Agent the efficient or Archeus or chief Workman Therefore it is false that by how much the more a thing hath of the form by so much the more it hath of the act of the Entity or Beingness of vertue and operation Because the form is not gotten or possessed by parts or degrees neither therefore are Beings more or lesse capable to receive from the form yea although they were more capable to receive yet the activeness of the Agent is not of the form it self but of the Master-workman or Archeus of whom by and by Therefore the form cannot be divided For whatsoever Aristotle hath attributed to the form or to the last perfection in the Scene or Stage of things that properly directively and executively belongeth to that Agent or seminal chief Workman In the next place seeing that the efficient cause of Aristotle is external as he saith the Smith to be in his view of the Iron I easily knew that he hath set to sale his fictions for true foundations and all his speculation about artificial and external things of Nature to wander The whole efficient cause in Nature is after another manner it is inward and essential And although the Father generating be effective yet in order to causing or doing he is not but the cause efficient of the Seed wholly outward in respect to the Being which of the Seed is framed by generation For in the Seed which fulfills and contains the whole quiddity or thing liness of the immediate efficient that is not the Father himself but the Archeus or chief Workman For that the Father in respect of the thing generated hath the Reason of nought but an external cause and occasionally producing for by accident alone the effect of generation doth follow although the Agent applies himself to generation with his whole intent Therefore the constitutive constituter efficiently causing inwardly perfectively and by it self is the chief seminal Workman it self really distinct from the Father in Being and properties Even as in Vegetables Herbs indeed are the productresses of Seeds but they are but the occasional and remote causes of Herbs arising from that Seed and therefore although they are natural causes yet not sufficient and necessary ones for neither of every Seed will therefore rise up a Plant. Therefore the seminal Being is in the Seed the immediate efficient cause efficiently the internal as also essential of the Herbe proceeding from thence But the Plant that goeth before that Seed is the remote cause the natural occasion indeed of the Seed which by it self and immediately frameth the Plant and effects it with the assistance of that which stirs it up For otherwise if the Herbe causing should be the efficient of the Herbe produced the working or begetting cause could not be burnt up but the Plant produced should also perish Therefore the Seed is the efficient inward immediate cause of the herbe produced Wherefore after a diligent searching into all things I have not found any dependance of a natural body but onely on two causes on the matter and the efficient to wit inward ones whereto for the most part some outward exciter or stirrer up is joyned Because that these two are abundantly sufficient to themselves and to other things and do contain the whole composure order motion birth sealing notions or tokens of knowing properties and lastly whatsoever is required to the constituting and propagating or increasing of a thing For the seminal efficient cause containeth the Types or Patterns of things to be done by it self the figure motions houre respects inclinations fitnesses equalizings proportions alienation defect and whatsoever falls in under the succession of dayes as well in the business of generation as of government Lastly Since the efficient containeth all ends in it self as it were the instructions of things to be done by it self therefore the finall external cause of the Schooles which onely hath place in artificial things is altogether vain in Nature At leastwise it is not to be considered in a distinct thingliness from the efficient it self For that which in the minde of the Artificer is the Being of Reason can never obtain the weight of a cause real and natural Because in the efficient natural cause it s own knowledge of ends and dispositions is infused naturally by God Indeed all things in Nature do desire some generating juyce for their matter and lastly a seminal efficient disposing directing principle the inward one of generation For of these two and not more have all corporeal things need of But the three principles of bodies so greatly boasted of by Paracelsus although they should be found in all things that are to be framed yet it would not therefore follow that those have the force of principiating because those three seeing they are the fruits of Seeds they do partake as it were of a specifical diversity which they should necessarily be ignorant of if they should be true principles that is if they should be present before the framing of the particular kinde Nor also could one thing passe into another which notwithstanding is a thing natural or proper to the three first principles of Paracelsus Moreover since matter and also the efficient cause do suffice to every thing produced it followes that every natural definition is not to be fetched from the general kinde and difference things for the most part unknown to mortal men but from the conjoyning of both causes because both together do finish the whole effence of the thing And then it also followes that the thing it self produced or the effect is nothing but both causes joyned or knit together Which thing truly is to be understood of things without life to things having life life is otherwise to be added over and above or the Soul of the Liver For so a Horse is the Son of his four-footed parents created by virtue of the word into a living horse-like soul Sublunary things are commonly divided into Elements and things elementated but I divide them into Elements and seminal things produced These again into Vegetables Animals and Minerals So as every one of them may shut up a peculiar Monarchie secret from the other two Therefore Minerals and Vegetables if by any condition they may seem to live since they live onely by power and not by a living form in light enlivened they may also fitly be defined by their matter alone and internal efficient For every effect is produced either from the outward Agent and it is a thing brought forth by Art or from an outward awakener and nourisher which is the occasional and outward cause which notwithstanding hath an efficient and seminal causewithin and remains the efficient even until the last period or finishing of the thing brought forth yet the occasional cause is not the true but mediate Agent But the subject which the Schooles have called the Patient or sufferer I call the co-agent or co-worker But in respect of both limits or in the disposure of the
not the causes of natural things 6. The Form is not the Act. 7. A false Maxim of Aristotle 8. He erreth in the attributes of the Form 9. He knew not the true efficient cause 10. The Father is not the efficient cause of the Son 11. There are two onely causes in Nature 12. The End hath no reason of a cause in nature 13. That the three beginnings of Bodies of Paracelsus have not the nature of causes 14. Whence the definition of any sort soever of natural things is to be required 15. The definition of a Horse 16. The division of sublnnary bodies among the Auntients is dangerous or destructive 17. The definition of Animalls Plants and Mineralls 18. The name of Subject sounds improperly in Philosophy why 't is to be called a co-worker 19. Things without life that are produced how they receive their ends 20. Why the seminal Power is attributed to the Earth 21. That there is not a conjunction of the Elements 22. The Principles of the Chymists have not the power of principiating 23. That there are two onely Principles or beginnings of Bodies to wit that from which and by which 24. What the Ferment or Leaven of things is 25. What are Ferments in their kinde 26. What is immediately in places 27. The Ferments of the Air and water 28. There is onely a speculative distinction of the Ferment and efficient cause 29. The Ferment is the original of some seeds 30. The principiating Ferment of what sort it is and where 31. Ferments are immediately in places in things themselves as if in places 32. The name of matter is speculative but that of water is practical 33. What the inward efficient cause is 34. A false Maxim of Aristotle 35. The efficient cause in natural things is explained 36. Fire is not of the number of seminal efficient causes as it hath deceived the Aristotelicks neither is the influence of the Heavens among the number of efficients 37. The diversity of the efficient and effective cause 38. The wit of Aristotle is ambitious and idle 39. A false Maxim of Aristotle 40. Aristotle was more able in the Mathematicks or learning by de monstration than in Nature 41. How great hath been the ignorance of the Schooles in natural things hitherto 42. Aristotle is in the things of natural Philosophy ridiculous and to himself contradictory I Come into a forsaken house to re-melt the dross that is to be swept out by me Most things are to be searched into and those things to be taught which are unknown those things which have been ill delivered are to be overthrown what are unclean are to be wiped off and what things are false are to be cast away but all and every thing duly to be confirmed But let it be sufficient to have forewarned thee of these things to withdraw wearisomness if happily new and Paradoxall things do more trouble than true things delight The knowledge of Nature is onely taken from that which is in act and in the thing it self for it is that which no where consisteth in feigned Meditations Indeed the whole composure of Nature is individual in very deed in act and fastned in any Body except the number of abstracted Spirits Lastly and chiefly I seriously admonish that as often as I speak of the causes of Natural things these things are not at all to be taken for the Elements or for the Heaven because they supernaturally began with the Title of Creation and to this day do also constantly remain the same which they were from the beginning Therefore I understand the causes of natural things to presuppose a Being subject to change And although the Bodies of the Elements have come under Nature yet their speculation is of another manner of unfolding and another kinde of Philosophy For they who before me have thought that to all Generations or Births of Bodies four Elementsdo co-mix have beheld the Elements after the heathenish manner have tried by their lies or devises to marry the Elements obey them Therefore every natural Body requireth no other than corporeall beginnings for the most part subject to change and succeeding course of dayes but Nature doth not consist of an undetermined hyle or matter and an impossible one neither hath it need of such a Principle as neither of privation but order and life are in the efficient cause of necessity And every thing is empty void dead and slow unless it hath been constituted or sometimes be constituted by a vitall or seminal Principle present with it And moreover those Lawes should rush down together unless there were a certain order in things which did interpose which might incline proper things to the support or necessities of the common good Aristotle hath declared four constitutive causes of things which have made also their own Authour ignorant of Nature For in the first place he confoundeth the Principle with the material cause to wit calling the first cause an undetermined or unlimited matter or a corporeal subjected heap wanting a formall limitation And then he confoundeth the other cause even the inward Essence or form of a thing with another of his Principles Next the third which is external he calleth the efficient cause and at length the fourth he nameth the end to wit unto which every thing is directed But this cause in the minde of the efficient he would have to be the first of the three former causes and so natural things not onely to be principiated or made to begin by the Being of Reason and mental but also as if they were inanimate things they did lie hid through the end in the minde of the efficient cause But if therefore he doth badly search into natural causes he hath far worse appointed a supernatural end in the minde of the first mover in the room of a natural cause or he requireth a mentall conceit of the end in things without life Truly I who have not been accustomed through the floath of consenting to serve others enterprizes without foreweighing them have very much found that the three latter causes in natural knowledge are false yea and hurtful But the first of the four I will by and by shew to be fabulous For first of all since every cause according to nature and succession of dayes is before its thing caused Surely the form of the thing composed cannot be the cause of the thing produced but rather the last perfect act of generation and the veriest essence and perfection it self of the thing generated for the attaining whereof all other things are directed Therefore I meditate the form to be rather as an effect than as a cause of the thing Yea more For the Form seeing it is the end of generation is not meerly the act of generation but of the thing generated and rather a power that may be attained in generation but the matter or subject of generation as it is in act so also its act is an inward worker or
working motion to the co-working the action doth re-bound Therefore things that are produced without life do not receive their forms through the makeable disposition of the working terme or limit but onely they do obtain the ends or maturities of their appointments and digestions For while from the causes of Minerals or Mettalls a stone doth re-bound or from the Seed of a Plant while a Plant is made no new Being is made which was not by way of power in the Seed but it onely obtains the perfecting of the appointed ripeness And therefore power is given to the Earth of producing Herbes but not to the water of producing Fishes Because it is not so in things that have a living Soul as in Plants For as their Monarchies are plainly unlike so also their manners of generation and generating For therefore the natural gift of increasing Seeds durable throughout Ages is read to have been given to the Earth not so in living Creatures although these in the mean time ought to propagate Therefore the Seeds of things that are not soulified are indeed propagated no otherwise than as light taken from light Yet in the partaking of which enlightning the Creator is of necessity the chief Efficient But the Creator alone createth every where a new light whether it be formal or also vitall of the individual that is brought forth for neither was that light before not so much as in part although from the potential disposure or fit or inclinable disposition the Seeds of things not soulified may in some sort be reckoned to obtain a Form so are things that have life yet the formal virtue is not so neerly planted in these as in Plants For Souls and lives as they know not degrees so also not parts And although the Seed of a living Creature may have a disposition unto life yet it hath not life neither can it have it or effect it of it self for the Reasons drawn from the Rise or Birth of Forms Wherefore I shall teach by and by that there are not four Elements nor that there is a uniting of the three remainders yea nor of two that bodies which are believed to be mixt may be thereby made but that to the framing of these two natural causes at least do abundantly suffice the matter indeed is the veriest substance it self of the effect but the efficient its inward and seminal Agent and even as in living Creatures I acknowledge two onely Sexes so also are there two bodies at least the beginnings of any things whatsoever and not more even as there are onely two great lights For the three beginnings of bodies which the Chymists do call Salt Sulphur and Mercury or Salt Liquor and Balsam I will shew in their place that they cannot obtain the Dignities of beginnings which cannot be found in all things and which themselves are originally sprung from the Element of water and do fail being dissolved again into water as at sometime I shall make to appear for it behoveth the nature of beginnings to be stable if they ought to bear the name and property of a Principle Therefore there are two chief or first beginnings of Bodies and corporeal Causes and no more to wit the Element of Water or the beginning of which and the Ferment or Leaven or seminal beginning by which that is to be disposed of whence straightway the Seed is produced in the matter which the Seed being gotten is by that very thing made the life or the middle matter of that Being running thorow even into the finishing of the thing or last matter But the Ferment is a formall created Being which is neither a substance nor an accident but a neutrall thing framed from the beginning of the World in the places of its own Monarchie in the manner of light fire the Magnall or sheath of the Air Forms c. that it may prepare stir up and go before the Seeds This is indeed a Ferment in general But what things I here suppose I will at length evidently shew every thing in its place I will not treat of Fables and things that are not in being but of Principles and Causes in order to their ends actions and generations I consider Ferments existing truly and in act and individually by their kindes distinct Therefore Ferments are gifts and Roots stablished by the Creator the Lord for the finishing of Ages sufficient and durable by continual increase which of water can stir up and make Seeds proper to themselves Surely wherein he hath given to the Earth the virtue of budding from it self he hath given so many Ferments as expectations of fruits that also without the Seed of the foregoing Plant they may out of Water generate their own Liquors and Fruits Therefore Ferments do bring forth their own Seeds not others that is every ones according to their own Nature and property which the Poet saith For Nature is subject to the Soil Neither doth every Land bring forth all things For there is in places a certain order divinely placed a certain Reason and unchangeable Root of producing some appointed effects or fruits nor indeed onely of Vegetables but also of Minerals and Insects or creatures that retain their life in a divided portion For the soils and properties of Lands do differ and that by reason of some cause of the same birth and age with that Land Indeed this I attribute to the formall Ferment created in that place Whence consequently divers fruits do bud and of their own accord break forth in divers places whose Seeds being removed to another place we see for the most part to come forth more weakly as counterfeit young But that which I have said of the Ferment or Leaven placed in the Earth that very thing thou shalt likewise finde in the Air and Water for neither do they want Roots Gifts fermental Reasons or respects which being stable do bring forth fruits dedicated to places and Provinces and that thing not onely the perseverance of fruits doth convince of but also the voluntarily and abundant shedding abroad of unforbidden Seeds Therefore the Ferment holds the Nature of a true Principle divers in this from the efficient cause that the efficient cause is considered as an immediate active Principle in the thing which is the Seed and as it were the moving Principle to generation or the constitutive beginning of the thing but the Ferment is often before the Seed and doth generate this from it self And the Ferment is the original beginning of things a Power placed in the Earth or places but not in seminal things constituted But the Ferment which growes up in the things constituted or framed together with the properties of Seeds hath it self in manner of the efficient cause unto the Seed of things but the seminal Ferment is not that which is one of the two original Principles but the product of the same and the effect of the individual Seed and therefore frail and perishing Whereas otherwise the
judging or willing 21. The figures of the windes are described in the Heaven 22. The knowledge of the signification of the Stars is unknown to man 23. The Magitians or wise men of the East 24. From new Wine Sooth-sayers or Diviners of God 25. The Prophesie of Feasters was from new Wine 26. That the drunken or besotted gift of Paracelsus was made known to the Hebrews 27. Three histories of predictions 28. The Stars onely to incline resisteth the Scriptures 29. The inclining of the Stars how far it reacheth 30. The Stars the solemn prayses of God do not necessitate as causes but as signes bewraying the will of the Lord. 31. A solving of an objection 32. The common explaining of the Proverb derogates from the Grace of God 33. That the Heaven doth not incline 34. The seed of man doth of its own accord deflux into a living animall and dispersing soul 35. VVhat the seminall properties of inclinations are 36. A fourfold inclination 37. The inclination of calling is onely from God but not from the Stars 38. The morall inclination is from the seed and from education 39. The inclination vitall or of the life is from the seed and education 40. The vain and proud presumption of Astrologers 41. The inclination of fortunes is immediately from the hand of the Lord. 42. The Schooles seduced by the evill spirit of Paganisme 43. The sloathfull or careless negligence of Astrologers 44. How the sensitive soul of man differs from the soul of a bruit beast 45. How custome brings forth inclination 46. How a wise man shall have dominion over the Stars 47. Why predictions from the Stars are fundamentally vain 48. The error of the Authour 49. Astrologers confess their deceipts 50. They suppose astrall or Starry effects from causes not in being HItherto concerning the Elements their qualities Complexions and contrarieties in order to the Science of Medicine without which indeed I have thought the Study of naturall Philosophy to have lost as it were its end no otherwise than if a Clergy-man shall treat of the State politique or of War-like affaires For why S. Paul drives every Sacrificer from the like things No man he saith going a warfare intangleth himself with the affaires of this life Therefore the Studies of naturall Philosophy have I directed to a farther end to wit to the profit of men but not to the delighting of the Readers For this cause also I declame concerning the Stars because they are thought to be the causers of any kinde of Diseases Inclinations and Fortunes And indeed Paracelsus at length consented in this thing although he be refractory in all other things to the Study of the Antients First of all I will take the Text The Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy works For that soundeth that the Heavens were chiefly created that they might declare the large Majesty Power Goodness and Wisdom of God to wit on which four Pillars the whole Globe of the Universe stands and is supported but the Star-bearing Heaven doth as it were a Preacher shew the wonderfull works of the Lords hands to intellectuall Creatures For thus far the Church admitteth of Meteorical Predictions the barrennesses of years and their fruitfulnesses the stations of sowings the dangers of sailings the deaths of chief men Plagues inundations yea whatsoever things do not depend on the direction of our will or judgement to wit as all those things are believed to be connexed with the first qualities of the Elements by a contingent or accidentall consequence even so that although it doth admit of the deaths of great men the tumults of Wars and fires to be prognosticated of in Ephemerides yet it will have those things to be beheld not as free contingencies or arbitrall and much lesse as necessary ones but nakedly as it were the effects of the first Qualities and Complexions Wherein how much they have erred I have already demonstrated in the premises And moreover how far they have in this thing gone back from the holy Scriptures I will here shew If the Heavenly influences do obtain the reason of a cause surely their effects shall of necessity be connexed to their causes and so also thus far at least necessary after the manner of other second causes whose effects the causes being placed do necessarily succeed unless they are supernaturally hindered or changed Which thing is alike proper to all causes neither doth it include a singularity for the Heaven but if the Influences of Heaven are onely after the manner of a sign and fore-shewing surely neither shall they import a lesse necessity but a far more strict one if we believe the certain foreknowledge of Divine Providence and do believe the Handy works of the Lord to be fore-signified by the Stars Therefore after what manner soever it may be taken the Stars do necessitate The Stars shall be unto you for Signes Times or Seasons dayes and years But these Works of the Lord shewed from a necessity by the Stars and by the Firmament are not the works of the first six dayes For neither could the Stars shew forth either themselves or what things were created straightway after them without an absurdity of speech In the next place the Stars ought not to foreshew Winter and Summer which they actually cause by their Blas and which we do ordinarily know and perceive to invade us by degrees but they ought indefinitely to foreshew the Handy works of the Lord and rather those which are called contingent ones than otherwise necessary and ordinary Revolutions Which contingences do not therefore respect the fruitfulnesses of Victuall which they do cause but for the Majesty Wisdom and goodness of the Creator the Stars ought to foreshew those future Handy works of the Lord whence he hath taken to himself the name the God of Armies by whom Kings reign a zealous God a revenger translating Kingdoms from Nation to Nation by reason of injustice which kinde of works are contained in the life birth vertue or power continuance change interchange motions and interchangeable courses of successive things And so the preachings of the Stars must needes have place in the removing of Scepters and by consequence in the foreshewing of the meanes by which those things are done framed do depend and subsequently follow as it were by second causes For such kinde of effects are not to be taken away from the Handy works of the Lord without blasphemy Therefore of this sort are also Tempests Earth-quakes wonted and unwonted flouds of waters For the Lord of Hosts giveth Scepters to the Shepherd which he taketh away and translates from the King by reason of the injustice of Kings of Clergy and Judges Therefore by consequence the Stars do foreshew this injustice also If the translations of Crowns are the works of the Lord if the lots of all men do stand in the hands of the Lord For neither doth Faith permit fortune or misfortune to be else-where or to
Bacchus's Feasts to Predictions Therefore Prophesie from new Wine or otherwise foretelling seemeth to be in some men almost foolish but if they were drunk familiar which constitution or frame Paracelsus calleth a drunken or besotted gift which was made known to the Jewes and therefore falsly attributed to the Apostles Moreover that I may demonstrate the events of men to be described in the Stars I will shew at least three examples of dâ—abolical Predictions instead of a thousand nor those drawn out by the evill spirit from any other place than out of the decyphered figure of the Stars First of all Roderick the fourth the last King of the Gothes reigning the Castle of Toletum which had now stood shut even from the dayes of King Bamba was through the curiosity of Roderick opened but there was nothing found in it besides one onely Chest But in the Chest a Cotten Towel rouled up shewing the Garments and Persons of the Africans But there was in it thus written When this Castle and Chest shall be unlocked a Nation shall break into Spain of this similitude and cloathing and shall obtain Victory over the Spaniards But the Moores were decyphered with a cloathing as it was to be above 200 years after Two others are modern examples The Duke of Biron being apprehended by his King for the crime of Treason straightway busily enquired of what Nation the tormenter or Executioner of Paris might arise whom when he understood to be a Burgundian he fearing sighed and said Alass I am undone for truly he had sometimes understood by a Soothsayer that he was onely to beware of a mortall stroak which a Burgundian was to give him in dayes to come The Earl of Loniguium was slain in a Duel nigh Bruxels itching with a desire of Combates and being the more bold because he had understood by Fortune-tellers that â—e should be mortally wounded by a Wolf But there was a young man a Companion in the Duel to the Earl de Sancto Amore whose Sur-name was Loup or Wolf who being deadlily pricked thrust Loniguius thorow Let the Devill be the Authour of these Predictions But it is at leastwise of Faith that the Lots of every Victory are in the hand of the Lord. Let us grant that the Devil stirred up Roderick to open the Chest and also to have pricked on very many Kings of the Moores to invade Spain Yet he could not know that he was to obtain this beyond the will of so many persons much lesse that the Arabians should obtain Victory which the Lord alone gives to whom he will unless he had first read the consent of the Lord painted forth in the Stars for neither could the evill spirit have known this by the motion and Light of the Stars that was to come for two Ages from thence In the two other Histories the Devill besides the houre and place had foretold also the Nation of the killer and his name but at leastwise a name is not shewen by the Planets Moreover the divulged Rule The Stars do incline but not necessitate hath seemed to me contradictory to the Text of holy Scripture The Stars shall be to you for Signes seasons dayes and years because it is not lawfull for any mortall men to extend the bounds effects or appointments of the Stars above without or besides the intention of the Creator Whether therefore they are for fore-shewing Signes onely or at length for causes of seasons dayes and years Seeing that they are meanes for both ends which God useth as second causes they ought to have a relation of necessity by reason of the certainty and independency of him whose meanes they are But so far as it hath regard to inclination which the Schooles do grant to the Stars it no where appeareth in the holy Scriptures that the Stars are to us causers of inclinations but as oft as the Stars are the causes of causes so oft also they are the necessitating causes of the thing caused by the meanes of other second causes For the Sun doth with no lesse necessity bring on the day and Summer than burning or flaming straw under a dry Fagot doth kindle this Fagot But when Stars do obtain the nature of a Signe Preacher or Messenger then also they do not exceed the conditions of a presage nor in any wise assume the office of a cause but they do onely then foreshew from the infallible fore-knowledge of God and so also do import a necessity as much as is from them and from mans free will as fore-shewing Signes of the Handy works of the Lord. And although they do not necessitate causatively things to come yet they do necessitate as they shew the will of the Lord. For free contingencies do depend on their causes also sometimes primarily on those not intending such kinde of effects which by divine permission do proceed from thence unthought of for neither in the mean time are those things which come to passe from free causes immediately understood in any respect to be inclined by the Stars although fore-shewing ones onely to produce their effects For truly a strong native continuall soliciting repeated c. inclination doth after some sort import a necessity over free will which I do not indeed grant in the least point of it to be inclined by the Stars For even so as a friend is not the inclining cause of War or the inciting cause if he doth secretly declare to his Prince by an Epistle that an enemy doth prepare War and plot the invasion of his Camp But the Schooles defend themselves by that saying A wise man shall rule or have dominion over the Stars As though if the Stars should stir up any one to murders thefts man-slaughters adulteries seditions drunkenness c. yet a wise man might by the liberty of his own free will make those inclinations void and this they call to rule over the Stars But surely the authority of the Scriptures being badly understood brings forth perverse consequences For first of all it is not in a wise man to resist evill inclinations but it is of grace And so a wise man in this place is not understood to be him which is fenced with sufficient grace because if he shall rule over the Stars there is no cause why he should fear conquered inclinations even as the word to dominate or bear rule doth import yet this is false throughout his whole life Next also they presuppose a falshood because it is by no meanes of the appointment of the Stars that they should cause inclinations in us but onely that they are for signes seasons dayes and years and no more In the next place the Heaven was created without spot Therefore it is absurd that it should be unto us in the room of the Devill the Tempter and which is more of an incliner because it should infuse into us a continuall fewel unto vices and a headlong inclination Far be it to think these things of the divine goodness Every
not in very deed of themselves cause substantial forms but it is the virtue of substantial forms whose Instruments onely accidents themselves are or as he elsewhere saith That accidents are the properties of substantial forms whatsoever they do work that that is done by virtue of the forms But surely by the leave of so great a man it is not in the things of nature even as it is in humane affaires where the Judge or Priest doth work by the name or authority of an office and not as John For such kinde of respects nature is ignorant of and those she hath even hitherto willingly wanted For every thing in her possession acteth that which it doth act without the relation of authorizing To wit an accident doth act as much and such as it is in it self but not as by the commission of that whereof it is the Instrument because nature is ignorant of under-appointments and every fallacy of right or authority For a thing operateth as much as and what it can without a Commission For what doth it belong to the effect of producing of forms that accidents do act in as much as they are the Instruments of the substantial form or in any other respect if in the mean time essential forms are in very deed and actually constituted by accidents themselves But surely an Instrument although it may generate something in Mathematical Science yet in no true understanding is it a generater in nature because it is external to the thing generated and singularly to its form nor indeed containing the essential Idea or first shape of the form much lesse the Archeus thereof For truly Accidents as they proceed from the generater for the intent of generating ought to contain a thingliness and seminall properties requisite to generation whereof accidents as they are such are deprived Because at the most they are onely dispositive meanes of the matter to receive a form but not to procreate it therefore it seemes according to D. Thomas that accidents as they are the Instruments of the form should be as it were the Instrumentall pipes by which the form of the generater should breath a form into the thing generated if the matter hereof be first well disposed by other accidents But then the immediate generation of the form should not agree or belong to accidents as indeed accidents are never under the understanding of an Instrument substantiall producers But Scotus insisting on the same delusions drawn from the producing of fire declareth that accidents do no manner of way generate substantial forms but that one substantial form doth in very deed actually produce another out of it self This saying at leastwise taketh from the Heaven and Sun the generation of forms Secondly it maketh every seed actually animated to be endowed with a substantial life and form with the doating Thomas Fienus Physitian at Lovaine A third there is which holds that accidents by their own proper virtue and without the concourse of a substantial form do immediately produce a substantial form For this man as I have said being most exceedingly over-blinded by the presence of the fire and light like Bats is constrained to confess that the solemn command of that great blessing increase and multiply is given onely to accidents For others like Africa do alwayes bring forth new Monsters out of the presumption of humane knowledge So that although the foregoing opinions were absurd yet these men do here set up as yet more superlative absurdities For indeed if nature doth require as the Naturalists do suppose a certain seminal succession and continuance of one flowing from another as a principle or beginning con-substantial and conjoyned with the thing begun how therefore could accidents being any way taken procreate or contain a substantial form they confess that every form is the inward perfection of the thing the essence substance and originall of the accident of its composed Body yet they will have it to be born produced and as it were created of nothing by accidents as it were dependances of the essential form its Predecessor But seeing that all natural things do produce their like in the special kinde therefore it followes that they will have the essential form to be of the same Species with accidental forms yea that accidents have have snatched that Prerogative from substances that accidents should produce accidents and moreover the essential forms of substances But that substantial forms as it were growing dull through rest should keep holy-day and had committed the whole weight of their business to accidents their Vicars that they might falsifye their own proper maxim and that of Aristotle That every Agent is naturally born to produce its like Seeing accidents should not in producing be onely accidentall but also substantial forms and the which they teach also to be substances Therefore the maxim of the Schooles seemeth to me to contain a falshood and something of Atheisme That every Agent which disposeth to a sorm doth also give that form because if a substance differs in its predicament from accidents their principles ought not lesse to differ For the active motive dispositive and essential principle of generation is the very efficfent cause and the Archeus Faber or Master-workman Therefore the glorious God doth at length create the forms of substances therefore whose principles are in the general kinde and predicament divers the effects of those things do equally differ even as the same like causes are like to the like things caused But it followes from what hath been already said That heat produceth heat not fire and much lesse by far the form of a Chick in the next place not any other thing besides heat because seeing the efficient cause is internall and of the essence of the thing caused which thing I will afterwards prove against Aristotle therefore one and the same thing cannot be constituted by high causes different in the particular kinde And much lesse by things differing in the whole predicament For neither is a thing granted to be without its essential properties as neither an Agent without an Instrument and mean By what mean theresore or at length by what property out of it self shall heat be an agent in the producing of a form or any substance and by what co-touching shall heat touch a form that it may produce this form in another general object from the participation of its own Being For truly according to the Schooles seasoned with heathenish errour every form of substances is a substance From whence Christians ought to infer That the Heaven as neither accidents dispositive to a form can frame any substance out of nothing because the creating of a substance is proper to the Creator alone Therefore B. Augustine rightly thought if God contains all particular kindes or Species yea and their individuals in his eternall understanding how should he not make all things would he not be the artificer of some things of effecting which his laudable minde should have
heat For if a little heat causeth a small digestion and amean heat a mean one Verily at a powerful and troublesome digestion a great heat ought also to be present Which thing notwithstanding although I have divers times the more curiously searched into I have not found to be true Then at length it is to be noted That the digestion of bread in a Man Dog Horse Fish Bird differ in the whole general kind no otherwise than as a manifold venal bloud and filths sprung from thence Wherefore from one only particular kind of digesting heat those kinds of varieties of digestions cannot proceed Therefore let the Schools erect and defend so many general kinds of heats and colds before they do require for themselves to be believed I therefore do draw so great a difference of venal blood from formal properties and specifical ferments never from heat For truly I perfectly know that whatsoever things have divers essential efficients have also divers effects and attributes to wit So that products divers in the general kind do necessarily require their own efficient causes diverse in the general kind For otherwise any thing should produce any thing indifferently to wit even as one and the same thing doth arise from the same nigh causes For how frivolous a thing is it to have adjudged the vital powers and the formal and specifical parents of transmutations unto luke-warmths For if the digestion of heat were needful a more prosperous and plentiful digestion should continually follow a greater heat For by how much every cause is more powerful in nature by so much it doth also more powerfully perfect its own proper effect By consequence the stomack of one sick of a Fever in a burning Fever should more powerfully digest than that of a healthy person But surely in the stomack of him that hath a Fever nothing is rightly digested For Eggs Fishes Fleshes and Broths are presently made cadeverous or stinking within and therefore they do cause adust or burnt belchings the which if sowre belchings do soon follow after Hippocrates hath reckoned to be good as well from the sign as from the cause Yet there is in one that hath a Fever a heat also sometimes that heat is temperate to wit while it is not troublesome neither doth stir up thirst yet the digestion is void Impure bodies by how much the more powerfully thou nourishest them by so much the more thou hurtest them which in a Feverish man is manifest wherein we must presently use a most slender food easie of digestion And we must abstain from the more strongmeats to wit those consummated or accomplished in growth from meat Broths because the ferment being absent they do easily putrifie contract an adust savour and turn as it were into a dead Carcass No otherwise than as raw flesh being bound on the Wrist Breast Soals of the feet or Neck so far is it that it should be resolved into Chyle that straight-way after some hours it putrifies and stinks although it be salt The same thing is in an impure Feverish body where heat is present but a digesting ferment is wanting For if heat be the cause of digestion otherwise digestion is wanting in a Feaver but heat is present but we must more apply our selves to digestion than to cooling refreshment especially if no very troublesome heat be present Therefore we should rather study the increase of heat than cooling And so the Scope of the Physitian should be changed while it should be devised concerning the increase of heat in a Fever for digestion nourishing and increase of strength Neither also shall sharp and hungry Medicines of Sulphur Vitriol Salt Niter Citron and the like help but the heat should be stirred up and increased by sharp things He speaketh something like madness who saith That the Snow makes cold as it is white So it is a ridiculous thing to affirm That the specificall ferment of the stomack doth digest by reason of vitall heat existing in it Surely it is to be lamented that the credulity and sloath of those to whom the care of the life is committed have changed burying-places into a meer Sumen or fatting juice despairing of the searching out of natural properties whence notwithstanding they have their Sur-name Paracelsus also being deluded by a digestive heat and ignorant of the Ferment of the stomack admires that some things which are most hard are changed into Chyle in a few hours and that a bone is consumed in the luke-warmth of the stomack of a Dog who aspiring to the Monarchy of healing failed thereof after that he named this a power to be admired at was ignorant of and knew not the ferments For being unconstant to himself he wrote elsewhere That this digestive property doth agree no lesse to the mouth being shut than to the stomack and so also from hence That Anchorets have spent their long life happily without swallowed meat But surely that Idiotisme is to be left to his own boldness while in the mean time whatsoever hath perhaps remained within the hollownesses of the Teeth is straight-way made like a dead carcasse with a horrible stink but is not digested For I remember that a white and thick glasse being cast out of my Furnace was swallowed by my Hens they being deluded through the heat of Milk but the fracture of glasse is always sharp-pointed but after a few dayes some Hens being killed the glasse was found to be pointingly diminished on every side and to have lost its sharp tops and to have been made roundish or globish But the other surviving Hens and Guests had presently after a few dayes consumed the rest of the Glasse although they had also devoured the small Pellets of Glasse taken out of the Hens formerly slain Thou shalt take notice in the mean time that glasse doth resist waters which resolve any Mettals Indeed the ferment in many Birds is so powerful that unlesse they are now and then fed with Tiles or Bricks Chalk or white earth they are ill at ease through the multitude of sharpness But on the contrary that the stomack of one that hath a Fever is wholly of an adust savour he rejecteth meats of three dayes continuance being oft-times as yet distinguished by the sight or sometimes turned into a yellow or rusty liquour to wit through the straining scope of the ferment I learned the necessity of this ferment of the stomack while being a Boy I nourished Sparrows I oft-times thrust out my tongue which the Sparrow laid hold of by biting and endeavoured to swallow to himself and then I perceived a great sharpness to be in the throat of the Sparrow whence from that time I knew why they are so devouring and digesting And then I saw that the sharp distilled Liquor of Sulphur had seasoned my Glove and that it did presently resolve it into a juice in the part which it had moistned which thing confirmed to me a young Beginner that meats are transchanged
effect is supposed and likewise a cause thereof neither is it doubted what that effect or what the cause thereof may be but the knitting of them both is only sought for To wit after what sort the effect proceeds from the cause or on the other hand after what manner and by what means such a cause may produce its effect The knowledge I say of the Tree and its Fruit is presupposed The which if we compose them for healing for if the whole world be for man also the whole physical knowledge of nature shall therefore be subservient to man the knowledges of ones self shall be first to be presupposed To wit that a true Physitian doth know the Tree of the whole nature of man and the fruit thereof to wit health Likewise also the tree of vitiated health and the very rank or order of health depraved as the Fruit of that Which proper knowledges of the thingliness or essence together with its adjacents are required Therefore that we may know the Tree in its root and properties that ought to be done by the Fruits wherefore also the Fruits are first to be known But the Fruits as well of entire as of vitiated health seeing they are the Scopes whereunto the properties of occult Remedies are referred have themselves in manner of a Tree and Trunk whereinto the young budding slips and seeds of things ought to be ingrafted as it were the Fruits of the same This indeed the ordination of Medicine requireth that Remedies although they have themselves in manner of a cause yet that they become fruits or effects in us as they do fructifie in our Tree and so they are not only the Fruits of their own native Tree whence in the nature of things they are derived but rather they are new Fruits from an ingrafting of a product and so are plainly promiscuous of a branch or Fruit of the Tree implanted and of the vital power of the stock whereinto it is ingrafted Such fruits indeed do bewray their own Tree And so as in every progress of nature a duality of Sex is required for the production of every Fruit it was no wonder that the rank and applications of occult Qualities or Remedies hath remained unknown if it hath hitherto stood neglected that a healthy and diseasie state is bred by the same Parent and so also they have referred the whole essence of a Disease into external occasional efficient and warring causes but not into the true and inward Tree of sicknesses Let us suppose therefore the Archeus to be provoked and almost furious the which being provoked by occasional causes doth pour forth its own blood and causeth the Bloody-Flux or likewise let us feign the Archeus grievously bearing the mark of pain conceived in some part serving to the last digestion and being as it were stung with fury to stir up an Erisipelas The question is of finding out a Remedy by the occult or hidden property The Schools therefore have considered to apply cooling things to the Erisipelas as to the fruit and they would not apply a Remedy to the vitiated tree But the Secretaries of natural things have attended to the aforesaid furies to be restrained by fear so that the fear is not to be incurred on the man but on the Archeus Therefore they have killed the most fearful creature to wit a Hare Not indeed with a weapon that he might dye by an unexpected death but by hunting that he might perish by the biting of Dogs whereby a doubled force of fear may be imprinted on his whole Body Therefore they have tinged a bloody Towel in the blood of the Hare and kept it being dryed And that they have administred by pieces in Wine and the Dysentery was cured And likewise they have put it dry on the Erisipelas and it was cured Yea the Germane Souldiers do give an Hare dryed in the smoak in drink and the Bloody-Flux or Dysentery is cured with an undeceiveable event From whence they have learned that cuttings of veins and purgings are vain whether thou respectest feigned humours or in the next place a diminishing of heat and strength together with the blood likewise that coolings are ridiculous because they are those things which endeavour to heal from the effect do never touch at the roots and for that cause do for the most part provoke nature into greater furies The Erisipelas therefore and Bloody-Flux have obtained some common point wherein they might agree And that is a certain Ideal poyson bred by the Archeus For truly in the Tree of man every exorbitant passion of the Archeus doth tinge its own Idea or likeness on the blood yea and on the excrements no less than in the Tree of a Dog through the exorbitancy of madness Fruits are bred in his spittle which do afterwards produce in us the Fruit of the transplanted madness Therefore the knowledge of hidden Remedies is badly sought into from the Fruit. For I have known that whatsoever things are made in the world are made from the necessity of the Seeds of every Archeus and so by means of an incorporeal and invisible Being But I have known that seminal Beings do arise from an imaginative sorce of soulified things or the Archeus of the same by a co-like perturbation And so that by a certain invisible Principle this visible world is continued But in things subjected or not soulified I have observed that they after a co-like manner have themselves by the same certain Analogical proportion But that every disjoynting or irregularity of the Archeus doth by its Idea's frame the Seeds to be poysons unto its own Body and so a sound Tree rusheth into a vitiated one I have considered that the poysons of some things which are bred with us do bear Seeds not those which by the exorbitancy of their of own Archeus but in respect of our Archeus might produce vitiated Idea's and to themselves natural to us mortal Idea's Whence indeed if Fruits or Branches be implanted into the Tree of our entire health it happens that from both as it were from a promiscuous Sex vitiated or poysonous Fruits do arise in us But the poysons are on both sides among the number of occult properties Let therefore suitable helps or Remedies have Idea's which are chiefly the extinguishers of the poysoned Idea's or those which by an eminent goodness may transchange as well the Archeus the producer of the poyson as the poyson it self produced whence I have very clearly learned that almost every poyson and its Antidote and so also the whole race of occult or formal properties do seminally descend from the activity of a vital light For so the poysons of soulified creatures do arise from disturbances the which by how much the sharper they shall be by so much also the more cruel poysons they bring forth For so the poysons of Serpents are bred from anger envy sury pride and those being variously mixed with fear But the corrosive and putrifactive
known that the same Humours do become degenerate in the passage of Digestions and are the occasions of many Diseases But that the Liver alone in Vices of the skin doth bear the undeserved blame that is a thing full of ignorance and worthy of pity I will at length moreover commune with Christian Physitians by one only Argument To wit Iâ— is of Faith that God made not Death for Man Because Adam was by Creation Immortal and void of Diseases For concerning long Life I have explained after what manner a Disease and Death at the eating of the Apple as an Effect unto a second Cause have entred into Nature Therefore in this place it hath been sufficient to have admonished That the Concupiscence of the Flesh arose from Transgression and also to have brought forth the flesh of Sin and therefore that Nature being corrupted produced a Disease through Concupiscence I could wish therefore that the Schooles may open the Causal Band and Connexion between the forbidden Apple and the Elements or the Complexions of these Whether in the mean time they are lookt upon as the Causes bringing Diseases or as Diseases themselves To wit let them teach If the Body of Man from his first Creation did consist of a mixture of the Four Elements after what manner those second Causes or co-mixt Elements onely by eating of the Apple which else had never been to fight the Bonds of Peace and Bolts of humane Nature being burst asunder at length naturally exercise hostilities and all Tyranny What common thing I say doth interpose betwixt the Apple and our constitutive Elements But if this came miraculously and supernaturally to passe that Death was made a punishment of sin Then God had made Death Efficiently but Man had given onely an Occasion for Death But this is against the Text yea and against Reason Because Death was made with Beasts in the Beginning even as also at this day unto every one happens his own Death that is by a natural course and a knitting of Causes unto their Effect It must needs be therefore according to Faith that Death crept naturally into Nature so that man was made Mortal after the manner of Bruits For it is certain that at the eating of the Apple the brutal concupiscence of the Flesh was introduced Neither do we read at length of any other knowledge of good and evil to have been brought in which was signified under the opening of their Eyes than that they knew themselves to be naked and then it first shamed them of their nakedness Wherefore I have long stood amazed that the Schooles have never examined the aforesaid Text that they might search out the Disposition or Respect of the Cause bringing a Disease unto its natural Effect In what day soever ye shall eat of the forbidden Fruit ye shall die the Death Which indeed is not so to be taken as if God had said by way of threatnings If ye shall eat of the forbidden Tree I will create or make Death in you Diseases Paines Miseries c. for a punishment of sin or that through a condign curse of my indignation ye and your posterity shall die For such an Interpretation as that resisteth the divine goodness because that for the sin of our two Parents he had equally cursed all their posterity with an irrevocable curse of his Indignation who after sin commited and the Flood it self readily blessed Noah by increase and multiply c. Wherefore those words Ye shall die the death did contain a fatherly admonition To wit that by eating of the Apple they should contract the every way impurity of Nature as from a second Cause seated to wit in the Concupiscence of the flesh of sin But seeing such a concupiscence can never consist in elementary qualities it is also sufficiently manifest that a Disease and Death are not connexed as Effects to the Elements and the qualities of these But the concupiscence of the flesh as it infected onely the Archeus even so also it did onely respect the same In the Archeus therefore every Disease afterwards established it self and found its own onely and immediate Inne And so also from hence the Archeus is made wholly irregular inordinate violent and disobedient Because he is he who from thenceforth hath framed inordinate images and seales together with a spending of his own proper substance as it were the wax of that seal For images or likenesses are at first indeed the meer incorporeal Beings of the mind but as soon as they are imprinted on the Archeus they cloath themselves with his Body and are made most powerful seminal Beings the sealing dames mistresses and architectresses of any kind of passions and inordinacies whatsoever which thing I will hereafter more clearly illustrate in the Treatise of Diseases Finally the adversaries will be able to Object That it would be all as one whether a Disease be accounted a disposition or a distemperature of the first qualities or a disproportionable mixture of humours or lastly whether it be called an indisposition or confusion and likewise that it is as one whether the Cause which brings a Disease he called the occasional or the material Cause of Diseases or the internal and conjoyned Cause thereof For truely the one onely intention of Nature and Physitians on both sides is conversant about the removal of that matter for the obtainment of health Therefore that I am stirred about nothing but an unprofitable brawling concerning a Name I Answer Negatively and that indeed because both the suppositions are false For as to the First For that doth not onely contain a manifest fault in arguing of not the Cause as of the Cause and of a non-Being for a Being But besides the Destruction and Death of mortal men doth from thence follow For for that very Cause for which a Remedy is administred to correct the distemperature of a Discrasie or the abounding or disproportion of humours because of things not existing in Nature they at least cannot deny that our Disputation is of things but not of a Name onely when as to wit they accuse cure or undertake to cure the Disease for the Cause or this for it They handle I say things that are never possible as if they were present And then also they presse a falshood Because indeed I never said that a naked confusion or indisposition of the Archeus is a Disease but I affirme that the immediate and internal matter of a Disease is to be drawn from the masse of the Archeus himself But I call the imprinted seminal Idea which springs from the disturbances of the Archeus the efficient Gause but as to what appertaines to the other supposition the occasional or inciting Cause and the internal containing Cause or the very Body of a Disease do far also differ from each other For example The occasional Cause of intermitting Fevers is present out of the fit which should not be if the occasional Cause were the very internal matter of
now I directly behold or cast my eye on the Affects of the Womb For from the Effect I am induced to believe that in enchantments the most powerful part of the whole tragedy doth depend on the Idea's of the bond-slaves of the Devil and so that they do originally proceed from conceptions even as I have demonstrated in its place because those things which naturally do help those that are enchanted do also cure the passions of the Womb and on the other hand but that the Womb which else is quiet is stirred up into animosity or wrathfulness by anger and grief is so without controversie that it is known to poor Women and old Women themselves Neither doth any thing hurt the virtues implanted in the Womb which is plainly a non-being as a cogitation is unless it be made most nearly to approach into the form of a Being at the original of all motions in us But I have endeavoured by a long tract of Words to convince of this progress in Idea's Wherefore also I am constrained to ascribe the like nativity in enchantments For indeed although Odoriferus and grateful Spices do weaken many Women yet any ill smelling and stinking things ought not therefore to cure them For Example For Assa or the smell of fuming Sulphur do not refresh distempers of the Womb as they do stink for neither do they alwayes equally refresh all Women alike or simply but because they restrain or slay the Idea's that are imprinted without the Womb So although sweet things do weaken them therefore bitter things as such do cure them For I have taught first of all that contraries do not exist in Nature Wherefore an argument from the contrary sense although it may be of value in the Law Yet not in Nature because the contentions and brawlings of the Law are not found in Nature Neither is it to be thought in the mean time that the Remedies of the Womb do consist in that which is temperate as it were the middle of Extreams the refuge of qualities mutually broken being taken away from extreams but altogether in a free Arcanum So indeed that although no Simple be an unpartaker of the first Qualities yet things appropriated do least of all cure the Affects of the Womb in respect of those Qualities But such a kind of Arcanum is the fire or sweetness of the Sulphur of the Vitriol of Venus or Copper and likewise the volatile tincture of Coral the Essence of Amber the Agath-stone or Jet the Nettle with a white-hooded Flower that doth not sting the black Gooseberry Ballote or the kind of Horehound so called Rue Southern-wood Sage Nep the berries of Elder of Wallwort or dwarfe-Elder Assa-fetida the wart or hillock of a Horses Ham Golden shining Coral therefore is a stony Herb or an herbie Stone born for the destruction of Sorceries For even as Sorceries are made by an Idea irregularly transplanted in filths to wit the which Idea was already before seminal in its own Spirit yet while it it inserted in filths it wanders into a Poyson So indeed the seminal virtue in Coral is inserted into a stonifying matter If therefore there be he who can seperate the vegetable part from the stone of Coral now an endowment of Nature it attained or the Idea of that Simple which doth vindicate and transplant the Idea's transplanted into a Poyson For I have observed how unvoluntarily the Devil could endure this Stone Because I knew a Noble-man enchanted on whom although Bracelets of Beads of Coral were strongly bound yet they would presently burst asunder from thence The like whereof doth occur in that because Women being ill at ease bright golden Coral doth presently wax pale as it were taking compassion on them the which notwithstanding doth resume itâ— former brightness of redness with the health of the Womans Womb. But not any kind of Simples do equally cure the enchanted as neither all Affects of the Womb alike for all particular Simples have their own Endowments their Idea's and do take away hurtful Idea's their compeers To wit Southern-wood Sage and Rue do drive away the Idea's of Fear Mugwort the Nettle Ballote and black Gooseberry do prevail in cases contracted from Grief But Assa Castoreum the Elder berries the Essence of the Agath or Jet in cases caused from Anger But Nep Valerian and Venus or Maiden-Hair in cases resulting fâ—â—m the Idea of Hatred Even as Saint Johns Wort and the third Phu in Idea's that are â—â—l of Fury So an Hare dried the Stones of some Beasts being dryed in the Smoak the rod of a Stage Agnus Castus or the Willow Vitex and Amber in Idea's bred through the suggestion of Lust But the mineral Electrum Coral prepared and the greater Arcanums do after some sort ascend unto a universality whereunto the Secundines of a first-born Male the Gaule of a Snake c. do most nearly approach Truly the greater Secrets perpared by Art or things appropriated by natural Endowments do scarce leave any one destitute Furthermore how much the method proposed doth deviate from the Schooles let themselves judge for they do acknowledge the Disease of the Womb after a rustical manner To wit they have only known the inordinacies of the Menstrues and the Gonorrhea's or Whites because they refer the inordinate lusting of the Woman with Child and stranglings of the Womb among Sumptomes For they weigh the retaining of the Menstrues by a stoppage and are vainly intent to Cure it by opening things For they have been so accustomed not to heale or make sound their Patients that the name of Sanation hath departed into Oblivion and Curation hath obtained its place For so they will have immoderate Courses to be cured by an inordinate opening of the Veins it being an undistinct observance with the common sort In the next place it is a thing full of Mockery that they do endeavour only by Phlebotomy to help as well the retained as the immoderate flowing Menstrues In those being retained they do only cut a Vein of the Ancle but 〈◊〉 their inordinate Fluxes the liver Vein in the Arm In both Cases I say they do draw out venal Blood in equal quantity because they have sometimes found that Nature being as well full of Danger and Fear as empty of Blood and Strength hath now and then desisted for a space from the begun fury of a Flux Perhaps it shall be alike if they shall make an Horse that is too wanton to halt through hurting of a Tendon But the Menstrues failing the Schooles have now forgotten Obstructions and as if the suppressing thereof did involue a necessary Plethora or abounding of Humours they command a Vein to be cut the which is to have fought against the Effect but not against the obstructing or stopping Cause They know not I say that the Menstrues being detained do offend through a fury of the ruling power or faculty They sometimes give Solutives repeatedly to drink and those things which are feigned
constrained to acknowledge with us that there is a Magnetism that is a certain hidden Property with this appellation by reason of the manifest Prerogative of that Stone divided or distinguished from other abstruse and commonly unknown Qualities A Load-stone being laid upon a thin trencher of Wood and swimming on the Water is forthwith on one and that a certain side turning towards the South but on the other side toward the North The Austral or Southern Part thereof if it shall touch Iron it turns that towards the North and the northern Part of the Load-stone having touched Iron will incline it to the South By its Sepentrional or northerly Part that is its Belly it allures Iron or Steel to it and by its Austral Part or Back it drives that Iron or Steel before it The Northern side by rubbing of the Point of a Compass-Needle from the right Hand to the left will direct the same to the South but if the rubbing be made from the left Hand unto the right the direction of the Point will be contrary In like manner also the South side of the Load-stone is varied Yea which is more if a Load-stone by its rubbing on a piece of Iron doth make it to be Magnetical that is an attractive of other Iron let the same Iron which is now Magnetical be rubbed again being turned upwards and downwards upon the Load-stone it will presently put off its attractive Power Of which Effects if they relish thee enquire thou of William Guilbert a Physitian of London in his Treatise of the Load-stone than whom none ever wrote better concerning this Subject and by whose Industry the variation of the Compass may be restored The Needle which now bends to the North under the Aequinoctial Line staggers to and fro but beyond it bends it self unto the other Pole I shall add this medicinal Faculty of it The back of the Load-stone as it repulseth Iron so also it drives back the Gut cures Burstness and every Catarrh or Rheum which is of the Nature of Iron for all Magnetisms are ordained for the use of Man The Iron-attracting Faculty if it shall be married to the Mummy of a Woman then the back of the Load-stone being emplaistred within her Thigh and the Belly thereof on her Loyns doth safely prevent a Miscarrying already threatned but the Belly of the Load-stone being applyed within her Thigh and its Back to her Loyns doth wonderfully facilitate or dispatch her delivery All which Effects of the Load-stone our Anatomist shall illustrate by Reasons drawn from foregoing Causes and explain to us the manner thereof as made known unto him Or I shall by a like Argument of Ignorance conclude that these likewise are the Delusions of Satan and not natural Effects I will now produce some Examples of a co-like Magnetism that we at length may come with the more seasoned Judgment unto the positive Reason and refuting of all Oppositions What can I do more the Reasons which thou hast not brought in thy own behalf I my self will devise Every Effect thou wilt say proceeds either immediately from God the Work-man and so is a Miracle or from Satan and so is Monstrous or from natural and ordinary Causes and then is natural but Magnetisme is not a Miracle neither is it a natural Effect therefore Satanical I answer Although I am able to shew this aforesaid rehearsal to be insufficient in regard the inward Man acteth even after none of the fore-mentioned wayes the which hereafter we are plainly enough to declare nevertheless we now with a dry Foot pass over the Assumption as being about to deny the Subsumption or Inference to wit in that part wherein it is affirmed that the effect is not natural For that was first to be proved least a begging of the Principle or Question should be committed but herein our Censurer hath and will be defective to say that it is not a natural Effect unless he thought that for him to say it was all one as to prove it and to have placed his own Authority in the room of Reason For there are many Effects natural which do not ordinarily happen to wit those which are the more seldom incident Therefore in favour of our Anatomist I shall every where not only defend the affirmative part but also I will declare it by Reasons and confirm it by Examples For so the Argument now alleaged shall violently fall with its own weight There is a Book imprinted at Frankford in the year 1611 by Uldericus Balk a Dominican concerning the Lampe of Life where thou shalt find out of Paracelsus the true magnetical Cure of many Diseases namely of the Dropsie Gowt Jaundise c. by enclosing the warm Blood of the Sick in the shell and white of an Egg which is exposed to a nourishing Warmth and this Blood being admixed with a piece of Flesh thou shalt give unto a hungry Dog or Swine and the grief is presently drawn and departs from thee into the Dog no otherwise than as the Leprosie of Naaman passed over or was transplanted into Gehazi through the Execration of the Prophet What wilt thou account this also to be diabolical to have thus restored the sick Party by the Magnetisms of the Mumial Blood alone But yet he is wholly and undoubtedly restored A Woman weaning her Infant whereby her Breasts may the sooner grow barren Milks out her Milk on hot burning Coals and her Dugs soon grow Flaggy Doth haply the Devil suck them If any one shall Foul at thy Door and thou intendest to prevent that Beastliness for the future lay thou a red hot Iron upon the new laid Excrement and by Magnetism the voyder of that Ordure shall soon grow Scabby on his Buttocks to wit the Fire roasting the Excrement and as it were by a Dorsal or rebounding Magnetism driving the sharpness of the Roast into his impudent Fundament Perchance thou wilt say that this is Satanical because the end is a hurting of the Party But surely the abuse of Powers is in the liberty of Man Yet it is not the less natural in its use Make a small Table of the lightest whitest and bafest kinde of Lead and at the one end hereof put a piece of Amber and three spans off place a piece of green Vitriol this Vitriol will forthwith visibly loose its Colour and Tartness Both which Effects are found in the Preparation of Amber At least-wise this very Experiment shall be free from all Illusion of Satan A certain Inhabitant of Bruxels lost his Nose in fight he comes to Tagliacozzus a Chyrurgion living at Bononia in expectation of another Nose and when as he feared the Incision of his own Arm he hired a Porter for his end out of whose Arm he having given him his Price the Chyrurgion at length digged a Nose About thirteen Months after his return into his own Country presently on a sudden the ingrafted Nose grew cold and after some dayes fell off through Putrefaction By
flowing be more inclinably obedient unto the Clientship of a putrefactive humour than phlegm otherwise was But why doth not Choler move a fit daily if a lesse moiety thereof be sufficient for a Tertian To wit while as the greater moiety thereof is rejected by Vomit Lastly They ought to have told how many ounces of a putrified humour should be required for every fit whether six or seven Truly oft-times a double quantity thereof is rejected by vomit about the beginning of a Tertian and the fit is nothing the lesse Therefore if as yet seven ounces have proceeded unto the mouthes of the Veines and twelve ounces were voided by vomit Therefore 19 ounces are requisite for a Tertian Whereof if thou shalt take the half To wit 8 ounces of yellow Choler every day and by consequence a double quantity of phlegm there shall be 17 ounces thereof and at least 4 ounces of black Choler every day and at least as much of Bloud every day as there is of phlegme That is 17 ounces which being joyned together 46 ounces shall be daily made even in an abstinentious Feverish person Let him give credit to these Fables that will and let the Musitian make an Harmony of these pipes that can I at least conclude from the supposed dreams of the Schooles That there ought in no wise to be the cutting of a Veine as neither a laxative Medicine for those that have a Fever if so much of humours be bred in him seeing as much is consumed in an abstinent Feverish person because his appetite digestion and Food failing Yet it is of necessity that this weight be recompenced out of the Masse of the Bloud Therefore an emptying is not to be instituted in a Feverish or Aguish person who abstaineth for the space of two dayes But I pray from whence hath Galen known That as much of yellow Choler is made every other day as there is of phlegm daily and of black Choler every third day Especially who is proved by Andrew Vesalius of Bruxels and the Prince of Anatomists in 106 places never to have pryed into a humane dead Carcase For if Galen writeth this without proof at leastwise the Schooles were not bound to subscribe to his Doatage But if he learned this as being perfectly instructed by Fevers themselves Verily he could not refer this same thing into the effect and also into the cause of one thing For it must needs contein an absurd and blockish begging of the Principle to produce the same thing to be for a cause and effect for it self Namely That a Tertian happens from yellow Choler putrified every other day and a Quartane from black Choler putrified every third day because as much of yellow Choler is made every other day as there is of black Choler in full three dayes space And again Let him prove the truth of this matter That a Tertian assaults us every other day and a Quartane in the space of three dayes because as much yellow Choler is made every other day as there is of black Choler in three dayes space Surely miserable are the Speculations of Healing which are handed forth in the spring of young men being commanded to serve the sick and hitherto adored by the Schooles To wit From whence unprosperous curings of Diseases daily succeed to the destruction of the Christian World and salvation of Souls But at leastwise if yellow Choler should exceed Melancholly or black Choler in one part and an half of its proportion the Spleen exceeds the little bag of the Gawl sit times at least If therefore it be supposed that the Schooles do teach with Galen That as much of Gaul or yellow Choler is made every other day as there is of black Choler every three dayes and the Spleen be the Case or Receptacle of black Choler and the little bag of the Gaul be the sheath of yellow Choler the Creatour hath either erred in his Ends in framing the very Receptacles of those otherwise than Galen hath determined or the Gaul and Spleen were not the Butteries of the Fables of the School of Medicine Therefore others whom the devices of Galen concerning the Circuit of Fevers did not satisfie have begged Astrology for their ayd because a Fever doth sometimes return at set hours But these also are dashed against other straits while as Fevers begin at all houres and likewise do delay or forestall for some houres yea are silent and sleep for some turns Whence they have not sufficiently confirmed That mans nature is constrained at the pleasure of the Stars as neither that there is a wedlock of the matter of a Fever with the Stars They are Rubbish and vain Tincklings poured over credulous eares Others also at length suppose that they have given themselves satisfaction to the Question by Similitudes if they shall say that Fevers have themselves after the manner of other Seeds To wit some whereof do quickly bud as the Water-cresse but that of Parsly far more slow But the example availes not because it resolves one doubt by another For Seeds which are the more slowly resolved in moisture by reason of their Gummy oyliness do also more slowly bud as also others more readily which obtain a muscilage nearer to the juyce of the earth wherefore such a Similitude hath no way regard unto Fevers wherein they will not have fits to be made by reason of an easie or difficult resolving but by reason of a scanty or plentifull afflux of putrified humours Otherwise surely phllegm being the most estranged from putrefaction should scarce afflict on the seventh day whereas in the mean time black Choler which is reckoned to be most like unto a dead Carcase or flesh should far sooner putrifie But at leastwise the Doctrine of the Schooles concerning the cold fit and circuit of Fevers standing it must needs be That a Tertian is cured by exhausting of the matter in the fit and by a defect of new Choler requisite for a future fit if the Patient shall abstain from meat and drink for full two dayes space But the Consequence is false therefore also the position of Galen But if the Schooles do teach and say that then new Choler is dissolved out of the venal bloud Yet this is to feign Nature to be more solicitous that she may preserve the Fever than otherwise the Life and Bloud the Treasure of Life Again That Choler being separated or made out of the Bloud if it be putrified why is it not banished by the veines together with the Choler of the foregoing fit the which was already before deteined in the veines with the Bloud or hath perhaps that remaining and putrified Choler fore-known that there would happen an abstinence of two days To wit that it might reserve it self for this defect for a continuance of the Fever or Ague which otherwise should perish through want of Choler Or hath Nature well pleased her self in the preserving of putrified Choler But if indeed that Choler issuing
and receives an image or Idea of indignation the which is clearly expressed in a woman great with Child fearing or desiring any thing while she conveighs the seal of the thing desired on her young and whatsoever of the Archeus is defiled by that forreign Idea this ought to have been rooted out by the fit so that that is the cause of wearisomness in Fevers because the spirit being marked with a forreign likeness or hateful image as unapt for the performance of the wonted Offices of its government totally vanisheth For so those that profoundly contemplate are tired with much weariness For the Archeus if he hath an image brought into him is unfit for governing of the body For therefore persons void of care the more healthy more strong ones and those of a longer life do slowly wax grey The endeavour therefore of a Physitian is not to direct unto the effect or unto the alterations naturally received in the Archeus For as I have said in Diseases all things depend on the occasional cause implanted into the field of Life because Diseases have not in them an essential root of permanency and stability as other Beings have which consist and subsist by their own seeds Because in very deed all do immediatly consist in the life therefore in a dead Carcase there is no disease and therefore all the destruction and cessation of these depends on the removal of the occasional cause The Scope therefore of healing cannot turn it self unto the cooling of heat or to the' stupefying of alterative motions as neither unto the expectation of Concomitant accidents and produced effects For the Physitian shall labour in vain shall loose his labour time and occasions as long as he shall not be intent on the withdrawing of the occasional cause yea by how much the more he shall do that by so much the more delightfully and acceptably there will be help In all Fevers there is one only inflaming or indignation of the Archeus whence also they agree in the Essence and name of a Fever being distinguished only by their occasional cause Indeed the Matter and Inne distinguisheth Fevers yea it is of no great moment with a good Physitian to have curiously searched into the diversities of Fevers according to the properties of the matter and places since it is neither granted him to have prevented them neither can it be said to a remedy Go thou unto such a vein or unto that place For it is sufficient to have known what things I have already before in general concluded And let the whole study of a Physitian be to have found out remedies with whom all Fevers are of the same value and weight as I shall presently declare CHAP. XIV A perfect Curing of all Fevers 1. The property of the occasional cause 2. Why it becomes not putrified 3. Vomitory and laxative Medicines cure only by accident 4. The Schools why they have not had meet remedies 5. None cured of Fevers by the Physitians 6. The Authors excuse 7. Of what sort the Remedy of a Fever is 8. The successfulness and unadvisedness of Paracelsus are noted 9. The Description of an Vniversal Remedy 10. A Remedy purging Fevers and the sick but not the healthy is described 11. The most rare property of the Liquor Alkahest 12. Particular Remedies of Fevers THerefore it is now manifest and be it sufficient that the occasional matter of a Fever is to be vanquished and that that matter if it be not food corrupted as in a Diary at least that it is an excrement not indeed a putrified one unless in malignat Fevers wherein putrefaction is as yet in its making but a strange forreign one not vital being deteined against nature and so brought into anothers harvest And by this title altogether hostile to the Archeus For if it were putrified it should not be tough neither should it adhere as stubborn for by putrefaction the stedfast Fibers decay and so neither should it afford daily Fevers but it should presently make to putrifie and mortifie the vessel containing it together with it self whence death would be necessitated The occasional matter of Fevers therefore is detained besides the desires of nature in undue places wherein there is not any sink of the body therefore vomitory and laxative remedies if ever they have performed any profitable thing another prone neighbouring matter is thrust out together with it for otherwise the occasional matter of Fevers doth ordinarily reside in the hollow of the stomack or bowels because they are sinks and places appropriated for expulsion unless perhaps in a Diary Fever the disease called Choler the Flux bloody Flux and other Fevers of these pipes stirred up from a matter adhering unto them For I speak especially of the primary or chief Fevers First of all the Schools could not seek meet remedies for Fevers they being seasoned with First of all the Schools could not seek meet remedies for Fevers they being seasoned with bad and false Principles But they not seeking after remedies neither also could they find them Therefore Physitians being hitherto destitute of a true remedy have endeavoured to cure Fevers going into a Circle But if any have been cured under them that hath been by accident Let them give God thanks who hath bestowed strength on the sick whereby they have tesisted the Fever and their succours Physitians therefore instead of curing Fevers have neglected them by exhaustings of the strength and blood Far be envy from what is spoken for not boasting or the vain desire of a little glory I call God the Judge to witness but mans necessity and the compassion of Mortals hath constrained me to write and make manifest these things I have bestowed my Talent let him believe me and follow me that will It shall no longer lay upon me if Mortals being rash of belief perish by Fevers Indeed the occasional cause of Fevers is cut off by one only hook That remedy is sudoriferous or a causer of sweat which cuts extenuates dissolves melts shaves off and also cleanseth away the occasional cause in whatsoever place it at length shall exist And it is a Universal Medicine of Fevers Diaphoretical or transpirative indeed causing the aforesaid effects unsensibly and without sweat For indeed Paracelsus although he had Arcanum's or Secret Medicines whereby at one only draught he alike successively cured the Quartane Ague and all Fevers yet the knowledge of their causes was not granted unto him He being contented to have introduced into us all the particular Creatures of the Microcosm and so under a rashness of belief to have applied the Species Numbers and Properties of all Simples and Stars unto the Medicinal Art and that not indeed by similitudes but he would have them to be so precisely known by a simple identity under the penalty of convicted Idiotism Therefore I distinguish not a Fever if there be the greatest goodness of a remedy For that remedy is the Diaphoretick Precipitate of Paracelsus
inherency is the very same power nor the exciter or spur of its own self or that that power subsisteth alone without a root which stirred it up But every power hath a nourishing causing and directing Being of it self far more spiritual and abstracted than is the Case of its inhesion More abstracted I say than is the mean it self whereinto the motive power is received yea more formal than the very quality of the power it self is Truly there is a master-work man-like image of evil or good the Effecters of effects as well in diseases as in other seminal Beings But that image takes its Original beginning from the cogitation of man or from the conception of the Archeal spirit surrogated in its absence I now speak of Diseases For the Sensitive Soul is in the spirit or Archeal air after the manner of the Receiver And although the Archeus be not vexed after the usual and humane manner of the soul yet the Inn of the sensitive soul which is the Archeus himself arising enjoyes the Idea's as well from his own conceptions as from the exorbitances of his conceptions after the manner proper to his receiving For neither doth the Archeus alwayes fish those passions out of his own conception but also from things undigested badly digested and transchanged Even so also from excrements not being rightly subdued or separated And so also not only from our faculties being estranged or erting but besides from the in-bred endowment of things Even as in the spittle of a mad dog there is a poysonous Ideal property which alienates the imaginations of the sensitive soul in us at its own pleasure There is therefore in things a certain accidental power which if it can perfect its own contagion and propagation it wants a formal and seminal power which may be the Governess of the action For seeds as they utter the figure and similitude of themselves in their products of necessity they have this Image engraven on them if they ought to act out of themselves or to erect another thing like to themselves in the thing produced seeing such a likeness presupposeth a forming Idea In the next place the occasional matter of Fevers if it were of the essence of Fevers or if it should not precede at leastwise it should alwayes accompany the proper effect to it self Wherefore since a quaternary of Humours and the existence of these are feigned things it must needs be that the feigned humoural cause doth neither fore-exist nor follow the Essence of a Fever neither that there is any respect of Humours unto a Fever nor likewise of a Fever unto feigned Humours Again neither can the blood the treasure of life after any manner be the constitutive cause of Fevers yea nor indeed the occasional cause thereof except it be hunted out of the veins and first corrupted that is unless it first cease to be blood For truly there is no other reflexion of the out-chased blood than that it is a dead Carcase in a living sheath that in the mean time it undergoes divers transmutations according to the variety of the Idea of the Archeus governour of the stern of the family-administration in the nearest kitchins For this vitiated blood is now a cadaverous excrement and an occasional cause whereby the Archeus being excited frames an Idea of fury Lastly any other excrement whatsoever being defiled by a succeeding digestion transfers the right of an occasional cause it self and occasionally brings forth a Fever no otherwise than as I have already said concerning the blood And such an excrement is heaped up by a vice digestively and distributively or by degrees or at length is produced by a Fever or by forreign things breathed into the body However it shall be at leastwise in respect of Fevers it alwayes remains external neither doth it ever enter into the Essence hereof They are indeed only accidental considerations which do most nearly respect the degree of Fevers for if the action of diseases proceedeth immediately into the life and takes its beginning from the life verily it is necessary that the essence of diseases do also wholly pierce the very essential marrow of life But other external things of what sort and how great soever do only regard whether the occasional matter be greater or less in quantity Whether the efficient cause in a young man be stronger than in an old man in the beginning of the disease than in the end thereof in a malignant Fever than in a more mild one c. But such degrees of powers are only the Correlatives of the efficient being compared unto the strength And they teach indeed how much it is to be feared from an accident occasionally rushing on the sick But I here have regard unto the formal essence of a Fever Therefore the essential power of the internal efficient or of the life it self is alway present and remaineth and the denomination thereof drawn from a term of Relation although it may change the hope of the Physitian may vary the superiority of life and the proportion of the Agent yet the life it self is alwayes the intimate principal formal and essential efficient of Fevers and the occasional matter every where remains without the true and internal material cause For a Fever is oft-times taken away or ceaseth a remnant of its occasional matter and efficient as yet remaining For a Quartane oftentimes ceaseth of its own accord and perhaps returns again a month after and so it keeps its occasional matter in the mean time untouched and without action as it were sleeping And the same occasional Being is elsewhere of its own accord wholly consumed the storme of the Archeus being first appeased Oft-times also Fevers leave weaknesses and local diminishments of the faculties behind them being durable for life as the life of the implanted Archeus was curtailed and suffered his own too many tribulations CHAP. XVII A narrow search into the Essential thinglinesse of a Fever 1. An erroneous speculation of the Schooles 2. The Authour differs from the Schooles 3. The manner of making a Fever is enlarged for betokenings 4. The center of a Fever 5. An examination of thirst and cold 6. The Doctrine of its center is confirmed 7. Why a Fever is sometimes terminated by the appetite of unwonted things 8. The family government of a Fever in the Pylorus 9. The Quartane ague is an outlaw and the unheard of seat of strange Fevers 10. Why vomiting looseth not these strange Fevers 11. The definition of a Fever is rent 12. An examination of remedies 13. The vanity of hope from whence it is introduced HItherto as well the modern as more antient Physitians have considered the nature and essential thinglinesse of Fevers from the speculation of heat as well internal as that of the encompassing heat of Summer And also they have measured that essence by the sharpnesse cruelty multiplicity of the occasional matter or from the malignity of one or more of the four feigned
age but not that there is any conjoyned material cause of a man besides his body it self which is the very product of generation to wit from a material cause and seminal internal efficient which things have hitherto been vailed from the Schools and so they have reputed the internal occasional causes of diseases to be the immediate and conjoyned ones being as yet plainly distinct from the disease produced Wherefore that is also next to be repeated in this place which I have taught in my discourses of Natural Phylosophy to wit that there are six digestions in us For in the three former that there are their own Retents and their own excrements the which seeing every one of them are in themselves and in their own Regions troublesom yea by a co-inâ—olding and extravagancy they have become hateful they degenerate into things transmitted and transchanged and do from thence induce divers diseases occasionally But in the fourth and fifth digestion I have shewn that not any perceiveable excrement is admitted But in the sixth digession which is that of things transchanged that very many voluntary dungs do through the errour of the vegetative faculty offer themselves Moreover that some are transmitted from some other place as also that not a few do degenerate through a violent command of things suscepted or undergone which things have been hitherto unknown by the Schools and therefore also have been neglected and the which therefore have wanted a proper name and the diseasie effects of these have been ridiculously translated and adjudged unto the four feigned humours of the Liver Wherefore although I as the first have expelled the diseasifying causes of Tartar yet least I should seem to make new all things from animosity I will here call these filths the Tartar of the blood although by an improper Etymology because for want of a true name Such excrements therefore whether they are brought into the habit of the body from elsewhere or next made under transchanging by a proper errour of the faculties or lastly through a violent command of external things being there degenerated I name them the Tartar of the blood 〈…〉 that in very deed they are Tartars in the matter and manner of the Tartar of Wine but because of good nourishment being now defiled that which before was fruitful and vital hath afterwards become hostile And these things I have therefore fore-admonished of that ye may know that the Tartar of the blood is the product of the plague and that that is easily made from efficient pestilential causes And moreover it is not yet sufficient to have said that the Tartar of the blood is the product of the Pest but besides I ought to prefix the place thereof For I will by and by teach that the Plague is a poyson of terrour and therefore I have noted that the Seat or primitive Nest thereof is in the Hypochondrial or Midriffs to wit where the first conception of humane terrour is whether it happen from external disturbances or next of its own accord from the motions of things conceived Wherefore there are present in the plague vomiting doatage headach c. the which in its own place I have decyphered in the Commonwealth of the Spleen Therefore if the Schools had put this Tartar of the blood for a conjoyned cause we had as yet notwithstanding been differing from each other as that which with them had been a connexed cause is with me a product of the plague for the Pestinvades us after an irregular manner neither is it s conjoyned matter a certain solid body or visible liquor as neither therefore any putrefaction plainly to be seen but only a Gas separated and degenerated from the substance of the Archeus But whatsoever visible thing offers it self as vitiated in the Plague is not of the matter of the plague it self nor of the matter whereof but it is either the occasional matter of which before or it is the product or off-spring wherein the plague sits as it were in a nest Wherefore the Carbunole Bubo or Escharre are not the original matter of the Pest but the effect and product which the Pest â—ath prepared to it self For the plague is for the most part so cruel and swift that as soon as it is introduced into the Archeus it cannot omit but that it subjecteth some part of the nourishable humour unto its tyranny and dwells therein Wherefore if the putrified humour should be the immediate cause of the plague truly it had been putrified before it had putrified To wit seeing the Pest it self prepares that vitious product for it self which the Schools call humours they being as yet undefined For Fernelius would be a little more quick-sighted than the Schools and therefore he knew that the plague was not bred or did conâ—ist of the putrefaction of four seigned humours as neither of the heat of the air or of the cold thereof but of a certain poyson the Foster-child of hidden causes Again we must take notice that when the 〈◊〉 of the blood or dross of the last digestion being vitiated hath received a pestileâ—â—â—â—ment it hath a priviledge of exhaling through the pores no less than other transchanged excrements without any residence left behind it or remaining dead-head So the Chymists call the dreg which remains after distillation to wit if the humours shall be alimentary but not if the substance it self of the solid parts be scorched into an Escharre or Carbuncle for so the much more hard dungs of the Lues Venerea being as it were equal to bones the counsel of resolving being snatched to them do wholly vanish But although the Tartar of the blood doth also rejoyce in the aforesaid prerogative as oft as it is banished as infamous out of the family-administration of life yet while it is transchanged into a corrupt mattery or thin sanious poyson it gnaws the skin into the shape of an Escharre before that it can sweat thorow the pores in manner of a vapour And that indeed by reason of the imprinted blemish of a strange ferment whereby it degenerated into a formal transmutation But if indeed the Tartar of the blood shall draw the odour of the ferment but is not yet transchanged Glandules Buboes c. are made which are oftentimes ended by a plentiful Flux of sweat without opening of the skin whereas the other aforesaid products cannot obtain that and almost all these are by the Schools banished into Catarrhs The whole Tartar of the blood therefore is indeed bred at home but it is a Bastard which is intruded by force destruction and errour But since the remedies of Nature are subject unto so many Courts of digestions and bodies of so eminent an excellency do possess a violence and strength of acting and likewise have filths admixed with them or difficult bolts truly the art of the fire is never sufficiently esteemed which now and then graduates one Simple to that height that it persecutes with revenge all the excrementitious
the air water or earth that that can neither be a disease in it self nor the containing cause thereof Yea whatsoever is marked with the name of antecedent causes is nothing but the occasional cause causing nothing by it self but by accident nor any thing without an appropriation received in us Wherefore they neither betoken nor desire nor prescribe a cure but only a caution or flight The occasions therefore of the Plague are to be considered as the occasions of diseases being sometime entertained do passe into the order of causes First of all therefore I have already sufficiently taught that the Pest is not sent down from the Heavens And seeing every effect is the fruit or product of its own and not of anothers tree therefore every cause produceth its own and not anothers effect therefore the Pest hath a specifical proper and not a forreign cause For neither may we distinguish of Plagues by their accidents concomitants or signates because they are those which flow immediately from the diversity of subjects because they diversly vary after the manner and nature of the receiver according to the custom of the Beings of nature Wherefore also the Pest consisting of matter form essence a seed and properties requires also to have its own and one onely species seeing the very essence it self of things or defects is most near to individuals But if it either happen from without or be generated within that is all one seeing from thence the Plague is now constituted Again if it do the more swiftly or slowly defile its issue be the more violent and speedy do invade diverse parts or diversly disquiet the body yet that doth not therefore change the species of the poyson For they are only the signs of quantiry co-mixture of a ferment appropriation and incidency on the parts receiving Otherwise the internal and formal poyson of the Pest and that which conteins the thingliness thereof is 〈◊〉 â—ys singular in every individual Because the essence or Being of things consisteth in the simplicity of their own species as there is the same essence of fire on both sides whether it be great or little whether quiet or driven with the bellows or lastly whether the flame shall be red yellow green or sky-coloured Therefore the remote crude and first occasional matter of the pestilence is an air putrified through continuance or rather a hoary putrified Gas which putrefaction of the air according to the experience of the fire which Adeptists promise hath not as yet the 8200. part of its own seminal body The which thou shalt the more easily comprehend if thou considerest a hoary putrified vessel and hogs-head of wine now exhausted without any weight of it self to corrupt new and old wines infused in the hogs-head For I have treated in my discourses of natural Phylosophy concerning the nature of a ferment putrifying by contmuance and after what sort vegetables do arise from an incorporeal and putrified seed that from hence the progeny of the Pest may be the more distinctly made manifest Moreover I have shewn that the earth is the mother of putrefaction through continuance that we may know that popular Plagues do draw their first occasional matter from an earthquake and from the consequences of camps and siedges For therefore as much as the earth differs from the heaven so much also is the occasional matter of the Pâ—st remote from the Heaven But I call this first matter that incorporeal hoary puâ—rified poyson existing in the Gas of the earth And so I substitute this poyson as theremoâ—e matter under another more near poyson which disposeth the matter of the Archeus whereby he may the more easily assent and conceive in himself a pestilent terrour that at length a formal pestilential essence may suddenly come upon the previous dispositions hereof But besides if I must duely Phylosophize concerning the infections of the Air I ought of necessity to repeate the Anatomy thereof from the fore assayed doctrine of the elements in my treatise of natural of Phylosophy The air therefore in it self is one of the first-born elements being transparent and void as well of lightnesse as weight unchangeable and perpetual being endowed with natural cold unlesse it be hindered by the strength of scituations and things co mixed with it but being every where filled with pores and for this cause suffering an extension or pressing together of it self The porosities whereof are either filled with vapours and forreign exhalations or remayning in their integrity they plainly gape being void of a body the which I have elsewhere demonstrated in the treatise of a necessary Vacuum For in very deed if the air were without pores that are empty of every body vapours could not be lifted up without a penetration of bodies But since a most manifest enlargement and com-pression of the air is granted as I have elsewhere fully demonstrated an emptinesse also is of necessity granted For such porosities in the air are as it were wombs wherein the vapours the fruits of the water are again resolved into the last simplicity of waters from whence they proceeded and are spoyled of any signatures of their former seeds whatsoever But those effluxes in the air are forreign â—y accident and various according to the disposition of the concrete body from whence they exhaled First of all they are the vapours of pure and simple water and then of the waters of the salt sea which season the rain with their vaporous brine and for that cause preserâ—e it from corruption For otherwise by reason of the societies of diverse exhalations being admixed with it rain waters would of necessity putrifie and stink no lesse than clouds in mountains and most miâ—â—s The poysons therefore of the air being drawn in are partly entertained in manner of a vapour in its porosities and do partly defile the very body of the air without a corporeal mixture even as glasse conceiveth odours which defilement hath of right the name of an impression I have an house in a plain field being rich on its South-side in a wood of oakes but on the north it respecteth pleasant meadows moreover toward both the mansions of the Sun it hath hils that are fruitful in corn But linnen cloaths being there washed and â—â—nced in the fountain being hung up in the loft look most neatly white while the North wind blows and here and there also from east to west or on the other hand from west to east But the south-winde only blowing and the southerly windowes being opened they are notably yellow with a clayie colour For from the numerous oakes a tinging vapour is belched forth into the air and I have learned that this vapour is breathed in by us as also drunk up by the linnen And also thus from Groves of oakes after the Summer solstice an hidden vapour doth exhale which inâ—ecteth an unwonted countenance and neck with a frequent itching pustule or wheale and afterwards they becoâ—â— plainly visible in the
or confidence which is wholly vexed with confusion and a sorrowful troop of disturbances Therefore the womb is to be comforted with the oyl of Amber and with Amber dissolved in the best spirit of wine and with the suffumigation of the warts of the shanks of a horse being beaten to powder in a mortar CHAP. XVII Zenexton that is a preservative pomander against the Pest. VVHich confidence as it were the principal pledge of animosity and mean of preservation that the Schools might stir up the succours of idols purging sacrifices and exceeding mad Idolatries have been Antiently devised Things also were hung on the body and carried about from without which afterwards in every religion were accounted for holy things and the which were even falsly believed by an hidden because an unknown goodness to repel terrour and sorrow A Zenexton therefore seeing it hath for the most part been devised for prevention of the plague and doth also compleate a part of the cure therefore it deserves a singular consideration For Physitians have described diverse such preservatives according to the desire of every one that they might readily serve for a comfort to the sick while themselves were fugitive helpers They decree also that Amulets are to be hung on the body the which although for the most part they could have nothing of virtues at leastwise that they may from a ruinous foundation perswade others unto animosity to wit unto a be lief hope or some kind of confidence For the Pagans at first commanded the Images and Statues of their Deasters or starry Gods to be carried about the sick and then they came unto characters words seals or tokens and to the Talismanicks of Gamahâ—u Afterwards the first Monks of the Christians offered labels and things to be hung about the neck against the plague and from that foundation they perswaded the vulgar to believe that the Pest was a stroak immediately sent from God I meditate therefore that every natural work ought in nature to follow its own means as oft as all things requisite for operation are present Therefore I enquire in this place into the fixed firm roots into the necessary and ordinary causes for the obtayning of the effects correlative to such causes Others therefore interpreting the Plague to be a punishment have proposed unto people unutterable names writings signates guarded with meer vanities also polluted with unsignificant words in bearing them about whereunto perhaps they have joyned a verse of David of Salomon or of some Prophet But Paracelsus laughing at these vanities devised other greater ones especially those adorned with two characterisms yea and with lying seales and he again consents to those which elsewhere he derided with much Taunting But I have at sometime frequently noted a sometimes ready sliding into hypochondrial madnesse from these superstitions Besides these there are some who forsaking divine names do commend figures lines characters words the figures of numbers and according to the pleasure of Astronomers the feigned seals of the planets to wit the errours of the wandring stars under the name of Pythagoras of Salomon the Jew or some other they hitherto attributing more to the toyes of the heathen than to any sacred imprecations For if happily any one who had saluted him that had the Pestilence afar of and had remained free from contagion he now being the Authour of trifles had made it his priviledg of deceiving two thousand people afterwards by his toyes For truly I have taught there is no Astral thing that in the Pest as well in the manner of its making as of its curing For I alwayes reject unfaithful triflous means and especially those which are unlawful because none that leans upon a Staffe half broken is preserved from falling unlesse it be by chance For although the terrour of the man be put off by vain remedies which otherwise infants want yet they are not therefore deprived of the terrour of the Archeus Indeed they exclude onely the effect of faith privatively when very much and that onely for a little space and they oft-times forsake their own confiders for why since they are known to be of no power For Paracelsus always made an heightned imagination and strong confidence of great account the which when as he floating as loose and frivolous I found to be founded on the sand I could dot approve of and that follies do contain a succour of preserving from the plague Paracelsus scarce trusting in mental trifles converts himself unto a Zenexton which would undoubtedly preserve him that carried it about him from the Pest But since he describeth not that preservative Pomander for the City of Stertzing that had been bountiful unto him right would make us to conjecture whether as ungrateful he deceived that City or whether indeed he were ignorant of that Zenexton Surely a remedy is in no wise to be hidden from mortals in so great a destruction especially from whence he might hope to deserve honour to himself among those that are present and all posterity Men have been diversly mad about this thing for every one hath persâ—aded himself that he hath catched the boasted of Zenexton of Paracelsus by the ears and that thing hath so greatly pleased mortal men that thenceforth they have exchanged names the Amulet of the Greeks with the barbarous name of Zenexton for very many have carried Arsenick Orpiment Quick-silver yea and Mercury sublimate and such like poysons of the veins about their neck or the pulses of their veins no otherwise than as if the Plague and Lice were chased away by one and the same remedy But these kind of inventions being brought unto us out of Italy which is fruitful in presumption jugling deceits and subtilties we strangers do adore and follow For as pâ—sterity willingly boasteth that it hath drawn the first rudiments of discursive Sciences from the Greeks So also it hath hoped to learn the properties of poysons more readily from none for the varieties enlargements and maskings of death than from a Nation frequently imploring the help of poysons for it hath believed and falsly perswaded it self that to hand forth poysons and to cure the Pest had a neer affiniâ—y Therefore our Physitians returning from Padua with worship and reverence toward their Professors there some opinionating these men for their great learning have hung Quick-silver enclosed in the shell of a Filberd Nut about their neck and they supposed that they were safe whom when others saw to die they married the former Quick-silver unto Arsenick a Spider or Scorpion being added thereunto some whereof inscribed sacred words on Troâ—hies prepared thereof that if one should the less successfully profit the other at least might help But I have seen in the Camps of Ostend nigh the shoar many thousands of men with such a Zenexton the plague being removed yea and those who for every fifteen daies embladdered their ribs by Trochies of Arsenick enclosed in fine â—â—nnen bags and those are the medicinal Tragedies
a bottomless pit of darkness I was hugely agast and also I fell our of all knowledge of things and my self But returning to my self I understood by one conception that in Christ Jesus we live move and have our being That no man can call even on the name of Jesus to Salvation without the special grace of God That we must continually pray And lend us not into temptation c. Indeed understanding was given unto me that without special grace to any actions nothing but sin attends us Which being seen and savourily known I admited my former ignorances and I knew that Stoicisme did retain me an empty and swollen Bubble between the bottomless pit of Hell and the necessity of imminent death I knew I say that by this Study under the shew of moderation I was made most haughty as if trusting in the freedom of my will I did renounce divine grace and as though what we would we might effect by ourselves Let God forbid such wickedness I said Wherefore I judged that Blasphemy to be indulged by Paganisme indeed but not to become a Christian and so I judged Stoical Philosophy with this Title hateful In the mean time when I was tired and wearied with the too much reading of other things for recreation sake I rouled over Mathiolus and Diascoxides thinking with my self nothing to be equally necessary for mortal men is by admiring the grace of God in Vegetables to minister to their proper necessities and to crop the fruit of the same Straightway after I certainly found the art of Herbarisme to have nothing increased since the dayes of Diascorides but at this day the Images of Herbs being delivered with the names and shapes of Plants to be on both sides onely disputed but nothing of their properties virtues and uses to have been added to the former invention and Histories except that those who came after have mutually feigned degrees of Elementary qualities to which the temperature of the Herbe is to be attributed But when I had certainly found happily two hundred Herbes of one quality and degree to have divers properties and some of divers qualities and degrees to have a Symphony or Harmony suppose it in vulnerary or wound potions in producing of the same effect not indeed the Herbs the various Pledges of divine Love but the Herbarists themselves began to be of little esteem with me and when I wondred at the cause of the unstableness of the effects and of so great darkness in applying and healing I inquired whether there were any Book that delivered the Maxims and Rules of Medicine For I supposed Medicine might be taught and delivered by Discipline like other Arts and Sciences and so to be by tradition but not that it was a meer gift At leastwise seeing Medicine is a Science a good gift coming down from the Father of Lights I did think that it might have its Theoremes and chief Authours instructed by an infused knowledge into whom as into Bazaleel and Aholiab the spirit of the Lord had inspired the Causes and knowledge of all Diseases and also the knowledge of the properties of things Therefore I thought these enlightned men to be the Standard-defending Professors of healing I inquired I say whether there were not another who had described the Endowments Properties Applications and proportions of Vegetables from the Hyssop even to the Cedar of Libanus A certain Professor of Medicine answered me none of these things might be looked for in Galen or Avicen But since I was not apt to believe neither did I finde among Writers the certainty sought for I suspected it according to truth that the giver of Medicine would remain the continual dispenser of the same Therefore I being carefull and doubtful to what Profession I should resign my self I had regard to the manners of the People and Lawes and pleasures of Princes I saw the Law to be mens Traditions and therefore uncertain unstable and void of truth For because in humane things there is no stability and no marrow of knowledge I seemed to passe over an unprofitable life if I should convert it to the pleasures of men Lastly I knew that the government of my self was hard enough for me but the judgement concerning good men and the life of others to be dark and subject to a thousand vexatious difficulties wherefore I wholly denied the Study of the Law and government of others On the other hand the misery of humane life was urgent and the will of God whereby every one may defend himself so long as he can but I more inclined with a singular greediness unto the most pleasing knowledge of natural things and even as the Soul became Servant to its own inclinations I unsensibly slid altogether into the knowledge of natural things Therefore I read the Institutions of Fuchius and Fernelius whereby I knew that I had lookt into the whole Science of Medicine as it were by an Epitome and I smiled to my self Is the knowledge of healing thus delivered without a Theoreme and Teacher who hath drawn the gift of healing from the Adeptist Is the whole History of natural properties thus shut up in Elementary qualities Therefore I read the works of Galen twice once Hipocrates whose Aphorismes I almost learned by heart and all Avicen and as well the Greeks Arabians as Moderns happily six hundred I seriously and attentively read thorow and taking notice by common places of whatsoever might seem singular to me in them and worthy of the Quill At length reading again my collected stuffe I knew my want and it grieved me of my pains bestowed and years When as indeed I observed that all Books with institutions singing the same Song did promise nothing of soundness nothing that might promise the knowledge of truth or the truth of knowledge In the mean time even from the beginning I had gotten from a Merchant all simples that I might keep a little of my own in my possession and then from a Clark of the Shops or a Collector of simples I had all the usual Plants of our Countrey and so I learned the knowledge of many by the looks of the same And also I thorowly weighed with my self that indeed I knew the face of Simples and their names but than their properties nothing lesse Therefore I would accompany a practising Physitian straightway it repented me again and again of the insufficiency uncertainty and conjectures of healing I had known indeed problematically or by way of hard question to dispute of any Disease but I knew not how to cure the very pain of the Teeth or scabbedness radically Lastly I saw that Fevers and common Diseases were neither certainly nor knowingly nor safely cured but the more grievous ones and those which cease not of their own accord for the most part were placed into the Catalogue of incurable Diseases Then it came into my minde that the art of Medicine was found full of deceit without which the Romanes lived happily five
principiating Ferment laid up in the bosoms of the Elements continues unchangeable and constant nor subject to successive change or death Therefore it is a power implanted in places by the Lord the Creator and there placed for ends ordained to himself in the succession of dayes While as othewise the Seed in things and its fermental or leavening force is a thing which the Scene of its Tragedy being out of date doth end in an individual conclusion For a thing although it successively causeth off-spring from it self that comes to passe not but by the virtue of the Ferment once drawn which therefore ceaseth not in its own Places uncessantly to send forth voluntary or more prosperous fruits by the Seed of the former Parents These things are easie to be known in Mineralls sprung of their own accord but in Plants and living Creatures generating by a successive fruitfulness of the Seed it is not alike easie as neither in things soulified counterfetting indeed a confused Sex by putrifaction but straightway causing off-spring also by a mutual joyning But there is every where the same Reason of the Ferment and so that the Ferment is on both sides the same Principle For in the Seed it is placed by the Parent and undergoes an identity or sameliness with the same or it is imprinted in the matter elsewhere from external causes and at leastwise it on either side holds the place of a true inward efficient Because the framer of things hath ordained proper and stable places for some Ferments in the Cup or bosome of the Elements as it were the Store-house of the Seeds therefore the first figures of efficient causes But in other things he hath dispersed them thorow individual things and kindes as if they were places for elsewhere he would have these beginnings stedfast in regard of the Nature of bodies in which they are in but in another place that they might passe from hand to hand into the continuances of things But in this he would have them to differ that the stable Ferments of places should be as it were the chief universal simple and inchoative or beginning Beginnings of Seeds or the efficients of natural Causes which indeed should beget with Childe the Element of Water in it self in the Air or in the Earth But that the sliding Ferments of frail Bodies and those Ferments drawn from the Parents should onely concern the matter prepared and should sit immediately in the bosom of the Seeds and therefore also that they should contain the inward necessity of death Likewise the other universal beginning of Bodies which is the water is the onely material cause of things as the water hath the Nature of a beginning it self in the manner purity simpleness and progress of beginning even as also in the bound of dissolution unto which all Bodies through the reducing of the last matter do return Which thing I will straightway in its place typically demonstrate A Beginning therefore differs from a cause onely speculatively as that is an actual initiating Being and thus far causing But a Cause may be a terme of relation to the thing caused or the Effect happily neerer to a speculative Being Or distinguish those as it listeth thee I at leastwise understand Causes to begin and beginnings to cause by the same name whether it be in the bosom of the Elements or in the very Family of material Seeds Therefore in the History of Natural things I consider the matter for the most part begotten with Childe by the Seed running down from its first life unto the last bound of that conjoyned thing but not the first matter of Aristotle or that impossible non-Being But I consider the reall beginnings of the efficient cause conceived as the first Gifts Roots Treasures and begetting Ferments Or if the Reader had rather confound the efficient Cause with the Ferment of things and the matter of Bodies with the Element of water I willingly cease to be distinct onely that it be known how those things have themselves in the light of Nature Thus at least I have discoursed of beginnings and causes of Bodies as I judge and have found by experience also I promise much light to those who shall have once made this speculation their own Therefore first of all they shall certainly finde the Maxime of Aristotle false to wit that the thing generating cannot be a part of the thing generated Seeing that the effective Principle of generation is alway the inward Agent the inward doer or accomplisher and the thing generating Which appeareth clearly enough in those things which bring forth living Creatures by their onely Mother putrifaction Wherein there is no outward univocall or simple thing generating but the seminal lump it self or the generative Seed doth keep in it self all things which it hath need of for the managing of generation But truly neither is it sufficient to have shewen a couple of Causes but rather it hath holpen more plainly to have brought forth the efficient or chief Builder of the Fabrick Wherefore I do suppose in this place what things I will demonstrate elsewhere to wit that in the whole order of natural things nothing of new doth arise which may not take its beginning out of the Seed and nothing to be made which may not be made out of the necessity of the Seed But the Tragedy that hath done its office in the bound of the end is nothing out the period or conclusion of the Seeds overcome with pains or ended unless happily they may be compelled by violence to depart Wherefore I except the fire because as being given not for generation but for destruction Chiefly because there is a peculiar not a seminal beginning of it Indeed it is a thing among all created things singular and unlike as sometime in its place Last of all I except the influences of the Heavens which by reason of their most general appointment have no seminal power in themselves Because they are too far distinct from the lot or interest of things to be generated and therefore influences are chosen to be for signes times or seasons dayes and years by the Creator nor ordained for any thing else but not for the seminal causes of things Moreover of efficient and seminal Causes in Nature some are efficiently effecting but others effectively effecting Indeed of the former order are the Seeds themselves and the Spirits the dispensers of these and those causes are of the race of essences through their much activity worthily divided from the material cause But the effective efficients are the very places of entertainment and the neerest Organs or Instruments of the Seeds such as are external Ferments the disposers of the matter into the interchangeableness of the passing over of one thing into another Also hither have the dispositive powers of circumstances regard likewise the cherishing exciting and promoting ones because the Seed being given yet not any things promiscuously do thence proceed Besides our young beginner shall
learn the wit of Aristotle ready in founding Maxims that as oft as he found any thing agreeable to his own conceipts he would presently draw it into Rules under an universal head by binding or tying up the Roots of weaker authority that were taken from one to another Which Maxims indeed of his the following age wondered at to wit being prone to sloath and therefore easily worshipping him and those Maxims Also oftentimes he brought learning by demonstration into Nature by a forced Interpretation as that he would have natural causes wholly to obey numbers lines and letters of the Alphabet by a rashness altogether ridiculous By way of example he taking notice that fire did sooner burn about dry Wood than moyst he thereupon straightway meditating on a general Maxim would That the act of active things should onely be on a matter disposed which thing notwithstanding is enclosed with many ignorances For first as soon as he saw the fire an external Agent to agree with combustible matter he shewed hence also that every other Agent in Nature ought to act by the meanes of fire not knowing the fire not to act by meanes of a seminal Agent and to be a peculiar Creature Therefore with the like ignorance he judged every efficient cause like the fire to be of necessity external He was also deceived in this that he determined every natural Agent to require a disposed matter when as otherwise the Agent in Nature doth dispose of the matter that is subject unto it For neither doth any counsel of a natural Agent act for any other end than that it may dispose the matter subjected to it unto aims known to it self at least appointed for generation Indeed out of one onely juyce of Earth and one onely Garden four hundred Plants do grow and fructifie For if the Agent doth finde a friendly disposition in the matter 't is well indeed but if not he easily prepares the same for himself What if hereafter I shall plainly shew that all tangible bodies do immediately proceed out of the one onely Element of Water by what necessity I pray you shall the Agent require a fore-existing disposition of the matter or if the disposed matter do fore-exist who shall be that disposer or fore-runner of the Agent By it self sufficient to the disposing of every matter wherein it is But if thou sayest the Ferment At leastwise thou oughtest again to have known that both causes differ not in Nature from the thing produced unless in ripeness nor is the Agent to be distinguished from the Ferment The which if the Schooles seasoned with the Discipline of a better juyce did know they would also know Aristotle to have revolted from his own Rules which being at first true he erected into the premises of Scientifical demonstrations He had even become mad about the wondrous generatings of stones in us And although before the Elements of Euclide sprang up he was more ignorant of the Mathematicks yet Aristotle being far more skilful in this than in Nature endeavoured to subdue Nature under the Rules of that Science For he knew the Circle to be the most capable of figures in a plain Therefore he suddenly forced it into a general Maxim that also Ulcers and wounds that are round were more hard to be cured then any others that were alike in extension But truly a piercing wound by a broad Dagger is more difficult than a round one in the flesh But in Ulcers the Fistula of the fundament or weeping Fistula are more laboursome in healing than any Ulcer of the shanks or leggs extended into a Circuite Indeed he thought being deceived with the aptness of Rules the incarnating of a wound to promote it self onely by an external working Plaister and that outsideness not onely to be in relation to the superficies of our Body but in a figural respect of the distance of the lips of the wound in order to its Centre I will relate a Story A Trooper infects his Wife with the Pox or foule Disease but this through extream want of a remedy enlarged it self into an eating sore or Ulcer One at least I saw wasting the fleshy membrane or coate from the Ear into the neck shoulder and elbow behinde thorow the shoulder blades the whole side of the ribs and breast Which membrane as it is fatter in Women so it contains a deeper depth She said she had many other and lesse sores thorow the bottom of the belly into the legs and she shewed a humane body almost without a skin The Woman was carried by my authority into the Hospital of Vilvord the Nuns refusing but might prevailing also sometimes for a while commands the Nuns The chief Chyrurgion Tow being steeped in Aqua fortis with incredible pain toucheth the quick muscles and smites the house with a miserable howling But passing by I asked why he had done that He saith it is an ulcerated Cacner and wholly so and by how much the sooner she died by so much the happier she would be The complaining Nun hearing that said she was not bound by the rules of her house to entertain the Cancer Leprosie or Pox c. Forthwith therefore before the twilight they bring forth the Woman to the Suburbs and laid her on the Dunghill But a poor Country man pitying the unknown Woman makes her a little Cottage of boughes against the Rain but he applieth some Colewort leaves to the abounding or running filthy matter and to drive away the unkindeness of the Air. He tells the chance to me I gives her the Corallate of Paracelsus prepared by the white of an Egge and in twenty six dayes she was wholly well For the great Ulcers with a hastened force were covered with skin some exceeding small chaps from the beginning keeping a longer continuance A little after a certain Kinsman dying bequeaths to this most poor Woman a House and Land Her Husband perished behinde the hedges She marries the second time being now rich in a Herde a flock and in Lands For I having admired in her Husband and the Chyrurgion robbers or murderers in the Monks lightness in the Countryman the Samaritane and in the Woman Job I knew the God of Job to be the same and the continual almighty Ruler of the Universe From whom although man hath privily stolen the Titles of Majesty Highness Excellency Clemency and Lordliness he hath reserved at least one onely perpetual one to himself which is that of Eternity In respect whereof man is a Mushrome of one night on the morrow rotten Therefore let the Schooles know that the Rules of the Mathematicks or Learning by demonstration do ill square to Nature For man doth not measure Nature but she him For neither shall a Heathen man that is ignorant of the wayes shew more the wayes than a blinde man colours not seen before Therefore besides the ignorance of Nature in its Root and thingliness or what it is the Schooles have not known the causes number requirance
as yet to follow that Patron in natural Philosophy seeing that we believe by Faith that Plants budded forth by a seminal virtue before the Stars arose For in Nature there is alway found the Agent the matter and thing brought forth or the effect the instrument and the disposition But every Agent measureth his instrument and fits the dispositions unto the end or finishing of the thing produced But heat whether thou wilt have it Elementary or heavenly may indeed be a disposition brought forth by the Seed and likewise the Instrument thereof but it can by no meanes be a seminal Agent measuring and squaring its dispositive Instruments For neither is the operation of heat any other than to make hot whether that thing be called Elementarily or Firmamentarily Therefore the operation of heat in generation is not ordained for the end of specifical dispositions and much lesse is it directed to the bringing in of a specifical thingliness For if that heat should be this seminal Agent or the nature of Seeds besides that it being one hath so many specifical differences as there are kindes of things generated in Nature it ought to have without it self an Instrument seeing that it is not granted to be without essential properties measured and manifestly limited to the bringing in of any kinde of specifical thingliness but no such Instrument or mean is present with heat therefore the co-measuring of every Instrument according to quantity manner motion figure durance and the appointments of any operations whatsoever dependeth on the seminal Agent in which such kindes of co-measuring knowledges of proportions are and no way on heat For seeing the knowledge of natural truth doth necessarily depend on nature and the essence thereof Aristotle who was ignorant of the thingliness of nature also knew not the truth thereof and so prostituted nought but his own dreams to be diligently taught in Schooles Truly the operation of generation depends on nature and its proper Instruments He therefore that looks on heat for every Instrument of nature and accounts this very Instrument for the seminal and vitall nature he supposeth one of the Kings Guard to be the King or the File to be the Workman Yea heat as heat is not indeed the Instrument proper to nature but a common adjacent concomitant and accidental thing produced in hot things onely but the knowledge of nature and essence is not taken from improper adjacent and accidental effects but from the knowing of Principles which hitherto even as it plainly appeares the Schoole of the Peripateticks hath been ignorant of I say the Principles of nature are the matter and the Agent But the Principles of Bodies are water and the seed or vulcane things answering to both Sexes which thing I will by and by teach in its place Wherefore since Aristotle knowes not the nature properties and likewise the causes and thingliness of generations who shall not shew that the Schooles have hitherto drawn the waters of Philosophy out of dry Cisterns For his eight Books of natural Instructions do expound Dreams and privations instead of the knowledge of nature I say they do suppose a matter or impossible corporeity or bodyliness with Mathematical abstraction for the principle prop and seminary of nature The which as it never existeth neither shall it have the efficacy of beginning or of causing Likewise privation is given to be drunk down as another Principle which the Schooles themselves do rashly confess to be a meer non ens or a non-Being And at length they diligently teach surely by an over rash dotage the form which is the end top and utmost aim of appointment and the thing it self produced for a beginning of nature to wit they place the effect in the room of a Beginning But in another Book he sets to sale the causes of nature for Principles to wit the matter and form privation being omitted As I shall sometimes shew concerning causes As though they were the Principles of nature or could principiaâ—e by causing But fortune and chance as if they were the proper passions of nature are handled in a particular Book For events do not deserve a place in the contemplation and Doctrine of nature Lastly a Vacuum or emptiness and an Infinite things not belonging to the knowledge of nature and well high privative things or plainly negative have obtained his treatises But time and place the Schooles do no lesse ignorantly than impertinently reckon among the lessons of nature And last of all they bring in locall motion as it serves to Science Mathematical or Learning by demonstration alike foolishly and with an undistinct indiscretion into nature Certainly I could wish that in so short a space of life the Spring of young men might not be hereafter seasoned with such trifles and no longer with lying Sophistry Indeed they should learn in that unprofitable three years space and in the whole seven years Arithmetick the Science Mathematical the Elements of Euclide and then Geographie with the circumstances of Seas Rivers Springs Mountains Provinces and Minerals And likewise the properties and Customs of Nations Waters Plants living Creatures Minerals and places Moreover the use of the Ring and of the Astrolabe And then let them come to the Study of Nature let them learn to know and seperate the first Beginnings of Bodies I say by working to have known their fixedness volatility or swiftness with their seperation life death interchangeable course defects alteration weakness corruption transplanting solution coagulation or co-thickning resolving Let the History of extractions dividings conjoynings ripenesses promotions hinderances consequences lastly of losse and profit be added Let them also be taught the Beginnings of Seeds Ferments Spirits and Tinctures with every flowing digesting changing motion and disturbance of things to be altered And all those things not indeed by a naked description of discourse but by handicraft demonstration of the fire For truly nature measureth her works by distilling moystening drying calcining resolving plainly by the same meanes whereby glasses do accomplish those same operations And so the Artificer by changing the operations of nature obtains the properties and knowledge of the same For however natural a wit and sharpness of judgement the Philosopher may have yet he is never admitted to the Root or radical knowledge of natural things without the fire And so every one is deluded with a thousand thoughts or doubts the which he unfoldeth not to himself but by the help of the fire Therefore I confess nothing doth more fully bring a man that is greedy of knowing to the knowledges of all things knowable than the fire Therefore a young man at length returning out of those Schooles truly it is a wonder to see how much he shall ascend above the Phylosophers of the University and the vain reasoning of the Schooles First of all he shall account it a shameful thing for the Schooles to be ignorant for example in an Egge that in that space of time while it comes
as it were the sheath of the Earth nigh the Poles is deeper than under the compass of the Sun for if Lucifer or the Day-star being willing to place his seat over the North may be understood to have been guilty of pride Truly if he were not higher in the same place that should not be imputed as a signe of arrogancy especially since in the places where the holy Scriptures were written the Pole-star hath alwayes seemed very neere to the Horizon neither doth the Heaven there promise any thing of height as to sight But in our Horizon I have seen the whole Body of the Sun to have given a shadow on the pin of the Diall a little after the ninth houre in the fourth moneth called June but in the morning I have seen the whole Body of the Sun above the Horizon about the fourth houre for it did not as vet cast a shadow by reason of the thickness of the Air and Vapours Therefore the shorâ—est night is onely of seven houres at the most but in the Winter Solstice the Sun ariseth â—5 minutes before the eighth but sets 27 minutes before the fourth Therefore the shorest day is at least 7 houres and 42 minutes But it dâ—rogates or takes away from the roundness of the Sphere to have more of light than darkness At length modern or late made Navigations have seen the Sun under the North for a moneths space before that the perfect roundness of the Heaven had suffered that thing CHAP. XI The Air. 1. The Dreams of the Schooles concerning the maystness of Air. 2. A foolish or unsavory objection 3. They preâ—uppose impossibilities 4. The Air is never made Water through a condensing of its parts 5. They beg the Principle 6. A ridicuâ—ous thing of the Schooles concerning the â—â—tive heat of the Air. 7. The old Wives fiction of an Antiperâ—stâ—siâ—â—â— compassing about of the contrary 8. The deep stupiditâ—â—â— of the Schooles are discovered 9. Arguments 10. Another alike stâ—pidity 11. That the Air is colder than Snow 12. An Exhortation of the Authour unto young beginners A Mathematicall demonstration that the Air and Water are primigeâ—iall or first-born Elements and ever unchangeable by cold or heat into each other THE Schooles with their Aristotle do hitherto endow the Air with eight degrees that is to be most moyst but to be hot unto four degrees or to a mean but they give the greatest coldness to the water with a slack or mean moystness And so they command the Air to be twice as moystas the water for that because the Air by its pressing together and conjoyning doth generate the water But I pray you what other thing is that than to have sold Dreams for truth For if the Air be co-thickned the moysture thereof shall be also more thick greater and more palpable in water than it was before in Air seeing that condensing cannot make a new essential form nor is it a principle of generations what other thing is that than impertinently to trifle At least the water should not be but Air co-thickned in the moysture to ten fold or rather to an hundred fold and more active and therefore and straightway it should moysten more and stronger than the Air by a hundred fold So far as it that therefore the water should be lesse moyst than the Air. But if a naked condensing doth dispose the Air to a new form seeing the same disposition of the inward efficient is the necessary cause of that thing generated it must needs be that the same doth remain in the thing produced and so if the Air co-thickned be water there shall now be but two Elements to wit Water and Earth Whiles the water shall be as moyst as while it was being at first Air to wit wherein the condensing alone came which is a co-uniting of parts but not a formall transchanging of a thing into a thing For truly the form every way re-bounding from the moysture of the Air being condensed into an hundred fold it shall be even moyster and shall more moysten by an hundred fold than the auntient Air. But surely the water doth not moysten by reason of thickness for otherwise the Earth should hitherto more moysten because moysture onely doth moysten and not thickness For else Quick-silver should more moysten the wooll or hand than water For whatsoever doth more moysten that it self is also more moyst and on the other hand whatsoever in an Elementary nature is moyster that likewise doth more moysten Nature laughs to require belief of things known by reason of sense from a Dream and even till now to teach the shameful devises of Airstotle for truth But the Schooles will say we must thus teach it for a Maxim That by reason whereof every thing is such that thing it self is more such as though that for the honour of a Maxim we must belie God! But the water is not moyst but for the Air therefore the Air ought to be moyster than the water But they shall sweat more than enough before they will prove the subsumption or second Proposition but the Air is neither moyst nor hot in it self and whatsoever of moysture there is in it that is a stranged contained in it never touching at the nature of Air although vapours may be contained in the porinesses or hollow places of the Air. For what doth it belong to the nature of Glasse if it shall inclose water within it For I shall teach by and by that it is impossible for Air and water to be changed into each other And so by absurdities the Schooles do wholly suppose impossible speculations For it also contains an absurd and impossible thing that Air condensed should be made water and be the perpetual matter of Fountains For there hath been Air pressed together by some in an Iron Pipe of one ell almost the breadth of fifteen fingers which afterwards in its driving our hath like a hand-gun discharged with Gunpowder sent a Bullet thorow a Board or Plank Which thing verily could not be done if the air by pressing together might by force be brought into water Especially because that experiment did no lesse succeed in the deepest cold of winter than in the heat of Summer What if therefore the Air being pressed together by force in a Pipe and cold season be not changed into water by what authority shall the Schooles confirm their fictions touching the co-thickning of the Air for the springing up or over-flowing and the continuance of Fountains For Cold hath not the Beginnings Causes and properties of generating in nature Yea no moysture at all is found in the aforesaid Pipe and moreover wet Leather in the end of a Hand-Pistoll drieth presently It is also a ridiculous thing to prove the Air to be moyst by the original of Fountains and likewise to prove the rise of Fountains from the supposed moysture of the Air. Both Arguments of the Schooles is from the scarcity of truth and a childish begging
fortune come suddenly unlooked for Famagusta had been destroyed Therefore let the Reader know that the Eastern Marriners were wont on the day that they do observe such Windes to take a great Knife wherewith they make the Sign of the Cross in the Air and do utter these words In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word and suddenly all the Whirle-winde and tempest seperates it self and ceaseth For I have seen this experiment twice And on the second time while I returned out of Cyprus into Italy For neither do I finde any thing of Superstition therein but that the Knife must have a black handle And so I can determine of nothing certainly Thus far he A wonder at least That this divelish tempest should cease and the Devill spare the whole City perhaps for the sin of one sinner Moreover about Blas this is as yet considerable If in the great heat of Summer thou holdest a burning Candle about the hole of a Window there is no foot-step for the most part of mooved Air to be perceived but throughout the whole winter however small the hole be a troublesome Winde breatheth and that continually But since there is not a greater quantity of air let us now take the air for its Magnall or sheath being constrained by reason of cold than of that which is rarefied by reason of heat there seemes not to be a stronger reason of this than of that to stir up the Winde Therefore there is a twofold Motive locall Blas in the Air one indeed which stirs up the Windes and so includes a violence or swiftness from a native power or motion But the other which followes as for an alterative Blas for co-thickning or rarefying in the air But since this is almost universall by reason of Summer and Winter it also sends forth a certain slow flowing of the Air. And although cold may equally condense the Magnall and the Air be in this respect unmoved by reason of an alterative and violent windy Blas yet seeing in the opposite Coast of the Sphere the Magnall or sheath in the Air is generally made thin onely by reason of heat the Air in the Northern Coast must needes partly go back be knit together and so occupie the lesse room and partly be gently driven forward by the rarefying and rarefied Magnall of the Air that co-toucheth with it from the other half of the Orbe And this is the cause of the Question proposed to wit of the slow and uncessant flowing in the Winter Air which we do experience through a Chap be it never so small also the Winde ceasing But not so in the Summer-time For the Magnall being once made thin through heat the air stands unmooved amongst us CHAP. XV. A Vacuum or emptiness of Nature 1. The true definition of the Winde 2. The undistinct sincerity of former ages 3. Whither the Authours invention tendeth 4. An examining of the Air by an Engine like to a Hand-Gun 5. A Vacuum or emptiness in the Air is proved 6. A Vacuum is easier believed than a piercing of bodies 7. A Handicraft Demonstration by fire in behalf of a Vacuum and five remarkable things of it 8. A Handicraft operation concerning a sulphurated Torch or Candle 9. Subsequent Collections from both the Handicraft Operations 10. Pores of the Air are demonstrated 11. Opposite suspitions are taken away 12. Inward heat and inward fire being shut up together in a Glasse how they act diversly into the Air. 13. That it acts more strongly by the pressing together of its smoak than by the enlarging of heat 14. Of what sort the sense or feeling of the Air is 15. A new end of the Air. 16. That the fire lives not by the air but onely is choaked through penurie 17. Vacuities or emptinesses in the air are needfull 18. That every thing hath hated pressing together made by its guest by the lawes of self-love 19. A Vacuum being an impossible thing with Aristotle hath now become a requisite thing in nature 20. That there is given in the Vacuum of the air a middle thing between a body and an accident and so a neutrality 21. What the great Magnall may be 22. How the Blas of the Stars is communicated without Species or particular kindes 23. The tristes of the Aristotelicks concerning the Winde 24. A ridiculous multitude and plenty of exhalations according to Aristotle 25. The Opinion of Galen touching the Windes is hissed out 26. The Opinion of Galen concerning Quicksilver badly from Diascorides and worse copied out 27. The nature of rarefied air for the confirming of a Vacuum 28. While the air is commonly thought to be made thin it is indeed pressed together by reason of the extension of of its Magnall or Sheath 29. The body of the air hath its just extension under cold 30. Why in a hotter Climate the favours of the Heaven are the greater 31. The Magnall is proved to be increased and diminished but not the air to be properly rarefied or condensed IN the beginning of the Blas of a Meteor I have defined the Winde by a true definition that is by its constitutive Causes Seeing that a thing without or besides the containing of its Causes is nothing and every thing produced doth naturally shew an originall and essentiall respect unto its own producer which is inward to it Therefore a naturall Winde is a flowing Air mooved by the Blas of the Stars And that for distinction from a prodigious or monstrous Winde raised up by the malice of evill spirits Hypocrates calls the Winde a Blast and saying that all Diseases are from blasts he reckoueth up his To Enormon or forcible blast among the chief or first causes of Diseases For such was the plainness and candour or simplicity of former times wherein because they being more blessed there was not yet such knowledge nor cruelty nor frequency of Diseases For all things were not granted to Hypocrates For it hath well pleased the Almighty since Hypocrates to have also created his Physitians He made known indeed to Hypocrates that there is in us a Spirit stirring up all things by its Blas which Spirit he afterwards by a microcosmicall analogie or the proportion of a little World compared to the blasts of the World and restrained into the order of a blast whether they were partakers of life or indeed did contain the causes of death and destruction Lastly he left it undecided whether they being stirred up from the Heaven they should shew the suitable proportions of the Heavenly Circle or at length were stirred up by a sublunary law For the race or descent of the vitall Spirits had not yet been plainly made known For none had hitherto learned by experience that the matter of Gas was water and so it had not been as yet known that the windes of the World did wholly differ from the vitall Spirit From the knowledge of the windes handed forth by me in the
first appeared for a sign of the Covenant Wherefore mortalls were amazed at that unwonted Being and being otherwise incredulous gave credit Secondly From hence I learn that the Rain-bow was given for a meer sign wherefore neither that it hath even to this day any reason of a cause with relation to any effect Thirdly seeing now the World before the floud had been about two thousand years old and yet there had been causes in nature which to this day the Schooles do attribute to the Rain-bow yet there was no Rain-bow Surely that convinceth of the falshood of those causes Whence at length in the fourth place it followes That unless the Rainbow be also at this day for a sign of the Covenant and for the sake of its first appointment it otherwise appeares for a frustrated purpose Therefore also the Rain-bow doth now and then remember us of the Covenant once stricken that we may believe and alway be mindfull that God the avenger on sinners sometimes sent the waters that they might destroy every soul living on the Earth that the same God might be a conscious or fellow-knowing revenger and Judge of our sin For all flesh had corrupted its way by luxurie which ought to be choaked by waters By the Rain-bow therefore God will alway have us mindefull of threatned punishments who by this sign doth signifie that he is the continuall President or chief Ruler the Revenger of nature But that the Rainbow might signifie that the World should be no more drowned with waters it was meet that it should bear before it not indeed a certain unwonted spectacle in the air without difference to any other thing but the mystery of the promised Covenant ought to lay hid in the Rainbow which might declare the promlse and belief of the thing promised by a signe Surely I seem to my self to admire with Noah three colours in the Rainbow and the pleasing splendours of three Sulphurs shining forth in co-burnt Mineralls And so the Colours do give testimony that the Earth being the womb of Mineralls is at length to satisfie the wrath of God by the extream melting of the burning of her Sulphurs Therefore the Rainbow doth not henceforth presage water but fire I wonder at the Schooles who will not hearken to the truth of the holy Scriptures delivered but that they even to this day proceed to make young men drunk with heathenish toyes or dotages For they hand forth that the Rainbow consisteth of a twofold Cloud to wit one being deeper and thicker but the other being thinner and moreover extended over that other that in manner of a Glasse it may resemble the Sun from the contrary part Verily it is a vain devise like unto an old Wives Dream For I have sometimes kicked the lower part of a Rainbow with my feet and have touched it with my hands and that not onely in Cloudy Mountains but in an open and Sunnie-field And so I have certainly known by my eyes hands and feet the falshood of that supposition Seeing that not so much as a simple Cloud was in the place of the Rainbow For neither although in the morning I did cleave the Rainbow and drew it by the colours of the Rainbow have I perceived any thing which is not every where on every side in the neighbouring Air. Yea therefore were not the colours of the Rainbow troubled nor suffered confusion The Schooles ought at least to declare why it should have alwayes the figure of a Bow or Semi-circle but never the resemblance of a Glasse Why if it be the Image of the Sun reflex doth it not shine in the middle of it self seeing the Parelia shines like the Sun with an undistinct and ruddie light Why should those two Clowds be alwayes folded together with the equall form of a Bow and variety of Colours Why doth not the Glasse that is against the Sun represent those Colours if that double Cloud be in the room of a Glasse Why doth not that doubled Cloud at least in its more outward and conjoyned part change the wandring Latitude of the Clouds if its hollow part be pierced with an abounding light of the Sun declining or going down Why doth a Rainbow also appear the Sun being hid under the Clouds and no where shining Why doth the Sun I say paint out alwayes those uniform and various Colours and so neerly placed together and not one onely Colour according to the simplicity of its own light Wherefore do many Rainbowes now and then appear together in one field For truly in so vast a Circle of the Air of the Horizon the reflexion falls not in one or two miles but the Cloud opposite to the Sun hath not its reflexion directly unless on the opposite part answering to it self in the Horizon but not on the part near to its side Lastly it is absurd that the upper and thinner Cloud which is void of Colour and which the light of the Sun doth easily pierce should fashion Colours in the other thicker Cloud which neither the Sun nor either of those Clouds have in themselves Surely I have very much admired at these vain positions of the Schooles while as I should handle a Rainbow with my hand and should see no Cloud at all round about Wherefore I have noted that the Rainbow by a peculiar priviledge hath its Colours immediately in a place but in the Air by the place mediating And so I have taken notice that those Colours and the figure of the Rainbow in their manner of existing are of the nature of light That is the Winde blowing the Colours which are immediately in a medium or mean do walk together with the mean and are dispersed according as the mean in which they are is but the Colours or Lights which are immediately in place are not changed although the Air or Mean in which they appear may change its place and flow So neither the winde blowing doth the Rainbow perish or walk For from hence it is that the object of sight is at one onely instant brought to the Eye but the object of hearing because it is not immediately in place but in an Air placed doth presuppose a durance of time and motion Wherefore the Rainbow not onely is not in a Cloud but moreover not indeed in the Air but immediately in place but in the Air immediately to wit as this is in a place For so the light of the Sun doth the more swiftly strike it self in an instant even unto the Earth because it is immediately in place but in the Air mediately to wit as this is in a place But that the Sun is the cause of the Rainbow that I believe is naturall but that a Bow immediately in place is appointed to be so coloured by the Sun but in no wise in the Air that hath the force of a sign For the Schooles have hitherto been ignorant that Light and Colours can subsist unless they do inherit or stick in some certain
Commissioner of Thunder and Lightning yet under covenanted Conditions For his Bolts being shaken off unless his Power were bridled by Divine goodness he would shake the Earth with one onely stroak and would destroy mortall men The cracking noyse therefore or Voyce of Thunder is a spirituall Blas of the evill Spirit surely an effect of great strength But Thunder is not conjoyned with a Miracle but it contains a monstrous thing in Nature So moreover although the fire of Lightning be naturall yet the manner and mean are divelish Powers For God as a most loving Father will be loved in the first place but by himself immediately he doth not willingly cause or inforce feares because it belongs not to his goodness to be loved from the fear and fearfullness of pain or punishment Therefore the terrours of his power and angry feares of his Majesty he causeth or enforceth not but by appropriated spirituall Sergeants his Ministers that is by a terrible Spirit And that thing all Antiquity hath alwayes judged with me which hath declared Jove or Jova as much as to say with the Hebrews Jehova to be the God of Thunder Seeing the Lord and Father of things doth unfold his Thunder by the bound hand of a tormenter the evill Spirit thereupon would not indeed be contented with the Title of Prince of the World but would have the name Jehova to belong unto himself Therefore Thunder and Lightning although they may have concurting naturall Causes yet the moover of them is an incorporeall Spirit Atheists may laugh at my Philosophy who believe that there is no Power or God and no abstracted Spirit But at leastwise they cannot but admire at the effects of Thunder and accuse themselves of the ignorance of its causes One History at least I will tell among a thousand In the year 1554 in the Coast of Leydon the Tower of Curingia being taken away by Thunder no where appeared after fifteen dayes a Grave is opened in a Herbie Plot of Grasse of the Burying place wherein a Shooe-maker was buried and behold under an unmooved and green Turf first the Brass Cock with the Iron Crosse appeareth and then a Pinacle of the Tower and at length the whole Tower is digged out I have seen my self being present by one onely Thunder-clap some thousand of Oaks and Hazels to be burnt up in their first bud and leaves to wit the whole Wood being named from a place neer Vilvord where the Birch the Beech and Alder-Tree being frequently co-mixed with other Trees in a thick confusion had the mean while remained unhurt by the Thunder But elsewhere by one onely stroak he strikes many things at once that were far distant asunder For who can sufficiently unfold the thousand various crafts and wiles of the cunning Workman It sufficeth that many spirituall actions do concur being divers from the ordinary course of Nature they being also alike powerfull at a distance as nigh at hand Therefore that terrible Voice of Thunder striketh the Earth kills Silk-worms shakes Ale or Beer and constrains it to wax dead causeth the flesh of a slain Oxe hung up to be flaggie it curdles Milk by the sudden Leaven of its sourness c. But Salt applied without to the brim of the Hogs-head or Earthen-pot doth turn away such kinde of effects Surely a weak resister for such an agent if in nature the thing resisting ought to prevail over the agent But why the evill Spirit hateth Salt and therefore Salt is alwayes said to fail or be wanting in his Sabbaths of his Imps he being sufficiently expert that Salt is adjured for holy water as oft as the Baptizer useth Salt Also Salt that is not blessed may trample upon his commands If therefore the Tree is to be known by his fruits therefore the Authour by his Works and so much the rather because so weak remedies do resist so great strength Nor surely doth that make to the contrary that God appearing to Moses in the Mount in continuall Lightning and Thunder environed the Mountain before Israel Yea rather it is thereby confirmed that the cracking Thunder and Lightnings do belong to Spirits his Ministers to Spirits I say his tormenters and executioners For truly Israel was driven away from ascending the Mountain under pain of death For neither therefore were the Thunders in the top of the Mountain but beneath round about the Mountain neither also appeared the Almighty to Eliah in the Whirle-winde or in the strong Winde but in the sweet Air. As an addition I will hitherto referre the Decree of the Church which in the blessing of a Bell doth prescribe certain forms wherein it confirms the same Presidentship in Thunder which I have prescribed in this Chapter For in the words of their adjurations they have it Let all layings in wait or treacheries of the enemy be driven far away the crashing of Hails the storm of Whirle-windes the violence of Tempests let troublesome or cruel Thunders Blasts of Windes c. beallayed Let the right hand of thy power prostrate Alery powers and let them tremble and flee at this little Bell of the hearer Before the sound thereof let the fiery darts of the enemy the stroak of Lightnings the violence of Stones the hurt of Tempests c. be chased far away Whence indeed all adjurations do conspire against Tempests For Hail Winde Rains Clouds c. are Meteors of Nature but a tempestuous darting exceeding the fall of a Body in grains and the flowing of the Winde are understood to be done by malignant powers These things indeed concerning Tempests of the Air Hail and the Sea are thus confirmed but in Thunder not onely the very casting of the Thunder-bolt or Stones but moreover the cracking noyse of Thunder doth depend on the powers and enemies of the air because that no renting of the Clouds or Air can naturally utter such noyses and the effects of these unless monstrous and hostile Powers do immingle themselves and play together CHAP. XVII The trembling of the Earth or Earth-quake 1. The name of the Moving of the Earth is improper 2. The opinion of Copernicus 3. A shew of the Deed. 4. All Schooles do agree with Aristotle in Causes for 21 Ages hitherto 5. The Opinion of the Schooles is demonstrated to be unpossible from a defect of the place 6. The same thing may after a certain manner be drawn from the force of exhalations 7. Likewise by the Rules of proportion and motion 8. The rise or birth of exhalations their quantity power progress manner of being made entertainment and swiftness are all ridiculous things 9. All these are demonstrated to be impossible things 10. The cause of their Birth is wanting 11. It is proved by the Rules of falshood and absurdities 12. That those trifles being supposed according to the pleasure of the Schooles the manner is as yet impossible 13. That an exhalation being granted according to their wish yet an Earth-quake from thence is unpossible 14.
how an exhalation may by its lightness make so great a heap of Earth and of huge weight to stumble sooner then to consult of coagulating And upon every event there should not be room but for one elevation of the Earth and one onely settling of the same after some gaping chap is found but not of stirring up a quaking trembling But let these Dreams be in watery places Meadows Clayie places pooles the Sea Rivers c. Therefore the absurdities which I granted before in jest I will now oppose in earnest First of all I demand what is that so unwonted heat which from the year 1580 even unto the year 1640 was not seen at Mecheline as neither an Earth-quake wherefore not every year wherefore in the 2d moneth called April under a most cold night when as the day before it had snowed much under the continuall North Winde and not under the Dog-Star Is it because the more inward parts of the Earth are then hot Why therefore not every year in the eleventh moneth called January But this Argument of the Antients ceaseth after that the Instrument meating out the Degrees of the encompassing Air is found For Wells and Caves are found all the year of an equall heat and cold Again why doth so great heat the stirrer up of exhalations cease so suddenly especially where it may stir up an exhalation the moover of so great an heap by what fewell it is kindled under the water by what Fodder doth it live and subsist by what Law is it not in the same place stifâ—ed by what priviledge doth it despise the respects of bodies places and weights at length by what Prerogative doth it stir up an exhalation of so great a vastness out of moyst Bodies without moyst vapours or if it doth also allure or draw out vapours after the ordinary manner why do not these mitigate a heat of so great moment do they extinguish do they choak together with their Sisters and forthwith following exhalations or what is that exhalation which shaketh the vast Tower of Mecheline with no greater respect than a low Cottage nor that respecteth any resistance of a huge weight or which doth in a like manner operate near at hand as at a distance or which doth at once every where and alike finde throughout its whole Superficies the collected power of its own Center that at once every where alike it may operate in one moment equally and alike strongly Why through the necessity of naturall causes is not the thred broken in the weaker part but all things do at once undergoe yea and sustain the same law of violence Surely if these things be rightly considered there is found in the Earth-quake a certain operative force of an infinite power which lifts up Mountains and Towers without respect of lightness or weight as if nothing were able to resist this moving virtue But I have proved that an exhalation if in any there be an efficient moving cause of an Earth-quake is neither of the race of Salts nor of Sulphurs as neither of Mercuries because that this is not an exhalation but the vapour of the watery parts Therefore it remains that it is not an exhalation but Gas it self not an eflux of Bodies stirred up by heat but rather an effect remaining after the fire To wit the Gas of the flame of the fire alone or of the smoak sprung from this But neither of these exhalations also can be the effective cause of an Earth-quake Therefore if none of these exhalations be the mover of the Earth there shall be none at all since another is not found and by consequence it is a vain fiction of the Schooles which they will have themselves to be believed in in the Earth-quake But if indeed they thinking of an escape do say that they do not understand an exhalation raised up by heat not brought forth by dryness but an unnamed vapour constituted by its causes To wit like as Aristotle writeth that all Rockie Stones small stones Mineralls and likewise the Salt of the Sea Comets although a hundred fold bigger than the Globe of the Earth and all Windes do proceed from some irregular and un-explained exhalations distinguishing the Windes therein against the Air This I say is to be willing to doat with Aristotle and to remain ignorant of naturall Philosophy with the same Aristotle Lastly it is an impertinent thing for them to have cited Aristotle and by his authority to be willing to defend their errours Notwithstanding I will treat against the Schooles by reason that seeing they do publish themselves to be so rationall they may deliver up their weapons to reason I say therefore that no exhalation can be more light simple or subtile than the Air because this is the simple body of an Element but that is a composed body and so however it be it hath in it a weighty body which the Air wanteth Yet the Air is not lighter than a Body that is without weight that is the Air is not lighter than it self nor can it lift up any thing besides it self unless by the motion of a Flatus or blast or of flowing that is by a Blas Which ceasing the body which it lifted up setleth From whence I conclude that the Air or Winde whether it be shut up or free cannot lift up the Earth by reason of its lightness alone unless it be by chance stricken by an externall and violent Mover but in this case the force of the exhalation ceaseth seeing it is a constraining force which moveth but not the exhalation it self Because it is that which in such a case is onely the mean or Instrument of motion but not the chief motive force And much lesse is that agreeable to an exhalation because it is that which is thicker and weightier than the Air as it containeth water I prove it by Handicraft-operation A Bladder stretched out with Air springs up out of the water not primarily because the Air is lighter than water but because the water is a heavy and fluide body and therefore it suffers not it self to be driven out of its place by a lighter body For indeed it is the first endeavour of the water to joyn it self to the water from whence it was seperated its secondary endeavour or that as it were by accident is to presse out by its falling together whatsoever is lighter than it self Therefore weightiness not lightness doth operate in this thing for the reason straightway to be shewed Let a Bladder able to contain three pounds or pints of water be put in a small trench or ditch and let it be covered with Earth Truly it shall not shake off from it half an ounce of the dust poured upon it Yea neither shall the Bladder desire to appear out of the dry more weighty Sand. Let it therefore be ridiculous that a Bladder weighing half an ounce doth ever from any lightness of Air of its own accord fly up into the Air. If therefore
much Air cannot lift up a Bladder surely much lesse shall the Air rise up being pressed down under the huge weight of the low Countries For indeed the Elements do in the first place and onely respect themselves truly they act all things for their own sake And therefore a Glasse-bottle being filled with Air and buried can never a whit endeavour to spring up out of the Earth because the Air is every where in its own naturall place as oft as the space of its place is not filled with another body neither is it carefull for passage Therefore if there are hollow places under the Earth the Air doth naturally rest in those places from all locall motion But in places where Sands fall down as it were a fluide body there because the dust fills up the empty place and falls down through its weight it also by accident presseth out the air But that motion of the Earth or Water is not therefore efficiently from the lightness of the Air or that the Air by the proper motion of its own lightness doth move it self and climbe upwards But mark in this thing weightiness it self is the active primary and totall efficient cause seeing weightiness hath a reall weight and is an active quality but on the contrary the lightness of the Air is the effecter of nothing seeing it hath no weight it of necessity betokeneth nothing neither can it have any efficacy of acting From whence it followes 1. That the lightness of the Air worketh nothing nor that a Bladder which should be great and weigh onely six grains could be of its own accord lifted up by the inclosed Air how great soever otherwise which is false the Air should be lighter than that which hath no weight 2. That the Air doth not appear out of the water by reason of its lightness as it were the active or the moving quality of swimming but weightiness is the reall quality which expells the Air. 3. And therefore the position of the Schooles is absurd wherein Air or an exhalation is appointed for the efficient cause of an Earth-quake by reason of its lightness as if it should shake the Earth by lifting it up Wherefore seeing it is now sufficiently proved 1. That there is not a place in the Pavements or Soils of the Earth wherein any Aiery Body may be entertained whether that Body be a Winde or an Aiery exhalation but by how much the deeper that place shall be sought for by so much the greater difficulties do arise as well by reason of the greater abundance of water as the greater fardle of Earth from above so that that is as it were of an infinite power which should cause a trembling of the Earth 2. And then that there can be no fire heat driness or any other stirrer up of an exhalation of so great power or that which is co-related to it That there is no possibility of such an exhalation in nature there to subsist And at length thirdly that no exhalation by reason of lightness doth operate any thing or lift up a heavy body much lesse so vast a Country of Earth Therefore I conclude that it is an empty fiction of the Schooles whatsoever hath been hitherto diligently taught concerning an Earth-quake Wherefore I will perfectly teach that the manner of an Earth-quake diligently taught by the Schooles is altogether impossible Let us therefore again feigne absurdities that as it were by the rule of falshood the errour of the Schooles may be discovered To wit let us grant a Bladder to be of a matter that is tractable or easily to be beaten thin being a thousand times stronger than all Iron and to be spread it is unknown in what Soil throughout all the low Countries and Germany under the foundation of Mountains Cities Seas and Rivers But a thousand huge paires of Bellowes most firmly and excellently annexed thereto Therefore that they may be able to lift up all the low Countries at once it must needes be that those Bellowes and the Posts and Axles of these be so strong as that they might be sufficient to lift up the weight And then a hand should be required or an Agent of so great strength that it might be able to lift up all the low Countries with its Palme or else it could not presse together those Bellowes which are full of winde But such an Agent is not in the Sublunary nature of things although the other granted absurdities should be present therefore the vain lightness of the Air or an exhalation is frivolous and the inbred desire of their breaking forth Therefore I never a whit doubt to deny the naturall cause rendered by the Schooles invented by the Devill that my God his own honour may be over-clouded Because the Schooles have been hitherto ignorant that lightness is not an active quality and so much lesse should it be an overturner of Mountains but they have sometimes considered that a Mine which was before over-covered hath straightway after an Earthquake belched forth a stinking poyson and made a gap for it self therefore they have dared through inconsiderateness and ignorance to refer this effect of an Earth-quake by accident into a cause by it self Which things that they may more clearly appear let us again feign the aforesaid Bladder under the low Countries to be stretched out with an Aiery Body of its own accord or by the influence of the Stars for when reason faileth those that are ignorant do alwayes run back to the Stars and causes afar of and for Witnesses not to be cited and no Bellowes to be as neither holes round about Then at leastwise the Body of all the Low-Countries laying on it should so presse the aforesaid Bladder with its weight that if it burst not it should at least in its weaker and lesse ponderous part belch forth that which is contained in it Which thing being obtained now indeed the cause of the pressing together of the Bladder and of the fall of the Low Countries together with the opening of some gap is present But the cause of the lifting up of that Bladder is not yet to be found and much lesse of the repeated succession of trembling and quaking Lastly neither is such a Bladder and its substance possible to be without which although there should be room in the Earth yet it is not fit for nourishing or receiving that exhalation Yea the bounds of the aforesaid Bladder being set or supposed at leastwise the Air or exhalation works nothing that it may lift up the Earth by its lightness but if the Earth fall down or go to ruine it findes not a cause for it selfe as to this thing in the lightness of the detained Air seeing it shuts up the whole cause in the Fist of its weightiness and the pressing out of the Air is to be measured according to the measure of the weight that layeth on it Therefore the Bladder being again supposed if any Winde or Air should blow from without
into the aforesaid Bladder being pressed together laying on the ground and void of every Body however most strongly it should blow yet it could not at all blow up the Bladder because the low Countries laying on it should presse it together But if indeed a fiery exhalation be sought for in the place of the Winde or Air I have already demonstrated before that fire to be impossible and the exhalation of so great an effect throughout all the low Countries to be fabulous At length that continuall Bladder so strong and capable to be hammered thin also faileth which may sustain with its back the low Countries Seas Rivers and far more For although I have granted the same it is not because I think it to be but because that Bladder being supposed so great absurdities may also follow and the Schooles at length be squeezed to an impossibility Mountains Sulphurous places and the mansions of Mines have afforded to Countrey people whence the Schooles have them the beginnings of this Dream Alass is there every where a miserable drowsiness in searching into the causes of effects The Mountain Soma or Vesuvius nigh Naples hath burned now for some Ages with Sulphur or Brimstone and fire-Stones But it hath a gap in its top large enough whereby the smoaks and flame might expire or breath out To wit perhaps to the largeness of three filed measures or Acres of Land But a Vault that was next to the flame as being now sufficiently roasted and full of chaps at length about the sixteenth day of the tenth Moneth or December of the year 1631 by one sudden fall fell down into the Gulf of the flame But it is the property as well of some Metalls as of bright shining Fire-stones while they are melting that if any thing of water shall fall in among them they all leap asunder therefore the Sulphurs with the Fire-stones being melted in the bowels of Vesuvius they did not endure the roasted fragment falling down from the Rocks without a great deluge but the flame did vomit out all of whatsoever had slidden down from above and more Neither was this sufficient But moreover some Fountains were loosed from above into the Chimney of the fire But what have the melted Sulphurs or what the raging tempests of smoakes common with an Earth-quake Do Sulphurs thus burn throughout all the low Countries For an Earth-quake had gone before at Naples and did accompany that danger of Sodom And although they shall happen together they do not therefore partake of one onely root the which do obey divers causes that Earth-quake fore-shewing a wonder did also inclose in it a monstrous token and doth alwayes inclose some such But the belching out of Metallick Veins stands by its natural causes Surely a wretched Sophistry it is to argue from not the cause as for the cause For neither are exhalations to be believed to have been enclosed in that Earth-quake a Chimney is produced having long since a way opened for exhalations I would the Schooles hath hearkened to their Pliny that oft-times at the present time or urgency of an Earth-quake Birds the winde being still being as it were sore smitten with fear do fall down out of the Air that in a quiet Haven the Oare Galleys do leap a little But what fellowship interposeth between the Air and the Sea with an exhalation shut up under the Earth For doth the Air tremble when the Earth doth Is so small a trembling of the Air sufficient to cast down Birds which fly in every winde For because the Sand of the Sea and that indeed without gaping should leap a little for the depth of half a foot ought therefore the Superficies of the deep Sea void of Winde together with Ships to tremble A Manuscript of the Curate of S. Mary beyond Dilca of Mecheline was shewen wherein he had written that in the year 1540 once every day for three dayes space the Earth trembled before that lightning inflamed its Sand-Port and also the Gun-powder contained therein whence the City by an un-thought of slaughter being almost utterly dashed in pieces went to ruine Lastly in the year 1580 the second houre after noon the fury of the Windes ceasing the City trembled two dayes before the English invaded Mecheline and took it for a prey But what have those events happening from a fatall necessity common in the joyning of causes with a dreamed exhalation under the Earth For what could a supposed exhalation portend besides or out of it self For why should it include a future signifying of a VVar-like invasion or Lightning to come and to kindle the Vessels of Gun-powder there also kept shaking the Sandy Tower and throwing down the whole City For before that the Mountain Vesuvius belched out its bowels and covered very many small Towns with a Minerall Clod and denyed hope to the Husband-man for the time to come thick darkness under the Sun went before in the Air lamentable howlings and the Earth trembled things stirring up the required devotion of the Nation Truly the Earth trembled from its own cause for a fore-knowledge of the future slaughter threatned But the slaughter it selfe followed by its naturall causes But the fore-going signes have never any thing common with the event of future fire Since therefore now it is certain that there is no place among the Pavements of the Earth nor exhalation that layes under them and if any should be under yet that it were impossible to cause an Earth-quake yet that it is an undoubted truth that the Earth doth truly and actually tremble without the dis-continuance of its pavements or through the opening of some gap I have considered that trembling to be in the Earth no otherwise than in Brasse when as the Clapper hath smote the Bell. For as long as the Bell trembles without a cleft so long it gives a Tune The Earth also while it is shaken with its Super-natural Clapper sends forth a deaf sound because its body toucheth together indeed by Sand and VVater even into its Center yet it is not holding together by a continuance of unity without intermission And it may tremble without the dis-continuance of touching together indeed by so much the more freely if the Mettall be bended without the renting asunder of that which holds together the Earth also in trembling hath its inward Clapper more famous than the voice of Thunder But because the stroak waxeth deaf in the Sand and VVater therefore it is shaken together with a certain tune or note while it trembled yet the roaring which is sometimes heard is not of the Earth but a strange one not proper to the Earth-quake but an accidentary howling of Spirits which by the Italians is called Baleno At length I weighing the cause of an Earth-quake do know that in the first place there is a motive force in the Air whereby the Air doth commit to execution the spurre conceived in the Stars For the Stars shall be to you for
signes times or seasons dayes and years Moreover I know that in the Sea and deep Lakes there is their motive force whereby they suffer a raging heat without windes whereby I say our Ocean is rowled six houres and else-where six constant months with one onely flowing Lastly I know that the Earth is at rest nor that it hath a motive force actively proper to it self Therefore I believe that the Earth doth quake and fear as oft as the Angel of the Lord doth smite it Behold a great Earth-quake was made for the Angel of the Lord descended from Heaven Mat. 28. The word For among the Hebrewes doth contain a cause as if he should say Because For this is the onely cause of an Earth-quake whereby all things do without resistance equally tremble together as it were a light Reed In the Revelations the third part of Mortalls Trees and Fishes perished at the very time wherein the Angel powred forth his Viall For abstracted spirits do work by the divine Power and nothing can resist them Evill spirits also as oft as it is granted them to act by a free power they act without the resistance of bodies or a re-acting of resistance For matter is the Client of or dependant on another Monarchy and it cannot re-act into a spirit which it by no meanes toucheth and with no object affecteth Even as the Angel useth the powred out liquor of the Viall unto the aforesaid slaughter so for the Earth-quake he for the most part makes use of a note or voice For a wandering note was heard in the Air no otherwise than as the creaking of Wheeles driven thereupon as it were a tempestuous murmuring sound succeeded yet without Winde and at that very time the whole tract of so great Provinces trembled at once with a huge horrour Which same note accompanied the trembling of the Earth at every of the three repeated turns The same thing almost happens in Lightning Truly the Lightning burns and causeth melting but surely it smiteth not According to that saying The voice of Thunder shall strike the Earth because it smiteth For Silk-worms die Milk is curdled Ale or Beer waxeth sowre a slain Oxe hanging up retains flaggie flesh unfit to take Salt and that onely by the Thunder-stroak the Lightning doing no hurt there Therefore let the voice of Thunder and the voice of the Earth-quake be the note or tone of ministring spirits But the Stars do not stir up a motive and alterative force of the Air or Water through a note but do act onely by an Aspect which they call an Influence And it hath its action and direction in a moment even as light sight c. For otherwise there should be need of many years before the audible Species or resemblances that are to be heard should come down from Saturn to the places of a Meteor And then a note or sound although it be great yet it faileth by degrees in the way But that the Earth doth tremble with a Tempest of Windes or that the Tempest doth sometimes run successively thorow Villages Cities and as it were thorow street by street in its wheeling about That is wholly by accident and according to the will of him who shaketh the Earth for a monstrous sign Likewise that else-where it doth oft-times tremble in quick Belgium very seldom that changeth not the moving cause For it stands in the free will of him who encloseth the Universe in his Fist who can shake the Earth at his pleasure and alone do marvellous things At the beholding of whom the Earth shall at sometime smoak and the Mountains being melted shall go to ruine But that in another place gapings chaps after an Earth-quake have sometimes appeared and a filthy poyson and fumes of arsenicall bodies have breathed forth that is joyned onely to its naturall causes Nor are they the effects of an Earth-quake but by accident but not the causes But this blindness of causes of the Earth-quake hath been invented the Devill being the Authour whereby mortall men might set apart all fear of the power and so might prevent if not wholly neglect the ends which God hath appointed to himself for the serious reverencing of the power of his Majesty that they being mind-full of the faults of their fore-led life might repent Deh qual possente man conforzze ignote Il terreno a crollar si spesso riede Non e chiuso vapor como altro crede Ne sognato stridente il suol percuote Certo la terra si rissente scuote Perche del peâ—cator sa aggrava il piede Et i nostri corpi impatiente chiede Per riemper se sue spelonche â—uote E linquaggio del ciel che l'huom riprende Il turbo il tuono il fulmine il baleno Hor parla anco la terra in note horrende Perche l'huom ch' esser vuol tutto terreno Ne del cielo il parlar straniero intende I l parlar della terra intenda al meno Behold with what a mighty yet unknown A force the Earthy Body makes a noyse And with so thick a rushing gives a groan 'T is not a vapour hot shut up they 'r toyes Even as some believe which beats the ground Or thumps its entrails with a whistling sound Truly the Earth it selfe doth feele and quake Because the sinners foot doth load its back And our impatient mortall bodies fall In to fill up its own deep Vaults withall The Language of the Heaven which reproves Man is the Whirle-winde Thunder Lightning flash And sp'ritous howling in the Air Ecchoes Now speaks the earth more-o're with horride lash Of signall tokens ' cause since man which would Be wholly earthly doth not understand The Linguo strange of Heaven yet may or should At least the Earth it 's Language apprehend These things nothing hindering there hath not been one wanting who said that from a most deep well of the Castle of Lovaine he by a sure presage foretold an Earth-quake was shortly to be because the water of the same Well three dayes before sent forth the stinking savour of Brimstone and that its contagion yellowness together with the turbulency of the water did bewray it But let that good man know that that Well is one hundred and fifteen foot in depth because they go up to the Castle from the Street that is next unto it by ninety three steps And so that Well in one part is not deeper than its Neighbouring Wells although in the other part where it is co-touching with the Hill of the Castle it is deep as I have said But seeing that a vein of Sulphur is not hidden in the Hill the water could not breath Sulphur which was not there But if it cast the smell of Sulphur a sign might precede God admonishing but it had not Sulphur which neither is in that place nor was enflamed therefore neither could it cause an Earthquake unto all Belgium or the Low Countries Therefore there is no naturall reason why the water
be expected from elsewhere For he is the Prince of life and death the Alpha and Omega of all things He giveth and taketh away Victories Wars Famine and Pestilences also second partaking causes also free mediating con-causes and occasionall ones accompanying them over all which notwithstanding God is sits as chief as the totall immediate and independent cause Therefore the Firmament is a preacher of all these Works for neither doth God more erre in these free contingent things than in animall accustomed and necessary things if the Firmament was made by God the Mover and knower of all things to foreshew The Land of Libyssa shall over-cover the dead Carcase of Hannibal as Appian relates it to have been foretold by an Oracle of the evill spirit Hannibal hoped he saith that he should therefore die in Lybia or Africa who died in Bythinia near the River Libyssus For the Devil cannot foreknow the lots or events of future Wars which are in the hand of the God of Armies and as yet in the future will or judgement of man unless he shall first read them decyphered in a fore-telling Star Which Picture of the Stars while they no where finde mentioned but cannot deny but that the Devill declares things to come they have meditated of a privy shift and do say that the knowledges of future things are nearly related to Angels and so are co-natural to them but that they differ according to the Quires or Regions from whence they were expelled so that they which fell down from the highest Hierarchy of the Angels should have a much more clear understanding of future things which understanding because it was naturall God had not took away from an evill Spirit For neither is it more naturall to the Devil to have known the enlightnings concerning future things than to have known the natures and names of living Creatures not seen before like Adam But I conceive with Dionysius that the inferior Angels are enlightned by the superior but this light continually to beam forth from the wisdom of the Father and never to have been natural to Angels but to be a free and beatifical gift Next that every good gift doth descend from the Father of Lights that the gift of the Counsels of God and of his future works is not to be searched out by Creatures by their gifts of nature else the naturall knowledge of evill spirits should be almost infinite if it should include in it self the fortunes of mortall men to come distinguished in their second causes yea if an evill spirit otherwise had had this natural participation of divine counsel he had not been ignorant of future effects which he himself as the fire-brand of all evills was to raise up and suffer and so he could scarce have sinned Therefore it is more safe to believe contingent or accidentall things to be painted out by the Stars not indeed all but perhaps those of one age and likewise the Tragedy of every man to be deciphered in his own Star the Picture whereof ceaseth with the closure of his life They will say Hannibal took poyson Satan perswading him But this he did not certainly know as neither could he foretell it if man hath free will and therefore neither did he know that Hannibal would certainly obey his perswasions neither doth Hannibal die by the foolish perswasion of Satan which could not be knit to its causes depending on the divine will For neither doth he die by the poyson but first he is a run-away from many adverse battels But the Lord the onely God of Armies hath Victories in his own hand neither is the evill spirit chief in Battels Therefore to have foreknown the issue of Wars is the same as of free contingencies For truly Victory doth for the most part arise occasionally from a contingent thing not premeditated of therefore I conclude that the infernal enemy doth read the Pictures of the Stars whereby the Firmament is said to foretel the Handy works of the Lord. But thou wilt say whence do the Heavens make Predictions which no mortall men have known and the which to be known by the evill spirit is wickedness In the first place it should be sufficient that the fore-tellings of future things do chiefly declare the glory of God and the infiniteness of his wisdom and fore-knowledge to wit that it may not remain unsignified And then The Lord hath not done a word which he doth not signifie to his servants the Prophets Lastly if the number of mortall men be scarce the hundreth of Angels that are good Spirits it sufficeth that these at least do read the foretokens of future things and therefore do they praise the Lord anew Lucifer indeed hath waxed proud by the much knowledge of things both of those that do exist and of things afterwards to be and it was naturall to him the which he breaths in without grace But it doth not therefore follow that he hath known all mortall men to come and their fortunes vices defects sins grace and whatsoever things should be hereafter like to a second cause as neither the secret mysteries of God that are revealed in succession of dayes and added to a connexion of causes But whether Plagues do arise and rage or Tyrannies Wars destructions tumults or the beginnings of arch-Hereticks the Lord permitting them at leastwise those things shall be as well connexed to their own necessary and second causes although arbitrall and occasionall ones as otherwise Meteors are to theirs For neither is the office of foreshewing the Handy works of the Lord to be restrained to the changes of the Air alone but absolutely unto all the works of the Lords hands Because if the Stars can be preachers of the threatning effects of the wrath of God which without second causes should be committed to the smiting Angel why shall they not also in like manner shew the works of the Lord deputed or reckoned to second and free causes For truly what things soever God foreknoweth he can also if he will shew them by his Instruments but those proper Instruments of God are the Firmament and the Lights thereof as the Scripture witnesseth Yea truly I have been bold to attribute more Authority to the Heaven than what hath wont to be given unto it by the holy Scriptures To wit that the Stars are to us for foreshewing Signes Seasons or changes of the Air lastly for dayes and years wherefore the Text takes away all power of causes besides in the abovesaid revolutions of seasons dayes and years Neither do they act I say but by a motive and alterative Blas But the Stars are said to act by motion and light onely but motion in the Schooles is said to act onely by reason of the divers Aspects of Light for that the motion of the Heavens even the swiftest as well as those remote from us should produce as well heat as motion is a devise or fiction For truly the daily motion of the Heavens is almost
equall therefore also the heat should be alwayes alike but seeing the property of Light by it self is not but to enlighten but by accident by reason of its conjunction to make hot or make cold and the dayes are now and then cold and Clowdy unto us under the Summer Solstice Hence surely I ought to have borrowed other causes from the Blas of the Heaven There is a certain action indeed hitherto unknown to the Schooles which in the proper limit of government I have taught which operates on the objects subjected unto it almost like to abstracted spirits And even as the Soul moveth and altereth its own Organs or Instruments Thou mayest call it for me an influence so that a connexion of the Stars be moreover understood of stirring up the Gas beneath according to the lawes of directions given and fixed by the Almighty for otherwise seeing that a beam of Light may be hindered by a covering every Blas also of the Stars on us should cease if they should act on us onely by light and motion yea and in an over-clowdy Heaven no action on the waters or on the things sowen in the Earth should be beheld For diseased persons do perceive a proportionable resembling motion of the Moon and for this cause do they foretell Tempests to come because there are in the very seeds of things the co-bred and allied Lights of Heaven Which do suit themselves to the motion of the nearest or Neighbour-lights and so to the most universall Blas of the Stars For therefore hot-Houses being shut the same effects are felt con-centred or harmonious not indeed because they light on us from without but we carry a heaven within in our vitall beginnings and the Almighty hath sealed things soulified with that Pledge or Signet Notwithstanding that con-centring and conformity do signifie a connexion of suitableness with the more large superiour Heaven And moreover I may easily believe if Insects do utter the foreshewing signes of seasons that we also at the time of health might foreknow all things unless corruption had bespattered our whole nature in the ground and had left us naturally so much the more stupid and miserable than those small Beasts for sin hath withdrawn the Celestial familiarities of talk from us in diseased persons onely it hath left its marks of antient foretelling whereby we may know that the marks of things to come are left us from nothing but the misery of corrupted nature which else in her purity had made us true diviners of the Heaven no lesse than Adam knew the natures of living Creatures And although the Stars do foretell the effects depending on free and contingent causes yet I would not be understood that a gift is given to the Stars of bringing in the causality of future things for it is sufficient that in this thing they perform the office of a Preacher as it were meanes depending on the fore-knowledge of God for as the fore-knowledge of God doth not take away from man a liberty of willing or judging and his tie with the fore-knowledge doth not take away the infallibility of events nevertheless it least of all contains an unavoidableness much lesse doth the fore-telling of the Firmament induce any necessity of contingency or accidentall event on the wills part although it doth altogether happen in respect of events coupled to their free causes Truly I have oft admired at those that refuse a denouncing of the Stars in free causes as though they did therefore necessitate and did take away a liberty of willing when as in the mean time they do admit that divine fore-knowledge doth not cause any thing against free will but that it can denounce Seeing the reason of necessity in the fore-knowledge of mans glorification is far greater in the power of God than in the fore-shewing of the Stars it being of its own nature tyed to change by reason of the repentance and unstable or frail nature of sinners For it hath happened that sometimes the Stars have foreshewen onely threatnings whereby the antient mortalls through the terrour of punishment do return into the way as did the Ninivites In which case although the Stars do loose much of their certainty and strength yet they do not forsake a certainty of necessity as oft as the Signes do shew forth the fore-tellings of Events Wherefore I reckon with my self that the figures of things successive throughout Ages are decyphered in the Heavens as it were in Tables which figures they name the lawes of destiny and that not indeed by an Hebrew Alphabet as some of the Rabbins Dream but that Provinces Kingdoms and men have their Stars on which the Stage of things accidentally happening to their Subject appointed for every one of them in the revolutions of dayes is decyphered wherefore neither is it a wonder if evill Spirits shall know how to foretel many of these things And so much the lesse if to every one of us are designed good Spirits our keepers Even as the Mountain Garganus Kingdoms and Common-wealths have Spirits for their own Rulers and Defenders For so the fore-shewings not onely of the rising and period of Kingdoms are therein painted forth but also the races and ends of all men are historically figured out by their peculiar Star which are also typically decyphered Which knowledge indeed although it being known to Spirits naturally forbidden to man I do oftentimes read it by its true name the divining of the Heaven yet I finde it granted onely to the Servants or Prophets of God according to his good pleasure For your old men shall dream Dreams and your young men shall have Visions and shall prophesie for this which containeth all things hath the power of a voice it openeth future contingencies shewed by their Stars onely to whom and when it will On some in the mean time he bestoweth a figurative knowledge of the Stars even as to the wise men of the East but to others he giveth Dreams as to Joseph and the same wise men and that the same may be truly interpreted as to Joseph and to Daniel a man of desires Also there are some at this day as mad men and drunkards fore-telling things to come and not knowing what to whom in what manner or by what meanes or why they do presage For so according to Josephus Jesus a certain man foretold the destruction of the holy City with a continuall cry and for that cause he was beaten But the Apostles spaâ—â— from the Comforter with the Tongues of all Nations which were then under the Sun but by the Hebrews and Pagans they were accounted to be drunk with new Wine Although there was no new Wine then to be found in Palestina For they prophesying glorified the Lord Jesus for neither is it read that any was then preached unto or converted Therefore they were accounted to be drunk with new Wine but not with Wine because drunkenness by new Wine among the Gentiles did stir up those that kept
chief over the Blas of the Elements But that the fixed Stars do contain particular Tragedies And therefore when besides the wont of nature there shall be signes in the Sun and Moon they do signifie the monstrous signes of a future ruine of the Universe But such blockishness hath more and more grown on the common sort that they think every one must be believed in his art in this indeed rightly That the Astronomer hath learned to measure the motions and distances of the Stars But we must not therefore believe him as a Prophet of the Stars unless he shall also bring very authentick or warrantable marks whereby he may be believed as did Aholiab and Bezaleel Therefore as to the vitall inclination I do praise the Proverb Strong men are created by strong and good seeds or Parents Moreover so far as concerneth the inclination of Fortunes That in its very Etymology hath exceeded the Catalogue of inclinations Therefore I think that all the fortunes of all as well those prosperous as adverse do concern a divine disposing but not an inclination much lesse to depend on the Stars although they are fore-signified in the Firmament For truly this fore-signifying also doth plainly shew that those do depend immediately on the will of the signifyer For our lots or conditions are in thy hands O Lord Therefore I believe that all the lots of all are good in themselves and to be fully in the hand of the Lord. I believe moreover that by how much the more remote any one is from this opinion by so much he is nearer to Heathenisme Indeed the Heathenish Schooles did see that living Creatures had suitable inclinations according to their kinde yet being amazed at the plurality of morall inclinations in one onely humane kinde expressing all the inclinations of all Beasts and therefore not knowing in what cause they might settle so great a number of inclinations the evill spirit perswading them they by their Sooth-sayers of the Heaven confusedly fled to the uncertain and momentary coupling and estranging of the Stars Never searching into the cause why mankinde is capable of many bestiall inclinations For they neglected to consider that bruit Beasts should have their specificall inclinations from the Being of the seed not the signe of the Horoscope to be due to bruit Beasts That man likewise had his inclinations like bruit Beasts wherefore in like manner Nativities are not to be searched into for the inclinations of men For neither do they naturally happen to man from any other place than from a part of his body which wholly whatsoever it is it oweth to the seminall Being no otherwise than the bodies of bruit Beasts do For truly the Soul is immortall wholly simple and uniform and seeing it is immortall it cannot have its inclination from the frail and sliding motion of the Stars but onely it hearkeneth to the nature corrupted by sin in Adam and his Posterity Wherefore in a late or young Nephew do oft-times the manners behaviours and inclinations of his Grandfather not before seen by him rise again Indeed the Schooles also are content that these should be given to the Being of the seed and not to the Stars But being â—ulled asleep through a custom of assenting and by the importunities of Astrologers they have neglected thorowly to weigh that the aforesaid inclinations of the Grandfather are of no other dignity with nor seperated from the company of the other inclinations and therefore that they are tyed by the same Law to the being of the seed I know not how deservedly they do as yet teach to this day that a man is so subjected to the Stars that he is continually tempted by them to wit that the morall inclinations of vices and goodnesses are to be drawn from the houre of ones Nativity But surely God hath appointed man in the hand of his own will For the sensitive Soul the vicaresse of the minde doth surely rejoyce in a greater liberty than the souls of bruit Beasts by reason of the Seals ministred to it by the minde But the souls of bruit Beasts live contented with the inclinations of their own particular kinde under a small latitude but mans sensitive soul is enlarged to all inclinations for as a humane young as soon as it begins to be nourished in its own square or quarter is not a plant of any kinde even as neither a bruit of any kinde while the sensitive soul floweth together with the rational So the sensitive humane soul being not tied to a brutall kinde doth wander through all the latitude of brutall inclinations and easily hearkeneth to the strange inclinations of the immortall minde brought into it at its own pleasure for the minde sliding into corrupted nature doth easily fall into the motions and enticements hereof and being alwayes shaken out of its place by an unbridled appetite doth serve as a Lackey or Chamber-maid to disturbance which hath driven it from its place Whence there is a strange inclination By the frequent use or desire whereof there is a strong custom which at length doth imprison the minde It likewise appeares that a morall inclination is in the innermost properties of the sensitive soul dispositively sliding out of the Being of the seed And that the Stars have obtained over us no power of causing except by the Blas of Meteors But although the inclination of calling or a morall one may change the vitall inclination as when a pruner of Trees becomes gowty a brawler is wounded or slain so a Gilder miserably trembleth a digger of Mineralls and likewise a Chymist perisheth by an Asthma or stoppage of breathing yet those things come to passe occasionally onely neither do they bring with them any right to the Astrologer Cease therefore for shame hereafter to believe that the Stars were created to tempt incline destroy make happy infuse Sciences or to prevail by an acquired right or authority for thus is the power of desert or punishment taken away also a way is opened to Athersme and the fatalities or destinies of appointments Therefore a wise man shall rule over the Stars not indeed that he can hinder change suspend and pervert the courses or lights of the Stars as neither the successive changes of times or seasons dayes and years following from thence Therefore it followes that a wise man shall not rule over the effects which are coupled to the revolutions of the Stars as causes neither shall he rule over the Stars as signes to wit that he is able to change them at his pleasure but he onely foreseeing that the seven wandring Stars are about to stir up a motive or alterative Blas whence barrennesses colds heats dearnesses of Victuall or the like do necessarily follow he shall be able to provide himself with necessaries and so by meeting the discommodities bred by the Flux of the Stars he shall from consequence in some sort rule over them An Astrologer with this authority not exceeding the bounds of a
the art and knowledge unutterably Therefore although the seed doth contain the Image of the Begetter an Archeus proper to it self with all things requisite to generation yet unless the essential Being of a form did depend originally wholly exemplarily perfectively issuingly and immediately on God nature could never work any thing to attain a form because it should plainly want an active power if it should be deprived of that relative respect Therefore in the first place the Heaven or Stars in no manner of understanding by motion light influence concurrence co-operation or coupling do efficiently and immediately produce the essential forms of things which indeed are onely alone to us for signes seasons dayes and years and whose offices none may compell into new services Jeremy according to the wayes of the Gentiles do ye not learn and be not afraid of the Signes of Heaven which the Nations fear If not of the Signes much lesse of the Stars because they have not the reason of causes but as they are for seasons dayes and years Neither can a Christian without wickedness give them other offices For there is according to Gregory a power conferred on the Earth of budding from it self even as also I esteem it wickedness to attribute the power of increasing and multiplying to living Creatures as to the Heaven But the Schooles do easily go back from the Heaven to dispositive accidents But I on the contrary state it for a position That accidents neither by themselves nor as they are the Instruments of forms do produce the forms of substances Neither that they do produce any other form of one substance Seeing the form of the thing generating is locally without the seed 2. The Earth also although it hath received a power of budding and the seeds of fructifying without the intervening of the seed of Heaven or any other cause yet it is not the productive or effective cause of forms 3. I suppose therefore that God is the true perfect and actually all the essence of all things 4. But the essence which things have belongs to the Being or the Creature it self but is not God 5. For although a Being hath its essence from God dependently for a Pledge Gift League or Talent yet it is proper to the them by Creation 6. But it agreeth to a Being with its essence that it doth and operateth something for the propagation of it self according to the blessing increase and multiply Hence indeed it hath the place of a second cause 7. Therefore God concurreth to the generation of a Being as the Universal Independent totall essential and efficiently efficient cause but a created Being concurreth as the dependent partial particular and dispositively efficient cause But what the Creature can contribute to the producing of a form Mark That since Beings have nothing from themselves for generating but do possess all things from a borrowing and freely they do confess for that very cause that God worketh all things mediately and immediately but that a living Creature doth not generate a living Creature but the seed well disposed to a living Creature Therefore it doth not generate the form thereof But the seed is as it were the disposing Master-Workman as to the form of a living Creature but not as the maker of the form indeed it borroweth the Archeus from the thing generating not the form yea nor the light of life wherein the form shineth Therefore in the beginning of generation the Archeus is not as yet lightsome but it is an Air into which the form life or sensitive soul of the generater hath a little twinckled untill it had sufficiently imprinted some shadowie Seal of its brightness Which Air being greedy of the splendor felt in the generater once and shadowily conceived in it self intends by every way possible for it to organize the body or fit it with Instruments for the receiving of that light and of the actions depending on that light which way therefore it breathing in desire enfiames it self more and more this thing in a metaphoricall figure is for nature through a desire of self-love to pray seek and knock and runs most perfectly that it may receive that light form or life which at length it obtains not else-where than from him who is the way the truth and vitall light or light of life Whither therefore when the Archeus hath come nor in the mean time can proceed any further and is stayed at length it receives forms from the hand of the Father of Lights after that it hath fully performed its offices Christian Philosophy dictates these things thus which in living Creatures and Plants is made easie to be understood But in Stones Mineralls and Metalls and so in fruits of the water that are without life the same things are fuitably to be interpreted For although this Family doth not propagate by virtue of a seed neither doth send forth its posterity out of it self a Being is not therefore wanting in it which may thorowly bring it unto the appointed bounds of maturity For indeed since nothing doth any where dispose or move it self unless it be a seed it must needes be that whatsoever is generated that hath a disposer within who sits in a soft watery salt clayie c. Air Not indeed that it floweth here or wandereth thorow that masse even as it doth in bruit Beasts or that therefore it dwelleth in a perpetual juyce but the Air is incorporated throughout the whole Body nor varying from the disposition of the fruit produced yea in the number or rank of Mineralls that disposer is almost vitall and sensitive Because Chymicall Adeptists do with one voyce deliver that if the seed of the Stone which maketh Gold being once kept warm in their Egg be afterwards in the least cooled or chilled its conception and progress to a stone would be afterwards desperate which thing seeing it is like to Birds Eggs it also therefore cannot subsist without a sensitive life Truly it is to be wondered at that the Schooles do acknowledge all second matter to flow from a certain universal matter yet that they do not admit immediately to derive every life or all forms from the primitive life and first act of all things To wit to derive all the perfection of things from the universal and super-essential essence of perfection yea rather that they at this day do deride Plato with his principle of the Gods and Avicenna with his Cholcodea Panto-Morphe or goddess of Cholchis that gives a form to all things who nevertheless have far neerer saluted the truth in this thing than Christians who maintain that the very lives substantial forms and essential thinglinesses of things are produced by the aspiration or influence of the Heavens by the endeavour of accidents and the favour of material dispositions I set forth the blindness of the most rare men made under or in a time of light For they think the fire to be a substance and the light to be an accident
meer Fire with every thing requisite thereunto And then that the same Light of the Sun falling upon the Icy Glasse of the Moon doth loose the property of his own heat and is made a cold light Which comes not to passe if it shall fall upon Ice Glasse Water a white Wall c. Therefore the Moon hath powers or faculties whereby she altereth the Sun-beames And that cold Blas ought to be of the nature of her own light if between the Agent and Patient a co-resemblance ought to interpose For truly another cold object re-percussing or smiting back the Sun-beames cannot therefore change these into cold beames Truly neither heat cold rough brickle sweet or bitter do act on the Light but onely visible and dark objects therefore the Moon hath a lightsome force or power of her self which as it is such doth act upon the hot light and changeth it into a contrary property What if the Astrologer doth foretell the future Colours of Eclipses do not those Colours promise some certain light proper to the Moon For truly they are not conjectured of from a Mean or vapours because colour cannot be foretold from the quantity of vapours in the calculation of a future Eclipse Therefore let the Colours of the Moon failing of light be the tokens of a light proper unto her And in this the beames of both Lights do differ That the Sun strikes his light by beames in a right line but the Moon doth never respect the Center of the World or the Earth in a right line but her center is alwayes excentrical For she respects the Center of the World onely by accident that is when she is con-centricall with the World And therefore as oft as she is con-centricall in full Moon and new Moon there is an Eclipse Therefore the Dragons Head and Tail are night-points wherein onely the Sun is directly opposed to the Moon in an excentrical Diameter Therefore the Moon-beames do not strike the Earth in a right line but they are dispersed into an excentricall space and so she by way of influence or by the action of government of which in its place displayes her forces on the night or on Nadir the point underneath the Horizon right opposite to our feet whether she accompany the Sun or indeed be estranged from this Sun by a full Diameter For such is the appointment of the Moon which the exundations or Spring-Tides of the Sea do confirm which are wont to be no lesse under the Moon laying hidden than at the full of the same Therefore one end of the Lights is to rule the day and night next another end is to seperate the light from the darkness and another end to seperate the day from the night Neither is that repetition to be imputed to a Solecisme or incongruity For truly the Sun shining or the Moon restoring her Light received from the Sun the Light indeed is sufficiently seperated from the darkness but the Light of the Sun never rules the night as neither doth he shine in the night therefore that the Moon likewise may satisfie her appointment she can never rule the night by a borrowed Light of the Sun Which thing sufficiently appeareth at leastwise while she runs with the Sun by day according as by night Therefore if then also the Moon ought to satisfie the divine intention she must needes have also by all meanes another light whereby she may shine all nights and may rule the night and a far other manner of powring forth her light than that wherein she reflecteth the Light of the Sun Indeed the Moon sends forth her proper displayed Light beyond no lesse than beneath the Hemisphere of the Air Water and Earth which way the supposition of the Center of the Universe maketh or tendeth according to the Opinion of Tycho Yet so that the action of government of light and influence operates more powerfully in the night from whence the Sun is absent the which that he may seperate the day from the night ought to seperate the properties of the Moon from his own although the Moon be conjoyned with him Diseases belonging to the Moon do prove that thing which are exasperated a little before night also at the new of the Moon And so she worketh thorow the bones and Marrowes of those who are shut up in their Bed-chamber which thing is not so proper or natural to the Sun Therefore the Moon doth sometimes make a stronger influence on that part of the Sphere that is opposite unto her than on the part where she is placed This light being unknown to the Antients hath been called an influence But I had rather reserve the sense of the Scripture because it is said The Moon was created to give light by night that is all nights indifferently even so as the Sun gives light by day Therefore that which they have called an influence is the property of the Moones light and that is not to have named a thing from the effect but from the causes The Bat Dormouse Mouse Owl and whatsoever Creatures do distinguish their objects afar off in the night under the thickest darkness and do note the swiftest motions of objects which our eyes can scarce observe at noon-day some of whom although they may bear before them a Grayish or Skie-coloured brightness yet they never enlighten the mean by that brightness that they may see perfectly through it at a far distance Therefore there must needes be some continual light in the thickest night and shut up Den for which lights sake such living Creatures do perfectly see But if it be unperceived by us and yet doth in truth exist it is no wonder if the light proper to the Moon hath deceived our eyes But that it may be plainly made known that night-wandring Animalls do send no light out of their eyes which may be for the enlightning of a medium or mean to know distinctly an object placed afar off and so that those Creatures do see onely for the light of the Moones sake Let a Looking-glasse be placed between the Eye of a living Creature and its object and that under the thickest darkness and surely thou shalt not finde the least reflexion of light in the Glasse yet if thou shalt put a small Candle at the utmost end of a large Hall but if in the other furthest end of the Hall there be a hole thorow which that feeble light may passe into another dark Hall or room in whose end let a Looking-glasse be truly that weak light being shaken by the direct beame of the flame of the Candle is received and will appear in the Glasse yet it is not sufficient for a man to discern any object Therefore much lesse shall the brightness or shining of the Eyes a beam whereof doth not fall and appear in a nigh Glasse be fit to enlighten the mean that they may perfectly discern all things For there is under the Earth a light even at midnight whereby many eyes
substance and so an act whereby the matter is this something or particular subfisting thing truly the form ought most principally to subsist and endure or that maxime is false That by which every thing is such that thing it self is more such But the consequence together with the maxim is false For all the souls of Beasts and all their forms are frail or mortall for therefore I reckoned with my self the antecedent also to be false Indeed all created things were made of nothing and so they keep the disposition of that principle and therefore the Forms and Being of things do in the first place return of their own accord into their former nothing Notwithstanding God created not man immediately of nothing but of the mud or dust of the Earth and therefore his Creation was far otherwise than that of other things For the Almighty took dust from the Earth not indeed that which was equall in weight to a man like an Image-maker for of one onely Rib he formed the whole Body of the Woman that he might manifest the Mystery of this irregular Creation not to be after the manner of other things but substantial as to the Form I say the whole Mystery directed to its ends or to the Soul manifesting that the Soul of man was not onely an out-law and one onely substance among other Forms but also that from the unequalness of mud or the Rib to a whole Person we might see that our Soul is a formall substance not of quantity but meerly spiritual And that which being at sometime abstracted by way of a truly sub-standing or remaining Being should afterwards by the gift of Creation endure for ever Therefore every Form is created by the Father of Lights into a proper particular kinde and is a certain Light of its own Body But Forms are distinguished among themselves not onely by the degree of Light but in the whole Species And therefore there are as many Species of lights in nature as there are of things And seeing that also Angels are numbered among things it followes that there are far more Species of lights than of material things But we must deservedly call to minde that there is a brightness or Splendor in the Archeus of Seeds and so something like to a formall light which brings the matter to the suitable bounds of its particular kinde yet that that Splendor doth far differ from a formall light for truly that is forthwith and immediately created by the Father of Lights but the Splendor proceedeth out of the lap of nature And the largeness of the difference and unlikeness is placed in this that amongst it or at the most the Splendor of the seeds is the effect of the Master-Workman but the formall light is a cause and vitall act Again the Splendor differs from the Archeus as light doth from matter and therefore the whole Being of the Splendor is terminated in shining but the light of the form is so annexed to the thingliness or essence of it that they are formally one and the same being distinguished onely by a relation And so although the formall light doth shine yet its act is not terminated in shining but in an essentificall thingliness And therefore brightness and shining are indeed the beginnings of degrees to a fireable light and the heats thereof whereas the formall light differs in the whole general kinde from a fireable light and therefore it knowes no degrees but hath distinct and distinctive Species or shapes in its formality as well in the specificall essence as in the individual essence And therefore nature ought to receive its specifical distinctions from the formall light it not being otherwise able to distinguish it self from it self unless by some former thing which may contain an act of distinction As neither to perfect it self by it self unless it doth receive that from some former thing efficiently perfecting And seeing that Forms do actively distinguish things themselves and perfect them a Power of infinite wisdom foreknowing from end even to end is considered in them I have already taught before that the light of the Sun falling on the Earth meeting with the light of the Moon they do mutually pierce each other So the light of our Soul may touch and immediately pierce all the forms of all things so it hath but once lost the contagions of its Body But as long as it is the companion of the Body it pierceth forms subordinate to it self which thing is signified in the Word He hath put under his feet the Birds of the Heaven the Cattel of the field and the Fishes of the Sea For whatsoever the immortall Soul I speak not of the sensitive doth issuingly think of it also reacheth to that very thing even as in the Treatise of the hunting or searching out of Sciences and in the Squaldron of Diseases So likewise the minde pierceth also its sensitive Soul and so they do derive the thoughts of the Soul into the Body On the other hand the conceipts of the sensitive Soul to wit while a man being asleep thirsteth is hungry c. do ascend into the heart and oft-times do strike the immortal minde Hence therefore it followes that all the properties of things as well hidden as manifest are imprinted on Bodies by reason of a formall co-touching so that at length they do also defile even the deliberations of the formall substance As when a mad man doth but even lightly wound the skin with his tooth presently thereupon the resembling mark of madness is propagated or increased in the light whereby the sensitive Soul and minde do touch each other But God although he hath an immediate co-touching of all Forms yet he is not likewise touched or reached by any form but by the Soul actually mediating or intreating in the Symbole or resembling mark of good and that as being his Image reflecteth it self upon God But other forms as they are frail or mortall so they have no right of acting on the infinite substantial and thrice glorious light Therefore from what hath been said before it is certain that what things are innocency in Aristotle are the blasphemies of the Schooles in saying That if God should act any thing immediately he ought also to suffer are-acting And that the immaterial God doth make use of immaterial instruments that he may work or do any thing Moreover seeing the minde of man doth most nearly shew forth the Image of God is immortall and therefore is not capable of suffering I could not perswade my self that it is so restrained to the lawes of the Body that it can suffer by this Body I know that this is true that while health remains the chief powers of the minde are often troubled Therefore I acknowledge one health in the Being and another in the Mind yet I cannot comprehend that an immortall spirituall substance can suffer by an infamous excrement which in no wise reacheth it For whatsoever suffers that is made by a stronger
he would have necessities to be subservient to his own Maxims but he erected not Maxims conformable to necessities which fictions therefore are commanded to work ruine as many of them as are handed forth at the pleasure of so great ignorance Therefore that Maxim hitherto remains adored by the Schooles and common people as it were the top of healing which by contrarieties that is by brawlings strifes Wars fighting and Crises or judicial periods do mark out the beaten path of healing For it hath so been credited so wrote and feigned hitherto and that so without controversie that nothing is thought to be alike plausible and fit for subscribing and doth through its own facility of understanding deceive by delighting and captivating every unwary person But the knowledge of the Causes and Roots of healing do grow from a far more hidden stock than that the vulgar by a rusticall perceivance can crop the flowers of the same Neither hath Galen considered that one contrary ought so often to be predicated of according to Aristotle as oft as another because both of them stood under the same generall kinde and did rejoyce in an equall priviledge wherefore neither hath he at any time diligently searched what that generall kinde should be under which positive coldness or cold might stand contrary to so manifold a putrified heat as he seigned particular kindes of Fevers To wit where he might finde cold contrary to a Malignant putrified and hectick or habituall heat And resisting heat in so many excesses of spaces Or what might be that singular and individuall action of cold of so diverse Degrees and Species whereby as many heats being brought under the yoak they should be compelled to a due proportion which thing surely so long as it hath been neglected by the Galenists also a just remedy for every Fever hath remained unknown and Remedies have been administred being prescribed by guess and chance For through Galenical scantinesses they on both sides prostrate their lies conspiring for the death of mortalls Paracelsus indeed scoffed at Galen with an Helvetian taunt although as being constrained he now and then runs back to the same method being unmindfull of his own continuall chiding For oft-times he would have contraries to be coagulated in things resolved and resolving yea many times he uncompelled runs back to hissed-out elementary distemperatures at length through a heat of contradicting he constituted the healing of all diseases in the likeness as well of nature as of the causes making Diseases with the remedy it self being indeed every where full of indistinction But I under a Phylosophicall liberty being addicted to no Master do perceive that if by the taking away of the causes all co-knitting of affects is thereby cut off that every healing of Diseases ought also to be defined by the same law of Causes So that a correcting withdrawing and extinguishing of the immediate efficient cause which doe suitably enclose within themselves a privation of the effect following from thence should contain the chiefest substance in healing But not the likenesses as neither the contrarieties of Remedies In the first place the products of Diseases suppose the Stone as they retain in themselves their own Agent co-agulated in them So also they are very often cured by taking away of the effect onely Because sometimes the co-knitting of the inward cause or of the immediate efficient is taken away together with their matter Add to these things that onely a solution of the co-knitting of the efficient cause to the matter and so a strained or loosened fitting and quenching and appeasing of a privative disturbance in the Archeus which do sometimes include in them a meer privation do oft-times compleat the History of healing without any contrariety or likeness of the Remedy to occasionall causes which very thing Paracelsus ought to have remembred if he had once looked back unto his own Arcanums or secrets For he had soon taken notice that any one of those Arcanums do of right chase away almost all Diseases without any respect to likeness or contrariety but through the besprinkling of a vitall tincture alone by a secret gift that is by an over-flowing of goodness For indeed whatsoever is made or born in nature is made from the necessity of efficient seeds But seeds themselves do in no wise operate for the scope of likeness or contrariety as otherwise is commonly thought but onely because they are so commanded to operate by the Lord of things who alone hath given knowledges bounds or ends to seeds known to himself alone from a former cause Else seeds do wander and whither they know not And indeed they direct themselves as though they were strong in knowledge but they tend by the meanes granted unto them unto ends unknown to themselves For we do improperly call them the intentions of Medicines or scopes of nature not that they have prefixed an aim to themselves from the beginning as if they were potent in a minde and fore-knowledge but because by a created gift they are born to flow down voluntarily and naturally by their own direction unto such limits as are known to God For Christian Philosophy doth thus dictate this thing but the Heathenish Schoole is ignorant of it Therefore even in the light I do admire at the boldness of the Schooles which have not acknowledged the seminall Beings of nature in Diseases and have placed qualities in the room of Beings subsisting by themselves and that Diseasie ones nevertheless they would have them to be esteemed after the manner of will or judgement of feelings and animosity as they should possess Antipathies and contrarieties by their own proper force Truly I have thus accustomed my self to play the Philosopher as I coveted to mere out things themselves by a radicall foundation according to the Whet-stone of sacred truth as near as might be lawfull for humane wits Therefore that I may shew the positions of Contrariety to contain meer incongruities in nature it is first of all to be observed that they have suffered the frivolous invention of Aristotle to prostitute a matter wholly deprived of every accident for the subject of generation as well in a sound nature as in a corrupt one to wit in the grief of a isease for he thus prosperously beginneth from a twofold and every way privation of accidents and forms for the original Beginning of things Therefore that every accident as well inbred as suddenly hapning doth also consequently depend and issue out of the bosome of forms So indeed that from the Forme and its first Essay all activity in the Archeus as well of matter as accidents doth necessarily depend in the mean time the Schools were thorow taught by this Aristotle they support it even to this day That nothing can be contrary to Substances as well those material as formall I do not see therefore whence accidents shall beg their own contrariety to themselves especially those which are the naked immediate and meer instruments
required than those which nature hath of her own accord produced At length perhaps I shall by many be judged to have strived about Goats Wool and onely about a name And that what the Schooles do call a contrary I have strove to mask with the Etymologie of an opposite But this punishment remaineth with me from the ungratefull onely I speak to the Physitians and Schooles which admit onely of those Remedies of Diseases which by a contrary hostile property are reckoned to set upon Diseases by fighting And who by a contrary distemper as they say do diligently teach that a temperature is onely to be obtained of which sort of things that none hath at length hitherto been and plainly appeared in nature I am satisfied Neither is it sufficient that they do require in a Remedy superior forces related to the Disease but also they will have that to come to passe with the VVar of contrariety strife and a Crisis if Victory be thence to be hoped for Truly I have shewen that such powers are not found in nature Likewise that neither do the seeds of things act from a hope and endeavour of Victory or of trampling on their Patient as being contrary to it Nor also of overcoming the activity of the Patient And so that there is not any contrariety striving hatred VVar combate of arrogancy or superiority to bear any shew or be preferred in naturall things but that they act without an intention and foreknowledge of the end as they were so created by God their Umpire and were so endowed and so commanded by him to act Therefore it is clear that contrariety as it is taught in the Schooles to be implanted in any kinde of things is banished from whole nature except from the wrathfull faculty of living Creatures and so although self-love sympathy antipathy choice yea and some sense or perceiving may be attributed to things without life Let it be an Analogy or proportionable resemblance re-shining rather in their effects and causes than in the direction of the Creator or Ordination of ends because in a proper sense they are deprived of choyce intention of acting and foreknowledge of ends But seeing any of these sort of things do plentifully witness that they have a directer strongly moving and sweetly disposing the ends of all things even to their bounds the unfoldings of their properties are Testimonies that the most glorious God doth rule the rains even of things of small esteem by powers given unto them ignorant thereof And so that they are wholly right withut a knowledge of the end that is without their violent force anger strife and hatred So far is it therefore that I judge the actions of things and remedies to be made by opposites in the room of contraries that I have equally banished as well opposites as contraries from nature but I have admitted opposites after the manner of a Relation of termes But not in the way wherein they act on each other For I have alwayes from the Age of a man supposed that if there should be contraries or they should act as such nature should not totally exemplarily formally and dependantly respect its Creator And that of such a Creature it could not be fitly said And God saw that whatsoever things he had made were good if it could not unfold the properties planted in it without hatreds after a hostile manner At length how much opposite things which I have reckoned among repugnant or resisting ones may differ from contrary ones those Physitians have known whosoever do not burn with a pleasure of reproaching Therefore let young Beginners mark whether he who overthroweth the first principles of healing from the intent of the Creator striveth with me about a naked name who would have all things operate according to the endowment of nature conferred on it not by contrariety or a desire of destroying each other but for the ends foreknown to God alone who is love and peace but not hatred strife or the fewel of contrariety Therefore from the intention of the Creator are created things to be weighed The VVoolf hath deceived the Schooles who kills if he could not one Sheep onely but also the whole flock Contraries are in man and Beasts by a power of animosity or angry hear which is banished as well from the Minerall as vegetable Kingdom At length in mortall men sins are opposed to virtues privatively seeing Sin is reckoned a non-being I may think habituall virtues not to be contrary to vices as they do as yet reside in the understanding but onely when the issuing of them out of the understanding is in the consent wherein it is opposed to an animosity willing another thing which in the Progress doth at first bring forth anger hatred grudges that is contraries For out of the heart proceedeth Murders Adulteries c. But a meer non-being doth not proceed as neither doth it fall under a conception seeing it hath not a Species of its own wherein it may represent it self Therefore sin is not onely a turning away from the Creator but also a mentall or mindelike act of a determined wickedness or malice but an act of the minde doth alwayes put on matter whereon it decyphers its own Idea which it hath formed by conceiving or imagining and thus far it springs forth according to the Soyl of the Soul into the faculties of the Body Hitherto I have discoursed of Faculties created from the intent of the Creator to wit that there is not given an incentive or inciting Faculty of contraries and enmities unto things existing without the animosity of sensuality But it shall be profitable to shew in this place that by the same animosity some things are made which express a beast-like hostility as by the spittle of a mad Dog the stinging of Serpents Bees c. yet the same things do operate after the manner of poysons and poysonsom Plants which divine goodness hath not created to hurt or kill or unto an ill end but for other ends directed for the glory of his Majesty But it will be very hard to attribute the contraries of Hostility to inaminate things by an accustomed and wanton analogy of powers to consider a matter or thing to wit the Spittle of a mad Dog or of Serpents to be imprinted by anger on a man without that contrariety which we of our own accord grant to be in a bruit Beast from whence it sprang But surely he shall with me easily perceive it if he consider that poyson whether it be created by a Beast or prepared through the contagion of animosity doth not therefore cease to be poyson and to act according to the nature of poyson The property whereof is to act by a naturall force or power yea although having risen from the impression of anger yet this quality is no more anger to it but a certain naturall product and so wherein there is indeed a mark of anger and contrariety but not anger it self And therefore
by devouring and consuming of the radical moisture whence it would follow That the heart is the Torch of a consuming fire But notwithstanding seeing the substance of the Heart and Pericardium or case of the Heart and also of the Bloud is not fit for fire They have been forced to confesse that fire not to be fire and that heat not to be fiery yet devouring but they have said It is sufficient for them to have described the Fewelor Torch or Beginning of heat Metaphorically As if nature should admit of Metaphors For first of all I remember that some swooning Virgins were beref't of Pulse and breathing so far as was conjectured by humane judgement and so for some hours were bewayled among the dead yet that they revived and being married afterwards to have lived without sicknesse and to have brought forth five or six times For they were cold as Ice assoon as their Pulse had failed from whence I began to be doubtful whether the Pulse were not made rather for the effecting of Heats sake than through the occasion of fetching in cold whence I began to account the final causes of Pulses to be frivolous and so also I suspected the presaging part of healing to be weakened And that I thus prove For there is Hedge or Partition between both bosomes of the Heart in it self as long as life remains So Porie That by the attraction of the ears of the Heart for on both sides it is reckoned to be eared by way of proportionable Resemblance because it hath as it were Bellows the Veinie Bloud doth passe from the hollow Vein forming the right bosom of the Heart by its passage and wanders into the left bosom not likewise from hence to the right bosome Because the pores in the hedge or partition it self are triangular whose Cone or sharp point ending in the left bosom is the more easily encompassed or pressed together but the Base of that Triangle in the right bosom never but by death But the bloud of the left bosom is now arteriall and is the bloud of a true name being diverse from the bloud it self as being yet in the hollow vein in colour and subtility or fineness Wherefore I must needs not without cause have found out a new or fourth digestion in the left stomach of the heart For no otherwise than as the bloud of the veins differs from the cream and chyle so also doth the bloud of the Arteries differ from the thick bloud of the veins although by a neerer kinne and cloathing of the Heavens they have after a sort returned into one Family Yet in that is the specificall difference of both that the arterial bloud is informed by the immortall Soul in the left bosom but the venall bloud not and that it is illustrated onely by the light of the sensitive form participatively but not informatively For the other digestions do require rest But the fourth is perfected by an uncessant continuation of motion Not indeed that the very motion of the heart is the formall transchangeative cause but onely that it concurs dispositively Indeed in the left bosom of the heart as it were in a stomach doth a singular most vitall and lightsom Ferment dwell which is a sufficient cause of the venall bloud its being transchanged into arterial bloud even as it is chief in the transmutation of arteriall bloud into vitall Spirit Because all venal bloud doth naturally tend into its own end which is nourishment yet at last it is dispersed and vanisheth away into a vapour or into a Gas unless it be stayed by the Coagulum or co-thickning of growth But the arterial bloud hath for its aim not indeed that it may incline into a smoakiness or excrement For if that thing come to passe it happeneth to it from a Disease and by accident After another manner the proper object of the arterial bloud is to be brought over into vitall Spirit which if afterwards it doth also vanish let this be unto it besides its intent Seeing that every Being doth naturally desire to remain For the vitall Spirit is a light originally dwelling in the Ferment of the left bosom which enlightneth new Spirits bred by the arterial bloud to wit for which continuation of light the Arterie is lifted up For thus the Spirits are made the partakers of life and the executers thereof even as also the Vulcans of continued heat Therefore the life of man is a formall light and almost also the lightsom or clear sensitive Soul it self and so death doth forthwith follow the blowing out of this Because the immortall minde is involved in the sensitive Soul which after death slies away this other perishing But far be it that that vitall light be called fiery burning and destroying the radicall moysture and that by the continuall plenty of the smoakie vapours hereof it should defile the heart and Arteries But it is a formall light even as I have said before concerning Forms for neither shall he ever otherwise describe the in-most essence of life who had seen the formall lives of things even in an Extasie Because words are wanting and names whereby these may be shewen or called as it were by an Etymologie from a former cause And although God had shewen to any one the essence of life in a composed Body yet he will never give his own honour of teaching it unto any Creature Seeing life in the abstract is the incomprehensible God himself For so by little and little the meat and drink ascends into the Chyle or juyce of the stomach into the juyce of the mesentery or Crow into venal bloud and at length by arteriall bloud unto a most thin Skie or Air the vitall Spirit and the prop of the Soul which exchanging doth presuppose a motion of the heart For neither is it sufficient that the Ferment be effective efficiently that the arterial bloud be quickened and turned into Spirit and it to dwell in the left bosom of the heart unless a pulsative motion doth concur which is likened to the motion whereby sowrish milk or cream by a true transmutation is changed into Butter For by the motion is made an extenuating not indeed of the soure but of the salt arterial bloud neither therefore is it turned into a fat or butter but into vitall Spirit of the nature of a Salt and so of a Balsam For so the arteriall bloud is by motion heat and the Ferment changed into an Aiery or Skyie off-spring the immediate Inne of a vitall light Wherefore the Bloud VVater and Spirit are one and the same For if that light be in the Spirit but this be carried thorow the Arteries into the whole Body also that light ought to be on every side continuall to it self seeing it is the property of light else to be extinguished Therefore the Arteries ought to remain open so indeed that they do never remain long pressed together wherefore it was also meet that the pulse should dilate the same nor
or boyling to be concoction therefore they translated digestions to boyling and on both sides where they thought heat to be the natural total and one only cause of them For they saw that by seething and roasting very many things waxed tender and were altered Therefore a liberty being taken from artificial things they translated a Kitchin into the amazed transmutations of the bowels and meats not indeed by way of similitude but altogether properly and immediately and by thinking the matter passed over into a belief and then into a true opinion and all the offices and benefits of our nature they translated into heats and temperaments as it were into totall causes Especially indeed because they perceived the bellies of men and four-footed beasts to be actually hot even so that afterwards they laboured more for increasing of heat than for strengthening of digestion For neither have they diligently searched further into it although the event did for the most part deceive their hope Thinking it sufficient that heat might be found as well in boyling as in the natural digestion of the belly from which they slumbered as expecting abundant help to themselves In the mean time they were in doubt when they took notice that meats were not by seethings wholly transchanged into juice by a total metamorphizing For fleshes the vessel being shut they resolved into a consummated Bâ—oth a true portage being pressed out and melted but indeed they observed their errour because fleshy tough and hard remaining threds did abide and never melt by a true transmutation into juice yet through an aptnesse of belief and antiquity of errour they suffered their eyes to be vailed seeking privy shifts and biding places they presently thought themselves safe while that they had implored the divers degrees of heat if not also its particular kinds and general kinds as is a fiery elementary radical correspondent to the element of the stars c. yea and the moments of heats for a help of their excuses So that every degree should almost in every moment have its own constitutive temperature in digesting In which stupidity Paracelsus also involved himself who will have one only bread in so many particular kinds of living creatures to receive a specifical diversity of venal bloud and dungs by reason of the moment of degree alone in heat As if the Latitude of heat could frame a species or vary in the substance But while the Schools did presume to have taken away every knot in the Bulrush they afterwards fell into the spongy differences of digestive heat natural and likewise into that of besides and against nature And at length they ought now and then against their will to fly back unto the sacred Anchor of hidden secrets or properties in digestions So indeed that there should be some certain heat the Authour of digestion as well in diseases as in health Having forgotten in the mean time that as they had feigned one only kind of contraries and both to be said or declared after like manners that there should be one only and a uniform condition of both Wherefore they forgot to devise the like particular kindes and properties of colds to wit of what so it that natural digestive cold besides and against nature should be And likewise they ought to have taught some radical and primogeniall cold So that if radical heat doth answer in proportion to the Element of the Stars and doth differ in the whole general kind from any other luke-warmth also radicall cold ought to differ in as many numbers and faculties from any other cold unlesse through the great want of truth they forsake their own wisdom as barren So indeed although heat not natural should proceed into natural and this into it by an unheard of license of seeds yet they have banished native and feverish heat into distinct species yea also into generall kinds that they might save the effects attributed to digestive heat So that while they would believe that some Birds do digest those things which otherwise do defend them against the fury of the fire they have acknowledged some fire to be more powerfull than fire For a Dog doth digest swallowed bones which fire never dares to convert into Chyle Therefore The diversities of which effects have constrained the Schools to erect heat into the Latitude of a predicament opposite colds being in the mean time neglected When as in the mean time there is only a specifical diversity of heat which is not able to with-draw it from the number of other things For truly whatsoever is cast into the stomack digestion being at length finished is transchanged and far separated from boyling and other coctures after whatsoever degree prepared Because the one only ignorance of ferments hath caused digestions and the remedies of unconcoction to be unknown and a faulty argument to be promoted of not the cause as of the cause where it is not an idle brawling as it were about a name while fermentall effects are ascribed to heat Because the resolving of this question doth change the intentions of healing Therefore I willingly accustome my self to enquire into the proper causes to wit at the meditation whereof profit follows diseases tremble or the strength or faculties are made vigorous Therefore ferments are worthily wrath because they are against their will believed to war under a Relolleum or quality not having a seminal Being For it never belonged to heat to withdraw a thing into a formal transmutation Seeing heat by it self and primarily doth nothing but make hot but by accident it separates watery things from stiff or tough things Which univocal or single action of heat is no wise a digestion being wholly included in transchanging For although digestion doth happen in us heat accompanying it yet that is not heat although it be by accident connexed with heat For therefore in a Fish there is no actual heat neither therefore notwithstanding doth he digest more unprosperously than hot Animals Neither is he after the manner of men badly affected by things cast into him Therefore it is a frivolous thing to flee to potential heat for a fish For in sensible things known by sense the touching only is witnesse and judge but not to flee to dreams For if digestion be to be attributed to heat not actually hot but to a virtual power I now enjoy my wish For otherwise what is that I pray but ignorantly to brawl about heat as such And in the mean time to confesse that there is something besides a sensible heat which is the containing cause of digestion For what can more foolishly be spoken than that potential heat doth actually make hot and that digestion is made for this heatings sake Can a thing in power now act actually But at least in a Dog-like hunger there is a most swift digestion and implacable hunger Therefore a troublesome and offensive heat even then ought to be felt in us hot creatures if digestion be made in us by actual
the middle waters but it hath need of a fermenting odour of the side whereby it doth as it were putrifie Therefore coagulation is made on the sides of the Vessel to which it fastneth it self According to the common Chymical Maxim Every Spirit dissolving by the same action whereby it disselveth Bodies is it self coagulated Therefore the more sharp Wine dissolveth the Lee in its Bark because a sharp Salt of the sour dissolving Spirit is presently coagulated together with the dissolved Lee or Dreg and applyeth it self to be neighbour to the side or Concave of the Vessel And that least both to wit the thing dissolving and thing dissolved be hindered from coagulating but at least that it be not on the other side encompassed by Liquor Therefore Tartar the new off-spring of coagulation is affixed Understand thou also that before it be coagulated there is not yet a coagulation and therefore that somewhat sour Wine the Lee being now dissolved by it in an instant before it is coagulated snatcheth hold on the Vessel and doth affix and glew it self on there by the proper Solder of its Cream Else it should settle to the bottom This very thing is the Tartar of Wine of which we are speaking That these things are on this wise Vinegar it self proveth For Wine set in the Sun and the Vessel being heated by the Sun the Vinegar never hath Tartar in the Vessel yet it is the same matter differing onely in cold or heat There indeed with Tartar but here without it First of all a remarkable thing plainly appeareth from what hath been before deduced that the aforesaid Maxim of Chymistry erreth in that because it will have the dissolution of a Body to be made together with the coagulation of the Spirit by the same action in number For if divers moments of motions should not intercede the coagulated thing it self should not adhere toughly glewed to the Hogshead as if by that which is melted it should be there powred on it but if it should be coagulated in the very motion of dissolution it should fall down to the bottom in the shape of a coagulated matter but should not adhere to the sides But on the other hand in the Region of the Lee Tartar is not found Let there be another remarkable thing and of greater moment that the Tartar of Wine is altogether impertinently taken according to the likeness of coagulated things in us wherefore the name History manner and end of Tartar of Wine hath been impertinently introduced into the Causes which make Diseases And these things shall be made manifest when as I shall make the devise of Tartar in Meats and Drinks plainly to appear Likewise as to that which belongs to Tartar of Wine for that is not a strange forreigner to Wine produced by a forreign Mother matter against or besides the nature of Wines as neither to expiate the wickednesses committed by Wine by those things which are adjoyned for a curse And then neither is the Tartar of Wine ever coagulated by a Cream proper unto it although Paracelsus hath otherwise so supposed but the Tartar is coagulated after that the dissolutive sourness of the Wine is woren out and glutted by the Lee. That is the sourness being overcome by the dissolved content doth think of making a coagulation not indeed to make a true Stone but a feigned one because it is that which is again dissolved in hot water as it were a sharp Salt in Liquor which is therefore commonly called Cremor Tartari or the Cream of Tartar All which things surely do badly square or suit with our coagulations yet they all have by a like identity or sameliness of Tartar in all particular nourishments been intruded by a winy devise Lastly and that a violent one Because Tartar is not an excrement of Wine unless in respect of one part which is a solved Dreg which thing surely was not also hid from Paracelsus who now and then doth extol the Tartar of Wine far above the Wine as it were an heir of greater virtues Wherefore he doth badly accommodate or fit the Tartar of Wine by the identity of Being and framing with diseasie Tartarers which he calls an excrement yea a curse arising from the Thistles and Thorns or an ill endowed entertained Being in a pure Saphirical Being of things Therefore the Tartar of Wine although there should be any other being erected into the matter of Diseases in taking the Tartars of Diseases they should even according to the minde of Paracelsus badly agree together And so he hath also but impertinently referred the cause of Diseases unto Tartar Seeing they do not any way agree in the matter efficient manner cause of coagulations in the bound of a Cream in their object as neither in their principles For the Sand or Stone are not resolved by elixing or seething even as otherwise the Tartar of Wine is Therefore the whole metaphorical transumption of name and property is frivolous and a bold rashness of asserting by bespattering all created things with a curse so as wholly throughout they should be nothing but of Tartar and the boldness hath proceeded so far that they seign Tartar to be even in the Marrows yet not coagulable which neither hath Paracelsus ever seen but hath asserted onely by a boldness Now he maketh Tartar not to be Tartar nor coagulable And so that not onely every coagulable thing and that which hath solidness but that every liquory thing that is the whole Creature should be nothing but Tartar appointed for a punishment of sin Now when new Wine hath waxed cold hath lost its sweetness and hath assumed the qualities of Wine the whole Lee hath fallen to the bottom and then the transmutation of the more sour part of the Wine beginneth to act of the Lee For truly that which is more fruitful than the Spirit of Wine desiring by degrees the more inward parts doth forsake the Superficies of the Hogs-head but this beginning thereby to wax sour nor finding an object nigh to it self on which it may act but onely in the bottom it by degrees dissolves that object in the same place And thus indeed the sharpness thereof is by degrees the more confirmed But seeing every sour thing doth as it were boyl up in corroding hence it comes to passe that when the sourness which is about the bottom hath acted upon the dreg it ariseth from thence and is substituted or affixed in another place Therefore the generation of Tartar is slow And therefore cannot the Tartar be affixed in the bottom by reason of the disquietness of that continual boyling up wherefore generous Wines nor Wines easily forsaken by their fleeing Spirit do not readily wax sour and they do yield none or but a little Tartar But old Rhenish Wines do become weak indeed in the acceptableness of a winie tast as their sourness was drunk up in the Lee yet are they stomatical because that their Spirits are not wasted according to
of a Stone making for the tooth the which although it were already made a superfluity it as yet reteined not indeed that it might therefore be Tartar but from the determination of the Archeus whereby it had been already appointed for the making of a tooth But a spear-like gum is there a sign of the most perfect health or foundnesse and therefore it scarce createth a tooth-stone For the gum co-touching with the tooth even unto the end of it doth not admit the tooth to bring forth excrements but preserveth the tooth Even as a tooth being bared of gums doth easily ake doth putrifie and affix a Stone For the eyes do weep forth a Liquor which in the morning in the eye-lids looks like Amber and the which by the Germans is for this cause by way of similitude called Augstine or Austine But the excrement of the eares like unto a yellow Oyntment is a great comfort in the pricking of the sinews therefore it hath not been an unaccustomed thing for the teeth to produce an excrement and this a strong smelling Carcase resolved out of stinking bloud For the muckiness cast on the tongue from the meats is dried neither doth it wax stony unless it shall be admixt with an excrement which doth unsensibly break forth between the tooth and the gum For as that is the excrement of the tooth it had drawn a limitation of hardness from the beginning And so it being grown to the tooth it deceives with the shew of a stony crust I have observed also a tooth to grow even unto the fortieth year with a true growth For that which is opposed to the tooth pulled out through the penury of attrition or grinding doth exceed its own rank and enters into the opposite rank even unto the aforesaid terme therefore a tooth after it ceaseth to grow scarce wanteth nourishment or but little because it is a substance scarce capable of diflation or blowing away then therefore the gum is fruitful in more superfluity snatcheth somewhat more of nourishment becomes bloudy and being swollen is presently lessened and becomes as it were rotten For from hence is there often tooth-ach rottenness hollowness and putrifying especially in those whom a little after due season they do in youth suspend their growth therefore the teeth as they do live in a peculiar Family-administration so also they have their own ages which I thus remarkably distinguish For the tooth which after a mans eighth year doth shew forth the clearness of dark or thick Glasse which from the colour of Milk Artificors call Lattime or of a Snail-shelt is a young one It is a white Colour bright and polished And then by degrees it waxeth pale presently afterwards it becomes dully white as it were Ivory It is the youth of the Tooth Then afterwards it becomes obscurely pale as is seen in those who swoon in deceased Virgins And this is its manly Age And at length it waxeth palely yellow like a bone and looseth its former brightness Then doth the old age of a Tooth begin For so much as a gristle differs from a membrane but the Tooth-ach is frequent while the Gum decreaseth and the Tooth is of a bony Colour But last of all a rotten hollow black wormy and strong smelling Tooth is the frail or declining age of that Tooth therefore cold is an enemy to the Teeth For it hastens their old Age the greyness of hairs doth argue the old Age of the same even besides the old Age of the man and one hair waxeth grey long before another So also one Tooth waxeth old before another whence it is plain thas every Tooth doth live in his own quarter Southern people have brighter Teeth than Northern because they enjoy a more bountiful Air for the Teeth the Teeth of Children before the seventh year of Age do easily feel rottenness because they are driven out of their ditch by another growing up are deprived of nourishment and loaded with a Tooth-like excrement therefore the hurting or anointing of the Teeth is to be esteeme◠〈…〉 the annoyance of the Gums to wit from the plurality and bruitishness of 〈…〉 No otherwise than as the Brain being hurt doth heap up very much muck 〈…〉 other part being discommodated many dregs so the Teeth and the nourishing parts of these if they are hurt do thrust forth not a little of a stony and stinking superfluity But because that excrement is not so much the superfluity of meats as the excrement of man therefore all Nations have very equally a stinking Tooth-stone which doth circumvent Paraceljus and hath increased the suspition of Tartar in us Hence therefore it is manifest why of the same Urine the same stone doth first grow together a◠brickle in the Reins and afterwards in the Bladder is most exceeding hard not-indeed because there is Tartar in the Urine which by how much the farther it slides down by so much it is the harder that is a childish thing But surely every stonyfiable juyce hath its own determined and not a forreign hardness from the virtue of its own seed For this juyce being oft-times mixt with a matter not becoming a Stone waxeth greatly hard Suppose though Rie meal doth not become a Stone but being at length resolved into dung it fails in rottenness or a worm Notwithstanding if it be joyned to Lime which is conjoyned with its Saud it affords a stony and not perishing Morter So likewise the Bladder at the time of the Stone being its guest weeping out the muckiness of its own nourishment doth also co-mingle it with the stonifying juyce of its Urine affords a hard Stone to the Bladder far different from the Disease of the Stone of the Kidneys Wherefore the Reins also being vexed with a Stone of long continuance do no longer produce a reddish and sandy Stone but a whitish and hard one to wit when the Superficies of the substance of the Kidneys being wasted the fibrous parts and seedy or spermatical stuffe or threds do supply a white co-like muckiness from a spermatick alimentary juyce wherein it hath no lesse been erred hitherto than if thou shalt say that Rie meal is of it self stony which borrowes that from an adjunct which it had not from it self therefore the Muscilage in the Stone is not phlegme but a spermatick nourishment separated under the burden being not of it self stonifyable but onely by its adjunct For thus in distinguishing causes by themselves from causes by accident sufficient ones from co-assisting ones primitive causes from transplanted or derived ones we come down to the knowledge of the thing For Paracelsus doth for the most part ascribe the hardness of Bodies unto feigned Tartars but elsewhere all hardness to be from Salt or from one of the three things However both together cannot stand seeing one of the three first things doth not subsist as a Beginning nor without the fire Also if it should subsist it should differ from Tartar as it were a
the minde it self is a meer clear or lightsom understanding For in this its very own light the minde being separated from the Body seeth and understandeth it self wholly throughout the whole to which end there is neither need of a brain nor heart To wit in which Organs or Instruments the substance of the minde doth seem onely to assume the race of properties Surely while the abstracted understanding it self doth make use of corporeal Instruments in the Body unto which it is bound and as by its Seat of the sensitive Soul it is drowned in the depth of the corrupt nature thereof it representeth and assumeth a qualitative faculty which is called Imagination The which from the Society of the imaginary power the Splendor of the sensitive Soul and understanding it self being degenerated in the Organs doth rise up by a certain combination into the aforesaid qualitative power Therefore that faculty is wearied by imagining faileth or waxeth feeble also it oft-times becomes mad and by imagining the hairs wax white or grey But the minde being once separated is never tired in understanding Moreover the Imagination in living persons is not onely wearied but also it hath not from it self intellective representations which it hath not drawn from sensible objects And therefore the intellective power which concurreth with the imaginary office of the sensitive Soul doth follow the disposition of the Organ and the will of the sensitive life no otherwise than as elsewhere in natural things the effect doth follow the weaker part of its own causes But whatsoever the Soul doth require to know and will for once or for oftner times that it hath wholly from it self and not from a stranger without For the good substantial will of a blessed Soul doth not arise from the thing understood but it is its own goodness of love by which the blessed minde is substantially and not qualitatively good Which Prerogative it hath because it is the typical Image of the Divinity But Bodies do slide by a perpetual free accord into the attributes of Forms their diversity of kinde successive changes and dissolutions Therefore the love or desire of the minde is not the office of an appetitive power but the minde it self is intellectual and willing which things are undivideably coupled under unity in as great a sameliness and simplicity as may be yet in mortalls they are separated as well by reason of the necessity of Organs unlikenesses of Functions as the mixture of the sensitive Soul For truly now we often desire those things which the understanding judgeth not to be desired and the will could wish not to come to passe But it must needs be that things whose operations are different the same things should be distinct in the Root of their own essence after the manner whereby all particular things are separated In the minde indeed by a relative supposingness only but in the sensitive Soul according to a corporeal and qualitative nature And therefore that amorous or loving desire of the mind is the substance of the Soul And although in Heaven there be a full satiety of desirable things and a perpetual enjoyment of them yet the desire of the minde which is a study of complacency doth not therefore cease neither doth this bring a passion on the minde any more than Charity it self Because they are those things which in the Root are one and the same otherwise the aforesaid desire ceasing a satiety or full satisfaction should cease or an unsensibleness of fruition or enjoyment should even presently arise in Heavenly Wights Therefore that desire or love is the fewel of an unterminable or endless delight Therefore it is manifest that understanding will and love are things substantially co-united in the minde But in the sensitive Soul that operations are distinguished from the Root of divers faculties while we understand things that are not desired we also desire things we would not nor do plainly know Lastly we will while any one inclines to punishment those things which we do not desire but we would not have it so From whence it happens that desire doth overcome the will and likewise the will doth compel the desire and so that there are mutual and fighting Commands All which things do happen in mortal men as long as the sensitive Soul doth draw its own powers into a manifold disorder of division So impossible things are foolishly desired things past likewise things present are desired or wished not to have happened But the desire whereof I speak laying hid in the minde unless it were of the essence of the minde he that hath seen a Woman to lust after her should not sin before a consent of the will Therefore we now desire by the faculties of the minde emulous or striving in the sensitive Soul the effects whereof are refused by the will and judgement Also in the manner for now the desire or love worketh one way and the will another Likewise in the motion of the day or in duration desire goes before or followes willing and one thing successively overcomes another that it may restrain any thing distinct from it self and that wholly in mortal Creatures because it is from the animosity of the sensitive Soul But in those that are in Heaven that love riseth again as it were the substance of the minde for there nothing is desired which is not willed And that is collected into a oneness as well in respect of act as substance Although they have their suppositions in the Root diverse which doth plainly exceed the manner of understanding in mortals Because indeed the Kingdom of God is now in man but after an incomprehensible manner but after death the same Kingdom collecteth all things into its own unity Therefore the chief or primary Image of God is in the minde whose very essence it self is the veriest Image it self of God which Image or likeness can in this life be neither thought with the heart nor expressed by words because it shewes forth the Similitude of God without which there is to other image in us which may be offered to our conception For therefore the very minde is also wholly unknown to it self And then in the husk of the minde or in the sensitive and vital form there is the same Image shining back in the powers according to the manner of the receiver because it is over-shadowed by a brutal generation being frail and defiled through impurity At length the Body hath not borrowed so much the essentifical Image of the Light of God but the figure onely But the miserable minde being devolved into utter darkness from the uncreated Light whereby it hath separated it self hath so lost the native light of the Image by reason of appropriation as if it were proper unto it from a due behoof whereby it afterwards understandeth willeth or loveth nothing besides it self and for it self And therefore in rising again it shall not represent the Image of God that is strangled or stifled
Bowels after the manner of Stars For although the Stars do borrow their light from the Sun yet there is in every one of them his own peculiar property and strength of acting which is far most evident in the Moon about the ebbings flowings and overflowings of the Sea Be it therefore that the arteries of the Spleen do supply the place of the Sun yet the Spleen it self hath obtained a double and native dignity peculiar to it self although the Family-service of the Heart rejoyceth in the preparing of vital blood and spirit Therefore the Spleen is the seat of the Archeus the which seeing he is the immediate Instrument of the sensitive soul doth determine or limit or dispose of the vital actions of the soul residing in the stomach For the sensitive soul doth scarce meditate of any thing without the help of the Archeus because it rejoyceth not being abstracted as doth the minde the which in its ebbing or going back by an extasie doth sometimes and without the props of the Archeus and corporal Air intellectually contemplate of many and great things Also in exorbitances of the Archeus an aversion confusion exorbitancy and indignation is administred And the sensitive soul it self being as it were the husk of the minde doth alwayes will it nill it make use of the Archeus Hence indeed all foolish madnesses some whereof onely have been made known are called praecordial or Midriffe ones and are ascribed to the place about the short Ribs the which notwithstanding do spring from the same seat and the same fountain of the soul as it were by the hurting of one onely point Also Remedies do scarce materially go without the hedges or bounds of the stomach And therefore they are rare which are brought thorow unto the spleen which thing in the difficulties of a Quartane Ague is plain enough to be seen For the immortal minde is read to be inspired into Adam by omnipotency and that without the Wedlock of the sensitive soul And that breath of life he calls a substance And therefore that is not found to be breathed into bruit Beasts Therefore the minde was first of all immediately tied to the Archeus as to its own Organ or Instrument the which therefore it could at its pleasure daily substitute a-new out of the meats being sufficiently and alwayes and perpetually alike strong And from thence to awaken the immortal life worthy of or meet for it self For truly the immortal minde being every where present did perform all the offices of life immediately by the Archeus and the which therefore doth borrow his own liveliness from the minde who also is therefore after some sort superiour to mortal things and seemed to be the foster-Child of a more excellent Monarchy than of a sublunary one These things were so before the fall of Adam But seeing that in the same day of their transgression they were made guilty of death a soul subject to death came unto them the Vicaresse and Companion of the minde To wit unto whom the minde it self straightway transferred the dispositions of the government of the Body For at first there was an immediate Wed-lock of the immortal minde with the Archeus Presently after the fall and the stirring up of the sensitive soul the minde withdrew it â—â—lf like a Kernel into the center of the sensitive soul whereto it was tied by the bond of life The minde is not nourished by foods it could chuse meats for its own Archeus and prepare them for him who now is constrained with an unwearied study to watch for his own support of nourishment And that by degrees he lesse and lesse fitly prepares and applies to himself by reason of the defective duration and power of the sensitive soul Thus therefore I ought to speak concerning the seat of the minde of the material occasion of mortality and the necessities of Diseases and distemper For truly what things are here required in the Treatise of the entrance of death into humane nature is demonstrated at large with an explication of that Text From the North shall evill be stretched out over all the Inhabitants of the Earth Therefore for a Summary The central place of the Soul is the Orifice or upper mouth of the stomach no otherwise than as the Root of Vegetables is the vital place of the same The minde sitteth in the sensitive soul whereto it was consequently bound after the fall But the Brain is the executive member of the canceipts of the soul as it sits chief over the sinews and muscles in respect of motion but in respect of sense or feeling it possesseth in it self the faculties of memory will and Imagination Therefore the stomach failing or being defective there are palenesses tremblings drith's Consumptions of the flesh and strength wringings of the Belly or Guts the Asthma or stoppage of breathing Jaundises Palsies Convulsions giddinesses of the Head Apoplexies c. For the most famous Physitians do wonder that oft-times extream defects are overcome not otherwise than by remedies pertaining to the stomach and that the evil of the stomach doth bring forth Diseases far distant from it self And the more modern Physitians are amazed that vulnerary potions should succesfully cure wounds of the joynts And that according to Paracelsus the Cancer Wolf the eating inflamed Ulcer are cured by a Drink Therefore the errour of those that cure the more outward parts that are ill-affected as if they were fundamental ones and they who do translate all healing about the head it being hurt by the lower parts proceedeth from hence by reason of the ignorance of the seat of the Soul life and government CHAP. XXXVIII From the Seat of the Soul unto Diseases 1. A greater sense is proved to be in the mouth of the Stomach than in the eye or fingers 2. The Schools do every where being unconstrained consent to the Paradox concerning the seat of the Soul although they do openly dissent therefrom 3. The wayling of those that are exorbitant through much leachery 4. The life of the stomach is chief over the other digestions 5. The Ferment that is a friend to the stomach is afterwards an enemy to all the particular shops of digestions 6. Divers Diseases are stirred up by the Ferment of the stomach being transplanted 7. The snare of Gatarrhs 8. The foundation of Diseases 9. The joynt-sickness proves that thing 10. Very many Diseases do flow centrally from the stomach which are feared and healed by the Head 11. Of what sort the co-mixture of the Character of some Diseases may be 12. How Medicines applied to or bound about the Head do operate 13. It is proved that the seat of the Soul is not in the heart it self 14. Remarkable things about the Character of Diseases 15. Why the effects of fear do vary their own effects 16. The same thing is considered for a poysonous occasional cause 17. They are appropriated to the vital light 18. An objection 19. The intent of the Author 20.
stirs up giddinesses of the head and by so much the more troublesome ones by how much these do the more behold or respect its hinder part But an Apoplexy ariseth while as an unsavoury Muscilage plainly by a strange motion and entertainment doth enter from the hollow of the Stomach into the veins thereof about the Orifice and doth keep the rightness of its own side and distinguisheth a great one from a lesse by theabsence or presence of poysonsomnesse But there is for the most part in such chronical diseases a certain sealing Character So indeed the Gout doth oft-times issue from the Beginning of the Parents into the off-spring and doth there patiently wait very many years before that the proper fruit thereof doth obtain its own ripeness Therefore in the vital Beginnings and radical Organs of the Stomach which are the local or implanted Archeus it self that post-bume and translated gouty character or impression doth stick fast by a hereditary right and consequently likewise also that entired character which is gotten by an inordinary of living that sits in the Archeus of the orifice of the Stomach the which while it is wearied by the insolency of a strange guest doth sharpen it self for an expulsion of the same and from thence also the fruit of an Apoplexy issues For neither is that silent gouty Character materially laid up in a certain nest within and received in a separated Stable in the folds and wrinckles of the Stomach as it were some forreign Tartar adhering to it But it is a committed character in the very Archeus of life For let us feign a unity of the thing supposed and of the property whereby that character doth lay intombed for the Gout Apoplexy or Falling evil and is stirred up at the set stations of its own ripeness or is much stirred by certain meats taken or smels And then let us consider the natural sharpness of the stomach now degenerate and likewise the tenderness of its orifice stirring up swoonings and falling sicknesses which testifies nothing besides an easie feeling hurting suffering disturbance of the life and so an enemy present tumulting from very many things therefore if the sharpness which is co-mingled with the Archeus be stirred up besides nature and seeing this is chief over all the particular digestions that sharpness is beamingly brought down unto strange cottages whereto is wholly an enemy and from thence doth the Gout or joynt sickness issue forth But if it be co-knit to the meat or drink pains of the Colick wringings of the Guts and other exorbitances of the parts occasionally are present But if that the sharpness of the Stomach doth degenerate and associate it self with an opiate or drowsie poyson with a piercing toward the seat of the Soul the falling evil is straightway present But if a stinking muscilage inclining to bitterness doth arise there is a giddiness of the head and that more strongly insulting doth stir up an Apoplexy For neither is it meet to distinguish those precisely from each other while it is better to have the matter or occasion exhausted Likewise some external Medicines bound about the head do preserve from an Epileptical fall and fit which is for a signe that either the fruit of the Character is hindered or the applying of the occasion to the Archeus Indeed in either manner the hurtfull matter is to be letted or prevented to be extinguished or annihilated that it be not co-mingled with the Archeus And moreover as vegetables are wont for the most part to sleep in Winter and to be as it were awakened at Spring that they may send forth a bud leaves flowers or fruits So a Gouty Epileptical c. Character is also stirred up into a ripeness at a fet period unlesse the importunity of provoking things do forestal it At leastwise the giddiness of the head and Apoplexy c. although they are brought back within occasional causes yet they do sit immediately within the very nest of life in the Archeus which indeed is implanted in the orifice or upper mouth of the Stomach For in how easie a breviary by things hanged on the neck or body is the falling-evil suspended and detained Because an entrance of the hurtful cause into the sensitive soul is hindered for there is a piercing of the hurtful cause lurking in the Archeus to within and the which doth therefore wholly take away the mind Indeed it leaves a pulse to wit of the heart but it so tramples on the sense imagination and every principal power of the soul that for that space of time they seem to be plainly withdrawn From whence also we must note with a pen of iron that the Soul so trampled upon doth not dwell in the heart which never a whit stumbleth But the Gout as it tends to without so the Character thereof doth not so much affect the secret chamber or seat of the soul as the Archeus the President or chief Ruler of the digestions which things do therefore happen because an hereditary character of the Gout is stamped on the Young from the beginning of Generation and long before its quicking And therefore it respecteth only the Archeus but not the soul which then alone bare the whole burden on himself But he that hath gotten the Character of the Gout by the exorbitances of his life although it shall come to him being a man in years yet it keeps the nature of its own property whence it is made manifest that the stamp or character of every disease is promiscuously to be admitted into the lap of the sensitive soul So that as great fear hath made many persons Epileptical or to have the falling sickness for their life time so a co-like fear hath afterwards rendred many free from the Gout Indeed in the one the fear generated in the conjunction of the life and sensitive soul an Epileptical character which fear being more slack by one or two degrees and more outwardly killed the character of the Gout and rendred it either congealed by the fear or even oppressed the Root thereof Black choler according to Hippocrates which seeing it hath no where ever existed is to be taken for the effect attributed to that choler subsisting in the Midriffs for he hath had respect unto the seat of the soul or the Duumvirate not yet known if it he dispersed into the body provoketh the falling sickness but if into the soul madness For such was the plainness of the first age which indeed did candidly fift things but for want of light from above it came not unto the grounds of the matter There are some simples which are without a valuable abhorrency which by eating of them do produce true madness but others cause sleep some also produce madmen for term of life but others do bring forth doatages only as it were certain drunkennesses according also to the equalities whereof I will have the characters of diseases to be judged Because not only such hostile things being taken
over all the families of digestions Wherefore from a contrary sense they have sometime perceived that wine because it easily waxeth sour within us it enflames and perverts wounds unlesse by a vulnerary Lixivial fixed Salt being administred that sharp faculty of the wine become mild For truly the hurt or dammage of a wound is onely an inward fermental sharpnesse which being absent the lips of that which was continued do hasten to run together Wherefore the Schools being deceived have universally forbidden wine to those that are wounded which thing the use of a vulnerary remedy at this day hath disallowed to the disgrace of the Schools For neither doth an Alcali go materially unto places far off to restrain sharpnesse seeing neither indeed is it able to pierce unto the Spleen the seat of a Quartan Ague Therefore it sufficeth that it restraineth sharpnesse in the Stomach the ruler of all the digestions Not indeed that it destroyeth the sour ferment of the Stomach but as it is corrected and the translation of the ferment unto remote places is hindered which thing also the aforesaid Paradox it self confirmeth to wit that the digestion of the Stomach is chief over the particular digestions of a thousand kitchins And then that there is not made a wandring of Lixivial Salts materially that it is better to drink the Alcalies of these stones than calcined Shell-fishes Because that although they do help and the Alcali in calcined things is far more powerful yet it hath under an actual vigour vitiated the ferment of the Stomach or at least doth incline it Whereas the Stone of Crabsis carried not so much into the ferment as into the product of the ferment Also there is a plain reason why that Stone and herbs like unto it do heal great and remote wounds yet that they do not any thing help small ulcers in the throat wind-pipe or bladder For it is also hence confirmed because every Wound doth sharpen its state if the sournesse beaming forth out of the Stomach unto the wound from the vital digestion be also hindered to be in the remedy But because an ulcer doth not arise out of the sharpnesse of the Stomach but from the proper vice and received contagion of the Archeus of the parts The which also therefore is not appeased by the taking of an Alcali and there is need of Secrets piercing every way For meats drinks and medicines do lose their own virtue or strength about the first digestion of the stomach neither do they go or are carried deeper because they onely nourish simply and therefore do there put off and plainly detest every mask horrid to nourishment or are otherwise changed into excrements And so also they are made unprofitable for the conceived curing But if indeed the Stone of Crabs be a provoker of urine it is not that therefore the coming thereof even into the bladder is to be hoped for or that its virtue remains untouched and unbroken Far be it For let it be sufficient if that Stone do spoil the whole drink of a souring faculty because it is that which onely how little soever of it be brought down in the urine belongs to the breeding of the Strangury or pissing by drops Dysury or difficulty of pissing and heats familiar in the disease of the Stone For the sharpnesse although it be most excellently subdued by a sound gaul yet the least quantity of it may be hostile in the urine and to the parts subservient unto it and no lesse unto the whole remaining family of digestions Now at length I return unto the Authority of the Duumvirate that it may be manifest in what sort the soul doth divers ways exercise its own commands in its own body and doth act by way of a command government rule as also of cruelty fury and tyranny neither that to this end it stands in need of pipes winds vapours smoaks and least of all of the help of heats colds and defluxions The Schools beholding the effects of the Duumvirate and thinking to knit causes to them all have transferred all things into heats or humours and the declinings or cessations of these as if those things which naturally happen in us should happen only through an urgent necessity of weights heats and imaginary humours And seeing they have gone back from the Soul from living strength unto the artificial or dead examples of learning by demonstration at length they have quieted themselves that they wrought in vain with the admiration unwilling experience and wonted obseruation of the vulgar that many diseases being among the catalogue of incurable ones or the number of wonted diseases are of their own accord cured under the care of the Kitchin so that they had but forsaken the vein and the paunch oft-times unto the death or voluntary wearinesse of rhe sick And at last for the most part a Jugler or Fortune-teller or an aged old woman cureth them whom the very experiences of Physitians had deserted CHAP. XXXIX The Authority or Priviledge of the Duumvirate 1. An Aphorism of the old man is illustrated 2. The falling-evil and madnesse are proved to proceed from the Duumvirate 3. That sleep is from the Duumvirate 4. An argument against the prerogative of the head 5. The same thing is confirmed from Galen against his will 6. A privy shift of the Schools for the head 7. What all particular Senses can attribute unto the thing generated 8. The vegetative power is in and from the Dunmvirate 9. The Young lives divers wayes 10. The phantasie of the Brain doth presently die unlesse it be nourished by the lower parts 11. Why the soul is said to be in the blood 12. Conceipts ascending from the parts about the short ribs are presently seen in the countenance 13. The first conceptions are proved to be formed in the seat of the soul 14. Sleep and dreams to be from the Duumvirate 15. The Mare is in the stomach therefore sleep and dreams are from thence 16. But the Gumm-ich before the comming of teeth from the sensitive soul onely 17. The opinion of the Schools about the Mare 18. It is noted for an absurdity 19. Balaams Asse spake not the word of the Angel 20. An history of my own steep fall 21. Some dignities of the Pylorus are reckoned up and astonishing remedies by reason of their easinesse 22. Concerning the seat of the soul for the Duumvirate 23. An history of madnesse from a medicine as yet existing in the stomach 24. The same by fainting or swooning 25. From a Maxim of the Schools 26. From the suffering of hunger 27. That troublous passions of the mind have respect unto the Duumvirate not the head 28. Too much study brings forth madnesse to be felt or perceived first in the stomach 29. An errour of the Schools 30. By the Maxim of the Schools it is contended against the Schools 31. Sleep is from the Midriffs 32. A remedy of Opiates 33. Vesalius carps at Galen 34. Of what sort
being despaired of by the Schools are dismissed unto old Women to the contempt of Galen namely one which should dry up and drink up the thin Sanies into it self in the next place another which should be a cleanser of the corrupt Pus But how seriously hath this man weaved his own Fables and how undefiled or fault lesse are these toyes kept as yet to this day For now indeed they do no longer remember a four-fold humour and a four-fold excrement resulting from thence from the corruption of those Indeed Galen will have the grosse matter to be venal bloud putrified neither is he mindful of himself while he teacheth that the bloud in corruption is turned wholly into Choler In the next place if purging Medicines do separate three humours apart out of the venal bloud at the will of the Physitian he ought to have remembred that that happen through the corruption of the bloud to wit while it departs asunder into its fore-going constitutives or whatsoever hath been devised concerning purging things and humors is false wherefore in an Ulcer that not two onely but four ought wholly to issue forth yea according to Galen an Ulcer without grosse matter to wit a Cancer a difficult or malignant Sore or acorroding one fluid with liquid Sanies onely shall be more easie to be cured than otherwise a grosse mattery Ulcer is Because it is that which shall have need of driers onely to wit Chaffe or burnt bones For how stupid and unsound a thing is it to have taught that an Ulcer is to be cured by the cleansing and sequestration of excrements fruits or products But not by a cutting off of the Root which they no where and never knew besides an intemperate heat seeing that every excrement shewes a necessary Relation unto the digestion and part in respect whereof it is an excrement So that a true excrement is a superfluous heap left by a digestion and by a part whereunto it is unprofitable and therefore sequestred from it Because the name of an excrement doth contain an expulsion of the impure from the pure And therefore liquid and grosse matter are not the excrements of an Ulcer or of the part as neither of a natural digestion but they are the products of the Seeds or Roots of Ulcers And therefore he for the most part and in the most things labours in vain who cleanseth an Ulcer according to the prescription of Galen especially in the more malignant ones And likewise it must needs be that those things which are not nourished do also want excrements For nature doth no where labour that it may nourish an Ulcer Seeing that in an Ulcer a proper corrupter doth inhabit which vitiateth the nourishable bloud before it be fit to be digested A lee also in speaking properly is not the superfluity of Wine but a meer residence because of Wine there is no nourishing and no digestion Therefore an Ulcer as such is not nourished neither doth nature intend to nourish that Therefore the liquid and thick corrupt matter are not the excrements of an Ulcer but the products of the corrupter and they are the tokens signs products effects or fruits of venal bloud depraved into hurtful matter For the bloud which is appointed daily for the nourishing of all particular parts is sent is distributed by distributive Justice nor otherwise to the part being ulcerous than if it were moreover in good health Whither when it is come down and cannot be there changed into the true substance of that which is to be nourished it undergoes the lot which the Ulcerous Ferment commands and the bloud doth therefore degenerate and is transchanged in the Root of the part wherein the corrupter is placed and resideth but not in the very hollowness or paunch of the Ulcer For else it should of necessity be that meer and harmless venal bloud should alwayes fall down into the very hollowness of the Ulcer and by corrupting in the same place to degenerate which thing the Eye and daily experience do affirm to be false Therefore if the Schools do wipe an Ulcer whether with a Towel or in the next place with a cleansing Medicine although they both do the same thing yet they take away nothing but the last product but do never reach unto the radical cause or Original But if a bloudy Clot or else a bloudy Muscilage do fall down into the Ulcer that comes to passe because the encompassing places to wit wherein the very Root of Ulcers is there is so great a storm of torture that some small vein that is the nigher being eaten thorow cannot contain its own bloud And so that the bloud which thus by chance falls down into the hollowness of the Ulcer is not seen to be changed into corrupt Pus from whence it manifestly appeares that the bloud doth not degenerate in the hollow of the Ulcer but in the brims or lips thereof wherefore also the vanity of Galens Doctrine is seen which placeth the healing of an Ulcer in the withdrawing of the product The Root therefore of every Ulcer is in its bottom and lips or brim that is it inhabits in the parts next to the hollowness wherein indeed is their own Cookroom in which the venal bloud is altered into a corrosive liquid grosse corrupt matter c. But the liquid matter it self is the product or positive effect of Ulcers But the very hollowness thereof which is commonly reckoned to be the Ulcer of Physitians is the privative and deficient product For as a burnt or destroyed Village is not war but is the effect accusing the defect privation desertion and destruction made So neither is an Ulcer the wasted hollowness of the flesh but this is the sign left by the Ulcer For in the Coasts of the Ulcer there doth an hostile corrupter and guest the poysonous Ferment on every side inhabite for which cause we see the lips or coasts and bottom to be diversly altered Let the Schools therefore take heed what they teach while they deliver the curing of an Ulcer to consist in the taking away of the latter product yea corrupt Pus doth not carry the disposition of an excrement neither doth it proceed as an excrement of nature from the Ulcer but it is a fruit of the Ulcer to wit of a forreign corrupter fermentally depraved with a malignity therefore it degenerates eats up gnawes and consumes And indeed the greater Ulcers do want grosse matter they weep out continual liquid or thin matter onely and now and then a tenfold greater quantity than otherwise a just distribution of bloud doth require and the transchanged Liquor flowes abroad into sharp and devouring waters which the Galenists do never dry up with their driers although they do moreover super-add all their cleansing Medicines and however the Catagenians and Catatopian do boastingly glorie of their own experiments For corrupt Pus is not procreated but in the flesh being closed and opened and those not yet altogether ill-affected
product that is the Latex And so a Remedy cloakative and unto the latter or effect is applied In the next place the whole spring of this evil hath been banished into the guiltless head of man into Rheums raining down out of the head The cause whereof if they have erred from they ought also consequently to have strayed in the Remedies For I remember that a Pleurisie beginning hath presently failed or ceased through a plentiful Sweat the Sweat being allured by such a Diaphoretick as is that of the flowers of wild Poppy Colts or Nags dung he juyce Daysie and the assistance of the like Lastly I have also noted that there are notable Glandules or Kernels under the Arm-pit in the Groyn and behind the ears and likewise in the passage of the Urine nigh the Bladder and about the gut Duodenum and almost innumerable ones elswhere placed at the two-forking of every vein The one only use whereof the Schools will have to be to wit that the vessels may not be subject to tearing But surely there is a manifest errour in the use named For notable Glandules should be in vain behind the Ears where there is no fear of tearing as neither within moreover the fleshy membrane it self is not stretched out and so Glandules could not be there placed but in vain for a vanishing use and end That is the Arbitrator of nature hath erred in the use of the Glandules or the Schools do erre seeing that in none of the aforesaid places wherein the Glandules are seated the vessels can depart from each other And also a slender Ligament had better and more commodiously preserved the renting of a vessel than a tearable and tender Glandule I do every where take good notice of the perpetual carelessness of the Schools of narrowly searching into the Truth For they do not diligently mark that the aforesaid Glandules are not but for the emunging or attractive alluring of the Latex out of the veins that they may disperse Sweats into the habit of the body which thing in the Tongue is manifest to the fight where the Glandules do make or work the Spittle and therefore do they allure the Latex But under the Arm-pits and in the Groyn Sweats do proceed But they do not foresee a rending of the vessels The former indeed is a daily office but the other is not but an unownted rare and rather a ridiculous one For the overflowing Latex doth load the Veins by oppression and if they are free from the same the Archeus as it were breathing back again doth retake to him new strength unhoped for Therefore the ignorance of the Humor Latex hath invented and supported Cauteries or searing Remedies hath feigned Catarrhs and hath caused all disagreeing Remedies or Succours to be dreamed of For nothing of solidity against Diseases hath hitherto been weighed Because I shall shew in its place that the Beginnings of Diseases have as yet to this day layn hid unknown and therefore also that Remedies are vain tryals neither conteyning any thing of certainty unless they be naturally endowed with a specifical property for certain Diseases otherwise a conjectural uncertainty will prepare privy shifts for them and the credulity of the Sick hath fortified Physitians which same Remedy although it should be said to be appropriated to a Disease it doth not help any body yea neither do purging Medicines although they should undoubtly loosen the belly comfort the Sick by reason of the diversity of Complexions and of feigned stubborn Humors For they suppose to wit that such a Humor offendeth and they see it afterwards to be brought forth by loosening Medicines yet they see nothing of the fierceness of the Disease to be slackened Therefore when they ought to acknowledge their ignorance founded in Humors and purging things they reflect themselves on the variety of Complexions and the uncertain and unknown differences of distempers which things surely if they are beheld with an equal mind they shall not be terminated in any other end than into a full knowledge ignorance and overthrow of the principles of Healing hitherto Wherefore I exhort and humbly beseech Physitians that they do in time well learn the unheard of Beginnings Positions and unaccustomed Maxims of Medicine Wherefore I have judged it meet to digress a little in this place For as I have seen an Atrophia or Consumption for lack of nourishment to be occasionally supported by the Humor Latex So also I have seen Fatness or Grossness in one only two months time by a Urine-provoking drink instead of Ale or Beer to be wholly expelled But forreign potions of China Sarsaparilla Guaiacum c. which should pour forth the Latex by Sweats by a feigned and lying title have attained the name of dryers And indeed I have already before demonstrated that every visible body that which is believed to be composed by a mixture of the Elements is materially made only of the Element of water which originally hath it self in all constituted things in manner of a Latex and the which also here to have supposed is sufficient as being once sufficiently prooved And then the Maxim of Phylosophy hath it That Bodies are not changed into each other unless they are first reduced into their first and easie following or clammy Matter For although they would have that thing applyed to metallicâ— Transmutations yet it is to be drawn out of the noted sublunary Transmutations of any things Yet not that they will have bodies to be reduced into the first matter of Aristotle yea nor also into the first Separation of the Elements for neither do they think that the Food ought to return into its own Element that it may thereby be made bloud but they will have a body to be transchanged into its next matter or that the subject of the former life ought to return back before it hath fixed a hope of the bound of Transmutation to be attained To which end be it certain that meats and drinks do assume the nature of a Chyle or juyce in the stomach with a retaining of the qualities of the middle life of the meats Indeed that the ancient matter of the meats is destroyed and made to approach very neer to the matter next to the Latex or the Element of water to wit the specifical Ferment of the stomach being busily employed to this end no otherwise than as the Ferment of the Liver doth transchange the Chyle into venal bloud and whose companion and fellow the Latex is but not likewise a part thereof But so differing and singular gifts of Ferments do exist in nature that some living creatures do make venal bloud flesh c. for themselves yea and also an Oylie grease and water only for in the stomach of a Salmond Fisher-men say never any Food or edible thing was found There are moreover in Salt-waters some waterish little living creatures in whom scarce any thing is bred which do communicate a certain Seed of water
digestion which thing if it be rightly considered it will now plainly appear that a Cautery is not to be imprinted for the purging out of a malignant humour neither that a bad or evil humour doth exist but only for the diminishing of the abundance of Blood and so from a beholding of an exesse of a good humor only Whence it follows that it is not convenient for Young Folks not for those that are become lean again not for such as are brought low by any disease as neither for those that live orderly and least of all for religious abstashing Persons But they have not yet distinguished whether corrupt pus in an issue be only of the venal Blood or of one of the four feigned humours or indeed of a co-mixture of the four If the first should be true then the Pus should not be from an ill humour but from the best of the four humours and so an Issue shall be made void and the best Pus or the effect of an Issue shall be worst of all feeing it was not but the corruptive of the best of all But if they had rather devise to wit that the Blood is not at first evil but becomes evil while it is seperated from its other fellows At leastwise the three remaining ones shall in that severing be as yet more bad than the bloud and upon every event an Issue shall not be made but for an evil end that it might corrupt the good and guiltless Blood But if they will have the corrupt Pus to be made of the four humours being co-mixt then a Cautery errs in its end seeing a Cautery prevails not to purge out hurtful humours but to corrupt the good ones which are by nature not erring sent daily unto it self for Nourishment In the next place a Cautery shall not be to be reckoned as a preventing of a Catarrh or else the matter of a Catarrhe should not be a vapour nor also Phlegm but venal Blood it self which the Issue in it self corrupteth For corrupt pus is not made of Phlegm but only of venal Blood as hath been sufficiently instructed in the Schools Therefore by the essence of corrupt pus being well searched into in its matter efficient cause the ends of Cauteries the purgings out of Catarrhs and evil humours do cease For indeed any sumptom of wounds being taken away in Cauteries and a supposed health it must needs be that a loosing or seuering of that which held together doth produce snotty matter in the Issue and that that doth not flow from elsewhere but that it is generated in the part it self Also the Archeus daily dispenseth so much of the venal Blood to the parts proportionally as they have need of for their own nourishment Therefore the Pus or corrupt matter is venal Blood vitiated in that part wherein the Wound is and an effect of digestion vitiated in the same place Therefore to have vitiated the entireness continuation or holding together and digestion of the parts next to have converted the venal Blood into corrupt Snotty matter is reputed the very same thing in the Schools as to have gone to prevent Catarrhs or Rheums or thorow the hole of a Cautery to have extracted from the Head from whence they originally fetch all Rheums an excrementous humor which otherwise had threatned to fall down on a noble part whether in the mean time there be an agreement between the Head and the Wounded part or not for it is all one so the Skin be deteined Wounded whether that excrementous humour be Blood or be made snotty pus or liquid Sanies is all one so by the thred-bare words of Catarrhe prevention derivation revulsion and an Issue the world be circumvented For I behold a small Infant of a Year old now breeding Teeth and to suffer a Fever froath of the Mouth and Spittle without ceasing And aâ—â—ength that there are wringings of the Bowels and Stools of Yellow-Green-coloured excrements At least that Tooth is a part of the Head wherefore the Flux shall be a Rheum of the Head But what consent is there of a Tooth about to break forth or a swollen Gum with a Bowel Or what power thereof is there of begetting or sending away that Catarrhe out of the Stomack of a little Infant unto his Head And from thence into the Ileos By what right shall a vapour dropped or stilled out of the Stomack be made Cankered Choler in the Head Hath perhaps the shop of Choler now wandred from the beginning of Life unto the Head Could a Cautery if an Infant were for undergoing it suck unto it a leeky Flux into it self And by a few small drops of corrupt matter recompence or Ballance the leeky Choler of some pounds Why doth the Stomack of a small Infant frame a Catarrhe by reason of the pain of his Tooth Why is it sent into a Bowell and not unto the paining Tooth Doth not the reader yet see that a Flux is not a Rheum But that the Archeus wheresoever yee will have it being enraged is ready in the Bowels to transchange the nourishable juyce into excrements which by the Schools are reckoned Choler Phlegme c. If therefore the Flux be not a Rheume and the Archeus being wroth can transchange any thing into a troublesom Liquor if the Gum be but afflicted shall not he be able on every side to unload himself by the appointed emunctories And not to wait for the Skin to be opened by a Caustick Alass hath cruel dullness caused the Schools to be cruel towards their mortal kinsfolks For neither do they consider that in Women and those that are somewhat fat or gross there is in the fleshly membrane about the ordinary places of a Cautery a meer grease to the thickness of two fingers at least for which persons notwithstanding the more frequent Cauteries and those the more profitable ones are perswaded wherefore also the bottom of the Issue shall scarce be in the middle of the grease therefore there is not a passage whereby the evil banished feigned humour of a Rheume may rush down out of the Brain or between the Scull and Skin thorow the middle of the fat But what is that solitary humour in the next place which for its offence being banished from the sending part descending thorow the Substance of the grease unmixed doth degenerate into corrupt Pus If it be an exhalation of vapours out of the Stomack why shall it not be more frequent to younger and hot Stomacks than to weak old and cold ones In what sort shall that water that droppeth out of a vapour put on the form of Snotty matter How shall it hasten thorow the Brain Coats and Scull to find a hole made by a Cautery that it may flow down thither only and be purged Why doth not the vapour fly first an hundred times into the Air before it reach to the place appointed it by the alluring Cautery How shall the Water which climbeth
being little careful of Fables do suffer them to try both opinions In the mean time they may be ashamed to have discourses of the causes of diseases problematically only and to have left them disputable In the mean time I certainly know that the Gowt whether it slide on the heirs through the Seeds of the Parents or in the next place be contracted by a proper error of living is of one and the same kind with every property following it Neither that that doth relate any thing whether a hot Gowt doth molest and pain one greatly or next be reckoned more sluggish and mild through cold because those are Ensigns of degrees whereby the matter is ennobled or made remarkable but do not vary its essence Then also I know and have learned first of all that at least an Hereditary Gowt is not derived from a Catarrhe if it hath layn hid in the Seed and that which is framed hereof for the space of thirty years For truly seeing nothing that is external can be contained in the Seed but for that very cause it looseth the fruitfulness of causing off-spring be sure that nothing of a Rheumy substance remains in the Seed and that there is not place for any Hostile matter there Therefore it is confirmed that nothing doth remain in the Seed besides a Character or Seal of things to be acted in the body constituted and that that Seal is not indeed of so great a concernment as to display the fruitfulness of a Seed If an Hereditary disease ought from thence to rise again in the Son or Nephew Again neither can that Seal in the Seed defile the Young with a monstrous deformity although other Characters of Seeds by reason of their disposition do figure the Seed wherefore although the Seal of the Gowt be in very deed in the Seed yet it sleepeth is silent and layeth hid in the course of figuring and so long as till at length an opportunity of matter and maturity being obtained it unfoldeth it self Therefore the Character or impression of the Gowt is in the Seed as it were the first life with a determination of silence that it may sleep even till the first Fit as it were a swallow all the Winter Therefore the formative virtue in the Seed doth not yet feel its own defect by reason of the fault of a material Indisposition for truly the Character in the Seed is not born to generate iâ—s Gowt before its own maturity which ripeness of the Character is now and then not unfolded but in the Nephew Truly although there are strict wed-locks of the Seed of man with the Seed of the Gowt that they do promise as it were an undissoluable unity for the future yet it is certain that Diseases do not adhere to the root of the particular kind unless in whom they are as being created by a condition as the Falling-evil in the Elke and Swallow but only unto individual Beginnings whereto they are fast tyed as it were by accident Therefore if there be nothing of a Rheumy matter actually in the Seed of the Gowt therefore neither also in the Gowt which is to arise from thence Seeing proper effects ought alwayes to bear a respect to their own causes In the next place if any Hereditary Gowt doth want a Catarrhe therefore also any other Seeing of one thing in the particular kind there are alwayes the same specifical constitutive Beginnings Furthermore if that blemishing Gowty Character be so notably homebred to the Seed so intimately social to it sleeping with so patient a suspense and not to be washed off by so many Circuits of years and storms of Tempests I have judged it to be altogether of necessity for the same to be coupled to the vital Spirit Whence first of all it is manifest that the supposed withdrawings of bloud and feigned Humors for attempting the prevention of the Gowt are vain because that Character of the Gowt is not co-mixed with the venal bloud but well with the Governour of the Solide parts for indeed the venal bloud is many times changed and the whole Fardle of nourishment before the access of an Hereditary Gowt to come From thence likewise it follows that if the Character of the Gowt being either transferred with the Seed of the Parents on the young or being gotten by the inordinate storms of life be the connexed and efficient cause of the Gowt and so that that be a true formal Gowt it is a fabulous thing whatsoever hath been devised concerning Rheums and Drops For that absurdity being granted that a Catarrhe rayning down did cause the access of the Gowt likewise whatsoever Weapon hath been retorted on this Disease all that hath been directed unto the effects the product latter thing or fruit but nothing unto the cutting off the cause But seeing the true causes in the Gowt have been unknown to the Schools and will stand unknown as long as the doatages of Humors shall prevail it must needs be that unprosperous and cruel Medicines have been hitherto applied by anoynting for an unseen mark for the Gowt is not in the Finger but only the Apple or Fruit of the root and therefore although thou shalt cut off the Finger thou shalt not therefore cure the Gowt For from hence two things do follow The first is that the Gowt doth immediately consist in the Spirit of life neither therefore that the fruit of the Gowt is the Gowt or the root thereof The other is that the Gowt doth not flow down materially or as they will have it in manner of a Humor as being a Bridge for the Rheum unto the joynts Wherefore if I shall explain the Progress of the Gowt in its being made I think that by liberal wits and those not yet defiled by any prejudice I shall be affented unto For in the beginning after that the seminal Gowty Character is constituted be it now all one whether it shall be made to increase from the seed of the Parents or next be gotten by excess of living it must needs be that it hath prescribed limits of its continuance as well in rising up as in continuing according to the law of its destiny and the successive change of things obeying When therefore the beginning of this Gowty motion is at hand the vital spirit being an obedient client to the corruptive Character puts on a fermental sharpness altogether hostile to it self and foreign unto us In the next place even as all sharpness as well in the venal bloud as in the flesh is demonstrated to contein the beginning and token of putrefaction hence it comes to pass that nature well perceiving or being thorowly sensible of that sharpness in the Spirit which it conceived from the Seed or Gowty Character doth presently stir up an every dayes Fever before the comming of the Gowt presently also a pain is well perceived in the proper place or Womb to wit where two Bones do touch each other first a small light pain
that they do in a Pleurisie decree not any remedy for a Phlegmatish Catareh as also they are forgetful of the Pleura already torn because they do provide for expectoratings only by sugared lickings or Ecligmaes Indeed they sufficiently see that the Pleurisie is a sudden Disease for which the saltness of the Phlegm could not far of have produced a corroding in the place or have made a hollowness which the blood falling down thither doth fill up and further extend Therefore they will have that defluxing Phlegm only by its weight to rent the Pleura from the Ribs As if it should not flow down by drops and the weight of Phlegm that flows down from above now falling down perpendicularly on the place should make the force of some pounds at once But they have not yet declared the hollowness in which that height of heaped-up Phlegm should reside For although the sick should be as empty in his brain as is the present foolish assertion of the Schools yet so great Phlegm in the Scull could not tear the Pleura from the Ribs 2. They have not yet taught the wayes whereby the continuance of the Rheum in its passage from the brain should be unto the membrane between the Ribs and much less which by its weight aloof of should perform that 3. Neither also have they as yet denominated that renter and so mighty tearer which may pluck away the Pleura grown to the Ribs on every side by a stiff and much fiber or which may stretch water into a dropsical belly like the tympany Neither lastly do they shew why that Catarrh doth rain down unto an appointed and small place which was made or detained in the brain in common For doth not the subsequent subscribing to each other from so many and so great rashnesses of the Schools deserve to be of suspected credit For it is a work of greater violence than that of Phlegm falling down to have pul'd away the Pleura from the Ribs For as many as have commented on the ninth Chapter of Almanzor longly and largly concerning the vein Azugos or stock arising from the right side of the trunk of the upper part of the hollow vein whether it be distributed between the Ribs without a peer or fellow do scratch themselves and so forget their defluxing rheum even as also the weight of the same being turned only unto the emptying of venal blood For herein they rather consider the one only remedy which they have and that alike known to Country People to wit by the only repeated cutting of a vein than the very nature of the Disease or the Schools their supposed causes of a Rheum And moreover all have altogether declined from that absurdity because the consideration of a Rheum being rejected in time of curing they think to have brought the cause from that part first from which the blood slid as it were by accident out of the unlike vein between the Pleura For they have alwayes so greatly fallen under sluggishness that they for the most part overshadow the causes by meditating on the effects Neither have they ever heeded that the blood is not brought down by the veins of their own accord as neither that it slides into the place by its own proper fall For to tear the Pleura from the Ribs to send venal blood thither and the like are the offices of life but not the faults of a sliding liquor But what will the Schools do which are accustomed to subscribe so much to Pagans whose doctrine is wont to imitate not nature but science Mathematical it self in artificial things For they see the vein Azugos to be extended and derived thorow both Ribs therefore from hence also they beg all the cause No otherwise than as a Traveller sleeping about a river and a dead carcass is found slain in the next wood by Thievs therefore that sleeping man loosing his head as guilty ought to shed all the blood Therefore they appoint blood-letting and try to draw forthblood by revulsion out of the vein Azugos made guilty as the most neer immediate and containing cause But where now remains your Catarrh of Phlegm or Choler flowing down from the head and the which only by its weight doth tear the Pleura from the Ribs They at least intend to pull back blood from the unlike or non-peered vein not only flowing but also in possibility to flow And it is for that cause called revulsion even as also some more near vein being pierced as it were the mediatress of the evil is called derivation Alas how circumspect are the Schools in discursive and artificial things Which in nature are nothing but mockeries Because although a vein of the elbow may empty out all its blood even into the hollow vein and this consequently may draw the blood out of the vein Azugos yet the Schools ought to know that presently after the whole venal blood is equally restored again into the veins So that although the vein of the elbow might be wholly evacuated which is never yet that the whole blood should be presently again equalized throughout the whole co-weaving of the veins whence it is manifest that the trifles of revulsion and derivation are vain because they are such things which being granted yet would be serviceable to the intention but for a small time of delay I pray therefore let Physitians consider that blood-letting is not of use in the Pleurisie for revulsion and derivation but for a meer exhausting of the blood and strength and the lessening thereof To wit that nature being sore afraid of that evacuation may desist and cease from sending an increase of venal blood about the Pleura Let them well mark I say whether this be not with so notable and sudden a loss of strength in a disease wherein the faculties themselves alone do bear the whole burthen to cure from the latter or effect by a forecaution and prevention of its increase Is that I say to go unto the co-knit and nourishing cause while as they do not convert their whole endeavour unto the thing doing or causing but unto the thing to be done They are altogether foolish services which are drawn from artificial things For a Brook flowing to a certain bound is diminished and stayed if its bank be opened at the side and it slide with a more near and ready journey to a steep place But what shall that profit if the blood can be only emptyed unto some ounces alone and indeed with a notable loss of strength Shall not the blood when the vein is stopped up flow again unto the place appointed as long as the beginning of motion doth remain Shall it not be more convenient to have stayed the beginning of the Flux Seeing that from a vein being cut no other good can be expected in the Plenrisie than that which may be hoped for by the weakning of the strength To wit because nature being greedy of strength needy and wanting of venal blood
ceaseth from a sumptomatical motion toward the Pleura as long as shee remains enfeebled And therefore the Pleurisie not increasing for a while nature as it were repenting of the rumor and storm thinks of a ripening of the corrupt Pus that is to be framed of the out-hunted blood All which things would more successfully follow the blood being retained wherein the life that is the strength dwells because the life is nature which is the alone Physitianess of Diseases and she failing the Physitian takes away his shoulders Therefore the Schools have not hitherto taken heed unto the impulsive cause which pours forth the blood out of the veins into undue places beyond bound and measure and which furiously plucks away the Pleura from the Ribs and prepares a wound and hollowness Which causes being co-knit together are iddeed before the effect yet do they so persevere in the same effect that they are materially and efficiently the very effects themselves Unto which effect indeed slow and impotent is the race of false and salt Phlegm out of the head and the dreamed rheumy defluxions through channels or continuations of passages not existing But Paracilsus meditating of this pulling away of the Pleura and being willing to square a cause thereunto hath brought in other follies that he may defend his own mad laws of a little world in us For he feigneth anew and Ogertine salt else never named by him however variously he itcheth in himself concerning salts in Ulcers and Apostemes even to the fetching off of the skin And first of all he teacheth that this Ogertine salt is of the property of Arsenical Sulphurs in the mean time he is silent concerning its mines veins property history etymology and reason of its etymology because it was dreamed by him But at leastwise he had acted nothing more cleerly herein seeing he dawbs no less with the same elay than that wherewith the Schools are defiled For truly none hath hitherto declared why the Pleura departs from the Ribs whereunto it is adjoyned by a continued thred of fibers to wit whether it be pulled away of its own free accord or indeed by another tearer they are content as satisfied in the doubt if they shall say it is rent from the Ribs by the weight of a down-rouling Catarrh in the resolving nevertheless of which doubt as of the root the whole cure and prevention of a Pleurisie doth consist For the root of every Disease is worthy of the dumb silence of the Schools to wit I shall shew in a peculiar treatise that the very essence of any kind of Diseases whatsoever hath been hitherto unknown in the Schools it hath seemed to suffice them if they have applyed their doctrine unto without unto artificials unto the latter sumptoms unto the consequent fruits or products as though the stage of causes and essential roots were ridiculous and in vain Paracelsus also if he reckoned to confirm any solid thing toward a Disease of so great moment and to add his doctrine thereto if he determined not to derive his Ogertine salt it self from a power unto act out of the blood at leastwise that unwonted unnamed and unknown salt ought to have brought a necessity of its invention and of its generation that at least some place might be afforded for prevention For this the pretended title of the Monarch of secrets doth require But all things have remained neglected because the chiefdome of healing hath stood founded upon empty stubble I promise therefore that whatsoever hath been built thereon shall fall to the ground For whether a fire the searcher out of truth be built or next whether the voluntary corruption of dayes shall consume the stubble at leastwise I know that at length that building will fall to the ground But I in a Pleurisie consider the first inward moover or spur and afterwards the tearer of the Pleura And both those being one and the same efficient cause of it I call the Pleurisie it self But the venal blood flowing thither and that which is poured out thither and the aposteme sprung from thence I consider as the product to which end I will bring common experience for an example Let a Thorn be thrust into any part of the Body the which pain instantly succeedeth from the pain there is presently a Pulse from the Pulse an afflux of vendl blood whence ariseth a swelling a fever an Aposteme c. the Thorn therefore mooves the other things after it Therefore the Metaphorical Thorn of the Pleurisie and by speaking properly the Pleurisie it self is a forreign sharpness conceived in the Archeus the which if it chaseth or layes aside into the blood of the hollow vein surely that is expelled unto the vein Azugos yea or into the very flesh near the Ribs from whence ariseth an Aposteme as the product of the Pleurisie In the next place as an Aposteme which is bred from a Thorn fastened in the finger a not but rashly cured by cutting of a vein but it promiseth a cure by reason of the plucking out of the Thorn only so it happens in the Pleurisie For as sharpness in the stomack is an acceptable and ordinary savour so out of the stomack all sharpness is besides nature and hostile which hath been hitherto unknown in the Schools For so from a sharpness are wringings of the bowels there is a strangury in the Urine a corroding in Ulcers in the skin a scab in the joynts the Gowt c. And the which if thou wilt experience to thy hand mingle some drops at least of sharpish Wine with the Urine that hath been newly pissed out without pain and cast it in with a Syringe Thou shalt experience against thy will that I teach the Truth In the humor Latex also of which afterwards in its own place it raiseth up a bastard Pleurisie the which they altogether through the same carelessness of narrowly searching as in other Diseases do call a windy one but if the Archeus hath laid up a gentle sharpness into the lap of the venal blood unhappily applied to it it as despised is presently hunted out and cast out of the veins and brings forth an Aposteme in whatsoever place that shall happen but if that doth happen to be the deeper or lavisher in the veins a certain pestilent affect ariseth The which I prove for the venal bloud or flesh do never wax soure or sharp without an actual obtaining of putrefaction the which I have els-where on purpose proved by the fleshes of Beasts which do most swiftly Putrifie under the Dogstar therefore yielding soure Broath for the bloud waxing soure is contrary to the nature of the Veins and to the disposition of the whole flesh as long as it liveth presently coagulated For the venal bloud in a dead-Carcasse is preserved by the Vein a good while from coagulating out of which if it shall fall it waxeth presently clotty which is more largely declared els-where Hence it follows that of an
pulsive or driving Blas But wind being shut up doth cause the less pain so long as it is quiet So every pulsive Remedy should of necessity increase the pains of the wringings or gripes and so nature sheweth that we must abstain from things that do drive or force windiness But they strongly meditate that in carminatives there is the force of a whip But are flatus's like unto cattel For do they acknowledge that they and their carminatives are to be set in the place of a suitable Pestil or that perhaps carminatives have the same virtue like a voice which drives away cattel and that windy blasts in the Body do hearken unto the exhortation of enchanting Poets or Singers I know indeed from hence that the Schools are ignorant of the force property causes and manner as well of the gripings or wringings as of the Remedies For winds are not to be driven away and secondly not to be dispersed For this is impossible but that contains a childish Fiction Neither also by an honest man are flatus's to be restrained by any Verse or Song a religious Etymology whereof doth notwithstanding hitherto remain in the Schools A windy blast is not inwardly stirred up in the Wombe because the Wombe is destitute of a flatulent matter and its digestion is not fit for creating of flatus's but outwardly Air scarce enters into the Wombe because it is that which least it should suffer a vacuum or emptiness in its membrane it falleth down wholly moist and flaggy and so of its own accord a passage for the breathing Air is prevented unless it be by force cast into it by an instrument In the next place neither do external winds borrow a force from the mouth that they may enter into unwonted regions and that they may strongly thump the Pleura grown to the ribs but that between this and the Muscles between the ribs they may stir up a flatulent Pleurisie and presently after tear the Pleura from the ribs and frame a true inflamation of the Pleurisie Because there is no way for Air thither yea if it should reach thither it hath not a Blas behind which might be of any damage And by which way it had entred for therefore before it had hurt it had expired Neither also are flatus's made internally in those parts the matter whereof and the efficient cause hindering it It is also like an old Wives Fiction that an external wind or blast of Air doth pierce thorow the skin however so pory it be even as also the fleshy Membrane and also the Muscles under it According to the shameful reason of Physitians wherein they say He hath lately contracted wind whence his parts are ill affected For I have oftentimes with my own blushing heard this cause to be assigned almost to all Diseases from the head even to the ankle The distemperature of the Air is accused for the vices of the head eyes ears teeth Oasand for hoarsnesses coughs likewise for all defluxions unconcoctions feavers and so the Air hath been accounted a Pandora's box And that not only by the touching of cold as an outward cause but as a windy blast hath been drawn inwards and there unduely detained Of which things elsewhere But now our speech is of our and those internal windy blasts I grant indeed that an unwonted cold as a guards-man of Death doth indeed affect some noble part or servile one as it disturbs the last digestion thereof whence excrements pains yea and Aposthems of the similiar parts do diversly follow But in these the faculty of the cold is only an outward occasional cause which shews a prevention not likewise a cure or quality of a Remedy Therefore let the trifles of the Schools bid farewel But besides that any Physitian may rightly perform his office he shall know first what wind is and then what is a windy blast from whence it is made why it causeth pain and then the Remedy shall be easie unto him Indeed the cause of flatus's being known we must take heed least their concrete or composure be turned into a Gas But a Gas which hath been once made prepareth an easie way or passage for it self But if not and if the bowel where it is beneath it be stopped with a more hard obstacle this is to be loosed But where there is no excrement as a partition and yet the wringings do proceed shall not those things be vain which drive away winds and foolish which disperse them For truly not the windy blasts but the matter from whence the bowels are drawn together and the bowels themselves do generate windinesses is to be brushed away The cure I say may not be converted unto the flatus produced but unto the cause producing it I see therefore that the Remedies of Dill Caraway Anise Cummin wild Carrot seed c. were found out not by the Schools who are ignorant of the causes of wringings of the bowels but that they were made known from Divine compassion to little ones and poor ones from whom the Schools have begged them as also many other experiments from thence For truly the original essence matter property process and history of flatus's have lain hid to the Schools In the next place neither is the Volvulus Iliack passion or that of a barbarous name miserere mei any twisting or writhing together and extravagancy of the lesser bowel For besides that it should be a perpetual and of necessity a relapsing evil Anatomy resists it which shewes the bowel to be cloathed with the mesentery to wit with an external cloathing with a third garment and upper skinny one and it being fast tyed to the loynes by that mesentery to hang or bend forwards Therefore that bond being once burst asunder and the society of the mesentery despised there is no hope for the future of reducing the bowels into their former case from which they had freed themselves by breaking Prison And so the evil being by a strong fortune restored should of necessity presently return and should alwayes afterwards rush into a worse state Again throughout the whole tract of the bowel there should henceforeward be no nourishment with the Veins and no attraction of chyle for life when as nevertheless in the mean time that Disease gives place to an easie Remedy For if besides its wonted circles the bowel should be co-writhed who should be that mover or who that tormenter For from without it hath none and fears none which bowel is covered with a smooth caule and simple bladder of the Abdomen or bottom of the belly Also if it be stopped up by an internal excrement for this nor the other can happen unto it now the gut Ileon is stopped wherein excrements are not yet wont to be hardned by an unwonted dung but not co-writhed not dissolved without the case of the mesentery And so the Schools being amazed that Disease hath been unknown in its causes and manner For I remember that Thomas Balbani of Antwerp
Objects receiving Especially because dungs are not the voluntary putrifyings or artificial putrifactions of things but the limited and specifical ones whose efficacy seeing it doth not proceed onely from the thing it self it hath need of an external author alwaies operating in the same agreeing resemblance also in the same manner and character most especially because the impression follows both the healthy disposition of its ferment as also the sick one Which thing doth from thence more clearly appear Because belching or a flatus originally in the stomack even as also the flatus of the Ileon do extinguish the flame of a candle But a dungy flatus which is formed in the utmost bowels and breaks forth thorow the fundament being sent thorow the flame of a candle is enflamed in flying thorow it and expresseth a flame of divers colours like a Rain-bow But that which is formed in the Ileon or slender bowel is never inflameable is often without smell unless it bring down the mixture of another with it it oft-times strikes through being tart sharp and brackish in the Fundament Therefore flatus's or windinesses do differ in us in their matter form place ferment properties and so in their whole species Neither have flatus's less their own generical and specifical varieties than the Bodies from whence they proceed For flatus's are in no wise Air. Yea flatus's are not only distinguished by the matter whereof they are but also by the ferment and seed of flatus's Hitherto have those things regard which I have taught concerning the birth of a Gas or wild Spirit which surely should else remain in its antient concrete Body unless a ferment of the place being adjoyned and a seed of sharpness drawn it be made or composed into a flatus or Gas I will repeat in this place the general kinds of diversities of flatus's bred in us which are specificated by their ferments and the properties of things from whence they arise Behold their Scheme or Figure For there are two irregular flatus's in us whereof one is ordinary natural and necessary in the Ileon The other is plainly pestiferous and degenerate the which a poyson being taken or bred within doth for the most part lift up the whole habit of the Body into a tumour And then there are four flatus's in the stomack and bowels One of the stomack which is belching And this is either specifical from undigested hard and stubborn meat Another is unsavory of the cream being almost digested but bred from a weakness of digestion but a third is sower from the cream digested but yet hindered A fourth belching is brackish being produced from the ferment of the place being exasperated The second flatus is that of the and it hath some diversities in it The first whereof containeth farting arising from Ileon the abundance of the aforesaid natural flatus The other is bitter which breaks forth from strange and ill digested dregs And it hath somewhat of an over-hasty dungy ferment Also the flatus of the gut Colon succeedeth from meats not plainly freed from their stomatical sharpness but being corrupted by a prevention a dungy ferment fore-timely coming unto them There is also a dungy mortified flatus from a resolving and putrefaction of the lively and vital nourishment of the solide parts Lastly without the channels of a bowel is the flatus Tympany arising from a diseasifying cause between the Bought of the intestine and the concave of the Peritoneum or skin which covereth the bowels Which diseasifying cause hath the property of a local matter but a more mild one But the flatus which is hence begotten is not from a diseasifying matter but it is the product thereof indeed it is from the same matter whereof the natural and ordinary flatus of the Ileon is That is from the very immediate nourishment of the bowel But it is mortal as well from a poysonous cause or from a radical Disease as in respect of the place which produced Disease may be increased without a limit and at length may choak the sick like the Dropsie Ascites The Scheme being now finished thou shalt see that the matter whereof flatus's are is that concrete Body about which a ferment doth operate And then that he who strives to drive away flatus's by propulsion or dispersing and so to overcome the Disease doth not take away the cause but goes unto the last effect Which thing that it may be the more cleerly made known to thy view I will suppose three Brethren to be nourished with the same drink and meat one whereof can send forth almost no flatus But another and the weaker can bring forth many un-savory and now and then sower belchings But the third undergoing a disproportionable temper of his bowels can make many crackings From whence first of all it becomes plain to be seen that flatus's are not made of flatulent or windy meats the use whereof is therefore so greatly forbidden in the Dietary of the Schools But even as fulness doth for the most part cause many windy blasts the which sobriety excuseth therefore it follows that the fardle is for a burden but that a burden presupposeth a labour or weakness of the digestive faculty So sharpish Apples if they are roasted do puff out very much windiness the which if they are eaten by a strong stomack are void of windiness Whence it is sufficiently manifest that a flatus is the vice of us but not of things The which that nothing hinders that some things are more apt for the producing of flatus's and that from hence they are called windy Because those things which are most flatulent do not beget flatus's but in defective persons For if windinesses were by themselves and materially in meats flatus's should equally bewray themselves in all and he that should send forth the less of flatus's the same being retained he should be the weaker Both whereof is false Therefore the aforesaid interchangeable course of flatus's doth accuse the agent rather than the matter In the next place if it should be moved principally from the matter and there be a fatty flatus in us but that could in no wise be troubled or moved by our luke-warmth which is first obliged to vaporal moistures before that it can be sufficient for dry and oylie exhalations Therefore even from hence it is also manifest that flatus's are made by a causing but not by a separating agent Again that also of Galen is absurd that some things are windy in the first digestion but that other things utter their flatus in the second which he calls sanguification and so also hence he names them things venereous or causing natural lust But the third things he calls windy in the last digestion even as he saith concerning the keepers of Fig-trees That their fleshes are blown up and swollen with windiness from the eating of abundance of Figs. For every flatus which was after any manner materially in meats at least while the food
the chest of the Gaul is broken For neither doth this want its own vigor of truth Not indeed that it is literally true that the bladder of the Gaul being broken and that its bursting forth had brought a lightnesse to the dead carcase but the Gaul is the balsome restraining corruptions which are to arise in living creatures from a sharpness wherefore while corruption is present a defect of the Gaul is conjectured A new Alder settles to the bottom but when the juyce contained in it is corrupted the tree springs up from the bottom Furthermore I have said that the lesser hot Seeds were from divine compassion made known to mortals and by the good common People the use of the same brought into the Schools not knowing the cause and circumstance of Flatus's Those seeds therefore do restrain the coruption and also the sharpness of matter and therefore they are refreshments of the Bowels But that ease or comfort learn thou by this Example There was a burst man that was negligent whose Intestine fell out into his Cod it presently riseth unto the bigness of ones head is hardned and at length waxeth black and blew or envious For they in vain attempt with a various warmth of milk and a luke-warm fomentation of Cows-dung and it seemeth to be sixfold less through the hole than is the swelling of the Cod which is to lay aside the hope of its return by reason of hardness And then through the drink of the seeds to wit of annise caraway fennel coriander c. in wine the hardness of the bunch doth presently vanish and it suffers it self to be repulsed inwards The which a clyster and outward fomentation afforded not therefore that defect doth by it self silently speak That the bowels being exorbitant about the stones do presently put on an hardnesse and stirre up flatus's All which things by a comfort to the Archeus of the bowels do presently disperse which else would cause a swift and painful death But I will adde something concerning the natural flatus of the Ileon which is not known by the Schools A noble woman is taken with a little pain of her belly she walks about the chamber had dined the pain streight way ascends as to her right pap invades her shoulder and a little after kills her Her dead carcass being dissected nothing is viewed by the eyes which could be blamed to have brought death on her But they fitly see the Ileon stretched out with a little flatus Wind wind I say the Doctors accuse to be the Executioner The judgment being brought unto me I judged that the pain of the belly was from the womb therefore that it ascended unto the dugs with whom the womb doth ordinarily talk and so to have strangled the woman But the wind in the Ileon I said was not onely guiltless but that in every dead carcass even in him that is slain by a sudden death the Ileon is alwayes naturally stretched out with a little wind because that is natural unseparable and proper For without wind the bowels should fall down the excrements should the more difficultly pass thorow For unless they were driven and liquid from behind they should easily return backwards and as it were without progress should there contract too much delay If therefore some wind be a native inhabitant in the Ileon or slender Gut there is no place for complaint of a flatus in gripes or wringings of the guts and much less for things carminative expelling and dispersing of winds Let wringings therefore be of a brackish muscilage more or less sharp at the resolving whereof if they shall stick fast or expulsion if they shall floate a restoring of health is expected But if in the mean time a sharp flatus be bred or the Ileon do swell with windes more than is meet that doth easily find a way for it self A dismissing of windie blasts doth indeed lighten from pressing together or stretching out but a flatus doth not cause wringings or torments of any great moment but that they do soon produce a way for themselves But if indeed a flatus be prevented from utterance by a more hard excrement from beneath now it is called a volvulus or rowling pain and hath departed from the word of wringings or gripes Therefore it is now sufficiently manifest that flatus's or windy blasts in the body are not made by aire but materially from things cast into the body things ordinary or from poysons corrupting the similar liquor of nourishment And then that they cannot be made elsewhere than in the first Kitchin of the digestions and they are belchings in the second also which is finished in the gut Ileon but by no wise in the following families of digestions unto whom every sharp and brackish thing is a forreigner Except in a poyson being taken Wherefore there is no occasion force or power in flatus's for a disease of these regions But so far as doth belong to a windy blast or exhalation or vapor lifted up from the stomack from the womb or any other place that I will shew in its own place to be frivolous Let these things therefore suffice concerning flatus's CHAP. LVII The Toyes or Dotages of a Catarrhe or Rheume 1. Who is the Heir of Diseases and Nature 2. Some suppositions in the room of premises 3. A conclusion 4. It is proved from experiences 5. An explication of the thing granted 6. The Lungs are the first thing dying 7. Why the Author hath departed from the Schools 8. Things premised of the miseries of old Age. 9. Why loosening Medicines do hurt in these cases 10. The miserable Testimonies of Physitians of their own ignorance Because the Phrygians are wise too late 11. A shameful Maxim which is drawn from things helpful and hurtful 12. The Errors of Physitians 13. The Unconstancy of Paracelsus whence it was 14. The manner of making a Catarrhe is like unto an old Wives Fable 15. The Diseases attributed to Catarrhes 16. How great destruction of mortals ariseth from thence 17. After what sort they make the sick perpetual bondslaves unto them 18. An ordinary privy shift of the Schooles 19. Thirteen Positions 20. Nineteen Conclusions proceeding from those Positions 21. By a sufficient numbring up of parts 22. A Dilemma or convincing Argument 23. Some Absurdities 24. Catarrhs or Rheumes do arise in the Schooles onely from their mother Ignorance 25. Ignorance is the same Fountain of Absurdities in Curing 26. Shame makes the Schooles unstable 27. A denyal of Principles granted in the Schooles 28. Whence heat happens to the Liver 29. A proof from Remedies of none effect 30. The Tooth-ach is again examined 31. The digestion of the Tooth and Nail differs from the digestion of all the parts 32. A Rheum unto the inward parts is shewn to be impossible 33. A Pose is decyphered 34. Absurdities following upon a Rheume of the Stomack 35. A Rheume is fanned into the Lungs 36. What may drop down at the beginning of
Cough of old folks and the snortings of dying persons although afflicted with another vice than that of the Lungs For that is proper to the Lungs because it alwayes drinks crude or fresh Air and being neighbour to the oppressed heart doth readily restore its strength and for that cause its own strength the sooner faileth For truly I first of all dissent from the Schools because I know this kind of vice to be of the parts containing but not of the liquors contained For those contents are the certain products of a root which are begotten by the Archeus of the parts being badly seasoned And then I also differ in this that I know it to be a local evil but not bestowed or dispensed by a secondary affection of the Head For the Coughs of old age are made under a difficult hope of restoring because a very small quantity of the excrement bred in the Lungs doth reside in the utmost small branches of the Airy pipe which doth not only stop up the reeds but also through its presence disturbeth the ferment of the place and lessens it whence new excrements the wealthy houshold-stuff of Coughs are stirred up every hour Which in old age are scarce cured by means commonly known Because they are those which do not pierce unto the places affected yea neither have they obtained a strength of restoring Such excrements therefore are the local defects of the parts And every part hath its own weakness whether it be in-bred or attained with a diminishment of the growing or flourishing ferment And so also from hence all those excrements of parts do proceed I understand therefore in the first place that the repetitions of purges are vain and hurtful in these affects because they are those things which are appointed only about the products but not about the causes Then also and chiefly because such excrements do not give place by loosening Medicines However it is they do no way reach to the primitive blemish and hurtful root in us but only do meditate of latter effects but the former causes or roots they are not able to touch Adde thou that although loosening Medicines do seem sometimes to have succoured for two dayes space as the lump of the venal blood of the Mesentery being taken away a more sparing dispensation and nourishment is brought unto the Lungs and hence there is a more sparing spitting forth by reaching Yet notwithstanding laxative Medicines do oppose the general strength of the whole Body by weakening it more and more Which thing while Physitians do even see as it were thorow a sieve neither know they to have profited the sick party by a diminishing of the Body and exhausted strength they at length dismisse the weak to be handled by the rules of Diet and the only aids of a sober Kitchin only by the aid of a Cautery and repeated assistance of the more gentle laxatives they proceed medicinally that is to live miserably By which supposition in the first place they at least insinuate that the Kitchin is to be preferred before any unfaithful or distrustful Medicines of the shops and experience being made they decree that these must be abstained from as hurtful And I wish that after so many wipings away of the strength that might suffice neither that they would again any more afterwards by the same succours attempt to exhaust the hope Body veins strength and purses of the sick I would to God also they were mindful of their own Maxim wherein their chief curative indication or betokening sign is to be taken from things profitable and hurtful Which rule although it be shameful and only that of Empericks I would that at least by the same they would now skip back from their committed errors Neither that in the Cough and Consumption they would return unto Remedies which hitherto they have found to have profited none For loosening Medicines cuttings of a vein purgers by the nostrils drawers of phlegme by the mouth Ecligmaes or Lohochs the decoction of China Sarsaparilla Sassafras a Cautery in the Coronal suture or seam of the scull and other unfaithful aids of that sort would fall asleep being applied by the Physitian that they may after some sort seem not to have received their money from a free gift At least wise I would that they had learned by their practice that while they meditate of the removings revulsions derivations and preventions of latter effects that is excrements they do openly shew that the knowledge of the causes have lain hid unto them neither that they have methodically cured their sick by a taking away of the causes They had also found the respect of food to be a dainty or costly languishing weak and desperate kind of Remedy for so great an enemy now an in-mate yea and a Patron No wonder therefore that the common People heeding the vanity of these Cures have took an occasion to say that it is the best Medicine not to use Medicine For I have oftentimes bewailed with great compassion in reading thorowly of the centuries of medicinal counsels and especially while they afresh prosecute all the Diseases of Almanzor from the crown of the Head unto the soal of the foot because they narrowly searching into the catarctical or principal cause from the beginning as they think and boast they do every where accuse some natural or attained singular distemper yet under the uncertainty of a doubt whether they should appoint the same as the disease or indeed as the antecedent cause of the disease whereof they consulted But least they should erre even in any diseases they have accused heat and also cold To wit they complain almost in all cases of a coldness of the stomack alone or combined with the heat of the liver whence they many wayes divine Rheumes to arise and to have slidden down into divers parts and they prosecute as the diseases of the same not onely almost all internal ones but also even unto the defects of the skin Thus indeed do the Schooles season their young beginners theorically and practically For so Rheumes are guilty of the defects of the eyes ears jawes tongue teeth breast armes loines and legs So coughs consumptions astmaes plurisies peripneumonies apoplexies palsies sudden deaths corrupt mattery imposthumes spittings of blood have found their already supposed cause in Rheums So in the next place the Stomack casts up its vomit loatheth labours with an unconcoction the liver also and the spleen are ill at ease For an undigestible snivel having slidden down out of the head obstructions hardnesses dropsies aposthems scirrhus's fevers wringings of the bowels have taken up their room among Catarrhes their Clients Unto which Catarrhes Paracelsus although elsewhere triumphing in Tartars and his Three first Things through an invention hath notwithstanding for the most part subscribed and hath alwayes manifestly acknowledged the name of the defluxion fflussen by nodding under his Mistriss Uncertainty For the Schooles do so seriously adorn this deplorable fable of
it and did hasten inwards when her breath was dismissed And so afterwards she slept not but with a tyed or bound breast T. Whence it cleerly appears that the breath is drawn in a straight line thorow the Lungs Which thing also I have likewise noted in a Noble Woman or Princess who had retained her self from Child-bearing that as oft as she pressed her breath together the one side of her throat shewed it self to us swollen like a bladder V. Then also hitherto doth this conduce that those that are distempered in their Lungs and likewise those that breath with difficulty I have attentively considered and certainly found that such do for the most part lay more favourably on one side and on the other side that they can scarce breath For it is not to be doubted but that that is the vice of the Lungs themselves and that on the steep side of the Lungs for that is it on which the sick person then layeth and with what part it then toucheth the membrane of the ribs the pores are stopped through which otherwise he is wont to breath also that both the Lobes of the side of the Lungs then laying upwards the pores thereof are diseasedly stopped if not all at least wise for a great part of them and that is to be measured by the proportion of the failing breath By which argument it is manifest that the Lungs are not lifted up and do not fall down like bellows but to be penetrable by pores through which the Air passing unto and without the breast doth equally answer unto the largeness thereof being extended and contracted Hence indeed those that are raised upright do breath better than those that lay along Because the lungs hanging hath its pores on every side free which have not failed through the vice of stoppage It is therefore an error of the Schools in that they teach the Diaphragma or Midriffe to be the one only motive member of the Lungs and so the proper and principiative efficient instrument of breathing To wit because while the Diaphragma contracts it self into its own center it causeth a breathing out and as much as this looseth from contraction so much we breath in 1. For seeing every voluntary motion is executively made by a muscle its tail being drawn back unto its head now the Diaphragma shall be the first a differing kind of and the most principal muscle and its head shall be in the middle or center of it self 2. But if therefore the Midriffe be the chief executive instrument of motion the Diaphragma should by it self attempt motion even the bottom of the belly and ribs ceasing Which is false 3. Yea the muscles of the Abdomen or bottom of the belly which are ordinary muscles shall not move but shall be moved by the Diaphragma 4. Therefore the belly it s own fleshy membrane should be sufficient for this office and those muscles should be made in vain 5. In the next place seeing every instrument of voluntary motion doth draw in moving the breast ought to be drawn inwards by the drawing of the Diaphragma and without about the Midriffe to resemble the figure of an Hour-glass 6. Yea breathing out should not be a resting from motion but the motion it self of the Midriffe being contracted 7. And so breathing forth even in healthy persons should alwayes be more difficult than breathing in Seeing 8. Breathing in should not be a motion but a re-loosing or resting of the contracted Diaphragma From whence I conclude 1. That the use of the Midriffe hath hitherto remained unknown 2. That the use of the Lungs also hath lain hid 3. That the manner of making breathing hath been unknown 4. That the first and principal instruments of breathing have been unknown 5. That for a modest in-breathing and out-breathing of the breath the muscles of the abdomen only do suffice 6. That the Lungs is never moved and that it readily serves for a sieve that the pure Air may enter into the breast 7. That the difficulty of curing the defects of the Lungs doth not consist in that that it is impatient of rest and that in this respect it refuseth Remedies but because its utmost orisices being besieged and obstructed they are for the future made void of hope to be expected from common Remedies Seeing nothing is carried thither in a right line besides Air and because the Air by reason of a stoppage beneath is hindered or prevented therefore also interclosed and likewise doth at length the more dry up the stopping muscilages according to which other products are stirred up which in length of time will assume a dryness sharpness and malignity Whence are short-winded affects a corrupt mattery Aposteme gnawing or corroding of the vessels spitting of blood an Ulcer Consumption and Death For let us suppose that all the Air is ordinarily carried into the breast by a thousand orifices of the rough Artery and so many to be sufficient for health if therefore a hundred of them are stopped then that man by a swift daily motion or ascent shall be unlike and short-winded by a tenth part Therefore from hence it is manifest why Syrupes and Ecligmaes seeing they do not reach unto the places affected are vain Remedies Yea if they could reach thither that they would aggravate the malady And then why none of these defects may hope for cure unless the art of the fire shall graduate or exalt a Medicine into the tone or harmony of nature But the preventions from Catarrhes which do command Coriander and such like things to be taken after Supper to restrain vapours arising out of the stomack surely of how great pitty are they worthy For if the rise of vapours from their own causes to wit the moisture of matter and heat of the place and the ascent of the same should be natural what could Coriander effect whereby those effects should the less follow their causes For shall Coriander being cast into boyling water effect that vapours should not be made or ascend out of the water Let those Remedies be like it which are prescribed by combing and rubbing to wit that Rheumes may be derived not in the evening but in the morning not in the fore-part but toward the hinder part of the Head For old Wives trifles have shut both the gates of healing because the Causes of Diseases have lain hid neither hath it been hitherto greatly laboured in searching into them For how frivolous is the doctrine of Galen in his five Books of preserving health all the which is famous in a Bath rubbings and wearisom exercise and although in all things and every where I have pittied the poverty of Galen yet I have in nothing more manifestly discerned his wit than where he seriously prescribeth distinctions of rubbings at length athwart crooked wise and circularly as it were the Ceremonies of Necromancers to be observed with strict obedience upon the command of the penalty of a capital punishment For so the
all forreign things except that of naked Air not joyned to smoaks it also necessarily follows whether any thing be swallowed by licking in or by drinking that the same care of the Epiglottis the keeper is alwayes acted and the same shutting of the wind-pipe observed For truly in the same place no less than the loss of life is concerned Therefore Ecligmaes and Syrupes although they make the parts smooth for the affording of spittings by reaching yet they in the first place hurt the stomack and do not in the least absolutely profit in affects of the Lungs But they say that the spittle by a voluntary sliding also without feeling doth flow into the wind-pipe and that Ecligmaes or Lohochs would in this respect be helpers But neither of these subsist with truth Because however the neck be disposed of the warinesse of nature is alwayes the same that not any thing do at unawares fall down or flow down into the wind-pipe A Player was lately seen his hands being unseen by raising up his feet and body to have drunk a great cup of wine having his head nigh the earth I appeal to Anatomy and submit my hand to the Ferule For there are some who sleeping a great deal of spittle flows out of their mouth who if they sleep laying with their face upward they do of their own accord presently rowle themselves on their side or are awakened nature being affrighted with the fear of eminent danger But if any thing of spittle shall then through carelesness fall down into the wind-pipe the cough henceforth ceaseth not presently to expel it But at length what shall sugar being licked in with fryed stinking Fox-lungs or being seasoned with the juice of Colts-foot profit the Lungs if the Lungs it self abhorring all forreign things admits nothing of the same but through carelesness and straightway with great trouble expels it For shall that be sufficient for the restoring of the hurt faculties Is the root of Catarrhes thus cut off Certainly which way soever I shall turn my self I do not see the Schools to withstand Diseases but by the feigned dreams of Heathens in an Image in their effects and from a latter thing And that by reason of the ignorance of Diseases and Causes For thus the name of Physitian hath deservedly departed into the merriments of Comedians because they do not think or consider what to do what to say or what is to be done by them that they may satisfie that precept Be ye merciful as your Father which is in Heaven is merciful And even as St. Bernard speaks concerning the Clergy who eat up the sins of the People as they live only by Alms-deeds for Physitians do not think whether they do satisfie the command and expectation of charity who eat up the sicknesses and infirmities of the People But I do not see that these plagues of Aegypt had been brought into the utter darkness of the Schools but that they being ill seasoned oft-times found affects whereto they might apparently and without narrow search attribute the Tragedy of Catarrhes Because some one having a pain in his Head hath forthwith felt his neck to pain him a difficult motion a restlesse night presently the pain hath manifested it self in the loynes being from thence propagated unto the thighs and then it hath seemed to descend to the calves of the legs and feet Hence arose the decree that pain seeing it is an accident of inherency doth not wander from one subject into another unless some material thing shall depart in dregs out of the brain by the muscles of the turning joynts through the readinesse of a sliding Rheume and doth square to the received Etymology of a Catarrhe This perswasion of a Catarrhe its mask being discovered by Anatomy ought to be known For truly if the painful matter doth successively drop down out of the brain through the neck surely that shall be brought down thither either through the bosomes of the brain or through the brain and its coats or between both coats or between the hard coat or Dura mater and scull or at length between the scull and skin For the consequence is of force from a sufficient enumeration of parts But not in the first place through the bottles or vessels of the brain because that could not subsist without an Apoplexy and an undoubted Palsey of the whole body if so be that the supposed doctrine of the Schools concerning these Diseases standeth For if it be successively expelled from the former bosomes unto the fourth bosome the matter of the Rheume cannot but shut up that forreign and sharp excrement into the thorny marrow and henceforth breed the Apoplexy and Palsey Secondly that matter of a Catarrhe cannot by sweating thorow the brain be heaped up and slide down between the brain and thin coat so that both coats may keep a continual separation from the very marrow of the thorny sinew because the sliding Rheume should bring forth a renting and solution of that which held together in the marrowy root of the sinews throughout its length Which doth not want very many absurdities In like manner if the Catarrhe should rain down between both the coats first of all both the little membranes should be double which might defend the thorny marrow as with a coat of Mail which thing the eye hath not yet viewed hitherto And that being supposed it could not at least wise disturbe the motion of the muscles or know pain And so there is an error in the Position Because a sinew is indeed a deriving or conveying instrument of the command of the will but not therefore an executive instrument of a voluntary motion Especially because a small Nerve doth now and then scarce exceed the grosseness of a doubled thread and it being externally implanted into the muscle the Rheumy humour could not be cast into it but by a bringing of a Palsey on the part but not cruel pains of the moved muscle In the next place if a Rheume should flow down between the Dura mater and the scull Anatomy teacheth that the egress of the sinews side-wayes thorow the little holes of the turning joynts is so suitable and narrow that a passage for a Catarrhe is in no respect granted from the thorny marrow unto the muscles Lastly if room should be granted for that device at least wise what should be the cause of its succession that the humour having once slidden between the little sinew of the two turning joynts should re-hasten unto other successive Nerves doth perhaps the Rheume being affected with a weariness of one muscle henceforward wish for other Clients of delights For how shall the Catarrhy humour flow down through the small little vein without an astonying or stupifying of the member Shall it enter into the muscle even unto its tail by a strange implanting but shall it again from thence depart unto other muscles which henceforward are of a more steep or inclinable scituation or if a new
delightful in the face of the whole earth and where the mind is more delighted than in Herbarism yet there hath scarce been a less progress made in any other thing For truly the Arabians Greeks or Gentiles Barbarians wild country People and Indians have observed their own Simples much more diligently than all the Europeans For even from the dayes of Plato wherein Diascorides a man of War lived nothing almost hath been added to Herbarism but much diminished Galen from a desire of robbery wrote this study of another his name being suppressed He being plainly a non-Diascorian snatched up the words of Diascorides The which in the mean time Pliny hath besprinkled with many trifles Because as it s very likely he being of a mean judgement not being able to distinguish between truth and falshood scraping many things together on every side hath described them that he might equalize his name unto the greatness of his Section But even unto this day the more learned part of Physitians do as yet carefully dispute only about the faces and names of Herbs As if the vertues could not speak before their countenance were known the virtues I say being first delivered by Diascorides As if the power of Medicine had attained unto its end in the first Author But the more modern Herbarists began to distinguish Herbs into Sexes and supposing that they understood many things from thence complained that these things had remained hidden or vailed As if nature did labour in jest and not in earnest had been careful of a Sex where it was content with a promiscuous and Hermophroditical Being or Body For a sex doth respect only generation but not operation or the relation of like or equal objects Therefore that she might not frame even the least tittle in vain who hath wholly referred her self unto the certain ends known to her Creator wheresoever there was not need of the marks of Sexes to generate she hath also disesteemed them in operating But if of two Simples one be stronger or rougher than another surely that doth not denote the Sex but the degree For while the same Simple putrifieth and is changed into small living creatures these indeed are not of one but of both Sexes The which surely could never be if those Simples should now have a Sex or sexual virtues within them For the same Herbs in number are in Sex as well Masculines as Feminines promiscuously bred There were also afterwards others who would observe signatures in Herbs as it were a Palmestry and this Meditation the root of Satyrion or dog-stones hath notably promoted And therefore through the desert hereof especially they have introduced a sealed knowledge or essayed Anatomy that is new names and great swelling Titles embroidered with their own boldnesses I believe by Faith that man was not of nature and therefore likewise that nature is not the Image likeness or engravement of man God out of the eternal providence of his goodness and wisdom hath abundantly provided for future necessities He himself hath made and endowed Simples for the appointed ends of all necessities Therefore I believe that the Simples in their own simplicity are sufficient for the healing of all Diseases Therefore we must more study about the searching into the virtues than about disputing any hard questions Seeing that in Simples there is a perfect cure and healing of all Diseases And by consequence that Dispensatories which will us to compound and joyn most things together do destroy the whole and through a hidden blasphemy do as it were strive to supply divine insufficiency Hence Paracelsus rightly writeth to Chyrurgions To what end do ye over-adde unto Symphytum or the root of greater Comfrey Vinegar Bole and such like wan additaments when as God hath composed this Simple as altogether sufficient against the ruptures of bones finally whatsoever thou shalt adde unto it thou makest as if thou wouldest by thy correction supply the place of God Thou dost grievously erre In like manner I also think that God hath perfectly and sufficiently composed in Simples compleat Remedies of any Diseases whatsoever In the next place I infallibly know that there is in the Archeus of vegetables no anatomical alliance or affinity with us whether we regard the whole or at length their parts For the endowments of Simples are by creation but not from an usurpation of possession for properties were already in their-own Herbes before sin death and necessity Lastly I believe that God doth give the knowledge of Simples to whom he will from a supernatural grace but not by the signes of nature For what Palmestrical affinity hath the Boars tooth the Goats blood the peisle of a Bull the dung of a Horse or the Herbe Daysie with a Pleurisie or what signature have those Simples with each other Truly I praise my Lord who before Diseases were created all things primarily for his own glory neither marked he Simples for Diseases that were to come by accident but for the grace of the universe from whence indeed the Lord hath honour Therefore I have laughed at Paracelsus because he hath erected serious trifles into the principles of healing There have not been those wanting also who have brought the huge Catalogue of Diseases into the signes of the Zodiack whose number seeing it was too narrow they have enlarged every one of the signes into a threefold Section To wit that they might divide all the virtues of Herbes into 36 and gather them into a narrow fold But the earth hath of it self a seminal virtue of producing Herbes the which therefore it doth not beg from the Heavens For the whole property of Herbes is from their Seed and the seminative power is drawn from the earth according to the holy Scriptures but not from the faces of the lights of Heaven For 16 or 20 Stars may be put to make a constellation or one of the 12 Houses and to be extended into 30 Degrees But in what sort could so few Stars contain the essences seeds faces and properties perhaps of five hundred plants differing in their species and internal properties Moreover besides a thousand vain attributions of so many things as well humane as politick Away with these trifles The properties of Herbes are in the Seeds but not in the Heaven or Stars The powers of the Stars are grown out of date the which by an old Fable have stood feigned unto heats colds and complexions For the Stars in whatsoever manner they are taken do differ from Plants much more than Herbs do from mists and frests or fishes from precious stones Let it therefore be a faulty argument to have attributed effects to causes which do contain nothing at all like a cause in them That is even as for a watch-man to dream if he shall believe such a thing or wholly to go out of his wits by his own thought Mathiolus Tabernomontanus Brasavolus Ruellius Fuchsius Tragus d'Allichampius and other observers of Herbes are hitherto busied only about the
is a beginning of declining Therefore let all Fruits Flowers Roots Leafs Barks c. have their own determined spaces of ripenesses For also the juice in Plants doth first abound the which in many doth forthwith after wax dry or is consumed into Leafs Therefore the variety of maturities doth bring forth a variety of Collections For so some Leafs are more lively after their Flowers but others are more juicy before their Leafs Then also there are some things which are stronger before the increase of their Fruit. Some remain with a perpetual countenance Wherefore they do the more rightly determine who measure Simples according to the requirance of their aim CHAP. LX. The Power of Medicines 1. The Authors comfort in his persecutions 2. The Author decyphers his Adversaries 3. A dream of the Author 4. He felt or perceived the Elementary qualities 5. He perceived Coagulations 6. He perceived Atrophiaes or Consumptions of the flesh 7. He perceived drynesses in us 8. He perceived drynesses in other things 9. An Error of the Schooles 10. Whence the heat of the Liver is and in what manner it subsisteth 11. He perceived the adulteries of Merchants 12. He perceived two savours of things 13. Notable things touching the taste and savour 14. He perceived the Causes of Healing 15. And likewise a twofold manner 16. He perceived the hope of immortality to be taken away 17. He perceived a certain goodness in nature 18. He perceived the digestive Ferments 19. He perceived true diureticks or provokers of Urine 20. He perceived the changing properties of Salts 21. He perceived the spirit of Salt to be changed by the co-touching of things connexed 22. He perceived the nigh or ready or slow obediences of Salts 23. He perceived Salts to be the Authors of wringings of the Bowels 24. The top or perfection of Salts is seen in their first Being 25. He perceived specifical Savours 26. The definition of a Savour 27. Things without savour are tasted by the stomack which are not judged of or discerned by the tongue 28. He perceived the occult property and the boastings of the Schooles 29. The searching after hidden or secret things is not for what but by the way of because from the effect to the cause according to the Gospel 30. He perceived unstopping or opening things 31. He perceived the activities of Salts 32. He perceived the spirits of Minerals 33. He perceived the loosening poyson of purging things 34. A threefold sign of a laudable Laxative 35. The error of Paracelsus 36. Chymistry 37. Distilled things are not to be judged suitable or equal to their concrete Bodies 38. He perceived many things to be transchanged by adjuncts 39. He perceived the sanguine glassie colour of a Mettal 40. He perceived the distillation of Lead whereof Paracelsus above 41. He cured divers Diseases 42. He perceived that the planetary faculties of Mettals were to be drawn forth by a higher or deeper resolving than that which hath been before 43. He perceived the divers virtues of dissolved Gold 44. He perceived the virtues of the Alkahest 45. He perceived the virtues of Mercurius vitae in its synonimal or fellow name of Lile 46. He perceived the action of renewing things 47. He perceived the root of a bewitching Sorcerie 48. He perceived Poysons 49. He perceived the actions of things according to the applications of the receiver 50. An Idiotism of Paracelsus about the nourishing of a Wound 51. The use of Salt 52. The variety of Oyles 53. The use of the water and salt of artificiated things 54. The Elixir of a Spice 55. The praise of Magisteries 56. Meats seasoned why unwholesome 57. A censure of some Minerals 58. He perceived a sixfold digestion 59. He perceived when the venal blood is quickned 60. What the inward and anointed grease may suffer 61. He perceived the action of Cantharides and Caustick Remedies 62. He perceived the virtue of an Amulet 63. The virtue of Stones 64. He perceived whence the diversity of effects in acting is 65. He perceived the necessities of death 66. The order of Chymical operations VExation brings forth understanding as too much pressure stifles it Although in my sharpest adversities I might make use of Job and Paul yet the Lord Jesus the Son of God so over-mightily helped me by his exemplary straits or griefs that he did not only ease my labours but as it were bear them in himself Let his name be alwayes honourable in my sight For I perceived the examples of Saints to be indeed inductives or motives but not to confer any grace by themselves For my mind in my greatest pressures for the most part grieved that I was comforted after a certain humane manner and through the sloath of unsensibleness that I did rather resemble an arrogant Stoicism than that I did with the joy of concentricity or a mutual centredness purely resign up my tribulations unto my most bountiful Jesus For I feared that rest of my soul which innocency raised up lest it might proceed from a despising and arrogancy and so lest my tribulations should be fruitless That I I say being immingled with the common lot and fellowship of the good men of the age prophesied of had become evil and unprofitable For I feared every hour that I was unsensible of grief neither that I did in the least feel those persecutions brought on me by a certain Clergy-man and those great ones which joyned with that Clergy-man and at length by the better part of the people otherwise in a man which was but in the least judicious very sensible ones For I feared lest that unbroken rest of my mind might happen from a despite toward my enemies I intreat therefore that God the fountain of all good may judge with Clemency At least wise I often considered by largely running through the foregoing ages and future persecutions of the Christians that the first persecution of the Church was violent and that of Tyrants Afterwards that there was another which followed that was fraudulent and that of Hereticks But ours hath indeed arose from Hypocrites but that it should be composed of deceit and force For there are those as saith the Prophetess St. Hildegard who shall first deceive the potent Prelates and their subjects or substitutes under a shew of Piety and at length as many as will not favour them they shall oppress by the power of great men Good God what have not I felt and how much could not I witness But the whole revenge have I referred to thee alone and I intreat thee out of Charity that thou wouldst spare them or that thou wouldst not damn them for my sake Because I receive all things from thy hand and they know not what they do At length I thought of a means whereby I might meditate that all my tribulations were transferred on the head of Nero and Tiberius Therefore I being at once wearied and refreshed and suddenly with great consolation sliding as it were into a
thirst remaining safe For that thirst doth proceed as a forraign excrement doth cause the nourishable juice of the stomack to melt For truly while I describe my feelings or perceivances I am not so much besides my self as that I shall deny the excess of an external heat to burn and cause a wound or ulcer or that cold excelling doth mortifie as if it did burn But in the Dream proposed I onely perceived them as they are serviceable to the speculation of healing Therefore the examples of excessive heat and cold are like a sword but not to be referred among the occasional and internal causes of diseases to be considered by a Physitian If indeed according to the speculations of Medicine health is expected by the removal of those wherefore the speculation of external and antecedent Causes is not curative but onely now and then significative and directive For a wound being once inflicted although the sword be taken away the wound is not healed neither is the fire to be taken from the hearth although it hath at sometime burnt or scorched some-body in the same place For truly the causes of Diseases are inward as they are connexed occasions therefore the consideration and removal of those is truly medicinal But the Schools when they saw the fire to burn its objects likewise also cold to mortifie and destroy and so the body of man by those external qualities excelling to be diversly disturbed they for that cause thought that Effects which should have heat adjoyned unto them were raised up by fire and in this respect that in Feavers two Elements did strive in us whereof the Water should alwaies obtain the former part of the victory but the Fire the latter part thereof to wit that the Fire did cause Erisipelas's the Prune or burning coal the accute or Persian fire the burning Feaver c. That it did likewise harden by drying or exsiccation of Schirrus's Stones Bones and Knots They have also decreed Remedies beseeming such rules by contrarieties not knowing after what sort the spirit of life may stir up heats and colds without fire or icy cold because neither from the Elements of our body or from feigned humours But they have on both sides neglected the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or violent assailant of Hippocrates Even as I have sometime by one example of a thorn thrust into the finger demonstrated wherein the Heat Pain Inflamation Feaver do not efficiently proceed from the fire of the thorn but because the sensitive Spirit doth grievously bear the forreign thorn So indeed heat and cold are accidents impertinent to the nature of a Feaver even as in the Liver are felt its heats because in the same place there are its thorns and the heat is not the cause but the effect of the thorn And therefore the alterations which do happen in the vital Family-admistration and do cease in dead carcases do not depend on the fire or icyness of the body or humours but on the Beginnings of life Yea if the Schools had touched at the matter as it is they had found that natural artificial Baths c. do not dry and burn us up but rather moisten us unless their heats are inordinate and of daily continuance yea neither then indeed otherwise than because more is consumed than is received doth the body accidentally wither At length I presently after the first qualities perceived the theevish adulteries of Merchants wherewith they load defile estrange and substitutively dissemble foreign Medicines or Drugs who have no need of my Doctrine because they are such as are not moved with the fear of Hell I presently after perceived two distinct Savours at least of things if not sometimes three or four one to wit whereby things are sharp bitter salt c. but the other which is called specifical being appropriated to the seed The first therefore I perceived to be the dignities and offices of Salts not indeed of Salts separated from the three first things or as they say drawn from corporeal Beginnings but of Salts glistening in their composed body But the other of the savours I perceived to be the seminal nature of Odours performing or at least unfolding the office of Forms in concrete bodies for Salts as being most sensible do first offer themselves to the taste whereunto therefore Hippocrates hath attributed the knowledges of diseases to wit bitter salt sharp and brackish pointing forth diseases But heats and colds he rather understood to be subsequent affects or passions than diseases But I do ascribe their judgement to the taste by reason of the aforesaid tastable qualities wherein for the most part a more profound power or faculty sits and containing the seminal and efficient cause But not that therefore the judgement concerning diseases doth belong to the tongue and the pallate but I name it the taste by reason of the tastable qualities Otherwise it is the feeling wherewithal the Instruments are strongly endowed whose sensitive force by an approximation of touching makes the signs of friendship or enmity about the hidden thing perceiveable After this manner therefore I perceived that it is the offices of the salts exceeding in force which do unfold the vertues of the subordinate forms of their concrete body and carry them unto the Archeus as it were their object whereon they act Therefore I perceived that Cures as well by Mediciues as by Nature are made by an appeasing of the disturbed Archeus and the removal of the seminal and diseasie character produced by the Archeus This indeed I have perceived to be the nearest safest and highest or chiefest curing But that which succeedeth by the help of secrets is busied about the taking away of the product And therefore I have perceived that Arcanum's do operate as Salts Indeed such cures do happen by removing of that which is hurtfull and by adding that which is defectuous for else those things which do hinder increases or appropriations have rather a regard unto prevention than unto curing it self but hurtfull things are taken away by resolving cleansing exhaling or expelling which properties are agreeable unto Salts But the removals of that which is hurtfull are not duly wrought by poisonous melting and putrifactive things as neither by the withdrawings of the venal blood and life But the adding of that which is deficient I have perceived not to be done by a proper means and therefore that we go back or decline by little and little through great want of the Tree of Life the which be it spoken of the vital faculties but not of the want of the venal blood which is restored by the kitchins But I have perceived that Nature doth voluntarily rise again and repair some of her defects if she shall be made to sit up after her prostrating To which end also balsamical and tinging things do help I perceived also that in the stomack is bred a soure salt partly volatile and partly fixed But that both are afterwards changed by their
ferments of the bowels which being enslaved by snatched ferments do often and successively measure their Original To wit of a mummial ferment is made the salt of the venal blood which is to rectifie or govern our family-administration but if in the kidney it be made diuretical it is now made an Urinary salt I perceived therefore that those things are onely and truly provokers sf urine which have a faculty of increasing the urinary salt and which do make it an easie client unto themselves In the next place I perceived that not onely in the dispositive ferments of the organs but besides by reason of Magnum Oportet or the necessary remainder of the middle life in Simples themselves that there are their properties of propagating and changing salts For some things have more gross salts and those unfit for receiving the ferment of the stomack and therefore they remain unconquered Others in the next place there are which by a hostile property are contrary to the vital powers and so they enter not but for troublesome ends into the Inns of Life I perceived that the volatile salt of the spirit of Vitriol did from a ready obedience in the first action of dissolution pass into a meer Alume For if the body of Mercury shall coagulate into a white powder although it reserve nothing of the matter or vertues of Mercury for that declareth the former weight of Mercury yet it passeth into a meer Alume But if the sharpness of Vitriol shall finde in the stomack a muscilage meeting with it it melts the same neither yet therefore doth it become Aluminous So that I perceived one and the same salt to be diversly transchanged by the thing connexed with it I perceived therefore that there were some salts which would cleanse away the filths in the stomack before they were subdued by its ferment but others which did slowly open their saltnesses and that not but after another digestion and seeing they did now manifest that thing that they were diuretical and diaphoretical or sudoriferous salts so also that then they would successfully free the veins of their obstructers I moreover perceived that there are salts which do not finde their disposition but at the time of dunging and they are sharp and colical or those which are opposite to these and are connexed in oily essences But the chiefest and most successfull of salts is that which reacheth unto the utmost bound and subtility in Nature which passeth thorow all things and in acting doth alone remain immutable and the which doth at pleasure through a ready obedience resolve other things and melts and makes volatile all rebellious matter even as hot water doth snow I by and by perceived specifical savours to wit of Mace Saffron c. to be as properties or as the shop of the ultimate forms uttered by salts excelling in strength Not indeed that these savours were the proper vertue of that form but rather the fermental putrifaction of that seed proceeding unto that ultimate form For truly a savour as such is a solitary quality unprofitable for healing a witness of the putrifying of its ferment by continuance a co-operator of curing as it disposeth the Archeus as a messenger that it may descend into the knowledge of a hidden property For unless things shall smile on the Archeus by savour and odour they are not admitted within Yea purging Medicines being in their first look without savour as are Turbith Hermodactiles Jallop Mercury Stibium c. as being masked with much Sugar yet if they are taken again they cause horrour and abomination There is therefore one taste of the tongue and another in the stomack as it were the utmost part of the Archeus Therefore stomatical savours which are acceptable do denote that there is in the thing a bountiful life a-kin to ours Wherefore a Cat is more delighted with the smell of putrified and stinking fish than of Cinnamon So indeed we do oft-times well perceive that poysons are occult or hidden by reason of their specifical savour and odour horrid to our Midriffs In like manner as oft as a pleasing taste appears in a poyson I have perceived that under the same Simple there lurketh a great secret the which the poyson being repelled is born and ordained for difficult effects I afterwards perceived that besides specifical savours and the gratefulness benevolence or horrors of these there was a certain formal property issuing forth yet unperceivable by the tongue and to be comprehended by the Archeus alone The Schools are amazed when they come unto occult qualities as they do therefore call them For when they cannot ascribe their trifles to heats colds and the begged complexions of these Writers indeed do lay aside their pen and Physitians do lift up their shoulder and eye-browes because they accuse that property to be known to them in the effect but unknown in the cause and they excuse themselves of this ignorance because the searching into those properties is impossible for mans understanding the which they else had already long since enquired into As if they should say We Schools are able to determine of as much as the mind of man can search We therefore decree that no powers of things can be understood or searched into by man but those which are the first qualities of the Elements or to arise from these We confess therefore that the formal faculties are occult because unpossible to be known Certainly the Schools are exceeding clayie or earthy watery airy cloudy and fiery how ignorant do they shew themselves of their own objects and how unlike to the exercise or practice which they profess For they have enslaved their wits to sluggishness that nothing may be more acceptable unto them than to have inclined to excuse their excuses in the ignorance and impossibility of nature wherewith every one vails his own in particular For at first when the Antients saw any Disease to be cured by a specifical and appropriated Remedy they were amazed as it were at the miracle of an unwonted thing But afterwards the Schools thought it satisfaction enough to have banished their blockishnesses into a general ignorance For neither although they had distinguished causes from the elementary qualities unto them known had they therefore spoken any thing undefiled and without suffusion of the sight For whoever hath more searched out the cause of moistness in the water or of heat in the fire by a reason from a former cause than of drawing Iron in the Load-stone The elementary qualities therefore are as hidden as any other Truly in this were the Schools blinded because they have proceeded against the Doctrine of the Gospel For primitive Truth willeth that we know the Tree by its Fruits but the Schools will that the Fruit ought to be known by the Tree I will therefore shew by the Fruits in what manner we must come unto the knowledge of the Tree First of all therefore for the knowing of occult causes a certain
poysons of Minerals are bred of Salts Sulphurs and Mercuries whereby their fury is propagated by a Seed Analogical or agreeable in proportion But how evident is that thing in the company of Vegetables where those seminal perturbations and therefore also co-natural ones are by Seeds transplanted with a continued course For we may well know any kind of poysons which are reduced by the ranks of perturbations by distinguishing of them Consequently also the knowledge of specifical properties is drawn per quia or from the Effect of the Cause if they are reduced unto the certain orders of perturbations or disturbances and affections Even as more largely elsewhere concerning the Plague So indeed many things are searched into and found out we thereby by the Effects come to the Causes and being led by the hand from one knowledge to another the poysons of an Erisipelas and Dysentery being in their Tearms from the wroth of the Archeus their cure is in a Hare wherein is fear meekesse flight and an harmless life Neither is the argument of contrariety of value For first of all I have admitted of contrarieties in living Creatures and I say that the properties of those being as it were sealed in the Idea's of living Creatures are in some sort contrary in the priority of the efficient tree as the Seals of Passions do end in to this Idea And so the fruits of this tree do act no more by way of contrary Passions but from the force of a received and inbred seminal Character wherein every thing acteth according to the Talent received even as it is in it self but not by reason of a repugnant duality or disagreeing contrariety Therefore the blood wherein is the seminal product and the effecter of the fearful meekness doth mortifie the poyson which is bred from a poysonous wrothfulness For I have noted in things loves hatreds terrors and the seminal products seals Idea's and characters of these Whence I have found out the immediate Causes of many hidden Remedies But I have interpreted them to be found out and suggested by me with the truth of possible and appearing consequences These things I have spoken concerning occult or hidden properties out of the Dream that we may cease to be occult Philosophers and may follow the manifest Doctrine of the more tractable ones Now I will prosecute my Dream I perceived I say that Smallage Asparagus and whatsoever things are taken to open Obstructions have indeed a Salt of a specifical savour the which being with their middle life made the Cream of the Stomack remaineth surviving although enfeebled yet that they do obtain weak Remedies for the opening of Obstructions For truly those things which do keep the Savour of their own concrete Body under the ferment of the Stomack as Onion Garlick Mace Turpentine Asparagus c. Those I perceived even to slide along with the Superfluities because they wax soure with their specifical Savour and then do take under the Gawl the nature of a Salt and at length under the dungy ferment of the Reines do put on a Urine-provoking or diuretical faculty But whose specifical Savours do putrifie by continuance and perish with the sourness of the Cream those things I perceived to be indifferent meats but whose Savours do not plainly yeild themselves into the sourness of the Cream and do after some sort remain in their mediocrity for the Cream if it should alike on every side receive a ferment and wax soure it should easily be sharper than Vinegar those things indeed-do through the force of the Gawl easily perish in the Meseraick Veines that together with a third or mumial ferment they may be changed into Venal Blood Therefore I perceived those to reach forth feeble aides for dissolving or opening of Obstructions At length I perceived that all simple Salts of the Sea Sal gemmae Fountaines Salt Peter c. as such do depart through the Urine and Intestines and in the mean time resolve the filths or dregs in those passages and render the expulsive faculty mindful of its duty But I perceive that Salts which carry a Mineral fruit in them are Strangers to our Nature and therefore are scarce to be inwardly admitted But Salts which are a part of the composed Body as Lixivium's and Alkalies I perceived to be deprived of Seminal Virtues and to have onely an abstersive or cleansing Soapie or resolving property unless they are volatile wherein I perceived the radical Beginnings and seminal Balsams of the concrete Body to be I perceived I say that these are easily transchanged into a new fruit because they do associate themselves with and act in all things according to their inbred endowments In the next place I have perceived the corrosive spirits of Minerals to differ far from themselves being crude to resolve the Excrements adhering to the sides of the first Vessels Yet not to be altogether destitute of Dammages by reason of an occult infection of Arsenick admixed with them from their original Therefore I perceived that occult properties as they call them being seminally traduced into the Archeus by the generater or efficient do unfold the presence of their Object and a sympathetical knowledge as they are immediately entertained in the bosom of the Formes Some to wit by a motive local Blas as the Load-stone Amber Gummes Lacca the herb Turne-sole Diamond for this also even as Carabe or Amber doth attract chaffes c. do bewray themselves but other things are terminated into an alteration as poysons likewise laxatives medicines tied about the Head or Body Antidotes c. Laxatives I have peculiarly perceived to operate onely by reason of a poyson lurking within them which being once admitted inwardly nigh the entrance whatsoever they touch they do ferment do afterwards resolve the things fermented and for that very cause do putrifie the things resolved I perceived therefore that Laxatives do putrifie the vital juyces but seldom the excrements the occasional causes of Diseases For seeing they are Poysons in respect of us and not of excrements hence they rise up rather against us than against Diseases And most speedily indeed do putrifie the more crude juyce or the not yet vital blood of the Veines or the yesterdays Cream But because they scarce suppress the excrements neither do these in like manner obey them seeing every action or Blas in us doth proceed from the Spirit which maketh the assault whereof excrements are deprived hence no Physitian dareth by taking Laxatives to promise a cure But true Solutives do neither cause Putrifaction nor selectively draw forth feigned Humours neither therefore do they resolve our vitial parts or things and the which Solutives I have perceived to bewray themselves by a three fold Sign First That they draw nothing from a healthy Body neither do they move after or weaken that Body Secondly That they do not fetch any thing forth but what is offensive and therefore they do not aggravate but ease of the burden and presently
the next place the immediate and connexed cause of the disease Oft-times again the opinion of their minde being changed they have withdrawn those qualities out of the account of diseases and causes and have undistinctly banished them into the troop of sumptomes and co-incident things onely being altogether doubtfull what a disease what a cause causing or what a sumptome should be But of the internal occasional causes of diseases which in the Book of Fevers I first brought into open view and of the equivocal or various kinds of products of diseases nothing hath been heard in the Schools For besides heats colds pains weaknesses and co-incidents of that sort they have known no other fermental effect of a disease whereunto at length for a conclusion they have brought death And so they have confusedly joyned privative things to positive In the mean time they have doubted to what predicament they might ascribe diseases For they oft-times denominate a disease to be a quality otherwise also a certain relative habitude or disposition of body oftentimes also to be a quality of the number of actions they do often say it to be of the predicament of quantity to wit while they say that diseases are not the first qualities themselves but their distemperature or degree or excess onely and while they bring a sixth finger into numbers But being unmindfull of what they said before they will have a certain disposition resulting from a hurtfull quality of humours to fill up both pages or extensions of a disease to wit so as that that disposition may be the daughter of the hurtfull quality as of the diseasifying cause And so then a disease should supply the room rather of an action hurt than of the hurter of actions And likewise a disease should not be any longer a distemperature or the excess of a quality but another product as yet unnamed from the distemperature it self to wit a hurtfull quality of humours shall generate the disposition which onely and alone should at length be truly the disease For truly a man that hath the falling Evil a mad man a gouty person and one that hath a Quartane Ague besides and out of the fit are diseasie and do nourish the disease within Yet they have not such a diathesis or disposition for if the Schools do believe diseases to be meer accidents surely these know not how to sleep neither are they while they do not act in the time of rest from invasion Therefore at least-wise in that sort of sick folks the disease shall by no means be such a dispositive disposition Again they being unmindfull of themselves do will that if that disposition be small it is not to have the reason or essence of a disease but therefore that it then doth bring forth a neither state or an hermaphroditical Being between a disease and not a disease so that its essence doth for the half of it partake of a non-being and that as well in the state of declining as of recovery And which more is they reckon such a small diathesis not among diseases but with the weaknesses of a state of neutrality and among symptomes And that there it doth patiently wait until that having obtained a degree of a symptome it be made a disease And so a diseasie disposition is not a disease if it hath not as yet manifestly hurt by its excesse wherefore also not the disposition it self but the excess thereof is the disease of a proper name in the Schools The correllative whereof is that the degree onely of some qualities doth make and change the essence and species of its own self neither shall a species therefore have its own thinglinesse in its being specifical but onely in the point of excesse So at length a disease shall wander from a quality into the predicament in relation In the next place if a disease be an effect immediately hurting action they ought even from thence at least to acknowledge that the Archeus himself or the maker of the assault while he is irregularly moved to wit while Scarr-wort doth embladder a living body not likewise a dead carcass and layes aside and loseth a part of himself for this purpose ought to be the universal and primary disease of all Even as I have threatned to demonstrate concerning Feavers They likewise ought to acknowledge if material causes do by themselves and primarily suffice for an immediate hurting of the functions themselves to wit as a Cataract before the apple of the eye doth by it self and immediately bring forth blindness even as the cutting off or mayming of a tendon doth take away motion without the intervening of a disposition really distinct from the curtailing wound that there is no need of feigning such a disposition for there is not any stoppage or diathesis which stops up the passage of the urine if the stone alone doth immediately do that and materially stop and doth so perfectly and really contain the whole foundation of a relation in it self that the disposition or stoppifying action proceeding from the stopping stone is nothing but a relation and meer Being of reason which in diseases in time of healing as also in true Beings and things truly existing hath no place wherefore extrinsecal diseases such as are wounds and what things soever do intercept any passage seeing they do not arise from a seminal beginning nor do nourish a cause which may stir up the Archeus they are the clients of another Monarchy But for seminal diseases it is a nearer thing in nature and motion to suppose the Spirit the Archeus as it is the efficient beginning of feeling and motion to be immediately and most nearly affected by hurtfull things and that that occasional cause and the Archeus do mutually touch each other in a point whence a disease For the occasional matter whether it be brought to within or be bred within or be coagulable or putrifiable lastly dispersable or waxing hard doth alwaies onely occasionally stir up the Archeus that he may thereby be astonied or sore afraid and wax diversly wroth To wit under whose perturbation an Idea is bred informing some part of the Archeus And that thing composed of the matter of the Archeus and the aforesaid seminal Idea as the efficient Beginning is in truth every seminal disease Therefore the Schools being seduced by their own proper liberties of dreams have thought that because the consideration of Causes and Principles differs from the consideration of the thing produced by them therefore from a necessity formally causing all Causes ought in making being operating and remaining to remain perpetually separated from the things caused not heeding that for the most part the consideration of Causes and Principles doth not otherwise differ from the consideration of the thing caused than by the relation of a mental Being the which although it be received in Science Mathematical and discoursary things yet not in the course of Nature Therefore the Schools being deluded by such faulty
of a Disease to owe an unseparable respect unto the hurting and things hurting of Functions So indeed that these Essences of Diseases should be included therein Because they have thought that the whole hinge of healing was rowled about contraries when as otherwise it is wholly by accident if in Diseases Functions are hurt otherwise whoever was he who denied a Disease not really to be present in the silence of a quartane Ague the falling sickness madness and Gout When notwithstanding no hurting of Functions is seen who is he which doth not now and then observe in a person recovering greater hindrances of actions and weaknesses than in the flaming beginning of Diseases It hath therefore alwaies seemed a blockish thing to me for a thing to be essentially defined by later and separable effects And seeing a Disease is primarily made by the Archeus which maketh an assault yet by an erring one certainly the action hereof shall be much nearer into the faculties themselves than into the actions of the same especially because as long as the faculties are as yet in one that is in recovery as it were vanquished and sore shaken there are indeed impediments of the faculties present likewise a hurting and suppression of actions yet no Disease surviving And seeing that I have elsewhere sufficiently demonstrated that both causes in natural things do not differ in supposition from the very thing it self constituted Therefore if a disease should be the cause of the hurting of an action as the constitutive difference of the same it should also of necessity be that a disease it self is not any thing diverse from an action being hurt which thing is already manifest to be false It should also be false that the cause and the disease should by the one onely title of the hurter of an action be undistinctly comprehended or the Schooles do badly decree that the hurter of action is the cause of a disease it self But the hurting of the action should be the disease and the action hurt the symptome it self for that is also a devise too childish For First A Disease should be a meer being of Reason mentally arising from a disposition of the tearms of the Cause unto the Effect To wit of the Hurter and the thing Hurt And then an Error is discerned in the definition of a Disease delivered by the Schooles To wit That a Disease is a Disposition primarily hurting an Action Because it is that which should define the Cause and not the Disease it self or the Effect of the Cause Thirdly If a Remedy ought to remove that it self which hurteth the Action that shall either have a singular Monarchy whereby it may call forth and shake off the Hurter it self or the Remedy shall joyn it self to Nature her self and that so most unitingly that their forces being conjoyned and they being now as it were one united thing doth set it self in an opposite term against the Hurter it self But the first of these is not true Because the Remedy should be as forreign unto Nature as is otherwise the Disease it self by reason of a particular direction and arbitriment of motions despised by our Archeus For if it ought to help it should have a power superiour to man's Nature in such a manner that it should obey neither the Lawes of things causing Diseases nor bringing Death And so it should expel the Cause which bringeth the Disease as well from a dead Carcass as from a languishing person Neither likewise hath the later place Because if the Remedy should be united to nature radically and by an unitive mixture it should have a priviledge above the condition of nourishment A hurting therefore of Action it self doth not fall into the definition of a Disease Especially because a Remedy doth not respect so much the occasional Cause as the internal efficient Cause of a Disease it self Whence that Maxime is verified That Natures themselves are the Curesses of Diseases as the Effectresses thereof They indeed do on both sides confound the Disease with the Symptom to the destruction of those that are to be cured seeing curing is seated oftentimes in the removal of the occasional Cause but never in the removing of Symptomes And because the removal of the occasional cause is thought to be an eduction or drawing out of matter nothing but solutives and diminishers of contents have flourished hitherto whereas otherwise a removal of the occasional cause doth more respect a correction or pacifying of the immediate efficient than a pulling away of the occasional matter Because after correction even without a removal of the occasional matter a cessation and unhoped for rest yea and also a cure do for the most part by and by happen The which in a sympathetical cure doth frequently come to hand and manifestly appeareth The Schools therefore have been deceived by artificial things and because they have thought that all generation is begun from the privative point of corruption They have not known that that which now flows in the material seminal Beginning of all things whatsoever hath already for that very cause it s own real Being although an unripe one and that it is hereby this something in it self and distinct from any other thing and that it doth by a natural generation attain only a maturity and illustration in its top or perfection by reason of a new formal light of acting Neither indeed doth the seed therefore differ from its constituted Being by the efficient internal cause and matter but only by an individual alterity or interchangeable course of the perfection of a formal light even as elsewhere concerning the birth of Forms For the Seed which at first had need of an exciter this formal light being obtained is afterwards for the moving of it self The Schools also do now and then consider a Disease even as if it were a neutral product proceeding or issuing forth through an activity of the cause and a reluctancy of our nature But I know that as well the formal Agent as the Patient in a Disease are strangers unto us in that act To wit I know that the Falling-sicknesse is no lesse really in us at the time of its silence than when it shall be in its full fit I know also that a Disease is a real substantive Being but not a relative Being not a naked disposition of the Agent and thing striving unto the Patient as of extreams unto a mean or middle thing Neither lastly that it is a conformity of proportion or disproportion between extreams Although this respect of forming a relation between the Beings of Reason be nearer than the effect produced I know further that every natural Agent is born to produce its like except that which acteth by a Blas but the power or faculty as well that locally motive as alterative because it wanted a name it seemed good to me to have it called Blas in the Beginnings of the Physicks or natural Phylosophy So the Heaven generates Meteors not
Heavens And a man by a voluntary Blas and likewise the Archeus by an ideal and seminal Blas stirs up divers alterations But a seminal Agent being inordinate doth through a strange Blas bring forth a Monster which is properly a Disease For although a Disease according to its causes be natural yet in respect of us it ceaseth not to be against nature as well in as much as it began from a forreign Blas as that it carrieth a hostile Blas and raiseth it up from it self And therefore neither doth this Monster generate a Young like it self unless it by serments doth transfer its own seminal contagion and so causeth Diseases in others by accident But as to that which belongs to the efficient cause of Diseases There is in an abortive Birth a certain efficient cause bred within as is a Cataract in the eye the stone in man a Feverish matter the which although it be called by the Schools the efficient immediate and containing cause of a Disease yet it is only the occasional cause of Diseases and external in respect of the life wherein every Disease alway is And therefore neither can such a visible matter not only obtain the reason of a true efficient but neither also can it be of the intrinsecal matter of a Disease it self to be any part thereof It remains therefore the conciting and occasional cause of Diseases Because the efficient and seminal matter if it ought immediately to reach and pierce the vital faculties and so also the life even as also in a point it is altogether necessary that it doth contain a resembling mark of life Even so that also that thing is perpetual in seminal Diseases that a Disease as it is never in a dead carcass so it cannot but be in a living Body Furthermore of efficient causes there is a certain one which is and remaineth external As a sword having obtained an impulsive force maketh a Disease in the divided matter which is called a wound After the like manner is the fretting of the bladder which is made by the Stone For although some external efficients have their own seminal Beginnings whereof they are generated as the Stone yet in respect of the Disease which they produce they want Seeds and therefore are they external and forreign to the Disease it self But internal occasionals have a Seed whereby they nourish the Disease stirred up by them and are also oft-times shut up or finished in their being made As is manifest in a Fever an Imposthume c. In the next place there are occasional efficients which do defile by a continual and fermental propagation As Ulcers the Jaundice c. And there are internal occasionals which do now and then sleep a long time As in the Falling-sickness Gout Madness Asthma Fevers c. Of internal occasional causes also some do uncessantly labour that they may estrange the matter of our Body from the Communion of life Whereto if a Ferment shall come which thing Hippocrates in Diseases calls divine co-meltings of the Body are made But in a Fever the efficient occasional matter according to its double property doth stir up the Archeus unto a propulsion or driving out for the consuming of it self Wherefore neither doth it leave any other product behind it unless a new Idea shall from the Archeus being provoked spring forth by accident In like manner as the Dropsie followeth Fevers c. But let pains drowsinesses watchings weaknessses c. be symptoms and dispositions so also a strange seminal efficient doth beget the Stone and there ceaseth although it thenceforth stirs up troubles every moment and new motions But the product of the Stone are excoriations or gratings off of the skin and new Diseases which are Monsters unlike their Parent For in speaking properly the generation of the Stone is not a Disease and much more the Stone it self which in it self is a natural composition but in respect of us diseasie Wherefore also in the Chamber-pot or Urinal and without the life it is generated by its own causes of putrifaction or stonifying And so it is a monstrous and irregular Disease because it is that which is bred in us by accident and without the life In the next place as soon as the effect or product in its being made hath lost its occasional efficient that product is no longer the very connexion of both causes or the former Disease but it hath its own causes more latter than the connexion of the first causes For so an Imposthume hath brought forth an Ulcer but this weeps a poysonsom liquor this in the next place doth oft-times excoriate changeth the former Ulcer or raiseth up a new one But it nothing pertains unto the causing Ulcer whether its liquor doth afterwards ulcerate or not because there is not in it an effective intention to produce an Ulcer by the liquor Because the corrupt Sanies or liquor it self is the product of the Ulcer causing it which received its effective and seminal intention in its own essence but not for the propagation of a new Ulcer which is therefore unto it by accident The Stone also is the product of its constituting causes which it encloseth and terminates in it self Because the causes thereof being brought unto the end of their effecting do cease in the product and are shut up as if they were buried Although that Stone be an occasional means whereunto the generation of a new Stone happens by growing In the mean time it is to the Stone by accident if it produce other Diseases more cruel than it self yea than death it self But in the Dropsie the efficient Archeus of the Reins in the conception of an Idea begotten by his own perturbation closeth up the Kidneys and a Dropsie is made Yet the former efficient doth not cease even unto the strangling of the person In that Dropsie being caused and the water being produced and dismissed there is not a further intention to produce any other thing After another manner oft-times the product of a Disease seeing it is an in-bred Monster it hath an occasional propagative faculty from the property of the efficient Archeus not enclosed or bound up in the product but free in the Organs of life Whence indeed other products do now and then successively spring forth At least-wise the lavishments of the faculties and life ought not so much to be accounted the products of Diseases as their ordained fruits and symptoms and the periods of these Neither in the mean time is that a Disease by a less priviledge which is produced by a diseasie ferment than was the Disease the Parent of that Product Neither indeed doth it more sluggishly corrupt some vital thing or part by strange efficients being received than that in the primary efficient of whose action the Disease it self is But the Schools do suppose a contrariety of the Disease with health with life and again with the Remedy it self Therefore unto one term they apply many contrary
ones contrary to the nature of relatives and contrary to their own Maxim That one contrary is said to be as many wayes as the other For the doctrine of contraries in Remedies standing health likewise ought to come forth of Medicine as a chick out of an egge Or seeing that contraries ought to reduce each other unto nothing health ought to proceed from a Disease even as otherwise weakness proceeds from a Disease For if a Remedy be contrary to a Disease verily the faculties of our life cannot be contrary to a Disease and by consequence a Disease shall not be able to hurt our faculties or the actions of these And the Schools have erred while they contend that in a Crisis or judicial Sign a Disease doth in its whole course sustain a single combat with our faculties But if a Disease be contrary to our faculties and to the Remedy it self at least wise they shall incongruously apply cold things in a Fever they being applied no lesse to the vital faculty than to the Disease Yea if from a contrariety of disposition a Disease be bred our action ought not wholly to depend on the Spirit making the assault but on the meer cause of the Disease and the which therefore seeing it should have the principle of its motion in it self it ought to operate as well in a dead carcass as in a living Body and the whole skirmish should be only between the dispositions of strange accidents suppressing each other Of which strife the life it self should be only a hateful spectator without discommodity to it self What other thing is this than to have feigned a sluggish and cold vital Philosophy and that the Physitians or Curers of Fevers are cold What if a Disease doth stand in a quality whose contrary warriour they will have to be known by sense and elementary why therefore are so uncertain weak and slow Remedies of Diseases devised Why are there so manifest and ready Tokens Remedies and Simples of manifest contrary qualities boasted of in the Schooles Therefore according to mee a disease is a substantial Being begotten by Archeal causes as well materially as efficiently But heat and cold and that sort of signed Concomitants I call fruits and symptoms far different from the produced Diseases For a Disease is oft-times furiously moved against us wherein many symptoms do interpose which Disease notwithstanding doth oftentimes cease without a product As is manifest in intermitting Fevers For neither doth a new Disease arise from thence But only nature intends to shake off a tedious guest under which endeavour fruits and symptoms are produced drowsinesses heats colds pains watchings disquietnesses vomits weaknesses c. Elsewhere also a Disease doth often convert the matter of its Inne To wit while the Archeus being stirred up by an occasional ferment doth bring forth a new product whether in the mean time the former Disease be shut up in the term of the product or not Neither doth a Disease also seldom occasionally produce a Monster unlike to it self While a Fever doth cause the Dropsie a Cataract Scirrhus c. because they are the products of Diseases by accident To wit whereof a new Idea from the Archeus is the Mother as shall appear beneath in its place But weaknesse is a universal Fruit of Diseases the Chamber-maid of these The which indeed is no other thing than a disposition following a diminution of the strength or faculties And it is either total by reason of the afflictings of a notable or noble part It happens also through an adherency of a diseasie occasion unto some solid part Whence the Archeus being at length the extinct a blasting of that part and presently after a death of the whole Body do also proceed Or weaknesse is particular by reason of a particular Blas affecting some member by its animosity or wrathfulnesse For so from the stomack is there a giddinesse of the Head Head-ach c. as from the Womb the parts do diversly and miserably languish by an Aspect Which things surely are the symptoms and fruits of the Archeus but not the Diseases thereof the which otherwise do naturally lay up their own efficients in themselves Even as elsewhere concerning the action of Government In the next place the product of a Disease differs from a symptom in this as this is a fruit it requires indeed a mitigation from the Archeus himself but not a curing as it is by it self Because it likewise vanisheth together with the Disease But I find no mention of the product of Diseases in the Schools but it is either confounded with a symptom or is attributed to a certain new distemperature and a new aflux of humours Others also are wont to dedicate Diseases to the parts containing the causes likewise to the parts contained but to banish symptoms into the spirit making the assault Being in the first place badly mindful that they attribute the heat and cold of the first qualities as Diseases to humours contained In the next place if a Disease be in the part containing and the cause in the thing contained If the spirit in-bred in us shall not move or stir up the cause and the disease whereby I pray you shall it be done what shall beget a disease by a cause if not the spirit For as wrath bashfulnesse and agony do heat by a Blas so fear grief and sorrow do cool without the aid of humours But Pepper and heating things do heat living creatures but not dead carcasses as neither do Cantharides Scar-wort or Smallage embladder these But Causticks do even wast a dead carcasse and that not through the effect of their own heat but only by virtue of a burning Salt which resolves the solid parts into a Salt without heat To wit even as Calx vive doth resolve Cheese into a muscilage Causticks therefore or searing Remedies do generate an Eschar in a live Body but not in a dead carcasse but they do resolve this by a simple resolution of their Salt But because in a live Body the Archeus is also inflamed within an Eschar is produced from both Agents To wit the Caustick and the Archeus Lastly the fire doth indifferently burn as well a living as a dead Body and more speedily the live Body it self Because the fire consumes from without by burning and the spirit it self through its inflaming becomes caustical or burning within Therefore from a fourfold handy-craft operation to wit of the Fire Pepper a Vesicatory and Caustick the remarkable things which follow do voluntarily issue 1. That the efficient heat of heating things is ours In Pepper therefore there is only an occasional exciting heat 2. That a Fever is not heat effentially but it hath things proper to it as well cold as heat from the property of an alterative Blas And that not efficiently but only occasionally incitingly and accidentally But the Archeus alone is the efficient of heat and cold For neither is a Feverish matter in a Body otherwise hot
now made cold then afterwards hot that the whole Body may be cold and hot at the successive change thereof But they are the works and signatures of life not the properties of diseasie Seeds in the matter but meer pessions of the Body thus moved by a Blas from the heat and cold of the Archeus And therefore neither do they any longer happen in a dead carcass as neither after a Disease obtains the Victory neither also when the Disease ceaseth the occasional matter in the mean time remaining 3. That the very thing which worketh heat in us doth efficiently also produce cold Not indeed privatively in respect of heat because cold is a real and actual Blas of the Archeus 4. That no curing is made by contraries as neither by reason of like things because a Disease consisteth essentially in the seminal Idea and in the matter of the Archeus but at leastwise substances do not admit of a contrariety in their own essence 5. That a Disease is primitively overcome by extinguishing of the Idea or a removal of the essential matter thereof 2. Originally by allaying and pacifying of the disturbed Archeus And 3. From a latter thing to wit if the occasional matter be taken away which stirs up a motive and alterative Blas of entertainment that the Idea or Disease may be efficiently made 6. That both the inward causes connexed in the Archeus is the very substantial Disease having in it its proper root But the occasional matter however it be received in the Body is alwayes external because it is not of the inward root and essence of a Disease 7. That Symptoms are accidents by accident breaking forth by excitation or stirring up according to the variety of every Receiver And it is rather a wandring error or fury of our Powers 8. That the Archeus which formed us in the Womb doth also direct govern move all things during life Therefore occasional causes are perceived only in the Archeus who afterwards according to the disturbance thereby conceived doth bring forth his own Idea's which immediately have a Blas whereby they move direct and change and finish whatsoever happens in health and Diseases But the parts of the Body as well those containing as those contained and likewise the occasional causes of Diseases of themselves are dead and idle neither can they move themselves or any other thing Seeing nothing is moved by it self which is not by it self and primarily vital except weight which naturally falleth downwards 9. That the products and effects of Diseases are seminal generations so depending on the Seeds that they do shew forth the properties of these 10. That heat cold heates c. seeing they are not the proper causes of a Disease nor the true products of Diseases but only the symptomatical accidents and signatures of Diseases therefore also neither do they subsist by themselves but they do so depend on Diseases that they depart together with them like a shadow Because they are the errors of a vital light or an erroneous Blas stirred up from Diseases 11. That Diseases are seminal Beings except extrinsecal ones wounds a bruise or stroke burning c. and therefore effects of the Archeus resulting in a true action from the occasionals of the exciter accidentally sprung up in an Archeal error of our Powers 12. That although without the will of a living Creature contraries should be found in nature yet by these there should be no possible restauration of the hurt faculties as neither a pacifying of the Areheus and by consequence no curing if that be even true That Natures themselves are the Physitiannesses of Diseases and that the Physitian is their Minister Truly that thing is proved by the Fire the which by reason of the most intense coldness of the Aire which I have elsewhere proved to be far more cruel than the cold of the Water doth the more strongly flame and burn So far is it that Fire should be exstinguished by cold which is falsly reputed its contrary And moreover neither have the Schooles known that Fire is not extinguished by Water because it is cold moist or contrary to it but by reason of choaking onely The which we daily see in our Furnaces For as the Fire is momentany and connexed unto it self by a continual thred of exhalations hence it is stifled almost in one only moment for so the water because it is fluid enters into the pores of the burning matter and by stopping them up doth suffocate or quench the Fire so also a Mettal or Glasse being fired and burning bright do shine long in the most cold bottom of the Water and in the mean time a Coal being fired is choaked in an instant under the Water Because the pores thereof are presently stopped Therefore Copper burning bright is sooner extinguished than Silver and Silver than Gold But Glasse being fired because it wants pores shines longer under the Water than a like quantity of Gold Yea hot Water doth sooner quench Fire than cold because it sooner pierceth the pores Therein also they have remained dull that they considered our heat alwayes by making a comparison of it with Fire For although the Fire be a Being of Nature yet because it was directed by the most High for the uses of Mortals that it might enter into Nature as a Destroyer and might be as it were an artificial Death therefore it prosecutes its own artificial ends but hath not any thing in its self which may be vital or seminal There is therefore no Fire in Nature if it hath not first arose unto a due degree for a Destroyer wherein it is nothing or little profitable for the speculation of Medicine Surely our heat is not graduated and therefore neither is it fiery neither doth it proceed from the Fire as being weakened or diminished but it is the heat of a formal light and therefore also vital neither therefore doth it subsist in its last or highest degree even as the fire doth For it admits of a latitude and its degree is made to vary according to the provocation if its Blas For although it be from a formal light and in that respect doth live yet through a Blas it doth oft-times ascend higher or is pressed lower as well in healthy persons as in sick folk In the next place it more highly deviates through furies and then it as burnt up uncloaths it self of a vital light and assumes a Caustical or burnt Alcali which thing is seen in moist and compressed Hay where Fire voluntarily ariseth So in Escarrie effects our heat being forgetful of its former life passeth into a degree of fire For through a congresse of lightsome beames and a degeneration of the salt of the Spirits even as in Hay true Fire is bred and would burn us if the Archeus should expect this end of the Tragedy before death Our heat indeed is in the Fire as the number of Two is in the number of Forty yet the Fire is not in
so a small vein being burst had caused a difficult breathing and did also dissemble a Dropsie But when as the rupture of the vein being more rent had poured forth its Blood it choaked the man A certain Dropsical Man and but one onely being seen by me shewed a black and stinking Bubble in the hollow of his Liver Barth-Cabrollius an Anatomist of Mount-Pellier Saith that he cured very many Dropsical Persons by Incision made in the very Navill it self standing out and that in both sexes But surely if the errour had been in the Liver it could not have issued forth with the water through the Navil or that the Liver being mortally defiled should admit of a restoring Which thing the Schooles will not admit of Wherefore I remember that I have restored above two thousand Dropsical Persons also whose Urine did now wax-blackish with Bloodinesse and who had scarce made a spoon-ful of water in one night whose Liver if it had had but even a mean and not a mortal fault I consess I had not Cured them I have seen also that they whose Liver hath been notably wounded have escaped who although they thenceforth fore-perceived the Storms of the Aire yet not the Dropsie I have seen moreover those whose last day a slow Fever had closed in whose Liver small Stones had grown yet they had not shewn a Dropsie It is a familiar thing for the Liver of Oxen to abound with small Stones although they are continually fed with grasse Whence at leastwise I have learned that Grass-roots do never remove the obstructions of the Liver The Schooles will say to these things the Dropsie indeed is not made from a visible corrupting or obstruction of the Liver as neither from the Salt of the feigned Jamenous-alume as otherwise hath seemed to Paracelsus but from a meer cold and moist Distemperature thereof for so a large Flux of Blood because it brings the aforesaid distemperature it causeth the Dropsie But this is wholly prattle old Wives Fables and vain sounds For first of all I have sufficiently demonstrated the nullities of mixtures and temperatures not any more to be repeated 2. I have seen many all the venal Blood of whom a Consumption had exhausted so as that scarce two ounces had remained when their Heart Lungs and Liver were plucked out but their Liver was of a yellowish Colour because it was without Blood yet there was no cold and moist distemper in these Livers as neither a Dropsie the Supposed son of its feigned Mother 3. If much Flux of Blood should generate cold and moist distemperatures surely the Schooles do not affirm that thing to be done but by the reason of a withdrawing of the vital Spirit which alone is the cause of our heat But the defect whereof seeing it includes a privation it cannot induce a positive Being such as a cold and moist distemperature and Dropsie should be 4. And likewise seeing they will have contraries to be contained under the same general kinde our vital heat which they will have to answer to the Element of the Stars cannot have an Elementary cold contrary unto it 5. A notable Flux of Blood doth of necessity cause cold And therefore if a cold distemperature arisen from a Flux of Blood should be of necessity the mother of the Dropsie at every notable flux of blood the Dropsie should of necessity be present But the consequent is false Therefore also the Antecedent 6. And moreover seeing cold from a flux of blood becomes universal there is no reason why the Abdomen should be rather loaden with water than the Breast whither to wit the Aire being continually breathed in doth increase the cold 7. If the Dropsie be the son of that distemperature in the Liver Whence therefore is there an uncessant thirst 8. If the Expulsion of water into the Abdomen be an action of a distempered Liver Why doth not the Liver use the same its own expulsive action while the Veines do swell with Urine they being intercepted by a destructive Stone 9. Likewise the Blood of Dropsical Persons even as also the Urine should be exceeding watery if the Dropsie should be from a cold distemperature of the Liver But the Urine should not be so reddish and Bloody 10. In the next place between a Dropsie and cold distemperature arisen from a flux of blood a positive cause being a third from a cold should of necessity interpose Which the Schooles do hitherto name because of a non-being there is no search made 11. Neither also do such distemperatures produce thirst together with a Salt Water in the Abdomen seeing they do not thirst who do plentifully detain a salt Urine throughout all their veins in the Stone which stops up the Reines on both sides 12. If the Dropsie be from a cold distemper Then a Dropsie should never be expected after a Fever or wringing of the Bowels if there be not a branded confusion of causes And in vain do they flee unto a cold distemperature for a Dropsie the which should equally proceed even from opposite causes 13. Every old and decrepite Person should now nourish the necessity of a Dropsie 14. A cold distemper seeing in its root it is like to Death extinguishment old Age and privation every Dropsie should contain a necessary despaire of health even as such a distemperature denies a restauration 15. If the Liver be the Liver and not the Lungs by reason of its Elementary co-tempering as the Schooles say and so from one only Seed all the Elements do proceed and wander hither and thither confused that they may be the constitutives of appointed Organs therefore the Liver receding from its natural temperature shall cease to be the Liver and shall be the Kidney Lungs or Milt 16. At leastwise a Member struck with a Palsey should not be wasted but should be after some sort swollen with a Dropsie 17. At length if the Venal Blood be resolved into four or again into three Humours from whence it is either naturally composed or they are in it being applyed unto or co-mixed in the subject of the Blood The Blood shall never be able to be changed into a Dropsical water Seeing this is not any Humour of the constitutives of the Blood Yet I have seen a country-man out of whom all the water was taken by a Borer in twelve hours space for he being become my Opposite Scoffed at me But the morrow morning being swollen with the former Lumpe of his Belly he died For the Dropsie increased not by degrees even as it had increased from its beginning but it presently hastened and proceeded unto an extream extension For I observed that his Flesh and Blood being melted into Water had made their retreat to the neather part of his Belly For in that one only day he had descended into extream Leannesse Therefore his Flesh and Blood shall now wander into an Hydropical or fifth Humour through the cold distemperature of his Liver I could perhaps pardon
that the Liver being cooled doth afterwards generate the more cold Blood for all Blood being deprived of vital spirit naturally waxeth cold because it is a dead carcase But that a more cold Liver doth melt fleshes into a Dropsical water that can be founded upon no reason 18. The Schooles cannot deny but that a Dropsie is sometimes solved by the Kidneys But there is no reason why the Reines do stubornly close themselves even untill Death because the Liver was more cold than was meet Let these arguments onely as yet suffice the Humourists which are distempered with cold that the Liver may be from a mortal offence Now I will over-add somethings concerning the occasional Cause I will therefore resume the fact of our Treasurer who shewed nothing memorable in this dissection beside Blood out-hunted and hardned in his Kidney to be the occasional Cause of his Dropsie and Death yet while the Stone plentifully stopping the Kidney doth not produce a Dropsie yea although the whole Kidney shall wax brawnie or hard with little Stones and shall reserve nothing of its substance besides skin Therefore the obstruction of the Kidney as such is not the occasional cause of Dropsie But the out-chased venal Blood For so the Woman of Sixty years old having dashed her self against a corner of the Table contracted a Dropsie So those that are wounded in their Abdomen and badly Cured do become Hydropical So out-chased venal Blood lighting and laying on the Menynx or Coate of the Brain doth presently render the countenance swollen with a Dropsie So at length great gripings of the Guts do pour forth Blood out of the Veins into the space bordering on the hollow bending Bowel So those that have the Bloodie-flux And so Drinkers do enter into a Dropsie as something of blood is co-heaped in the hollow Bought of the Bowel But this thing I learned in a Fracture of the Scull and in a Dropsie of the Lungs For there the Blood making oftimes a stop blows up the whole Head and Face as it were with a Dropsie But here I have observed the Blood to have consisted or remained about the conduit of the arterial Vein for neither doth the venal blood degenerate in the form of corrupt Pus unless it be cocted in the hollowness of the Flesh but without the Flesh in a free place the Blood presently waxeth clottie and straight way after it being made more dry is hardened and presently conceives a Poysonous ferment Whence the Archeus stirs up a Dropsie Indeed our Treasurer hath taught me that the blood being hunted out and become clotty causeth a Dropsie of the Belly and besides that the Kidney is an Adequate or suitabl Aertificer Causer Executer and Judge or Arbitratour of a true Dropsie That thing hath confirmed it to me because at the time of a Dropsie the Kidney scarce makes Urine and on the other hand because the Kidney being excited to restore the Urine himself doth empty the whole Dropsie out of the Belly Wherefore also that the water is brought back into the Abdomen by the arbitration of the Kidney Vain therefore is the devise of Paracelsus that the Star Zedo is the one only and singular Architector of the Dropsie For the cause is in our innermost parts and in the very Beginnings of Life but not to be so far fetched and Cured For the Dropsie is not the workmanship of the Stars neither is there such an ordination of the Stars neither is that of concernment although Mercurie being seperated dead from its Vein doth truly and perfectly cure the threefold Dropsie For Mercurie is an Analogical and feigned Name neither doth it denote a Star but a running Mettal For what doth a Name that is Metaphorically feigned belong unto the feigned Star of Zedo For metallick Mercury is neither a Star nor kills a Star nor hinders its operation nor dis-joynes the conjunction of a Star with us if there were any For the Stars are the occasions of Meteors but of Diseases occasions onely by accident For primarily they are the Causes of times or seasons and of the Blas of a Meteor but secondarily and by accident they disturbe our Bodies proyoke Diseases or ripen the occasional matter But Causes by accident do not respect Cures but fore-cautions especially where Causes per se or by themselves do operate with or in us by a proper motion and appointment of their own seeds For indeed the left Kidney of the Treasurer is stuffed or condensed with the more dry Blood the left part of his Abdomen is extended and presently waxeth hard the right part being safe His Leg also presently swels and afterwards his Thigh on his left side and therefore the extension of his Belly is extended not by reason of the quantity of water onely but his Membranes are extended from the Disease it self no otherwise than as the Artery under a hard pulse But the Membranes are extended and contracted also before a plenty of water by the same workman which begets the Dropsie Indeed it contracts all the pores of the Membrane that they cannot transmit or send the Wind or Liquor thorow them when as otherwise in those that are alive that is healthy the whole Body is perspirable and conspirable or inspirable The Treasurer therefore first of all makes a little water the Dropsie straightway invades him by degrees and begins on his left Side And therefore presently after its Beginning his left Leg is besieged by an Oedema and afterwards his whole Body becomes swollen But why doth not his right Kidney draw the Urine nor transmit it the which otherwise happens when but one Kidney is besieged by the Disease of the Stone For therefore there is a double Kidney by Nature and a single Spleen or Milt that one may relieve another in their troubles and banishments of an Excrement Yea and from hence it is sufficiently manifest that the Spleen is not a sink nor emunctory Therefore in the Blood being chased out of the Veins deteined and condensed there is an exciting ferment such as is wanting to the Stone I will therefore declare the whole order of the matter so far as my Observation hath taught me For the Liquor Latex unknown to the Schooles as long as it is carried with the Blood in the Veins or to the Glandules it enjoyes a common life neither doth it obey the rules of water-drawing Organs But it knowes not upwards and downwards because it hath it not But it being once rejected out of the fellowship of Life now it undergoes the nature of an Excrement and hastens downwards as being burthened with its own weight Therefore the Latex is of a vile esteem And therefore as oft as every Bowel is ill affected it presently neglects the Latex and excludes it from the company of its Venal Blood and findes business enough for it self at home for its own defence The Latex therefore being once divorced elsewhere and spoiled of the society of Life doth presently receive
Preparations Exaltations Appropriations of Remedies That is not to have known a Scientifical or Knowldegable Curing of the Sick For I have believed that I must proceed by the same Beginnings Because they referred all sicknesses a few perhaps being excepted into Elementary qualities and the inbred discords of Nature into Humours Catarrhes Flatus's Smoaks or Fumes So that the knowledge of the Schooles being withdrawn into a Fume and Vapours doth vanish into Smoak At length through the Errors of Tartar it descends unto Tartarers that they might shew that they being involved in darkness have stumbled in their wayes For it hath behoved me diligently to detect those things if Young beginners must hereafter repent But it hath not been sufficient to have shewn their Errors Unskilfulness Sluggishness and stubborn and constant Ignorance unless I shall restore true Doctrine in the room of Triffles For the abuses of Maxims had remained suspected by me for very many Years the which in the Book of Fevers I have deciphered to the Life before that I came unto a sound Knowledge of the Truth And I had a long while thorowly viewed the truth of the Theorie before that in seeking I had found some right Medicines which were sufficient for those that had made a Beginning Wherefore seeing I was about to speak of Diseases under so great a Paradox and weight of things and sound none among the Antients and Modern Juniors to be my assistant I seriously invoked God and I found him also favourable Therefore I determined before I wrote to call upon Logick that by its Definitions it might demonstrate unto me the Essences of Diseases indeed by their Divisions Species and interchangable courses or mutual respects and at length that by Augmentation it might suggest the Causes Properties Meanes and Remedies of knowing and curing them But at my acclamations made even into its mouth it was deaf stood amazed heard nothing remained dumb and helped not me miserable man in the least Because it was wholly impotent without sense Afterwards therefore I called the Auricular Precepts of the natural Philosophy of the Schools unto my aid To wit their three boasted of Principles four causes fortune chance time infinite vacuum motion yea and monster Whence at length I discovered that their whole natural Philosophy was truly monstrous having feigned false mocking Beginnings not principiating and much less vital in the sight of the King by whom all things live likewise Causes not causing Also adding or obtruding the phantastick Beings of Reason and opinions beset with a thousand absurdities wherein I as yet found not any footstep of Nature entire and much less the defects of the same or the interchangable courses of faculties or vital functions But least of all from such a structure of Principles was the knowledge of Causes Natural Vital of Diseases Remedies and Cures to be fetched Whither notwithstanding I supposed the knowledge of Nature had respect as unto its objected scope For whatsoever I sought for from the Schooles and attempted to handle by their Theorie that thing wholly Nature presently derided in the Practise and it was accounted for a blast of Wind She derided me I say to speak more dictinctly together with the Schooles as ridiculous And at length she together with my self complained of so unvanquished stupidity Then also Logick bewailed with me her impotent nakedness and the vain boasting of the Schooles Because she being that which even hitherto was saluted the Inventer and Searcher of Meanes Causes Tearms and Sciences grieved that she ought to confesse that she was dumb no lesse in Diseases than in the whole compact of Nature and also that she ought to desert her own professors in so great a necessity of miseries 〈…〉 she by one loud laughter had derided also the natural Philosophies of Aristotle and the blockish credulities of the World and of so many Ages if she her self had not been a non-being fiction swollen only with the blast of pride Wherefore seeing Nature doth no where exist or is seen but in Individuals there is need that I who am about to write of Diseases have exactly known the Causes of particular things even as also it is of necessity for a Physitian to have thorowly viewed those Causes individually under the guilt of infernal punishment Therefore it hath seemed to me that the quiddities or essences as well of things entire as of those that are hurt were to be searched into after the manner delivered concerning the searching out of Sciences But seeing the Knowledge thus drank may be unfolded I have confirmed unto the Young Beginner that an essential definition is to be explained by the Causes and properties of these which is nothing else besides a connexion of Causes but not the Genus or general kind and difference of the thing defined But this is an unheard of Method of explaining even as Logick the Inventress or finder out of Sciences hath feigned And also seeing all that faculty is readily serviceable unto a discursive Philosophy for they do vainly run back unto the Genus of the thing defined and the constitutive differences of the Species for the Diseases which have never and no where been known Therefore seeing it hath been hitherto unknown that things themselves are nothing without or besides a connexion of the matter and efficient Cause By consequence also the Schools have wanted a true Definition That is a right knowledge of Diseases If therefore the Essence or thingliness of Diseases and the condition of Diseasie properties do issue out of their own immediate essential Causes of necessity also the knowledge of the aforesaid Diseases and properties is to be drawn out of the same Causes Because the consideration of Causes is before the consideration of Diseases Therefore I have already shewn even unto a tiresomness That the Essences of Natural things are the matter and efficient Cause connexed in acting Therefore also the Essence of every Disease doth by a just definition consist of those two Causes and its knowledge is to be fetched out of the same First of all a Disease is a certain evil in respect of Life and although it arose from sin yet it is not an evil like sin from a Cause of deficiency whereunto a Species Manner and Order is wanting But a Disease is from an efficient seminal Cause positive actual and real with a Seed Manner Species and Order And although in the beholding of Life it be evil yet it hath from its simple Being the nature of Good For that which in its self is good doth produce something by accident at the position whereof the faculties inbred in the parts are occasionally hurt and do perish by an indivisible conjunction Defects therefore there are which from an external Cause do make an assault beyond or besides the faculties of Life concealed in the parts and they are from strange guests received within and endowed with a more powerful or able Archeus And from hence they are the more exceeding in
Favour a desire of Praying of Talking with God with humility an amorous perfect and exceeding delightful Faith or Confidence For these things the World is ignorant of For I being a Phisitian ought here on purpose to treat of Morality however others may laugh And that not onely as the indispositions of the Soul do defile and blemish or corrupt the Health But especially from that Title because seeing a Disease is the Son of Sin it cannot be perfectly known if the faculty of the Concupiscence of Sin be unknown from whence every assault towards a Disease drives it self into the Archeus But hitherto concerning Idea's conceived by the cogitation of Man of which it shall as yet be more liberally treated under the Chapter of Things Conceived Now it remains to unfold from whence Idea's made by man are of so great strength that oft-times they call for a Disease yea and also Death on the Imaginer From the Premises therefore we must resume 1. That Idea's are stamped in the Imaginative faculty by cogitation 2. That they imprint their Image on the Spirit of Life 3. That they are operative means whereby the Soul moveth and governeth the Body 4. That they are seminal Images 5. But that they are graduated according to the power and strength of the Imaginative Faculty 6. Wherefore that a humane Embryo is changed into diverse Monsters 7. That every man by the Images of Sorrow Terrour c. doth form seminal Poysons unto himself which do consume him in manner of the Plague or else by a violent languishing 8. That they do also passe forth out of the Body of the Imaginer because an Image conceived by a Woman with Child regularly wanders into the young even on the last day of carrying it in the Womb yet then it is without controversie that the young doth enjoy its own Life and lives by its own Soul and Quarter It is manifest therefore from the aforesaid particulars not only concerning the question whether it be to wit that there are in Idea's a most powerful force to operate but also because they are seminal that they do naturally pierce and operate on all things For truly if there be not a certain ruling and forming Idea of the matter of seeds formed by the generater the seed by it self remains wholly barren In the next place those Idea's ought to be immediately not indeed in the Soul of Man but immediately in the Archeus which maketh the assault because without such an Idea the Archeus should plainly remain an unpartaker of all action operation and propagation Therefore also by Idea's every motion and action of Nature as well in remedies as in poysons and every Natural power is seminally imprinted by every Parent whatsoever Yea forreign strange Idea's are introduced and those ascending into those already constituted because Idea's no otherwise than as Lights do mutually pierce each other and do keep a perpetual and co-marriageable mark of the Archeus with the Archeus which Idea's while they take hold of the matter of him a Disease is now bred For as seminal and primitive Idea's being planted in the seed by the Parents do figure a Man Bruit Plant c. So also the Idea's of inclinations affections c. coming upon them do determine or limit the countenance of a Man unto the delineaments or draughts of Physiognomy Which afterwards also are varied by the future Idea's of manners customes c. For bruit Beasts through the troublesome Idea's of lust do not wax fat even as those that are gelded do But Eunuchs if they are without care do fatten who else through the Idea of grief do also wax lean But from whence there is so great power in Idea's it is worthy to be known that the table or matter upon which even as on water the phantasie decyphers its Idea's even as on water is the very substance of the Archeus it self the which being once defiled by a conceived Idea and as it were instructed by a seminal principle is afterwards uneffectual for other Offices Therefore indeed those that are without care do slowly wax grey and in a contrary sense but many cares do speedily draw on and ripen old age according to that saying my Spirit shall be diminished and my dayes shall be shortned Rightly therefore was it said from of old That the perfect curing of Diseases consists in the removal of the Cause or Root The which if it should be the visible peccant matter it self even as the Schooles do nevertheless point it out to be now a Fever or the colike Diseases could not be cured unless all the occasional matter were first removed which thing is as manifestly false as it is most exceeding true that Fevers are silent the same occasional Cause remaining So indeed I have oft-times perfectly taken away the Colick Choler Flux Bloody-flux and other Diseases by a true Laudanum without Opium although the residing mass or lump were as yet entertained within Therefore all visible and forreign matter either happening from without or sprung up of its own accord within how degenerate soever it shall be from the very nourishment of the solid parts and a liquor separated from them it hath it self alwayes by a proper name after the manner of an occasion and a provoking Cause whether that shall be for a primary Disease or indeed shall be produced and constituted by a primary Disease consequently afterwards pricking forward the Archeus unto the erecting of a new storm or Disease And so every Disease is caused from the violent assaulting Spirit by Idea's conceived in the proper subject of the Archeus by whose fault alone a live Body but not a dead Carcass suffers all Diseases But if that this off-spring of a Disease be spred into the families of the digestions it produceth occasional matters indeed for secondary Diseases which are bred to stirr up afterwards the same Archeus unto new seminaries of Diseases For so wheresoever Hippocrates hath not found any visible matter as the occasion of a Disease he accuseth a Divine Beginning in Diseases because it is invisible from the hidden Store-house of seeds from the invisible World or out of Pluto's River of Hell or from the Chaos of successive changes Therefore I do in all things wholly admire at this Divine Beginning be it spoken by the liberty of Hippocrates in Diseases as the judge of a broken purity so also a revenger of an hidden impurity and concupiscence lurking in the flesh of sin And therefore also persevering in the radical disorder of a vital principle But as it doth immediately sit in and is awakned by a vital and seminal principle Hence also consequently Diseases have properties directions proportions durations affections and respects unto members and places which things certainly in a good understanding cannot be attributed unto the ulcerous predicaments of heats and colds as neither to Distillations and Catarrhs flowing down with a voluntary fall of weights But it is profitable to have made this
but as from the beginning even unto the last maturity there is one only Ideal and Seminal Ruler of the Bean So from the beginning of the conceived Idea of a Cancer even unto Death there is nothing but the same poyson But seeing a Cancer is in a sensitive subject the Archeus therefore dayly rageth a new doth substitute new Idea's and poysons in the room of old ones Not so a Bean the which beginneth from a singular beginning and by flowing doth proceed unto the continuation of its thred For truly in created things of the first constitution although there be an Ideal begining the same with Diseases and a progress of making from not a Being unto a Being Yet in being now made the progress of Diseases differs Therefore also a Bean is dayly changed in its outward countenance in growing although the flourishing part differs not from the budding part in its vital beginning In like manner also Diseases sealed either in the local or inflowing Archeus from the various madness hereof the poyson is varified For although the soyl of an exulcerated Cancer exposed to the air was the first object where it was conceived and bred yet that soile being wasted by Corrosion another more deep one doth alwayes succeed even as if a new Bean should dayly bud And therefore a Disease doth not only bewray it self from a local center of science Mathematical but from a Physical or natural center also which is the furious and seminal Idea of the Archeus There is the same judgement and equality of all other poysons bred within such as hath been already aforesaid in Chyrurgical affects For in Bruits even as else where concerning the Plague every specifical poyson doth not issue but from the Idea of an Image whence in the Proverb The Beast being dead his Poyson is killed For so the Leprosie fowl Disease Falling-evil Apoplexie and likewise all primary Diseases do proceed Notwithstanding the poysons which are taken into the Body are not therefore Diseases or do not arise until the Archeus through a borrowed ferment of their contagion hath done injury unto himself Then indeed he stamps strange Idea's on himself not so much from his own fury as he borrows the same from Simples ingested or darted in and at length doth fall under the same In which conflict he forms wondrous Idea's unto himself the which he tragically unfolds by variety of Symptomes Therefore a Cancer is not a hollow Ulcer which the eyes do see neither is it it s crusted and wan or black and blew Lips which the hand doth touch Lastly it is not the stinking soil or bottom of the Ulcer which looks blackish with putrefaction or the sanies dropping from thence which the Nostrils do smell For without these the Cancer was as yet already cloathed with its own Skin But these are the effects signs symptomes of the Being whose Fruit they are For truly seeing an effect or product bespeaks an unseperable respect unto its own producing Cause Therefore a Disease ought to be a Being containing the Causes and Properties of its own entity And therefore as well the Cancer being an Aposteme is a Cancer as while it is now become an Ulcer For therefore primary Diseases do for the most part beget an equivocal or doubtful product in the Archeus As is the Stone in respect of the first Lithiasis or Stony affect For the troublesome Stone wounds and hurts the digestion of the Bladder stops up the passage of the Urine c. Also now and then a product is troublesome only by its presence as corrupt Pus in an Aposteme wound c. Water in a Dropsie coagulated matter in a Scirihus And those products have rather the Nature of a Diseasie effect than of an occasion of Diseases unless perhaps they shall draw the abridgements of poyson in a ferment for then they supply the room of assumed poyson and do occasionally compel the counsels of a new Disease into the Archeus Therefore a Disease is a Being truly subsisting in an invisible principle being endowed with divers properties but not a distemperature or disposition arising from the sight mixture degree of contrariety and concomitance of feigned Humours But the ignorance of a primary Disease as it hath caused the ignorance of a remedy So also it hath taken away the hope of curing because they have employed themselves in nothing but cleansing out erroneous products and occasional Causes and have rather consulted of a cloakative prevention or that Diseases might not increase or return through founding of a remedy on the back of the Disease But nothing hath been thought of against the voluntary storms of fury whereby the Archeus suffers a greater injury from none than from himself In the mean time nothing is done unless that fury of the Archeus which buds forth Idea's shall be silenced and the persisting poyson bred from thence be choaked For neither is it slain by Corrosives yea not indeed in Ulcers unless also there be a force of killing in the Corrosives because they are that which else do more enflame the fury than pacifie or kill it A certain Man in my dayes living in the region of Gulick in Germany cured every Cancer whatsoever by a Pouder causing no pain being sprinkled thereon and then next he healed it up with an Incarnating Emplaister whose Art was buried with himself For the Schooles being astonished as oft as the Cancer and eating Canker are not appeased by their Egyptiacal Oyntment do accuse the Menstrues or the Humour of black Choler But being asked whether of these Causes may adhere thereto they doubting betake themselves to both Now Men are altogether free from a Cancer as also Women whose courses have left them The young in the Womb shall be nourished with a meer poyson the Menstrues shall offend not in quantity only yea neither shall the detaining of the Menstrues be guilty in a Woman with Child Nurse and leanified Women and those who are subdued by a long infirmity shall be nourished with poyson and all shall perish without hope of recovery But if a Cancer ariseth not from the Menstrues but from black Choler why therefore doth a Cancer happen at the offence of the Dugs Why doth it less happen unto jovial or jolly Women than unto sorrowful ones or what community hath the spleen with the contusion of the Dugs Or if black Choler doth wandringly ascend unto the Paps why is not the milk blackishly Cholerick Why is there not ordinarily a Cancerous affect to those that give suck Why when the purgatives of Epithymum the Stones of Lazulum the Armenian Stone c. being taken doth a Cancer never wax mild in the least For in times past indeed they have distinguished Diseases by a property of passion and secondary passion and by so much the more unsuccesfully by how much the more undistinctly So that the Schooles being dashed against the Rock have transferred these affects concerning Diseases unto Symptoms As while from the Wombe
penury of distribulation and perceiving the unequality of injustice becomes a complainer and seditious as it were against a step-mother The Idea's of which passion or impatience seeing it is not meet to send else where he being crabbish retorts on himself and brings forth the effects of sorrow in his own Digestions Therefore the very seminal Beginnings themselves of Diseases are drawn out for diverse ends although they glisten in one only immediate subject of inherency because they are received after the manner of the reciever That is they do sustain a dis-formity or disagreement in their mansions through the diversity of the humane Body and parts And moreover the Archeus himself according to the diversity of his motions doth stir up a various houshold-stuff of Symptoms The Spirit saith Hippocrates hath made three motions in us within without and into a circuit and he moveth and transchangeth all things with himself even while he is orderly But in his irregularity whatsoever he shall perform he shall also utter memorable effects of his disorder CHAP. LXXI The birth or original of a Diseasie Image 1. A description of a Disease by a numbring up of things denied 2. What a Disease is 3. The vain thought of Physitians concerning a Disease 4. The Inne of Life belongs to a Disease 5. The force of a Diseasie Idea is proved by Vegetables 6. By the Blas of meteours 7. The Blas of an Archeal Idea in us is proved from the Premises 8. The ordinary seat of Diseases 9. The Images of perturbations are cited 10. From a mental Non-being is made this something 11. A twofold Diseasifying Archeal Idea 12. Idea's brought unto the venal Blood 13. The rule of right in healing 14. Why the Author keeps the names of the Antients 15. A probative or proofe-ful Idea is framed in the Archeus alone I Have already at large described an unheard of Doctrine of a Diseasie Being premised by me That Physitians may learn to look into a Disease from the fountain and may desist from being seduced by Paganish Opinions Wherefore a Disease is not a certain distemperature of elementary qualities or a victorie proceeding from the continual strife of these even as hitherto the Galenists have dreamed neither likewise is a Disease one of the four feigned Humours exceeding its natural temperature or mixture and matched to the four Elements Neither at length is a Disease a certain degenerate matter awakened by an impression of the Elements But every excrementitious matter is either a naked matter preceding a Disease and therefore an occasional Cause of a Disease or it is the product of a Disease resulting from the errour of the parts and so a certain latter effect of a Disease although afterwards it may occasionally stir up another Disease or may nourish or increase another antecedent Cause Nor lastly is a Disease a hurtful quality budding from the poyson or contagion of another and that a hurtful matter Notwithstanding such offences as those do only accuse its presence but not the effect depending only occasionally thereupon A Disease therefore is a certain Being bred after that a certain hurtful strange power hath violated the vital Beginning and hath pierced the faculty hereof and by piercing hath stirred up the Archeus unto Indignation Fury Fear c. To wit the anguish and troubles of which perturbations do by imagining stir up an Idea co-like unto themselves and a due Image Indeed that Image is readily stamped expressed and sealed in the Archeus and being cloathed with him a Disease doth presently enter on the stage being indeed composed of an Archeal Body and an efficient Idea For the Archeus produceth a dammage unto himself the which when he hath once admitted he straightway also afterwards yields flees or is alienated or dethroned or defiled through the importunity thereof and is constrained to undergo a strange government and domestically to sustain a civil War raised up on himself indeed such a strange Image is materially imprinted and arising out of the Archeus A true Diseasie Being I say which is called a Disease For although Physitians are only busied about the dissolution cleansing away and expulsion of the hurtful occasional matter yet our thought is not able to vary the Essence of a Disease To wit that because a Physitian labours in the banishment of the occasional hurtful matter therefore also that a Disease ought to be that which that deceived Physitian doth in a rash order intend to expel For a Disease is effentially that which it is whether the Physitian be absent or present For neither doth a Physitian in the begining more determine or limit a Disease than the Disease doth terminate it self because it is that which doth not accommodate it self unto the thought or esteem of others but doth dayly deride the same Wherefore as health consisteth in a sound Life so doth a Disease in the very Life it self being hurt but Life doth only and immediately subsist in the seat of the Soul but the Soul doth not operate out of it self unless by virtue of its official Organ which is the vital air of the Archeus And therefore it is a wonder that it hath hitherto been unknown that a Disease sits immediately in the same vital inne where the Life enjoys it self of which more largely hereafter for hateful persons will scarce believe that every power of sublunary things is stirred up and contained in Idea's But that thing I have already before sharply touched at by the way yet it shall profit to have it more strongly bound or confirmed For we have known and believe by Faith that a power is given to Herbs of propagating their like But that proprietary faculty is a real Being actually existing which is alwayes and successively manifested in the seed neither is that faculty a certain accidental power or naked quality but it is a seminal virtue whereby the Plant which is the Parent decyphers an Idea in his own seed the container of figure and properties according to which it will stir up delineate the seed it self and make the Plant its Daughter to grow For in seeds a manifest Image is known skilful of things to be acted for a new propagation In like manner the Sea doth not cause but suffer horrid tempests which the Wind doth efficiently stir up and truly the Wind is not moved by it self and of its own free accord But by an invisible influence of the Stars according to that saying The Stars shall be unto you for signs times or seasons dayes and years for so great a storm of the primary Elements or Air and Water breaks forth from a Being which is like unto Light But the Blas of the Elements is not stirred up from the meer Light of the Stars For although the Light of the Stars be incorporeal and immaterial yet it is not a certain simple Light but that which besides the property of a solitary Light which is only of enlightning hath a motive Blas in it self
water to dry up the brook In the mean time seeing the Archeus proceedeth in an unknown path in his own fabricks of Images I am constrained in the explication of Diseases to keep the Antient Names and to follow their Sir-names That in the beaten path of occasional Causes we may descend unto the knowledge of hidden Diseasie Essences But it is sufficient for me to have shewn in this by-work that seminal Idea's in the whole Systeme of the World are the beginning principle of every Blas of seeds generations successive changes and storms Yet before that I attempt the Scheme of Diseases seeing it is as yet to scanty that Idea's are formed by the Archeus no less than by the imaginative power it shall be profitable to shew that thing unto the Young Beginner by one argument For the dead Carcass of a man which is dead through a voluntary Flux exceeds all Ice in coldness not indeed that in very truth it is more cold than the dead Carcass of a Cow which dyed of her own accord for I distinguishing that thing by the Organ of qualities and the degrees of the encompassing air it is clearly demonstrated although notwithstanding that thing be thus judged by our touching for that happens through the fear of the Archeus alone which greatly dreadeth at the co-touching of Death in the dead Carcass 1. He feels Death the which perhaps the imagination is as yet ignorant of 2. He greatly dreadeth 3. The inflowing Spirit retires 4. But that which is implanted in the hand is troubled and fails for fear and so conceives a beginning of Death unto himself from the trembling fear Therefore the Holy Scriptures do not incongrously say That he that should touch the dead is reckoned impure and half dead Which Image of Death the Archeus will he nill he doth conceive and doth so stiffly retain it for some good while as long as that Idea of fear is surviving that it scarce becomes hot again at the hearth within an hours space Therefore the Idea of trembling fear is really there for truly it works its effect and is formed by the Archeus and not by the imaginative power of the Man Therefore if the Archeus runs away trembling for fear by a like reason also he shall be sorrowful angry shall be stirred up through fury and other passions and is in a conflict through the Idea's of any perturbations whatsoever becomes troublesome and hurtful to himself according to the pleasure of Idea's which he hath formed unto himself by his own force and liberty CHAP. LXXII The passage unto the Buttery of the Bowels is stopped up 1. The difficulty of curing a Disease is concluded from the very seat of the Soul 2. An example of a quartane Ague 3. A remarkable thing concerning Remedies hitherto used against a Quartane 4. Wherein purging Medicines have hitherto decieved the unwary 5. Purging things have sometimes cured by accident and have remained through this deciet 6. A reckoning up of incurable Diseases 7. Distillation brings forth new generated things 8. Singularities in things produced by the fire 9. Deccocted things differ from distilled things 10. What was the scope of the Author in times past 11. Some Remedies have decieved the Author 12. An examination of Remedies 13. An examination of Digestions 14. An examination of Water-remedies 15. The abilities of the Stomach 16. Whence the chief variety of conditions is AFter I had discerned that the Stomach was the root of the tree or the root as well of a universal Digestion as of all particular ones whatsoever I had alike seriously known that the Mortal or sensitive Soul the Mistris of all kind of actions whatsoever in us and the Dispenseress of Life throughout the whole Body did inhabit there That indeed also the Frameress of the first conceptions was there scituated likewise the shop of sleep no less than of watchings and madnesses I held it consonant to reason that the immortal mind or Image of God could be no where more decently infolded or co-knit than in the aforesaid formal and vital Light to wit in a spiritual principle for that reason also most near because akin unto it And when as the Monarchy of Life being thorowly searched into I saw and optically or clearly knew that every Disease did essentially consist in the Life and arise out of the same the causes of difficulties in curing Diseases offered themselves unto me especially those which are not silent of their own free accord or which do not hasten through their own violence unto the end of their period but do accompany the Life which they do bitterly molest Wherefore of the more lingring Diseases I saw a Quartane an Atrophia or Consumption for lack of nourishment a Cacochymia or state of bad juice likewise weaknesses and afterwards as well those which have chosen their bed in the outmost habit of the Body such as are the Leprosie Palsey Sciatica Convulsion or Cramp Gout c. as those which are fast tied to any of the Bowels as the Apoplexie Epilepsie Astma affect of the Stone Dropsie Madness c. were not cured not indeed through a defect of desire of curing but through want of a remedy alone but I long laboured in that remedy and I many times retreated until I knew that it should respect the very fountain of Life or sensitive Soul Wherefore first I took the Quartane Ague it self in hand because it was obvious most tiresome or tedious and plainly known and the which while it did despise the usual remedies of Physitians it rendred the hope of the same void First of all I was more assured by the same that wheresoever any material Diseasie product lay hid the application likewise of a convenient remedy was required or else it was to be feared that the effect raised up from that occasional Cause would remain surviving And therefore from the correlative of this proposition I found no remedies of Physitians hitherto however through their fame unstopping resolving cleansing or purging Medicines may be boasted of yet that the same do only come or are brought down at most even unto the entrance of the spleen alone which bewraies it self to be the inn of a Quartane Ague by a sensible testimony Therefore I being from hence certainly instructed have conjectured that that unstopping c. force of a remedy doth soon even in the Stomach perish wax mild is tamed or banished through the intestines if at least-wise it shall not first die But if any quality of remedies shall remain safe from their middle Life something broken and being recieved shall more fully or inwardly pierce as Mace or Terpentine do from the necessity of Magnum Oportet retain their Savour in the Urin but at leastwise the same offers it self so gelded and dismembred that it doth not effect any of those things to which end and for which things sake Medicines are swallowed Eggs indeed and the Fleshes of Beasts do represent the favours of the nourishment
But Herbes are gathered and Roots are digged up in a station wherein there is the more of vigor and therefore also presently after Sun-rising For things Injected are driven forth no otherwise than as a Snake from the Fire But Divines are wont to consume things Injected which are rejected in the Fire for a disgrace of the evil Spirit Those things indeed do thus rightly perish yet the relapsing returns thereof are not thus hindred Therefore things Injected which were expelled are more rightly involved and kept in Simples in any whereof there is an expulsive force With the like reason whereby Sympathetical Remedies do cure an absent Wound do these endowed Simples drive away things Injected do detain and restrain them that they are not Injected and do delude the vain endeavour of the Magitian The weaknesse therefore of an in-darting Being is deservedly suspected which cannot send in things that are to be cast into the Body because a certain hindering Herb is present and President Therefore the force which derives things Injected inwards is not that of the Prince of this World and of a most powerful Spirit But that of a certain Ideal and more infirm Being which doth so easily hinder all enterance for the future CHAP. LXXXII Of Things Conceived or Conceptions 1 The Spleen is the Seat of the first Conceptions 2. As well the Idea's of the Immagination as Archeal ones do issue from the Spleen their Fountain 3. Therefore also they smell of an Hypocondrial faculty or quality 4. The Plague alwaies begins about the Stomack 5. Of soulified Conceptions 6. Idea's from the Womb. 7. Madnesses 8. A mad Irreligion 9. The reality of Conceptions in respect of the Matter and efficient Cause 10. Presumption doth blind almost all mortal Men. 11. An occult madnesse 12. Diseasie Conceptions 13. Diseases of the Womb. 14. Womb Phantasies 15. An instruction of every Monarchy 16. A double Government in a Woman 17. The Womb is not ill at ease but from things conceived 18. The Female Sex is miserable 19. Diseases of the Womb differ from their Products 20. The Cure of its last or utmost Fury 21. A twofold Idea of things Conceived 22. The rise and progresse of a Feverish Dotage 23. The progresse of Idea's unto their maturities 24. The Entry of all good is in Faith 25. The flourishing of Passions MOreover a Diseasie Being is like unto things Injected the which I call that of things conceived For although this Being doth not come to us from without nor is nourished from elsewhere Yea neither doth Satan co-operate with it yet because it doth not much differ in its root manner of making and a certain likeness dâ—â—fects from some Injected things I have not unadvisedly referred things Conceived among Spiritual things Received Unto the clearing up whereof I have already premised many Prologues Wherefore I have already elsewhere demonstrated the Imaginative Power of the first Conceptions to be in the Spleen and that it is from thence extended unto the Stomack the companion of the Duumvirate and that also it is hence easily and originally in the other Sex extended unto the Womb. The Spleen therefore is as well the Fountain of Idea's Conceived in the imaginative faculty of a man as of the Archeus himself The Archeus hath his own and peculiar Imaginations proper unto him for whether they are the Phantasies of a true Name or onely Metaphorical ones it is all one to me in this place for the sake whereof he continually feels Antipathies and self-loves and from thence stirs up derived motions Surely the Conceptions of the Archeus doe forthwith attain the most powerful determinations in the aforesaid places Because they smell of their native place they are Hypocondriacal Qualities they bear the Monuments of the first and undistinct motions And although a soulified immagnation which is there delayed without the strength of impression or the inclination of any prejudiced thing may be at length made as it were sleepy undistinct and almost confused wherefore indeed times do seldome wax gray or old with carelesness yet those which in the very shops of the first Motions receive the deliberation of some Passion do also allure unto them the Spirits made old in the Brain do undergo the contagion of the place and are made and forged by the Judgement of a deprived Idea and do seminally bring forth affects co-agreeing with their Causes To wit those which are suspected of Hypocondrial madness confusion and disturbance For therefore we do all of us suffer every one his own anguishes of mind Yet the already mentioned Archeal imagination as it neither desireth the consent of the Soul so neither doth it exspect it and therefore it happens unsensibly and without our knowledge Therefore indeed the Plague whether it be made from a terrour conceived in the Soul or next from a proper Vice of the Archeus yet it alwayes holds its first consultations about the Orifice of the Stomack For the Idea's of the Archeus are most powerful also the most fierce ones of Diseases Because they being irrational do happen unto us without our knowledge and against our will and therefore also incorrigible and are for the most part out-laws and do therefore invade us after an unthought of manner I will now treat of soulified Conceptions because they are the more distinct and sensible ones whosoever they be which do as it were weaken insatuate and now and then enchant themselves with the perturbations of the first motions and the conceived Idea's of these they afford a fit occasion unto the aforesaid Causes And although this kind of Vice doth sometimes invade even learned and judicious Men produceth foolishnesses and crabbishnesses Yet it is more social unto a Woman by reason of the agreement and nearnesse of affinity of her Womb. Indeed the Womb although it be a meer Membrane yet it is another Spleen And therefore it doth as it were by a proper instinct of the Seed presently wrap it self in the external Secundines of the young as it were another Spleen As elsewhere in its place Not indeed that a Woman doth by this Vice of Nature forge execrable Hypocondrial Idea's for the destruction of others after the manner of Witches but they are hurtful onely to themselves and do as it were inchant and infatuate and weaken themselves For they stamp Idea's on themselves whereby they no otherwise than as Witches driven about with a malignant Spirit of despair are oftentimes governed or are snatched away unto those things which otherwise they would not and do bewail unto us their own and unvoluntary madness For so as Plutarch witnesseth a desire of Death by hanging took hold of all the young Maids in the Island of Chios neither could it be stayed but by shame or bashfulness sore threatned unto them after death Seeing therefore the Vice of things Conceived doth also touch men let the Reader be averse to wearisomness if it shall behove me to stay the longer in these things who
and double Fevers Neither doth it also forbid a primary Disease to be con-folded with its own or with a secundary one bred from else where In such a manner as is a primary Fever which brings forth a Product from whence there is a resolving of the Blood into the putrifying Disease of a malignant Flux matched with a feverish Ferment At length neither is there a necessary passage of the three first Digestions unto the sixth by the fourth and fifth Because the greatest part of the venal Blood never comes unto the Heart and much less is it snatched into its left Bosom Because all particular parts are nourished no less with Venal than Arterial Blood From hence indeed it happens that the Vices of the three first Digestions do oftentimes immediately pass over into the sixth And therefore the transchanged Retents of the three first Digestions if they shall reach unto the sixth they offend not by transmission of a proper name but only by transmutation because a transmission from the third into the sixth Digestion is regular lawful and ordinary I will add concerning the Spleen If from the first Digestion a sharpness of the Chyle be immediately brought unto the Spleen A Quartane Ague is soon present to wit from a curdled Retent being there a stranger But if the sixth Digestion in the Spleen be troubled seeing it is the Couch of the first Conceptions The Excrements or things transchanged which are made of its proper nourishment are for the most part endowed with an imaginative Power such as occurs in many Simples and which is most plainly to be seen in the Spittle of a mad Dog and the which therefore I call inebriating or be-drunkening dreamifying or befooling Simples For therefore of one Wine there is a many-form condition of drunken Men That is one only Wine doth stir up diverse Madnesses For a mad Poyson halts with the similitude of Wine For a mad Poyson by reason of its excelling Power doth not follow the conditions of the Man but the very Conditions of the Man are constrained to obey the Poyson As is clearly seen in the Poyson of him that is bitten by a Mid-dog Poysons therefore which of a degenerate nourishment are bred in the sixth Digestion do follow their own Nature For by how much the nearer they shall be unto assimilating by so much the more powerfully do they infatuate For by how much the nearer the Ferment of the Bowel and an in-beaming of the implanted Spirit shall be present with it by so much also the nearer it calls unto it the Idea of a certain imaginative Power which at length it transplanteth into a venemous Poyson not indeed so destructive unto the Life as unto the Power of that Bowel But from what hath been before declared any one shall be hereafter able to erect unto himself the Stages of Diseases But it hath been sufficient for me to have shewn that every primary Disease doth objectively and subjectively fall into the Archeus and so into the Life it self whereof to wit it is immediately formed But that a secondary Disease fals objectively indeed into the Archeus but subjectively into a Matter either the solid one of the part containing or the fluide one of that contained And thus indeed to have shewn Diseases to be distributed in Nature by their Causes Roots and Essence according to their Inns I repose my Pen. Barrenness also seeing it is among Defects beside Nature hath hither extended its Treatise Wherefore Coldness Heat or moistness is not in either of the Sexes the cause of Barrenness however lowdly others may sound out this thing For truly first of all there is no dryness possible in living Creatures or the vitious moisture of the Womb is not of the complexion but a meer superfluity of Digestion or Transmission So in the next place Heat and Cold are signs of Defects in Nature but not Causes Because these Qualities do want a Seed vital Properties and potestative Conditions Therefore indeed Barrenness and Fruitfulness is in every Climate of the World Yet an Aethiopian Woman is far hotter than the most hot Woman of Muscovia But the excrementitious and superfluous Moistness of the Womb is an Effect of Diseases Yea if it shall be a companion of Barrenness yet not the containing Cause thereof For an internal Cause differs not from the Being it self So neither is the Defect of the Menstrues the cause of Barrenness if that Defect contains a denial or proceeds as an Effect of a nearer Indisposition Women of unripe Age have oft-times conceived even also before their Menstrues and those of more ripe years their Menstrues being silent Also oft-times Women affected in their Womb being trampled on by many Perplexities do succesfully conceive and accordingly bring forth In the mean time some Barren Women are in good health Also many conceive while their Menstrues is urgently present As also the Menstrues being afterwards silent hath deceived many of Conception Some Women do take notice of their Menstrues all the time of their bearing but many for some months only For indeed although Barrenness may after some sort bespeak a privative respect yet it is meerly a positive and diseasie Being for it ariseth from singular positive Defects Because by it self and in self it is a Malady of Nature Even as fruitfulness bespeaks an entire Cause For in a Man which is not Gelded not an Eunuch not hindred or disturbed not mischieved Barrenness hath scarce place For from hence an Old-man doth as yet generate Whence it follows that there is not so much perfection to be attributed as neither to be required in the Male as in the Mother But I call those hindered Males who do labour with a Gonorrhea or who have from thence retained a Vice And likewise who do labour with the notable Vice of some Bowel In a Woman the Menstrues abounding being Deficient Irregular Watery Yellow looking Blackish Slimy Stinking a Pain in her Loyns Belly Hips and movings of the Womb upwards downwards to the Sides are indeed Witnesses and Signs of the Sicknesses or Feeblenesses of the Womb and therefore also they fore-slow overflow Conception move Abortions and gushings forth of the Courses yet they do not altogether take away the hope of Conception nor are they the Disease which is called Barrenness For indeed old Women are Barren without all those For I find the one only suitable and co-equal Cause in Time and Age to be described in the holy Scriptures for a positive Being which is called Barrenness in these Words God opened the Womb of Sarah For it is the Gift of God derived into Nature whereby the Parchment or Membrane of the Womb being most exactly shut in its Foldings is opened and enlarged at the co-agreeing moment of Conjunction There is I say an attractive drawing Blas whereby for fear of a Vacuum or Emptiness an attraction of the Seeds and a suitable filling up of the opened Wrinckles follows that opening To wit the
of Sin of which God saith My Spirit shall not remain with Man because he is Flesh But that Sin if it hath not been sufficiently searched into by Predecessours I will add freely what I conceive For indeed in this History of Genesis do concurr together 1. The Sin of Distrust or suspicion of an Evil Faith of Deceit Fallacie or Falshood in God For Eve saith to the Divel Least perhaps we die And so she doubted that the Death admonished of would of necessity come unto them And likewise the Sin of a despised Admonition and that they more trusted unto the Serpent than to God neither was there disobedience where there was not yet a Law 2. An act of eating of the Apple not so much forbidden as admonished of bewarying of it 3. An effect of the Apple being eaten For in the midst of Paradise there was a Tree whose Property is said to be of Life Least he eat and live for ever and there was another Tree whose Property was that of the knowledge of Good and Evil unto whom there was not another like but the other Trees except these two served onely for nourishment The property therefore and effect of this latter Tree was to stir up an itching concupiscence of the Flesh or madness of Luxurie But it is called The Tree of the knowledge of Good Lost and of Evil obtained For they knew not that they were naked and they were without shame that is without the Concupiscence of the Flesh like Children because they wanted Seed 4. A carnal Copulation concurreth From thence at length a certain beastlike frail Mortal Generation contrary to the intent of God who was unwilling that Man should conceive in Sins in Sins hath my Mother conceived me not indeed that all Mothers afterwards should eat of that Apple but because presently after the Apple was eaten all Conception should not be made but by the will of Blood Flesh and Man And so that from thence should all Flesh of Sin necessarily proceed Therefore while the immediate Cause of corrupt Nature and Death is ascribed unto the Sin of disobedience Or while the immediate Cause of corrupt Flesh is attributed unto the Sin of suspected deceit in God they are faults in arguing of not the Cause as of the Cause For in speaking properly the very Corruption and Degeneration of the Flesh of our whole Nature hath not issued from the Curse as neither immediately from Sin accompanying it but from these only occasionally and as it were from the Cause without which it was not but our Nature is rendred wholly corrupted and uncapable of Eternal Glory by reason of the causalities of concupiscence and brutal Generation effectively and immediately causing a withdrawing of virgin Chastity and all hope of generating from the holy Spirit afterwards and from Eve as a Virgin And therefore original Sin is defluxing altogether on all Posterity because after the Virginity of Eve was taken away the race of men is not possible to be generated but by the will of Man Flesh and Blood the which otherwise God had determined to be generated by the holy Spirit It is therefore an undistinction of Causes and its unapt application of Effects unto their proper Causes which hath not heretofore heeded 1. Why that Apple was with so loud a voice forewarned of that they should not eat of it 2. That they have esteemed that to be a Curse which was not 3. That they have ascribed original Sin unto one Disobedience as the most near and containing immediate Cause 4. That they have thrown an unexcusable Death on the Curse and Punishment of a broken Law For although a grievous Sin hath concurred with an original declining of the Generation intended by God together with an impurity of the Flesh the corruption of Nature by carnal copulation Yet the corruption of Nature the degeneration of Generation as neither Death have proceeded from the original Sins of our Parents their distrust c. as from an immediate Cause but from the effect of the Apple being eaten as a new Product of necessity Naturally depending thereon that is Death hath proceeded from its own second natural Causes existing in the Apple Even as a total Corruption of Nature hath issued from thence because both are supported by one and the same Root of necessity But the Causes of these natural Causes were by accident co-bound unto the Sins of Distrust c. in the Unison of eating For the very guilt of the Sin of suspition of an evil Faith or bad trusting of Deciet and a Fallacy of God remained expiable by our first Parents after the manner of Sin to wit by Contrition and Acts of Repentance after the manner of other Sins But not that therefore whole Nature ought to be depraved that a Death and Misery of every Body ought to enter and perpetuate it self on all Posterity even although they should have guiltless Souls For God doth sometimes punish the Sins of Parents upon one or a second Generation But it is no where read that he hath chastised the Sin of the Grand-father on all his Posterity afterwards who had acted evilly for five thousand Years before For that pain of Punishment exceedeth the love of God towards Man whom he so greatly blessed presently after Sin It exceeds I say the Rules of Justice if the Punishment of him that is guiltless in that Sin be refered unto his Ballance And moreover I think that if God out of his goodness had not admonished our first Parent of Death If he should eat of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil But if the Devil from his proper and inbred Enmity had translated the Apple from that Tree under any other Tree and that both the Sexes of Men had eaten of the Apple that the Concupiscence of the Flesh and Copulation had equally succeeded and so although that had happened without any Sin yet that the Generation following from thence from the necessity and property of the Apple being eaten had suspended the intent of the Creator who would not that the Sons of God and Posterity of Eve should be conceived from the holy Spirit after her Virginity was corrupted And so Death a Disease and the very Corruption of Nature and Beast-like original Inversion thereof had been and yet not from Sin Because the Apple contained a natural efficient Cause of Luxury For how unaptly do these agree together Death proceedeth from the Sin of an infringed or broken Law and so from a supernatural Curse And those Words of the Text uttered after the eating of the Apple and before the banishment out of Paradise Least he stretch forth his Hand unto the Tree of Life do eat of it and live for ever For against the Curse of God no Creature is able to resist From hence therefore it becomes evident that the Apple contained the natural Cause of a defiled Generation and of their own Death and that the Tree of Life did likewise contain naturally a conserving
of eternal Life that is a Superiority over the necessities of Death At length if death had happened from a Law from the Punishment and Curse of Sin it should be false that God had not made Death because in very deed and immediately Death had proceeded from God and not from a natural Cause or that of Nature corrupted And by so much a stronger right where the same Person the Almighty Creator is the Law-giver like as also the Executer Last of all Sin is a mental Being or a Non-Being which cannot produce a real and actual Being And therefore Death at its Beginning had not proceeded from natural Causes even as at this Day Death doth arise in bruit Beasts equally as in us and therefore Death in its Beginning had been different in the whole kind from that at this day And therefore the Text should speak that which is ridiculous God made not Death if by reason of disobedience he had cursed Nature that it should die It is therefore of necessity that the Death of Man in its Beginning began and was made from second Causes altogether natural whereby we die at this day Also at this day Death hath reciprocally invaded through the natural Causes of defiled Nature even as in times past in its Beginning Indeed although Adam became Mortal from eating of the Apple yet his Death happened not but naturally some Ages after and from Old Age as from second Causes Far therefore be a Law an opposing thereof Sin a Curse in the original of Death appearing so many Ages after from second Causes speaking as it were in our presence Therefore every and the total Cause whereby Man hath immediately framed Death for himself is to be seen in the Position For although we are now Mortal yet we die not when we will and when we desire Because Death proceeded not from the Will or from Sin but from the Apple Neither indeed because Death it self was in the Apple as in a mortal Poyson but there was in the Apple the Concupiscence of the Flesh an incentive of Lust a be-drunkening of Luxury for a Beast-like Generation in the Flesh of Sin which Flesh carried with it the natural Causes of Defects and necessities of Death Wherefore it is likely to be true if the Serpent had not been able to obtain of Man that by Sinning he should eat of the Apple that he had cast an Apple cropped from thence unto the Root of some lawful Tree that by this means the Enemy of our Life might rejoyce to have introduced Death And that thing is sufficiently gathered from the Text which doth not say If thou shalt eat of that Tree but he saith In whatsoever day thou shalt eat thou shalt die the Death As if he should denounce that that danger of Death to come was fore-ordained For for this purpose the World was created and the Instruments of Generation were given unto Man because the Corruption of Nature the necessity of regeneration in a Saviour and the virgin Purity thereof was foreseen Let therefore those brawlings cease whether Eve ate an Apple or indeed a Fig. For the Text calls an Apple That which is pleasing to the Eye but a Fig doth not so allure by the sight of it And that one only Tree was of that Property whereof then there was not the like nor at this day is there another read to exist among created Things Finally the Words of the Text I will multiply thy Miseries and thy Conceptions so far off is it that they do signifie the Indignation of God and much less his Curse Yea rather they denote his love toward the devoted Sex For truly there is none which knows not that by how much the Life of the devoted Sex shall be the more miserable by so much also that it is nearer to the Son of Man for otherwise tribulations which God sendeth on his Saints and Martyrdom it self should by an equal right be Curses I will add last of all that as the Works of the Flesh are devillish So the Text I will put Enmities between the Seed of the Woman and thy Seed doth fully or plainly confirm this Position For first of all the Woman of whose Seed God there speaketh is the God-bearing Virgin which as a Virgin hath left no other Seed an Enemy to the Serpent but the Sons of Light the Sons of God and those who are renewed by the holy Spirit who have no Enmities with the Eggs of any creeping thing but only with the Sons of the Devil and Darkness forasmuch as they keep the Seeds of Sin Therefore the Text there promiseth a future Regeneration in the God-bearing Virgin calling those that are not renewed the Seed of the Devil because they are Adamical Flesh Therefore those things being heeded which I have already above demonstrated original Sin doth not properly expect a quickning or the moment of hecceity For although the Soul cannot be guilty of Sin before it be Yet seeing original Sin is in the Contagion of the Flesh it self is presently in the supposition of the concrete or composed Body after the manner of its receiver and assoon as there is a sexual mixture of the Seeds according to that saying For behold I was conceived in Iniquities before the coming of the Soul because in Sins my Mother hath conceived me For Sin is in the same point wherein Death consisteth the which indeed is in the very mixture of the Seeds For Death is immediately in the Archeus but not in the Soul which thing the sometimes mortal indisposition it self of the Archeus proveth from whence the conception is made voide which before now was in its whole hope vital And although the impurity of the material thing supposed be before the Flesh thereby generated and therefore also before the Soul yet there is not properly Sin unless the Soul â—all put that on There is therefore a far different infection of original Sin than of any other Sins whatsoever which require a consent of the Soul For other Sins the Soul it self committeth but original Sin defiles the Soul not consenting because the Thingliness or Essence of that original Sin is the very Flesh of Sin For neither therefore is it called the Soul of Sin but the Flesh of Sin because the Soul is defiled by the Flesh But the Devil not from elsewhere than from himself Therefore Man admires mercy but not the Devil Therefore from the good pleasure of the Creator the Apple did carry in it not only the Concupiscence of the Flesh but consequently also the generation of Seed but there was not therefore a Faculty in the Apple of propagating the sensitive Soul The Arbitrator of the World in creating would oblige himself to create every living Soul in every soulified Body when corporeal Dispositions had come unto the bound of enlivening For therefore the Apple presently after it was eaten disposed the Arterial Blood unto a Seed and from thence into a sensitive Soul And that thing was
changed for those only shall rise again changed who shall rise again glorified in the Virgin-Body of Regeneration which change the Apostle understood because that He who is not born again cannot enter into the Kingdom of God And therefore He that shall rise again being not born again by consequence also shall not be changed from his antient Being if he shall rise again from Death neither therefore also shall he have entrance unto Gods Kingdom because by the new Birth the whole Man is made Spirit And therefore he which shall rise again from the new Birth shall rise again in a spiritual Nature Otherwise He that is born of the Flesh and not born again of the Spirit shall hear indeed the Voice of him that is born of the Spirit but shall not know from whence it may come or whither it may go This indeed is the changing of Bodies into Spirit and the change of Bodies in the Resurrection or it is the Glorification of those that are to be saved after the Resurrection But other Sins were expiated indeed through Repentance with the victory and triumph of the Lamb but the loss of that Virginity and primitive Purity doth without Regeneration reserve an Eternal Spot of Impurity and Uncapacity No otherwise than as a virginal conservation and Integrity of the re-born Faithful gives unto Virgins that are born again a Golden or Laurel Crown equalized unto Martyrdom Christ therefore as he is the Father of this Virginity so also the Father of the Age to come But those that are to be saved are his own new Creature and new Regeneratition Who to wit hath given them Power to become the Sons of God unto these who believe in his Name who are born not of Bloods nor of the Will of the Flesh nor by the Will of Man but of God after a most chast manner of the holy Spirit by whom before the brutal Concupiscence of the Flesh arose it was decreed that altogether every Man ought to be born of his Mother being a Virgin Therefore Christ being the Top and Lover of Chastity doth distinguish Men as well in this Age or Life by Chastity as in Heaven and will grace them with an unimitable and eternal Priviledge For a great Company followed the Lamb whithersoever he should go and Sang the Song which no other was able to Sing But these are they who are not defiled with Women For there are Virgins of both Sexes Because there shall not be there Jew or Greek But they are all one in Christ For the Almighty hath chosen his Gelded Ones who have Gelded themselves for the Kingdom of God its sake of whom is the Kingdom of Heaven Therefore married Persons are reckoned to be defiled with Women and Mothers to have conceived their off-springs in Sin and in this thing are far inferiour to Virgins For indeed because the Gospel promiseth unto Mortals not only that the Son of God was Incarnate and suffered for their Salvation But that moreover these two Mysteries least else they should be frustrate are to be applyed unto individual Persons I indeed contemplate thus of this Application that as man through the Sin of lust brake no less the Intent of God than his Admonishment and the humane Nature was therefore afterwards radically Corrupted and that thereupon another and almost brutal Generation thereof followed Therefore the joyful Message hath included as well an Abolishment of Original Sin as of other Sins consecutively issuing from thence Who by dying destroyed our Death not his own because he had none The which is not understood of temporal Death for the righteous Man as yet to this day dyeth just even as before the Passion of the Lord but of Eternal Death Therefore seeing man since the Fall ought to be Born Increase and Multiply no longer from God but from the Bloods of the Sexes by the Will of the Flesh and of Man nor from thence could ever be able to rise again of himself and to re-assume his lost and antient purity nor cease that he might again begin to be otherwise and better therefore the joyful message hath brought an assurance unto us that Baptisme should be unto us for the remission of sins through a new birth of Water and of the holy Spirit That our mind as it were through a new Nativity of its Inne by Regeneration might be partakers of the unspotted Virginity and humanity of our Lord. Which New-birth doth indeed repose the Soul into its former state to wit by taking away the sin or debt and the stinks or noisomenesses thereof but by reason of the continuance of Adamical flesh in which the Immortal Mind liveth the antient possession or inclination unto sin is not taken away nor is there a translation of the corruption drawn from the impure original of the blood of Adam But that this is really so we are perswaded to believe For God doth manifestly daily grant a testimony of that actual Grace and attained Purity to be derived into the Body of those that are Baptized through a true and substantiall Regeneration as well in Body as in Soul For truly for this end and in this respect alone Mahometans are Baptized for a proper reproach because Baptisme from the fact or deed done however unlawfully it be administred and received takes away from them for the future the noisomness inbred in them otherwise to endure for their Life time such as in all the Hebrews or Jewes in many places up and down we do daily observe to be with loathing and weariness The true effect therefore of Regeneration and its co-promised character doth much shine in Baptisme even outwardly also in a defectuous Body And the enemies of the Christian Name do serve us for unvoluntary witnesses unto this thing Yea the perpetuity of the same Effect confirms the unobliterable Character or Impression of Baptisme and the wickedness of it being repeated But the New-birth by Baptisme doth not yet for that Cause take away a necessity of Death For Baptisme forsaketh its own with the fardle of a defiled and Adamical body begotten by the Will of Man And for that Cause also the Soul as subject unto the Vices of the corrupted Body and of a Will long agoe corrupted Wherefore by reason of the frailty of Impure Nature also an easie inclination and frequency of Sinning Baptisme hath been scarce sufficient for those of ripe years otherwise for the more younger sort it is abundantly sufficient Therefore the Sacrament of the Altar is Wine which buddeth forth Virgins Which is as much as to say the end and scope of the Lords Incarnation or of the instituted Sacrament of the Eucharist should bud forth Virgins as demonstrating that the intent of the Creator from the beginning esteemed of and reckoned upon Virginity alone and of how great abhorrency Numb 25. Luxury is in the sight of the Lord. For although Bigamy or a Plurality of Wives and likewise a dismissing of ones Wife and much loosing of
to be sensitive doth not shew the unseperable Essence of an Animal And seeing otherwise the definition of every thing is from the Essence of the thing as they will have it but man according to his Essence was made in a full possession of Immortality and henceforth of an Eternal Duration according to his Soul the Schools could not believe that man by reason of a sensitive Soul alone was essentially an Animal Especially while they believed his Essence to depend on an Eternal Duration and an uncorruptible Soul or Form All which absurdities I acknowledge to have crept into and to have remained in the Schools by reason of the truth of our Position being unknown Even hitherto I have established the Position out of the holy Scriptures Now again the same by the Authorities of Fathers which matter B. Augustine hath seemed to have understood before others saying After what manner had it shamed Man of the Transgression of a Law when as his very Members had not known shame As if he should say His Members were stirred up unto the Concupiscence of the Flesh and acts of his Privie Parts presently after the Eating of the Apple Their Eyes were opened but for this they were not opened that they might know what might be performed by them through the cloathing of Grace when as their Members knew not how to resist their will And dost thou not blush at that Disease or that thou although shamefac'd dost confess that that Lust entred into Paradise And to impute it unto Husbands and Wives before Sin He who was to be without Sin would be born without the Concupiscence of the Flesh not in that Flesh of Sin but in the likeness of sinful Flesh As if he should say whatsoever is born from Copulation although it had been born in Paradise and before Sin would have been and is the Flesh of Sin Seeing that alone which is not born of Copulation is not the Flesh of Sin Whatsoever off-spring is born from Concupiscence or of the Flesh of Sin is obliged unto Orignal Sin unless it be born again in him whom the Virgin conceived without Concupiscence The Flesh of Christ drew a mortality from the mortality of his Mothers Body because she found not the Concupiscence of a Copulatresse For indeed as Original Sin is not derived on the Posterity any other way than by the Concupiscence of the Flesh So it must needs be that in the Apple was included the Concupiscence from whence the humane stock degenerated and was vitiated in generating For truly if off-springs could have been generated any otherwise than by carnal Copulation the Matrimonial act had been unlawful Whereunto this every-way convincing Argument serveth That act before the Apple was eaten was either unlawful and not thought of or it was lawful If it were unlawful now our Position is proved But if lawful therefore whatsoever I have above described out of Augustine is false Seeing therefore they had now actually felt the effect of the eaten Apple or the Concupiscence of the Flesh in their Members in Paradise presently it shamed them because their Members which before they could rule at their pleasure were afterwards moved by a proper incentive of lust At length how greatly Virginity hath alwayes pleased the Bridegroom of the Soul doth clearly enough appear out of divers Histories of the Saints And indeed in Cana of Galilee the Bridegroom having left his Bride followed the Lord Jesus and it is that Disciple whom Jesus therefore so greatly loved The same thing was familiar unto Alexius Aegidius and to very many others especially with poor Women-Virgins For indeed the infinite goodness from the proper motion of its good pleasure from Eternity created Man and fore-loved him with so great a love that he determined to co-knit his own Divinity unto him and to enlighten him with the Light which enlightneth every man that cometh into this World and to Adopt him for the Son of God giving him Power to become the Son of God by the new Birth which new Birth before Sin was not necessary Seeing therefore he requireth People to be re-born of God therefore before Sin they were all born of God which thing Lucifer with his own Spirits seeing through a long-since Pride of his Beauty and since his fall being wholly become Envious supposed that he was wiser than God who had raised up a vile creature unto that height wherefore he aspired to exceed God whom he had not yet seen and to throw him down from his Seat of Majesty Presently afterwards he after that he had paid the punishment of his Sins being more cruelly wroth saw also that Eve being a Virgin was by the onely Goodness of God without all desert and freely now appointed for the aforesaid Instrument of that Adoption and Mother of Men Therefore he endeavoured to hinder the Love of God through the Eating of the Apple Because as seeing that the Lasciviousness and Concupisence of the Flesh implanted in the same was Diametrically opposite unto Gods intention Therefore the Eating of the Apple was not forbidden unto man by a Law but by a fatherly Admonition neither is Original Sin from the Transgressions of a Law from the Eating of the Apple as being forbidden food but by Reason of the effect arising from the Apple and the properties inserted in the Apple After another manner the Transgression or Eating did offend onely in a Voluntary Act but not for Posterity unless Naturally and by the second Causes of a brutal Copulation following from thence otherwise in our first Parents impossible it had inverted the intention of Divine Generation Yea Original Sin fell not so properly on the guiltless Posterity as the effect of Generation the which indeed hath brought forth an Adulterous Beast-like Devilish Generation and plainly uncapable of the Kingdom of God and of Union with and Enjoyment of God By Reason of the Similitude whereof those that were born in Adultery were excluded from the Participation of Heaven But let us feign the opposite thing to wit that our Parents were conscious that there was a Law declared by God the Creator of the Universe touching the forbidden Apple and that upon such an account Death was foretold unto him and all his Posterity and undoubtedly came unto them but at least-wise an irregular Sin being so bold and so ungodly and cruel a Wickedness on all their Posterity could not be forgiven without a great note of Contrition Neither had God how Merciful and Good soever straightway so suddenly made that man fruitful with so great a Blessing and substituted the other living Creatures under his Feet he not being ignorant that neither of them did Grieve Repent Pray but only it shamed them and that they endeavoured as Fools to hide themselves from God and to cover their privy Parts with Leaves Therefore I collect from thence that on the same day not only Mortality entred through Concupiscence But moreover that it presently
that labour with the astonished Disease Convulsion and Palsie and Leprous Persons to be Cured Fie fie Miracles are manifested by an Unimitable finger Besides it behooveth rightly to distinguish effects by Accident from those which are due unto their Causes by themselves As if a Virgin through the failing of her Menstrues doth labour with a strangling Epilepsie or affect of the Palsie but her Courses bewraying themselves upon the drinking of the Water of the Spaw she be freed from the annexed disposition there is not cause that therefore we should commend the true Apoplexie Asthma falling Evil or Palsie to have been Cured by the Fountains of the Spaw For Diseases which proceed from the Womb are Uniuersally the Client of another Monarchy and do consist of another Root than those which break forth from the Condition of the Microcosme as well in the one as in the other Sex The which indeed if any one shall not distinguish of he procures loud laughter to himself from the more discreet Person But besides it hath already been spoken how much a hungry Salt may profit in Fountains but hereafter we must shew what the Coâ—roded and dissolved Mine of Iron may act That therefore first of all doth manifestly binde and therefore it strengthens the Stomach and any of its neighbouring parts In loose therefore and dissolute Diseases the Waters of the Spaw do agree or are serviceable to wit in those of the Lientery Flux Caeliacke Passion and Dysentery or bloody Flux c. Whereunto I exspect that it will be objected that whatsoever Irony matter is offered it provokes the mouth Issues and alwayes the breaches or enfeeblements of the Liver and Slpeen and so that from hence it is agreeable to truth that the Waters of the Spaw are rather opening than Astringent By reason of which difficulties some perhaps doubting do rather flie for refuge unto the unlike parts in Mars I answer from the Adeptists That there doth oft-times wander up and down in us a certain resolved Salt and Mineral one plainly Excrementitious a resolved Tartar I say existing either in the first or in the last matter whereof whether the Womb Liver Slpeen Kidney the Mesentery or Stomach be the Mine we now reckon it all one So that it be manifest that it brings forth remarkable troubles unto that labour with it Stomoma therefore that is Steel or Iron Administred in Powder being drunk down assoon as may be that hurtful Salt which hearkens not to the commands of purging things runs headlong unto the Iron and adheres unto it that it may dissolve that and display its own Faculty and so is Coagulated nigh that and together with the Iron goes forth But if the Iron or Steel be drunk being dissolved in a sharp Liquour yet not hostile unto us to wit the Spaw waters Nature the same liquours being wasted and more inwardly admitted within presently separates the Iron because it is unapt for nourishment from that which was co-mixed with it and sends it forth thorow the Bowels As may be seen in the blackness of the dungs of the Fountains of the Spaw In which Sequestration of the Iron there is straightway made a Con-flux of Mineral Salts no otherwise than as Silver dissolved in Chrysulca or Aqua Fortis doth flie unto applyed Brasse and dissolved Brasse unto Iron The received Iron therefore freeth from obstruction and openeth by accident to wit the vanquished obstructing matter being taken away with it yet not that it therefore ceaseth by it self to be constrictive It opens I say by a specifical and appropriated power but it constrains or binds by a second quality Now moreover seeing the drinking of the water hath increased a courage and hope in the miserable sick especially in those that have the Stone I will declare my judgement It is certain that the Waters of the Spaw do wash or rince the region of the Urine both because they do easily pass thorow and also because they being many and abundantly drunk and Mineral their hungry Salt hinders whereby the Spirit of the Urin the onely Architect of Stones in us may by a property inbred in it the less Stonifie any thing Because another more potent Salt doth now derive the same Spirit being as it were bound into its own Jurisdiction But because that is onely a Cloakative or dissembled Cure although the made Stones and Sands are expelled as it were by the cleansing of the sliding water yea as long as the waters shall be drunk they hinder new Collections of the Stone Yet because they do soon after grow again we judge them to be unfaithful or untrusty Remedies for those that have the Stone For by so much the more readily indeed the Stone hastens to grow by how much that womb the other parent of the Stone shall be the cleaner For shall not the Urine more easily glew a Stone unto a clean Urinal or Chamber-pot than unto one that is besmeared with Oyl For from hence perhaps the Kidneys of Bruit Beasts do abound with very much grease We therefore know a perfect Cure of the Stone and the desired rest to be a far different thing wherein the lesser Stones being sweetly expelled which is the least thing the greater indeed may return into their former Juice by a Retrograde resolving of their Concretion or Composure But neither shall that be sufficient unless the Stonifying inclination be taken away by restorers to wit by the Collected harvest of a few remedies nor is any one able to hope for an entire and wished for health from the Stone no less than from a Fever concerning which we have written in other places and afforded Remedies For the Virtue of healing stands right under every weight that is all Diseases are with it of one value or esteem and it can be diminished by no Disease The more noble powers of remedies onely are desired which cry unto Heaven to the Creator that they have come as it were in vain neither that there is any one almost who can loosen their bands We must timely abstain from complaints in an Ulcerous or corrupt age Therefore as to what belongs unto the first qualities of the Fountains of the Spaw although we are very little careful of those because they are Momentary and those which have not a Vital Anatomy as often as they are not infamous in a very incensed degree yet we Decree that their hungry Salt is in the first Degree of heat and dryth but that the dissolved Vein of Iron hath reached to the second Degree of Cold and Dryth But it hath been shewn with an indulgence of Aristotle and by the above-said Inferences that the water it self is moist in the highest degree but remisly Cold. But because those qualities as well of the water as of the Minerals are Relosteous ones or those which have not a Seminal Being in them they have not any thing of a Cure in them but they Preposterously or over-thwartly happen unto constituted things like
intend not a Fatting but a Healing Indeed if the Heaven permit the Afternoon comes not to be enslaved to Cards or Dice not in the next place unto Sleep but unto Walkings abroad For truly three Concoctions are compleated in Man To wit the First in the Stomack Another in the Liver But a Third in all particular Members Seeing that every part ought to be nourished the First and Second Decoction do more prosperously succeed in Walking and Motion and therefore there is a more plentiful expulsion of all Excrements the which at the Spaw we do especially attend But let the Third concoction be in time of Sleep to wit while as the Vital light ought to inspire it self into the cocted Humour for assimilating sake The which also restrains all avoidance of Excrements except its own which is that of Sweat But of the hour of Sleep the ripening of the precedent Morning and hastening of the following Twilight by Sleep it self shall admonish him Blessed ye the Lord oh ye Fountaines Praise ye and Super-exalt or Magnifie him for Ages CHAP. C. A Paradox of Supplies being of the number of Judiciary Paradoxes 1. Two Causes of the Stone among the Antients 2. In the Stone of the Bladder much muscilage or sliminess comes forth 3. The curing of the Antients consisteth in a threefold succour 4. A solicitous or careful Cure of the Antients 5. A various houshold-stuffe of Stone-breaking things 6. Why Stone-breaking things are derided by most 7. It is answered about the end unto an absurd Objection 8. Despair among the Antients 9. Of what sort the Curing of the Antients was 10. A Modern Paradoxal Opinion 11. Why any one may decline from the Antients 12. Why the Antients have erred in their Cure 13. The matter of Stones 14. The difference of Tartar and Phlegm 15. A History of Tartar 16. A Mechanical Example 17. From whence the Name of Tartar is 18. An Essential Reason in the Example 19. Why coagulation is not from a slimyness 20. Substantial Generations are finished by the limited Seeds not by a casual congress of the first qualities 21. What and where the Seeds of Stones are 22. The best Natural Philosophy is taught by an Analysis 23. Another Reason against the Antients 24. A third Reason 25. A fourth Reason in the Macrocosme 26. An Objection 27. It maketh for us 28. Gemms know no viscosity or slimyness 29. Against the Efficient Cause of the Antients a first and second Reason 30. From whence the heat in a Stony-Kidney is 31. An Example 32. Why in the Stone of the Bladder they do not complain of heat 33. Why there is a muckie snivel in the Stone of the Bladder 34. A former Reason Another 35. Causes that are to be removed being unknown Remedies have been unknown 36. Safe Remedies which are meet in co-betokenings 37. Of what worth the more external Remedies are 38. A Paradox in the distinction of an Effect by it self and by accident 39. How far they are profitable 40. What an opening Medicine alone may be 41. That there is not made an enlargement of the Urin-Vessels by Drinks 42. What can enlarge the Urin-Vessel 43. A sounding Objection 44. A distinguishing of Effects according to the pertinency of their Causes 45. A Reason 46. A Censure of the Remedies of the Antients 47. A Curative Method 48. In all Urine there is a Stone Who may be called one that hath the Stone 49. What the inclination unto the Stone in the Kidney or Bladder may be 50. What Hope hath afforded for Curing 51. How the Inclination may be taken away 52. The Quality of a Remedy which takes away the Inclination 53. The Medicine Aroph or of Mandrake 54. An adverse Barking 55. Hermetical and Pythagorical Phylosophy do agree 56. The quality of a Remedy resolving the Stone 57. An Answer to an absurd Objection SEeing that the frequent Monster of the Affect of the Stone doth call many unto the Waters of the Spaw through the hope of a perfect Cure truly it shall profit more liberally to explain this Paragraph or sentential summe least a breviary should produce obscurity I must shew therefore what the Antients and what the more Modern Disciples of the School of Hermes do think of the Birth or rise and Cure of the Stones in Man First of all they have accused the matter of the Stone to be a Phlegm Snivel Muscilage or humane Excrement but the efficient Cause thereof to be actual Heat exceeding in the Member What else say they seeing from a Stony Kidney much Sediment but from a Bladder besieged with Stones a continual muckiness is violently disturbed or expelled and although there be no Heat in the Bladder at least-wise it is sufficient that those that have the Stone do experience the same Heat to be manifested in their Loyns Therefore seeing that against things manifest and known by Sense none but a blinde man makes resistance against the Sun the Testimonies of the Causes of the Stone already given ought to remain confirmed they being approved by a number of Authorities and Dayes But these things being laid down they go to the Cure wherein moistening opening and cleansing things are their confided succours By Clysters I say by Baths Fomentations 〈◊〉 and moistening opening and cleansing Potions they have endeavoured 〈◊〉 their might To wit whereby the Stone already bred might be expelled and by the chance of Fortune the Consultation of Coagulating may be taken away from the approaching Ballast But for that which is hereafter to come not any thing hath been provided Indeed they have not sluggishly thought of the Oil of Almonds or the supplying Medicines in the absence of this to be given to drink for the enlargement of the Urine-Vessels at the first entrance of the Cure that there may afterwards be place for the following abstersives or cleansers the more easily to expell the Stone To wit by these suppositions not a little through the facility of the Art suspected they have thought that in so great a Discommodity and lavishment of Nature they have abundantly satisfied our Calamity and so a Curative indication or betokening unless perhaps some Stone-breaking Medicines as well of Herbs Roots Wood Seeds and Fruits as of certain Stones beaten into a Powder being fetch'd with a glorious Title received by the more chief Physitians into the Composition Lythontribon may seem to have been annexed unto the former But they have been so called because some have believed that they do break the Stone others that they diminish it but most have believed neither They indeed smile one us with a Beautiful name delivered by the Ancients but they have been thus Administred hitherto with an unfaithful event and the Aid never answering their Promises Therefore others farther declining do judge that the Stomack Veins and Kidneys shall sooner be pierced and bored thorow or shall sooner yield to a notable Corrosion or violent power of breaking to pieces than that a Stone which is
Materia Prima or the First Matter Privation Fortune Chance an Infinite and a Vacuum doth as yet with a scanty or fasting mouth consume the Spring of Young Men. What think you I pray if any Phlegmatick thing should of necessity and by it self give a Material being to the Stone and an actual and excessive heat should Coct that matter into a Stone verily we must think that is done because the heat did dry the Phlegm into a Stone But that thing in man is impossible who doth every where and alwayes yea as yet somewhat more in the Reins and Bladder exclude so great a drying by his actual moisture And so much the stronger because in the sudden passage of the Urine thorow the Kidneys it cannot at an instant dry up any Muckiness which is mixt throughout Urine into a Stone and the which Muckiness the succeeding Urine doth not moreover vindicate from Dryth Truly it should grieve us or be tiresome unto us to stay any longer in these things unless we also had been deluded by these Dreams I will therefore re-assume Let us therefore try whether any muckie snivel being dryed by heat doth depart into a hard Stone or indeed into a Tophus or soft Sandy Stone For from the snivel of the Nostrils to wit the most tough of all being dryed a Brickle Tophus but not a hard Stone is at any time yielded Besides the Example lately given concerning a very clear Urine which is wholly freed from a visible sliminess and yet affixing a Stone in manner of little Grains unto the Spondils or turning Joynts forbiddeth to acknowledge such a Material Cause also the single Progeny of Tartars and likewise the like Progeny of Stones in the Macrocosme withstands the same But if indeed we say that heat doth not dry up the muckie snivel while it begetteth the Stone but that it constraineth or Coagulateth it by a property not indeed of drying but of heating or through a Concoction thereof to wit by the command whereof alone the matter being restrained and excited by heat puts on the power of a curd which is internal unto it But that is to have said something on our behalf and is Voluntarily granted us To wit to acknowledge a property subscribed unto Coagulation in the matter whether that matter in the mean time shall be slimy or cleer and transparent Because else Gems should exclaim that they have stood in need of the sliminess of matter whereby they may assume so great strength and lustre yet neither therefore shalt thou avoid the Rocks Because neither therefore hath any actual heat Coagulated a Stone in the Urinal but far after the Urine had lost its luke-warmth In the next place seeing that hateful sense of heat is wanting in the Stone of the Bladder when as notwithstanding that Stone is for the most part harder than that in the Kidneys it by all means follows that the necessary efficient Cause of the Stone is not heat or else that the more powerful heat should preside for framing of the Stone in the Bladder Therefore the Studies of the more Modern Physitians do Decree that heat in the Reins is not the Parent of the Stones but a Symptome but an effect following upon the placing of the hateful guest the Stone in the Bowel For as a thorn heing thrust into the Finger is neither hot nor hardened by heat nor by reason of heat thrust into the Flesh yet heat follows the hurt as a companion So also we must seriously take notice that heat doth happen upon the hurting of the Bowel made by the Stone existing in it and being continually cherished thereby For where Pain is there according to Hyppocrates is a Disease and heat doth also flow thither as a certain latter thingor effect But that which happens in the hurt substance of the Kidneys is not therefore made in like manner in the Bladder which hath it self in manner of a receptable and sink of the Urine which onely slideth by the Kidney without delay But if as well the Reins as Bladder do when the Stone is present both of them according to their own disposition avoid a certain snivelly matter cease thou to wonder that the part being as it were besieged by an Enemy and suppressed in its Vegetative faculty doth continually loose something of its nourishment and like an eye that is beset with dust its Enemy as it were weep forth its alimentary humour For all particular parts in us do well perceive what things are so agreeable and what are extream hateful and execrable and indeed they do every where express no obscure tokens of that perceivance For otherwise the Stone of the Bladder being cut out a continual issuing forth of muckie snivel should not yet cease to wit if that muck should have the Reason of a Cause and not of an Effect of the Stones But as to what belongs to the Cure thereof we must diligently mark that it ought hitherto to be un-compleated by those unto whom the true Causes of the Stone have not been made known to wit if in a removal of the Causes and not otherwise a diseasie Disposition ought to depart Indeed I admit first of all that the Bowels lying upon the Urin-Vessels being unburdened by Clysters will afford by all means a more easie Passage for the Stone to go forth Fomentations also likewise Anointings and Baths I promise to profit very much because our Body as it is one only thing in an agreement of all Parts So according to Hippocrates it is wholly as well within as without conspirable and exspirable Likewise within and without above and beneath day and night Fire and Water have made three Circuits in us and so that they wander hither and thither and that by course For in very deed the more external Aids are not perpendicular but oblique or crooked Ones only In the next place seeing nothing immediately reacheth the Stone but what doth Urin-wise lick the Kidney therefore it is certain that Moistening Slymie and muscilaginous Medicines to wit the Mallow Marsh-mallow Fleawort c. have put off those kinde of corporeal Qualities in the former Shops of Digestions as being plainly unlike to Urinary Qualities In the mean time we grant that they so far succour those that have the Stone as by their more sweet Juice they do asswage and temperate the Sharpness of the Urin or as the Muckinesses of their former Life being driven away they do keep within in the Root something of an abstersive or dissolutive Matter which one only Matter we admit of as being opening which may be of use Even as in the Juice of Lemmons Quinces Cicers Pellitory c. But surely on both sides these are nought but even a feeble and sluggish Power for so great an Enemy At length neither do we sufficiently comprehend the things promised How Oyl of Almonds may be able to enlarge or extend the Urin-pipes whereof scarce one small Drop and that not but through an
Errour of the separating Faculty doth reach to the Urin-pipes The matter is thus Surely the Urin-Vessels consist of a moist Membrane whereinto as nothing which is not of its own Nourishment doth the more piercingly enter So the Oyle although it should wholly washingly flow thither it should not performe that in a living Membrane which otherwise it might do in dry and dead Parchment So far is it that the Urin-Vessels being fore-occupied and moistened with their own Nourishment and Urin can receive or assume unto them any oylie Substance For truly there is not an easie Combination of Oyl with Water and the too much swift Passage of the Oyl should come as slow for the enlargment of the Urin-pipes Let us therefore account them to be sent Dreams because the Urin-Vessels are never enlarged or extended but by a more gross compaction of a Body but that was not the Office of Oyl or Liquor For indeed a Urin-vessel is loosely and softly moist of it self and being content with its own Urin refuseth any further Liquors Therefore it is enlarged only by the Stone that is by the diseasie Cause and being once amplified it doth not fall down or contract again As may be seen that Stones being by degrees increased are more easily expelled than when long before being the least Ones But they will say loosening Medicines being drunk up that is such as extend the Urin-pipes the miserable Diseased are sometimes holpen Wherefore enlargments of the Urin-pipes do also happen I wish that he may want successes whosoever he be that thinks Deeds are to be taken notice of in Phylosophy from the event which Deeds an Effect by it self is never wont to attribute unto Causes by accident For any the more sweet Liquor shall perhaps infect the Urin and shall render it more washy through its mixture these things indeed shall be for a delight and refreshment in re-pressing the Cruelty of Symptomes but it is not therefore lawful to infer that the more sweet Juice being drunk the Stomack Veins or Urin-pipes are either enlarged or at least-wise more apt for Enlargment For if any thing that is drunk should render the Urin-Pipes more extensive in their Latitude Truly that shall dissolve and enlarge the Stomack because it being deputed for the sustaining of a greater weight of Foods shall on every side suffer an Extension and as yet so much the rather because that at the time of the head-long violence of the urgent Stone much Vomiting doth excessively molest the Stomack and therefore should pluck it abroad even unto a tearing Hitherto nothing of Remedies hath been heard of in so great a Calamity Wherefore we coming nearer unto a censure of those Medicines which have hitherto seemed by a gentle Abstersion also those which by a certain Property have seemed to drive out the Stone with leave we will ingeniously declare For although the Powders as well of Herbs Seeds Fruits Liquors and Waters as of Stones and Minerals the Cruelties of Symptoms being appeased have at length brought forth the Stones and Sands what I pray you more famous thing hath even there been done besides a curing of the present Fit Surely we have done no otherwise than he who hath appeased a Fit of the Falling-sickness I say we have on both sides plucked off only some one particular Fruit of the Disease the Tree being un-touched by the Axe and the Root remaining safe Therefore whatsoever things we hope shall chiefly profit those that have the Stone we will perfectly teach in two Heads First That an Expulsion of the Stone be not intended for something less cruel becomes a Physitian than that which Nature her self almost failing under her weight is voluntarily buised about as being disturbed by the sting of Symptoms but it s one only Dissolution The Bolts of coagulation I say being loosed the Stone is by a solution to be reduced into a Liquor by a retrograde Conversion to wit into the matter from whence it grew together by a Composition or Conjunction Let the second Head be and that indeed a more famous one That the stonifying Inclination be taken away To wit the which even still persisting nothing worthy of returning thanks is done For indeed it is manifest by the Example of the Urin abovesaid that every Man hath a potential Stone in his Urin for that thing the Condition of the Microcosm or little World did require if it ought on every side to express the Macrocosm or great World but that he is only miserable to wit in whose Urin a Power of stonifying lying hid is actually unfolded within his Skin Therefore it is altogether necessary that there be in the Powers of the things or parts of that miserable Man a certain Impression I say a sealing Gorgon-Mark by reason whereof the Powers themselves also are too exactly exquisitely stickingly and thorow searchingly incumbent about the separation and examination of the Urin from whence there is then in that Shop made an actuating of that Tartar which before did grow as a watery Matter throughout the whole Urin. But seeing that the sealing Notes and Impressions of Diseases do not co-here with Species but with Individuals only we must never despair but that the Impression being brought in may as vanquished give place unto a certain more strong and bountiful Ascendent it holding its Inn in manner of a Tyrant An Inclination therefore unto the Stone shall be wholly taken away if the Power it self doth no more hereafter labour in an actual Separation of the Tartar from the Urin. Therefore that over-exquisite separating Faculty is to be laid asleep And that in no wise surely by an induced Drowsiness of Opium or by the sloath negligence and rest of the like Stupefactives Far be it But there is a Planetary Power in the Remedy of Casta Venus or Agnus Castus by a specifical Property so restraining all elaboration of Urin in the Reins that the Kidneys being for the future through a sweet idleness as it were occupied in sleep do give them to rest indulging only their own Nourishment This therefore is the golden Peace in us which in Politicks commands every one to attend only his own Offices but not to be intent on the Offices of others that he may obtain rest or quietness Where it is to be noted That the action and permanent Operation is to be dispatched not on the Powers of Bodies but indeed of Powers if the vanquishing Faculty shall so overome the vanquished one that it shall for the future yield it self into the Army of the Victress Under which by-work it is plainly enough to be seen that the chief Crases or constitutive Mixtures of Medicines are not but in the most refined Liquors because the Spermatick and first constituting things have not any commerce with the more gross compaction of Bodies Furthermore for the obtaining of that wished for peace in the Reins we have succesfully hitherto used and enjoyed the Medicine of Aroph or Man-drake by
a speculative beholding within it self yet so that the Understanding may know one thing more presentially then another while it reflects it self upon things understood to wit because it is in truth it self and in a distinct Unity What if the same thing doth now daily stand in the artificiall Memory because that recollecting Memory is not a distinct act from the inductive Judgement of the Intellect Shall not this thing therefore be more proper to the Mind being once dispatched of the imaginative turbulencies of Understanding For neither doth that hinder these things because in Wine the Memory perisheth the Judgement remaining safe or on the contrary For he that is drunk or mad doth oft-times remember all things before his drunkness and in like manner the other returning unto himself remembers all things which were done in time of his madness Indeed those things are heterogeneally distinct in the Body according to the manner of the receiver Unto Inanimate things also I observe a certain deaf knowledge to belong likewise a Sense and Affection of their Object which things began to be called Sympathetical ones But such a deaf perceivance of Objects is unto those things in stead of sight and understanding There is moreover a virtue in them to wit a certain vital natural endowment of a certain goodness and valour for ends appointed by the Creator There is also a third Power resulting from both the foregoing ones which is that of Joy or Delight at the meeting of things helpful and of turning away from things hurtful wherein a certain affection toward their Objects is beheld Likewise Fear Flight c. which threefold degree of ascent is more manifest in the more stupid Insects even as in mad or furious Men in whom no Understanding is President and onely the governing Powers of a visual Light doth shine forth Yet besides there is present with these the act of Virtues and vital Functions by reason of which and by which they are Insects Thirdly There is in them a far more manifest formal act of Joy and averseness The which again in other sensitive Creatures are as yet far more clearly unfolded Unto these indeed a certain sensitive imagination doth belong with a certain kind of discourse of Reason which is unto them in stead of Understanding clearly appearing more or less in all so that Quick-sightedness Will Memory and Remembrance happens unto them under the apprehension of Understanding Yet their Objects and Functions being continually changed according to the matter which is inclined unto renting Divisions and singularities There is also in them an issuing Power of Goodness and Virtues whereby their Souls do more or less incline unto the exercises of their Virtues or Bruitishnesses And there is at length also in them their complacency and wearisomness and animosity on the considerations of Objects things so co-united unto sensitive Souls that it is scarce possible to behold two persons but we are presently addicted to one more than another and these things being incorporeal things according to the manner of the receiver they shall for that reason in man be more clarified Nevertheless I will not that the Image of God be considered in man by reason of any ternary of faculties which may thereto be found to belong unto other things in the Susteme of the World Certainly the dignity of the Divine Image is not in any wise participated of by other created things For trul◠〈…〉 Divine Image is intimate onely to the Soul and so proper unto it as is its own essence unto its self Yet any properties of the Soul whatsoever are not the very Essence of the Mind but the Products and Effects of Essences For neither is it a thing beseeming the Majesty of the Divine Image to be drawn out of Qualities For the properties of other things do co-melt into the Essence of the Soul by virtue of the Divine Image But if they are reckoned as Attributes that is by reason of the miserable manner of the vulgar Understanding for truly the Mind is one pure simple homogeneal and undivided act wherein the Image of God doth immediately and essentially subsist so that in that Image even all Powers do not onely lay aside the nature of Attributes but also do collect their supposionalities into an undistinct Unity Because the Soul is in it self a certain substantial Light and a substance so clear that it is not distinctguished by suppositions from the Light it self And the Understanding thereof is so the Light of the Soul that the Soul it self which is nothing but Light is only meer Understanding In which Light of its own self the Soul being separated from the Body seeth and understandeth it self wholly throughout the whole neither hath it need of a brain or heart In which organs indeed its substance seemeth onely to assume the race of Properties For in the Body the abstracted Intellect it self being drowned in corporeal Organs and seeing it makes use of the same it represents and assumes a qualitative faculty which is called Imagination the which from the society of the Imaginative Power of the sensitive Soul it self and splendor of the Understanding degenerated in the Organs doth by a certain combination arise into a qualitative Power For therefore that Faculty is wearied by Imagining and failes so as that it becomes mad and the haires wax grey but the mind being once separated is never wearied in understanding And moreover in living Persons the Imagination is not onely wearied but also it hath not of it self intellective species but those which it draws from Objects And therefore the faculty of Understanding which in imagining concurreth with the imaginative Office of the sensitive Soul followes the disposition of the organ and will or arbiterment of the sensitive Life Like as regularly in Nature the effect follows the weaker part of its Causes But the Soul whatsoever it requireth for knowing remembring and willing whether it be for once or for oftner times all that it hath from it self and not from another For neither in the Soul being abstracted or with-drawn doth a Will arise from the thing understood Yea neither is there a Will in the Soul unto the thing understood but it is the goodness of a formal love The which indeed is not a proper passion of the Soul not a habit not an inclination nor any quality thereof But a substantial act of goodness whereby a blessed Soul is substantially simply and homogenially good but not qualitatively And it hath this prerogative whereby it is the typical Image of the Divinity But Bodies as well those which are believed to be compounded as those that are meerly simple ones do slide with a perpetual free accord into the Attributes of Forms they being readily inclined into the successive changes of a diversity of kindes and dissolution Therefore now it is manifest from whence the state dignity condition of the Soul and prerogative of the Divine Image in living Persons may be over-clouded But the
moisture in us and the radical heat may be for synonymals But moreover all do with one consent presage that our Vital heat would never fail us if there might always be enough and to spare of that moisture and fodder Which moisture because they believe to be hereafter wasted by a necessary action of heat they finish the hope and Treatise of Long Life by a denial But alas with what pernicious blindness hath the Schoole of Medicine through thinking stumbled in all things It had also seen the Flame of a Lamp to be nourished with Oyl and that through defect hereof that also failed but that it was continued by the pouring on of Oyl Wherefore a plausible Invention smiled on them and therefore they drew that Invention into the History of Life Especially because they by sense took notice that heat was no less in the four-footed Beast and Bird than in a Man So greatly with the Patronage of Aristotle have they confounded heat under the Etymology of Life And then they presently drew out of heat the token of true and presential Fire Yet the Question remained under Controversie The Aristotelicks indeed attribute this Fire unto the Element of the Stars and contratrarily distinguish the sublunary Element of Fire in its species But others attribute it unto the Element of sublunary Fire And have about this and the other their own Arguments of Brawlings In the mean time the Schoole hath been wholly dumb about mute and cold Fishes and although it confessed that Fishes do live are moved and nourished no more unprosperously than four-footed Beasts yea although it knew that they are enriched with a far more fruitful race of Off-springs in the next place that they live a more healthy Life and notwithstanding that Fires and heats are wanting under the Sea especially the frozen Sea wherein in the mean time there was the greatest and most populous Common-wealth neverthelesse it would not forsake the embers of the vital spark drawn in from its tender years although it took notice that it was deluded through a Patronage of truth Wherefore the miserable Schooles flee unto Decrees or Authorities Therefore they would have Man Birds and also four-footed Beasts to be indeed in a Trine Number and that the Fish might be involved as a Fourth and consocial thereunto and be constrained under their large Doctrine That they might determine of an equal right concerning the Fish as absent in the participation of Radical heat But because the Soul comes as a Servant unto established pleasures and doth also administer Reason even for a non-Being at pleasure they have devised a privy shift and determine to wit That hot living Creatures are actually hot with a palpable Fire but that Fishes are onely potentially hot As if therefore Fishes should onely potentially live if the Effect doth not badly square with its granted Causes The Schooles I say do feign Heat to be the total Cause of an actual Life to wit they substitute an equivocal or doubtful Quality like unto heat but an irregular unnamed one because an unknown feigned and dissembled one to be received under the name of potential Heat For the Schools by imagining have abhorred to enter into the Depth of the Sea wherefore the Speculation of Fishes being left as barren because it was resisted by a plausible Devise they have well pleased themselves as it were wandring in a Dream in hot Animals with the Application of Lamps and Life Shall the radical Moisture thus be no longer with Aristotle Spermatick Froathy and Muscilaginous but now to let it be Oylie Fat and Combustible Shall thus therefore a Fat Belly which through much Grease shall afford Fewel for the radical Moisture be only of necessity Long-lived A Capuchin in our Country was Cold for almost an whole year at least-wise in both his Legs and Arms because he shall loose less of his Moisture he shall of necessity retain his Oyl the longer in his Lamp But at least-wise here a certain wan Stupidity of the Schools elsewhere by me demonstrated is adjoyned To wit that the Action of Heat especially if it shall not be kindled by a lively Flame doth indeed dry up all Moistures into a Sandy-stone and Coal but never consumeth them without the remainder of a residence even as is easie to be seen in us so that it is even a wonder that they have not hitherto observed that Consuming is not made in us by Heat alone But at least-wise there should be need of a torch in the Heart which thing also the Schools have not yet considered least otherwise the feigned and vapo rous fatness of the Moisture because it is that which in the Heart should be wholly Spiritual like Aqua Vitae should in a small moment and great breviary burn up all at once and cease to be For else without a torch neglected by the Schools the feigned History of Life shall badly square unto Fires built from the first-born Liquor which are on every side kindled at once However they shall say at least from one Absurdity drawn out of the Latex or Liquor of Life there are many Anguishes But let us freely feign that this idle Devise of the Schools might stand To wit that the Life is a certain Fire wasting the radical Moisture because it is Fat and doth thereby live and that Lean Persons alone are of a shorter Life But from whence is that Moisture in us Is it not from the Nourishment materially and from the vital Archeus efficiently Certainly our Lamp shall never be extinguished if the Power of burning or blazing Heat as they will have it be for the making of Oyl out of the Bread and Drink and if nothing of a Residence remaineth from the fatness in the Torch which may stop up and stifle that Torch To wit even as nothing at length remains from the Blood in Persons of ripe Years which may have it self in manner of a superfluous Coal And indeed in a Feast hath it not its abundance of Nourishments and heat the Workman of that fat Moisture resulting within from thence Seeing that Light proceeds from Light and an uncombustible Fire from Fire with no difficulty Why therefore doth the Man die For I find from the Positions of the Schools a perpetual Motion in the Theory but not in the Practick Therefore Fraud and Deceit do subsist in their Positions or at least-wise a shameful Rashness But they will say that after growth nothing is any longer applyed from the radical Moisture unto the solid Parts Therefore it must needs be that the true radical Moisture seeing it doth now no longer co-here to the Root therefore also the sound Parts do by degrees wax dry and so that the Fodder of the Heat failing the same Heat dyeth But first of all from hence is drawn that the Death of Old Age doth not happen but by reason of the dryness of the similar Parts When as a Stag of one Year old is dryer than a Man of
eighty Year old and yet he easily extends his Life unto one or two Ages In the next if the Moisture ceaseth to be radical because it reacheth not the end or Application unto the Root That indeed is to the moisture by accident and therefore it doth not change the Essence thereof For neither doth the Heat of the Fire cease to be propagated in the Neighboriag Wood although the burning Wood shall not receive a fewel of fatness from without Neither in the next place doth the aforesaid excuse subsist For truly for every Event the solid Parts shall have themselves in manner of a Lamp or Torch which is sufficiently able to burn in what part Oyl is supplyed unto it and so that Oyl being supplied from without the Fire should be able to live for ever For they teach that the Heat of the solid Parts is from the Element of Fire the which they think to be for the mixture of Bodies and to be enflamed in the fatness of the radical moisture or humour First of all that Moisture is spermatick and muscilaginous but not Oylie And then if the Fire passeth out of the solid Parts unto the Moisture which it enflameth it shall be sufficient for the Moisture to be consumed and alwayes to be applyed from without nor to be incorporated in the Root throughout the whole Because if it pass out of the solid Parts unto the unsolid Parts applyed unto it during the whole life time it shall alwayes be able to pass thorow the un-solid Parts applyed unto it neither doth that excuse availe that it ceaseth to be radical while it is no longer United unto the innermost Root Because then prefently after growth the vital Vigour should be extinguished because the Moisture doth not then any longer receive a Union with the solid or sound Parts But why do I stay any longer in refuting of Absurdities It hath been so sufficiently and over-shewn that the Fire is not an Element that the mixture of the same for the Subsistence of all Bodies whatsoever is false because those of mixt Bodies are meer and antient Fables The Fire therefore if there were any in us should be primarily in the vital Spirit for the which enough Moisture doth alwayes supply it self out of the venal Blood Wherefore indeed I grieve that they have hitherto so sloathfully stumbled in the Subject of Life and Doctrine of Integrity or Health For I after the time of my Youth conjectured that there was an Errour altogether shamefully committed and omitted in the Consideration of Defects and Diseases Because none truly knows that which is crooked who hath not first known that which is right This therefore is the feigned Doctrine of the Schools concerning Life which they endeavour to establish by the supposed Authority of a little Book feigned on Hippocrates concerning humane Nature Which saith That we on the first day of our Birth are most hot and likewise at length on the last day most Cold As if there should be a different Condition of our Heat from that of any other things For whatsoever things do arise from elsewhere do presently after assume an increase and that without ceasing and at length decline and fail Wherefore if according to the Mind of the Old-man Heat should most greatly abound on the first day yet neither is the Life tied up to Heat For truly I have demonstrated that Heat is rather an Effect of Life in hot living Creatures than the Life it self or the Cause of Lise and therefore Fishes can most safely want Heat and now for that very Cause it commits an Errour in arguing of not the Cause as for the Cause Truly I am alwayes wont to behold search into believe and measure Heat as Heat and as a Quality neither also to implore any other Witnesses or Judges besides the Sense of Touching and an Instrument of Glasse which I have afore taught for the searching out of Degrees and Moments of Heat in the encompassing Air In which Sense I have found a Man of thirty Years of Age to be hotter than any Child however in the mean time they may doat about the diverse particular Kinds of Heat For let them dispute of Qualities known by Sense as of Fables and under potential Considerations but I have accustomed my self to divide open look into and esteem of things even as they are in themselves But moreover Paracelsus being ignorant of the radical Moisture of the Schools doth now and then confound that with the Mummy of our Body but elsewhere he reputes it to be as it were the inward shadow of our Body from whence he would have shadowie Flames to shine round about us To wit that the radical Moisture is the Image of the Man extended throughout the whole Man and deferring or prolonging his Life In another place also he judgeth the radical Moisture to be the Mercury or one of his three Beginnings not divideable in living Persons which is equally participated of throughout the whole For the Life being extinguished by the Plague for Death takes away the Mummial Goodness the Mummy indeed hath very cunningly failed or forsaken the same Moisture in the Body At length although the Schools confess that younger People are oft-times extinguished the radical Moisture being not yet consumed as neither through Penury of Heat and in this respect they are not very careful for their own Position whereby they may equally measure the Life by Heat and radical Moisture yet they remain in the Bounds of their Ancestours by reason of a custom of Assenting a sloath of diligent Searching and despair of Learning For indeed they have been ignorant of lightsome Lights of Life but that they are indifferent by reason of the distinction of the two greater Lights For that they may be hot like as also cold That is they have not Learned that Forms and Lives are Synonymals But I have alwayes greatly pitied the confused Tradition of this Moisture which is of so great Moment although in the Moisture of the Root they confess both the Hinges of Medicine to be rouled I bestowed much Iabout in my younger Years by the Resolutions of Bodies that I might find some certain Messenger of the radical Moisture And at length through the Favour of God I was at last more assured that not any of those things were in Nature which with a lofty Brow are promised by the Schooles in this respect I acknowledge indeed that there is a seminal Original Moisture which is the constitutive Moisture of us but altogether of the same Species Property and Identity with that whereby we grow and are afterwards uncessantly nourished And so that the Bones Bowels Nerves Tendons of Children do consist of an un-different and do increase from a like Moisture whereby young Folks their Increase being now finished are nourished According to the Maxime of the Schools We are nourished by the same thing whereof we consist But we consist of Original or first-born Moisture therefore we
Meats Yea which is more The Blood which is avoided in or presently after delivery is not Menstruous through the defect of its condition because it is not superfluous from a fore-going course of the Moon And then also because it is not heaped up fleshy not aluminous or tart not staining linnen Cloathes nor separated from the whole nor banished unto the places of the Womb for expulsion For that bloud which is plentifully voided in time and after delivery and the which being retained a doating Fever doth soon after threaten death is indeed venal blood yet not the Menstrues of the Mother For it is left by the Young who seeing from his quickening he lived in his own Orbe had a kitchin out of himself in the Vessels of the Womb. Wherefore it hath taken to it self another property than that of the Mother and than that of the Menstrues For that guest hath indeed the shape of Menstruous Blood Yet being an adoptive of another Family and become a forreigner to the Mother it is seriously to be expelled surely no otherwise than as the Secundines themselves But being omitted and left behind it is corrupted and brings on death But seeing that in a Woman great with Child there is no Menstrues at all by consequence neither is that Young nourished but with the pure arterial blood of the Mother and afterwards with pure venal blood being also first refined in its kitchins Therefore the Schools are deceived who teach That the small Pox or Measels are due almost to every mortal man by reason of the tribute of Menstruous nourishment For they observed that there was seldom any smitten twice with that Disease and perhaps seldom excused from it Wherefore they searching into the common Cause from whence the Young should be nourished in the beginning have referred the Effect on the Menstrues But in all things they without the knowledge of things have mutually subscribed to each other and have slidden into Fables and Conjectures For first of all they have not considered that it is almost impossible for any one to be made free from that Disease if all are alike indifferently nourished with Menstrues And then because they should be afflicted as it were at one certain and appointed term of the Crisis I confess indeed that the Measels do spring from a Poyson and draw a Poyson with them infect the blood with their ferment and defile others that stand by but especially Children and that the internal essence of Poysons is not demonstrable by a former Cause and therefore we measure the Property of a Poyson by the Effects even as a Tree by his Fruits 1. Therefore The Poyson of the Measels is proper onely to humane kind 2. That Nature is prone to the framing of that Poyson 3. But that it is kindled about the Stomack and so in the Center of the Body 4. That the parts being once besieged with this Poyson do most swiftly repulse that Poyson from themselves towards the superficies of the Body 5. That the shops of that Poyson after that they have once felt the tyranny thereof being afterwards thorowly instructed with a hostile averseness and horror do with great fore-caution prevent or hinder the generation thereof even from the very beginning least they should even at first unwarily fall thereinto Therefore the Poyson is made in Man but not co-bred in him from the Menstrues But of what quality that Poyson may be cannot be described by name because it hath not a proper name out of its effects It is sufficient in this place that the Menstrues cannot be drawn into a Cause for the Distempers aforesaid At first therefore The Menstrues offends in its matter by reason of its abounding alone And then it undergoes a degree that the first may be wherein that blood is superfluous from the foregoing course of the Moon But a Second degree is as soon as it is separated from the rest of blood But a Third degree is while as designed it hath resided about the Vessels of the Womb. A Fourth is that which hath stuck some good while in the same place and hath entered into the way of death At length the last degree is while as it now hath slidden forth as a dead Carcass and into the Air. Therefore the Schooles offend while as by cutting of a Vein they are busied in succouring of Virgins who in respect of their Menstrues do feel an heart-beating or trembling without distinction For although the Menstrues of the first degree appeaseth heart-beatings or pantings by a revulsive blood-letting yet in the third degree of the Menstrues I have fore-told it to our chief Physitians to be a destructive Remedy Because that the Veines of the Arme or Hams being emptied I have observed the Menstrues to be drawn backwards from the neighbouring places into the Veins And truly those Veins which do not remain emptied but which are filled again by a communion of continuation So also after great heart-beatings and pauses of intermitted pulses or after most sharp paines of the sides following from the Womb to wit by reason of an aluminous Poyson of the third degree Virgins have suddenly died by reason of Phlebotomy by me instituted at unawares In the first degree indeed the abundance of venal blood is taken away But it is the less evil although a part of the barren blood be left surviving Truly I had rather to help Nature in her sequestration and expulsion than by drawing of undistinct blood to have weakened Nature Moreover that is to be noted That although I have distinguished Diseases by the Ranks of Digestions yet I have scarce made mention of the Menstrues Because the Menstrues is neither digested nor is it a superfluity of Digestion and so is of another condition For at first it offends with a good abundance and then with a burdensom superfluity presently after it is deprived of Life and becomes a Poyson yet it cures Swine which are inclining into the Leprosie even as Horses straightway which were contracted or convulsive from unseasonable Drink if they drink up but a small quantity of Menstrues And likewise the poysonsom and true Menstrues of another Woman being administred in a few drops hath presently strangled a Woman labouring with a Flux of the Womb. But the blood which is at length avoided in plenty in Fluxes of the Womb being drunk in a few drops stayeth those Fluxes Furthermore because Woman only the Ape perhaps excepted doth suffer Menstrues and although the Menstrues do accuse of an abundance alone yet that the Cow her Dug being dried suffers not Menstrues otherwise she flowes down with very much Milk denoting that the abounding of venal blood is indeed the material Cause but not therefore the final and the which therefore I have not reduced among natural Causes For that the Almighty alone encloseth all the final Causes of all things within himself who sweetly disposeth of all things according to the unsearchable Abysse of his own Judgements
of the Life that was to be governed to slide on the neck of the sensitive Soul CHAP. CXI Life Eternal THe Gospel promiseth to mortal Men not only that the Son of God was Incarnate and suffered for the Salvation of Man but that these two Misteries are to be applyed unto Individuals which else should be as it were in vain But I have considered of that Application after this manner For indeed by Sin Man brake no less the Intent than the Decree of God from whence humane Nature was corrupted in its Root because there followed another almost beast-like Generation thereupon which of it self is uncapable of life Eternal Wherefore the Gospel ought to include the abolishment of Original Sin and of all other things issuing from the Corruption of Nature Therefore seeing Man thenceforeward ought to be born no longer of God but naturally only of the Bloods of the Sexes of the will of the Flesh and of the will of Man neither yet could his Body rise again through any Power of his own into its antient Dignity and much less cease to be that it might again and otherwise begin to be Therefore the joyful Message was brought unto us that one Baptisme should be given for the Remission of Sins whereby Man should be so renewed by Water and the Holy Spirit that his Soul should be born again as it were by a new Nativity and be made partaker of the unspotted Humanity of Christ the Saviour being framed by the holy Spirit Which new Birth also reposeth the Soul into its antient State of Innocency taking away Sin and we believe that thing altogether really thus to be but not as if we should embrace Allegories or Metaphors for truth but these things do so really and actually happen in Baptized Persons that God doth grant a Testimony of that actual Grace which is conferred by Baptisme to be sensibly derived into the Body In which respect indeed Mahometans receive Baptism as it takes away from them an inbred Stink otherwise durable for Life and the which we observe to be otherwise in all Jews at this day And so the more inward effect of Baptisme doth even outwardly shine forth Yea and that thing confirmes that there is a perpetual and unobliterable effect of one only Baptisme But that new Birth doth not take away Death but leaves Christians with the Fardle of a corrupt Body generated by the Will of Man and in this respect nevertheless leaves the Soul subject to the Vices of a corrupted Body Wherefore unto those that are of ripe Age Baptisme was not sufficient although unto those of younger Years as long as they are innocent it is abundantly sufficient There is therefore another Priviledge promulged whereby Persons of ripe Years may have eternal Life that he who shall not eat unworthily the Lords Body Christ shall raise him up unto Life in the last Day but if he shall not eat he is to have no Life in him For this Mistery was given unto us for the Life of the World For the Life of the World is Adamical Frail or Mortal and well nigh Brutal For the transchanging whereof a Pledge is given unto us and likewise an actual and real Participation of Life eternal Therefore the Merits of the Lords Passion are comunicated unto us through a participation of the unspotted Virginity of Christ the Lord for the Communion of his most pure and chast Body unites us to himself and doth actually regenerate us in himself and so gives us a Life conformable unto himself The Body of the Lord is given for the Life of the World And although the Body of Man which was conceived of Bloods doth not presently perish Yet in that very Moment wherein we are united with the Lords Body and his Humanity it makes us partakers of his incomprehensible Incarnation and restores us into the antient Integrity of humane Nature as we do partakingly attain the most pure Virginity of Christ wherein we ought to be saved And so by reason of his amorous Union a participation of the Merits of his Passion is attributed unto us Therefore the most principal effect of the holy sacred Eucharist is a Participation of the Purity and Virgin-uncorrupted Nature of the Lord Jesus And so for this Cause it is declared by a proper Circumlocution to be Wine budding forth Virgins Furthermore that this Mistery of the unutterable Love of God doth operate the aforesaid real effects of regeneration in the Nature of Man The Apostle teacheth We shall all indeed rise again but we shall not all be changed As if he should say All Mortals shall at sometime rise again from Death The Damned indeed shall rise again being not any thing changed but in their former Adamical Body being ponderous not piercing c. to wit only the wished for necessity of Death being taken away from them But Children being regenerated by the Laver of Baptisme shall rise again in a Body after some sort Glorified but by so much the less perfect by how much they were remote from so great an happiness But they who were united in the communion of the Lords Body shall rise again plainly glorious throughout their whole Nature because they were most perfectly regenerated in their life-time of which Regeneration although visible Signs appeared not yet they were in very deed within for neither are they made anew in the Resurrection unless they had first fore-existed in the Life-time by an every-way regeneration Our Faith is not of things not in Being but of true things not Visible because he will have us to profit by Faith Wherefore although this Mark of resemblance of Love and Union with God be altogether unsearchable even as also its Effects are only invisible Yet the aforesaid mystical and real New-birth is as yet reckoned earthly by Nicodemus and from that Title I have transferred it hither I therefore contemplate of the New-birth or renewing of those that are to be saved to be made in a sublunary and earthly Nature just even as in the Projection of the Stone which maketh Gold For truly I have divers times seen it and handled it with my hands but it was of colour such as is in Saffron in its Powder yet weighty and shining like unto powdered Glass There was once given unto me one fourth part of one Grain But I call a Grain the six hundredth part of one Ounce This quarter of one Grain therefore being rouled up in Paper I projected upon eight Ounces of Quick-silver made hot in a Crucible and straightway all the Quick-silver with a certain degree of Noise stood still from flowing and being congealed setled like unto a yellow Lump but after pouring it out the Bellows blowing there were found eight Ounces and a little less than eleven Grains of the purest Gold Therefore one only Grain of that Powder had transchanged 19186 Parts of Quick-silver equal to it self into the best Gold The aforesaid Powder therefore among earthly things is found
denyers should seem greater than that of the Affirmers Dost thou perhaps maintain it to be diabolical because it cannot be understood by thee that a natural Reason thereof doth subsist I will not believe that thou couldst utter so idle a Sentence from thine own Infirmity of its Virtue For thou knowest that the weaknesse of Understanding is our Vice not that of things Make hast therefore From whence knowest thou that God hath not directed such a magnetical Virtue unto the use or benefit of the Wounded Shew thy Evidences hath God chosen thee to be the Secretary of his Counsel Surely however thou mayest variously wander or waver at length thou shalt find that the Cure is accounted diabolical among you Divines for no other Reason but because your Slenderness and Calling doth not comprehend it What wonder is it if no Divine hath smelt out these things For after that the Priest and the Levite had passed on to Jericho a Samaritan being a Lay Man succeeded who took away all right from the Priests of enquiring into the Causes of Things Therefore Nature from thenceforth called not Divines for to be her Interpreters but desired Physitians only for her Sons and indeed such only who being instructed by the Art of the Fire doe examine the Properties of things by separating the impediments of their lurking Powers to wit their Crudity Poysonousnesses and Dregs that is the Thistles and Thorns every where implanted into Virgin-Nature from the Curse For seeing Nature doth dayly Distil Sublime Calcine Ferment Dissolve Coagulate Fix c. Certainly we also who are the only faithful Interpreters of Nature do by the same helps draw forth the Properties of things from Darkness into Light But that the Divine may judge of that which is a Juggle from that which is Natural he must needs first borrow the Definition from us to wit least the Cobler shamefully slip beyond his Last Let the Divine enquire concerning God but the Naturalist concerning Nature Certainly much was the Goodness of the Creator every where extended who made all created things for the use of ungrateful Man Neither hath he admited any of the Theologists or Divines as an Assistant in Counsel how many and how great Virtues he should endow things withal I know not surely in the mean time how he can be excused from the Sin of Pride who because he perceiveth not the Natural Cause as it were measuring all the Works of God by the sharpness of his own Wit doth therefore boldly deny God to have given such Virtue to Things as though Man a Worm were a full Partaker of God and his Counsel He esteems of the Minds of all Men by his own who thinks that cannot be done which he cannot Understand Truly unto me it seems no way a Wonder if God had given unto things besides a Body a Virtue co-like to the Load-stone and that to be unfolded by the name of Magnetism or Attraction alone Ought it not to be sufficient for the affirming of Magnetism that one only single natural Example be alleaged I shall anon declare it by more and that such as fit the purpose of that Stone according to the square whereof other Endowments also variously distributed in the Creatures may be understood Because therefore the thing is a new Paradox and unknown to thee shall it for that Cause ought also to be Satanical Far be it from thee to think so unworthily of the divine Majesty of the Creator Neither certainly ought we to flatter the Devil by conferring that Honour upon him For what doth at any time more sweetly affect him than if the Glory of Gods Work be so ascribed to him as though himself had been the Author of the same Ye grant that material Nature doth dayly draw down Forms by its Magnetism from the Superior Orbs and much desire the favour of the celestial Bodies and that the Heavens do in exchange invisibly allure something from the inferiour Bodies that there may be a free and mutual passage and an harmonious concord of the Members with the whole Universe Magnetism therefore because it is every where vigorous contains nothing of Novelty in it but the Name neither is it Paradoxical but to those who deride all things and banish into the Dominion of Satan whatsoever they do not understand Truly that knowledge doth never spring up to him that seeks Wisdom as a Derider But I pray what hath the Weapon Salve of Superstition in it Whether because it is composed of the Moss Blood Mummie and Fat of Man but the Physitian useth these safely and to this end the Apothecary sells them without a Penalty Or perhaps because the manner of using it is new to thee unaccustomed to the Vulgar but to be admired of both shall the effect therefore be Satanical Subdue thy self and rage not thou shalt anon have better satisfaction For the manner of using it contains nothing of Evil therein First of all the Intent is good and holy and tends only unto a good End to wit to cure our languishing or woful Neighbour without Pain Danger and the Consumption of Charges Dost thou call this diabolical In the next place the Remedies themselves also are natural things whereunto that that Faculty was granted by God we shall by and by prove by Arguments I wish that thou also hadst thus confirmed to us thy negative to wit that God the chiefest Good hath not given unto the sympathetical Ungent that natural Faculty and Mumial Magnetism This magnetical Remedy can no way be rendred suspected seeing it hath no Superstitious Rites it requires no Words no Characters or Impresses no admixed Ceremonies or vain Observances it presupposeth no Houres it profanes not holy Things yea which is more it doth not so much as fore-require the Imagination Confidence or Belief nor leave to be required from the wounded Party all which Things are annexed to Superstitious Cures For that is called Superstition as oft as Men relie upon Faith or Imagination or both above any kinde of Virtue which is not such or which is not directed by the Creator to that end Therefore the magnetical Cure hath nothing of Superstition Wherefore do thou O censuring Divine that art ful of Taunting make tryal of the Oyntment at least-wise with a designe to deride Satan whereby thou mayest overthrow that implicite compact Nevertheless will thou nill thou thou shalt find plainly the same Effect as there is with us the which doth never happen to superstitious Causes Whosoever he be that thinks the magnetical Cure of Wounds is diabolical not because it consists from an unlawful End and of unlawful Means but because it proceeds after a manner unknown to him He also as convinced by the same Argument shall render the essential Causes of all the Operations of the Load-stone of which we are about to speak or shall confess that those Operations are the Juggles of Satan or at least-wise which will be more safe for him to do shall be
but it puts it not on but by the Will except in Women with Child Whether therefore we call Sin a nothing or a something at least-wise there is never made a Consent to Evil without a real Procreation of this certain kind of Entity and the assuming and putting on thereof This hath been the Cause of the Fruitfulness of Seeds for the Phantasie or Imagination being much moved by Lust produceth a slender Entity the which if the Soul puts on through the Will as the action of the Mind being imprisoned in the Body doth alwayes tend downwards and outwards it disperseth this same Entity into the Liquor of the Seed which otherwise would not be but barren Which Action is made as it were by an estranging of the Mind to wit the Will through the true Magick of the more outward Man departing into a certain Ecstasie in which there is made a communicating of a certain Light of the Mind upon the Entity descending into the Body of the Seed As oft soever therefore as the Cogitation or Thought drawes the Sense and Will into a consent so often a filthy Skin is bred and put on being a bastardly Ideal Entity by which birth the Will is said to be confirmed Also that Ideal Entity whithersoever it is directed by the Will thither it goes by this meanes the Will moves sometimes the Arm sometimes the Foot c. Furthermore when the said Entity is spread upon the vital Spirit for to love help or hurt any thing it wants only a light Excitement whether made from the asistance of God of the Cabalistick Art or of Satan that indeed the small Portion of the Spirit which hath now put on that Entity departs far off and perform its Office enjoyned it by the Will So the Male layes aside his Seed out of himself which through the Entity which it hath drawn is very fruitful and performes its Office without the Trunck of its own Body Truly Bodies scarce make up a moyity or halfe part of the World But Spirits even by themselves have or possess their moyity and indeed the whole World Therefore in this whole Context or Composure of our Discourse I call Spirits the Patrons of Magnetism not those which are sent down from Heaven and much less is our Speech of infernal ones but of those which are made in Man himself for as Fire is struck out of a Flint so from the Will of Man some small Portion of the inflowing vital Spirit is extracted and that very thing or portion assumes an Ideal Entity as it were its Form and Compleating Which Perfection being obtained the Spirit which before was purer than the Aetheâ—eal Air is subâ—ilized or rarified like Light and assumes a middle Condition between Bodies and not Bodies But it is sent thither whither the Will directs it or at least whither the inbred infallible Knowledge of the Spirits sends the same according to the scopes of things to be done The Ideal Entity therefore being now readily prepared for its journey becomes after some sort a Light and as if it were no longer a Body is tied up to no commands of Places Times or Dimensions neither is that Entity a Devil nor any Effect thereof nor any Conspiracy of his but it is a certain spiritual Action thereof plainly natural and proper unto us He who well receiveth this Wisdom shall easily understand that the Material World is on all sides governed and restrained by the Immaterial and Invisible But that all other created Corporeal Beings are put under the Feet of Men for indeed this is the Cause why also the Mummy Fat Mosse and Blood of Man to wit the Phantasie existing in them in the Unguent overswayes the Blood of a Dog of a Horse c. being conveighed by a Stick into the Box of the Unguent There hath not been yet said enough concerning the Magnetism of the Unguent I will therefore resume what I spake of before namely that the Magnetisms of the Load-stone and of inanimate things are made by a natural Sensation or Feeling which is the Author of all Sympathy is a certain Truth For if the Load-stone directs it self to the Pole it ought of necessity to have known the fame if it be not to commit an Errour in its Direction And how I pray shall it have that Knowledge if it be not sensible where it is Likewise if it self to Iron placed aloof off the Pole being neglected it must needs have first been sensible of the Iron Therefore one single Load-stone hath diverse Senses and Images Neither also-shall it be sufficient that it hath Sense unless we add the Spurs of Friendship and Self-love and so that it is endowed with a certain natural Phantasie and by reason of the Impression whereof all Magnetisms are forged For it is directed by another manner of Phantasie toward the Iron than toward the Polo â—or then its Virtue is dispersed only through a neighbouring Space It s Phantasie is changed when it restraines the abortive Young Catarrhs or Rheumes or the Bowel in a Rupture Also by another Phantasie doth the Load-stone draw any thing out of Glasse throughly boyled or melted by Fire for a very small Fragmen thereof being cast into a Mass or good quantity of Glaâ—s while it is in boyling of Green or Yellow makes it White For although the Load-stone it self be filled with a red Colour and be consumed by the Fire that dissolves the Glass Yet in the mean timâ— while it hath Life it aâ—â—racteth and consumeth the tinged Liquor out of the Fiery Glass and so its attraction is not only to Iron but moreover unto that aiery Part which would with difficulty depart out of the Glass and for this Cause it is of common use with Glass-makeâ—s The Phantasie of Amber drawes Chaffs and Moates by an attraction indeed slow enough but yet with a sufficient perfect Signature of attraction for it being married to our Mummy is also stronger than our attractive Faculty drawes in opposition thereunto and becomes a Zenexton or preservatory Amulâ—t against pestilential Contagions But Amber being mixed with Gumms its imagination being now transplanted draws the Poyson and Bullet out of a Wound indeed its pleasure and desire of drawing being on both sides varied But what Wonder shall it be unless with those who being ignorant of all things do also admire all things that inanimate things are strong in Phantasie When as he who is wholly the Life creates all things and hath therefore promised that nothing is to be expected as dead out of his Hand Also no one thing at all shall come to our view wherein himself also may not clarely appear as present The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole Globe of the Earth Yea this Expression That he containeth or comprehendeth all things carries the force of the World Do we not believe that there was much Knowledge in the Apple and that through the eating thereof our first Parents both are it up and together
also conceived it within and doth not that Knowledge presuppose a Phantasie proper to its kinde for so some Simples induce an Alienation of the Mind but some others a Madness or maddish Fury not indeed through a Destruction of the Brain or a dispersing of its Spirits for then at least the Strength and most strong Faculties of the mad or furious Person would not remain but by a strange kind of and furious Phantasie of those Simples being introduced which being victress subdues ours and keeps the same a Servant it self for a time as in Doatage the Phrensie c. Sometimes also perpetually as in lunatick and mad or Bedlam-persons Doth not the Madness of Dogs thus pass over into Man For the maddish Phantasie of Fury is transplanted into the Spittle of their Tongue which as victress soon triumphs over the Blood of that Animal which the Skin being opened it shall never so slenderly touch Then indeed the antient Phantasie of the whole Blood gives place and will it nill it assumes an hydrophobial Phantasie or an estranged Imagination of the fear of Water From whence at length comes a Binsical Death that is from the sole Sickness of the Mind to wit the magical Virtue of the Dog being exalted and excited or stirred up above the non-excited but drowsie Imagination of the Animals Plainly after the same manner is the Phantasie of the Tarantula imprinted by a slender stroak of his Sâ—ing and the Wounded or Stung Persons being presently alienated in their Mind fall a dancing and leap hugely yet the Venom of the Tarantula differs from that of a mad Dog in this that this acts by a Magical Power being stirred up and so by the Magick of a true name But the other by a drowsie Magical Faculty even as the same difference is manifest in Wolâ—s-bane and other destructive Plants which kill with a very small quantity because no living Creature Secures or defends himself against a mad Dog because there is in him a binding magical Power against which Teeth or Horns do not prevaile which cannot be said of the Poyson of the Tarantula In the External Man therefore even as in his fellow Animals the magical Power is as it were laid asleep neither can it be stir'd up only in Man although indeed much more easily in him but in some living Creatures his Consorts Yea neither is it sufficient that Spirits do observe this Law of Concord and single Duel with Spirits but moreover there lurks a certain Spirit in the whole Universe which we call the great Magnal or Sheath which being the Pander of Sympathy or Fellow Feeling and Dyspathy or difficulty of suffering doth exist as a Communicater and Promoter of Actions and by reason whereof Magnetism or Attraction is by a Vehicle or Instrument of conveyance extended to an Object at a distance That thing is proved to our sight For if thou shalt place a slender Straw upon the Cord or String of a Lute hanging with a doubtful extremity or with an equal weight in the Air like a Ballance and shalt strike the like string of another Lute that is aloof off when the Tunes do co-agree in the eighth Note thou shalt see the Chaff to tremble but when the Tunes or Notes agree in a Unisone then otherwise the string of the quiet Lute being impatient of delay quavets or hops a little skips for joy and shakes off the hated Straw by its jumping Shall here also Satan be the Fidler in their esteem Which Straw doth not happen to leap although all the Strings of the other Lutâ— be unanimously strongly and near at hand struck upon Nor also doth the naked Tune constrain the other and quiet string to leap a little for then every Note would effect that but it is only the Spirit which is the common Pander inhabiting in the middle of the Universe which being the faithful executer and assistant of natural Actions derives promotes and also causeth the Sympathy Why are we so sore afraid of the name of Magick Seeing that the whole action is Magical neither hath a thing any Power of Acting which is not produced from the Phantasie of its Form and that indeed Magically But because this Phantasie is of a limited Identity or Sameliness in Bodies devoid of choice therefore the Effect hath ignorantly and indeed rustically stood ascribed not to the Phantasie of that thing but to a natural Property they indeed through an Ignorance of Causes substituting the Effect in the room of the Cause When as after another manner every Agent acts on its proper Object to wit by a fore-feeling of that Object whereby it disperseth its Activity not rashly but on that Object only to wit the Phantasie being stirred after a sense of the Object by dispersing of an ideal Entity and coupling it with the Ray of the passive Entity This indeed hath been the magical Action of natural things yet the Magick and Phantasie that is properly so named is in Creatures enlarged or ennobled with a Power of choice I will go thorow them according to their ranks The formal Properties therefore which issue from the Forms of the three Principles Salt Sulphur and Mercury or Salt Fat and Liquor from whence every Body is composed and again resolved into the same and the Mercury or Liquor is so often diverse as there are Species or particular kinds of things let the same Judgment be of the Salt and Sulphur Those Properties I say flow from the Phantasies of these Forms the which because they are exceeding corporeal and do as yet stick in the Bosom of the Elements therefore they are called formal and occult Properties by reason of the Ignorance of the Forms which otherwise are magical Effects propagated from the Phantasie of the said Forms but they are ignoble and very corporeal ones yet abundantly satisfying the ends which they have respect unto Of this kind are the subductive or loosening Property of the Belly the sleepifying Property c. in things There are also besides these other more noble Properties arising from the Phantasie of the Forms of the mixt Body and those of this sort are in the whole composed Body by reason of its Form as the Magnetism of the Load-stone the Virtue of Tinctures Likewise all specifical and appropriated Things or Medicines which happen by reason of the whole homogeneal Mixture or of the Form of any one entire part but not of some one principle alone such as those are which are seated in the Flesh or Trunck Root Leaves and Fruit and not in any one of the three Principles being separated there-from Likewise Antimony as long as it remaines in its Form obtaineth most excellent Properties the which it never attaineth in its Principles and these are also from a corporeal Bosom and therefore the spiritual Magick is also hidden in these and is thought to be due only to Nature by unfitly distinguishing this in opposition to Magick So the Leaf of the Rose hath another kinde of
on in opposition to the Scripture CHAP. CXIII The Tabernacle in the Sun THe Schools deny the Sun to be fervently hot For they will that they also should herein be believed without demonstration Because they think that a man is generated by a man and the Sun And therefore that it becomes Nature least if the Sun should be of a fervent heat he should consume himself his Inn and all neighbouring things into hot Embers For seeing he is of a huge bigness and also heats afar of why should he not commit a cruel outrage if he should be fervently hot in himself For how should he generate a man and also all sublunary things As if first of all the Sun being exceeding hot the substance of the Heavens should therefore be burnable And that it should not be more meet to admit the Sun to be hot without nourishment than to deny all the Senses to wit that the effect doth exist being produced by no proper Cause To deny I say heat indeed which makes hot with so great a force and at so great a distance Chiefly because according to the proportion whereby we do the more approach unto the direct beams of the Sun by so much we meet with the greater heat I believe this fear of the Schools to be vain because the Light was made by the Word which contracted the whole Light into two Globes That the Sun should be the Light of the Day and the Moon of the Night The lightsome Globe of Sun is said to exceed the Diameter of the Earth and Water 160. times Out of which Globe of the Sun the beams of Light are dispersed as well above as beneath himself on the whole Universe And they most thorowly enlighten all traseparent bodies but dark or thick bodies in their superficies onely But I have shewn that the beams of the Sun being united by a Glasse are true fire shining in its properties For whether the beams are united or not that is to the Sun by accident And therefore if the beams of Light being connexed are true fire and do burn the Sun also as the very Center of the connexed beams shall of necessity be most exceeding hot For the Fire of the Sun persisteth without nourishment by the command of God Also seeing the fire in the middle of the crest wherein the Sun-beams are united subsisteth without nourishment Kitchin fire only bears before it a Light subsisting by it self without the intervening of the Sun Yet in that thing being different from the Sun that it ought to be nourished that it may subsist But the Sun because he is of a heavenly Nature wants not food because he is void of Usuries and appointed of God that he may thus burn The Sun therefore is a most fervent fire the principal Center in Nature of created Lights Peradventure when at sometimes dayes shall be at their full and the harvest of things shall be ripe the watery vision of the Heavens the Waters I say which are above the Heavens through a divine virtue shall assume a ferment and the seed of a combâ—â—â—ble matter and it shall rain fire from Heaven and the Stars shall fall For the Sun by the command of God breaking open the floodgates and bolts of his Globe shall burn the Heavens as well those which are nigh as those which are very far of and shall consume the World into hot embers For the Heavens shall be changed shall wax old and shall at sometimes melt like wax And the Stars shall fall down on the Earth not indeed whole because they are for the most part bigger than the Globe of the Earth but the parts of the Stars that are burnt shall make an Abyss of fire upon the Center Therefore the Sun is a fire in himself and being nigh but by how much further his beams are dispersed throughout the Universe they shall give the more apt nourishing warmths unto the seeds of things because the Sun doth suggest onely a general and common Light which is fit for exciting and promoting the seeds of things and for this cause it is vital But not that it conferreth Life and that which gives Essence to the seeds of things In Caire of Aegypt Eggs are nourished by the fire of a furnace and Chickens are abundantly bred without the nourishing of any Hen yet the fire of the furnace neither gives nor hath a seminal virtue neither doth it burn the Eggs nor because it nourisheth doth it cease to be burningly hot in its Fountain So the beams of the Sun being dispersed throughout the Universe are no longer fire but a simple Light Kitchin fire therefore doth after some sort dispose it self according to an emulation of the Sun To wit it enflames burns and consumes things that are near it but from far it onely heats and at a very far distance onely shines Yea neither is it reckoned true fire unless it be hot in the highest degree unless it centrically stick fast with its connexed beams in the crest of Light But it differs in nobleness from the Light of the Sun that it is not of the first created things not of an heavenly disposition not subsisting without fewels nor therefore is it universal The Almighty therefore as he hath created the Sun a singular thing so he hath created as it were one only Sun in every species of sensitive Creatures which should suffice even unto the end of the World and should propagate them thenceforward not indeed being hot in the highest degree but that it subsisting by the poynts of dispersed beams may not cover to ascend unto further moments of degrees Therefore in the smallestminutes of specifical Lights a formal Light of species or particular kinds is restrained by a Divine virtue which hath tied up every species unto a particular moment of Lights general indeed in respect of the Sun yet made individual by the co-ordination of my Lord For the Sun of Species's shall endure for ever no otherwise than as the Species themselves shall But because it doth not subsist but in individuals therefore the sun of Species is daily slidable in individuals even at every Moment unless it be nourished as it were by a continual fewel Therefore the light of Life hath some similitude with the Sun and a part agreeable unto Kitchin fire To wit in this that our Sun ought to have vital Spirits for an uncessant Fewel and those capable of an administring to a depending Light that is to follow â—â—ot indeed that the Spirits do in themselves and of themselves heat any more than the beams of the Sun the which the light of the Sun being withdrawn do presently die from heat and light Nevertheless they bear a mutual resemblance with the Sun because they seem to propagate an enflaming and subsist centrally in the heart For when the Schools took notice that the heart did voluntarily and of it self hasten into a cold dead Carcass and that the Spirits being dissolved or spent it indeed
that Paracelsus was ignorant of the Root of long Life as well from his Writings and Medicines as by his Death For truly the renovations and restorations whereof he deservedly in many Places and much oft-times glorieth in are only the purgings of the Parts containing with a correcting and banishing of those contained and thus far he was the revenger and healer of almost all Diseases yet his secret Medicines do not so much respect a long Life as an healthy one and the Commodities hereof For the Haires Nailes and Teeth are renewed and although these are most hard yet they first feel the Flesh And therefore it is not written in vain That Moses had all his Teeth at the 120th Year of his Age For as they live obscurely they have their Kitchin out of themselves also they most easily putrifie For perhaps Egypt and the neighbouring Places have that thing unto themselves from a Property For truly I remember that Prince Radzvil the Poloman hath thus written of the Mummy of Aegypt For those Bodies are preserved entire with the least putrefaction of any Member even unto this Day But so great is the multitude of these dead Carcases that there are few who are able to endure with Patience the disdainfulness of seeing them all They are so condensed with the Fat of Spices and Oyntments that they shine as being hardened after the manner of Pitch Especially their Brain Muscles and Shoulder-blades which are the more fleshy Parts for the Breast Hands and Feet seeing they have little Flesh and are extended after the manner of a Membrane they do not provide for with Mummy It may be collected from the Judgment of their Nostrils how much Myrrhe ought to have been admixed with these Unguents Likewise those Oyntments preserve a wonderful Whiteness in the Bones About the Caues or Vaults without a great Power of Bones layes cast aside from which the Mummy was withdrawn among which we did not by the way nor in a short time contemplate of the Skuls and the neather Cheek-bones where the Teeth were fastened we found none at all which might have so much as one rotten Tooth or any mark of plucking out So in all the Cheek-bones they were full sincere and somewhat white For among so many hundreds of Cheek-bones there were also those of old People whose Teeth were short and worn such as are seen in old Folks but there was none which had any putrified hollow holey Tooth or sign of a Tooth slidden out From whence I collect first That Moses might naturally have all his Teeth 2. That as cold things do hurt the Teeth So also the cold Air of our Country is hostile to the Teeth 3. That therefore the Aethiopian and Spaniard have white Teeth 4. I take comfort for the Dutch from the Words of the same Prince In Caire of those commonly reckoned up they are reported to ascend to the number of seven Millions of the Jews unto the number of one Million and six hundred thousand Women and children being computed But in so great a multitude of Men scarce a third part of them have their full Sight All do in many places labour in their Eyes from the eating of Fruits and the Drink of Water being over-added But 5. Paracelsus put confidence in himself not altogether in vain touching his Elixir of Propriety prepared of Saffron Myrrhe and Aloes so he had not erred in the preparation of the same but had composed that Medicine after the manner of the Tree of Life For as Myrrh keeps Mummy from an aptness of putrifying if a passage of Myrrhe unto our constitutive Parts be granted the authority of Myrrhe for long Life shall not be vain But as to a renovation so greatly praised by Paracelsus which reneweth the Haires Nailes and Teeth together with an excluding of all Diseases Surely the Haires and Nailes as they do sometimes fall off of their own accord So also in any Age they do easily grow and their renewing is of little moment I have seen also an old Man and old Woman whose Teeth having been once lost were of their own accord renewed in the 63d Year of their Age also with childish Pains Yet it denoted no long continuance of Life because both of them died the same Year For the promise of Paracelsus concerning the renewing again of Child-hood hath raised up many unto a hope of long Life To wit they have thought that from a renewing of the Teeth and Nailes there would of necessity be a renewing of Child-hood Chiefly because they should put off grayness the token of Old Age and the former colour of hairiness should return But their errour was from an undistinction For Alexander makes mention that he saw a Man of eighty Years of Age in whom as many Teeth as failed new ones grew up but he doth not therefore mention also his length of Life And although he might also by accident have been long lived Yet seeing one doth not contain another in the Root or necessary Causes it was a faulty Argument to derive from the one the other by a sequel Because Nature hath often attempted such kind of Renovations under which in the mean time she hath cut off the Thred of long Life For it is not unlike that the Pear-Tree is every year renewed with Leaves Yet not that therefore that Tree is long lived the Turpentine Tree or Cedar or Firr Tree of a short Life Yea neither doth the Pear borrow any virtue of Long Life because its Tree is renewed every Year Therefore the renewing of Medicines hath deceived Paracelsus because it is that which proves health only by reason of an intimate and supream cleansing of the similar Parts but not the renewing Root of Life or a prolonging of Life thereupon For they have been deceived because the Stag puts off his Hornes and the Snake his old Skin and are long-lived Bruits And therefore they have abusively referred that Renovation unto the Cause of a Life of long continuance For Crabs Spiders Grashoppers and Insects of a shorter Life do oftentimes happen to put off their Skin But on the opposite Part a gelded Stag changeth not his Horns because neither doth he make new ones Yet he ceaseth not therefore to be alike long-lived For the Stag casts not away his Horns in time of Autumne or Winter while as great Beasts compose themselves unto a greater rest but while he is fed with a new bud of Branches wherein a renewing Faculty of his Bud is as also it is transferred on Stags but not on Oxen because the Stomack of the Stag by a proper and specifical Ferment preserves the budding Faculty or Virtue of young Sprouts and derives it into the middle Life of the Stag Which thing happens not unto a gelded one wanting Horns as a Beard is denyed to Eunuchs This sort of renewing therefore is an Effect indeed of a more flourishing oâ— growing Life yet not an unseparable token as neither a conjoyned Cause of long
and Herbs are far less Arcanums than those aforesaid Lastly the volatile Salts of Herbs and Stones do shew forth a precise particularity neither do they reach unto the efficacy of Universal Medicines But his Corollate the which one alone is purgative by Stool cures the Ulcers of the Lungs Bladder Wind-pipe Kidneys by purging so that it also utterly roots out the Gowt Indeed it is the Mercury of the Vulgar from which the Liquor Alkahest hath been once distilled and it resides in the bottom coagulated and powderable being not any thing inâ—reased or diminished in its weight From which Powder the Water of the Whites of Eggs is to be cohobated until it hath attained the colour of â—oral I praise the Lord of things in an Abject or lowly Spirit because he reveals his Secrets unto the little Ones of this World and doth alwayes govern the Stern least these his benefits should fall into the hands of the unworthy I have therefore discerned that the Secrets of Paracelsus do take away Diseases but that they reach not unto the Root of long Life I have also discerned that Mineral Remedies unto whatsoever the highest degree they are brought yet that they are unfit for yielding Nourishment unto the first constitutive Parts because they reserve the middle Life of the concrete Bodies from whence they were extracted For for that cause they never wholly lay aside a mineral Disposition Yea and therefore they depart from the tenour of long Life Yea neither shall I ever be easily induced to believe that the Phylosophers Stone can vitally be united with us by reason of its exceeding immutable substance which is incredibly fixed against the tortures of the Fire being undissolvably homogeneal or simple in kind that is by reason of its every way impossibility of separation destruction and digestion so far is it from conducing to long Life Histories subscribe unto me that none who obtained that Stone enjoyed a long Life but that a short Life hath befalleâ— many by reason of the dangers undergone in labouring But moreover neither let Hucksters hope that Meats which do mightily nourish will perform long Life For although they may afford strength unto those that are upon recovery yet they afterwards weaken them being nourished The which Caesar also testifies For the more tender Meats are easily consumed breed tender Flesh and suffumigate or smoakiâ—e the vital Powers through their more greatly adust savour But the Studies of Physitians are buisied about the delights of the Kitchâ—â— which they name the Dietary Part for they have been misled into errour by thinking that if Food of good Juice and tender being administred in a due dose doth profit those upon recovery they have thought also that the more strong Persons being manifoldly nourished with the same Food shall be raised up into the highest increase of strength For there is not a process made in seeding as in Arithmetick where ten Pounds lift up nine and by donsequence a hundred Pounds ninety But he that eats very much and drinks abundantly shall not therefore become stronger than he that shall live more moderately For truly Nature keeps noâ— so much the proportions of Numbers as the proportions of the Powers of things alterable according to the Power of their own Blas However it is at least-wise it succeeds with Physitians according to their desire Because plenty of venal Blood breeds Excrements Physitians are called for and so they command the rules of Food at least-wise to profit themselves and they shorten the Life in those that live medicinally and miserably CHAP. CXVI The Mountain of the Lord. VVHo shall ascend into the Mountain of the Lord Or who shall stand in his holy Place He that is innocent in his Hands and of a clean Heart who hath not betaken his Soul to Vanity nor hath sworn in deceit to his Neighbour this Man shall receive the blessing from the Lord and mercy from God his Saviour The Words sound Eternal blessedness It is so Notwithstanding nothing hinders but that that figural and typical Speech may also unfold its Truth according to the Letter seeing it must needs be that the Type doth co-answer to the thing signified by the Type Truly I have alwayes observed that almost all the Mysteries of God were celebrated in mountains For Abraham was commanded to ascend a Mountain and there to sacrifice his only begotten Son for a Figure of the Sacrifice that was to be offered in Mount Calvary God commanded Moses to ascend up into a Mountain that he might talk with him and he gave him the Law And Moses talked with him face to face for the space of forty dayes and nights In Mount Horeb the Lord was transfigured c. All which things might have been done in the Desart and the God of Armies could have encompassed Moses with Lightning and Fire as well in a Plain as in a Mountain that no Mortal might have approached thereunto but a Mountain was alwayes chosen from a priviledge And the blessing from the Lord is promised in ascending unto the Mountain of the Lord For the Lord could have signified his Precepts unto Moses in a shorter space neither was there need of forty continual Dayes and Nights but that also delay might by its weight for delay in natural things is required for a just or due Efficacy of the maturities of things denote some hidden Mystery For naturally I understand that in Mountaines wanting an endemical malignity there is not only a most pure Air far remote from Dreg and Corruption commonly seperated from Errours and Defects and by reason of Colds most refined from all defilement but also that there is the Place from whence through the continuation of its Magnal there is a most dispatched in-beaming of the heavenly Bodies or Influences because a drinking in of a most pure Skie For I remembred that one Morning I being fasting felt in the Alpes the sweetness of an inbreathed Air the which I never before nor after felt in all my Life For it is certain that the Almighty hath not framed so great a Bunch in Nature in vain And it is certain that all the Riches of the World are issued out of Mountains And then the best Fountains and most famous Rivers are conversant with us out of Mountains by reason of their steepness In the next place all Nations which are the inhabitants of Mountains are of an hardier Body and of a more vigorous or flourishing Life than those who inhabit pleasant Fields Which Effects do manifest their Causes because a more sweet and purer Air is there in-breathed and every Gas being deprived of its Filths returns into the pure matter of Water But that God lifts up so great an Earth or the very face of the Earth into an heap or hath built so many great or rocky Stones upon the same or hath conjoyned it into one rocky Stone nor yet hath enriched it with any Mineral in which respect he might seem to have collected so
Wherefore frem thence it is sufficiently manifest that not every odour is for the transchanging of a thing but that onely whereunto a Ferment cometh from whence the odour becomes wholly great with Child of the seed Bodies therefore are stonified indeed naturally by their own seed but plainly after a monstrous manner they being supposed to be strangers in kind because they are stonified by a forreign seed of the place Standing pooles of water do thus incrust shell fishes which co-toueh with the bottome by reason of the putrified hoary odour of the bottome Insects swimming on the water not so Therefore waters that swiftly run do for the most part want such little Beasts Crabs also are not found but in stony places because other places are destitute of the Ferment of a rocky stone About the Year 1320 between Russia and Tartaria in the Altitude of 64 degrees not far from the Fen of Kitaya a Hoorde or Village of the Baschirdians is read to have been transchanged wholly into rocky stones together with all its Herd of Cattel Waggons and Furniture or Armory And Men Camels Horses Flocks and all the concomitant kind of Waggons and Armory provisions being grown together even at this day are with a horrid Spectacle said to stand as yet stonified under the open Element But if a miracle be absent from thence surely that whole Country is nothing but a continued Rock passable or holie with chinks the which the Wind being silent for many dayes and the Ayr from above pressed down a strong stony putrified hoary odour such a killing odour as is beheld to be in some Burrowes or Mines of the Earth might have breathed forth and killed its walking Inhabitants in one night which at length by reason of the cold of the place restraining putrefaction transchanged those Creatures which but lately before it had killed into a rocky stone No otherwise than as those of Bargamo in the Vanlts and the Glove in the Fountain And therefore the drink of such Springs is exceeding unwholsome Because it disposeth the Archeus into a stony disposition molests with gripings or wringings of the Bowels shortens the Life and therefore kills the Midriffs before that in drinking they are transchanged into a stone In the red Monastery of Zonia nigh Bruxels and in the Vestry of the Temple some Springs breath forth which apply or fastens stones to the Wall contrary to the Proverbe A drop by often falling hollowes stones For the stones that are grown to the Wall do oftentimes shake off by a Crook and Hatchet But the Monks complain that they suffer frettings or wringings in their Bowels unless they daily use Daucus or wild Carrot-seed boyled in their Ales. As the Odour of wild Carrot tames and represseth a stony odour Therefore let young Beginners learn that the rocky stone hath its seeds no lesse than other things in its middle life under the Cloak of a Fermental odour but not in a Tartarous coagulation of the matter CHAP. II. The Causes of Duelech or the stone in man according to the Antients 1. The rashnesse of the Schooles 2. The supposed matter of Duelech and the effects of the same 3. Those causes of the Antients are rejected 4. Thinking hath deceived the Schooles whereby they supposed the effect to be the cause it self 5. The progresse of humane nature is every where alike 6. The errour of the Schooles in the causes of Duelech is proved 7. Some Rashnesses disclemencies and sluggishnesses of the Schooles 8. A faulty Argument of the Schooles in the efficient cause of Duelech it self 9. Arguments drawn from sense 10. That Duelech is made of the Vrin it self but not of the contents thereof distinguished in opposition to the Vrine 11. Consequences upon the ignorance of causes 12. the wearisomenesse or grief of the Author 13. An handicraft operation of the Author rejecting the causes of the Schooles assigned to Duelech 14. A Maxime opposite to the Schooles 15. The vanity of Tartar in the Stone 16. Pray ye and it shall be given unto you THe hoard of Tartars being already long since cast out and re-cleansed elsewhere which through the Captain Paracelsus had invaded Diseases I must now in this place wage War with the Precepts of Galen in the causes of Duelech or the stone in Man For indeed the Schooles having forgotten a quaternary or fourfold number of natural Causes have made mention of two causes onely for the Generation of Duelech And so that likewise they agree with me in the name and number of Causes onely but not in the thing it self For truly they teach that the matter and efficient are the parents of the stone And so their own conscience urging them they deny its Form and End or Causes or do either insufficiently treat of the stone or at length exclude Duelech out of the Race of natural things Yea seeing they will have every efficient cause to be external they leave it to be concluded by their young Beginners that Duelech is naturally constituted and doth depend onely from an external efficient Cause The Schooles therefore call the matter of the stone a certain Muscilage which they call a slimy or snivelly phlegme but they will have the efficient cause of the stone to be Heat as well that external Heat of the Bed c. as that of the Bowels it self being badly affected Wherein at the very entrance they forsake their own Patron who denies the efficient cause in natural things to be internal Duelech therefore shall be caused onely by heat I am of a contrary judgement I have shewed by handicraft Operation that no muscilage as such ever is hath been or can be the matter ex qua or whereof of the Stone But if the muckinesse it self be sometimes laid hold of by the true matter of the stone and be shut up under the same it stonifies indeed from the seed of Duelech together otherwise with the proper matter of Duelech but not by reason of its being a muscilage or as it is tough and slimy For first of all the undistinct observance of the Schooles their experience hath deceived them For they beheld the snivelly urine of those who now carried a stone in their Bladder and they presently thereupon suspending a further diligent search cryed out Victory and bare in hand that they had found the immediate and containing cause of the Stone Truly first the Schooles are miserable but much more miserable are the infirm or sick For if they had once looked behind them they had easily seen that the stone being rightly cut out that and before accustomed balast of muckinesse or snivel doth also presently cease in the urine of that infirm person For from hence the Schooles might have been able certainly to know that if that muckinesse which is voided before while the Stone was present were any kind of cause and matter of the same that should surely be made either from the Bladder it self or from the stone or should
be sent unto the Bladder from elsewhere If therefore it was sent from elsewhere verily when Duelech was cut out it ought as yet to be bred sent thither and daily voided forth since the cutting and taking away of the stone hath respect onely to the Bladder but in no wise unto the part which is otherwise remotely distant the bringer forth and sender of continual snivels But if such a muckinesse proceeded from the stone or next from the Bladder it shall not any way be a cause but rather an effect of the stone presupposing the stone to be present For the Bladder is hurt in its digestion by so cruel and troublesome a Guest as the stone is wherefore as impatient thereof it continually weepes out the undigested part of its owne nourishment because it cannot perfect and promote it and therefore it successively sends for new Therefore that snivel is not the matter whereof of the stone but the mournfull effect hereof And therefore they badly accuse that muscilage for the matter of the stone For they see and do not know what they have seen They call phlegme one and indeed a separated humour of the four first humours arising in sanguification or blood-making which is the last nourishment in digestion and the immediate and spermatick or seedy nourishment of the solid members proceeding from the venal Blood being totally digested it being degenerated in its passage by reason of the indisposition of the part to be nourished For the stone hath nothing which is vital in it self nor hath it any thing vital out of it self which may afford or stir up a muscilage from its seed And much lesse is Nature solicitous of or doth intend the increase of the stone that from its owne continual nourishing warmth it should think of procreating that whereby it may intend and confirm its enemy and own destruction within especially if the direction of the same doth depend on an un-erring intelligence or understanding For the Schooles if ever they made trial from Charity towards their Neighbour or a care of knowing they ought at least to have run over unto some such like things To wit that a web or moat in the eye doth against ones will stir up continual teares That the Bone Ethmoides or straining bone being stopped with snivel doth continually provoke the liquor Latex and powres forth snivel in a Pose That the Squinancy also thus froaths up an uncessant and mucky spittle even as also that the bloody flux drops down the proper snivel of the Bowel together with blood For then they had easily seen that snivel is made and doth continually issue from the Bladder being thus besieged by Duelech but not that the Tear is the cause of the web in the Eye or that the watery Latex being largely powred out doth stop up the spongy bone in the forehead or that mucky spittle doth procreate the Squinancy For such is the perpetual commerce of the whole Body that a member being hurt or the power thereof its Inhabitant the functions of the same do go astray and its digestion is forthwith vitiated and the nourishment thereof being otherwise lively doth for the most part degenerate that if it declines not into a spermatick disposition at leastwise it doth into a mucky or snivelly one For so the Bladder weepes out the continual muck of its owne defiled nourishment while the stone is present and ceaseth so to do when it is absent Therefore by such a muck being granted they endeavour too frivolously to prove to wit that the material cause of the stone is that which the stone being there placed is by accident and occasionally effectually made In the next place if such a mucky snivel being bred in the urine were the matter whereof of the stone and heat were the proper efficient cause thereof and that both these causes being present were sufficient truly seeing the effect when sufficient causes are granted doth unexcusably of necessity succeed therefore all such mucky snivel would of necessity become a stone is the Bladder No otherwise than as the whole milk simply is coagulated at once by the Runnet And so the Bladder should presently be filled up with one onely stone or it should be false that the causes being granted which are requisite for the constituting of a thing the thing it self must needs be made or be Neverthelesse in the tearmes proposed that muckinesse being continually present at leastwise successively under the heat of the Bladder doth not wholly passe over as otherwise should be required into a stone according to the similar simple and homogeneal unity of it self but is wholly voided out Therefore the two constitutive causes of the Stone assigned by the Schooles can neither be true nor sufficient ones Wherefore I greatly admire at so great a sluggishnesse of diligently searching nor that in so many fore-past Ages there hath been any one of that curiosity who hath once hitherto dryed that Snivel voyded out of the Bladder with any degree of heat For he had learned and certainly known whether a stone would ever be made thereby or indeed any brickle sand-stone even as if he did dry the snivel of the Nostrils in a plate of mettal It is therefore an intolerable thing that none of the Schooles their Professours hath hitherto cherished the Urine together with the aforesaid Muscilage with a due lukewarmth that he might have learned that the stone grew together in Urinals or Chamberpots not from the snivel but well or successfully in respect of the Urine I am deservedly angry that in things of so great moment from whence notwithstanding an infernal sentence of punishment hangs almost over the head of the Schooles the extinguishment of Charity yea and the very denial of Knowledge are manifestly proved yet that they have never hitherto considered that as long as they live nothing can ever be dryed up or wither in the Bladder or that ever the action of heat is required for the hardening of the stone that the watery parts should be consumed but that the more grosse parts should at once by the same endeavour be more toughly co-thickned For otherwise if they suppose the necessity of their efficient heat to be such that like Lime in its maturity the stone being cherished by heat doth grow together Now the Universities confound themselves while they see that clear and transparent urine layes aside its sandy or stony crusts in the cold and in Urinals or Chamberpots They behold I say Stones to be brought to maturity without heat and also that the Urine of healthy persons doth affix sands and scaly plates on Urinals Neither likewise doth this very thing thus come to passe if the Vessel being close shut the urine be all the day long most grosly cherished by heat therefore it is the part of ignorance that by all the clear-sightednesse of Phisitians the difference hath not yet been discerned between the coagulation of a flint in a Spring or River and the
long since blinde ignorance of my presumption cast away Books and bestowed perhaps two hundred Crownes in Books as a Gift upon studious persons I wish I had burned them being altogether resolved with my self to forsake a Profession that was so ignorant if not also full of deceit At length in a certain night being awaked out of my sleep I meditated that no Schollat was above his Master yet I resolved in my mind that many of my School-fellowes had exceeded their Teachers but the truth of that Text was brought unto me namely That a man did watch and build in vain unlesse the Lord did co-operate I knew therefore likewise that we do teach any one in vain unlesse the Master of all Truth shall also teach us within whom none of his Disciples hath ever surpassed Therefore I long and seriously searched after what manner I might attain the knowledge of the Stone from this Master For truly I most perfectly knew that Authors had not so much as the least light and that therefore neither could they give me that Knowledge But I confessed my self to be a great Sea of ignorance and an Abysse of manifold darknesses and to want all light unless it were one onely Spark that so piercing my self I might acknowledge that nothing was left unto me And so although I frequently prayed yet presently after I despaired in my mind At length making a thorow search of my own self I found that I was my self free from the stone For I had never felt any pain of my Reines or had taken notice of one onely sand therein Yet I had now and then beheld that sand adhering in the Urinal yet without any sliminess or disturbance of heat or local pain For I wondered that having powred out my urine a sand should stick to the sides of the Urinal and be so fastened thereto at so great a distance of equality that it denyed all fore-existence of matter falling down It once happened that I was conversant with some noble Women the Wives of Noblemen and so also with the Queen her self from the third hour after noon even to the third hour after midnight at London in the Court of Whitehall For they were the Holy-day-Evens of Feastings in the Twelfdayes But I made water when those Women first drew me along with them to the Kings Palace wherefore for civility sake I with-held my urine for at least 12 houres space And then having returned home I could not even by the most exact viewing find so much as the least mote of sand in my urine For I feared least my urine having been long detained and cocted beyond measure would now be of a sandy grain Wherefore I made water the more curiously through a Napkin but my urine was free from all sand Therefore the next day after in the morning I pissed new urine through a Towel and detained it in a Glass-Vrinal as many houres to wit twelve And at length I manifestly saw the adhering sand to be equally dispersed round about where the urine had stood lastly pouring forth the urine I touched that sand with my finger And being perfectly instructed by my owne experience I concluded with my self That forasmuch as the urine was by me the pisser detained for 12 houres space and yet it contained no sand neither that I had cast it forth and that otherwise in the lesser space of a day sand had been condensed in my urine and fastened to the Glazen-shell in the encompassing ayr of the Month called J January I knew more certainly than certainty it self that a sliminess of matter was no way required for that sand and that the heat of the member did in no wise effect the coagulation of the Stone I thereupon taking my progress home cast from me the Doctrine of the Schooles and presently the Truth took hold of me For I being confirmed and no longer staggering by reason of doubt believed as being certainly confirmed that the internal and seminal cause of the stones in men was unknown to Mortals With a great courage therefore I again disdaining all the Books of Writers cast them away and expelled them far from me Neither determined I to expect the ayd of my Calling from any other way than from the Father of Lights the one onely Master of Truth And presently I gave a divorce to all accidental occasions and mockeries of Tartar and also to any whatsoever Artifices more than those which more shew forth the course of Nature Because I knew that Nature doth no where primarily work out seminal transmutations by heat or cold as such although she be oft-times constrained to make use of those for the excitements or impediments of inward Agents I knew therefore that vain were the devices of Paracelsus concerning Tartar to this end at least invented by him that he as the first might be reckoned to have thrust in the Generation of the Stone into the universal nature of Bodies and Diseases by the history of stones feigned from the Similitude of the Tartar of Wine For although he perfectly cured Duelech as his Epitaph doth premonish yet he obtained not the speculative knowledge thereof in the like measure as he did the most powerfull use of an Arcanum For so very many experiments wander about amongst Idiots the causes whereof they notwithstanding know not Therefore the help of Books forsook me and the voyce of the living forsook me which might teach me while present yet I knew that wo was to the man that trusted in man Good God the Comforter of the poor in spirit who art nearer to none than to him who with a full freedome resignes up himself and his Endowments into thy most pleasing Will and seeing thou enlightnest none more bountifully Oh Father of Lights than him who acknowledging the lowliness of his owne nothingness puts confidence onely in the good pleasure of thy Clemency Grant thou Oh thou profound Master of Sciences that I may rather be poor in spirit than great with Child or swollen through knowledge Grant me freely an understanding that may purely seek thee and a will that may purely adhere unto thee Enlighten thou my nothing-darknesses as much as thou wilt and no more than that I may suffer my self to be directed according to length breadth and Depth unto the Reward of the Race proposed be thee unto me nor that I may ever in any thing decline from thee to my self Because I am in very deed evil Neither of my self have I am I can I be know I or am I able to do any thing else Unto thee be the glory which hath taught me to acknowledge my owne nothingness CHAP. III. The Con-tent of Urine 1. The Art of the Fire is commended 2. An Analysis or resolution of the Vrine 3. The Author disappointed of his hope 4. A second handicraft Operation 5. A third which hath taught the coagulum or Runnet of the Stone and some other remarkable things 6. Some wayes or manners of
with Salt-peter much more speedily Moreover Stones Gemmes Sands Marbles Flints c. through an Alcali being joyned unto them are glassified but if they are boyled with the more Alcali they are indeed resolved into moisture and being resolved they by an easie labour of their acide spirits are separated from the Alcali in the weight of their former powder of stones But these never come to the urine as neither are they profitable for breaking of the stone But Rocky or Chalky stones which have an inflamed Sulphur in them are calcined indeed but are not easily made Glass for that the residing and sharp salt of the Sulphur consumes the Glassifying Alcali Mettals also by reason of the every way and unconquered simplicity of their Mercury and unpossible penetration either as being unchanged they delude the work of the fire or wholly flye away yet so as that although they flye away in manner of a smoak yet that fume may be reduced into the nature of its antient Mettal Wherefore Mettals never yielded any Alcali and much less do they reach unto the Innes of the urine But Fire-stones though they have a burnable sulphur which is a devourer of Alcalies yet their mercuries do resist whereby they the lesse come down unto the Innes of the urine The blood also although it hath an admirable salt for healing as well fugitive as fixed yet I have observed it not to be profitable in the Disease of the Stone But moreover the shells of Snailes of Animals of the Earth or of shell-fishes of the water as to that part wherein they carry an acide and Limy-salt they profit indeed persons having the stone that want cleansing but they contain a resistance in respect of their Lixivium to wit as they never reach to the urine The burnt bones of living Creatures retain no fixed salt in them but onely a residing Earth without sauour It is therefore a part of notable Blockishnesse for Ivory and Harts-horn to be calcined for succours against Diseases because they bid the powder thereof being deprived of its vertues to be sold and so also they deceive the Purse and hope of the sick they passe by the occasion of well-doing and make themselves ridiculous But Quiners do freely promise for me For truly their Prooving-pots which they call Capâ—lls ought to consist of ashes deprived of all salt Wherefore those are the best that are made of the ashes of Bones and do far excel those that consist of Ivory and Harts-horn For indeed in my first yeares the Traditions of the Schooles were as so many Oracles in my account But I being perfectly instructed by the fire all the Speculations of the Schooles were blotted out with the fire They had perswaded me amongst other things that the salt of the Sea was hurtfull for those that were diseased with the Stone as well in regard that it afforded matter for the salt of urine as that it hurryed down a muckie phlegme for Duelech The examination of salt by the fire taught me otherwise First of all I preserved a man of sixty yeares old belonging to my Distillations sixteen yeares free from the stone of the Kidneys whereunto otherwise he had been subject through a large use of Sea-salt The which afterwards I confirmed in many For the Schooles when they saw that in the sharp brine of salt being cooled every salt was coagulated after its own manner and that that brine was not made pure without mixture but by an exhalation of the watery part they presently thought that the stone was coagulated from a salt and drying heat and so they supposed that indeed neither were salts corned in the said brine but by the heat of the inbred salt the which therefore is not able to unfold it self into effect as long as there is very much water present with it Therefore when they tasted their own snivel to be salt and that indeed with the savour of a Sea-salt but not with the saltnesse of Urine and they would connex the efficient cause in the matter they supposed that in the same snivel there was a slimy and tough matter joyned to the salt and that the salt also was of it self salt at length they establishd by a perpetual Decree that the stone was generated from a salt phlegme and therefore also being actually hot and by consequence that salt things were hurtfull for those that were troubled with the stone Yea and that phlegme remaining such its qualities and proper passions being changed did passe over into a stone through heat and a slimy dryth just even as Glew and solder their watery part by degrees departing do induce a thick toughnesse of themselves Good God how unsavoury are the Schooles and how unsavoury do they bid us to be as if thou that dost every where bear a care over Mortals and art provident for salts hadst invented by thy study that they might become stony How great is their sluggishnesse that they have never attempted to sprinkle one only pugill or small handfull of salt upon the Urinal of those that have the stone that they might try whether Sea-salt would coagulate the future sands which otherwise would stick fast to the urinals Whether I say there be so great a saltnesse of the urine that it cannot dissolve any more of salt in it For the Urine if it be for the dissolving of salt now that salt shall not be the cause of Corning In the next place they had easily found that Sea-salt being cast into the urine doth hinder its coagulation but not likewise cause it That Sea-salt Isay doth resolve the prepared matter of the Coagulum or Runnet and doth not it self receive a curdling But whatsoever meditates on the destruction of that Runnet shall of necessity also disturbe the coagulation proceeding from thence For as the Schooles do deride our Coagulum's in things so likewise I deride their unsavoury Follies that they think the pebble-stone or flint to grow together or wax dry in the bottom of the water through heat For Fountaines and Rivers do contend for a stony curdling whose bottome hisseth out heat and the Rules of dryth In the next place for the curdling of Liquors our flesh and likewise the blood milk and snivel promiseth For if it were supposed that phlegme be the matter whereof of the stone and that the recocted brine of salt shaved off and with it self dissolved the mucky filths of salted fleshes and at length by boyling up rejected them being thickned into a froth verily they had known that the use of Salt is in no wise to be avoided or forbidden But so great a sluggishnesse of searching hath beset the Schooles that they being content with a little infamous Gain have neglected all things where they might profit their Neighbour if not also themselves For if the stone were dissolved in the urine although being boyled therein or that urine were not for dissolving of salt cast into it they might indeed at the sight of
the Salt-peter So the odour of the salt of urine and its volatile spirit presently changes the earthly spirit in the urine that was stirred up by a certain kind of putrefaction into the stone And therefore the urine is not corned or grainified presently after making water but after it hath assumed the beginnings of putrefaction Hitherto tends that question Why children and old men are more stony than themselves being men of a ripe or middle age Is it because they are hotter What if the Schooles do in this place without blushing accuse the coldnesse of Children and old men as having forgotten shame because according to their will the affect of the stone doth coagulate or grow together through heat alone what shall it help to have invoked a more plentifull quantity of phlegme if heat the one onely efficient cause be wanting If I say phlegme which as such doth stonifie be wanting in Nature Neither can they devise the same Temperature or Complexion to be in Children and old Men without the disgrace and confusion of their own received Opinions As neither shall they find a likenesse in the urine of them both For the urines of those of an unripe age are grosser but those of old people watery and washy the urines also of such as have the stone are watery I have in time past seen old men molested with a continual strangury or pissing by drops even until Death unto whom Diuretical that is urine provoking Remedies of Saffron Mace c. And likewise Lenitives or slippery Asswagers of the Mallow Marsh-mallow c. were vain and of no effect and the which Physitians had now pronounced to be besieged with the stone But Cutting testified that they were free from the stone Michael Des Montaignes saith that the Bishop of Paris his Vncle was cut in vain and so they also learned not to divine of the presence of the stone from the urine For these very stranguries Paracelsus devised his own frosty fiction of Tartar which hath not as yet been found in dissected persons Indeed afterwards I knew that as oft as the Gawl was more weak than was meet as in old people it could not change the sour Chyle of the stomach into a salt Salt Wherefore that from a very small and daily quantity of sharpnesse being left the strangury of old folks although the stone be not granted to be present doth continue So new Ales do stir up the strangury in many by reason of the residing and inherent tartness of a more new Ferment By this Title namely through defect of a Gawly ferment the urines of aged people and Children are the lesse tinged From whence these remarkable things do follow 1. That the affect of the stone doth the more easily grow together through a scarcity of the dross or liquid dung in urine 2. That it is a Remedy from the Cause to have comforted the ferment of the Gawl 3. That urines do seem the sharper in the strangury and pissings by drops as they contain something of a sharp matter in them 4. There clearly appears to be a profitable use of the Dross and of the connexion thereof in the urine And then it is asked Why the stone in the Reines is frequent but that of the Bladder more rare I have answered elsewhere That as long as the urine is in the Veines it is not yet perfect For neither doth it as yet cast the smell of urine or hath it the properties of urine as neither is it convenient for the venal Blood to be seasoned with the odour of an Excrement The limitation therefore of the urine is from the Kidney but the odour thereof belongs to a putrefactive Ferment because to an excrement and therefore it volatilizeth the earth of the urine But moreover although the Fermental putrefaction of the urine may render the earth of a strong and putrifying smell yet it stayes not in man as long as it putrifies Therefore the hoary or rank earth hereof hath need of the spirit of the urine that it may become stony For in the Kidney where a fermental putrefaction of the urine ariseth a new and volatile earth doth easily associate it self with the spirit of the urine and is corned especially while as the Dross the preservative from the stone hath not as yet come thither But it becomes a Citron or light-red colour even no lesse from the place than from the aforesaid Dross The Kidney therefore payes the punishment of those things whereof it is the first or chief Author I will elsewhere teach concerning the Womb of Duelech that there goes before the Kidney a disposition unto Duelech which disposition because it is vital and not a meer excrementitious one even as in the Bladder it is also more plentifully coagulated in the Kidney than in the Bladder For this because it is a meer sink is wholly destitute of every Ferment But the Bowels as they are the stomach of the Gawl even as elsewhere concerning Digestions are a vital and cocting Receptacle But the Bladder is a meer Reteiner of the excrement alone It is asked in the next place Why the stone of the Kidneys is for the most part yellow and that of the Bladder somwhat whitish Truly the Kidney hath a Ferment for the making of an excrement and therefore it hath need of a liquid and tinging dross And then also the Kidney hath venal blood as a neighbour unto it and a tinged substance of its own But the Bladder couples of the Glew of its own immediate nourishment unto the hoary earth and to the Spirit the Coagulater in the body of the Urine Consequently from hence it is manifest why Duelech that is bred in the Bladder is the harder It is because a great part of the nourishment of the Bladder departs into a mucky snivel which together with the rocky Beginnings of Coagulation the more hardly and toughly prepares Duelech Even as Lime with Meal renders the morter fat more tough The Reines also being by Duelech their Companion at length hurt even unto their solid fibers do afterwards cast forth white and sufficiently hard stones I have taught elsewhere that the nourishment of the Bladder by reason of the stone or some other importunity is before its full digestion separated from its solid part and is wept from it like a mucky tear and co-mixed with the urines That there is I say an excrement of the last digestion which goes astray and is letted in the Bladder being sometimes indeed an occasioned effect of the stone but not the Cause per se or by it self thereof although it now and then be occasionally and by accident assumed For some Physitians admiring at so great and so continued a plenty of pissed snivel and knowing that it was not purulent or proceeding from corrupt matter seeing they knew not from what an Ulcer so great a plenty of pus or snotty matter could drop at length they being as it were constrained by a sufficient
disposition it uncloathing it s own Coagulum or runnet constraines the same vapour into an earth and both their forces being conjoyned a new creature is made which is the nativity of Duelech But moreover the Schooles insisting on their own principles of heates prescribe that the Patient must not lay on his back also that his loynes are to be anoynted with cooling oyntments yea that a plate of lead is to be locally borne upon them They command a bed of wool instead of a bed of feathers least his reines should wax hot And moreover between the bed cloathes and the bed they spread a hide of leather For indeed the Schooles are busied only about subduing of the effect and have respect only unto the product or effect but in no wise unto the cause not so much as to the occasional one For by watching diligently over trifles they successiuely subscribe unto each other without any observance of help And so they seriously dream waking that they may flatter the sick For neither are stones bred because the loynes are hot but the loynes are hot because stones are bred They therefore chuse wool or flocks before feathers by reason they say of the heat of these As being ignorantt that feathers do lesse heat than wool by reason of their exact exclusion of aire which thing the sense of touching may judge of In the next place it being granted that the feather should more heat the body laying upon it and that is wrapped in feathers than wool Yet all that ceaseth if a sheet interpose between the feathers or wool For truly the heat which issues out of the feathers or wool is not the very heat of these simple substances but the reflex heat of the party laying thereon and being received in the feathers or wool For it being from thence layd aside in the middle of the bed returnes through the sheet not indeed stronger than it self was before but being almost suitably co-tempered with the same importance of heat wherein the body it self is prevalent But the very glassen instrument that was framed for the measuring of the temperature of the encompassing aire visibly determineth this controversy whereof in our elementary principles Neither doth it argue to the contrary that he that hath the stone in his reines feels himself hotter in a feather bed than in a flock bed For that happens not by reason of the greater heat of the feathers but fitly because the patient is sunk deeper in the feather bed but he layes only on the top of the flock bed and the cooling aire blowes on him from the sides Will the Schooles thus never distinguish of any thing from its foundation Cause and Roote And with rustick wits will they alwayes savour of the heathenish opinion of heat and cold I intreat you for the love of God wherein every one when this life is finished with him can desire that he may be beheld cast away stubbornesse presumption and sloath and do not despise a better doctrine CHAP. VI. The Womb of Duelech 1. Why the womb of the stone is to be sought into 2. The bladder also generates a stone of another condition than the kidney 3. Prognosticks or presages 4. Heate doth not coagulate any thing in urines 5. Another necessity of the womb 6. The scituation of this womb 7. A handicraft operation 8. Observations had from thence 9. The extension of this womb is conjectured of 10. The reason of wonderfull events in those that have the stone in their reines 11. From whence there is a relapse in the stone of the reines 12. The stone of the reines hearkens unto meteours 13. The manner in making thereof 14. The urine why it is troublous or foule 15. The paine of the stone of the reines is from a contracture 16. They are deceived in the cause who bring the straightnesse of the Ureter as for the fiercenesse of paine 17. The ignorance of the womb hath caused a neglect of the cure 18. A fabulous perswasion of the Schooles 19. Another necessity of relapses 20. The cleering up of a certaine doubt 21 A history of a mad man 22. The seperation of the urine from the venall blood 23. The disorderly generation of a strange stone THe seed matter and processe of making the stone in man being already made manifest and the urine being known in its contents as it is the seminary vessel bringing down the seed of the stone yet there hath not as yet been enough spoken For truly one kidney being safe and sound the other only is oftentimes stony It is not sufficient therefore to have accused the common Beginning of the urine and therefore this is the more powerfully to be imagined that every generated Being presupposeth a certaine womb from whence to wit the product it self doth now and then obtaine no sluggish disposition For it is of necessity that there be places wherein things may be made before they are bred and that as well from the priority of places as of motions For the urine is already materially in the liver yea and in the mesentery veines before it be in the kindeys Nether could the reines by a seperation sequester the urine from the venall blood unlesse the urine and the blood where now the while really distinct But if it be urine before it come down to the kidney or unto the sucking veines it must needs be also that the stone is after some sort prepared before it come unto the Innes of the reines For if the dung begins to be prepared even from the beginning of the gut Duodenum why shall not the same thing happen to the urine Wherefore it hath seemed to me that neither also could the urine performe the reason or office of the womb of the stone and much lesse the Reines themselves so great is the hasty passage of the urine thorow them as it were through Syringes wherefore it hath behoved me first to give heed unto the womb of this monstrous ofspring especially because the Schooles have even hitherto skipt over this top of knowledge as being content with the judgment of the vulgar nor being wise beyond the country folk who behold only the reines and bladder But surely the mine or womb doth euery way cause a great diversity of the thing that is to be born if it for the most part conteines the fruitfullnesses and barrennesses of generation For if nature be subject to the Soyle certainly nature cannot but be in a womb especially if she stonify in one of the kidneys the other remaining safe And that thing is chiefly to be contemplated of from the same and in the same matter of the stone and urine of one seed From the womb therefore and not from elsewhere is the cause of the far fetcht infirmity to be required For the bladder also and the same urine in number procreates a Duelech of another condition than that which is made in the kidney or at leastwise which was never made before
already departed as being unhappily passed over because the causes which make diseases being unknown the powers of Remedies being not known and the more ptofound preparations being despised whatsoever disease did not pass under heathenish beginnings hath stood dedicated unto desperate ones Truly no Disease is in its kind uncurable For God as he made not death so neither doth he rejoyce in the destruction of the living He hath made the Nations of the earth curable neither is there a Medicine of destruction nor a kingdome of infernals in the earth Wherefore I before God who is everywhere present do from my very soul exhort a sluggish kind of men who are ready in subscribing to the ignorant that they contemtemplate with me that by the remedies of the Shops some diseases alimentary or pertaing to nourishment are sometimes by accident cured to wit such as do admit of voluntary consumptions and easie resolutions But that in the more grievous ones in whom there are fixed or Chronical roots the use of those have more hurted than profited Hippocrates indeed without envy left the enquiries into the more profound remedies unto posterity because our Ancestours lived in more happy ages But the Schools have not had respect unto the greater necessities of Mortals of nature sitting and laying but being content with Galen and his Master Quintius they have not perceived the defects of mortal men seeing they have beheld gain to sway them in any event whatsoever For they have not so much as once earnestly considered how to hinder the returnes of the stone in the kidneys and much less how to dissolve the stone because they had yielded up their names to deceived Authors and false causes For therefore there hath nothing been heard hitherto of the true cause of stones and of a true cure and therefore also nothing of true remedies For truly such a remedy was desired which might hinder the Off-spring of a growing Duelech to come by a preparation of the very urine it self Then also which might restore the Gorgonous declining of the stone-breeding womb the power of a stonifying ferment and at length which might also dissolve whatsoever the spirit the Coagulater had committed Of all which particulars there hath nothing been hitherto heard Only the Schools have been intent in driving the stone foreward and in loosening of the urine passages Therefore in curing of the disease of the Stone a two-fold industry is obvious to our sight To wit one which takes away the inclination and fear of a Relapse But the other which may demolish Duelech being generated I will shew that it hath not been dreamed of either intention in the Schools but only that they have attempted the driving forth of sands stones but that they have not consideted of the pacifying of so cruel a pain from the root They praise indeed and exalt to the highest pitch Mallowes the Marsh-Mallow Oyl of Almonds and whatsoever things they name moisteners for mollifying and then they con-joyn divers fomentations as well those mostening as abstersive or cleansing and likewise cooling ones lest the pains should be heightned or the stones increase Yea they commend also the Oyl of Scorpions as though that being anoinced on the out-side would break the stones as if I say they would loosen the fat fleshy membrane and Peritoneum or filme enclosing the bowels to wit at the enlargement whereof the urine-pipe should presently be mollified and extended in breath or wideness Truly the common people have found out and brought forth these succours for themselves some old woman at first perswading them Afterwards the Schools at the beginning admired these succours and then straightway embraced them To wit least since they have no other medicine they should become unprofitable by despising them But these things are not received for the sake of pain alone but they lightly searching into the cause of help and being only solicitous about the journey of the stone have decreed with a final arrest that the urine vessels are not to be enlarged but by moistening things neither that there could be any other hope of healing But for the enlargement of the urine-pipe not indeed according to its length but only whereby they might hope to wit for its widening as if nature were obliged to conform her self to the endeavours of Physitians And so they have judged the remedies of pains to be by accident whereunto they have adjoyned Clysters lest the urine-pipe being pressed together by the dung lying upon it should spread a floud-gate for the sliding stone and so should stop up its passage And so that the capital remedy of the Schools hath been intent about dungs the effect and latter symptomes but no way on the causes rootes and foundations From whence that Satyrical verse arose Stercus Vrina Medicorum fercula prima Excrementitious Dung and Vrine-piss Are of Physitians the chief dainty dish But how vain and childish these aids of the Schools are the very afflicted themselves and the widows and off-spring of these do testifie First of all the Muscilages of the Mallow do not pass thorow from the mouth unto the Ureter in the form of an asswaging loosening and mollifying Medicine but that they do first receive some formal transmutations in their passage For neither doth any thing descend thither unless it hath first assumed the nature of urine Yea and if the urine-pipe being now stopped up by the stone for as long as it is not stopped up it hath not as yet filled up the whole wideness of the Ureter and therefore an enlargement of the same should be in vain required doth sustain the urine lying behind it after what sort I pray shall this same excrement give place in so straight a passage that it may rise up and make room for the urine prepared of the Mallow comming unto it I at leastwise confess that I do not understand any thing of these promises And then put the case that old wive's fiction were granted and that that moistening Muscilage could come down safe unto that straight angiport or narrow lane of the urine yet it shall not therefore extend the pipe of the Ureter which was already before moist the which besides the already actual mostening of it self doth now require or expect to be enlarged by a forreign muckiness as neither being once ever enlarged should it afterwards wish for or admit of a further repeated extension of it self in relapses And so that supposed and dissembled remedy of the Schools would be profitable but at only turn Unless they had rather that the Ureter should be enlarged by the sliding and comming of the aforesaid Muscilages thereto and through their casual absence to be again narrowed into its former state which is to grant a power of enlarging according to the desire of the Physitian besides the accustomedness and nature of a solid passage and that of the first constitution Because they should naturally afterwards again return into their former and native
its drying something that is not fixed doth of necessity puff out Moreover let the Retorts be senced with a crust or parger which may neither cleave asunder nor contract chaps or fall down of its own accord or be too much glassified Let also the neck of the Retort which hangs out be most exactly connexed unto the large receiving vessel that not so much as the least thing may expire But let the Receiver be placed in moist sand likewise let the boughty part thereof be covered in a Sack being filled half full with moist sand Which Sack let it be divers times renewed being tinged in the coldest water But let half of the Retort be filled with poudered Vitriol But distill it by degrees and at length let it be urged with coal as much as is possible for the furnace of wind which is blown by its own iron grate But when the furnace of wind shall cease to dismiss the spirit into the receiving vessel let the porch be opened on the side by which way the Reverbery of the flame of the wood may pierce under the Retort and let it so continue for five or six nights with the highest fire possible to nature The Retort perhaps in so great a storm of the fire will seem to thee to melt but nevertheless it will endure constant throughout because the outward coat of male or fence of earth with-holds and sucks the glass and so it is englassened as much as shall be sufficient for the work At length remember thou to sequester the receiving vessel from the neck of the Retort the fire being as yet most ardent otherwise thou shalt see in a more cold station the spirits to return into the Lee or Dreg which spewed them our Then lastly take the Colcotar or Lee remaining of the distillation which thou hast reserved from true Cyprus Hungarian or at leastwise Goslarian Vitriol Let that residing dreg being co-mixed with Sulphur be again burnt unto the every way confuming of the Sulphur But afterwards thou shalt bedew and moisten this feces with the aforesaid spirit For that spirit as it is presently imbibed in the glassen dish or gourd so being fetcht again from thence it returns nothing but a watery and unprofitable phlegm the spirit having remained imbibed in the Colcotar And repeatingly renew thou that operation six or seven times until at length the spirit that is poured thereon wax red which will swim upon the Colcotar which is a sign that we must cease from the plenteousness of imbibing And so let this rich Colcotar being well dryed be put into a Retort and let this rich Colcotar be distilled even unto its utmost spirits now waxing yellow and casting the smelling odour of grateful honey Yet remember thou to draw away the receiving vessel from the Retort being as yet of a bright burning heat and that this spirit must be kept by the mouth of a more strong bottle being close stopped with wax Whereinto lastly if thou shalt cast water the vessel it self presently breaks asunder Therefore by the only spirit of the former distillation this second spirit is bridled or restrained whereof scarce one pound is poured over from bottle into bottle but there is made a loss of one ounce at least And likewise unless the Receiver be seasonably taken away from the Retort as I have said thou shalt see the Furnance being cooled that most potent spirit to have returned into Colcotas from whence it was struck out by fire Moreover the Lee of Colcotar which is left of the second distillation is as yet wholly Coppery and waxeth green after many fashions From whence 1. That is manifest which I taught before Namely that the fire of Venus is not to be drawn out and had but by an every way destruction and separation of the mettal 2. That this therefore must be done by a far more hidden way 3. That the Vitriol which is rich in Copper is less fit for distillation than otherwise the common Vitriol is 4. That the Vitriol of Copper poures forth the spirit of the Vinegar of a mineral salt but not the volatile Liquor of Copper 5. And therefore that the sulphur of Copper is rightly called the sulphur of the Philosophers being fit for long life Being sweet I say in tast but not tart or sharp 6. That the spirit of Vitriol which is above perfectly taught cures some Chronical Diseases 7. And that therefore the spirits of Vitriol hitherto sold and in use are nothing but a mineral Vinegar being also adulterated in it self 8. That the residing Colcotar is most rich in a Medicinal Virtue 9. That the preparation of Vitriol prescribed by Isaac Holland and other Moderns hath not sent the Arrows unto the true mark 10. That our spirit above described and thus rectified as it is volatile and salt proceedes even into the fourth Digestion and reolves diseasie Excrements that are met withall in its journey And by consequence also takes away the occasional cause of many Chronical or lingring Diseases I have therefore already delivered the like Form or manner of distilling the spirit of Sea-salt of Salt-peter and the like Yet thou shalt remember that Vitriol hath in it self the earth of Colcotar wherefore the other salts do desire dryed Potters earth and that being exactly admixed with them But besides I have already delivered the manner of preserving from the Disease of the Stone by Aroph and likewise by Ale boyled with the seed of Daucus or the yellow wild Carrot I might therefore desist and repose my Quill and leave the matter to others more successefull than my self by wishing that every one may henceforward add what things he shall find out to be farre better For since Duelech besiegeth onely mankind and is produced from Excrements themselves after an irregular manner but doth not arise after the manner accustomed to other infirmities Therefore it seems to be singularly bred for a revenge of sin even before other Diseases and to be permitted by God in Children being as yet Innocent for the averting of a greater evil For although some Bruits do generate small stones in themselves yet those stones are not bred in them from the Causes of Duelech nor appointed for a punishment or tribulations unto them but rather produced for the profit of man But if therefore Duelech doth relate to the fault of sin but since sin hath drawn its rise from a Wood or Tree it hath seemed also to me that preservation of health in the disease of the stone is not onely to be expected from the seed of Daucus and some such like Herb but from some certain Wood Wherefore it is indeed true that a Wood against the stone of the Kidneys hath been of late brought unto us out of the Indies but I have not ever therefore perswaded my self that divine Goodnesse had so long denyed unto the Europeans that it might succour even the poor man that had the stone untill that through many expences a Remedy
which prostrate the most potent or chief Dignities of the mind yet the Sense and Motion being unhurt But after that the understanding returns indeed as well Sense as Motion are abolished Some things also being outwardly anoynted on the Body do take away the feeling so as that there is a liberty for the Chyrurgion in cutting and the Oyntments being afterwards withdrawn the expelled feeling returneth From hence indeed I have believed that the Apoplexy drowsie Evils Falling-sicknesse and likewise stranglings of the Womb and any Swoonings are Diseases arising from a secondary passion and action of Government but not from a corporall confluence of humouts and vapours bred in the bottles of the Brain Truly the Womb never ascends above the Diaphragma but it causeth Apoplectical Affects There is not therefore a material Touching of the Womb and Head For I have known a Perfume whereby a Woman suddenly falls down as Apoplectical together with the Palsie of her side and she remaines such unlesse she be restored by the Fume of a Horse-fig sent thorow by a Funnel to the Womb. For I have seen also the Circle of the neck in a Woman to have suddenly ascended above the height of her Chin the which is subject neither to humours nor vapours For truly there is an aspect of the Womb as it were of its own Basilisk whereby the parts by the afflux of the Latex but what that Latex is shall be taught elsewhere do swell even as is otherwise proper to many poysons Even so as the waters do ascend and swell at both stations of the Moon from the aspect of that Star alone I will decipher my own self in this respect While I was in the 65 Year of my age and was greatly occupied about the consideration of the Apoplexy I discerned To wit that a positive one which should be made by a freezing poyson had it self in such a manner as that it could be known from another which afflicts by the stopping of a sinew Even so that he who sitting with his Leg Retorted or writhen back loseth feeling in that Leg by reason of a pressing together of the sinew and while as Sense is restored unto it that Lancings or prickings are felt from the vital or animal Spirit which is Salt as I have shewn in the Book of long Life but from an astonishment which proceeds from a freezing poyson if the feeling shall return no pain of lancing or pricking offers it self For I contemplated in my study under the cold of the Calends of the 11th Month called January and an earthen Pan laden with a few live Coals stood aloof off whereby the most chilly cold season of the Winter might at least be a little mitigated One of my Daughters seasonably coming to the place sented the stink of the smoak and presently withdrew the Pan But I forthwith perceived a fainting to be sorely threatned about the Orifice of my stomach I arising therefore and going forth in one instant I fell with a straight body on a stony ground therefore as well by reason of the swooning as of the stroak of the hinder part of my head I was brought away for a dead carcase I returned indeed after a quarter of an houre unto the signes of life but together with a swelling of the hinder part of my head I felt the seames or futures of my scul notably to paine me and that more and more My tast also and smelling to have been wholly taken away and my eares continually to tingle Moreover at every of my conceptions my head presently whirled round with a giddinesse even my eyes being shut straightway after all my sinewes even unto the calfes of my legs ached so as that one only sneezing cruelly launced the whole body indeed an appetite of eating returned but a whirling round excercised me for some months But I learned first that in the evening before supper the giddinesse of my head increased to wit about the bound of digestion 2. That my judgment remayning the giddinesse notwithstanding was prevalent 3. That from any kind of pot-herbs and unsalted fishes the whirling did the more cruelly assault me 4. I noted the Gem Turcois to have remayned entire or neutral with me having fallen nor to have preserved me from the peril of falling And that the Turcois doth not help any but those whom a sudden fear in falling surpriseth The which happens not in those wherein a swooning precedes and frameth the fall 5. That my giddinesse was from meates subject to corruption 6. And I seriously noted that the Apoplexy Vertigo c. do depend on the midriffe although from the shaking of the stroake my head alone seemed to be affected and the vertigo did sensibly whirle about in my head Yet seeing the giddinesse had respect unto meates and a plenty of meates I remarkeably perceived that presently after the aforsaid swooning a guest besides nature remayned about the stomach being the occasional cause of the aforesaid giddinesse or vertigo and that thing I the more strongly confirmed because as oft as I had in times past sayled over the sea I indeed at the beginning of stormes grew nauseous but I never vomited or desisted from eating but after that I wandred about on Land I always perceived an unconstant giddinesse night and day resembling the motion of sayling upwards and downwards Untill that I was alwayes at length freed by a vomite of white Vitriol For at least wise in sayling there was no offence brought unto my head yet as if I had been drunk I threatned a fall with a continuall giddinesse the operation of my judgment notwithstanding remayning constant and unhurt But I was always freed from that giddinesse by one onely vomite But now in the aforesaid fall the stroake indeed produced a tumour in the hinder part of my head and in the seames of my scull bewraying its effects in the organs of the senses and nerves But all these did least of all cause a wheeling about of my head the which I observed to be chiefely stirred up or exasperated from the choice of meates Most especially because that whirling was restrained according to its custome by one only vomite From whence I experienced in my self that the giddinesse of my head although my head was hurt was stirred up and nourished by the stomach and so from the Duumvirate But that the swooning it self gave a cause of the stroak and also left a sealing mark in a forreigne guest there detained Again that that whirling was not from a vapour lifted upwards from beneath but from the corporeal occasion of a sealed excrement as oft as something offered it self which was the lesse pleasing unto those inferiour shops the force and impressive Idea of the same redounded into the braine From thence therefore I discerned that be-drunkening things being derived from the stomach into the arteries and co-mixed with vital spirit did confound the family-administration of the spirit in the little cells of the Braine and
less suddenly leap on it unless through a passage of the sinewes common with the thorny marrow But it is like to a dream that in a sound body but not in a complaining one the sense of a finger doth forthwith fail through phlegm which was noâ— before perceived in the more nigh sinews or otherwise by a Vapour bred after an irregular manner being not dismissed or descending thither as neither presently bred in the part when as otherwise all hospitality of a forreigner is even from the beginning manifestly troublesome to nature But hath that Phlegm or that Vapour perhaps crept sideways into the utmost nerve of the finger But then the Maxim of of the Schools should perish which ascribeth the dispensations of any Humours unto the Spirit making the assault For those Humours are not in us or in the nature of things and if there were any an ambulatory or walking power should noâ— therefore belong unto them and much less in those being now excrementitious because all natural motions in us hearken unto the faculties of vital things For if Phlegm and the gross Vapour thereof were in nature at leastwise in this place as they are diseasie they are reputed by the Schools to be Excrements whereof there is not a going noâ— voluntary Motion or Progress Therefore they should of necessity be driven away by some other Not indeed by the Archeus who seeing he acts all things and that well should not therefore drive that unto the sinews which he was otherwise accustomed regularly to drive unto the skin Doth therefore Phlegm perhaps being extenuated into a Vapour by heat proceed upwards But then not downwards into the steep finger At leastwise according to the Theoreme of the Schools concerning Catarrhs That Vapour should presently again grow together into drops but it should not wonder about in the shew of a Vapour unto the utmost parts of the Nerves as neither should it hasten through the Palm of the Hand unto one only finger But why should it rush on a sudden like a weight into a small nerve more flender than a thred Into one I say and not into another But if the Vapour doth enter sidewayes why in one only instant is it imbibed without a foregoing trouble Why is it not rather dashed into the flesh than into the extream part of a small nerve which is encompassed with its own membrane Why doth the cause which begat one only Atome of Phlegm or of a gross vapour continuall produce no other besides that one only Atome For that sudden stupefaction doth oft-times begin from the little finger and ceaseth at length in that when it hath reached to the third or fourth Now and then also all the fingers do suddenly assume the paleness of death unto the half of their length or beyond even when it is without astonishment a drowsie motion c. If therefore that were from a vapourie matter at least that matter shall not be made in the brain or thorny marrow For truly then also it should portend an universal passion Therefore that Vapour shall be bred in the sinew or tendon but then they would be all stupified at once but not successively Neither am I perswaded why that Vapour existing without the sinew in the tranquility of health should be pressed inwards unto the sinew or tendon when as after another manner there is in us an uncessant transpiration outwards At leastwise why this should not continue seeing it hath the same Workman Matter and shop within it Wherefore doth that astonishment presently cease if a matter should subsist such as should be one of the four Humours everywhere swimming together with the venal blood If the cause now defluxeth from the common Nerve of the Palm of the hand into one finger already vanquished Why therefore doth it afterwards flow down unto another healthy finger and not stay in the first Why if it be ptopagated from one only little Nerve into all of them doth it not also molest all of them at once but subsequently and a good while after Wherefore is the feeling hurt and not the motion if they are from one only and a like cause if it be brought down through one only small sinew the Author as well of Motion as Sense The cold of the hands alone causeth an astonishment from without and a pain within without any falling of vapours or humours thereinto At length the sinews are not inserted into the fingers but into the tendons Why therefore is the feeling hurt and not the motion Why is not the Stupefaction extended throughout the whole palm of the hand at once which is covered with one tendon If the Tendons suffer this threatned Palsey now that is to have departed from the communion of the Nerves unto the thick not bored nor pip-iâ— trunks of the Tendons Not passable ones I say if therefore not subject to the Incidencies of Phlegme A certain man had retained his Spleen affected from a Quartan Ague and likewise a stupefaction of his left hand together with a mortal paleness frequently returning in hast But what community of passages doth the Spleen hold with the Nerves of the fingers to wit that it may transmit Phlegm and gross Vapours unto the fingers alone For doth the Milt send vapours into the Brain which with the substitution of authority and action it will have to be from thence assigned unto the fingers of its own side or unto those opposite thereunto Shall therefore a stopped Spleen evaporate more unto the Brain and Marrow of the back than an healthy one not being hindred and burdened with continual black Choler Certainly I have prosecuted the unsensibleness and astonishments of particular members that we might the more rightly understand a total Apoplexie In the mean time I pity the Schools that they have not more exactly examined their own fictions of Humours and Vapours and the so speedyed and ridiculous falling down of these neither that they have once considered that as the cold of the encompassing Air is stupefactive so that they have not distinguished the nature of the Palsey and the colike positive passions of the sinewes from co-like privative ones That from thence they might have learned that positive effects can in no wise consist without a stupefying dead matter and quality The which if it be sufficient for creaâ—ing an astonishment when it shall have touched at the Sensitive parts from without what may it not be for effecting if it locally stir the sinew it self Truly if that which toucheth thereat in manner of a Vapour according to the Schools shall presently afford an effect about to perish the Senses Why have they not likewise once considered that through a more tough matter it shall be able to stir up a stubborn and durable Palsey Moreover Wheresoever such an anodynous matter is enclosed in the Duumvirate of the body I understand the Stomack and Spleen it shall stir up a sudden swooning and positive Apoplexie But the Palsie is for
manner of a stroak The place therefore of the nativity of an Apoplexy is in the Midriffs and therefore it hath also the foreshewing signs of giddiness of the head of benummedness nauseousness c. The place therefore of an Apoplexy is in the Archâ—us of the Midriffs but in every of the parts for a particular astonishment because through the errour of Digestion the Liquor that is immediately to be affimilated by reason of the defect of the Archeus degenerates into an Anodynous poyson and is made the occasional matter of so great a malady an excrement I say being sealed by an Idea of the abhorring Archeus is sealed on the dreg who is to shew forth an equally aged memory of his own hostility But that it doth not depart from thence nor obey Remedies known by the Apothecary the very Quartan-ague teacheth the which hitherto repeates its Tragedy at pleasure to the disgrace of Physitians If a Quartan-ague be uncurable by the Schooles much more an Apoplexy For the stupefactive poyson of an Apoplexy is milder indeed in it self than that of the Falling-sickness but it far more cruelly molesteth with its invasion For besides astonishment it strikes the mind begets a deep drowsinesse and a Catochus or unsensible detainment But if besides it also attaines a sharpnesse it produceth malignant Ulcers according to the mortifying of the Anodynous poyson But because that poyson is brackish therefore it threatens Atrophia's or Consumptions for lack of nourishment For I have observed a Chymist who had been a good while occupied about Râ—gis's to have fallen into terrible beatings of the Heart at length into paines of his armes and his mouth was pulled on the right side he suffered also restless nights and deep paines of his armes the which notwithstanding were not exasperated by touching He had also consumed with a notable leanness by reason of the conceived brackishnesses of the waters in the mean time any the more external Remedies were attempted in vain for neither did I spare costs or service for him but he being fully restored by a Laudanum onely for thirteen dayes administred soon after recovered the habit of his body and former strength For because the harsh brackishness of the Liquors had defiled the sensitive Spirit the product whereof pierced the Archeus his mouth being pulled together unto one side and his fingers being wâ—ithed side-wayes resembled a certain Apoplectical Being But because it ascended not from the Governour of the Midriffs but only the Odours of the waters had immingled themselves with the inflowing sensitive Spirit there was not a perfect Apoplexy of that man although otherwise one giddie enough But because I call that a brackish Anodynal or stupefactive which in Opium is a bitter one but not in Henbane or Mandrake and a very sweet one in Vitriol and Sulphur This first of all discovers the Errours of the Schooles while as from commonly known Savours they divine of the faculties of Simples But indeed I know that the interchanges of things or the maturities of days are not yet digested nor likewise That Truth instead of falshood will please every one therefore I will subjoyn some Anguishes which the Apoplectical Rules of the Schooles have brought forth unto me For while I insisted more than was meet in the examination of Minerals I felt from the Fume of some of them an Apoplexy to be at hand with a defect of my left side and so that I had fallen headlong down if I had as yet but one onely turn breathed in the ayr of that place Wherefore I learned first of all that the Palsie is not more latter that an Apoplexy in duration Then again that there is no stoppage in the bosomes of the Brain For I was already almost prostrated and unlesse I had turned away my head from whence the stinking cruel blast breathed I as Apoplectical had rushed down and I was ready to fall And then my arm did already decay and my leg being stupified failed of sense and motion But the Schooles will never answer to these particulars if nothing of phâ—egme had ever fallen into the fourth bosome of the Brain how was the effect in me before its Cause But if any thing thereof had fallen down which had at least stopt up the half of its Bosome which way retired that phlegme so speedily Or why is not every Apoplexy likewise by the same endeavour voluntarily cured the phlegme which is the Effectresse thereof vanishing but if they had rather privily to escape that my Apoplexy came from the mischievous vapour and not that to be from phlegme At leastwise why was that cruel Fume brought sooner unto the fourth Bosome than unto the former ones and those nearer and more obedient unto the Nostrils unlesse perhaps the former were Leprous and sluggish and without Sense Yea all the sinews which are deputed unto the Senses alone receive their sensitive spirits from the former Bosomes But in the former Ventricles of the Brain there was no sign of the hurting of Sense yet there is no coming from without unto the fourth Bosom but through all the foremost ones Sense likewise except that it was the more dull on one side and motion remained and also a Judgement perswading a departure Therefore had the phlegme waited now for some years at the coast of the fourth Bosome that the Odour of that Fume being once repeated it the signe as it were of a Trumpet being given might rush headlong into the pit Why therefore fell not the phlegme down in me a leaping Run-away For in the Falling-sicknesse the chief powers of the Soul and Senses on both sides go to ruine motion onely surviving when as notwithstanding every sinew even that which is dedicated to motion feeleth Therefore the Brain and all its Bosoms ought to be affected on both sides where the more internal senses together with the more external ones are laid asleep as if they were extinguished How therefore doth motion alone remain After what manner in the Falling-Evil Apoplexy and Palsie are the senses laid asleep when as in the Apoplexy and Palsie the Organ of motion onely is besieged for one half They will say that in the Epilepsie the foremost parts of the Brain do suffer but the hinder ones remain safe First of all Why therefore are the joynts contracted if the Organs of motion are free The memory is especially hurt in the Falling-sickness shall therefore that also â—e onely in the forepart of the Head But that which is required being granted why therefore hath every sinew designed for motion leaping through the Thorny marrow from the hinder part of the Brain lost Sense but not Motion Therefore the Brain in the Falling-Evil is sore smitten as well behind as before by Midriff-Causes Foâ— oft-times some one that is about to dye doth as yet feel or perceive speak and hear motion in his lower parts being taken away a good while before by the displayed sinewes of the Thorny marrow The Brain being
in good health a sudden swooning oft-times rusheth on one from the lower parts and as well Sense as Motion failes in one onely instant If that be made by Fumes Sense ought first to fail and afterwards motion by degrees Because the foremost Bosomes of the Brain are nearer to the mouth of the stomach than that last very slender one is And that thing should happen altogether most slowly if the Apoplexy were from a stoppage Again In most sharp gripings or wringings of the Bowels the Joynts are drawn together with an integrity of the Functions of the Mind yea and without a pain in the Head the which presently after in the Palsie are for the most part at rest Doth therefore the pain of the Belly stop up the Beginning of the Thorny marrow without an Apoplexy To wit so as that often-times both the hands and feet are resolved and deprived of motion Is now therefore the fourth bosome of the Brain stopped on both sides Why are the Joynts onely deprived of Motion and Sense not likewise the intermediating Organs begging their own Sense and Motion from the same Journey mean and middle space For what affinity is there of a Bowel with that last bosome of the Cerebellum Or what agreement of this bosome with the utmost Joynts To wit that these should pay the punishment deserved from elsewhere For it is not yet sufficiently manifest seeing Sense and Motion are made in one onely Nerve yet how in most either of the two may be hurt the other being safe Wherefore I as the first ought to clear up this Question by Positions 1. The Brain doth not feel or perceive by it self scarce in it self But it is covered with two membranes of a most sharp sense so that there is every where a very sharp sense and a majesty of great Authority in the stomach womb Coats of the Brain Intestines To wit in naked membranes c. 2. The Correlative thereof is the Animal Spirit as long as it is formed within the bosomes of the Brain or wanders it feeleth not neither is the Brain made a partaker of Sense thereby 3. That Spirit receives not Sense from the Brain seeing the Brain it self wants sense And by Consequence neither doth the spirit receive the last power of its perfection and Sensation in the bosomes of the Brain 4. The Thorny Marrow in its inward kernel is the continued substance of the Brain and is therefore cloathed with a membrane con-tinual with the Menynx's or Coats thereof 5. Every sinew is therefore marrowie within but without it is covered with its own little membrane 6. The Thorny Marrow is believed to be passable through its middle as long as we live whereby the motive Spirit is dispensed and equally extended throughout the length of that Marrow and the Nerves For that its own vital light beaming forth brings down the command of the Will or its beck unto the Muscles the executive Organ of that motion which the Soul voluntarily proposeth to it self 7. The Command of the Soul is instantous not indeed that the Spirits as being ennobled with the Characters of a Command do run down suppose thou in one that playes on the Harp at all particular moments of motions For although motions may happen to the administring Spirits yet the obediences of these should be too slow Wherefore the command or beck of the Soul is brought down in an instant onely by a beam of Light Even so as the Objects of sight are even at a far distance perceived in a moment 8. Seeing there is no Sense or at leastwise a dull one unto the Brain but a most acute one unto the Coates thereof therefore the light of Sense defluxeth not through the marrow and central substance of a sinew and its Trunk but the sensitive Soul beams forth Sense and is especially communicated from the Coates of the Brain through the membranes the coverings of the sinews unto the parts co-touching with and being the annexed Clients of the Nerve 9. Therefore the light which beames forth unto the Guardians of Sense and Motion is formed in a double substance and by a double beck sensitively From hence it comes to pass that Sense is hurt Motion being safe or on the contrary by reason of a diversity of participated light brought down through divers Organs Wherefore the most High is never sufficiently to be praised who hath placed so Noble Faculties in the Membranes of the Brain Stomach and Womb conteining the Life Soul and the whole Government of man in them For if there be a fundamental verity of Palmestry and Physiognomy there are Lines as well in the forehead as in the hand which do sometimes portend an Apoplexy to come But such a Signate is from the thing signifying which naturally constitutes us But the Archeus of the Seed cannot fore-know those effects especially those which are to arise from a contingent Chance to wit if anger an inordinate life and the too much use of Tobacco shall afford the Beginnings of an Apoplexy Therefore at least it must needs be that the Beginnings of an Apoplexy are not from a privative cause if they are concealed in the Seminal Beginnings themselves and are at sometime to break forth at the time of their own maturity which is to say that the Apoplexy doth actually lay hid in the Archeus or Seed after the manner of Hereditary Diseases and so also that it thus makes an assault through whole Families At leastwise be it known that an Apoplexy is not a stopping up of the little Bosome made by phlegme as neither a privative effect but that it consists of true and Seminal Beginnings But the stopping phlegme if there were any in man or the stoppage depending thereupon doth not fore-exist in the Seed and much lesse should it be fit to delineate in the Young so late monstrous effects And so they most remotely exclude phlegme sliding into the fourth Bosome of the Brain And by Consequence also the Universities who have been hitherto ignorant of the Disease and Remedy thereof In the next place Neither is it to be understood by what meanes or middle distance Nature could so detain the phlegme a disobedient and not vital excrement on the one side onely of that small and most narrow Bosome that it should never issue unto the opposite side through its own heap and fluidnesse of moisture Yea when the Palsie is in the right side the laying down is then alwayes on the left side therefore it should be impossible but that that phlegme should soon fall down into the left side and extinguish the sick party himself or at least beget an Ambulatory or shaking Palsie Why at length should that little bosome expell that phlegme alwayes unto the right or left side but never forwards or backwards Especially because in Nature there is not right or left but all things in respect of the whole Body are round whence it is manifest that in the very Organs to wit in
oft-times also to destroy them Therefore in the termes proposed concerning the disease of the stone the womb of Duelech moves at first great paines only by a convulsion of it self the which at length become more mild unto those that are accustomed thereunto to wit by reason of a less indignation of the soul For from hence children make water afar of but old folkes nigh Because the bladder of children being impatient of the pain conceived from the retained urine naturally contracts and presseth it self together But the bladder of old men being now the lesse sorely smitten with the accustomed chance suffers the urine of its own free accord to slide forth otherwise the muscle of the bladder being loosed there is no reason why children do pisse far of and old folks nigh unless the already said childish contracture of the bladder and painfull and voluntary pressing together thereof behind were as yet unaccustomed Through occasion of pain the Cramp or convulsion is not to be neglected First of all I will not repeate what I have taught concerning gripings or wâ—ingings of the bowells in the treatise concerning windes the part that is contracted doth not grieve by reason of the contracture as is manifest concerning the cod it being contracted without pain but by reason of an offence brought on the spirit and life For the contracture is an effect of sensaâ—ion or pain although it happens that the pain is also increased by the comming of the contracture My age because it is fruitfull in perverse wits will laugh at this paradox with many others The which notwithstanding following posterity will willingly embrace The Schooles indeed have thought that a convulsion is made by the execuâ—ive instruments of voluntary motion in that respect because they say that there are the healthy and diseasie functions of the same faculty although they are stirred up from diverse occasional causes A Muscle therefore seeing it is the only executive member of voluntary motion and a sinew the derivative organ of the command of the will it followes as they teach that a Muscle although it be acted in the Cramp against our will yet that it is never drawn together unless by the very same voluntary motive faculty it self which moveth that muscle while it is in health wherein the Schools do erroneoosly contradict themselves while as they define a Convulsion to be indeed the symptome of a voluntary motion yet to arise from a fulness or emptiness as it were its immediate and containing causes Yet it is sufficiently known that fulness and emptiness are natural causes but not arbitral or voluntary ones which natural causes if they shorten or contract a sinew as they manifestly teach at leastwise the attraction of the sinews shall not be made by an arbitrary motion I admire also the hitherto famous stupidities of the Schools in this respect For first of all a sinew differs from a Muscle no otherwise than as a vein doth This indeeed carries blood unto the Muscle and that motion And then besides the two causes of a Convulsion perhaps invented by Hyppocrates Galen hath moreover added a third which is admitted in the Schools to wit a poysonous quality For Galen had seen the Convulsion to follow from the stroak of Serpents neither yet could he as yet believe although the strucken member was swollen that fulness caused the Convulsion He being defectuous first of all because he was ignorant whether a nerve ought to be smitten that it may be pull'd together or indeed a Muscle Then because mortal Convulsions are made in gripings or wringings of the bowels and Hellebour being taken without any hurting emptying fulness of the sinews or a colical poyson Thirdly He is also defective because that seeing in a Convulsion there is made a drawing back of the member and a shortning of the Muscle he hath not discerned as it otherwise beseemed the Prince of Medicine to do why a poyson doth contract or shorten the Muscle thus leaving the former obscurity For truly Galen saith That the name of a Physitian is the finder out of the occasion which name he hath not lost in this place Again In the fourth place if a Convulsion happens from an empried and filled nerve that is from a proper Passion of the nerve Ought therefore a poysonous qualiry to be imprinted on a sinew or on a Muscle that a Convulsion may from thence happen Fifthly Galen hath remained defective and together with him the Schools his followers why the stroak of a Serpent the poysonous quality of a Medicine c. are made the proper Passion of a voluntary motion and of its own Organs For if the poyson ought to be imprinted on the Muscle therefore the sinew shall cease to be the proper subject of the Cramp and by consequence the emptiness or fulness thereof is vainly supposed and required But if the poyson dasheth against the nerve it self after what manner shall Hellebour wandring through the bowels primarily affect the sinew After what manner shall a Medicine being as yet detained in the stomack cause a Convulsion and give a freedom therefrom by the vomiting thereof At leastwise it is ridiculous that the successive alteration of the affected Muscles shall effect the shew of the Malady if the essence of the malady dependeth on the affected sinews And it is a foolish thing That an Emprostotonos or a Convulsive Extension of the neck forwards a Tetanos or straight Extension and an Opistotonos or an Extension thereof backwards should differ specifically by reason of a changing of the Muscle For a Muscle draws its tail always after the same manner to wit towards the head Truly such childishnesses do of necessity proceed from the ignorance of a Disease and the rashness of a childish judgement wherefore nature hath distinguished of the Specie's of Diseases according to the Specie's of occasional causes but not by reason of the difference of scituations And so seeing emptiness and fulness are terms plainly opposite they could not produce one only kind of Convulsion And it is a hard matter to believe that the emptiness of a sinew being wholly privative is as equally occasional to the Cramp as a fulness of the same sinew Even as it is alike blockish that a nerve is filled for so long a time until it shortens that nerve and that from a small nerve being extended in its breath by repletion or filling the Muscle is shortened As if all the sinews could be suddenly emptied and likewise filled and extended unto a hugeness in every fit of the Falling sickness to wit by feigned humours as if the Convulsion were only a shortning of the Muscle following upon the abbreviating of a dried or moistened sinew and indeed as if in regard that the unaccustomed repletion of a sinew did shorten that sinew even as the other which by its drying of the sinews did diminish the sinews no less in their length than in their breadth the nerves did suffer an unexcusable Palsey
to be from the errour of a convulsive Retraction and not rather from that of both the supposed causes To wit as well through a stoppage of the netve from Phlegm filling it as they say as by a pressing together of the dryed sinew and as if so great a sudden drying up thereof were credible or possible to be in a live body Yea after what manner doth a nerve being now once withered suppose thou by too much insolency as they say of laxative Hellebour presently again admit of a restauration of its own radical moisture being dryed up Why hath it been necessary to feign and admit of a filling or emptying of a sinew if a poysonous quality can afford the Convulsion without either of them The received opinion therefore of the Schooles concerning the causes of the Convulsion or Cramp registred to be from the emptinesse and fulnesse of the sinewes is ridiculous For although they with Galen acknowledge also a third Cause which is that of a malignant quality Neverthelesse they stick as convicted in the two former Causes For they err in the Matter Object Efficient and manner of making That is in the whole As if a small Nerve being extended unto a Muscle which oft-times scarce equalizeth the grossenesse of a threefold thred being moistened more than is meet and dryeâ— than is fit to be should be made by so much shorter than it self by how much a muscle drawes the members together perhaps to to the length of a span Yea as though as well the be dashing of an hostile Humour as the emptying of a Nerve should cause the paines of a Convulsion They bring hither the ridiculous Example of dryed Clay when as in live Bodies drynesses are impossible and they also afford impossible Restaurations While as notwithstanding those Cramps do oft-times cease of their own accord The Schooles have thought that those feigned Moistnesses and Drynesses of a little sinew which could scarce effect the latitude of a straw do contract the Muscle even into the Convulsion of a foot-length Neither likewise is that Example of value That the string of a Lute being wet with the Rain of Heaven leaps assunder as broken in regard that it is cut short by the imbibed Liquor For first of all it might have been extended longer by twofold than the feigned extension thereof in its breadth had shortened the same The Schooles do not take notice that a moist membrane is brickle as also a dry one and therefore also that Lute-strings are kept fat in oyl lest they should become wet or wax dry Away with their examples which have no place in a live body For in a living body the sinews cannot be so dryed that their witheredness can cause any abbreviation 2. They being once dryed can never afterwards receive a moistening any more than drie old age it self 3. They deny a Convulsion arisen from a laxatâ—ve medicine to be made by a poyson For if they should acknowledge a poyson to be in a solutive medicine they should cut off their own purse A Convulsion therefore arising from a solutive Medicine as from only an emptying but not from a poysonous Medicine should be indeed from an emptiness or dryness of the sinews But a Convulsion or Cramp arisen from a loosening Medicine is oft-times restored Therefore it is not bred from a dryness of the sinews 4. Every lean old person should be drawn back by a perpetual and universal Convulsion 5. Seeing a sinew is not the executive member of motion therefore the shortening of at sinew proves not a Convulsion of the joynts as though an arm or leg ought to follow upon the cutting short of a sinew 6. Seeing that a nerve being moistened so that it were made by so much the shorter by how much through a forreign humour being imbibed it should be extended on its breadth such a humour should be plainly contrary to nature it should effect a Palsey rather then a Convulsion But a Palsey is Diametrically opposite to a Convulsion it self as well in Sense as in Motion 7. How could a stroak of the Scull presently at one moment dry up the sinews of one side but by moistening the other sinews opposite unto them forthwith enlarge them on their breadth that they may cause the Convulsion and Palsey at once And seeing as well Emptying as Filling are feigned for the cause of the Convulsion the stroak of the Scul ought to produce the Cramp on both sides 8. It is no wonder therefore that so unsuccesful remedies have been applied to the Convulsion if the Universities are hitherto ignorant of all the Requisites of Diseases For they ought to have known that every Convulsion is a vital Blas of the Muscles stirred up from the in bred Archeus The occasion whereof is a certain Malignant matter rushing on the Archeus as laying in wait for the life of the Muscles What if Hippocrates hath referred the cause of a Convulsion unto emptiness and fulness he hath had respect unto the occasions of the foregoing life To wit that there was a frequent Convulsion to riotous persons and likewise through much emptying of the Veins And Galen not apprehending the mind of the old man hath waxed lean at the humoural filling and emptying of the sinews by a succeeding and that his own device Such old wives fictions therefore which have been perswaded by the Schools unto credulous youth being despised I say that there is in the Muscles a twofold motion to wit one as it is the Organ of a voluntary motion and another as being proper to it self whereby although it draw back it self towards its head yet it nothing hinders but that the spirit implanted in those motive parts doth retract or draw back and move those parts even as was already said before concerning the â—od For neither is it repugnant to nature for the parts to leap a little by a local motion of their own the soul being absent to wit for the parts which are moveable by another Commander to be furiously contracted through a sorrowful sensation seeing that another conspicuous motion is singularly wanting to the Muscles whereby it may denote the hurt brought on them besides that whereby it executes the voluntary motion of the Soul And moreover it is altogether natural to all the members and proper to the common endeavour of the parts for those to be drawn together by reason of the sorrowfull sense of an injury brought on them which place the Schooles have left untouched Wherefore I have accounted it an erroneous thing to believe with the Schooles That the Convulsion is an affection of the Head For now they depart herein from their own Positions whereby they suppose the Cramp to be from filling or emptying or from a poysonous quality of the Nerves unlesse they had rather the Case being now altered that the Convulsion should arise from the filling or emptying of the Head But the Cramp is an accident of the sensitive Spirit Which thing first
some other place namely in the heart alone Again from the same position it followes that that there may be a Fever it is not-required that the offending and feverish matter be enflamed but some other inflameable thing primarily residing in the heart and from thence slideable throughout the whole body For this inflameable body I together with Hippocrates call the spirit which maketh the assault But this last matter I have brought hither not from the minde of the Antients but it is extorted and by force I have commanded it to be granted me Whereof in its own place when I shall discourse of the efficient cause of Fevers At least wise that being now violently begged it followes that the peccant matter of Fevers is not properly enflamed neither that it is in it self primarily or efficiently hot nor indeed that it makes hot besides nature if the first inflameable body ought to be kindled in the heart Therefore neither is the peccant or offensive matter in a Fever hot beyond or besides the degree of nature But that which is kindled in the heart was not kindled before the comming of the Fever and so it every way differs from the peccant matter in Fevers At length it is also from hence fitly concluded that in whomsoever they intend to slay a Fever by cooling things as such they do not intend to cure by a removal of the causes by a cutting up of the Root and a plucking out of the fountaine and fewel of the Fever but only they intend to take away and correct the heat which is a certaine latter product entertained with-out the feverish matter To wit they apply their remedies unto the effect but not unto the cause For truly the heat of Fevers is kindled in the Archeus which maketh the assault and the root of Fevers is the peccant matter it self They have regard therefore only unto the taking away of the effect following upon and resulting from the placing of that root for the sake whereof the Archeus is enflamed not indeed by the root but by heat drawn from elsewhere while as indeed he enflames himself by a proper animosity and by his own heat being beyond a requirance extended unto a degree wherein he is wholly troublesome as he is enlarged beyond the amplenesse of his own necessity Foâ— neither must we think that any heat is so in a hateful feverish matter which with me they name the offensive one that it afterwards makes feverishly hot the whole entire body For truly that for which every thing is such that very thing they will have to be more such And then also because every calefactive or heating agent doth throughout its own specie's more strongly act on a near object than on an object at a distance wherefore if a feverish matter should make the other parts hot by its own heat it should of necessity be that the center or nest wherein that peccant matter of a Fever is received should be first roasted into a fryed substance before that any distant object should be made hot thereby Yea if the peccant matter should be hot of its own free accord and the Fever should be that meer heat besides nature every Fever as such ought to be continual nor should it have intermission until that all the offensive matter were wholly consumed into ashes Neither therefore should there be any reason of a repetition or relapse seeing the peccant matter should even from a general property always make hot for the consuming of it self And moreover a dead carcase also should be hot as well after death and be more ardently tortured or writhed with a Fever than while it lived because the same matter in number from the obedience whereof death happens even still persisteth in the dead carcasse and seeing they suppose it to be hot by a proper heat of putrefaction and since it is more putrified after death as also after death more powerfully putrifying and affecteth more parts co-bordering upon it than while it lived therefore also it should be more actually hot after death than in the life time But surely this errour is bewrayed For a Fever which made a live body hot ceaseth presently after death and all heat exspires with the life The which ought to instruct us that the heat of a Fever is not proper unto the peccant matter or its inmate and that the heat of the offensive matter doth not efficiently and effectively make hot in Fevers Therefore it is perpetually true that the peccant matter makes hot occasionally only but that the Archeus is the workman of every alteration and so by this title that which efficiently primarily immediatly always every where maketh the assault and that he alone doth not make hot according to the maxime Whatsoever utters healthy actions in healthy bodies that very thing utters vitiated ones in diseases For that spirit heats man naturally in health it being the same which in Fevers rageth with heat For example The thorne or splinter of an oake being thrust into the finger and actually and potentially cold presently stirs up a heat besides nature in the finger Not indeed that hot humours do flow thither as if they being called together thither by the thorne had exspected the wound of the splinter and the which otherwise as moderate had resided in their own seates For truly the blood next to the wound first runs to it and preventeth the passage for other blood coming thither And that blood also by it self is not hot but for the sake of the vital spirit Therefore the inflamation and swelling together with an hard pulse pain and heat do proceed from the spirit alone causally but from the infixed thorn occasionally only Surely it is an example sufficient for the position manner knowledg and cure of a Fever To wit the cause offending in a Fever is not hot of it self but it makes hot only occasionally and upon the pulling out of the thorne or occasional cause health followes The Archeus alone every where effectively stirs up the Fever and the which departing by death the Fever ceaseth with it Therefore heat is a latter accident and subsequent upon the essence of a Fever For indeed the Archeus enflames himself in his endeavour whereby he could earnestly desire to expel the occasional matter as it were a thorne thrust into himself But whosoever takes away this thorne whether that be done by hot meanes or by temperate ones or at length by cold ones he takes away the disease by the Root and it is unto nature as it were indifferent Because for that very cause the animosity of the Archeus is appeased and ceaseth Wherefore heat however it being besides nature increased may be a token of Fevers yet it is not the Fever it self neither therefore must we greatly labour about it in time of healing For from hence Hippocrates hath seriously admonished that heat and cold are not diseases as neither the causes of these but that the causes to wit the
fermented to the spirit of life From whence there is a relapse unto the same straights But if they understand Putrefaction beginning onely or a Disposition unto Putrefaction and that the Heat is an Effect of Putrefaction therefore it followes that a diarie Fever shall have onely a Disposit on unto Heat but not a true heat even as that neither therefore shall it be a true Fever But the Schools require a formal and absolute putrefaction that they may find out the cause of a feverish Heat Having forgotten that then heat shall be an effect of the Putrefaction and not of the Fever and so they shall constrainedly distinguish Heat from a Fever For why seeing a non-putrefied continual Fever is a true Fever without putrefaction and by consequence ought to be without Heat In the mean time they by little and little lay aside the fear of heat neither must we in healing employ our selves thereabout while as a greater dammage is to be feared from the contagion of putrefaction in those things which have a co-resemblance And therefore it would be better to divert the putrefaction than vainly to have smeared over a Fever with cooling things But surely whatsoever things resist putrefaction are hot For Myrrhe preserveth the dead Carcases of Aegypt for now two thousand years The which otherwise with Succory Plantain and their Coolers had putrified long since Therefore the putrefactions of putrefied Humours likewise of the blood and spirit are so like unto Fables that I should scarce believe that the Schools spake in earnest unless they did fatally even unto this day confirm those Positions by the practical part For a Conclusion I will as yet add one thing Whatsoever hath been once corrupted in the body never returns again into favour but the blood of the veins however corrupted it may seem to be returns again into favour Therefore it was not once corrupted The Major proposition is proved because Corruption in us is an effect of the sequestration of vital dispositions and so it presupposeth a privation and death of the corrupted body or matter it self The Minor proposition is proved by those who are cured of the Plague Pleurifie and a Fever without the drawing out of blood And likewise if the blood be ever to be reckoned putrefied or corrupted while existing in the veins that blood shall especially be that of the Hemeroides but this is not corrupted although it be as it were almost hunted out of the veins Therefore the blood is never to be reckoned putrefied in the veins Whole Chyrurgery proves the Major proposition concerning Ulcers bred from an accidental happenning of the Hemeroides or Piles But I prove the Minor because I compound or compose a mettal A Ring made whereof if it be carried about one the pain of the Hemeroides is taken away in the very space of the Lords Prayer and the Piles as well those within as without vanish away in twenty four hours space how greatly soever those veins may tumefie or burgen Therefore that blood is received into favour and they have themselves well at ease That Ring also prevails in the strangling and motions of the womb and very many Diseases The Description and manner of composing whereof I deliver in the Treatise upon those words In Words Herbs and Stones there is great vertue where I speak of the great vertue of things CHAP. III. The Doctrine of the Antients concerning Circuits is examined 1. The causes of Feverish Circuites in the Schools 2. The first errour 3. Galen is accused of errour 4. A quaternary of humours why suspected 5. The great and stubborn blindnesse of the Schools 6. Galen is hissed out of the place of intermitting Fevers by many perplexities issuing from thence 7. An account of Choler necessary for the Fit or comming of a Tertian Ague according to the Schools 8. He is refuted 9. From their Suppositions it is concluded that there cannot be a Plethora in a Fever or Ague on every other day 10. A begging of the principle in the Galenists 11. Galen being ignorant of Anatomy hath copied out many books concerning Anatomy 12. Unhappy Speculations of healing invented by the Devil to the destruction of Mortals 13. An argument on the contrary drawn from Cases or Receptacles 14. That yellow and black Choler are not entertained in the Spleen and little bag of the Gawl 15. Against Astrologers who derive the Circle of a Fever on the Stars 16. The similitudes aforeread in the Schools do not suqare 17. Some arguments against the Doctrine of the Schools 18. The desert of Fernelius 19. The rashness and unconstancy of Paracelsus 10. That man is not a Microcosm or little world if the holy Scriptures are to be obeyed 21. Paracelsus deceived THE Shools say the causes of set Circuits are to wit because as much Phlegm is daily generated as there is of Choler every other day and as there is of black Choler every third day I gratulate the language of our Countrey which would willingly want these same names drawn from a Grecisme But the Schools do not thus teach the effective cause but only the remote cause which they call that of Sine qua non or that without which it is not Therefore I am deservedly angry that the Schools have not feigned a fifth Humour for a Quintan Ague nor an half and a one and a half humour for the Fever Epialos and for Semite-tians Likewise that they have neglected a doubled yellow Choler for a double Tertian nor that they have made mention of a doubled black Choler for a double Quartan That they have not invented a wandring and uncertain humour for a wandring Fever or Humours continuing and uncessantly substituted for continual Fevers exasperating themselves every day every other day or every third day And lastly a slow humour for a slow Fever At leastwise they ought to have explained if putrifying blood be changed into yellow Choler why it is wholly converted into corrupt Pus Why doth not purulent thick or mattery blood cause a burning Fever in a Consumption of the Lungs and why do not yellow expectorations or spittings out of the breast produce a Tertian but an Hectick Fever and that presently after meat Wherefore a Quaternary of Humours for so great a Catalogue of Fevers and other diseases being as yet daily increased ought to be suspected of every one But as to what belongs unto the seat of the putrified humours of Fevers Galen is so alike stupid herein that it had shamed me to lay open his errour if the Schools did not as yet to this day stifly defend the same unto the destruction of Mortals they craving respect rather from Antiquity than from the Truth as if the fountain of Wisdome were drawn out in Galen who that he might find the causes of a set trembling in Fevers hath writ nothing but old wives Fables the which as oft as I call to mind I ingeniously admire that so many wits could subscribe thereunto ever since
its shop 28. From the impertinencie of the supposed position 29. From a convenient or agreeing thing 30. From the Gowt and wringings of the bowells 31. From an Erisepelas 32. From Causticks 33. From an Evangelical word 34. From a defect of the seperater 35. From the nourishing of the similar parts 36. From an impertinency 37. The deformity of a formed argument of the Schools 38. From a like thing 39. From the nature of an Element 40. From the simplicity of its end 41. A denyal of a position 42. From a Phylosophical maxim 43. From tast and properties 44. Who was the inventer of humours 45. What a diversity of Soiles may argue 46. From the blood of an Aethiopian 47. Whence the venal blood is the more red in its superficies 48. From a like thing 49. Whence there is a change of colours in things 50. From a shew of the deed in many things 51. The childish in inspection of the Schools of out-issuing blood 52. Miserable impostures 53. A ridiculous omission of the Schools 54. The judgment of Physitians fights against it self 55. Privy shifts sliding from unvoluntary cheeks 56. A cruel or hurtfull little book concerning the nature of man 57. From effects and fear 58. From the confession of Physitians 59. Dunghill Physitians distinguish not men but by dungs 60. A ridiculous argument of the Schooles 61. An argument on the contrary from a maxim of naturall Phylosophy 62. A convincing argument 63. Galen ridiculous about the cause of the variety of humours 64. The perplexities of Galen 65. Refutations by the Beginnings of natural Phylosophy 66. An errour of Paracelsus 67. The Schools are ignorant of the venal blood 68. An argument against the position 69. A false and ridiculous supposition of the Schools concerning the supplying office of the Spleen 70. Absurdities 71. A handicraft demonstration 72. Against the position concerning black Choler 73. Many absurdities follow 74. The Schools do most miserably prove their position for black choler 75. Some defects following thereupon 76. A convincing argument 77. An Idiotisme of Paracelsus 78. Sharpnesse doth not ferment Earth 79. From an impertinency 80. A convincing argument 81. From an impossibility 82. A ridiculous supposition of the Schools and four absurdities thereof 83. Some absurdities accompanying the opinion concerning the hony of Galen 84. From things implying 85. By a convincing argument from the supposition of a falshood concerning the Elements 86. From a number of the Elements 87 A bruitish objection 88. If we must not proceed by humours how therefore must we cure 89. The praise of the valatile salt of Tartar I Have sent forth an unheard of Doctrine of Fevers that I might hear what the more fruitful wits might teach me For there were some who had promised that they would be arbitrators or judges in the Case whom notwithstanding I conjecture so long to be silent untill I had set forth a treatise of humours which I had promised to gather out of my great works For truly they could not be ignorant that if I could sufficiently demonstrate that the humours accustomed in the Schools besides blood were never or never to be in nature they also were to have no contention with me concerning Fevers And that thing I now promise ingeniously to performe not indeed as that I may be glorious by the name of a Paradox but altogether from compassion towards young beginners that are badly instructed and toward the sick that are badly handled under the device of humours Therefore I will state the forme of the matter For indeed the Chyle or juice of the stomach being supt up into the veines of the mesentery they affirme the same chyle to be conveighed unto the Port-vein of the Liver to wit a trunk arising out of the small branches distributed through the mesentery into the intestines or bowels And that that Chyle in the time of its passage through the slender trunks of the veins extended into the liver is by the power of the Liver converted into blood and also into phlegm and a twofold choler And that this choler is afterwards seperated partly into the spleen and partly into the litle bag of the gawl To wit that they may be the keepers of both their own superfluous choler but that the two natural Cholers as the entire and constitutive parts of the blood are co-mingled together with the blood for the necessities of the parts to be nourished in the due proportion of the quaternary of which humours that as health doth consist So on the other hand that in an undue proportion thereof all diseases are entertained But that an undue proportion thereof proceedeth as well from the perpetual strife and hostile and unwearied contrariety of the four repugnant Elements as from the voluntary distemperature and inbred fight stirred up of things received into the body Truly I have already in the Beginnings of natural Phylosophy and rise of medicine sufficiently removed the foregoing cause of so great a fiction To wit where I have sufficiently demonstrated that there are not four Elements in nature and by consequence if there are only three that four cannot go together or encounter Therefore that the squadron being broken cannot cause four unlike Elementary combates temperatures mixtures contrarieties hatreds strifes c. For I have taught cleerly enough that the fruites which antiquity hath believed to be mixt bodies and those composed from a concurrence of four Elements are materially of one onely Element In the next place also that those three Elements are naturally cold nor that native heat is any where in things except from light life motion and an altering Blas And so that heat in the Elements is a meer Relolleum In like manner also that all actual moisture is of water but all virtual moisture from the property of the seeds Likewise that drynesse is by it self in the aire and earth But in fruites by reason of the seeds and coagulations Therefore that it is a false doctrine which is celebrated concerning the Elements mixtures qualities temperaments discords degrees in order unto diseases and the curings of these I have also profesly demonstrated that there are not contraries in nature That health is opposed to a disease with relation of that which is entire unto that which is defectuous To wit that remedies do take away a disease not by the force of contrariety as neither by reason of a naked similtude or likenesse but by reason of a meer gift of goodnesse restoring nature by helping her the which otherwise is the Physitiannesse of her own self These things surely were sufficient and might be able to take humours out of the way unlesse an opposite custome had as it were tied up the mind least it should hasten unto the knowledge of the truth For it is a very difficult thing to disaccustome those who are confident in themselves that by those humours they have long since compendiously viewed every catalogue of a disease Wherefore unto those that
of the Schools 9. VVhat the yellownesse of the urine may betoken 10. That nothing of Choler or Gaul is in the urine 11. A threefold errour in this thing 12. A begging of the principle 13. That Choler is not snatched out of the urine unto the brain 14. Some accompanying absurdities 15. From Anatomy 16. From the Jaundise 17. VVhat watery urines suddenly after tinged ones in Fevers may fundamentally denote 18. That the prognostications of the urine have been meer dreames hitherto 19. A channel is wanting 20. Under the division of motions 21. The little cloud of the urine whether it denoteth phlegm 22. All things are cocted in us for one only end to wit that they may nourish 23. VVhy the spleen hath a double ferment 24. VVhat that may be which the spleen doth sometimes belch forth into the stomach 25. That any effect is not taken away the cause being removed 26. VVhat a confused or troubled urine may be speak 27. VVhence erudity in the urine is 28. VVhy the strangury is scarce cured in old folks 29. Whence the lumpy sediment or ground is 30. Errours about contents as well those proper as forreign elsewhere concerning Duelech 31. As yet a new method of judging of the urine by the weight thereof ANd moreover the Schools for the divination of urine presuppose a washy of watery matter on the opposite part to this a thick one and then a moderate one And likewise confused turbulent dark even as also cleer and perspicuous urines But some of confused ones do by heating return into their former transparency others remain troubled Lastly some urines being made cleer are presently again disturbed but others with difficulty Secondly they consider almost all colour from the watery white milky and dull and also from the cleer watery even unto the blackish colour Thirdly its proper and forreign contents are viewed Forreign ones indeed I call slimy bloody shavings sands and stones And those either soon affixed to the urinals or freely setling But proper contents are those which are almost ordinarily thrust down out of confused urines or which swim in cleer ones in their superficies a little under it in the middle about the bottom or laying on the bottom it self and those either cleaving together or rent asunder Fourthly they consider the froath and bubbles Fifthly they at length consider of the circle But Paracelsus moreover distinguisheth the body of the urine into the urine of the drink and mixt of both He cals it that of the blood if he that makes water in the morning hath not as yet drunk the day before in the evening and in the night But the urine of the drink is that which is collected from much and little waterish drink Also he calls that a mixt urine which is that of sober or temperate persons Furthermore what he feigneth concerning an Alcooled and tartarous urine shall be manifested in the treatise of Tartars First of all I protest that I do not any where strive to reckon up those things that have been well written by Ancestours and much lesse to chastize them nor to handle the precepts of the judgments of urine nor to explain the inventions of others as neither to make an Apology for them But I only desire to discover the Antient errours of the Schools that have arisen from feigned humours that juniours may not hereafter be led aside according to rash beliefs of dreams First therefore I will reckon up the errours concerning the circle of the urine and then those committed in its colour thirdly those which happen in the little cloud or swim thereof and fourthly I will make manifest those which have happened in the judgments of its coagulations or contents From whence any one may easily understand that the judgments and prognostications of the urine have hitherto stood without judgment and a foundation To wit that the wonderfull impostures of Gordon have been set to sale unto ignorant poor people under the false title of a Diviner First of all therefore they have stumbled in the circle of the urine since it hath hitherto been unknown why the circle is oftentimes of another colour than the rest of the body of the urine Indeed it hath been supposed that the circle is separated from the rest of the body of the urine as the fat from the watery part or as it were the cream from the Milk whereon it swims In the mean time although the urine be stirred yet the same circle which was before forthwith appeareth and not any thing hath been further searched diligently into concerning the circle out of its supposed bounds They see indeed the circle to be oft-times more red and more full than the colour in the remayning body of the urine yea that a more ruddy and more deep yellowness doth for the most part want a circle distinct from the colour of the urine Yet have they not diligently enquired from whence there should be that variety of the the circle and urine Notwithstanding neither therefore is the circle a certain colour falsly appearing and deluding the eyes with a false shew of it self For neither otherwise could a somewhat yellow urine yield a more red and heightned colour by a naked reflexion of it self but should rather paint out a more pale colour than a yellowish one if the colour of the circle were only appearing from a reflexion Therefore the reason of the altered colour in the circle of the urine dependeth in very deed on the very body of the urine it self And so the circle alone shewes the whole consistence colour and transparency of the urine because it conteineth them which thing the wood Nephritical or for the stone of the kidneys teacheth by a notable example For this wood being steeped in rain water if thou shalt afterwards behold its infusion sideways it is wholly red in its body but that decocted or infused steepage hath an Azure or Sky-coloured circle however disturbingly thou shalt shake it at thy pleasure For so the colour of the blood being beheld thorow a vein appears of an Azure colour So also the sky-colour in the circle of the decoction of the Nephritical wood is indeed Azury but being multiplied it lookes more black and of an obscure colour tends more to white than a red one being diametrically seen thorow a glasse or vein After the same manner in the body of the urine a red colour appears simply such as it doth in the circle which being re-bounded or weakned from a crosse the urine is not of so citron a colour in the circle The circle therefore is a true token of colour in transparent urines but in dark or thick and troubled ones a circle doth not apear But as to what pertains unto the colour of urine the Schools say that a watery thin pale urine is a sign of digestion being deficient even as that which is tinged with a manifest yellownesse is a token of good digestion It is a saying of Galen
Choler that was wont to incline to the urine out of the little bag of the Gaul unto the head And which way should that be done Shall the diseasie matter it self voluntarily ascend to the brain and shall it be the mover of its own self Then at least wise besides great absurdities it should of necessity be that every such Fever should not consist out of the little bag of the Gaul which none hath as yet hitherto supposed But to what end should a Fever which they account a meer accident stir up Choler to the head Shall it be judged best in nature to have now at length banished the matter of the disease which a good while lurked in the midriffs into the head Or what if it wandringly floateth in the veins as being seperated from the blood and of its own accord shall climbe upwards why is it not rather banished out of doores thorow an accustomed passage Shall mans nature now procure its own death contrary to the universal endeavour of things Shall such a fury at length be fit for the sequestring of Choler which was not seperable but by an appeased vigour Doth happily the Gaul being defirous of a wandring state of its own accord and voluntarily seperate it self and ascend to the head At length in what bottle doth Gaul lurk in the head that it may stir up a Feverish madnesse Is it in the bosoms of the brain Is it in the feigned arterial weaving of Galen But on both sides it should presently be mortal and Gaul would drop down thorow the doating nostrils Again if watery urins in Fevers after yellow ones do afford safe doatages with laughter Yet surely according to Hippocrates then these kind of doating delusions shall not be from Gaul And so neither shall the urine being now spoiled of its yellow Colour have that for which it may be deprived of Choler nor whereby it may lay aside snatched Choler into the brain For truly doatages with laughter exclude all Choler At length in the Jaundise the brain it self is yellow But if the Jaundise be from Choler why is it without doatage Without an Erisipelas or great inflammation of all the bowels But if not Gaul it self but the vapour thereof an unconsiderate evasion ascending into the brain stirs up these doatages of Fevers why therefore will the Schools have the Gaul materially and according to its tincture to fail in the urine A waterish urine therefore after yellow ones in Fevers denoteth that the tincture of the urine or liquid dung it is the liquour of meats in the bowels immediatly before they become dung is without mixture deteined in the midriffs For a vein strongly beating in the places about the short ribs denotes madnesse to come according to Hippocrates As the Liquid dung being not rightly purged tumulteth in the Hypochondrials Therefore they are meer dreams which the Schools do hitherto as it were from a three-legged stool foretel concerning the colour of the urine They have indeed learned by the effect and observance that things are wont mutually to follow each other To wit that doatage in a Fever is from a cleer urine after a yellow one Rightly indeed if they had stuck in a naked observation but when they came unto the causes and disposed of those causes according to the rite or custome of Theoremes and command of feigned principles they all of them rashly subscribed unto each other hitherto For there is no Choler in nature never any Gaul in the urine and much lesse that which may be seperated from thence and carried unto the head There is no Choler in the whole body because there never was any in nature Neither is Gaul Choler but the very liquour of the Gaul is a vital bowel of great moment between which and the kidney and brain nothing interposeth as common Neither is there any passage nor fit society of the Gaul with the urine Neither doth it appertaine unto the Gaul whether the urine be watery or yellow and thick The chest of the Gaul hath not a vein unto the head But if they will have Gaul to be brought thorow the hollow vein how should not Gaul mix it self with the blood Should not the whole blood of those feverish persons be bitter By what channel therefore shall it hasten unto the head What conducter shall lead Gaul unto the head What shall seperate it from the blood that it may not be deteined in its journy To what end should nature attempt such impertinencies How shall the blood remain without contagton from the forreign Gaul That ascent shall be a voluntary motion or a sending or a drawing A dreaming old woman said so long ago and the Schools have followed her For if Gauly Choler climb by its own motion now every man shall have a continual doatage But to what end shall the hollow vein send Gaul unto the brain Shall it thus cure the Fever Shall it diminish the burning heat But surely the feverish matter remaines shut up whether Choler be snatcht from the urine or Gaul out of the little bag into the brain or not To what end also should the brain allure Choler unto it self being moist with a lively juice and that a far better and nearer And that thing also fights with the ordination of the Liver For nothing is sent or drawn at least without the choice end and appoyntment of the Archeus Is therefore Choler carried into the brain from the wedlock of the other three Humours or is it drawn by this Surely the brain was thus already before befooled and not after the comming of Choler neither had it need of Choler for to doate At length why doth a watery urine rather argue a doating delusion in a continual Fever than in a intermitting one than in a drinker Than in the disease of the stone Than in a vitiated concoction of the Stomach But because death is in the midriff where the Fever then also is Vain therefore is the fiction of the Schools concerning yellow Choler in the urine and of its journy unto the brain But besides when as a little cloud appeareth in urines straightway the Physitian cries out and as if himself had overcome the disease saing with the consent and observance of the Schools that the diseasifying Humour is concocted and that it is safely to be purged for the future I will shew first what that little cloud may be And from thence any one shall at length judge that in the aforesaid particulars nothing but meer mockeries are conteined For indeed that little cloud or swim is a sign of the digestion of the stomach but not of a diseasifying matter But be it a sign of digestion because the ferments of the stomach Gaul and Liver have returned which before were hindred shut up c. Whence there is hope that the strength will be recovered otherwise the matter which they call that which maketh the disease is never attempted to be concocted Because nature intends not to
coct neither doth coct any thing but for a single end and after a single manner to wit that she may reduce it into her own noruishment and for no other end but the ferments to whom only it belongs to transchange things being now restored will subdue the matter of the disease under the Ferule in the Inns of digestion and root it out at pleasure For I have taught concerning digestions that sharpnesse in the stomach is not from the brackishnesse of things being recieved into the body but from the sharp or sout specifical ferment of the stomach it self But even as it is the property of sharpnesse to coagulate milky substances therefore whatsoever of the Cream of the stomach is in it self milky cannot be so exactly seperated in the Liver as that a smal quantity thereof is not snatched with the urine and there doth not make a little cloud The little cloud therefore is a signe of the ferment its returning into the stomach For neither is that swim in the urine from the nature or matter of the Fever neither doth it accuse or excuse the same Neither at length is that little cloud a sign of the proper Ferment of the Gaul for this is not sharp but salt and of the tast of the vital spirit even as elsewhere concerning long life but of the Ferment of the spleen to wit that which the spleen breaths into the stomach the patronage whereof it undertaketh For therefore in a Quartan ague that smal cloud oft-times appeareth and again oft-times dispesreth while as the appetite and digestion are restored and again departeth the same Quartan in the mean time always remayning otherwise if that little cloud should signify the mater of the disease as its object or efficient certainly it should constantly persevcte being once bred Since the matter being once cocted doth not regularly wax crude again Therefore for its own family-administration and the proper digestion of that bowel the spleen hath obtained a vital ferment from a spirit implanted in and proper to it self For therefore it is of the property odour and cast of the vital spirit The which seeing it is saltish and balsamical even as concerning long life it ought also to subdue and overcome the matter of a Quartan But a care of the stomach is committed to this bowel and for this cause it sits president over the digestion thereof and therefore it hath obtained another acide Ferment to this end the which unlesse it be inspired into the stomach in a due dose lack of appetites crudities yea and an inordinate hunger or appetite it self do arise Therefore if this comely ferment of the defence of the stomach be exorbitant in the spleen there are made bloody and black spittings out into the stomach which the Schools have judged to be black Choler when as otherwise it is nothing but an expurging and renewing of nourishable blood from the spleen it self Therefore the sharp ferment of the stomach although it be the cause of the little cloud and the whole soure cream be ordinarily turned into salt under the dominion of the Gaul as concerning digestions elsewhere yet the little cloud remayneth being bred from sharpnesse By reason whereof we must note that the cause being removed the effect is taken away for time to come but not for the time past Because the effect for the time past is a product now subsisting by it self oftentimes also having no longer need of the accompanying of former causes It being that which hath never been hitherto considered as neither distinguished of in the Schools Therefore a confused urine is oftentimes pissed forth by those that have the stone and likewise in the beating of the heart and otherwise But another urine although it be cleer yet it is of its own accord voluntarily disturbed in the air And indeed every troubled urine conteineth an hidden sharpnesse and the lesse thereof if it hath been once cleered at the fire and is not troubled afterwards At leastwise it betokeneth a defect of the ferment of the Gaul Because there is denoted that a very smal quantity of lukewarmth shall coct and overcome the sharpnesse that is left For so apples not yet ripe wax sweet with the Sun As oft also as the ferment of the little bag or bowel of the Gawl tramples one the ferment of the stomach and vitiateth the Pylorus so often there is a crudity of digestion and so also the urine is without a swim In the stomach also there is now and then a bitternesse from its digestion erring which brings forth such a superfluity But if the ferment of that bowel be supplanted there is a grosse and white sediment of the urine nor ever without the strangury or pissing by drops the which therefore in old people is difficult to be cured But that sharpnesse of the urine in stranguries although it be not manifest to the tast yet in how smal a quantity soever it be it is sufficient for the aforesaid effects of pain which is manifest in the urine of new Ale as yet unpercieveably participating of the brackishnesse of its Ale But while the ferment of the Liver doth too much exceed the activities of the stomach and Gaul there is a Bolar orlump-like sediment in a troubled and red-yellow urine As if that did wish to be made blood which is unfit for that appoyntment But a red sediment in a yellow urine and that which easily melteth through the heat of the fire denots the ferment of the Liver to be exasperated by a forreign impediment Which historie of ferments is inserted in the treatise of digestions There are also last of all manifold errours sluggishnesses about the original contents which in the treatise concerning the disease of the stone I have profesly weighed There is in the mean time a safe method of examining urines by their weight To wit anounce weigheth 600. grains But I had a glassen vessel of a narow neck weighing 1354. grains But it was filled with rain water weighing besides 4670. grains the urine of an old man was found to weigh in the same vessel 4720. grains or to exceed the weight of the rain water 50. grains But the urine of an healthy woman of 55. years old weighed 4745. grains The urine of an healthy young man of 19. years old weighed 4766. grains But that of another young man of a like age being abstinentious from drink weighed 4800. grains The urine a young man of 36. years old undergoing a tertian ague with a cough weighed 4763. grains But the aforesaid youth of 19. years old with a double Tertian had drunk little in the night aforegoing but his urine weighed 4848. grains which was 82. grains more than while he was healthy A maid having suffered the beating or passion of the heart made a water like unto rain water and the which therefore was of equal weight with rain water A luke-warm urine is alwayes a few graines lighter as also more extended than
Tragedy of the world would again be hidden at leastwise I suppose that there will be other far more horrible Plagues than ever heretofore and against which all Antidotes will be vain For truly our Plague at this day doth not affect bruit beasts But in the last dreggishness 〈…〉 they shall destroy wild beasts also yea fishes and trees and there shall be Plagues but not an ordinary Plague otherwise this should be an uncertain sign of the future destruction For there shall be Plagues from the hand of God from the powring out of the Vials as the Revelation hath it But against those Plagues there is not to be a Buckler in Nature I promised therefore unto my self before I attempted to write these things that the Plague that was curable even unto that face of times and a true remedy thereof was to be fetched out of the Grave of Hippocrates or rather from above from the Father of Lights I will declare what I have learned for the profit of Posterity CHAP. III. The Heaven is free from as also innocent of our Contagion or Infection NOt the least comfort hath appeared unto the Soul that is earnestly desirous of knowledge or unto the miserable and forsaken sick from the writings of the Antients First of all it is of Faith that the Stars are for signs times or seasons daies and years nor that man can any way alienate the offices of the Stars or decline them unto other scopes That the Heavens are the works of the Lords hands that God created not Death and therefore that neither doth the Heaven contain Death a disease poyson discords corruptions or the effective cause of these For truly they are ordained not for the cause but for the signs of future things and only for the changing of seasons or Meteors and for the succession of daies and years The office therefore of the Heavens is not to generate evils to cause poysons to disperse or influx them to sow wars and to stir up deaths Because the heaven cannot exceed the bounds of its own appointment the heavens declare the glory of God for whose honour and the uses of ungrateful humanity it was created And therefore it rather contains in it life light joy peace and health with an orderly and continued motion no curse is read to have been communicated to the heaven after the transgression of Adam nor execration to be infused into it as neither a spot to have been sprinkled thereon The earth indeed brings forth thistles and thorns because under the Moon is the Copy-hold of the Devil and Death because of sinners the Empire of discords and interchanges The earth hath become a Step-mother unto us she is therefore the vale of miseries being great with-child of the corruption and fardle of sinners because it hath pleased God that there should be no other way unto rest but by tribulations yea it behoved Christ to suffer and so to enter into glory not indeed anothers but his own because he was willing to take on him the form of a servant I belive the Word of God but in no wise the vanities of the Sooth-sayers of Heaven and I judge that they who write that the Plague doth arise from the heaven do stumble as being hitherto deceived with the errours of the Gentiles The Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth the handy-works of the Lord The Heavens therefore shew a sweet or bitter thing to come but they do not cause that sweet or bitter yea neither is it lawful for us to call bitter things evils for God hath directed all things to a good end Therefore the heaven declares future things unto us but doth not cause them and the stars are only unto us for the signs of things to come and therefore there shall be signs in the Sun Moon and Stars The Stars also cause the successive alterations of seasons in the ayr waters and earth only by a native Blas From whence the changes and ripenesses as well in fruits as in the body of man especially in a sick one do consequently depend I understand also that the stars are in this respect for times or seasons unto us by their motive and alterative Blas For neither therefore are the Heavens Sorcerers or the Cocters of poysons the incensers of wars c. I knowingly consider them to be altogether as the alterers of successive interchanges in Elementary qualities as to the interchangeable courses of Stations Wherefore it happens that the sick aâ—e diversly altered in the promotion and maturity of seeds conceived in them because our vital faculties do stir up every their own Blas according to the rule or square of the most general motion of the stars not indeed as of violent leaders but of foregoing or accompanying ones For the Book of the Revelation doth not attribute even any the least punishing power unto the Heavens but the same to be distributed by God among the Angels and the which therefore are called smiting and ministring spirits performing the commands of the Judge Therefore I shall not easily believe that the Plague owes its original unto the importunate or unseasonable changes of times the which also Eudoxus according to Fernelius perceived And I cannot be induced by any reason to believe that the Heavens do give growth form figure virtues or any thing else which proceedeth from the Being of seeds For the Herb was potent in a flourishing seed even before the stars were born so that although there should be no stars yet every seed by the power of the Word is of it self naturally for producing of its own constituted body and against the will of the stars and stations of the year yea and of climates many seeds and forreign fruits are produced by Art Wherefore the Epidemicks of Hippocrates illustrated with the Commentary of Galen do also contain very many things unworthy the name of the Author not only because it attributes diseases to the stations or seasons of the year and not every one to their own seeds and divers infirmities to one root that is unto the first qualities of the ayr and so coupleth divers effects with unjust causes but because they contain very many absurdities of trifles For I am wont in this thing to compare Judiciary Astrologers unto Empericks who having gotten an oyntment powder or any other medicine extoll the same to be prevalent well nigh for all diseases and also for many other So many of those being not content with the shewing or betokening message of the Stars constrain them to be the workmen Deasters and absolute Patrons of all fortune and misfortune to be conscious or witness-bearers and the workers of life and death to come Lastly to be the Councellors and Judges of thoughts and questions asked If therefore they do not contain death wars poysons nor the Plague verily neither shall they be able to rain down such scourges upon us seeing they cannot give those things which they have not do not contain
is hitherto unknown by those who have had respect only unto the contingencies of nature I rather believe that so many apparitions to Saints were not in vain and shewn unto them without their scope or purpose I therefore believe that the beginnings of the venereal plague was drawn and planted into nature from a dart of divine anger violently cast and no otherwise than as at the pouring out of the phials the third person of mortals shall at some time perish Not indeed that I will have the plague of lust to be accounted altogether miraculous in its beginning because it began from a hainous offence For I know as in nature it now hath so also that in its beginning it found a ferment and root therein And moreover a certain Layick and holy man being wont at some hard questions to receive dreaming visions and oft-times also through the abstraction of his minde intellectual notions or knowledges perhaps from too much curiosity narrowly searched into these questions 1. Why that venereal plague had broke out in the fore-past age and not before since that in the fore-past daies of Pagans any wicked impudent wantonnesse was never wanting 2. From whence if not from the Indians it came into Europe 3. What may be the cause of its continuation and mitigation and changing if it were come from God For Miracles do seldome pass over by way of contagion and unlesse a command be delivered obtain their cause in nature But neither is God wont to punish the guiltlesse even as the Lues veneris oft-times infecteth the innocent The Layick said that he saw in an intellectual vision an horse which flowed almost all abroad with a stinking ulcer which disease being proper to the horse kinde our countrey-men call Den-worm but the French Le Farein whence horses do by degrees perish with a corrupt mattery rottennesse but he saw this horse as it were designed for meat to dogs having his whole back vitiated also about the vessel of nature neither had he any other answer besides that vision wherefore he said that he supposed that at the siege of Naples where this cursed contagion at first arose some one through an horrible sin had carnal copulation with such a horse-beast At leastwise from thence I conjecture the rarity of a disease not before seen because I cannot easily believe that ever such a sin was in the like terms committed from the beginning of the world and it is a disease like unto the Lues Venerea and akin and familiar unto the nature of the horse And therefore it might God the avenger so permitting it have naturally transplanted its own ferment into the family of man although it was before divinely threatned That the Mares contagion I say might have mixed in the act of lust not to be spoken of it then propagating the Gonorrhea or running of the Reines the Cancer and venereous Baboes c. even so as at this day the Pox it self is attracted from a filthy whore even into the testicles of a man But I cease to be the more curious as oft as a thing being known is of no use unlesse happily thou hadst rather meditate from hence that horses thus ulcerous are cured by the remedy of the Pox and on the other hand this by Quicksilver most exactly prepared At least wise the consideration of the Lues serveth for a degenerate and at this day multitiplyed plague and many of which are threatned in the holy Scriptures under the coming of Antichrist I adde That it is infamous and hath infected every corner of the world it hâ—â—h also manifestly shewn by the effect that it is a common satisfactory punishment of the flesh and creeping unto a further and as yet a commonly unknown mark For indeed at its first beginning it not only stood a good while unknown but also its healing was unsuccessefully attâ—mpted and at this day is commonly unknown whence it follows that the life of mortals being enraged by uncertain and cruel medicines â—â— now humbled even before the youth of every one which weaknesse promiseth a certâ—â—â— lasting continuance of perpetuity and in abstinent persons unto the fourth period of generation at least yea although a large company of men have never contracted the Pox Neverthelesse since the Lues is scarce ever well cured and the reliques therof have remained surely there do those survive who having experienced the rashnesse oâ— Physitians are made far more weak then themselves were For there is a radical part oâ— poyson which hath remained in their possession besides the horrid tortures of oyntments perfumes and salivations and it must needs be that in that respect their successors are diminished with a notable weaknesse For the Lues is not indeed a disease consisting of a matter whereof but onely a poysonous ferment is affixed to the solid or liquid parts of our body like an odour And so the which is singular to the Pox it incorporates it self not onely with the constitutive parts but also with the excrements or with the matters of other diseases which it toucheth at because it affecteth them and is co-mixed with them and since it is easier to defile a matter with poyson which is newly appointed for an excrement then a part as yet alive and so also for this cause resisting Hence it comes to passe that whosoever have the manifest or hidden beginnings of any diseases whatsoever they do easily contract the Foul disease and therefore also it transplants it self into various masks of diseases by an association for in many it produceth ulcers and wheals in others it gnaws rottenesses in the bones it stirs up hard swellings also it causeth Buboes about the groyn phlegmones or inflamed apostemes and corrupt mattery apostemes as also wounds stubborne in curing elsewhere also it hath brought forth palsies gowty fits the jaundise or dropsie c. For that thing deceived Paracelsus he thinking that the Pox was not a disease in it self because it adhered to other diseases For a curse now coming upon nature impure from its original doth not proceed by an accustomed generation but it findes its own body pre-disposed in the body of other diseases so that the likenesse of conception nativity subsistence and effects in a strange body to wit that of man do produce a likenesse of the rise of the Pox as of other diseases because they in a like manner issue from the fall Diseases therefore that from the rise of the Pox are become degenerate for the future those do for the most part imitate the right or customary manner of some poyson neither hath any one sufficiently searched into the causes of these wherefore indeed most diseases have become contagious more cruel more frequent and more slow and difficult of flight than in times past For the Pest is undoubtedly more frequent then it was wont to be it catcheth hold on us upon the least occasion it cruelly infects us and is the more readily dispersed because it is
be of mixed Elements are of water alone even as I have elsewhere clearly demonstrated concerning the rise of medicine of necessity also the doctrine of the Elements at least for the Pest now falls to the ground and then another predicament of diseases he calls an Astral or Starry Being as it were raining down from the starry heaven and in many books of the Pest he prosecutes only this kind of Being others being omitted and so seeing he elsewhere confounds the heaven and the fruits of the heavens with the Element of fire an Astral plague shall also again be co-incident with a Natural and Elemental fiery one and then a third most general kind of diseases he calls the Being of poyson as if there should elsewhere be a certain plague void of a poyson and as though a plague could have its poyson without above or besides a Natural Being Thus therefore he distinguisheth as being fore-stalled by an Idiotism the stars against the Being of Nature But at least as if a natural and Astral plague were not of a poysonsom nature At length the fourth kind of diseases he calls a Spirital Being to wit the evil spirit co-operating together with his bondslaves Hitherto also he refers the execrations and desperations of men But first of all he omits his Faunes Hobgoblins Nymphs Satyrs c. unless happily he will have these to be the companions of Cacodemons at leastwise he neglects the chief hinge to wit his own phantasie when as terrour or affrighting fear alone generates no seldome plague And moreover he supposeth a spirital external Being to be the essential cause of the Pest to wit whereby the species are only to be divided and so he distinguisheth of two effects diuers in kind only by external occasional and accidental causes For it is certain whether the Witch as a Sorceress should connex a pestiferous contagion unto any one or that be done by any other means and by a proper vice of nature at leastwise the plague issuing from thence is on both sides one and the same Last of all he calls the fifth kind of diseases a God-like Being or that of the faithful stupidly enough in not distinguishing God from diseases themselves even as otherwise it is a free thing in no wise to have separated Nature from her own effect But he hath no where made mention even in his largest writings of a Deal or God-like plague But as to what belongs to my self I do nor adnit of an Astral Being although Paracelsus hath made that common not only to one of the five but being unconstant to himself unto all pestilences universally I likewise in the next place confound the Being of poyson with the Being of Nature For if it doth not contain a poyson neither also for that cause the plague But since the Pest hath a separated birth and progress distinct from other diseases being not a little tyed up unto imaginations and terrours In this respect I make every plague to be spiritual not indeed therefore to be of a Witch but to be tributary and meerly natural to the disturbances of the Archeâ—s But if indeed the Cacodemon or evil spirit co-laboureth for the destruction of man it shall indeed be the more fiercely transplanted and wax cruel yet there is not although his Paramire thinks otherwise need of superstition for this thing nor is that plague devious from that of nature because a spirital Being doth evidently whether he will or no always war under Nature Therefore I acknowledge two only plagues different in kind to wit one which is sent immediately from the hand of the Almighty by the smiting Angel for the execution of the hidden judgement of his own Deity For this although I acknowledge it to be a pestilence yet I wholly commit the same unto my Lord and say with a resigned mind Let thy will be done O Lord For truly neither do I wish for a remedy but according to thy own good pleasure Finally therefore I will every where touch only at the pestilence of Nature as a Phylosopher and I call that the other plague CHAP. VII The conjoyned cause of the Antients IN diseases universally and without exception I at sometime in discoursing of a disease in general have acknowledged no efficient and external cause besides an occasional one only Now moreover I have shewn that I have justly denied to give the heaven passage unto the plague although in the mean time the Blas of a Meteor may be able to dispose the suffering subject unto a more ready impression of receiving Therefore I will first apply my self unto the connexed causes of the Pest which we read to be referred by the Antients into the corruption of humours and inflammation of heat and therefore their preservatives written down are supposed to be adjudged only by way of resisting the putrefaction of humours But the Schools have not yet exâ—lained what that vitiated humour enflamed with heat may be or with what name to be endowed which may be the fire-brand of the plague in the veins bowels or habit of the body and they have not yet known that in Aegypt a destructive plague is rather extinguished than incensed by great heats Even as among us that the â—eâ—tilence is for the most part rather in Autumn than in Summer For sometimes the Schools run back unto Eâ—demicks as well those domestical as forraign the which are believed to incite and heap up putrefaction after any manner whatsoever In the next place for preservatives they scrape together any simples although hot ones so they are but commended by the faith of Heâ—barists But the doubâ—ing of the Schools as also the unprosperous uncertainty of remedies is every where covered with the ridiculous event of divers complexions the whiâ—h surely hath been hitherto a common and thred-bare aptness or fitness for excusing their excuses in death and at length through the great fear of Doctors of the plague the distrust of the Schools is discovered to be beyond the Laws and promises of books at leastwise they asswage the unlucky obediences of the sick by one only saying It so stood in the Destiniâ—â— Therefore that they must patiently bear it because that or the other miserable man was referred into the Catalogue of those that were to die In the mean time the work of the plague is cruel but more cruel is he who brags of help and brings it not The progress of the plague is swift by reason of so great sluggishness of Physitians The venom in the plague at leastwise is not quieted at one only moment neither doth that admit of peace which despiseth Trâ—ce If therefore there were any humours corrupted in the Pest in thâ—â—r being made through putrefaction seeing they cannot return and be reduced into their antient bâ—iâ—htness of integrity and the first and chiefest natural betokening of diseases in the Schools is most speedily to pluck up the hurtful humour and that all succours are vain but those which do
barren from the mixture of â—oiled honey They require also a mixture and digestion from the feeble Feverish person â—especially from the stomach being vitiated by poyson and from the Archeus being inwardly prostrated and confusedly tumulting Wherefore they perform little of help and the least of comfort For the cocted Trochies of the Viper since by the admonition of Galen they are the Capital Simple of Triacle do easily teach that the water of Triacle is plainly ridiculous For if the Viper stated the Triacle water with virtue in distilling why have the Trochies of the Viper in its first and Galenical cocture put off all that prerogative of healing What therefore shall I do with those who are always learning and never coming unto the knowledge which they profess to teach For most men as Seneca witnesseth have not attained unto that Science because they thought that they had attained it At length neither hath it been sufficient to have concealed the names of those humours which they have imagined to putrifie before the plague and to be the accompanying cause hereof But moreover in skipping over that they pass over the very thingliness of the corruption which now and then finisheth its Tragedy in a few hours For Physitians seem to have rested on a soft pillow while their Neighbours house is on fire and their head being once elevated on their elbow to have declared the Arrest The plague is a contagious disease from putrified humours being connexed to a Fever most sharp and exceeding dangerous which being said they having very well fed to have bent down their head again for their afternoon sleep which sleep under so great light hath again closed their eyes The world in the mean time bewails its condition seeing the effects not the causes as neither in the next place the remedies to be noted by this judgement Wherefore the Country people with both hands scratching their hair on their Temples pronounce another Arrest There is no need say they of much study nor of so many books that any may say the Plague is mortal and contagious the which every one hath learned by his own malady Therefore it shall be better to ask counsel of faithful helpers no longer of drowsie ones who are Fugitives from the Plague and ignorant of remedies CHAP. VIII The Seat prepared IT is not sufficient to have demonstrated that the causes of the Pest are unknown to the Schools unless I shall declare my own experiences the cause of the plague its divers progresses in the making its strange properties in its being made its preservations and cure At first therefore I will repeat what I have demonstrated elsewhere to wit that in Nature there are at least two causes and no more Indeed the matter and efficients which efficient in the plague I call the Archeus Vulcan or Seed at leastwise for the matter there is not a certain undistinct hyle or matter which never existed nor will be in nature and it serves for Science Mathematical and not to a contemplater of Nature Therefore I behold the matter of the pestilence with relation unto its internal efficient The matter therefore of the plague is a wild spirit tinged with a poyson But that matter tends unto the end proposed to it self after a three-fold manner because it either comes to us from without and being totally and perfectly pestiferous exhaling from a pestilent sick person or dead carkass or place or Utensile being defiled or it is drawn inwards being as yet crude from a Gas of the earth putrified by continuance which afterwards receives an appropriative ferment within and at length by degrees attains a pestilent poyson in us Or also a total destruction of us is now and then materially and formally finished within without an external assistance But that there are not more manners whereby the plague is made is manifest from the division For either it is wholly generated within without a forraign aid or it happens on us from without and that is either perfect in the matter and form of a poyson wanting only appropriation and application or it is as yet crude imperfect and as it were an Embryo Whence at leastwise first of all it becomes easie to be seen that the Pest doth not always first invade the heart For I have seen him who in touching pestilent papers at that very moment felt a pain as it were of a pricking Needle and straightway he shewed a pestilent Carbuncle in his fore-finger and after two daies died Furthermore the aforesaid three-fold matter however plainly venemous the first is yet on both sides it holds it self within the number of an antecedent cause For no otherwise than as poyson taken in at the mouth is not the disease it self or death but only the occasional cause thereof For not any thing that is corporeal acteth immediately on the liâ—e oâ— vital powers because they are those which are of the nature of Coelessial lights but first it is received and made as it were domestical and when some poyson is now made a Citizen of our Inn to wit it being swallowed or attracted notwithstanding also it cannot as yet enter or be admitted unto the hidden Seminaries of the vital powers because it is in its whole essence external but first the poysonous quality by acting on the life stirs up the Archeus otherwise the Author and workman of all other things to be done under his own government into its own defence For otherwise a pestilenâ— poyson acteth not like a sword which equally wounds all it toucheth at in the same moment of it self but the pestilent poyson is not able to strike any The Archeus therefore since from his own disposition he hath animal perturbations passions confusions and interchangeable courses he suddenly brings forth the image of his own alteration conceived and decyphers that Idea in the particle or small portion of his own proper substance wherein it is conceived which Image of Death being thus furnished is the Pest or Plague it self For truly I do not judge the plague to be a certain naked quality although it existeth not elsewhere than in a body as it were accidents in a subject of inherency but the plague is a Being a poyson of Nature subsisting by it self in us and consisting of its own matter form and properties the which I have elsewhere most fully demonstrated in the Treatise of Diseases But here it is sufficient to have admonished that the life operates nothing by conquering or destroying unless by the vital motions of the sensitive Soul which is not wont but to operate by Idea's on the Archeus the Executer of any motions whatsoever even as neither doth the Archeus operate after any other manner on the body Wherefore it is to be noted by the way in this place that the inward material and immediate cause of a disease is the disease it self 〈…〉 wise than as the material cause in a man is his very body persevering from the 〈…〉 unto old
the steel be lighter than the Load-stone it is drawn to the Loadstone but otherwise if the stone be lighter than the steel Because the drawing is not in the one and the obedience of the drawing in the other but there is one only mutual inclinative drawing and not of the drawer with a skirmishing of the resister And so from hence it is manifest that a desire is in nature before the drawing and that the drawing followes the desire as some latter thing as the effect doth its cause If therefore according to the testimony of truth all things are to be discerned by their works and the fruits do bewray their own tree truly such attractive inclinations cannot subsist without the testimony of a certain co-participated life sensation knowledge and election Moreover neither is the life of minerals lesse than the life of vegetables distinguished from the animal life by their own life and their generations among themselves Because that which is vegetable and that which is mineral do not operate but one or a few proper things and the same things as yet with a precisenesse interchangeable course property inclination and necessity as oft as a proper object is present with them but a living creature operates many things and those neither constrainedly as neither by accident of the object but altogether by desire well pleasing appetite will and choice of some certain deliberation Seeing the first operation of the same is life but the second a proper appetite desire or love or delight At length thirdly there is a deliberative and distinctive choice of objects So I have seen a Bull that was filled with lust to have dâ—spised an old Cow but an heifer being offered him to have again presently after wantâ—nized But the first operation of things obscurely living is a power unto a seminal essentialnesse Next the second is an exercise of powers and properties At length the third operation is a greater and lesse inclination motion and knowledge The which indeed flow not from a deliberative election or choice but from a potestative interchangeable course strangenesse likenesse appropriation purity or unaptnesse of objects wherefore it was a right opinion of the Antients that all things are in all after the manner of the receiver But those powers by reason of their undiscerned obscurity and the sloath of diligent searchers have been scarce believed but by predecessours and moderns were not considered and by reason of the difficulties of accesse they have circumvented the world with a wandring despaire and with the name of occult properties have hood-winkt themselves by their own sluggishnesse But my scope in this place hath been that if in Herbs and Minerals there are such kind of notions the Authoresses and moderatresses of hidden properties the same by a far more potent reason and after a more plentiful manner do inhabite in flesh and blood To wit excellently with a particular and affected notion motion inclination appetite love interchangeable course hostility and resistance as with that which occurs in us through the service of the five senses Even so that in flesh and blood there is a certain seminal notion distinction imagination of love conveniency likenesse and also of fear terror sorrow resistance c. with a beholding of gain and losse offence and complacency of superiority I say and inferiority and so of the agent and the patient Because those necessary dependances of a consequent necessity do flow from and accompany the aforesaid sensations or acts of feeling The which surely in the vital blood are characterized in a higher degree by reason of the inbred Archeus the Author and workman of any of these passions whatsoever than otherwise in the whole kind that is not soulified or quickned For a tooth from a dead carcase that dyed by the extinguishment of its powers constraineth any tooth of a living man to wither and fall out only by its touching because it compels it to be despised by the life The which a tooth from a dead carcase slain by a violent death or presently extinguished by a sharp disease doth not likewise perform In like manner the hair of a dead carcass whose life was taken away by degrees by a voluntary death makes persons bauld only by its touching Watts and brands brought on the Young by the perturbation of a woman great with child through the touching of a dead carcase that died of its own accord and by degrees untill part of the branded mark shall wax more inwardly cold the mark also doth by degrees voluntarily vanish away Observe well with me whether these are not the testimonies of another act of feeling than that of cold Moreover whether in that same sensation there be not a natural knowledge and fear of death connexed which things are as yet also in the dead carcass For truly a Tetanus or straight extension of a dead carcase or stiffnesse thereof is not a certain congelation of cold But a mear convulsion of the muscles abhorring death and living even after the departure of the soul For from hence the dead carcases of those who die by a violent death because they die the faculties of their flesh being not altogether extinguished they feel not the aforesaid Tetanus but a good while after CHAP. X. A living creature imaginative I Have said that Herbs and Minerals do imagine by a certain instinct of nature that is after their own manner so in the next place that the blood and mummie have certain native conceptions in order and likenesse unto man which things that they may be directed unto our purpose concerning the Plague thou mayest remember after what sort the perturbations of a woman great with child her hand being applied unto some certain member although unadvisedly rashly and without a concurrence of the will do decipher the member in the Young co-agreeing in co-touching with the image of the object of that perturbation with the image I say but not with an idle signature But suppose thou that her desire was to a cherry verily a cherry is deciphered in the young and in a co-like member such as the child-bearing woman shall touch with her hand which cherry waxeth green yellow and red every year at the same stations wherein the cherries of a tree do attain those interchanges of colours And which is far more wonderful it hath happened that the Young so marked hath suffered these signatures of colours in the Low-countries in the moneths called May and June which afterwards expressed the same in Spain in those called March and April And at length the Young returning into his countrie shewed them again in a bravery in those called May and June Also under a strong impression of a woman great with child not onely a new generation of a cherry is brought in thereupon but it also happens that the old one is to be changed and it constrains a seminal generation to give place yea and the image of God being now lively or in the readinesse
supposed to be so regular that they are sometimes described in Ephemeres's for an age But the Pest is of things extraordinarily increasing and those not necessary But a regular mean is not a meetly suitable sign for an effect from a contingency by chance Neither therefore could the Ephemeres's or Planetary daies-books of Brabu foretel the plague in Lumbardy of the year 1632. which was conceived from an unjust war and the fear of horrour Wherefore I attribute extraordinary contingencies or accidents unto extraordinary contingent causes I believe indeed that the fore-shewing signs of the same are decyphered in the Firmament but not in the directions of the courses of the Planets Wherefore I account those signs to be irregular nor to be subject to Astrology because the significations of those signs are granted by an extraordinary priviledge Therefore the signs of such a plague are for the most part declared only to the servants of God as is read concerning Jonas But the signs that went before the destruction of Jerusalem were messages of the Word long before prophesied of and so neither could the fore-told destruction be hindered and they were directed only to the meer glory of God the admonishment of the godly and the flight of these And moreover Israel ought to die and to be renewed by Generation in the Wilderness except Joshuah and Calâ—b neither could that thing be any way prevented for the Word of the Lord stands unchangeable with whom there is no changeableness because he is not like unto man herein Monstrous signs therefore if they do not prescribe a condition in declaring unless Niniveh be converted they by nature promise an unavoidable effect It hath also pleased others to draw the births of Monsters into the fore-shewing signs of the plague even as Cornelius Gemma concerning his Cosmocriticks or Divine Characters doth by trifling patch them together without a foundation But who is he who shall either know or interpret the denoted fore-tokens of Monsters For the plague being present then indeed and too late every one draws significations at his own pleasure And there are some who therefore abhor the coming of unwonted Birds but that sign either ceaseth to be natural or that of the Quails fore-going the plague of Israel in the Wilderness shall cease to be a Miracle And let this be impious and blasphemous but the other impertinent to my purpose Others interpret this sign for flesh-devouring Birds for a future plague as if they were sent to devour the dead carkasses that were to be inhumed according to that saying Where the carkasses are thither are the Eagles gathered together But the Text is not read to be for future dead carkasses neither to have swallowed them down seeing they are wont to be most carefully buried before others For the River Rhoan at sometime carried away the dead carkasses of the plague at Lyons but it infected the Citizens beneath them at leastwise the Clergy of Lyons declared hereby that the burial of the dead was to be observed not so much for the health of the soul as for the purse The coming of Birds therefore living by prey denotes rather a future defect of their prey in their own Native Provinces and they should rather denounce by a monstrous sign a destruction of war than an imminent plague But others divine the plague to be from the meeting with unwonted fishes to wit they suppose the waters to be infected with a corrupt defilement and for this cause that Sea-monsters do ascend into the waves surely a ridiculous thing For if the Sea putrifieth through continuance in its saltness what water at length shall wash away the defilement of the Sea or why shall one only Whale wandring out of his road feel the hurtful poyson of the Sea not all in a Shoal or many together Truly I know that the Sea is not subject to a natural contagion of the Pest and that the monstrous signs of the Heaven and Sea are directed by the same finger of whose unsearchable judgement they are the Preachers being declared unto his servants only For the same Lord is present as well in the center of the earth and in the bottom of the Sea as in the highest top of heaven Indeed all things do alike equally obey him except the most ungrateful sinner But surely I do rather fear the unwonted raines of blood of spots or sparks and likewise Funerals brought down through the Clouds mournful sounds heard in the air as also noises in burying places c. which things seeing they are the admonitions of Divine goodness therefore they are to be referred out of Nature that every one may seasonably look to the Oyl in their own Lamps For neither therefore do I esteem those monstrous signs to be the works of the Evil Spirit but against his will Truly they are freely given and above Nature neither therefore do they belong to my purpose But Paracelsus as he had known a singular remedy of the Plague to be in the Toad and Frogs so also he writes that this is presaged as oft as a great heap of Frogs ariseth into a heap which is to choak some weak or infirm one which being killed it afterwards assaulteth another until the number being thus diminished by degrees every one at length particularly runs away which things if they thus naturally happen as they prepare a remedy for the plague to come so also they denote it For out of a Gaul even as also from an apple drawn out of Oaken leaves they write that for the most part three small living creatures are drawn to wit if it contain a Spider thâ—â— will have it portend the Pest if a Fly War but if a creeping Animal that it fore-sheweth Famine But seeing one of the three at least is found every year enclosed therein if not two or all of them and yet one of those punishments doth not continually follow therefore I refer such predictions among old Wives Fables I therefore judge that these kind of Insects do denounce the difference of the Leffas in the Oak Leffas is the nourishable juice of plants so as that a worm denotes the aforesaid nourishment to be putrified through continuance but a Spider a poyson to be moreover adjoyned to that putrefaction and therefore as it were a connexed and co-touching Spider is every where almost in the whole compass of the earth the which being in the Oak portends not any thing out of the tree especially because in the neighbouring and co-planted trees nor also seldom in the fruits of the same Oak those divers Insects are beheld at once in the same Summer Yet I do not remember that I have found a Spider and also a Fly at once in the same Oak although a Fly indeed and a Worm also a Worm and a Spider But far be it from a Christian to prophesie from Oak and Terpentine for that is read to be forbidden by the Loâ—d with cruel threatnings But as oft as a new
plague of man shakes not dogs nor makes them nauseous For truly as well dogs as Wolves do without punishment devoure the dead carkasses that are not wel enough buried as also Pies and likewise Ravens Perhaps indeed an hungry dog will not eat that Laâ—d which was rub'd on the feet of his Master because it smells of his Master whom he dares not bite But the Germans call the root of the herb Butterburre or the gâ—eater Colts-foot the Pestilential root because as the Pest displays it self before a fore-shewing sign so the Butterburre sends forth its flowres before its leaves The Pest also propagates it self not so much by a seed as by an Archeal root They also relate that a Saphire of a deep Sky-colour or Citron-coloured Jacinth if it abide upon the painful member for a quarter of an hours space so as that the light from the opposite part of the Gem strikes the infected place and there collects its beams that the place touched on will wax black and blew within a quarter of an hour and that it is an infallible token of the plague But if the place shall in no wise assume a more wan colour that the sick person is free from the plague But I have always in doubtful cases made use of a powdered Toad and that boiled in a very small quantity of simple water in the form of a Poultess whereby if presently after the pain in the Escharre Carbuncle or Bubo in the groyn waxed mild I safely conjectured that the plague was present For I sometimes beholding a Mass of Prelates and Abbots and their fingers to be adorned with precious stones I conjectured that they were in times past obliged to visit those that were infected with the plague But that now also the Gems of Gems are born about their use being neglected and unknown the which I do conjecture CHAP. XVI The Preservation PReservatives according to the Ancients are two-fold For some ought to hinder the plague to come others also the plague being present that it proceed not to cut down But for the former they have devised as well Amulets or Pomanders without as Antidotes within But since the Schools have been ignorant of the very essential thinglinesse of the poyson and indeed that every Pest whether it shall be brought to us from without or next shall be bred within presupposeth the image of a poysonsom terrour therefore proper preservatives have never been known from a foundation Therefore among preservatives I consider 1. Least the spirit of the Archeus do conceive a terrour in us or that from a terrour he do not produce a terrifying poyson on himself or one brought on him within from else-where 2. That a fermental and co-resembling mummie being brought to us from without doth not infect the Archeus the internal ruler of our mummie 3. That whatsoever hath already in contagion become a partaker of the mummie be killed and departeth Therefore the least co-resemblance which it hath common with us is to be taken away Wherefore some light poyson is alwayes wont to admix it self with every Antidote to wit that hereby the application and approximation may be taken away that the Archeus may be preserved free from contagion or that he fall not down into the mumial nourishment and from thence frame a Tartar of the bloud to himself In this last patronage of safeguard antiquity hath been wholly vigilant but it hath not been incumbent about others because they were unknown Although this last preservation hath therefore become uncertain and without fruit because it hath rather respected the latter product or seat than the root or chief cause when as in the mean time a preservation from the effect fore-going conditions being supposed is fore-stalled as being in vain Therefore if we must treat of preservatives and antidotes to expel the poyson as is meet what things I have already explained concerning the causes processe and manner of making the plague ought to be firmly fixed in our mind The Pest therefore either enters from without and marks the place of its entrance from without because it primarily affecteth it or is attracted with the breath and there passeth thorow the Diaphragma or midriff and causeth a pressure and perplexities upon the very bought of the stomach and in the same place cloaths the matter which soon exhales from thence and becomes infamous in contagion And seeing that in nature every agent hath its beginning increase state declining and at length death it must needs be likewise that by how much the longer of continuance and powerful the corruption shall be by so much also the more dangerous or destructive it be rendred For the Pest beginning is increased with the diminishment and death of the man For I a good while believed that every curative remedy of the plague was also of necessity the preservative of the same because it is accounted a more easie thing to be preserved than to be cured Or whatsoever it performeth in the same kind which is the more difficult that it should also willingly do that which is more easie Wherefore I was greatly occupied in times past with the care of diligently searching into medicines for expelling of the poyson to wit whereon the whole satisfaction of my desire then depended But afterwards I diverted my mind to another belief and considered that healing remedies had rather regard unto the extraction or expulsion of the malady and that such remedies had not place in preservatives for the future To wit seeing that which as yet is not cannot also as yet be expelled or extracted yea not so much as extinguished For truly first of all a remedy against the terrour of the man imagining or of the Archeus is not in it self so much positive as negative and so the drinking of pure wine even unto mirth preserveth for the future because it so rules the imagination not onely of the man but of the Archeus that the power of forming images perisheth For so no man is poor or defectuous as long as he is cheerful from a drinking of wine And therefore the holy Scriptures declare that wine was made for cheerfulnesse but not for drunkennesse because it is a powerful preservative So that although the sturdinesse of a man excludeth the terrours from the imaginaion of the man yet a manly animosity cannot take away the terrour of the imagining Archeus for the aforesaid animosity or sturdinesse of mind admits of a combate from a contrary opinion of the Archeus but mirth or cheerfulnesse introduced by such drink neither admits of nor acknowledgeth an enemy as neither doth it undergo a strife but excludeth them But an exhilerating draught is more fit for the Pest to come than for it being present Therefore I grant also that the preservative and curative remedies for the plague as being present are of the same company and intention but not for a future one yet so that preservatives of the plague as being present do not serve
long life of Fishes 684 93 History of a young 〈◊〉 that cat much and â—â—ded litle 243.15 Of the Egyptians dead bodies 245.20 802 Two Histories of children troubled with the stone 251 History of a Toad 730 History of an old man dying of the strangury 1060 History of a man that lost his nose 764.22 History of the Authors examining of poysons 274.12 Severall Histories of drowned persons 281.47 48 49 50 Several Histories of Asthmatick persons 359.360 History of amatron that could not swallow 361.31 History of an Elder whose lungs were like a stone 362.42 History of a man suddenly strangled by an Asthma 363.46 History of a man of sixty years of age troubled with an asthma withdivers observations thereon 364.50 365 366 367 History of a Maid cured of the Leprosie and how it budded again 1091 History of a Bursten man 301.21 Of a Lawyer that took Henban seeds for dill 302.21 History of the Authors getting the Itch. 317 2 History of a snorting old man 370.70 History of one dying of the Plague 1157 Hony yields no ashes 404.18 583 38 They that eate Hony must abstain from Rye bread 798 A quaternary of humors why suspected 945 Of the weights of Humours in diseased bodies 946 Of the deceits of Humours 1041 1042 1045 It is rashness to suppose separation of Humours the ground of health 133 Hippocrates distinction of diseases 530 Hippocrates described in a Letter to Artaxerxes 1081 Artaxerxes Lievtenants Letter to Hipocrates with his Answer thereto 1081 His Letter to the men of Cooâ— and their Answer thereunto ibid Hippocrates compared with Galen 1083 Hippocrates potion commended 1143 Hippocrates revived Of his remedies against the Plague 1154 The several kinds thereof 1155 1156 I. OF the occasional matter of the Jaundice 217 The Jaundice not from yellow choler 1057 Jaundice demonstrated by Anatomy 1058 A double vice in the Jaundice 1059 â— The Jaundice iâ— not from the Gaul being stopped 1060 The efficient cause of the Jaundice and the cure ibid There is an unnamed poyson in the Jaundice 1062 33 The seâ—â— of the Jaundice 1063 35 The Jaundice by a venom proper to it produceth a dry Asthma  Iâ—e how caused 72 13 75 33 It is lighter then when resolved into water ibid. 35 Of the Idea's of diseases 539 Their piercing 541 Eight Propositions concerning Idea's of the Archeus ibid Silent Idea's do prove an Archeal Idea 550 Regular Idea's are planted in the seed by the corruption of the Generater 548 The birth and original of a diseasie Image 552 Idea's brought into the venal blood 554 The powerful Idea's of diseases are framed in the Duumvirate 563 Of Soulifi'd Idea's 607 Exorbitancies imprint lasting Idea's 608 The original of diseasie Idea's 1004 The necessity of Idea's in a fever proved 1005 Of the different effect of Idea's 608 12 1121 Idea's of the soul pierce the womb 609 18 The progress of Idea's 611 Of several Idea's the cure 612 Archeal Idea's cured by Opiates 621 What Idea's are most lasting ibid Of a mad Idea 278 35 The force of mad Idea's is from the spirit of the midriff 279 37 The extinction of mad Idea's 280 45 46 281 Of the Iliack passion 421 30 Cured 31 The Illiad of Paracelsus what 690 20 695 22 The Image of terrour sifted 1159 The Image of the mind 262 The Image of God 714 Of the immortality of Adam 745 Imagination how it comes to be 270 To what to be attributed 341 And where seated ibid The distinction of Incliâ—ations 124 36 c. Remedies against Inchantmens 605 The Intellect is a formal light 269.34 The nourishing of an Infant for long life 797 799 The property of Irish Oak 150.5 The faculties of a vein of Iron and what it performs 700.7 How it profits in the stone 701.12 Issues how they sometimes profit 372.74 How the Author got the Itch with his practise on himself 317.3 319 9 Thirteen conclusions from the same 318.7 Iuyces how preserved uncorrupt 461.21 15â— 172 45 K. OF the wandring Keeper 254 Why so called 257.10 What he performs 256.6 258 24 259.27 How he Erreth 260 His Restoring diâ—â—icult 261.43 How the Kings-evil is bred 251.24 A Remedy for the same 252.26 Kidney Judge of the Dropsie 512 It conceives the dropsie 514 Kidneys differ the urine from the Latex alone 558 What it is brings peace to the Kidneys 709 52 Kermes Examined 972 L. LAtex is not the urine 509 Latex seperated from the venal blood Receives the disposition of an excrement 512 Its ordination 518 Latex what it is 373 2 The distinction of the Latex from urine and sweat 374.5 The absurdities that follow the Ignorance of the Latex â—bid 9 370 Of the several uses of the Latex 375.12 14 18 The necessity of the Latex 377.28 The vices of the Latex Ibid. 31 Latex easily receives a Forreign guest 378 36 Diseases arising sometimes from the Latex how cured 448.61 Laudanum without Opium cures several distempers 543 Why the Land of promise hot 86 27 Lead how reducible into Gas. 102.23 Leprosie what 895 What the Lâ—prosie infects by 900 Difficulty of its cure 901 Of the buâ—ding of the Leprosie after curation 1091 What Leff as is 116.31 Of the manifold life of man 735 Of the middle life of things c. 150.8 c. Impediments of life 754 How the life of things is changed 154.28 The middle life of things abides with us 150 158.53 379 43 1124 Of the spirit of life 191 What life is 740 What Resembles life 752 Of light c. 135.24 Its beams being united is true and actual fire Ibid. 26 T is to be understood of the Suns light 139 40 130 36 It is No element Ibid. 37 The difference 'twixt it and the formal light 144.73 Of its being retained in a flint 147.95 155 35 Of the extinction of life 159.59 What places most conduce to long life 723.806 810 Light in us is hot in fishes cold 734.747 Of short Life 747 What may occasion it 754 Harmony of life from the Duumvirate 306 52 The Liver never hotter than needfull 438.27 Liver not the seat of the Dropsie 510 The shop of sanguification is not in the Liver 214.42 It performs its digestion by a fermental Blas Ibid. Of the different operation of the Loadstone 762 The Medicinal faculty of the Loadstone 763.19 Loadstone dirâ—cts it self but is not drawn 773 64 774 67 775 68 The properties of the Loadstone laid asleep by Garlick 774 67 The same performed by Mercury Ibid Why glassmakers use the Loadstone 787 143 Logick deciphered and Condemned 32.5 c. 67 Long life Impeded by Milk 797 What Love is 719 722 Love is before desire 720 The excellency of love-desire 314.19 21 23 A Lunar Tribute 7â—0 Ludus its preparation and where to be found 881 882 The original of the Lues venerea 1092. 1903 1094 Lues venerea consists not of matter but of a fermâ—ntal odour 1094 Carnal Lust not from the Reines 305.42 But from the stomach