Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	effect_n	natural_a	nature_n	4,625	5	5.6875	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28798	Frier Bacon his discovery of the miracles of art, nature, and magick faithfully translated out of Dr. Dees own copy by T.M. and never before in English.; De mirabili potestate artis et naturae. English	Bacon, Roger, 1214?-1294.; T. M.	1659 (1659)	Wing B373; ESTC R10803	22,920	72

things For every first Cause hath more influence on the Effect than any second Cause as he speaks in the first proposition of Causes CHAP. IV. Of admirable Artificial Instruments THat I may the better demonstrate the inferiority and indignity of Magical power to that of Nature or Art I shall a while discourse on such admirable operations of Art and Nature as have not the least Magick in them afterwards assign them their Causes and Frames And first of such Engines as are purely artificial It 's possible to make Engines to sail withall as that either fresh or salt water vessels may be guided by the help of one man and made sail with a greater swiftness than others will which are full of men to help them It 's possible to make a Chariot move with an inestimable swiftnesse such as the Currus falcati were wherein our fore fathers of old fought and this motion to be without the help of any living creature It 's possible to make Engines for flying a man sitting in the midst whereof by turning onely about an Instrument which moves artificiall Wings made to beat the Aire much after the fashion of a Birds flight It 's possible to invent an Engine of a little bulk yet of great efficacy either to the depressing or elevation of the very greatest weight which would be of much consequence in several Accidents For hereby a man may either ascend or descend any walls delivering himself or comrads from prison and this Engine is only three fingers high and four broad A man may easily make an Instrument whereby one man may in despight of all opposition draw a thousand men to himself or any other thing which is tractable A man may make an Engine whereby without any corporal danger he may walk in the bottome of the Sea or other water These Alexander as the Heathen Astronomer assures us used to see the secrets of the deeps Such Engines as these were of old and are made even in our dayes These all of them excepting only that instrument of flying which I never saw or know any who hath seen it though I am exceedingly acquainted with a very prudent man who hath invented the whole Artifice with infinite such like inventions Engines and devices are feasable as making of Bridges over Rivers without pillars or supporters CHAP. V. Of Perspective Artificial Experiences THe physical figuration of rayes are found out to be very admirable Glasses and Perspectives may be framed to make one thing appear many one man an Army the Sun and Moon to be as many as we please As Pliny in the 2d Book Nat. Hist. chap. 30 saith That Nature so disposeth of vapours as two Sunnes and two Moons yea sometimes three Sunnes shine together in the Air And by the same Reason one thing may in appearance be multiplied to an infinity in regard that after any creature hath exceeded his own virtue as Aristotle cap. de vacuo no certain bounds is to be assigned it This designe may seem advantagious to strike terrours into an Enemies Camp or Garison there being a multiplication of appearances of Srarres or men assembled purposely to destroy them Especially if the following designe be conjoyned to the former viz. Glasses so cast that things at hand may appear at distance and things at distance as hard at hand yea so farre may the designe be driven as the least letters may be read and things reckoned at an incredible distance yea starres shine in what place you please A way as is verily believed Iulius Caesar took by great Glasses from the Coasts of France to view the site and disposition of stoth the Castles and Sea-Towns in great Britain By the framing of Glasses bodies of the largest bulk may in appearance be contracted to a minute volumne things little in themselves show great while others tall and lofty appear low and creeping things creeping and low high and mighty things private and hidden to be clear and manifest For as Socrates did discover a Dragon whose pestiferous breathings and influences corrupted both City and Countrey thereabouts to have his residence in the Caverns of the Mountains So may any other thing done in an Enemies Camp or Garison be discovered Glasses may be framed to send forth Species and poisonous infectious influences whither a man pleaseth And this invention Aristotle shewed Alexander by which he erecting the poison of a Basilisk upon the Wall of a City which held out against his Army conveyed the very poison into the City it self Glasses may be so framed and placed as that any man coming into a room shall undoubtedly imagine he sees heaps of gold silver prceious stones or what you please though upon his approach to the place he shall perceive his mistake It 's then folly to seek the effecting that by Magical Illusions which the power of Philosophy can demonstrate To speak of the more sublimate powers of Figurations leading and congregating rayes by several Fractions and reflexions to what distance we please so as any object may prove combustible It 's evident by Perspectives they burn backward and forward which Authours have treated on in their Books That which is the most strange of Figurations and Mouldings is the description of Celestial Bodies both according to their Longitude and Latitude in such Corporeal Figures as they naturally move by their diurnal motion An Invention of more satisfaction to a discreet head than a Kings Crown But this will suffice as to Figurations though we might produce infinite prodigies of the like Nature CHAP. VI Concerning strange Experiments TO our former discourse we may adjoyn such works as are effected without Figurations We may have an artificial composition of Saltpeter and other ingredients or of the oil of Red Petrolei and other things or with Maltha Naphtha with such like which will burn at what distance we please with which Pliny reports Lib. 2. Chap. 104. that he kept a City against the whole Roman Army For by casting down Maltha he could burn a Souldier though he had on his Armour In the next place to these we may place the Grecian fire and other combustibles To proceed Lamps may be made to burn and waters to keep hot perpetually For I know many things which are not consumed in the fire as the Salamanders skin Talk with others which by some adjunct both are inflamed and shine yet are not consumed but rather purified Besides these we may speak of divers admirable peeces of * Nature As the making Thunder and Lightning in the Air yea with a greater advantage of horrour then those which are onely produced by Nature For a very competent quantity of matter rightly prepared the bignesse of ones thumb will make a most hideous noise and corruscation this may be done several wayes by which a City or Army may be overcome much after the fashion as Gideon overcame that vast Army of the Midianites with three hundred men by the breaking of

the soul conquers many diseases CHAP. III. SERMONIS Of the force of Speech and a Check to Magick IN regard truth must not receive the least injury we should take more exact notice how every agent communicateth the Virtue and Species which is in it to other extrinsecal objects I mean not only the substantial Virtue but even Act●ve Accidents such as are in tertia specie Qualitatis As for the Virtues which flows from the Creature some of them are sensible some insensible Man which is both the most noble corporeity and dignified rational soul hath no lesse than other things heat and spirits exhaling from him and so may no lesse than other things emit and dispose of his Virtues and Species to external Objects Some creatures we know have power to metamorphose and alter their objects As the Basilisk who kils by ●ight alone The Wolf if she first see a man before the man see him makes the man hoarse The Hyaena suffers not the dog which comes within his shadow to bark as Solinus de mirabilibus mundi and others And Aristotle lib. 2. de Vegetab saith That Female Palm-trees bring forth fruit to maturity by the smell of their Males And Mares in some Kingdoms impregnate by the smell of Horses as Solinus affirms Aristotle in his Secrets assures us of several other contingencies which issue from the Species and Virtues of Plants and Animals Hence I argue If Plants and Animals which are inferiour in dignity to our humane Nature can emit then surely may man more abundantly emit Species Virtues and Colours to the alteration of external Bodies To this purpose is that which Aristotle tels us Lib. de s●mno Vigiliâ a menstruous woman looking in a glasse doth infect it with spots like clouds of bloud Solinus further writes That in Scythia there are women which have two sights in one eye Hence Ovid Nocet pupilla duplex and that these women by their glances kill men And we our selves know That men of an evil complexion full of contagious infirmities as Leprosie the Falling-sickness spotted Feaver bleer-eyed or the like infects those men in their company While on the other side men of a sound and wholsome complexion especially young men do by their very presence exhilerate and comfort others which no question as Galen in his Techne proceeds from their pure spirits wholsome and delightsome vapours their sweet natural colour and from such Species and Vir●ues as they emit That man whose soul is defiled with many hainous sins his Body infirme his Complexion evil and hath a vehement fancy and desire to hurt his neighbour may bring more inconveniencies then another man The Reason may be the Nature of Complexion and infirmity yeelds obedience to the thoughts of the Heart and is more augmented by the intervention of our desires Hence it is that a leprous person who is solicitous desirous and fancying to infect some one or other in the room may more easily and forceably effect it than he which hath no such intention fancy or desire For as Avicen observes in the fore●cited place the nature of the body is obedient to the thoughts and more intent fancies of the soul And as Avicen in the 3d Metaph. affirms the thought is the first mover after that the desire is made conformable to the thought then after that the natural virtue which is in the members obeys the desire and thought and thus it is both in good and bad effects Hence it is that a young man of a good Complexion healthfull fair well featured Body having his soul not debauched with sinne but of a strong fancy and vehement desire to compasse the effecting of some magnificent designe withall adding the power of his Virtues Species and natural heat He may by the force of these * Spirits Vapours and influences work both more powerfully and vehemently than if he should want any of these fore-going qualifications especially strong affections and forceable imaginations Hence I conclude Men by the concurrence of the foresaid Causes Words and Works being the Instruments bring great undertakings to perfection As for words they are hatched within by the thoughts and desires of the mind sent abroad by heat Vocale arteries and motion of the Spirits The places of their generation are in open passages by which there is a great efflux of such spirits heat vapours virtues and Species as are made by the soul and heart And therefore words may so farre cause alterations by these parts or passages as their Nature will extend For it 's evident That breathings yawnings several resolutions of Spirits and heat come thorow these open passages from the heart and inward parts Now if these words come from an infirm and evil complexionated body they are constantly obnoxious But if from a pure sound and wholsome constitution they are very beneficial and comfortable It 's clear then That the bare generation and prolation of words joyned with desire and intention are considerable in natural operations Hereupon we do justly say Vox viva magnam habet virtutem Living words are of great Virtue Not that they have any such Virtue of doing or undoing as Magicians speak of but only they have the Virtue of Nature which makes me put in this Caution of being extream cautelous herein For a man may as many have already done erre on both hands Some wholly denying any operation of words Others superfluously decline to a Magical use thereof Our duties should be to have a care of such Books as are fraught with Charms Figures Orizons Conjurations Sacrifices or the like because they are purely Magical For instance the Book De Officiis Spirituum liber de morte animae liber de art● notariâ with infinite others containing neither precepts of Nature or Art having nothing save Magical Fopperies Yet herewithall we must remember there are many Books commonly reputed to be Magical but have no other fault then discovering the dignity of wisdome What Books are suspicious and what not Every discreet Readers experience will show him The Book which discovers natural or artificial operations imbrace that which is void of either or leave both as suspitious and unworthy the consideration of any wise man 'T is usual with Magicians to treat of both unnecessary and superfluous subjects 'T was excellently said of Isaac in lib. de Febribus The rational soul is not impeded in its operations unlesse by the Manicles of ignorance And Aristotle is of opinion in lib. secret That a clear and strong intellect being impregnated by the influences of divine Virtue may attain to any thing which is necessary And in 3d Meteor he saith There is no influence or power but from God In the Conclusion of his Ethicks There is no Virtue whether Moral or Natural without divine influence Hence it is that when we discourse of particular agents we exclude not the Regiment of the universal Agent and first Cause of all