we do no more see their connection with their causes than of this of the spirits of the murtherer and the murthered which notwithstanding are no lesse effectuall in this occurrence than the spirits which come out of a bleare eye are able to hurt the eye that lookes on it or the eyes of a Witch to bewitch lambs and to produce all other marvellous effects whereof their histories are full The sixth said It would be hard to perswade most men that there is sense in all lifelesse bodies much more that there remaines any after death because sense is given to all bodies for no other cause but to enable them to discerne their objects to carry them toward their likes and to make them fly from subjects worthy of their eschewing Which cannot be said of dead bodies for whom nature hath no longer any care or providence So that she which doth nothing in vaine and gives not to bodies qualities of which they have no use hath not taken care to put into or preserve in carkasses a passion which might serve to uphold them in that estate For that were against the intention of Nature her selfe who strives to ruine such bodies and to resolve them into their elements to the end that thereof she may make new mixts and so augment some of her species But if we grant Campanella that dead bodies have some remainder of sense yet will it not thereupon follow that they have enough of it to cause the motions of trembling and anger to which he attributes this bleeding for anger requires too many sorts of reciprocall motions and too much mixt to be compatible with the cold which freezeth the spirits of dead bodies whatsoever the Historians say to the contrary for they write that anger might be seene in the sterne visages of divers men slaine in battaile which hath no likelihood of truth And forasmuch as plants which according to the opinion of this author have a greater measure of sense than carkasses have witnesse the attractions and expulsions which they make yet are not at all capaple of anger and having seene some men so stupid as to be displeased with nothing in their life time I cannot beleeve that they become more sensible after their death Such bodies are then past trembling either for apprehension or memory both which are fled away with their life and they are in an estate of having no further apprehension of their murderers And if they would tremble for feare it were time for them so to do at the approach of the Anatomists who without all pity pull them in as many pieces as they can imagine any way to differ from one another and besides feare would not make the blood to issue forasmuch as this passion is not caused but by the concentration of the spirits and their abandoning of the outer-parts that they may retire inward Another unlikely consequent is that these spirits separated from the soule should be more able to discern the murderer than when they were joyned to it for a living man is not able to know him that hurt him in the night or as a high-way-robber with a vizor and silence preventing all discovery of him by his face or voyce Furthermore the spirits are of the nature of the Sun-beams which give heat and light so long as they are continued from the body of the Sun to the object on which they fall but the Sun is no sooner hidden but that the beames cease to be Even so as long as the rete admirabile of the brain which is the spring and forge of the animall spirits which are only capable of knowledge does continue an influence of spirits into the nerves and through them into the other organs of the sense so long are they able to discern and no longer though they could subsist longer So that this opinion cannot stand no not with the opinion of the Pagan Philosophers who teach that the soule after death quits not the body but only the operations of the inward and outward senses the ceasing of the actions whereof the spirits are instruments being sufficient to shew that the spirits themselves are ceased The seventh said that this extraordinary motion cannot be referred but to a light supernaturally sent from God to the Judges for the discovery of the blackest crimes which otherwise would escape unpunished which is also the cause why this miracle though it sometimes happen yet is not alwayes observable as the effects of naturall causes which are necessary and thereby are distinguished from contingents it being no lesse impiety to deny that the divine justice doth sometimes send succour to the justice of men than it is ignorant rusticity in all things to content our selves with universall causes without seeking the particular ones which indeed God commonly employes for the producing of effects but yet hath not so enchained his power to the necessity of their order as that hecannot break it when he pleaseth even to the giving unto moystened clay a vertue to restore sight to the eyes of one borne blinde FINIS
the cause of this flowing of the blood in the presence of the guilty is this After death the blood growes cold and thick but after a few dayes it becomes thin again as when we open a veine and receive our blood into Porrangers if we let it stand in them we may there see the like the heat of the corruption supplying the roome of the naturall heat which kept the blood liquid in the living body So that if the carkasse be removed by the murderer it is no wonder if it bleed And because the murther is hardly discovered by suspitions till after some dayes about which time also this liquefaction of the blood happens so that this accident is often found in the presence of the murtherer hence it comes to passe that the one is counted the cause of the other Although this cause and this effect be of the nature of those things which with small reason are thought to depend one on the other meerely because they fall out at the same time and because this perswasion though it be false hath a reall effect in discovery of truth therefore the Law-givers have authorized it using the same care for the discovery of truth that the guilty do to cover and hide it by their denials and divers sleights But we must take heed that we render no such cause of this issuing of the blood as may make it depend on the presence of the murderer as if it would not have happened without it The second said that it is not credible that the Soveraign Courts which have practised this triall and made good use of it were so defective in the knowledge of naturall causes as not to be able to discern the effusion of blood which comes by the putrefaction of it in the veines for they have a property to keep it from congelation from the gushing out of the same blood observed at the first approach of the guilty and when he is brought to look on the body It is therefore much better to seek the cause than to call in question the effect unlesse we had better reason so to doe than because it seems too marvellous Some have referred it to a magnetick or electricall vertue of the blood saying that quarrels seldome happen between persons unknowne but that the murtherer and the slaine having had acquaintance together their bloods have gotten such society as to draw one another and so the living mans blood being the more active draws the blood out of the other But as this attraction hath an imperceptible subtilty so it is not easie to conceive it possible if it be not helped by some meanes that may connect this effect to its cause I like better the opinion of Levinus Lemnius who presupposeth that two enemies intending one anothers death do dart their spirits one at another for they are the messengers of the soule by which she exerciseth the sight and all her other outward senses Now these spirits seeking the destruction of one another and being made active by the sting of choler doe insinuate and work themselves into the opposite bodies and finding an open entrance through some wound they tend thither more notably than to any other passage and there they mingle with the blood of the wounded and hee shortly after dying they there settle themselves and abide with his spirits till the murderer afterwards again approaching to the dead body the spirits which were all this while separated from their totall do take this occasion to rerurn and rejoyne themselves as all things are desirous to returne to their own beginnings But this they cannot do without clearing and separating themselves from that masse of blood wherein they lay confused and therefore they trouble this masse and so cause an effusion of that blood which till then was retained in the veines Which is helped not a little by that confusion whereinto we bring the murderer by laying before him the body by him murthered for hereupon his spirits forsaking their Center and wandring do meet with their fellowes as the Lode-stone and Iron meeting one another halfe way The third man was of the opinion of Campanella who attributes the cause of this bleeding to the sense which is in all things and which continues in dead bodies so that having a perception of their murderers and perceiving them neere them they suffer two very different motions of trembling and anger which shake the body and remove the blood in the veines violently enough to make it issue at the gaps of their wounds For the spirits which during life had knowledge enough to make them perceive and obey the commands of the soule retaine it even after death so farre as to be able to discerne their friends and their enemies And as at the time of our birth all the objects which are present do imprint in us their qualities in that universall change which is made at that moment as Astrologers speak whence comes that important choyce which they prescribe us to make of mid-wives and gossips that is if we consider the matter more neerly of the persons which are to be about the child-wife so when we die and quit our naturall qualities to borrow new ones from the bodies about us we get a conformity with all those which are neere us and with the murtherer more than with any other The fourth said this opinion could not be true for then it would follow that hee which had killed some man by the shot of an Arquebuz could not be knowne by the signe and that if a man were killed in the armes of his wife and amidst his friends which had defended him such a one would rather bleed in the presence of his friends than of the murtherer whose spirits are ordinarily kept in by the guilt of his conscience and the apprehension of punishment whereas his friends being animated with anger do call forth all their spirits to a necessary defence Besides if the murtherer now brought neere the carkasse have also beene wounded in this encounter he should rather bleed than the dead man because his blood is more boyling and must have received many of the spirits which did all leave the slaine man at his death being evaporated thence upon the bodies which were round about him For they issue out of the wounds of a dying man together with his blood and that so violently that they will not permit at the same time a motion contrary to theirs and so cannot admit any entrance for the spirits of the murtherer which if they should enter would there acquire a Sympathy with the dead body in whose blood they would tongeale and lose the Sympathy that they had with the body out of which they came Even as no man retaines the spirits of that creature whose blood or heart he eates but he thereof formes his owne spirits Nay if they did retaine this Sympathy yet could they not know the murderer for want of senses which they never had because the spirits
which are in the blood hardly merit that name being purely naturall and destitute of all perception and that in our life time as being common to us with plants and specifically differing from animall spirits as might bee shown by the different actions wherein nature employes them In the next degree above these naturall ones are the vitall spirits which vanish with the life which they conserved so that then the arteries which contained them become empty And lastly those that were sensitive cannot remain in a dead man because they are easily dissipated and have need of continual reparation as we see in swoonings the senses saile as soone as the heart ceaseth to furnish them with matter to uphold the continuity of their generation Or if they did remaine in the body after death they could performe no action for want of necessary disposures in their organs as we see in those that are blinde dease paralytick and others But because the refutation of the reasons given of this effect is a thing very easie and may be done in many other subjects It is better to shew that this bleeding cannot come from any naturall cause no not of such as are unknown to us which is easily done if we presuppose that all naturall causes are necessary and do act without liberty at all times when their objects are presented to them Which falls not out so heere for it hath oftentimes beene seene that murtherers for feare of being accused of murder have made more and neerer approaches round about the dead body than any other which hath beene used as a presumption against them though the body did not bleed in their presence and oftentimes nurses overlie their children which notwithstanding bleed not after death though they hold them in their armes as a signe of their great affection and innocence And had this signe been naturall Salomon that was very skilfull in nature would have used this rather than a morall triall wherein was much lesse certainty nor would Moses have forgotten it Besides we see every day the executioners come to take from the gallows or the wheel those persons whom the day before they executed with their owne hands out of whose wounds comes not a drop of blood although all the causes of such bleeding doe concurre in this example and ought to produce their effect unlesse you think they were hindered by some morall reason as the consideration that this execution was by the order of justice But then beasts being uncapable of this consideration and having none of this wisedome should bleed in the presence of those butchers which are not very exact in their trade with which the Jewes doe every day upbraid them And such as have killed Hares and Partridges should cause their bodies to bleed when they come neere them Moreover they which have beene set upon by some assasin finde it not alwayes easie to know him againe when they see him though they be in perfect health and awake much lesse can a man that is asleep or very neere death by any signe discover the approching assasin that mortally wounded him and yet it is hard to imagine that we have lesse perception and knowledge during the remainders of our life than after our death and that a wounded man must die that he may become more sensible Lastly it is easie to make it appeare that it is not in this effect as in other marvels which have a naturall cause because though many effects are so hidden from us that wee are not able to assigne their particular causes yet they may be all proved by some reasons if not demonstrative yet at least probable even the magneticall cure by sympathy and antipathy which are the onely principles of all naturall motions Which motions are but of two sorts that is to say Approach and Remotion it being naturall to all bodies to joine themselves to their like and to fly from the objects from which they have some naturall aversenesse And indeed if the blood issued naturally it would be to joyne it selfe with blood of the same nature as the blood of the dead mans kindred for sympathy is onely betweene bodies joined in amity Nor can antipathy produce this effect for it is not its property to joine and bring-neerer-together two bodies which are enemies but on the contrary in the presence of the murtherer it should concentrate all the blood and cause it to retire to the inner parts And these are the grounds which perswade me not only that the causes of this miracle are not yet found but also that it is impossible that it should have any that is naturall The fifth said that this bleeding may be caused by the imagination if according to the opinion of Avicenna it doth act even out of its owne subject the phantasie of the guilty with the remembrance of the blood spilt by him in the killing of the dead there lying before his eyes which stirres all his powers may be able to cause this haemorrhagie or issuing of blood Some nitrous vapours also of the earth may help this ebullition of the blood in the carkasse when it is taken up out of the earth or the water having insinuated it selfe into the veines of a drowned carkasse may make the blood more fluid Hereunto also the aire may contribute by its heat which is greater than that of the earth or water and is increased by the concourse of the multitudes which use to run to such spectacles Also the fermentation which after death happens to the blood serves very much to this heat which makes it boile in the veines as syrups in the time of their sermentation boile and fill up the vessels which before were not full till at length they make them run over at the top in the same manner the blood which before did not fill the veines yet after it is fermented doth so puffe them up that they can no longer hold it all and having withall gotten a tarmesse which corrodes the orifices of the vessels it makes its way out some dayes after death as we see in the bodies reserved for anatomies where the rope having caused the blood to rise to the braine where it could not be contained it runs out at the nose Also the sympathy of the spirits once friendly and afterward become enemies may help toward this effect which should not be thought more strange than many other like motions as the paine felt by the Nurse in her breasts when her nurse-child cries the fury which the red colour stirres up in the Lion and the Turky-cock the falling-sicknesse whose fits are augmented or advanced in those that hold in their hand the plant called Virga sanguinea or a twig of the Cornill tree a kind of Jasper stayes bleeding by a contrary reason Lapis Nephriticus makes the gravell come out of the kidneyes the Weapon-salve cures a wound being applied to the sword which made it 100. leagues off and many other Talismanick effects of which
of the actions and customes of men These things being granted I think that truth of it selfe begets no hatred and therfore we need not seek the cause why it doth but on the contrary I say with Aristotle that wee love truth and that in such a measure that we like no falshood but that which hath an appearance of truth which wee call likely or probable which makes the romants to be disliked as soon as wee discover any impossibilities in them And they that would amuse little children with monstrous tales must yet so fit them to their little wit as that they may beleeve them and so think them true which is easily done because of their want of experience But forasmuch as the greater part of men is imperfect so farre as they love to be praysed so farre do they hate those that tell them the truth of their defects which ordinarily carry blame with them And because the same reason that makes every one love his own praise makes a man also take pleasure in blaming of others that he himselfe may seem more perfect Hence it comes that dispraise being very well liked by all save only him whom it concerns who is very sensible of it it was upon this ground that Terence said that Truth begets hatred especially when it is opposed to flattery and to complying with the humours of every man which makes truth appeare so much the more austere as a Countrey-man comming next after a Courtier seems so much the arranter clowne and all other contraries set neer together make one another the more discernable The second said that this proverb Truth begets hatred is not grounded upon truth for every man not only professes it but also gives testimony that he is pleased with it It is also the object of our understanding which never rests till it hath found it seeking it with no lesse earnestnesse than that wherewith the will seeks after goodnesse So that setting truth on the one side known to be such and on the other side untruth likewise known to be such it is as impossible for the understanding not to love the truth as for the will not to incline to a known good This love of truth is so remarkable in all persons that not only the Iudges according to their duties and places do use all possible diligence to finde out the truth of a fact but also all those which are not at all interessed in the businesse are notwithstanding so much taken with it that though their eares be extreamly tired with listening to the one party yet they have not the power to refuse audience to the other side that undertakes to discover falshood in his adversaries tale and if the understanding do not conceive the truth it never remaines any more satisfied than a hungry stomack would bee with painted meat Wherefore it belongs only to diseased mindes to hate truth as only to sore eyes to turne from the light Wherfore as men do not determine of colours tastes and other objects of the sense by the judgement of indisposed organs nor say sugar is bitter because the tongue in a fever being filled with choler judges so even so ought we not to say after the perverse judgement of the vicious that truth begets hatred and by consequence we are not to seek the cause of a thing which is not so The third said that whatsoever agrees to our nature and is found in us all cannot be called a disease but rather the contrary Now not only the understanding and the inner senses but also all the outer senses of man taken in generall and in particular are pleased with falshood and love to bee deceived Whence it comes to passe that of all the sects of Philosophers there was never any sect more esteemed than those which distrusted the abilities of our minde and held themselves in a continuall suspence or uncertainty nor was there ever any more ridiculous than those that were most confident of their opinions And because the acknowledging that we cannot know truth is a kinde of truth of which our understanding is uncapable therefore did Democritus lodge truth in a pit and others sayd she was flown to heaven both expressions signifying that shee is out of mens reach Besides our understanding loves its liberty no lesse than our will loves it and as the will should no longer bee free if it were necessarily carried to some object whence proceeded so many differing opinions concerning the chiefest good even so our understanding foreseeing that if at once it should know the truth it must cease to be free to turne from it it therefore preferres likelihoods and probabilities from whence ariseth that pleasure which wee take in disputes and problematicall altercations For which cause also the sect of Pyrrhon is by most men esteemed above all others And the greatest part of the Sciences and Arts have no foundation but upon the errours of our faculties Logick upon the weaknesse of our understanding in discerning of truth for the better disguising of which and so our greater pleasure Rhetorick or the Orators Art was invented the end of which is not at all to speak the truth but to perswade you to what it pleaseth Poesy is the art of lying artificially in feigning that which neither is nor was nor ever shall be as picture and especially perspective endeavours only to deceive us Even the most pleasing Arts as Cookery the better they abuse our taste and our other senses by their disguises the more are they esteemed Look into civill conversation it is nothing but disguisement and not to speak of the maxime of King Lewis the eleventh to which he restrained all the Latin of his Successor the greatest part of the civilities of our Courtiers and Citizens too reaches no further And therefore wee need not wonder much if the clownes that run contrary to the ordinary course of all other men render themselves odious to every one The fourth said that the understanding is pleased with doubts as the wooers of Penelope loved to court her mayds that is to say because they could not enjoy the mistresse Nor is there any that being hungry and having put his hand to the platter would like well to look on it through a paire of spectacles of many faces through which there would appeare so many dishes and in severall places that hee could not tell which was the right Wherefore it is certaine that we love truth so well that no untruth can be welcome to us unlesse it be covered with the ornaments of truth and all those arts of disguising shew what esteeme we have of untruth seeing it must be like truth that wee may like it 'T is true that none but God being able to discerne this sort of truth which consists in the agreeing of our thoughts with our words and deceit being very frequent in this matter civility and curtesie teacheth us rather to use words of complement than rude and ill pollisht language the