we first the interminable and almost infinite Extent of Divisibiliâ—…y that is with the razor of most acute thought redivide the subdivisions of an Atome and distinctly perpend how large a round of spiritual Aporrhoeaes or Evaporations may be made and maintained by a very small Body actually subtiliated and emitting a continued steam of most subtle effluviums Let us remember also that by a general consent of all the Secretaries of Nature and the undeniable testimony of trivial Experience every mixt Body of an unctuous Composition doth uncessantly vent or expire a circumferential steam of invisible Atomes homogeneous and consimilar that is of the same identical nature with it self and for that reason efficaciously operative to the same Finality which minute subtiliations wafted on the wings of a convenient medium interposed betwixt the accommodate Object and the body exhalant and so arriving at an analogous Patient do immediately discharge their Activity thereupon and by degrees of mutation subdue the same to a Conformityâ—… or Qualification requisiteâ—… to the Causation of that particular effect originally enjoyned to the Seminal Entity of the Agent Then let us stretch our Intellectuals to fathome how immensly long the arm of sympathy must be conceded by all that shall observe how the Contagion of the Small Pox and Plague is frequently darted from one Brother or Sister to another at the distance of many hundred leagues by invisible emissions or Pestilential Atomes without all excuse of intelligence or mutual Commerce by intervenient messengers as also of Fear and Imagination How a Tagliacotian Nose enfeoffed with a Community of Vitality and Vegetation by right of Transplantation upon the face of a Gentleman at Bruxels hath grown cadaverous and dropt off at the instant of that Porters death in Bononia out of whose arm it was first exected And finally that we may supersede the rehearsal of other Naturally magical examples how carefully good Huswives avoid the boyling over of their Milk lest the Atomes thereof subtiliated by the intense heat of Fire and roving abroad hand in hand with the Igneous Atomes should be attracted by the Cows Udder for the source or Fountain of every effusion acteth a magnetical part and draweth to it self the subdivisions of that same effusion situate within the Orb of its Alliciency and so an Inflammation be caused by the apposition of the Atomes of Fire concomitant And when we shall have thus cast about summed up our reflections and discreetly accommodated the like effects daily occurring to the Comparative perpension of Magnetical Vulneraries we shall naturally fall upon and set up our rest in this Conclusion That the sanation of Wounds by remote means applied to the Weapon or cloth imbued with the blood is no Diabolical nor prestigious but a meer ordinary effect of Natural Causes operating by Magnetism For very Familiar must it be made unto us that the blood effused from a wound doth constantly until the last act of putrefaction hold an influential commerce with and affinity unto its proper Fountain yet enjoying a more perfect state of Vitality in its native Conservatory the Veins and in that relation doth continually send forth subtle streams or invisible Emissaries of Mumial Atomes toward that Fountain or grand Source as Ambassadors to intimate the faithful Correspondence and Amity yet maintained that these Magnetical Nuntii being joyned in commission and confermentate with the Balsamical Emanations of the Sympathetick Vnguent or Powder do carry them home to the wound And lastly that the Exotick and destructive Acidity impressed upon the sides of the Wound and defeating the attempts of Nature towards the redintegration and accretion of the Continuity infringed may be subdued and eradicated by the Medicinal Faculty of the Atomes deradiated from the Vnguent and conducted along to the wound in the arms of the Mumial Atomes Since we are of opinion that no man who hath but Philosophy enough to examine the Natural endowments of each single Ingredient of the Composition as also of the third Quality resulting from their Commixture of Confermentation will deny that the Armary Vnguent is impregnated with a sanative Faculty but such as may be too violent and intense if the Vnguent were applied in body without the requisite allay and refraction of previous Attenuation Thus judicious Reader have you seen me in very few minutes run over my main course of the Reasons of Hoplochrism wherein since I may not come so neer to the guilt of Arrogancy as confidently to say I have won I freely submit to your equitable Arbitration for censure whether I have not contended fairly at least for the Garland of Truth and far outstript those my two hotspurred Adversaries Ignorance and â—…resumption But yet must I become a further exercise of your Patience by holding you to the trouble of going along with me over two other very 〈◊〉 Stages which I am obliged to measure in order to my plenary discharge of a rash promise which the clamorous importunity of some friends prevail'd upon my too flexile genius to enter into The first is to scan over the second Paradox concerning the Nativity of Tartar in Wine Here I profess I highly admire the sagacity of Helmonts wit in so exactly tracing this obscure Entity back to its first single constitutive Principles hunting through all those gradual mutations which he distinctly scented as well in the Conglaciation of Wines in cold Climats as their Fermentation in hot immediately upon their being brought home from the Press Nor can it be gainsaid by any that the Spirit of Wine in avoidance of its irreconcilable Antagonist Cold retreating to the Center of its liquor doth leave the Cortex or outward round open to the invasion of Acidity which being the first degree of Corruption for if we boyl any Flesh that hath been but newly seized on by Putrefaction the broth thereof will have a manifest sowreness and wanting an object whereon to sate its Appetite of Corrosion and Dissolution doth instantly dive to the bottom and there operate upon the dregs or residence of Terrenity subsiding upon a precedent Diacrisis or sequestration of Heterogeneities and so doth by a second ebullition cause them to reascend to the Convexities of the Liquor But whether the Acid Spirit being coagulated in the very act of Dissolution according to that Chymick Axiome Omnis Spiritus dissolvens eadem actione qua corpora dissolvit coagulatur be the immediate Cause of the Concretion or Coagmentation of the dissolved and fluctuating Faeces I confess I am yet unsatisfied The ground of my haesitancy in this particular is that upon a strict and laborious exploration of the Causes of Coagulation conductive to Lapidescence or Petrification in my Dissertation De Lithiasi of stones in the Microcosm I found that the onely Gorgon or Lapidifactory Principle to which all Concreted substances ow their Coagulation and upon the destruction of which they return to their primitive Incontinuity and
Enterocele or intestine rupture and likewise all Catarrhes or destilments that have a private affinity or analogy with the nature of iron The iron-attracting faculty if in a composition married to the mumy of a woman then the back of the Loadstone applied to her thigh on the inside and the belly of another imposed upon her loyns about the lowest spondil of the back will safely prevent an abortion threatned but on the contrary the belly of one Loadstone applied to her thigh and the back of another to her back will both wonderfully facilitate her travail and expedite her delivery All which various operations of the Loadstone our Anatomist is obliged to illustrate by reasons drawn ae priori from the fountain of their distinct and determinate efficiencies and expound to us the subtile manner of the progress of each cause in the production of each several effect otherwise I shall by a parile argument of ignorance conclude that these in like manner are also meer illusions of Satan and no effects of Nature I shall now infer some certain examples of another Magnetism cousin-german to the former that so with our judgment better informed we may at length come to the positive reason and clear refutation of all the objections of our adversaries What can I do more I my self will contrive reasons for you which you have not at all urged You may argue thus Every effect either immediately proceeds from God the sole Operator and so is a miracle or from Satan and so is prodigious or from natural and ordinary causes and so is meerly natural but Magnetism is neither a miracle nor a natural effect and therefore Satanical I answer Though I might with great facility declare this enumeration delivered to be invalid in regard the inward man hath a power of activity by none of the forementioned ways which in the pursuit of our debate we shall largely and to ample satisfaction treat of yet however we now with a dry foot pass by the assumption making it our chief task to deny and subvert the inference namely in that part whereby it is asserted that the effect is not natural For by the rules of orderly and artificial disputation that was first to be made good that we might not fall foul upon that elench Petitio principii a precarious concession of that Thesis which is yet questionable and undetermined but in this point our Censor hath yet been and ever will be defective to affirm the effect not to be natural unless he thought that a bare affirmation is equivalent to a confirmation and that to have substituted his single authority in the room of reason was evidence strong enough to silence doubt and procure credence For there are many effects natural which yet do not ordinarily happen namely such as are rarely incident Wherefore to gratifie our Anatomist I shall all along the tract of this exercise not onely maintain the affirmative part but also perspicuously commonstrate it by reasons and ratifie it by examples For so the mighty argument even now urged will fall by its own weight There is a Book imprinted at Franekera in the year 1611. by Uldericus Dominicus Balck of the Lamp of life In which you shall finde out of Paracelsus the true Magnetical cure of most diseases as of the Dropsie Gout Jaundies c. by including the warm blood of the Patient in the shell and white of an Egg which exposed to a gentle heat and mixt with a bait of flesh you shall give together with the blood to a hungry dog or swine and the disease shall instantly pass from you into the dog and utterly leave you no otherwise then the Leprosie of Naaman did by the exsecration of the Prophet transmigrate into Gehazi What do you account this also Diabolical thus to have restored our languishing neighbor by the Magnetism onely of the mumial blood however he is perfectly and undoubtedly recovered ¶ A woman weaning her childe to the end her brests may the sooner dry up strokes her milk into a fire of glowing coals and thereupon her paps suddenly grow flaccid and the fountain of her milk is stopped What doth the devil suck and drain them Hath any one with his excrements defiled the threshold of thy door and thou intendest to prohibit that nastiness for the future do but lay a red-hot iron upon the excrement and the immodest sloven shall in a very short space grow scabby on his buttocks the fire torrifying the excrement and by dorsal Magnetism driving the acrimony of the burning into his impudent anus Perchance you will object that this action is Satanical in regard the end of it is revenge and the laesion of the party which offended us but assuredly the abuse of such powers depends on the liberty of mans will and yet the use is no whit the less natural Make a small table of Bismuthum and on the one extreme place a piece of Amber on the other a piece of green Vitriol the Vitriol will in a moment lose both its colour and acidity Both which are familiarly observable in the preparation of Amber This one experiment of all others cannot but be free from all suspect of imposture and illusion of the Devil A certain inhabitant of Bruxels in a combat had his nose mowed off addressed himself to Tagliacozzus a famous Chirurgeon living at Bononia that he might procure a new one and when he feared the incision of his own arm he hired a Porter to admit it out of whose arm having first given the reward agreed upon at length he dig'd a new nose About thirteen moneths after his return to his own Countrey on a sudden the ingrafted nose grew cold putrified and within few days dropt off To those of his friends that were curious in the exploration of the cause of this unexpected misfortune it was discovered that the Porter expired neer about the same punctilio of time wherein the nose grew frigid and cadaverous There are at Bruxels yet surviving some of good repute that were eye-witnesses of these occurrences Is not this Magnetism of manifest affinity with mumy whereby the nose enjoying by title and right of inoculation a community of life sense and vegetation for so many moneths on a sudden mortified on the other side of the Alpes I pray what is there in this of Superstition what of attent and exalted Imagination The root of the Carline Thistle which is the White Chamaeleon of Dâ—…oscorides pluckt up when full of juice and vigor and contemporate with Humane Mumy does as it were by an operative ferment exhaust all the natural strength and courage of a man on whose shadow thou treadest and infuse it into thee But you may account this praestigious because Paradoxical as if the same identical Leprosie were not traduced from Naaman to Gehazi and the same numerical Jaundies transplanted from the patient to a dog For a disease is not under the Predicament
his will who can do all things by the single efficiency of a Fiat does sometimes make use also of natural means Thus let the sweat in the Sudary or Stove of Saint Paul be also a Magnetical Unguent but the sweat of the sick persons or the insensible effluvium exhaling from them be the blood of the wounded sprinkled upon a piece of wood and put into the box of Unguent immediately all harm and evil depending on the wound is from all parts of the body attracted magnetically And this effect is by so much the more powerfully wrought by how much more efficacy the supernatural magnes is endowed withal For in both truly there is the same reason and the same manner of the causes operation the difference lies onely in this that in the material world the effect succeeds upon a requisite conjunction and co-efficiency of corporal means the blood and the Unguent but in the supernatural by a holy magnetism arising from the sacred reliques of the Friends of God which in this relation undoubtedly deserve our venerable esteem That these miracle-producing reliques might in the manner of their operations by a neerer similitude approach to the nature of the Magnetical Unguent God the soul of mercy moved with compassion towards our frail and calamitous estate hath in some of them called up a fountain of oyl perpetually pouring forth streams of Balsam To this end that every where relieved and supported by magnetical remedies we might for certain be assured that the Magnetical cure of wounds is received from God and both in the supernatural and natural world doth proceed in an equal order of causes in an equal pace and manner of operations and by the conduct of the same Director and Guide Hence is it that fresh and new reliques work more and more noble miracles when they are carried about or applied to the Patient by the touch because it is of unexcusable necessity that the magnes be first rub'd touch't and stir'd if we will have it to attract I return to thee O Usnea the noble issue of celestial seed for whoso hath enjoyed a convalescence from the Hydrophobia by the lock of wooll and other pious rites observed is not onely himself for ever after protected from a rabid dog but what is far more noble he can grant to any other person bitten by a mad dog a supersedeas to prorogue the time of the Venoms energy for many moneths until the Patient can with convenience take a journey to the shrine of St. Hubert the poyson in the mean time charmed into an inactivity and the fermentation of the humors suspended Nature hath also granted another magnetical magnale cozen german to the former The Zinzilla which is an excrement of the Diaphragma or Midriff degenerating into an inflammation and Apostem when once it hath like a Zone environed the chest of the Patient becomes fatally destructive but it is safely and with great celerity cured if the place be outwardly though but slenderly anointed with the blood of another who has once recovered from the same disease For he who hath once recovered from that disease hath not onely obtained a pure balsamical blood whereby for the future he is rendered secure and free from any recidivation of the same evil but also infallibly cures the same affection in his neighbor and by the cutany external contact of his own blood by the mysterious power of Magnetism transplants that balsam and conserving quality into the blood of another You may object if the Magnetism or grand magnetical arcanum lie onely in the Usnea then all other ingredients of the composition are fruitless vain and unnecessary Physicians soon salve this doubt by replying that some of the ingredients are efficients paramont and principal others of inferior virtue and subordinate some are conjoyned as impediments to obtund and refract the violence of contrary intense qualities others as spurs to excite the dormant and others to advance and promote the weaker and less active Magnetism to a higher and more noble entelechy And that these reasons support the necessity of a multiplicity of simples in the confection of the unguent On this consideration as it was a flat impertinency to argue that if the usnea chiefly comprehend the magnetism then is man to no purpose exenterated to furnish the Unguent with some other ingredients so also would it be a direct absurdity to plead that if the usnea on the single stock of its own endowment be not enriched with sufficient magnetism nor the fat nor the blood c. therefore will not that magnetism which we attribute to the unguent also be found in the whole composition since single ingredients cannot impart that virtue to a composition which they formerly did not contain in their primitive constitutions and simple natures I must ever now and then be compelled to act your part and contrive arguments and cavillations for you against my self But however it had been your duty formerly to have been instructed from vulgar and rustick experiments that in a compound medicine there doth frequently emerge and result a new third quality which was never before in the least measure couched in the single essences of the ingredients For example it would become you to have observed that neither Vitriol nor Galls are sejunctively black but married in the composition of Ink they immediately beget a perfect deep black You may again object if the Usnea hath acquired its magnetism from the mumial virtue of the bones and the seminal influence of celestial orbs then of consequence may the same be gathered not onely from sculls but from all other bones of the sceleton But this illation is also ridiculous for Nature her self confesseth a subjection and conformity to the condition of the soyl and for that reason Pepper new gathered transplanted into Italian ground degenerates into Ivy Hellebore set in the Tridentine fields quite looseth its purging faculty and Poppies with us are wholly devoid of any deleterious or deadly quality however our Countrey be ten times colder then Thebes it self Therefore the usnea varies in its efficacy according to the various soyl or matrix of bones wherein it is conceived and nourished For if lightniug melt money the purse remaining untouched and of ten companions sitting close together choose one out of the middle and strike him into ashes and this happen not casually or by chance but by the permission of that Providence which will not have so much as one leaf drop uncommanded from the tree and by whose onely power all virtues are founded and established it can seem no wonder also that one distinct magnetical seminality of usnea be from the celestial sphears distilled upon the scull and a second seminality of another peculiar classis upon the other bones of the Sceleton Onely the bone of the head is of excellent use against the Epilepsie but so are not any of the other bones Then to
bright to the prospect of our understanding since truly every single seminal ens contains its own heaven and by that relation holds a Syzygia or conjunctive interest of the other sidereal heavens But the motion of the universal heavens in regard it is the most known and most common does govern and according to the rule of it self direct the particular heavens suffer me to borrow that name since I want another more proper and convenient of single inferior Creatures This properly is the cause of every natural inclination and when the single creature by the perswasion and seduction of its own domestick heaven becomes exorbitant from the motion of the universal heaven as the most common rule immediately there succeed irregularity acrasie confusion and defects For a sheep without a guide looses himself in the devious paths of error And from this conspiracy and conjugation of the motion of the universal with that of every particular heaven is it that diseased men carry an Almanack in their bones presage foul weather and the future mutations of seasons but not those that are sound For if the Sea did flow and re-flow by the direction of the Celestial that is the pyromantical or fiery Moon onely and not of its own hydromantical or watry Moon and if the windes were stirred up by the command of the Celestial Mercury onely and not of their own Chaomantical star truly there could be no Provincial winds in any quarter of the earth but since there is but one single Mercury and one single Moon in the whole Arch of heaven the same wind would constantly blow alike through all the world and the Sea would in all places flow if not at the same time yet in the same rhythme or interval of tides which our modern Navigation disproves It is enough therefore that we have here by way of digression made it appear that in every single seminal entity there is comprehended a virtue celestial enormantical which doth yet excite it self and is regulated by the orderly motion of the celestial orbs distilling an impression upon it so long as it will not be accounted refractory and exorbitant And that the Firmament also doth not cause future accidents unless by a remote interest and that too but by first qualities onely as it were acting the part of a Cook but otherwise doth signifie and loudly proclaim the handy works of God But that every particular Creature doth in its seminal Entity possess a particular firmament by the mediation of which superior bodies symbolizâ—… and hold a reciprocal correspondence with inferior obliged thereto by the law of friendship and philanty or desire of self-conservation From all which we may now at least collect that there is a Magnetism and powers influential every where implantate in and proper to natural bodies which powers who so excludes from the scene of Sublunaries does seek to shelter himself in a rotten Sanctuary You will further urge that we are to come yet neerer to the main point nor is it yet placed above doubt that in Sublunaries there is a quality that holds a parity to the impression of Superlunaries and such a one truly which can transmit it self to an object removed at large distance which notwithstanding is presupposed in the Armary Unguent and so that Magnetism is indeed a virtue celestial but yet in no degree of emulation to be ascribed to Sublunaries much less to the counterfeit weapon-salvo But what else in the main is this I beseech you then to deny Magnetism without or besides Magnetism For if in an universal notion we call every influence of sublunaries reciprocally transmitted from each to other a Magnetism and if in defect of a more proper and distinctive Etymâ—…n or adaequate denominative we christon that occult coaptation and requisite connexion of Active and Passive whereby an absent Agent does operate upon an absent Patient by influence by an invisible emanation and entercourse of virtues whether it be done by attraction or impulsion a Magnetism Seriously whoever denies the influential power of Sublunaries mutually transmitted and entertained each by other to be performed by Magnetism and requires an instance to be given him to the contrary in sober truth he requires a flat absurdity a Magnetism forsooth without Magnetism and knows not well what he would deny or what demand Since in earnest I have held forth examples of the Fact in Sublunaries and brought upon the stage very many and very apposite instances as that of the insititious or engrafted Nose of the Saphire of Arsmarte Asarum and most other Herbs But you deny I sufficiently know because you know it not either that those effects mentioned in the list of examples do not at all succeed upon the coaptation and marriage of such and such causes or else you will affirm those effects to be caused by the sole power of the Devil And that it is not agreeable to the custom of Naturalists to argue from bare Authorities but that it becomes us Defendants to come up with those that strive against us to handy-blows namely to experience Do you make tryal therefore and call any of the recited examples to the touchstone of experiment that so you prove us guilty of falshood if you cannot then at least come over to our side and believe them For it is an action of insolent petulancy for any therefore to deny the contingence of that fact which is every where so trivial and frequent that it can hardly escape the observation of any because forsooth himself never found nor indeed ever endevoured to finde it good upon experiment and of a far more unpardonable insolence to ascribe that effect to the Devil which in most pieces of the Creation is purely consonant to Nature as shall hereafter be made good and that too for one single fault because in faith the secret manner of its production from the confederacy and co-efficiency of natural causes can by no means sink into the head of our Censor A Censor who presumes that by the subtilty of his own vast intellectuals and the study of Aristotles Physicks he hath exactly surveyed the great round of Nature fathomed the Moon and to a hair taken the just dimensions of all pieces of the Universe A Censor I say who though upon a severe scrutiny he can discover nothing of superstition and nothing of unconformity to any divine or humane laws in the Unguent doth yet onely because the manner of its application to the weapon seems paradoxical to him highly cry it down as unlawful condemn and detest it as impious and accuse it to contain some strange and horrid interest of the Devil But what in the manner of its application I beseech you do you stumble at Verily because the sword or splinter of the weapon distained with the blood is emplastered over with the mumial and Magnetical unguent because the blood once extravenated or effluxed out of its proper conservatory the
the Exotick Tincture from whence in excess of time comes a Binsical Death i. e. from the sole disease and exorbitancy of the minde the Magical virtue of the Dog being excited and exalted above the non-excited but somnolent Phansie of the Animal By the same mysterious traduction in all respects is the Phansie of the Tarantula impressed upon man by a slender thrust of his sting and the wounded suffering an immediate alienation of their reason fall into a violent fit of dancing and capering high levoltoes onely the poyson of the Tarantula differs from that of the mad dog in this particular that this operateth by a magical power excited and so by magick truly and without the favor of a metaphor so called but that acteth by a magical power non-excited and somnolent as the same difference is undeniably manifest in Monkshood Aconite c. deleterious plants which are speedy and inevitably destructive in very small quantity in regard no Animal endevours to secure or defend it self against the biting of a mad dog since the magical power of his excited phansie being diffused is binding and obligatury against which neither the teeth nor horns of any beast can make the least prevalent resistance which cannot be affirmed of the Venome of the Tarantula In the outward man therefore as also in all his fellow Animals the Magical power is latitant and as it were consopited nor is it capable of excitation onely in man though we confess with greater facility and to higher atchievements but even in many other Animals consorted with man at the Creation Again it sufficeth not that the Spirit of one individual maintain and observe this law of concord and monomachy or duello with the Spirit of another individual but moreover there dwells a certain universal or mundan spirit in the whole world i. e. in all things within Trismegistus Circle which we Christen the Magnum magnale which exsisteth the universal Pander of all sympathy and dyspathy the invisible Mercury or common Intelligencer and the Promotor of all natural actions and by whose mediation or convoy the Magnetism is as by the most convenient vehicle transported and wafted to an object at vast distance This is made good by an autoptical demonstration for if upon the miniking of a tuned Lute you place a slender straw hanging with a doubtful extremity i. e. equilibrated in the aër and at convenient distance in the same room strike the minikin of another Lute when there succeeds a consonance in the eighth note you shall see the straw to tremble but when the notes concord in an unison then the minikin of the untouched Lute impatient of delay will quaver caper for joy echo the same aër and by a nimble subsultation throw off the offensive straw What will you impute this effect to Satan and make him the Fidler Now you shall never observe the straw to rebound from the string though all the strings of the other Lute be unanimously strongly and neer at hand plaid upon for it is not the bare and simple tone that compels the untouched string to quaver for then every tone would cause the same effect but it is onely the universal spirit the Common Mercury inhabiting in the middle of the universe and being the faithful executor and adjutor of all natural actions transports promotes and causes the Sympathy But why tremble we at the name of Magick since the whole action is Magical nor hath any natural Agent a power of activity which is not emergent from the phansie of its peculiar form and that magically too But in regard this phansie in bodies devoid of voluntary election is onely of a determinate and limited identity therefore have some vulgar heads erroneously and dully imputed the effects of such restrained bodies not to the phansie of them but a Natural propriety out of an ignorance of Causes substituting the effect in the room of the Cause When indeed every Agent doth operate on its proper object by a praesensation or distinctive foreknowledg of it whereby it is directed not to discharge its activity rashly and at random but onely on its own peculiar object For the diffusion or emission of activity necessarily succeeds the sensation of the object and the effect results from an excitement of the phansie by transmitting of the ideal entity and conjoyning it with the radius or gleam of the passive entity And this in our dialect hath ever been the Magical action of natural bodies yet in most accommodate language and just propriety of denomination this Magical and phantastique activity belongs principally if not solely to Creatures ennobled with a power of election I shall muster up the Creatures and guide our disquisition through every Classis of them All formal proprieties flowing from the forms of the three universal principles Sal Sulphur and Mercury or the salt Unctuous fat and liquor whereof every body is composed and into which it is by corruption of the corporeal harmony again resolved and the Mercury or liquor is so often diverse and differently qualified as there are different species of compound bodies which same variety of impregnation we are to conceive also of the other two Sal and Sulphur All specifical proprieties I say are derivatory from the phansies of these forms which in regard they are very corporeal and deeply immersed in the bosome of Elements therefore are they called Formal and occult proprieties out of a gross ignorance of the forms which in another and introth more Philosophical acceptation are Magical effects produced by the phansie of the said forms but we confess less noble and more corporeal yet abundantly satisfactory to those ends which by the primitive destiny of their Creation they regard To this series belongs the subductive virtue of Cathartick or Purgative the somniferous faculty of Hypnotick or dormitive medicaments c. Besides these there are other nobler Proprieties taking their original from the phansie of the forms of the whole Compositum and these are diffused through and inherent in the whole Compositum by reason of the Form of it such are the Magnetism of the Loadstone the virtue of Tinctures and all specifical and appropriate Medicaments which are occasioned by reason either of the whole homogeneous neixture or the particular form of some integral part but not of any single or divided principle such as these are naturally inherent in the trunck leaves root and fruit of plants and not in any one of the three principles diacritically separated from the compage or conjuncture Thus also Antimony while it remains in its primitive form and native integrity is enriched with noble and excellent qualities which it could never aspire unto in its solitary and divided principles But these are also closely enshrowded in Corporeity and therefore the natural magick lies covertly ambuscadoed and obscure in them and hath been thought wholly attributary to Nature by an unjust and unadvised distinction of Nature from Magick opposing the
since then you would implicitely confess the effect not to be ascribed to Satan So the Unguent would not be magnetical from any innate and natural phansie peculiar to it self but from an external adventitious inspiration namely the phansie of the Compounder impressed upon it since there can be no neerer medium of the foresaid Magnetism then humane blood with humane blood truly the blood alone as the most proportionate and predisposed subject would suffice to the composition of the Unguent and all the other simples ingredient into the confection would be frustraneous and unnecessary especially the blood of a Bull and hony where the cure is to be performed by applying the salve to weapons not distained with the blood of the Patient which is manifestly false by experiment Finally the Magnetism of the Unguent would then be general in respect the Confectioner may by the wilde and universal range of his Phansie intend to make the impression uncertain undeterminate and extensive to the wounds not onely of man but of all beasts whatever What if the Compounders phansie were not fixed upon a dog must the Unguent therefore have no virtue to cure the wound of a dog Away with such idiotism such ridiculous dotage What hath Bole Armeniake what Line seed oyl what Hony and in fine what hath the blood of a Bull of peculiar disposition or determinate respect to the wound of a horse or man that upon them onely as upon the most proper medium and not upon any other things the Phansie of the Confectioner should be impressed and yet if these were secluded the Composition the Unguent would be barren and devoid of all power and vulnerary efficacy The Natural phansie therefore of the Unguent is the sole and grand cause of the Magnetism and the immediate and proper cause of the Cure but not the imagination of the Component Behold you have our understand true Christian Philosophy not the frantick sophisms or idle dreams of Ethnicks Be cautious I beseech you that you bring not me into censure who have been your self more forward and rash in censuring others I am yours and a Roman Catholick who have cordially and firmly determined in my self to mediate or write nothing that may be contrary to the Word of God or the fundamental Articles of the Church I well understand the constellation of my own genius and know my self born not to allow or foment contentious debates not to write Comments on or defensive Apologies for the pens of other men wherefore what I knew I desired with a freedom becoming a Philosopher to communicate to the world I shall annex onely this one clause Whoever attributeth to the Devil an effect arising from Natural Causes so created by God and so conferred upon the Creatures he doth alienate the honor due to the Creator and ignominiously others might say blasphemously apply it unto Satan which under your favor if you shall strictly call under the test of your Anatome you will finde to be express idolatry My earnest prayer to the fountain of all Clemency our God and Father of Mercies is now and ever shall be that he would be pleased to look with the eye of compassion and forgiveness upon those errors and lapses of our understanding which from our native not stubborn ignorance and humane fragility we have contracted Amen THere are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And anon speaking of the Humanity of Christ there are three which bear record in Earth the Blood the Spirit and the Water and these three are one To us therefore who have the like Humanity it is no wonder that we contain Blood and a Spirit of the like unity and that the action of the Blood is meerly Spiritual Yea for this reason in Genesis it is not called by the name of Blood but dignified with the appellation of a Red Spirit Withdraw therefore whoever thou art from thy incredulous pertinacy and ingenuously acknowledg another Spirit in the blood besides the Devil unless thou wilt dare to oppose thy mis-informed Faith to the Book of Truth The Translators Supplement NEmo hûc Geometriae expers ingrediatur was the Motto which the semi-christian Philosopher Plato caused to be engraven on the porch of his Academy implying not onely the exact measure of lines but also the Geometry of a mans self the dimensions and just extent of the passions and affections of the minde to be the previous qualification necessary to any that should hope to benefit by his Lectures And Nemo hûc Philosophiae expers ingrediatur shall be our inscription in the front of this Translation understanding by Philosophy the ample knowledg not onely of the Elemental and visible World but also of the Intellectual and Spiritual not onely of the more plain and obvious tracts wherein Nature progresseth to the production of ordinary effects but even those obscure and unfrequented paths she walks in when she advanceth to Abstrusities and more mysterious Magnalities together with that acquired Candor of judgment and habitual Equanimity which as well emancipateth the understanding from the pedantick tyranny of subscription to all that 's read if but disguised in the specious dress of probability and ushered in by Antique Authority as it inclineth the reason to a sober assent and modest conformity to such Assertions which carry the face of judicious Enquiries and serious majesty of Truth though they be presented at disadvantage under a cloud of Novelties or Paradoxes Nor can we fear that this our device or impress will be suspected of impertinency by any that shall do so much right to their own judgments as to conced that a Reader thus qualified must be the onely he that can survey understand censure and enrich his head with the subtler speculations and profound Dihoties of our more then ingenious Helmont while it is of confessed necessity that the gross ignorance of some must obscure and the prevarication of others pervert the prospect of these splendid though Heterodoxical Notions and Natural though spiritual or magical Causalities which his finer pen hath drawn in landskip upon this tablet The Magnetically-Natural cure of Wounds Now though the pensive Consideration of the incapacity some would have said Barbarity of the numerous multitude on one side and of the deplorable inflexibility of the leading part of learning more then a moity of Schollers being swallowed up in a deluge of Presumption and Prejudice on the other might in some measure excuse our despair of finding many heads of this soveraign temper wherein sufficiency in knowledg ought to have received the just allay of Candor and non-adherence to Antiquity yet may we not incur the odious premunire of singularity so far as not confidently to hope that our worthy Author will fall into the hands of some whose unbyassed intellectuals will smoothly run him over and gather so full satisfaction from many of his Experiments that Gratitude her self
second instance considerable 11. The Capital objection against Magnetism Vulnerary that the cuâ—…e â—…s wrought by the sole power of nature and not by any concurrent faculty of the remote Remedy answered 12. The first branch of the Solution 13. Upon every Solution of Continuity there is impressed an exotick Miasm or putrefactive acidity 14. This alien impression the sole remora to redintegration 15. The extinction of the same the onely means to assist Nature 16. All Acidity subject to the power of an Alchahal 17. The ground of Traumatical Potions 18. Vitriol referred to Alchahal Salts and Vulnerary 19. The Pedegree of Helmont'e Drif 20. Vitriol sanâ—…tive at distance 21. Am Astral quality genial to some sublunaries 22. Vitriol to be allowed the like Prerogative 23. The second branch of the Solution 24. The effect of Hoplochrisme not univocall but variable according to the superiour virtue of any third nature associated 25. A second Objection Quòd Agens Naturale ut agat debet esse applicatum approximare ad Patiens refuted 26. A Consideration of the infinite extent of Divisibility 27. Every Unctuous body emitteth consimilar effluviums 28. Sympathy longimanus 29. An example of the vast extent of Sympathy 30. A second 31. A third 32. The result of all in a Comparative speculation of the extensive power of Magneticall Remedies 33. The manner of the Armary Unguents operation upon a wound at indeterminate distance explained in briefe 34. Acidity the first degree of Corruption 35. Tartar made in Wine by the fixative power of a Saline Spirit resident in the Lees. 36. Vineger caused by an exhaustion not by a Congelation of the spirits of Wine 37. Helmonts Paradox that reason is not essentiall to the Humane Soule maintained by eight Arguments WEll did the Primitive Graecian give the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto Truth whose Consanguinity nay Consubstantiality of Essence with the Humane Soule which the Divine Philosophy of Moses hath defined to be the Breath of God doth exactly make out that Etymology For so uncessant a Magnetisme or congenerous Love doth the Soule hold unto Truth that she can know no reall or permanent satisfaction in the fruition of any other object but like the Aguish magnetified Needle reels to and fro in a Phrensie of inquietude distracted twixt various Apparitions untill shee lye parallel unto the Center or Vnity thereof and having once fixed in that happy position she is by an eternal union identified or assimilated unto that twin of her self and in that mysterious penetration of homogeneal Forms meets her Beatitude which can never know any Defect of Satiety Alterity of Desires or Remission of Intensity Now though the opacity of Original Sin hath so benighted the primitive Clarity of the Intellect that it deplorably wanders in the infinite seductions of Error and cannot recover that direct path which leads to the Heaven of Verity without the manuduction of Divine Light in this Wilderness of Sorrow and though the Opticks of Flesh and Blood are too dim to endure to gaze upon the naked and entire Glories of Truth yet hath the exceeding Mercy of the Fountain of Light furnished us with three faithful Guides whose Conduct if we precisely follow we may be reduced to that advantage of Knowledg as will afford us a Pisgah Sight or crepusculous prospect of her reflexive Beauties now and an assurance of being blessedly engulphed in the Abyss of her Pleasures in the future Those three Lines perpetually deradiating from the Center of Truth the eternal Principle of all Essences and Soul of all Causalities are Religion Reason and Sense all terminated in our Nature The first leadeth us by the invisible Clue of Faith on towards the implicit and certain Apprehension of objects above the reach of the other two The second bringeth us about through the Circumambages and complex Labyrinth of Discourse and from the remote dependencies of Effects upon their particular Causes ushereth us along by a subalternate Series or Gradation unto the Science of their ultimate Approximation and Individuality The last by a shorter Cut or blunter method of Preception directeth to the immediate and actual Knowledg of the Existence and exterior or manifest Qualities of Entities but leaveth the second to a laborious exploration of their abstruser Forms or essential Quiddities the repeated Acts of which apprehensive Power informed by sensation make up that body of Knowledg called Experience All which Pilots mutually conspire to steer our Mindes perpendicularly toward our satisfaction of the main end of our Creation the reverential and fiduciary Contemplation of the Mercy Wisdom and Bounty of the Supream Essence But so deeply immersed in Sensuality are all the wretched Sons of Adam that few can ascend so many degrees toward the height of their primitive Capacity as with equal and constant paces to pursue the guidance of these genial Impressions For if some may usurp the license of Concession that the habit of Cognition by Faith doth smoothly result from the Idea's of religious Notions either insensibly instilled into our infancy and naturallized by custom or enthusiastically acquired that is by the infusion of Light Supernatural without much labor and difficulty precedent yet none that ever felt the weight of Ignorance and endevoured to struggle from the oppression of it through the Anxieties of study will adventure on an assertion of such temerity as that the satisfactory and certain Comprehension of most Natural Objects is easie and familiar to our Reason Since the subtilest speculation will evict that every the smallest piece of the Hexameron Fabrick carrieth in the narrow round of its single Ens Abstrusity sufficient to empuzle the scrutiny of the most daring and Eagle-eyed Philosophy And if Truth be the most desiderable Good and yet the most difficult to obtain as on the one side I have reason to applaud my vow of unravelling my short thread of life in the constant and eager search of this inestimable treasure so have I also opportunity to hope from all heads of Candor and Discretion to receive a Charitable Consideration and Forgiveness of my frail mistakes and deviations on the other especially in my attempts of exploring the Causes and manner of some operations of Nature whose occult Efficiencies seem rather proposed to exercise and perplex then satisfie our desires of Comprehension Among which knotty pieces every intelligent man will readily account the Theory of Magnetism or more plainly the secret power of Natural Actives working on analogous and determnate Passives by invisible Emanations or an Influential Energy transmissive to remote distance and more particularly the Argument of Helmont in this discourse Concerning which subject I shall in some part recede from my first intentions of Neutrality to conform to the incitements and pacifie the importunity of some Friends in the concise and extemporary delivery of my own Conceptions though I stand fully convinced as well of the vast disparity 'twixt the nerves
fortified with firm and convincible reasons Wherefore I who have undertaken in opposition to our Divine to make good that the Magnetick Cure of wounds is the single and ordinary effect of Nature in the first place think Goclenius worthy to be excused if without success he hath sweat in the indagation of the grand and approximate Cause of this rare effect What wonder when our Divine makes publick confession that himself is utterly ignorant of that cause and onely for that reason refers it to Satan as to the Author and master-wheel in this abstruse motion For such is the infirmity of our delapsed nature that we are destitute of the knowledg of the most and most excellent things And therefore to palliate this defect of our understanding we though not without some tacite reluctancy within obliquely wrest many effects whose efficients are beyond the ken of our blear-eyed reason to the sanctuary of ignorance and refer them to the Catalogue of Occult Qualities For who among Divines ever had a plenary and demonstrative knowledg of the true and proper cause of Risibility or any other Formal propriety For example of the heat of fire Dost not thou fall upon that Fallacy Petitio Principii an absurd begging of the question if thou answer that extreme heat belongs to fire because it is of the essence of fire In truth the Essences of Forms in regard they are unknown to us à priori from their Causalities therefore also is the original or pedigree of Formal proprieties wholly abstruse jejune and undiscovered and where we perceive any Formal passion subjoyned the minde as if tired with vain scrutiny soon ceaseth from the disquisition of it and reposeth it self sitting down contented with the empty notion and bare name of Occult proprieties Go to I beseech thee does the Anatomist our Censor happily know the reason why a Dog swings his tayl when he rejoyces but a Lyon when he is angry and a Cat when pleased advances hers in an erect posture What therefore when himself cannot give a reason for the motion of a tayl will he so much wonder that Goclenius hath given an improper and insolid reason of Magnetism and from the refutation of that presume that he hath more then sufficiently demonstrated that sanation of wounds to be Satanical which is the genuine effect of Magnetism Far from us be so great temerity of censure Come on then why dost thou call that cure Dibolical Insooth thou oughtest to have annexed the reason of thy censure unless thou expectest it should be denied by others with the same facility wherewith thou affirmest it to be diabolical Lawyers require onely the affirmative confirmed but Philosophers both parts that the ignorance or protervity of the Nogant party may not appear greater then that of the Affirmant Dost thou happily maintain the Cure to be Diabolical because it cannot be clearly understood by thee that there is any natural reason for it I will not beleeve that from thy own infirmity thou mayst deliver so idle and stupid a sentence of the vertue of it For thou well knowest that the imbecillity of our understanding in not comprehending the more abstruse and retired causes of things is not to be ascribed to any defect in their nature but in our own hoodwinkt intellectualâ—… Proceed therefore whence hast thou assurance that God in his primitive intention hath not directed this vertue Magnetical to the benefit of the wounded Shew us your Commission hath God elected you the Secretary of his Councel Certainly however you may waver in your belief you shall in conclusion finde that amongst you Divines the Magnetick cure can be accounted Diabolical for no other reason then that the shallowness of your judgment cannot comprehend nor your Function admit it to be natural What wonder that no Divine hath ever scented these subtilities for after the Priest and the Levite had both passed on to Jericho there succeeded a Samaritan a Lay man who deprived the Priests of all right of disquisition into the secret causes of things Whereupon Nature from thenceforth summoned not Divines to be the Interpreters of her nicer operations but adopted Physicians onely to be her darlings and none but such who instructed by Pyrotechny examine the proprieties of things by sequestring the impediments or clogs of vertues ambuscadoed in their grosser materials such are their crudity venenosities and impurities that is those bryars and thorns every where from the first Malediction inoculated into the creatures in their spring or virgin estate For since Dame Nature the Proto-Chymist her self doth every day sublime calcine ferment dissolve coagulate fix c. Certainly we also the onely faithful interpreters of Natures Oracles do by the same helps and advantages draw forth the Essential qualities of things from the dark prison of their materials and bring them to the Meridian light of reason But the Divine that he may be able to discern what is prestigious from what is natural it is requisite that he first borrow the definition from us lest the Cobler shamefully adventure beyond his Last Let the Divine enquire onely concerning God but the Naturalist concerning Nature Assuredly the goodness of the Creator was largely diffused on all the works of his hands who created all things for the use and benefit of ingrateful man neither admitted any of our Divines as an Assessor in his Councel how many and how excellent vertues he should endow his Creatures withal In the interim I am wholly unsatisfied how he can be excused from the sin of Pride who because he comprehends not the natural cause as measuring all the immense works of God by the narrow extent of his own head does therefore audaciously deny that God hath bestowed any such vertue on the Creature as if man a vile worm had fathom'd the power of God and were privy to the designes of his Councel He estimates the mindes of all men by his own who thinks that cannot be done which he cannot understand To me seriously it appears a wonder in no respect that God hath besides a body perfectly resembling the Loadstone bestowed upon his Creatures a noble vertue also which our reason can explicate by no other term then that of Magnetism Ought it not to suffice to the indubitate concession of Magnetism that onely one single example I shall hereafter bring in others numerous and apposite be introduced of the natural efficiency of that stone according to the model or pattern whereof even other endowments variously distributed amongst the creatures may be clearly understood What because the thing is new paradoxical and above the reach of your understanding must it therefore be Satanical also Far be it from us to conceive so unworthily of the Divine Majesty of the Creator nor indeed ought we thus to court or gratifie the Devil by transferring this honor upon him for what can ever affect him with a more full delight then that the glory of good works be
ascribed to him as if he had been the grand Author of them That material nature does uncessantly by its secret Magnetism suck down forms from the brests of the superior Orbs and greedily thirst after the favor and benign influence of the celestial Luminaries you willingly concede and moreover that the stars in exchange attract some tribute from inferior bodies so that there is a free commerce and reciprocal return from each to other and one harmonious concord and conspiracy of all parts with the whole universe And thus Magnetism in regard it is vigorous and pregnant in every thing hath nothing new in it but the name nor is it paradoxical but to those who deride all things and refer to the dominion of Satan whatsoever falls not within the narrow circle of their own understanding In good truth this kinde of wisdom is never to be found by him that seeks it with derision But I beseech you what of Superstition hath the Armary Unguent whether because it is compounded of the moss blood mumy and fat of man Alas the Physician uses these inoffensively and to this purpose the Apothecary is licensed to sell them Or perchance because the manner of using and applying the Medicine is new to you unaccustomed to the vulgar but admirable to both must the effect therefore be Satanical Sub due your passion and calm your rage ere long you shall be more fully satisfied For the manner of its application contains in it nothing of evil First the intention is good and pious and directed onely to a good and charitable end namely the healing of our sick languishing neighbor without pain without danger and without the consumption of his purse And do you call this diabolical In fine the remedies themselves are all meer natural means to which we shall in the progress of our dispute by convincing arguments demonstrate that this generous faculty was peculiarly given by God himself Our wishes are that your self had by so firm evidence ratified your negative position viz. that God the supreme Good did not in the Creation confer upon the ingredients of the Unguent any such natural vertue and mumial Magnetism This Magnetical remedy can on no side be laid open to the encroachment of suspect since both in the confection and use it hath no superstitious rites performed it requires no mysterious words no characters or impresses no prestigious ceremoâ—…ies or vain observances conjoyned It presupposes no planetary hours or punctilioes of constellations it prophanes not sacred things and what is more it forestals not the imagination requires not a confidence or implicit faith nay not so much as bare leave or consent from the wounded party all which are ever annexed to superstitious cures For we account that properly to be Superstition when men relie upon the single power of an implicit faith or imagination or both concurring above any particular vertue which of it self is not sufficient or by the primitive intention of the Creator not destined to the production of that particular effect By which it is clearly manifest that our Magnetick cure hath none the smallest tincture of Superstition Do thou therefore O Divine great with a sarcasm with design at least to detect and deride the Devil make an experiment of the Unguent that so thou mayest destroy and totally abolish that implicit compact with him nevertheless thou shalt volent or nolent without either direction from or obedience to thy will finde the same effect result from thy application of it that usually does upon ours which does not at all succeed upon the conjunction of superstitious causes Whoever reputes the Magnetical Sanation of Wounds to be Diabolical not because it is performed by unlawful means or directed to an unwarrantable end but because in the manner of its operation it progresses in a path which his reason cannot trace He also convicted by the same argument shall either give the quidditative and peculiarly express causes of all those admirable effects of the Loadstone which in the sequel of my discourse I am to mention or confess that those rare operations of the Loadstone are the impostures and the legerdemain of Satan or shall compulsively concede with us which indeed will be the safer way that in nature there is a Magnetism that is a certain hidden property by this appellation in reference to the conspicuous and confest prerogative of that stone distinguisht from all other abstruse and to common heads unknown qualities A Loadstone placed upon a thin small Trencher of wood floating on water does instantly in one determinate point australize and in the other septentrionate That extreme which by its verticity regards the Southern Pole when by touch it hath impregnated a piece of steel or iron will immediately steer it to the North and the other extreme which looks upon the Northern Pole having invigorated a needle of steel will incline it to the South By its Septentrional point which is its belly it attracts iron or steel to it and by its Australe end which is its back it thrusts iron or steel from it The Aquilonary side by friction of the point of a Compass needle positionally from the right hand to the left endows it with a vertical or polary faculty whereby it is directed to the South But if the friction be ordered in a quite contrary position from the left hand to the right the direction of the point of the needle will also be contrary and neer to the North. Thus also the Australe side of the Loadstone according to the variety of locality or position in friction varies the polarity Nay what carrieth a neerer face of miracle if a Loadstone by its affriction hath invigorated and excited a piece of iron with a magnetical activity that is a power to attract another piece of iron the same new made Magnetical iron if inverted upside down and in that Antipodean position a second time rub'd upon the Loadstone will in the same moment be devested of its magnetical infusion and clean forget it s lately acquired power of attraction All which various and admirable effects of the Loadstone thou mayest if thy judgment relish them finde made good by multiplied observations by William Guilbert not many yeers past a Physician in London in his Book De Magnete Of which subject no man ever writ more judiciously or experimentally and by whose industry the variation of the Compass may be restored The needle which now points directly upon the North coming under the Equinoctial Line staggers to and fro hovers from Pole to Pole and in a trembling unconstancy fixes on neither But once brought over the Meridian nimbly wheels about and fixedly applies it self to the South I shall annex this Medical vertue of it the back of the Loadstone as it repulseth iron so also it retrudeth the gut by reason of too wide an expansion of the process of the Peritonaeum prolapsed into the Scrotum cureth the
and wasted it self by a profuse operation on the dregs That is the Active being swallowed up in the embraces of the Passive the Acide spirit imbibed and subdued to obedience by the freshly dissolved Faeces then and not till then contrives and sets about the act of Coagulation not with design or power to make a real true stone but a counterfeit such as afterwards may be again dissolved in hot water as an Acide salt in liquor which for that reason the vulgar call Cremor Tartari All which do very ill correspond with those preter-natural Coagulations in the bodies of men and yet they are in a drunken fiction of Paracelsus by an imaginary analogy of essence and identity with Tartar in all meat and drink grosly obtruded on the faith of vulgar Physicians wholly over-run by that epidemick lazy evil subscription Here also we are fallen on a third Magnale or Violentum That Tartar is not an excrement of Wine unless on one part which is the dregs dissolved which truly Paracelsus was not ignorant of who does very frequently extol the Medicinal faculties of Tartar far above those of Wine it self as inheriting many more and nobler endowments Wherefore he very absurdly refers Tartar of Wine by an identity of essence and formation to the same Classis of Entities with those solid Concretions in diseased bodies which yet in many other places himself concludes to be a meer excrement yea the sorrowful fruit of that curse of the Earth pronounced by God in Paradise Bryers and thorns shalt thou bring forth and calls Ens Cacedonium in puro saphyrico ente rerum The Tartar of Wine therefore and that which is erected in the Schools for the material cause and foundation of most Chronick diseases if any such were in reality of Entity can keep no concord in their Original Forms even according to the doctrine of Paracelsus himself if we accept the former as a preternatural production directed by the destiny of its being to the generating diseases as to its proper end And thus also hath he most impertinently and at best but by the favor of a Metaphor reduced the causes of diseases to Tartar Since they no way agree either in their matter efficient manner or cause of Coagulation in the term of the Coagulatum Object or Originals For neither gravel nor the stone is capable of dissolution in boiling water as the Tartar of Wine is This usurpation therefore of name and propriety is wholly metaphorical rash and frivolous and an assertion tacitely injurious to divine wisdom and providence by polluting the purity of all sublunary creatures with the bold imputation of a Curse as if in the totality of their natures they were nothing but Compositions amassed out of the seeds of Tartar And to so high a pitch of impudence hath this error flown that men dare imagine Tartar in the very marrow of Animals which yet they allow incoagulable nor did ever Paracelsus finde any where but in his own wilde imagination And so the result of all is that he falls upon a manifest contradiction making Tartar to be no Tartar that is uncapable of Coagulation so that not onely every coagulable and solid body but also every liquid substance that is every created nature subject to the influence of the lower orbs would be nothing but Tartar by divine Vengeance destined to the punishment of the first sin No sooner hath the Must suffered Fermentation parted with its former sweetness and assumed the perfection and dignities of Wine but the whole Mass of Terrenity the Lees falls to the bottom of the vessel and then begins the new made Acidity of the Wine in the circumference to execute its power dissolutive on the earthly residence in the bottome For the more essential portion of the Wine the spiritual Nectar by a gentle and gradual concentration crowding into the middle forsakes the protection of the superficial round of the Liquor This done and the extremity of the Wine thus destitute of Vitality and radical heat soon grows acide and not meeting with any fit object neer it whereon to discharge its activity but onely the dregs in the lowest region of the Wine immediately assaults them and by degrees dissolves them And thus the Acidity is both confirmed and inlarged But since every Acidum by reason of its corroding Energy doth operate in a perpetual Ebullition hence is it that that Acidity which had dived to the bottom when it hath operated on the Lees doth reascend from thence and fix it self in a higher mansion the circumstance of the vessel And for this cause is the generation of Tartar done by successive gradual and slow motions For the same reason also cannot Tartar be concreted and affixed to the bottom hindered by that inquietude and tumultuation of perpetual Ebullition Hence is it that rich and generous Wines being not easily subject to this destitution of spirits unless on an assault of intense cold do not soon grow acide nor yeeld any considerable quantity of Tartar But old Rhenish Wines easily pall grow sick and loose their grateful and vigorous taste in regard their activity of eagerness is for the most part devoured by their Lees and yet they continue wholsom and friendly to the stomach in that their spirits are not exhausted to an equal proportion of their dregs and acidity But red French Wines unless nourisht by their Lees which for this effect Vintners call the Mother or Nurse of Claret dissolve their own Tincture continually preying on it by their subtilty and eagerness And this is the cause why Claret Wines if not very rich and excellently vigorous at the age of two yeers grow pale and discoloured For the Tincture of Wines is a substance familiarly subject to separation But strong generous and spiritual red Wines in that they more slowly grow acide hold good to the age of many yeers On the contrary small White Wines if not sequestred from their Lees in short time grow flat and cadaverous For their Lees drawn off their Acidity wanting a proportionate matter to imploy its corrosive faculty upon the Wine continues good sprightful firm and in its primitive integrity From these experiments we naturally collect That Tartar in the acception of its entire nature is no longer either Wine or the dregs of Wine but a Neutral or third Nature resulting from the conjunction and coëfficiency of both That this is thus is demonstrable from the Mechanick experiment that a greater quantity of Tartar may be dissolved in ten ounces of Rain water then in two hundred of Wine though never so much stirred in boyling The reason belongs to the Acidity of Wine to which the Tartar ows its Coagulation To conclude six ounces of the salt of Tartar will dissolve seven ounces of crude Tartar because the Lixivium or Lee of that Salt imbibes and sucks up the Acidity of Tartar That Tartar consists of the Lees of Wine and not Wine
onely we need no other eviction but that experiment of Printers who indifferently use Tartar or the Lees of Wine for the Master ingredient in their Composition of Ink the same effect arising from either on good reason preventing the election of either and confessing a plain consanguinity if not an identity of the Causes Again in distillation they both belch up one and the same Acide Odor and yeeld one and the same Oyl Onely Tartar is not dissolved in cold water because the â—…aeulent and earthy substance of the dregs does so closly environ and shroud the Salt that the cold water is not of force sufficient to transfix that counterscarfe or penetrate the atomical parts of the Concretion and by consequence not to dissolve it Now since Tartar hath its originary principles and nativity no where but in Wines grown lightly Acide by a desertion of spirits flying from circumstant cold to the Centrals of the Liquor Hence let the so much illuminated that is infatuated Disciples of Paracelsus be instructed how ill the speculation of Tartar does quadrate even with those diseases for whose sake chiefly it was first invented and embraced For plain it is the stone concreted in the body of man can never be dissolved in boyling water as Tartar commonly is For which consideration Tartar is more justly to be listed in the number of Salts or Juices coagulated by Salt then of Stones è diametro contrary to the doctrine of Paracelsus The Image of GOD OR Helmont's Vision of the Soul Englished The Summary 1. THe fear of God the beginning and Charity the end of Wisdom 2. Man made in the Image of God 3. Three sorts of Atheists 4. A wish of the Author 5. The intellection of the minde intellectual 6. The intimate integrity of the minde suffereth from caduce faculties without the passion of extinction 7. The action of the minde scarce perceptible in us 8. Atheists of the first Classis deride the image of God in man 9. Atheists of the second Classis have lately sprung up 10. The Atheistical ignorance of such is manifested 11. A variety of vital Lights 12. How the minde differs from Angels 13. An intellectual vision of the Authors 14. All optation vain without God 15. The misery of the Author 16. A vision of the soul separate from the body 17. That the minde hath a figure 18. The minde an immortal substance representing the figure of God 19. A vulgar error concerning the Image of God 20. The error of such who conceive the Image of God to be seated in the ternary of faculties 21. The doctrine of Taulerus opposed 22. The Image of God never yet discovered nor positively described because incomprehensible 23. The minde subject to damnation onely by accident 24. After death is no more Memory or Reminiscence 25. The will was superadded to the minde accidentally after its Creation 26. In Heaven the Will is useless and frustraneous 27. In Heaven the Will appears no power or Faculty but a substantial and intellectual essence 28. If the Minde be the Image of God this was anciently known to Plato 29. The definition of the Minde 30. Reason not the Image of God 31. The Authors opinion 32. These two Quiddities lie obscured in the soul by reason of the corruption of our nature 33. The love of the soul is excited onely by an Ecstasie nor otherwise in these calamities of Nature 34. A precision of the Intellect 35. An Objection solved 36. That triplicity or ternary of diverse Faculties in the Minde is expressed also in every systeme or composition of the world 37. A more noble and exact similitude then that of a Trinity of Faculties requisite to make out the Image of God in man 38. The description of the Minde rehearsed 39. How the Minde may survey it self 40. The original of the Imagination constitutive 41. The Minde understandeth far otherwise 42. The prerogative of the Minde 43. An explication of living love 44. The discrepancies of intellections in Mortals 45. Why that amorous desire or divine Love cannot cease in Heaven 46. The description of that desire 47. How sin may be harbored in the desire of the Minde 48. The love of the Minde is a substance even in men that have not yet confessed their dust 49. How great a cloud of darkness is drawn over the primitive splendor of the Intellect from the corruption of Nature by the original sin 50. The Image of God defaced and demolished in the sons of perdition WIsdom begins at the Fear of God and the Fear of God begins at the meditation of death and eternal life But the end of Wisdom many conceive with the Stoicks to be the knowledg of a mans self but I account the ultimate end of wisdom and the Crown of the whole course of our life Charity which alone will faithfully accompany us when all other things shall have deserted us And although self-cognition in our opinion be onely a medium to the fear of God yet from that must our Tractate concerning long life assume its beginning in this relation that the cognition of life presupposeth the cognition of the Soul since the life and soul which we have more then once intimated are Synonymaes T is of Faith that man was created of nothing after the Image of God into a living Creature and that his minde shall never perish while in the mean time the Souls of Bruits suffer annihilation so soon as they cease to live The weighty reasons of which difference I have declared in my discourse of the Original of Forms But hitherto is it not manifested beyond dispute wherein that similitude of Man with God our Archtype or prime exemplar doth consist For in the Soul alone many determine this majestick Pourtraicture I shall deliver what I conceive yet under an humble protestation and subjection to the censure of the Church Thus it is The Original of Forms being in some degree of comprehension already known it is just we make a grand enquiry concerning the Minde of Man But seriously no cognition is more weighty then that whereby the soul comprehends her self Yea and hardly is any more profitable in this interest that Faith doth establish her foundation upon the unperishable and indelible substance of the Soul I have found indeed many demonstrations concerning this verity divulged in Books but none at all propter quid touching the Cardinal Quiddity in relation to Atheists denying one single and from all Eternity constant Deity Plato insooth hath decreed three orders of Atheists 1. A first which beleeveth no gods at all 2. A second which indeed doth admit of gods but such as are incurious of our condition here below and idle contemners of the trifling affairs of Mortals 3. A third which although it beleeve that there are gods and such as are both knowing and observant of the smallest occurences in the World yet imagineth them so exceeding merciful that they are flexile by the
proprieties that is the Soul is diffused or emissively expansed into several transitory Faculties To speak more plainly in the body when the Intellect is abstracted in speculation it makes use of corporeal Organs to which it is obliged and assumes a certain Virtue qualitative called Imagination which from the conjunction or society of the power phantastical and concurrent splendor of the intellect suffering some degradation in the Organs springeth up by a certain combination into the forementioned qualitative Faculty And hence comes it to pass that this Faculty groweth weary by long and intense Imagination seemeth wholly vanquished by difficult knotty and abstruse meditation and frequently submits to dementation or madness nay as the observation of Physicians telleth us with one nights pensive study and anxiety of thought the hair of young heads hath put on the silver Livery of old age But the minde once emancipated from the pedantism of flesh and blood is never weary with continued intellection Moreover the Imagination in this life is not onely subject to lassation but from the magazine of it self hath not any intellective species which it hath not drawn in from sensible objects And therefore the Intellective Faculty which concurreth and cooperateth with the phantastical function of the Sensitive Soul followeth the constitution or temperamental disposition of the Organ and arbitrary dictates of the Sensitive Life no otherwise then in Naturals the effect followeth the weaker part of their Causes But the Soul whatsoever is requisite for Cognition Commemoration or Volition either for one single act or many hath wholly from it self and borroweth it from no other forein Causality concurrent For the good substantial Will of a Soul advanced to beatitude ariseth not from the object understood but from the radical goodness of her own Formal love which is indeed no proper passion of the soul no habit no propension nor any quality but a substantial act of goodness by which the blessed Soul is substantially univocally and homogeneally not qualitatively good And this prerogative it enjoyeth because it is the Typical Image of Divinity But bodies of their own accord perpetually fall into the attributes of forms heterogeneity vicissitudes and at length into dissolution Therefore Love or Desire of the Minde is no function of the Appetitive faculty but is a part of the substantial Minde or rather the very Minde it self flowing from the Intellect and Will Which three are by the hand of the Creator married indissolubly into an eternal unity in the purest and most absolute identity and simplicity of substance Yet in Mortals they are separate and distinct as well in respect of the necessity of Organs and disparity of functions as the collateral society and conjunctive operation of the Sensitive Soul Since now we frequently desire those things which the Intellect judgeth not desiderable and the Will would wish never to enjoy But necessary it is that such things whose operations are different should be also different in the root of their Beings by a manner of distinction whereby each single nature is separated from others in the Minde truly by a Suppositionality relative in the Sensitive Soul according to the corporeal and qualitative nature And therefore that amorous desire of the Minde is the radical essence of the Soul consubstantial and coaevous to it So though in Heaven be a satiety and perpetual fruition of all desiderable good yet doth not this desire of the Soul therefore cease which is a constant study of Complacency nor doth it more infer a passion into the Minde then Charity it self since Love and Charity are in the Soul radically one and the same thing Otherwise should this desire cease and the ardor of Love suffer extinction either a satiety or insensility of fruition would instantly spring up which cannot consist with a state of full beatitude and would infer discord upon the calm and constant harmony of a Soul once admitted into the Chorus of Saints triumphant And thus this Desire is the incendiary that doth both kindle and maintain the flames of interminable delectation and joyes insatiate and inextinguishible in which consideration the Soul wears the resemblance of the Holy Ghost the Comforter Now manifest it is that in the Minde the Intellect Will and Love are substantially counited but in the sensitive Soul their operations are distinguished according to the determinate alterity of Faculties and their Organs when we understanding many objects we do not desire and desire many we hardly understand and such indeed as our will if let to the swinge of its own native propensity would decline the enjoyment of as in example we will what we desire not when we willingly submit to the stroke of the Executioner and desire what our will abhors when we call for the dismembring sawe of the Chirurgeon and gladly embrace the horror of amputation Whence it comes to pass that sometimes the Will giveth laws to the desire and on the contrary frequently the desire usurpeth the scepter and commands the Will So that these two Lords mutually vanquish and succeed each the other by vicissitudes Which Civil War must so long continue in these our walls of flesh as the sensitive Soul draweth and engageth the Intellect and the body draweth and engageth the sensitive Soul into a multiplex and various ataxy or irregularity of division And from this intestine Duello arise those absurd desires of objects impossible to be obtained and wishes of things in the present tense which the unalterable Grammar of Time hath made in the preterperfect and excepted from ever being declined in the future But this Desire enshrined in the substance of the Soul must be of the essence of the Minde Otherwise he could not commit a sin who looked upon a woman to lust after her before the plenary consent of the Will Our desires therefore are elemented and coyned in the mint of mortal and caduce faculties which seated in the Sensitive Soul rival the operations of the immortal and rational whose objects are many times rejected by the Will as inconvenient and ungrateful As to the manner also the desire in this life operateth one way and the Will another and in the narrow circle of a day sometimes the desire precedeth the Will and anon again the Will getteth the start of the Desire and one subdueth the other successively that the victor may restrain and coerce something distinct from it self and this wholly in the transitory faculties because each ariseth from the concupiscence of the Sensitive Soul But in the glorious denizens of Paradise this excellent Love or amorous Desire feeleth a resurrection and brighter ascension as being the luminous substance of the Soul for there is nothing desired which is not also the full object of the Will and that is collected into an unity as well in regard of the act as of the substance although Volition and Optation seem two diverse branches expansed from one root which far