition after the Murderer hapning commonly at the same time 't is no wonder if the Body bleed in the Murderer's presence since it doth so frequently when he is absent Yet because this false perswasion from the co-incidence of times ceases not sometimes to have its effect and to discover Truth therefore Legislators have thought fit to authorize it and to use it as an Argument at least to frighten the Murderer though indeed 't is no conclusive one to condemn him The Second said That 't is not credible that Courts of Justice who often admit this proof to good purpose could so continue in ignorance of Natural Causes as not to discern the effusion of Blood ensuing upon its putrefaction in the Veins from that which happens upon confrontation of a Murderer 'T is better therefore to seek further for the cause than to question the effect which some attribute to some secret Antipathy of the murder'd person's blood to that of his Murderer or else to their mutual emission of spirits which still seeking the destruction of each other's person those of the Murderer being the strongest because still living cause a commotion in the Blood of the dead which thereupon breaks forth at the out-let of the wound Campanella attributes it to the sense where-with all things are indu'd and which still remains in these dead Bodies so that having a sense of their Murderers and perceiving them near hand they suffer two very different motions Trembling and Anger which cause such a commotion in the Blood that it flows forth at the wound For the spirits which during life had such perceptions as were necessary for their receiving and obeying the Soul's commands retain somewhat thereof after death and are capable of discerning their friends and their enemies The Third said If this opinion concerning the emanation of spirits whether by Sympathy or Antipathy be true it will follow That one who hath done a Murder with gun-shot cannot be discover'd by this sign and that one slain in his Wife's arms and in a crowd of his friends that endeavor'd to defend his life will bleed rather in
the presence of his friends than of his Murderer whose spirits are more inwardly retir'd through fear of punishment whereas those of his friends are sent outwards by Anger and desire of Revenge Yea if the Murderer had been wounded before he should rather bleed than the dead because his Blood is more boyling and capable of commotion by the spirits issuing out of the Carkase And had they any Sympathy they could not discover the Murderer for want of sense which they never had for the spirits which are in the Blood scarce deserve that name being purely natural and void of all sense even during life and specifically different from the animal spirits The vital spirits which are a degree above them vanish together with life whence the Arteries that us'd to contain them are empty And those that serve for Sensation cannot remain in a dead Body because they are easily dissipable and need continual reparation whence we see all the senses fail in a swoon because the Heart recruits them not by a continuity of their generation Besides should they remain after death they would be unactive for want of fit dispositions in the Organs Moreover natural causes act necessarily when their object is present but sometime t is known that Murderers have thrust themselves more diligently into the crowd of Spectators than any other persons for avoiding suspition and no such bleeding hath hapned in their presence and that Executioners take Criminals the next day from the Gallows or the Wheel and not a drop of Blood issues from their wounds And why should not a dead Sheep as well fall a bleeding afresh in the presence of the Butcher that kill'd it Or a Man mortally wounded when he that did it is brought unknown into his Chamber For 't is hard to imagine that we have less sense and knowledge whilst life remains than after death that a wounded person must die that he may become sensible In short t is easie to see that this effect is not like other wonders which have a cause in Nature because though we cannot assign the particular causes of these yet they are prov'd by some demonstrative or at least some probable reasons And as for Antipathy it should rather concenter all the dead person's Blood in his Murderer's presence and make it retire to the inward parts Wherefore I conclude that not only the causes of this miracle are not yet found but also that 't is impossible there should be any natural one of it at all The Fourth said That according to the opinion of Avicenna who holds That the Imagination acts even beyond and out of its Subject this faculty may cause the effluxion of Blood the Criminal's Phansie working mightily when the person slain by him is objected before his Eyes And the nitrous vapors arising out of the Earth upon digging up the Body together with the heat of the Air greater than that of the Earth and increas'd by the conflux of Spectators may in some measure contribute to the new fermentation of the Blood But the truth is after all our inquiries this extraordinary motion cannot be better ascrib'd elsewhere than to God's Providence who sometimes performs this miracle for the discovery of Murder which would otherwise be unpunisht but not always And 't is no less impiety to deny that Divine Justice comes sometimes to the aid of that of Men than 't is ignorance and rusticity to be satisfi'd in all cases with universal causes without recurring to particular ones which God employes most ordinarily for the Production of Effects yet does not so tye his power to the necessity of their operations but that he interrupts the same when he pleases even so far as to give clay power to open the Eyes of the blind CONFERENCE CCIII Of the Vnicorn THere are no greater impostures in the Art of Physick than those which relate to Antidotes and Preservatives from Poyson such as the Unicorn's Horn is held to be And I am mistaken if it be not a popular error First because the opinions of all Authors are so contrary concerning it Philostratus in the life of Apollonius saith that the Animal of this name is an Ass and is found in the fenns of Colchis having one single horn in the fore-head where-with he fights furiously against the Elephant Cardan after Pliny saith 't is a Horse as 't is most commonly painted only it hath a Stag's head a Martin's skin a short neck short mane and a cloven hoof and is bred only in the Desarts of Aethiopia amongst the Serpents whose Poyson its horn which is three cubits long resists Garsius ab Horto saith 't is an Amphibious Animal bred on Land near the Cape of good Hope but delighting in the Sea having an Horses head and mane a horn two cubits long which he alone of all Authors affirms to be moveable every way Most agree that it cannot be tam'd and yet Lewis Vartoman saith that he saw two tame ones in Cages at Mecha which had been sent to Sultan Solyman Almost all confess it very rare and yet Marcus Sherer a Renegado German afterwards call'd Idaith Aga and Embassador from the same Solyman to Maximilian the Emperor affirms that he saw whole troops of them in the Desarts of Arabia And Paulus Venetus the same in the Kingdom of Basman where they are almost as big as Elephants having feet like theirs a skin like Camels the head of a Boar and delighting in mire like swine Nor are Authors less various concerning its manner of eating some alledging that being unable to feed on the ground by reason of his horn he lives only on the boughs and fruits of Trees or on what is given him by the hands of Men especially of fair Virgins of whom they say he is amorous though others think it fabulous Some believe that there was once such an Animal but not now the whole race perishing in the Deluge and that the horns we find now for the most part in the earth have been kept there ever since And if there be such variety in the description of this Animal there is no less in the horns which they tell us are those of the Unicorn That at Saint Dennis in France is about seven foot high weighs thirty pound four ounces being wreath'd and terminated in a point from a broad base Yet this is not comparable to that Aelian mentions which was so thick that cups might be made of it That at Strasburg hath some conformity with this of Saint Denis but those of Venice differ from both as that describ'd by Albertus Magnus doth from all For 't is saith he solid like a Hearts horn ten foot high and very large at the base The Swisses have one which was sometimes found on the bank of a River near Bruges two cubits long yellow without white within odorous and apt to take fire That at Rome is but one foot high having been diminish'd by being frequently rasp'd in order to be imploy'd against
this error of the Lyon's being terrifi'd at the crowing of the Cock was to be added to the number of all those vulgar ones which had occasion'd so much beating of the Air in the schools and pulpits about Maxims which are discover'd to be absolutely false in the Practick it being a thing not impossible that some Lyon which had been tam'd and by change of nourishment become cowardly and degenerate had been a little startled at that shrill crowing of the Cock grating of a sudden upon his ears And this conjecture will not be thought strange by those who about the beginning of March last 1659. were present at an engagement which had been appointed between such a Lyon and a Bull in a Tennis-Court at Rochel The Lyon was so frightned at the sight of the Bull that he got up into the Lights precipitating the Spectators who had planted themselves there in great numbers as esteeming it the safest place of all and thence he slunk away and hid himself and could never afterwards be gotten into the lists It may also be imagin'd that the strangeness and novelty of that Crowing might surprize some Lyon that had never heard it before by reason of his living at a great distance from Cities and Villages where those Creatures are commonly bred and that thence it came the Lyon was startled at that first motion Moreover 't is possible nay it may be more than probably affirm'd that some have taken that startling out of indignation observable in the Lyon when any thing displeases him for an argument of his fear whereas it was a discovery of his being incens'd For to imagine a real and general fear in that generous Creature upon so sleight an account as the crowing of a Cock I cannot see any probability for it in regard that correspondence and conformity which is attributed to them should rather occasion a Sympathy in them than any thing of aversion which being fully as great as that which the Sheep hath for the Wolf should no more frighten the Lyon than the bleating of the Sheep does the Wolf Nor is it so much out of an aversion and Antipathy which the Wolf hath for the Sheep that he devours and converts it into his substance as out of kindness and love to his own preservation and there are commonly seen about those houses where Lyons are kept several Cocks and Hens and yet the Lyons never make any discovery of their being frighted at their crowing or crakling Nay for a further confirmation hereof it comes into my mind that I have seen a young Lyon devour a Cock which I must confess crow'd no more than those of Nibas a Village of the Province of Thessalonica in Macedon where the Cocks do not crow at all But if there were such an Antipathy between them as some would have imagin'd the Lyon would have thought it enough to tear him to pieces and not eat him as he did And therefore it is to be conceiv'd that what hath given occasion to this error is the moral sense which some would draw from it to shew that the strongest are not free from a certain fear which they conceive of those things whence they should least expect it So that to put this Question Why the Lyon is frightned at the crowing of the Cock is to enquire for the cause of what is not The Third said That we are not to make so sleight an account of the authority of our Ancestors as absolutely to deny what they have affirmed to us and seems to be sufficiently prov'd by the silent acquiescence of so many Ages under pretence that we are not able to resolve it Which were to imitate Alexander in cutting the Gordian knot because he could not unty it It were much better to endeavor to find out in the nature of the Cock and in his crowing the cause of the Lyon's being frightned thereat Let it then be imagin'd that the Lyon being an Animal always in a Fever through an excessive choler whereof his hair and violence are certain marks the same thing happens to him as to sick and feverish persons to whom noise is insupportable especially to those in whom a cholerick humor enflam'd causeth pains in the Head Nay there are some kinds of sounds which some persons are not able to endure yet so as that they cannot assign any cause thereof and so as that we are forc'd to explain it by Specifick Properties and Antipathies such as we may imagine to be between the crowing of a Cock and the ear of a Lyon And that is much more probable then the stopping of a Ship by the Remora when she is under all the sail she can make and a thousand other effects imperceptible to reason and such as whereof only Experience can judge and therfore that terror which the Lyon is put into at the crowing of the Cock is not so irrational that Sovereign of Animals having just cause to admire how from so small a Body there comes a voice so shrill and strong as to be heard at so great a distance considering with himself what mischief he does with so little noise and this terror of the Lyon is increas'd if the Cock be all white inasmuch as that colour promotes the diffusion of his spirits already dispers'd by the first motion of his apprehension CONFERENCE CCXIV. Of the Sibyls THough it be generally acknowledg'd that there were Sibyls yet as to their Names their Number their Country and their Works nay the whole story of them all is full of doubts and uncertainties The Etymology of the Greek word signifies as much as the Will or Counsel of God the Aeolick Dialect saying Siou instead of Theou The Chaldeans call'd them Sambetes They are cited and consequently acknowledg'd by Justin Martyr Theophilus of Antioch Athenagoras Clemens Alexandrinus Tatian Lactantius and other ancient Authors Varro and Diodorus Siculus call them Women fill'd with divinity fore-telling things to come whence they came also to be call'd Prophetesses Some conceive that they were before the War of Troy and referr all their predictions only to one of them imagining that the same thing happen'd to them as had done to Homer who for his great reputation gave occasion to several Cities of Greece to attribute his birth to them in like manner as a great number of Cities and Countrys as for instance Erythrae Cumae Sardis Troy Rhodes Libya Phrygia Samos and Aegypt desirous to attribute to themselves the Birth of that Sibyl it came to be believ'd that there were many of them Amongst whom Martianus Capella grounding his assertion upon very probable conjectures acknowledges but two Erophila the Trojan Sibyl whom he affirms to be the same that others call the Phrygian and Cumaean and the others Symmagia call'd also Erythraea at the place of her birth Pliny affirms that there were at Rome three Statues of the Sibyls one erected by Pacuvius Taurus Aedile of the people the other two by Marcus Valerius Messala the
Valour is deduc'd from the Fathers side Upon which principle is grounded the account we make of Nobility which comes seldom but from the Father's side whereas the want of Nobility on the Mother's side does not make the Child less a Gentleman Nay some have made it a Question whether the Mother did contribute any thing to the formation of the foetus or only found it nourishment But those who have treated more nicely of this matter unanimously agree that the Woman's Seed is much weaker and more watery than that of the Man serving only to qualifie it as Water does Wine yet so as that the Water is converted into the nature of the Wine and is call'd Wine as soon as it is mixt with it As to those Children who chance to be more like their Mothers than their Fathers 't is to be conceiv'd one of Nature's fagaries who delighting in variety cannot produce many children but there must consequently be a great diversity of Lineaments in their faces and figures in their members among which the idea of a Woman imprinted in the imagination of the Father may be communicated to his Seed which consequently expresses that figure The second said That there were three kinds of resemblances to wit that of the Species that of the Sex and that of the Effigies as to the Body and that of manners as to the Soul or The resemblance of the Species is when a Man begets a Man a Woman proceeds from the material Principles of Generation which the Mother contributes more plentifully then the Father the proof whereof may be seen in the copulation of Animals of different Species For if a Hee-goat couples with a Sheep he shall beget a Sheep which shall have nothing of the Goat in it save that the fleece will be a little rougher then it is wont to be And if a Ram couples with a She-goat the production will be a Goat whose hair will be somewhat softer than otherwise But as to what is related of Aristo's having had a Daughter by an Ass who for that reason was called Onoscele of Stellius's having another by a Mare who was thence called Hippona and of a Sheep which brought forth a Lyon in the pastures of Nicippus to whom it presaged Tyranny of Alcippa who was deliver'd of an Elephant having been impregnated by an Elephant are to be look'd on as monstrous and possibly fabulous Productions The resemblance of the Sex depends on the temperature and predominancy of the Seeds For if the seed of both Male and Female be very hot Males will be engendred if cold Females and both of them will be either vigorous or weak according to the predominancy of heat or cold Whence it follows that this resemblance does not proceed more from the one then the other of those who are joyn'd together but the resemblance of Effigie and the other accidents of the Body and of the manners is more hard to resolve there being a secret vertue in both the Seeds which as Aristotle affirms is continu'd in it to the fourth Generation as may be confirm'd by the story of Helida who having lain with a Negro brought forth a white Child but her Grandchild by that was black Plutarch affirms the same thing to have happen'd in the fourth Generation of a Negro And yet this resemblance proceeds rather from the Mother's side than the Father's for if the causes which communicate most to their effects imprint most of their nature into them by that greater communication those effects accordingly retain so much the more of their Causes Now the Mother communicates more to the Child then the Father does for she supplies him with Seed those who have maintain'd the contrary being persons not much skill'd in Anatomy and after she hath contributed as much as the Father to that Generation she alone nourishes the foetus with her menstrual blood which then begins not to follow any longer the course of the Moon whereby it was regulated before Besides coming thus to furnish the said foetus with nourishment for the space of nine Months it is no wonder she should absolutely tranform it into her own nature which is thence accounted but one and the same in respect of both Mother and Child Now there is not any thing liker or can retain more of it then the thing it self which cannot be said of the Father who is not only different from the Embryo whom he hath begotten but also hath not any thing common with it after that first action So that there are many Children posthumi and born long after the death of their Fathers which thing never happens after the death of their Mothers nay it is seldom seen that a Child taken out of the body of a Mother ready to dy ever thrives much afterwards Though we shall not stick to acknowledge that what is related of the first person of the race of the Caesars from whom that Section was called the Caesarean might possibly happen according to the Relation yet is it done with this restriction that most of the other Stories told of it are fabulous But if the Mother comes afterwards to suckle her Child as Nature and the Example of all other Animals teaches her which is haply the reason of their being more vigorous and of a continuance of life more regular than that of the man that second nourishment added to the former being drawn from her milk which derives the quality of the mass of blood from which it is extracted makes him absolutely conformable to the Mother For if nourishment may as we find it to be true change the Temperament of Persons well advanc'd in years with much more reason may it work a remarkable alteration in the Body and Mind of a Child newly come into the World who is as it were a smooth Table susceptible of any impression Whence it is to be concluded that they proceed very rationally who are so careful of the well-fare of their little ones when the Mothers either by reason of sickness of upon some other account are not able to bring them up as to be very inquisitive about the Nurses they put them to and the quality of their Milk Nay what is more are not the changes caus'd by Nurses in the Body of the Infant as considerable as that which happens to the two seeds of Male and Female mixt at the Generation which recover their increase by the irroration of the Maternal Blood which flows thereto and if it be impure does communicate its impurity to it as on the contrary being pure it is many times able to purifie the corrupted seed of the Male Whence Physicians have observ'd that sound Children have descended from Fathers subject to the Leprosie and such diseases Add to this that the safety on the Mothers side is greater than on the Father's Moreover they are the Mothers from whom proceeds the Imagination which acts upon their Embryo all the time they are with Child and thence it comes that
Meteors where the greatest difficulty is to know whether that effect is produc'd by the expulsive or by the attractive and retentive vertue That we should affirm it proceeds from the expulsive vertue cannot with any probability be done inasmuch as expulsion is to be wrought by somewhat that is more powerful and more subtile Now there is not any likelyhood that Iron should be more powerful and more subtile than Air inasmuch as the Iron is of a more weighty matter passive earthy and hath somewhat of the nature of that Passive Element We may therefore rather affirm that this effect is wrought by the attractive and retentive vertue which opinion is prov'd in regard there is but one humid matter which the central fire forces from the deepest part of the Earth and of the more unctuous and weighty part of this matter Metals are made of the less weighty Minerals and Salts from the subtiler part Vegetables and Animals derive their nourishment of the most subtile are produc'd the Winds Thunder and all the Meteors which participate of Heat and Drought which make several combinations in the Air. Now whereas it is from the most imperfect part of this unctuous matter that Iron is made of an earthy and impure Sulphur it is deducible thence that there is a Sympathy between Iron and the gross vapours of Thunder and Lightning To make which out a little more clearly we find that the places through which Thunder hath pass'd smell of Sulphur nay there is fram'd in the Air that which is commonly called the Thunderbolt which somewhat resembles Steel as it were to shew the correspondence there is between Iron and Thunder So that the Air being impregnate by those noisome terrestrial vapours which are of the same nature with Iron meeting with some piece of it laid on a vessel is joyn'd to the Iron by Sympathy makes a sudden stop there and puts a period to its operation and the Iron by its attractive vertue receives them as by its retentive it retains them and by that means prevents their effect The Third said That though that opinion were probable yet doth it require a more ample discussion and we are to examine how this attractive vertue operates Now there are four Natural Vertues which govern all the operations of Nature and Art the Attractive which is now under consideration acts by heat and a temperate drought the Retentive by drought and cold the Expulsive by moisture and heat the Digestive by heat and a temperate moisture The Iron then which is said to attract these vapours hath indeed those qualities of heat and drought yet can it not be easily conceiv'd that a little piece of that mettal can check the malice and infection of a great quantity of Air spread all over a spacious place besides that it is also necessary that the Iron should send forth out of it self the effects of its qualities that so the attraction might be made the marks whereof are neither seen on the Iron nor the effects of the qualities out of the Subject inasmuch as mettals being quench'd in cold Water are not evaporated but by a violent fire So that it may as well be said that the attraction is wrought by some occult vertue which draws yet so as that neither the attraction nor the manner of it can be observ'd The Fourth said That the operations of Nature are not like those of Art her ways and contrivances are more obscure and the causes of things are occult as for example the Load-stone draws Iron yet so as that there cannot be any thing perceiv'd of any body of air and smoak issuing out of the Loadstone And the magnetical Balsom or Weapon-salve cures a wounded person though at a great distance having only some part of his Cloths yet can there not any thing be observ'd on the Subject which receives the Plaister so secret and silent is Nature in her Operations On the contrary the designs and contrivances of Art may easily be discover'd as those of a Clock or Watch. But the reason of this diversity of operations between Art and Nature is that Art goes to work publickly and before the Senses and Nature does her business within doors and secretly the latter works in the Centre the other in the Circumference one produces the seed of the combination of the Elements whereof she keeps an exact account of the weights and proportions and the other can neither make nor produce any thing as being only in a capacity of making use of the substance and materials of Nature in order to their joyning together after she had prepar'd and purify'd them But on the other side Art hath this advantage that her works are much more perfect inasmuch as she makes use of purify'd essences and the other of accidents and superfluities having not instruments fit for the purifying of her Materials So that there are some who doubt of the reality of the effect now under consideration And therefore ere we proceed any further to the finding out of the causes and reasons thereof it were requisite a strict enquiry should be made whether it be certain that Iron prevents the effects of thunder by preserving Wine and Eggs under a Hen that sits from receiving in any prejudice The Fifth said That what was confirm'd by general experience was not any longer to be question'd and that whoever stood upon the Negative betray'd his own ignorance that for us to think to find solutions for all the possibilities of nature were an attempt somewhat like that of exhausting the Sea That there are certain secrets in Nature of things dreadful to humane Reason incredible according to the principles of Art and of our Knowledge That Nature is the great Circe the grand Sorceress That the Load-stone draws Iron to it That there is a certain Stone called Pantarbe which draws gold to it That dead Arse-smart being laid under a Stone cures the wound on which it shall be rubb'd sooner or later according as the Herb putrifies That the hair or wool of a mangy beast being thrust in for a certain time under the bark of an Aspen-tree cures the beast of vermine That the Menstrua of Women trouble Springs spoyl Looking-glasses and Powdering-tubs And if there be some things that corrupt them it is not to be imagin'd that Nature is so cruel a Step-mother but that there may be others whereby they are preserv'd and so the Remedies may come from the same hand as caus'd the disease That the Hazel-tree discovers hidden Treasures and Mines That Talismans are made against Serpents and Insects nay against some Diseases That there is a mutual friendship between the Olive-tree and the Myrtle whereof it would be as hard a matter to give any reason as it would be to give any of the enmity between the Vine and the Laurel and the inclination which the Male-palm hath towards the Female That the crowing of the Cock frightens Lyons and that that Bird should be so exact
contriv'd for the surprizal and carrying away of the Sabine Virgins it being easily inferr'd that what produc'd so bad an effect must of necessity have been a bad cause The Third said That Playes consider'd in themselves were indifferent but that according to the diversity of their Minds who frequent them they have a different operation as Wine excessively taken besots and layes some asleep and enlivens others according to the difference of their Temperaments For if they meet with weak Minds they imprint in them the Passions of the things that are represented much more easily than Books usually do But if they are persons of a strong Constitution of Intellectuals they consider what they see as a pure Fiction and a draught of Painting in the intrigues whereof they find a certain divertisement much like that of excellent Pâ—inters in their Perspectives they are pleas'd to see a mist cast before the eyes of the vulgar while they themselves are sufficiently satisfi'd that what others think represented to the life is only perform'd by the interposition of Scenes So that from this diversity of operations this only can be inferr'd that Playes and Opera's are advantageous and innocent divertisements to such as are well-vers'd in the affairs of the world who being over-press'd with a continu'd earnestness in the prosecution of their more serious concerns find a certain relaxation therein not in a melancholy sloath such as is inconsistent with the activity which is natural to them but in those less serious employments as on the contrary those persons who are already too much enclin'd to idleness vanity and effeminacy ought not to be admitted to Plays in regard they can have no other effect on them than to make them more effeminate The Fourth said That as Women are justly forbidden the use of the Sciences so ought they also to be forbidden the sight of Plays inasmuch as it is not expedient in order to frugal House-keeping that that Sex should be allow'd an acquaintance with those curiosities which might divert them from the care they ought to have of their domestick affairs For besides the loss of time idleness is extreamly prejudicial to that Sex whose portion should be assiduity in labour frugality and a constant keeping of the House which is not consistent with the frequenting of Shews and Play-houses and seeing the representations made there Which the more instructive they are and the more likely to fill Womens heads with new things the more ought they to be forbidden the sight of them there being not any thing a Husband should fear so much in his Wife as an excess of Wit upon the conceit whereof she assumes to her self a certain authority over him contrary to the Institution of Matrimony or at least thinks her self equal to him which is not much less to be fear'd inasmuch as it is a great disturbance to the domestick tranquillity This may be the better apprehended by the example of two Men equally learned who disputing one against the other seldom come to any agreement as a knowing and an ignorant person many times do for if the latter chance to contradict himself he is easily convinc'd and acquiesces And though the Greeks sometimes admitted Women in their Academies to execute the functions of Professors and Regents yet are not those examples to be introduc'd into this Age whereof the corruption is such as is able to change Vertues into Vices But from this general Rule we are to except such Heroina's as are the great Exemplars of all Vertues who surpassing the greatest part of Men in Wit and Intellectuals it were injurious to think them susceptible of those bad impressions which the Men are able to resist The Fifth said That the example of the Romans who gave extraordinary salaries to Comedians as Cicero assures us they did to Roscius sufficiently shews the advantages of publick representations And indeed if there be any thing to be blam'd in Plays it is this that they are too Pathetick that is too apt to raise and express Humane Passions For as an Oration measur'd in Verse is more elaborate than Prose so Verses dispos'd by a sound Judgement for the Stage are extreamly beyond those of Exegematick Poems wherein only the Poet speaks himself Moreover the observance of Time whereto all the Acts are confin'd and the other Laws of Dramatick Pieces discover their excellency above all others So that to question Whether they are advantageous is to bring into doubt Whether the Master-pieces of Poets Orators and Historians are advantageous to a State CONFERENCE CCXXV. Whether that Temperament of the Body which conduces most to Health be also the most convenient for the Mind I Shall not here insist on the division of the Temperaments as for instance into Simple to wit when one Quality is predominant over its opposite the other two remaining equal as we affirm him to be of a hot Temperament who shall be more hot than cold humidity and drought remaining in an aequilibrium and Compound to wit that which is the result of the same combination of qualities which makes the four Elements into the Vniversal to wit of the whole Body and Particular viz. that which is proper to each part into that which is of Weight wherein all those qualities are as it were in a balance one not exceeding the other and that of Justice wherein those qualities bear a certain proportion one to the other Not insisting I say on these Divisions but presupposing them as common doctrines I shall here think it sufficient to examine in the first place Which of all these Temperaments is most convenient in order to health and in the second whether the same will also be most convenient for the acquisition of a good mind that is for the better exercise of the functions of the rational Soul in a word whether the most healthy person shall always be the most wise Galen hath writ an express Treatise to prove that the Manners follow the Temperament of the body and therefore since those manners are the effects of the Will the noblest of all the faculties of the Soul in regard it hath a Soveraignty over all the others it should seem that the affirmative is to be maintain'd especially if we lay this for a ground that those persons who are subject to Melancholy are the most ingenious forasmuch as they are the most healthy cold and drought making up a more solid and firm mass then any other two qualities and heat and moisture being too variable and too much subject to corruption Upon which consideration Galen in his first Book of the Temperaments chap. 4. denies That the Spring is hot and moist on the contrary saith he it is the worst of all the Temperaments of the Air whereby we are encompass'd and that is commonly the constitution observable in sickly and contagious seasons In his eighth Book of the Method of curing Diseases chap. 7. he adds That a hot and moist distemper makes our
the prosecution of their designs or forc'd them to pronounce such as should be to their advantage This course was taken by Alexander the Great and Cleomenes by the former when he consulted the Pythian by the other when he consulted the Delphick Oracle both which they forc'd to say what they pleas'd themselves Thence it came that most of the ancient Philsophers exclaim'd against them and the Platonists who made a greater account of them then any of the other Sects acknowledge that they are no other then the most despicable Devils and those of the lowest rank who engage themselves in that employment which they must needs practise in desert and dreadful places to the end there might be fewer witnesses of their weakness and impostures These are apparent in their very Answers which if not false were so ambiguous or at least so obscure that many times there needed another Oracle to explain them Nor were they in vogue but during the darkness of Paganism which being dispell'd by the light of the Gospel those Oracles never durst appear in that glorious day which would have discover'd their lying and falshood The Second said That the Art of Divination being conjectural and grounded on experience as well as several others of that nature it is not to be admir'd that the Answers of those who heretofore made profession thereof were not always true and therefore it is as irrational a procedure to draw any consequences thence to its prejudice as to infer that the Precepts of Medicine are false because the Physician does not always make his Prognosticks aright The General of an Army may sometimes proceed upon wrong grounds and the expert Pilot may run upon those shelves and rocks which he most endeavours to avoid True it is that the subtilty of the Devil and depravedness of Mankind have foisted abundance of abuses into the business of Oracles especially in the erecting of those Statues to those fabulous Divinities which they commonly made of Olive-tree Lawrel Vine Cedar or some such kind of wood full of unctuous moisture which they said were the tears or sweat of their false Gods as also in the pompous Ceremonies wherewith they amused the credulous Vulgar Such were those of Trophonius among the Thebans who answer'd only those who being clad in white descended through a hole of the cave into his Temple and there offered cakes to the Spirits which inhabited it after which they were convey'd out at another place of the cave where they drunk the Water of the Fountain of Memory which caus'd them to remember whatever they had heard as they had drunk that of Lethe before they had entred into it which had caus'd them to forget all affairs of the World But we are not hence to conclude that all Oracles were false nor doubt of the validity of that sublime Art upon its being disparag'd by those who have profess'd it since it hath its grounds not only in the inclination of mens minds who having an extraordinary earnestness to know things to come there must needs be some Science for the attaining of that Knowledge otherwise Nature who had imprinted that desire in him should contrary to her custom have done something in vain but also in the dispositions of that Temperament which is subject to Melancholy or black Choler For the former of these is the Temperament of the more ingenious sort of people according to the Philsopher in his Problems and the other being more resplendent is that of persons enclin'd to Divination occasion'd by the clear representation of the Species in that humour which being bright and smooth as a Mirrour cannot so well be discover'd by those who are not of that Constitution to which Plato in his Memnon attributes the cause of Apollo's Priestesse's pronouncing the Oracles in Hexameter Verse though she had never learnt Poesie and Pompanatius in his Books of Enchantments affirms that it caus'd a Woman who never was out of Mantua where she was born to speak several strange Languages The Third said That Divination being above the reach of our Understanding as much as this latter is below the Divinity which hath reserv'd to it self the priviledge of a distinct knowledge of things to come it is to no purpose to seek for the true causes of it in our selves but we are to find them in the Heavens whence if we may believe the Professors of Astrology that quality of Divination or Prediction is communicated to Men by the interposition of the Intelligences whereby those vast Bodies are moved and that Science taught by making it appear how great a correspondence there is between the effects of the sublunary Bodies and the superior causes on which they depend and wherein they are potentially comprehended even before they are actually existent Whereto if you add the concourse of the Universal Spirit which equally animates the whole world and the parts whereof it consists and which meeting with convenient dispositions in the minds of men and the several places where Oracles have been given inspir'd those extraordinary motions which have rais'd the Spirit of man and open'd its way into effects the most at a distance from his knowledge Admitting I say such a concourse there may some probable reason be given of these Predictions not only of things whose causes being natural and necessary their effects are infallible such as are Eclipses the Rising Setting and Regular Motions of the Planets or of those whose causes are only probable as it is reported that Pherecydes foretold a dreadful Earth-quake by the boyling up of the water in his own Well and Thales foresaw the scarcity of Olives in the Territories of Athens But also of effects which having only contingent or free causes lie not so obvious to discovery and yet these being denoted by the general causes such as are the Heavens and the Universal Spirit those persons who have clear-sighted and illuminated Souls may perceive them therein even before they happen The Fourth said That there are three general causes of Oracles one Supernatural another Artificial and the third Natural and that not to speak any thing of the Supernatural whereof the Devils were the Authors and made use of it to continue still in their first Rebellion when they attempted to ascend into the Throne of God and be like him nor yet of their Artificial Cause which was certain persons devoted to their worship who retiring into Caves and Subterraneous places were incited by those evil Spirits to that sordid Ministry that so by that means they might lay snares for the simple who were easily drawn away by these false Lights The Natural Cause of those Oracles especially such as were pronounc'd out of the celebrated Caves and Grots of Antiquity was a subtile Exhalation rais'd out of those places which fastening on the Spirits of the Prophet or Prophetess already dispos'd to receive that impression had the same Influence on them as the fumes of Wine have on those who drink it to
Xenophanes on the two latter joyntly Hippon on Fire and Water Parmenides on Fire and Earth Empedocles and most of the other Naturalists on those four Elements together which yet as some affirmed could not execute the function of Principles without the assistance of other Superiours such as Hesiod maintains to be Chaos and Love Antiphanes Silence and Voice the Chaldaeans Light and Darkness the Mathematicians Numbers and among others the Tetrad which the Pythagoreans affirm to be the source of all things the Peripateticks Matter Form and Privation Anaxagoras the Similar Parts and Democritus his Atoms so called by reason of their smalness which renders them invisible and incapable of being distinguish'd and divided into other lesser Particles though they have quantity and are of so great a bulk as to be thereby distinguish'd from a Mathematical Point which hath not any as being defin'd to be what hath not any part and what is so imperceptible and small that it can hardly fall under our External Senses but is only perceivable by reason The same thing may also be said of the other qualities of these Atoms which Epicurus who receiv'd them from Democritus as he had the knowledge of them from Leucippus and he again from one Moschus Phoenician who liv'd before the Trojan Warr made it not so much his business to lay them down for the first Causes and general Principles of Natural Things as to take away the four common Elements since he does not deny but that these are constitutive parts of the world and whatever is comprehended therein But his main work is to maintain that they not the first seeds and immediate Principles thereof as consisting themselves of Atoms or little Bodies so subtile and small that they cannot be broken or made less and being the most simple and next pieces whereof mixt bodies are made up and whereto they are afterwards reducible by dissolution there is some reason to give them the denomination of the first material and sensible principles of natural bodies The Second said That if these Atoms be allow'd to be the principles of natural bodies these last will be absolutely unknown to us as being made up of infinite principles which being incapable of falling under our knowledge it will be impossible for us to come to that of the mixt bodies which are to consist of them Whence it will follow that though the Atoms should be such as the Philosophers would perswade us they are yet would not our Understanding which cannot comprehend any thing but what is finite be ever the more satisfy'd since it would not be able to conceive them nor consequently the things which should be produc'd of them Nor is it to be imagin'd that those things would differ among themselves since that according to their sentiment those little chimerical bodies are not any way distinguish'd but all of the like nature and of the same substance The Third said That though there be not any essential difference in the Atoms yet is it certain That they make remarkable diversity in the production of things by the properties and different qualities that are in each of them whereof there are two kinds Common and Proper The proper are Largeness of Bulk Figure Motion and Resistance the common are Concourse Connexion Situation and Order which are generally competible to all Atoms as the four others are proper and particular to them Their bulk is not to be consider'd as if they had any considerable quantity there being no Atom how great soever it may be but is infinitely less then the least body in the World being for that reason so imperceptible that it is impossible for the sight to distinguish it Yet does not that hinder but that they are bodies and consequently have quantity which is a property inseparable from bodies as Mites Hand-worms and such other little Animals which by their extreme litleness elude our sight do nevertheless consist of diverse parts miraculously discoverable by Magnifying-glasses nay to the observance of Veins Arteries Nerves and such like obscure parts answerable to those which reason obliges us to admit though our senses cannot attain thereto It being the property of figure to follow quantity which it determinates and qualifies it is necessary that if the atoms are different as to bulk they should be the same also as to figure which being observable when bodies are broken into great pieces and those appearing with superficies angles and points diversly figur'd they must still retain some figure even after they are pounded in a mortar into small parcels and particles though our senses by reason of their weakness are not able to comprehend it To the same weakness it is to be attributed that we are not able to discern the diversity of figures in grains of corn and other seeds which seem to be in a manner alike though they are not such no more than the leaves of Trees and Plants Nay even in Drops of water and Eggs though in appearance there is a likeness so great that it is come into a Proverb yet is there so remarkable a diversity when it is strictly observ'd that there were heretofore in the Island of Delos certain people so expert that among several Eggs they would tell which had been laid by such or such a Hen. The hair of our heads a thing to some would seem incredible have particular figures whereby they are distinguish'd one from another The figures of Atoms are of that rank as are also those of the Moats which are seen playing and dancing up and down in the beams of the Sun when darted in at a narrow passage for though they seem to be all round yet examin'd with that instrument which magnifies the species of things we find in them an infinite number of other figures In like manner is it requisite that the Atoms should have the same difference of figures that they may the more fitly concur to the mixture and generation of Bodies To that end the maintainers of this opinion affirm that some are round some oval some oblong some pointed some forked some concave some convex some smooth and even some rough and rugged and of other such like figures as well regular as irregular in order to the diversity of their motions Of these there are three kinds assigned according to the first the Atom moves downwards by its own weight according to the second it moves upwards and according to the third it moves indirectly and from one side to another These two last are violent motions but the first is natural to the Atom to which Epicurus attributes a perpetual motion which causing it to move incessantly towards the lowest place it still makes that way of its own nature till such time as in its progress it hath met with other Atoms which coming to strike against it if they are the stronger they force it upwards or of one side according to the part of it which had receiv'd the shock and so clinging one
to another they make several mixtures as when they come to separate after their union they are the causes of the corruption of mixt bodies And these bodies have so much the more Resistance which is the last property of these Atoms the more dense and solid these last are as on the contrary when they are less dense and solid by reason of the vacuity there is between their parts the bodies consisting of them have so much the less vigour and force to oppose external injuries The Fourth said That there is not any better instance whereby the nature of Atoms can be explicated then those little Motes which move up and down the air of a Chamber when the Sun-beams come into it at some little hole or cranny For from this very instance which is so sensible it may easily be concluded not only that they are bodies which have a certain bulk and quantity how little and indivisible soever it may be but also that they are in continual motion by means whereof as those little corpuscula or Motes incessantly move and strike one against another and are confusedly intermixt one among another so the Atoms by their perpetual agitation and concourse cause the mixtures and generations of all natural things So that all consider'd it is as ridiculous on the other side to affirm that they are only imaginary principles because they are not seen as to maintain that those little Motes are not in the air because they are not perceiv'd to be there in the absence of the Sun-beams which we must confess renders them visible but with this assurance that they are nevertheless there even when they are not discern'd to be there The Fifth said That it is certain there are abundance of bodies in Nature which are in a manner imperceptible to our senses and yet must be granted to be real bodies and consequently endow'd with length breadth profundity solidity and the other corporeal qualities Such as these are among others the sensible Species which continually issue out of the Objects and are not perceiv'd by the senses but only so far as they are corporeal and material especially the Odours exhaling from certain bodies which after their departure thence in process of time decay and wither Of this we have instance in Apples and other Fruits which grow wrinkled proportionably to their being drain'd of those vaporous Atoms whereof they were at first full which evaporate in a lesser or greater space of time the more closely those little bodies stick one to another or the more weakly they are joyned together Nay the intentional Species how sublimated soever they be by the defaecation made by the agent Intellect are nevertheless bodies as are also the Animal Spirits which are charged therewith and the vital and natural whereby the former are cherish'd In like manner Light the beams of the Sun and of other Stars their Influences their Magnetick Vertues and other such Qualities observable in an infinite number of things between which there is a mutual inclination and correspondence or antipathy cannot be imagin'd to act otherwise then by the emission of certain little bodies which being so small and subtile that they are incapable of further division may with good reason be called the Elements and material Principles of all Bodies since there is not any one but consists of them The Sixth said That the concourse of these Atoms being accidental if we may credit Epicurus we cannot attribute thereto the causes of the generations happening in this World inasmuch as an accidental cause not being able to produce a regular effect such as is that of Nature in Generation it is ridiculous to attribute it rather to these Atoms than to some other cause which is such per se and always regular in its operations such as is Nature her self But what further discovers the absurdity of that opinion is this that it thinks it not enough to refer the diversity of the other effects which are observ'd in all natural bodies to that of the Atoms whereof they consist but pretends also by their means to give an account of that of our Spirits which those Philosophers would represent unto us made of those orbicular atoms and accordingly easily mov'd by reason of that round figure and that those in whom it is most exact are the most ingenious and inventive persons as others are dull and blockish because their Spirits have a lesser portion of those circular Atoms But this speculation may be ranked among pure chimaera's since that the functions of our Understanding being absolutely spiritual and immaterial have no dependence on the different constitutions of those little imaginary bodies nay though there were any correspondence between them and the actions of our minds their round figure would not be so much the cause of our vivacity as might be the pointed or forked as being more likely to penetrate into and comprehend the most difficult things than the circular which would only pass over them without any fixt fastning on them CONFERENCE CCXXXI Whether the King 's Evil may be cur'd by the touching of a Seventh Son and why THough this noisom Disease sometime fastens on several parts of the body yet is there not any more sensible of its malice than the neck which by reason of its being full of glandules is extreamly troubled therewith which happens as well by reason of their thin and spongy constitution as their nearness to the brain from which they receive the phlegmatick and excrementitious humours more conveniently than any of the other parts can be imagin'd to do which are at a greater distance from it And yet these last notwithstanding that distance are extremely troubled therewith nay sometimes to such excess that if we may credit Johannes Langius in the first Book of his Medicinal Epistles a Woman at Florence had the Evil in one of her Thighs which being got out weigh'd sixty pound and a Goldsmith of Amberg had another of the same bigness in a manner neer his Knee And what is much to be observ'd is that though the Evil seems to be only external yet is it commonly preceded by the like swellings which ly hid within and whereof those without are only the marks which observation is confirm'd by the dissections made of those who are troubled with it in whose bodies after their death there are abundance of these Evils whereof the Glandules of the Mesenterium and the Pancreas which is the most considerable of any about Man's Body are full and which are commonly produc'd by Phlegm the coldness and viscosity whereof do indeed contribute to their rebellion but it is very much augmented by the external and common Causes such as are Air Aliment and Waters infected with some malignant qualities which render it Endemious and peculiar to certain Nations as for instance the Inhabitants of the Alps and the Pyrenean Mountains especially the Spaniards who are more infected with this foul disease than any others which is also
were Kings came from the East where this Science flourished having found out that the Star which they saw being different from all the others yet no Meteor kindled by some Natural Cause was an extraordinary sign which God had been pleas'd to make appear unto them to give them notice of the Birth of his Son there being no rational ground to imagine they were down-right Magicians as Theophylact conceiv'd in his Commentaries upon Saint Matthew at least this is certain that after the adoration of our Saviour they absolutely renounc'd that Diabolical Magick if it be suppos'd they had any tincture of it before For as to this latter which is grounded upon some compact with the Devil who thereby obliges himself to do transcendent things for him with whom he hath contracted being a kind of Idolatry it is generally abhorr'd and condemn'd by all since it makes use of pernicious means to attain its end which is ever bad But such is not the other whose end and the means it employes to compass it being good and lawful there is no doubt but it may be lawfully used Besides as Psellus and Proclus two persons well skill'd in these matters have very well observ'd this last kind call'd Natural Magick is only an exact and perfect knowledge of the secrets of Nature by means whereof consequently to the Observations which some eminently-curious persons make of the motions of the Heavens and the influences of the Starrs with the Sympathies and Antipathies which are almost in all sublunary bodies they apply things so justly one to another and with such an exact consideration of time place manner and proportion that they work prodigious effects which the more credulous and such as are ignorant of the correspondence there is between these Effects and their Causes look upon as Miracles and Enchantments Such as were those of the Magicians of Pharaoh who could turn their Rods into Serpents make the Rivers of Aegypt red as blood and fill the whole Country with Froggs but were not able to go any further to imitate the other Miracles of Moses which they were forc'd to acknowledg wrought by the Finger of God Nor are the Effects of Artificial Magick less wonderful not only in respect of its Predictions observable in Judiciary Astrology Agriculture Medicine the Art of Navigation and others grounded upon very probable Conjectures but also of its operations as well true as false or illusory The true ones are grounded on the Principles of the Mathematicks especially on those of the Mechanicks which are the noblest and most necessary part thereof and on which do depend all the Water-Engines Machins moving of themselves and other Inventions wherewith the Ancients wrought such Effects as were accounted miraculous Such were that Man's Head of brass made by Albertus Magnus which fram'd an articulated Man's Voice in imitation of that of Memnon the glazen Sphere of Archimedes the motions whereof naturally represented those of the Celestial Orbes his Burning-glasses wherewith he burnt the Fleet of the Romans who besieg'd the City of Saragossa where he then was the wooden Dove of Archytas which flew up and down with the other Doves as did the little Birds of Boëtius made of Copper which had this further advantage that they could sing melodiously as could also those which the Emperour Leo caus'd to be made of Gold Malleable Glass and such other admirable Effects of this Art for that reason called by Hero Thaumaturgica Those which it produces by illusion and jugling depend on some sleightness of hand and cousening tricks such as are us'd by the Professors of Legerdemain to delude our Senses and make things appear otherwise than they are Such a performance was that mention'd by Josephus in the xviii Book of his Antiquities used by that false Messias Barchochabas who to gain himself the esteem of the true one had the knack of vomiting flames of Fire out of his Mouth as he spoke by means of a lighted piece of Towe which he could order as occasion serv'd which trick such another Impostor shew'd more cleverly by means of a nut-shell fill'd with Brimstone and Fire And it is a thing now generally known that by certain Artifices no way diabolical one may make a company of people sitting at the Table look as if they were dead or like so many Tawny-Moors nay if we believe Pliny in the xxviii and xxxv Books of his History they may be made to look as if they had the Heads of Asses or Horses The Second said That according to the Doctrine of Paganism re-advanc'd since the Light of Christianity by the Marcionites and the Manichees as there were two Gods one called Oromazus the Author of all good who was the Sun the other Arimanes Authour of all mischief so there were two kindes of Magick whereof one consisting of an exact knowledge and application of things in order to a good end is commendable and known by the simple denomination of Magick which they affirm to be an invocation of those Genii who are our Guardians and Benefactors in order to the procuring of some good either to our selves or others The other called Mangania which they exercised by the invocation of the bad Genii or Daemons was ever condemn'd as pernicious as having no other design then to do mischief by Sorceries and Witchcraft And though the grounds of that Doctrine are contrary to the Truth of Christian Faith yet since it assures us that there are good and bad Angels which were the Genii of Paganism there is some probability that as these last incline us to Idolatry Superstition and other Impieties to divert us from the worship of the true God by the study of the Black Art so is it the main business of the former by a discovery of the Secrets of Nature which is the White and Natural Magick to incline us to an acknowledgement of the Author of it In like manner as we find according to the Apostle that in the order which God observes for the good of his Church and the furtherance of our Salvation there are divers Gifts such as are those of knowledge healing working of miracles prophecying speaking of strange languages and the like all which do notwithstanding depend on the same Spirit of God who dispenses them according to his good pleasure So the Devil who endeavours to imitate the Works of God does the like in the distribution of those Talents which he communicates to his instruments to employ them upon different occasions the better to accommodate himself to the diversity of their inclinations whom he would abuse which is his principal design He furnishes those whose restless curiosity will needs know things to come with Oracles and Predictions he entertains the vain with impostures and illusions the envious with Charms and Sorceries the revengeful and such as are inclin'd to such implacable passions are suggested with all the mischievous contrivances which that perverse Spirit is at all times ready to teach any who are desirous
that the Physician Melampus cited in Homer Odyss lib. xv deliver'd certain precepts of it above three thousand years since and after him Avenzoar Septalius Taxilius and several others have cultivated it and endeavour'd to shew the probability of certain reasons which they ground principally upon the correspondence there is between the face and its parts and all the other parts of the whole body of Man It consists in two heads to wit in the proportion of greatness or measure or in the resemblance of colour consistency figure scituation number or such other condition which may be common between them The first correspondence between the face and the rest of the body consisting in greatness which comprehends the three dimensions length breadth and profundity is so sensible that those who have exactly measur'd all the parts of it have found that the face is the ninth part of the greatness of the body making the distributions of those spaces so just that no one exceed another provided that the body be well compos'd and that there be no defect in the conformation nor any considerable disorder in the temperament of the whole or its parts The first of these spaces comprehends the face it self the second is from the throat to the brisket where the xiphoidal Gristle is the third reaches below the Navil the fourth passes by the groin to the beginning of the haunches the fifth and sixth comprehend the whole extent of the thigh at the end whereof is the seventh which with the eighth take up the whole space from the knee to the heel as the ninth does that of the whole foot wherein as there are three new regions called Tharse Metatharse and the Toes so are there as many in the Face The first whereof which is the mansion of wisdom is from the beginning of the hair to that of the nose where there is an interval between the Eye-brows The second which is that of beauty comprehends all from that interstitium to the end of the nose and the third where the seat of goodness is reaches to the lower part of the chin Now these different intervals are in like manner observable in the other spaces with so exact a proportion that the countenance is not only answerable to any one of those spaces which with it make up the whole greatness of man's body but there is also a correspondence between every part of it and those of each of the said spaces as between the highest the midst and the lowest part and that which is in the same scituation as between right and right and left and left So that as the face is not only the measure of the whole body being repeated nine times but also the least parts of the face bearing the same proportion to those of the rest of the body it should seem that rational consequences may be drawn of the marks of those parts that are out of our sight by those of the Face which are apparent to us For if it be consider'd that besides the correspondence there is between them as to quantity there is yet another which we said was that of resemblance which makes a strict affinity between them and such as is particularly observable between the Forehead and the Breast the Ey-brows and the Shoulders the cavities of the Ey-brows and the Arm-pits the Ears and the Arms the Chin and the Groin the Cheeks and the Thighes and so of the rest those who have this knowledge may easily ghess at the Warts the Moles and marks that are out of our sight by those which are apparent to us it being probable that as Nature hath mark'd the one with one sign which is as it were the Seal she hath set to her work it must needs be found after the same manner in that counter-part between which and the other there is an alliance not only by reason of its substance and composition but upon the account of several other Accidents which make them alike Thus the Fore-head by reason of its plain figure in the middle and circular towards the extremities and by its solidity is a sufficient representation of the Breast The eminent scituation of the Eye-brows discovers the correspondence there is between them and the shoulders which are the most elevated parts of the Body and the cavities of the Eyes which is under the Eye-Brows have some alliance with those of the Armpits which are under the Shoulders The Cheeks by reason of their fleshy and musculous composition have a relation to the Thighs and particularly to the Buttocks which are situated in the midst of the Trunk as the Cheek is in the Face between the Fore-head and the Chin. The Mouth and the Chin have also a great proportion with the Belly and the Groin the former being situated in the lower part of the Face and the latter at the lower part of the Belly as also upon this account that they are equally fleshy and soft in their superiour parts and in their inferiour parts bony and hard But this correspondence is yet more sensible between the Mouth of the Woman and her secret parts and between the Lips of both those parts which for that reason have the same name as there is the like between the Nose the Eye-brows and the Eyes and the Genitals of a Man the Testicles and the Cods Nor can there be any sign more manifest than such as appear in those places whence there may be inferr'd the marks of those which Nature hath so much conceal'd which though so far out of sight are nevertheless manifest to such persons as have the curiosity to study this correspondence But there is such an association between the Hand and the Foot as well in regard of their composition and structure as for the employments they are both put to that the marks about the Hand and Fingers have others answerable to them on the same parts of the Foot in a correspondent order and disposition one to another The Fourth said That to find out the reason of this Proportion and Sympathy we must not confine our selves to sublunary Causes but attribute an Effect so well order'd and so regular to a Cause answerable thereto For my part I cannot assign any but what is derived from the Heavens whose motions and influences being the general Causes of what-ever happens here below that is constant and regular it is to them that we ought to attribute an exactness which is so certain that it very seldom miscarries Thence it comes that the Professors of Astrology with some ground of reason affirm that as there is no Plant so inconsiderable but hath its signature imprinted on it by that Star which hath a predominancy over it so is there a far stronger reason than Man should have his signature which as they maintain is set upon him as a seal by the Star on which he hath a dependance it being certain that the seven Planets have an Empire over every part which they govern Thus
violence done by some Vultures to some young Eagles which they cast down out of their Nest Such another Augury had Dionysius the Tyrant when in his presence an Eagle having snatch'd away with his beak a dart out of the hands of one of his Guard cast it into the Sea soon after which accident he was shamefully unthron'd and forc'd away Yet does this Bird always denote happiness and good-luck as do also the Vultures to twelve whereof which were seen by Romulus while he was laying the foundations of Rome it is conceiv'd that that Metropolis of the world ows it fortune and continuance Darius having seen two of them torn to pieces by so many Hawks conceiv'd a hope of enjoying as he did the Kingdom of Persia but he lost it together with his Life after his meeting with a great number of Swallows as he march'd in the head of his army to engage against the Scythians And it is believ'd that they had been also fatal to Pyrrhus King of the Epirotae upon whose Tent those troublesom Birds were seen as they had also been on the Ship wherein Mark Anthony was before his dysaster The greater kind of Owl hath always been accounted so unlucky that one day being got into the Capitol under the Consulship of S. Papellius Ister and Lucius Pedonius there was a particular solemnity perform'd for the expiation of the City which the Augurs affirm'd to have been polluted by that unlucky Bird which yet was not such to Agrippa of whom it is oft related that the said ill-look'd Bird having appear'd to him in prison it prov'd an augury of his restauration to the Kingdom of Judaea whereof he had been dispossess'd The ordinary Owl is also of ill presage for having one day pearch'd on the top of Pyrrhus's Lance in his expedition against the Argians it was his misfortune to lose the battle The Ravens are no less unlucky for they were the fore-runners of the bloody civil War between Sylla and Marius and their crokings foreshew'd death to Alexander the Great when he made his entrance into Babylon and did the like to Cicero while he was avoiding the Ambushes of his inveterate enemy Antony The Madge-howlets the Scritch-owls the Cormorants and other such mournful and melancholy Birds make a sufficient discovery of their fatal predictions by the death of those who hear them The Pilots fear nothing so much as to see the Cranes flying towards them and returning back the same way again that return advertising them that they are threatned with some extraordinary tempest The Stork hath always been favourable to Auspices and look'd upon as a Messenger of Concord as the Hawk and the Buzzard especially where there was any thing done in order to marriage or about the acquisition of riches which the Falcon whereof the latter is a Species was conceiv'd to presage with so much certainty that the Thuscans built the City of Capua only upon their perceiving of one of them during the time of their Augury The Wood-pecker and the Hern have also made so happy presages that every one reassum'd new courage in the heat of a battel when they appeared in sight of the Souldiers The Nightingal which having pearch'd on the lips of Stesichorus whilst he was yet a Child in the Cradle sung there was a presignification of that sweetness which was afterwards to flow from his delightful Poems as the Bees which made hony on those of Plato were a presage of his Eloquence Though it must be acknowledg'd concerning these last that the Augurs were otherwise conceited of them for having observed great numbers of them in Brutus's Camp they oblig'd him to quit it so to avoid the misfortune that threatned him and which happen'd to the Great Pompey in whose Ships these Bees were seen in excessive numbers before the Pharsalian defeat But these observations are not so constantly certain but that there may be much diversity among them by whom they have been made Hence is it that Homer among all the good Auguries gives the precedence to the Dove which others will not have to be such but only when she is accompany'd otherwise being alone they hold that she boads some ill luck as the Swan does to all but Mariners But among the rest the ordinary Hen when ever she makes a noise somewhat like the crowing of the Cock foretells some signal misfortune though that of the Cock himself be numbred among those auguries that denote good success as having foreshewn victory to Themistocles the night before he gain'd the battel against Xerxes and been reputed a Solar animal from the correspondence there is between him and the Sun whose motions he declares by his crowing which upon that account is formidable even to Lyons The Third said That there are two kinds of Auguries the Natural and the Artificial The former depends on the connexion there is between the Effects and the Agents whereby they are produc'd which connexion being known it is no hard matter to give a conjecture of things to come whereof such as are clear-sighted observe the necessity of their coming to pass by reason of the strict connexion there is between them and the causes whereby they are produc'd This is confirm'd by the infallible predictions which are made not only at Sea by Pilots who foresee Tempests and winds by such signs as seldom fail but also by simple Labourers and Husbandmen on the Land who do the like in the changes of weather Now this kind of Augury is as rational as the other is absurd as being a frivolous invention grounded on certain observations which are for the most part vain and impertinent Such among the rest is the division it hath made of the Heavens into its twelve Houses which are the Regions or Spaces whereto those Augurs confin'd the extent of their predictions which they made with their Augural staff without which the Auguries according to their judgment were of no validity nor was there any more account to be made of them then of what might be deriv'd from such accidents as happen without or besides expectation or rather present themselves whence they were commonly called Oblative Auguries But those which happen'd conformably to the circumstances of time and place which those Divinators had limited and when they thought of them were called Impetrative And this is one of the conditions observ'd in their discipline wherein there was no account made of what the Augur affirm'd that he had not particularly observ'd no more then then there was of any thing that pass'd beyond the compass of the places design'd to that function For the better observance of the ceremonies thereof the Augural House was not cover'd but lay open to the air which for the better carrying on of the work should be clear and serene out of a fear that the rain or wind might hinder their making an exact observation of the flight and different motions of the Birds in the choice whereof they were so hard to
please that they employ'd them not in their presages but only towards the Spring After which especially towards the month of August they made no account of them in regard they were not then in so much vigour nor in so good case yet did they appoint such a dependance among them that the Auguries taken from those that were inferiour gave place to the others of a higher quality So that if a Crow chanced to pass by while they were attentively divining by the flight of a Dove this lanter auspice was to no purpose no more then would be that of other Birds upon the arrival of the Eagle which also would signifie nothing upon the fall of a thunderbolt which disturbed all their mysteries with much more reason then a Rat might do which had no sooner appear'd in the Assembly but the whole Ceremony was put off to another more convenient time True it is then that some advantages may be made of Birds in order to the drawing of auguries and presages of natural effects such as are rain thunder tempests winds heat drought cold frost snow hail and other changes of weather produc'd by the impressions of the Heavens the Elements and other Causes as well general as particular but not to make any predictions thence of such events and accidents as depend on an infinite number of circumstances of time place and persons who being purely free agents their actions are wholly voluntary and consequently impossible to be predicted what artifices soever may be us'd to do it Whereto we may add this Remark that those artifices being full of abundance of vain and pernicious observations the sentence of condemnation past against them is just not only that of the Canon and Civil Laws which severely punish such as make use thereof but also that pronounc'd by the mouth of God who expressly forbids his people in the twentieth chapter of Leviticus to make their souls abominable by beast or by fowl threatning with death the Wizard and him that had a familiar Spirit CONFERENCE CCXXXVI Whether those Children who are born with Cawls about their whole or some parts of their Bodies are always fortunate and why CHildren do ordinarily come naked out of their Mother's Wombs when after their struggling with Nature they begin their entrance into the World with crying and tears acknowledging their weakness and the miseries they are likely to be expos'd to in the sequele of their lives Yet there are some Children excepted from this general Rule and thence is it that some would have them exempted from the misfortunes common to all the rest upon this accompt that they are born with cawls about them that is are encompass'd by a membrane which comes over their heads and their shoulders call'd by the Greeks Amnios which is the innermost of the three membranes wherein the wombe-lodg'd infant is enwrapped called by some Midwives the Coife or Biggin of the Child by others the Childs shirt and in some places known by the name of the Silihow by reason of its tender and delicate intertexture which other Children quit in their Mothers wombs before they come out thence with the other Membrane called Chorion of which together with that mass of flesh which had serv'd them for a cushion and support during the time of the praegnancy are fram'd the Secondines or After-burthen so called because it comes not out till after the Child is born And as these Children born thus cawl'd and coif'd with this tunicle which like a large Hood or Capouch covers their heads and necks seem not to participate of the nakedness of the others who bring nothing into the World so is it to be imagin'd that they are not so much subject to the miseries and calamities inseparable from the common life of other men inasmuch as their beginning being different from that of others who come after the ordinary way into the World upon the score of this special priviledge of having their heads furr'd and cover'd the consequence of it ought in all probability to be extraordinary and full of happiness whereof if this coif be not the cause yet have some at least observ'd that it hath always been the sign and that all those who have been born after that manner have been very fortunate The History of Antoninus sirnamed Diadumenus related by Aelius Lampridius in his Life confirms this observation For being born with such a coif he afterwards came to the soveraign dignity of the Empire in the management whereof all things succeeded according to his wishes Nay it hath been generally believ'd that good fortune was so constant an attendant of this Coif that all those who were desirous to compass their affairs carry'd it about them especially Advocates who made use thereof to gain reputation in their publick pleadings being to that end very careful to buy them of the Midwives who knowing the excellency thereof sold them at a very dear rate after they had surreptitiously got them away from the children they had received into the World For those who have made it their business to enquire more strictly into this observation maintain that he who brings this natural coif with him into the world is to expect all manner of good fortune even so far as to be invulnerable provided he be careful to have it always about him or what contributes more to that effect to eat it as is over-superstitiously done by some But the contrary will happen to the Child if he be robb'd of that precious exuvium or coat or it be secretly taken from him to be given to another who by that translation thereof will receive the whole benefit of it The Second said That though the foresaid perswasion sufficiently destroy'd it self there being no connexion or correspondence between the accidents of humane life and that shirt which sometimes comes over the whole Body of the Child commonly falls not much below the Shoulders and many times does only cover the Face like a Mask yet have many been of Opinion that it contributed much to happines and the advantage of good fortune insomuch that Saint John Chrysostome in several of his Homilies speaks against those of his time who made use thereof to gain esteem which a Clergy-man named Praetus being desirous to acquire by the means of such a Coif bought of a Midwife he was very highly censur'd as Balsamon affirms in his Commentaries upon the Canons of the Apostles And Paulus Jovius an Author of great repute observes on the Nativity of Ferdinand Daval that the Coif he brought with him from his Mothers Womb contributed much to his being happy and belov'd of all From all which we may make this inference that there is nothing so extravagant but may meet with Favourers and Abettors For I may lay it down for certain that this Opinion hath no other ground than what it hath found in the weak Brains of those Midwives who having nothing in them but the name have insensibly scatter'd these errours
one time than at another but only seem to be such to our Senses which though they should be destitute of all qualities are then endu'd therewith so that the same Well-water which seems to be hot in Winter by reason of the coldness that is in the Touching seems cold in Summer by reason of the heat of the same Organ which judges of it comparatively For the contrary is seen in that Well-water in Summer being transported into a hot place is there nevertheless cold and the fumes and hot vapors which exhale from Springs and Wells in Winter do sufficiently demonstrate that during the said season the water is endu'd with a true and real heat too sensible to be accounted imaginary But this Antiperistasis is further more solidly confirm'd by Experience whereby we see that fire burns more violently and is more sparkling in great Frosts or in the shade than in hot weather or when it lyes expos'd to the beams of the Sun In like manner a little Water cast upon a great Fire makes it more violent than it was before and the Ventricles of our Bodies according to the Opinion of Hippocrates in his Aphorisms are hotter in Winter than in any other season of the year whence it comes that we are apt to feed more plentifully and Digestion is then better perform'd Nay if we but go down into our Cellars we shall find that the heat is more sensible there in Winter but in Summer when all things are scorch'd and burnt up on the surface of the Earth all Subterraneous Places are so much the colder the deeper they are and the nearer they approach to the Centre towards which Cold which is one of the natural qualities of the Earth gathers together and reunites it self thereto that so it may be secur'd from the heat whereby it is encompass'd of all sides And as it is to this that the generation of Metals in the entrails of the Earth is principally attributed so most of the Meteors which are fram'd in the two Regions of the Air owe theirs to this same Cold which coming to encompass and as it were to enclose the hot and dry Exhalation which makes the Winds Lightning Thunder and Thunder-bolts as also that which makes the Comets in the Middle Region of the Air these unctuous and easily-enflam'd vapors being encompass'd of all sides by the extream coldness of that Air which encloses them they in order to their Conservation re-unite and take fire after the same manner as the Rayes of the Sun darted against some Opake Body or reflected by Burning-glasses set on fire the most solid Bodies on which they are repercuss'd as it is related of Archimedes who by such an Artifice consum'd the Ships of Marcellus who besieg'd the City of Saragossa in Sicily Which instance serves as well to prove Antiperistasis as the manner whereby it is wrought to wit by the repercussion of the intentional Species of the Subject caus'd by its contrary Thus then it comes that the Water of Springs and Wells is cold in the Summer in regard the Species of the cold forc'd by the Water towards the heated Air which is all about it are darted back again by that opposite heat to the place whence they came whereupon being thrust closer together they there re-inforce and augment the Cold which happens not so in Winter when the Species of the coldness of the Water meeting with no Obstruction in the Air endu'd with the like quality insinuate themselves into it without any resistance and so not being reflected nor forc'd back towards the Water it is not then so cold as in Summer The Second said That the intentional Species being not design'd to act but only to make a discovery of the beings from which they flow as may be seen in those of all sensible Objects which these Species represent to the Organs that are to judge of them cannot contribute any thing to the vigor of the action observable in the Antiperistasis which he conceiv'd should rather be attributed to the simple form of the Subject which having an absolute sovereignty over the qualities employ'd thereby in order to Action renders them more or less active according to the need it stands in of them And as seething Water taken off the Fire becomes cold of it self without any other assistance than that of its proper substantial form which hath the property of re-instating it self in that degree of Cold which is naturally due unto it so ought it with greater reason to have an equal right of preserving that same quality when it is assaulted by its contrary Heat without having any recourse to those Emissions of Species which though we should grant the Tactile qualities what is much in dispute yet would not be able to cause an Antiperistasis inasmuch as being inseparable from them if the intentional Species of the coldness of Well-water were directed towards the warm'd Air it should take along with it the coldness and consequently it should be so far from acquiring any new degree of coldness thereby that it would lose much of that which it had before For since it is the Nature of these Intentional Species to be otherwise incapable by reason of their immateriality of producing any Corporeal and Material Effect such as is the augmentation of the degrees of any active quality as Heat and Cold are there being not any contrariety between the Species thereof no more than there is between those of â—ll other Bodies whereof they are the Images there is not any reason that obliges the Intentional Species of the Cold to retreat and close together when they come to meet with those of Heat or Heat it self no more than there is that the Species of this latter quality should make the other more vigorous by their reflection The Third said That it must be acknowledg'd that the Species of Cold and Heat and the other first Qualities were not contrary among themselves as being in their own Nature inalterable and incorruptible as the other Intentional Species are which come near the Condition of Spirits Yet does it not follow thence that these Species cannot be reflected inasmuch as the Visible Species Light and Voice which also have no contraries are not for that the less re-percuss'd by Mirrours and other solid Bodies or those hollow places which make Echoes The Fourth said That it is not sufficient in order to the giving of a reason of that effect to attribute it to the substantial form of every Agent but it is to be referr'd to a superiour cause such as is the Soul of the world whose function it being to preserve every thing in its intireness and to be assistant thereto when it comes into any danger as it happens when it is assaulted by its contrary then bent upon its destruction there lies a certain engagement on this first cause to relieve it in so great an extremity by supplying it with new forces to help it out of that oppression Thence
deadly to Men is not warranted by any Example Antiquity whose Judgement is venerable even in doubtful things allowing this Beast capable of doing mischief only in the place where he resides CONFERENCE CCIX. Whether a Dead Body can be preserv'd naturally many years THis Question is divided in two points First Whether a dead Body can be kept without art Secondly Whether it can be so by art Nature being here oppos'd not to Art but to what is supernatural The first is hard every Carkase having in it self the principles of Coruption because the harmony of qualities which caus'd to subsist being dissolv'd it advances of it self to an annihillation And Nature should cease her continual motion if her subject depriv'd of animal life should always remain in one and the same state Yea if Nature should stop her course in dead Bodies and not be able to resolve them into other works the Influences of the Heavens would be useless in respect of them as also their motion which is in order to generations which would cease if there were no more corruption whence the destruction of the Universe in its parts would follow Nor would the Elements act any more one against another remaining pure and simple and incapable of any generation since siccity could no more act upon humidity nor heat upon cold It remains to enquire Whether a dead Body may be preserv'd by art which seems possible because we may by art destroy the activity of the Elements and reduce them to a just and equal temperament capable of long preservation For if impurities and superfluities lead mixt Bodies to Corruption 't is easie to separate them by Chymistry otherwise this art would be incapable of reducing them as it doth every day to a just Temperament Yea if we consider the Principles of Preservation it will appear that those of Art are more powerful than those of Nature in regard of the means and Instruments it employs to separate them which Nature cannot do because She mixes things without choice and depuâ—ation and consequently since Art hath so much power in so many Agenâ—s 't is possible to preserve a dead body for many years Moreover our own Experience and that of Antiquity teach us that Balms are able to preserve bodies a long time as appears in the Mummies of Aegypt and in some Embryo's which â—re preserv'd long in spirit of Salt and other Liquors repugnant 〈…〉 The second said That a dead body may be preserved long not only by 〈◊〉 but also naturally as that of a Lady deceased fifty six years ago which was found lately intire and gave occasion â—o this Conference Whence it may be presum'd That Women are not so easily corruptible because their bodies are made of flesh more elaborate then that of man which was immediately taken from the dust and consequently is more prone to return into its first Original Now the way to preserve dead bodies from corruption is to prevent the dissolution of their parts which is done by maintaining the connexion of humidity with driness to which end all extrinsical heat and moisture must be kept from them as much as possible Hence it is that dead bodies are plac'd in subterraneous places and inclosed in leaden Coffins to the end the cold and dry vapours symbolizing with the qualities of Saturn which the Chymists make as justly preservative as the Poets make it destructive may withstand extrinsecal heat and moisture and maintain the marriage of 〈◊〉 with humidity which is also the scope of the Gums and Spices we employ to imbalm bodies which having some heat with a certain Unctuousness suck up the superfluous moisture and preserve the Natural Moreover the Sex Age and Temperament are considerable in this matter A Habit of body moderately fleshy which Galen accounts the most laudable and which denotes a good Constitution is fittest for this purpose and 't is probable that the bodies of those that die of a sudden death resist putrefaction longer than those that have been extenuated by a longer Sickness or brought to the Grave by a Feaver because in these cases the body is in a great tendency to putrefaction even before Death CONFERENCE CCX Of the Remora T Is a small Fish half a foot long called by the Greeks Echeneïs and by the Latins Remora because 't is thought to stop the motion of Ships by means of two scales wherewith it closely imbraces the keel This common belief is founded upon many experiences reported by Authors worthy of Credit Pliny writes That Periander having sent a Ship to Gnidos with orders to castrate all the principal Children of that Island it was stopp'd in the main sea so long time as was requisite to send for other Orders contrary to the former by another Ship and that in remembrance of this happy retardment the two scales of this little fish were in his time seen hanging up near the Altar of Gnidia and Venus The like happen'd to a Pretorian Ship of Anthony at the battel of Actium so that he could not advance to give Orders to his Naval Army The Emperor Caligula having set sail from Asturia with a Gally of five banks was likewise constrain'd to stay by the way with his Vessel the other Ships not suffering the same obstruction at which this Prince was so incens'd that he presently commanded divers to seek out the cause who at length found this Fish sticking to the helm of the Vessel which they shew'd him about the bigness of a Snail and he was more surpris'd when he saw that it had not the like effect within the Ship as without as 't is said the foot of a Tortoise being in a Vessel makes it move slowly Plutarch in the second book of his Symposiacks affirms That this Fish was found sticking to the Ship which he hired to sail into Sicily and Rondeletius saith That the Cardinal of Tourain being imbarked for Rome in a Vessel of three banks was a long time stopp'd in a place at Sea by this little Fish which being taken was serv'd up to his table though others write that it is not fit to eat But what they add That its vertue of retarding is such that it is made use of to hinder the Judgment of a Law-suit whereof the issue is fear'd and also in filtres to retain a Lover that despises his loving Mistris is as hard to believe as 't is to find considerable reasons for it without having recourse to the ancient asylum of those who despair to find any which is the specifick form of this Fish which hath the same faculty of stopping Ships that a Diamond hath of retaining the Vertue of the Loadstone and Garlick of hindering it to act as the Ship appeaseth the fury of the Elephant the Fig-tree that of the Bull and many other such things which though small in bulk are yet very great and virtuous as they make appear in their Qualities which are as sensible in their Effects as they are occult in their