in so high an esteem as hitherto it hath been And the rather because Reason and Discourse do not obscurely flcurish or grow in bâ—uit Beasts for that an aged Fox is more crafty than a younger one by rational discourse doth happen to be confirmed by the remembrance of experience yea Bees do number because if there be 30 Hives placed in order a small Bee flying out in the morning numbers out of what Hive she went forth and then doth not return nor enter unless she first re-number the rank which is easily proved For if the fifth or sixth Hive be removed into the seventh or any other place and the number being turned in and out the Bees which return laden with Hony and Wax thinking to lay up their fardle within their own Common-wealth do reck on again upon the fifth or sixth numbred Hive the Citizens whereof seeing they are strangers to that little Bee coming unto them do kill the same And in this manner 〈◊〉 do in one night destroy all the Hives For the Serpent was more crafty than the other living Creatures And I will confirm by one example instead of a thousand a rational Discourse in Beasts A man of a neighbouring Village brought up a House the chief Watchman of the night-prey But it happened that in full of the Moon a Wolf ran up and down about the Village at whom that Dog straightway barked and followed the fleeing Wolf But this being impatient of hunger reterted himself on the Dog and followes him But the Dog running away and leaping upon his Oven retired himself in safety and from thence continually barked and waking his Master discovered the presence of the Wolf But the day following the Wolf returned whom the Dog as he did the day before assaulted by barking For the Wolf feigning a flight until he knew by conjecture that his fellow Wolf which he had brought with him had hidden himself under the Oven When therefore he turned himself towards the Dog who running away from the Wolf following him and thinking to retire to his Oven as it were to a most safe Castle another hidden Wolf bewrayed himself who laid hold on the Dog with a grinning mouth and hindered his leaping upon his Oven Therefore I have noted a remarkable diligence in all bruit Beasts also in most insects I think it therefore a disgraceful definition whereby a man is decyphered to be a rational or reasonable living Creature as it were from a description of his Essence For truly he was to be defined from his ultimate end by the properties of appointments in creating if the end be the first of causes according to Aristotle Wherefore neither was the definition of a man to be begged from the Fountain of Paganisme which hath been plainly ignorant of Creation and the ends thereof For as my Philosophy is unknown to the Heathen so likewise their Philosophy is with me of no value Indeed I write for the sake of Christians for whom it is a shame to follow Heathens contrary to Gospel-truth Neither also am I willing to be accounted a brawler about names as oft as I treat of the ends Prerogatives choiceness and Dignity of the divine Image I reject first of all the follies of Paganisme in-definitions especially those made concerning man For truly according to the Testimony of St. Anthony described by Blessed Jerome Paul the first of Anchorets is referred among the number of the Gods Also by relation of the same Anthony Faunus is read to be a talking rational Creature yea knowing and worshipping the God of Nature and of the Christians and beseeching Anthony to pray for him and his It is manifest in the first place that this Faunus was not a man from the assertion of Anthony and his monstrous figure or shape Next neither that he was an evil spirit is gathered because this is so proud that if he knew he might be saved by Prayer he would not so much as ask that any one would pray for him neither would he prostrate himself for to beg pardon For blessed Jerome calls Faunus not a man as neither an evil Spirit Therefore Faunus is neither of these as the same man witnesseth by whom that Paul obtained the first place among the Anchorets and was reckoned among the Saints Therefore a Faunus is a living Creature as a Being in reason speaking his own proper Country Dialect but not a man So in times past a live Satyr and afterwards seasoned with Salt was shewen for money being carried thorowout Aegypt Phrygia and Greece Finally in Scotland and Zeland and elsewhere there are fished Monsters using Reason yea exercising mechanick arts in the half shapes of men Indeed man alone was made after the Image of God with an excluding of all Creatures or things But these rational bruits being in their own Elements are also different among themselves yet are they the Images or likenesses of us and not the Images of God Man therefore is a Creature living in a body by an immortal minde sealed to the honour of God according to the light and Image of the Word the first example of all causes For the day and its light were sometimes without the Sun and the Sun shall at sometimes be without light But the Soul of man cannot be considered without the Image of God seeing the Kingdom of God with all its free gifts is more intimate to the Soul than the Soul it self is intimate to it self Therefore I am deservedly angry that the Schooles do badly season Youth with Heathenish Phylosophy and that they do even till now delight in Acorns the Banquets of the first or original truth being now found Oh Lord the light of thy countenance is imprinted upon us for none hath perfectly known the Image and whether it doth well answer to its Type if he shall not first know or acknowledge the Type Wherefore as many as do badly define a man do not know or acknowledge God as neither themselves in essential things The Phylosophical Schooles therefore have rested more in the lessons of the Heathens than of Paul Hence I contemplate that they have meditated of a man onely according to his dead Carcase but not according to the intention of the Creator or efficient and the finall ordinations of man For otherwise the Almighty had declined from his scope if the end be the first or chief of causes in Creation and there be something considerable as first in the adorable Authour of things Therefore the Creature was to be defined and that from the intention of the efficient Creator For he erreth not in his ends who frameth the properties themselves which flow from the very ends of their appointments Wherefore man although he hath from his body some animal or sensitive and bodily conditions yet from the intent of God he is created into the living Image of God in an immortal substance that he may know love and worship God according to the light of the Type or figure imprinted
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
there all the more clowdy speculation and aid of Reason languisheth even as on the other hand a true understanding is suppressed in us under the precepts of Reason Wherefore seeing the proper object of understanding is the essence of things it self for that cause accidents being as it were abstracted and rent asunder from the things in which they are ought to be conceived by the imagination and that by shapes and likenesses but in no wise by the understanding Wherein after another manner I finde all accidents co-knit together in a point under the essence of the things understood Because accidents properly are not Beings but of the Beings on whom they depend therefore accidents have not an essence which doth co-pass unto the unity of the understanding or into which essence the understanding may transport it self But the Schooles do divide the Intellect into the Agent and Patient For they will have that to be conversant about the invention of meanes and premises of a demonstration to wit that the sealing marks of the termes may imprint an understanding on the Patient as it were on wax subjected to it Therefore they call the Agent masculine noble and formall But they liken the Patient to the Woman and ignoble matter And these their Dreams they perswade to young beginners as Nature doth every where operate toward the perfection of it self but operation or action is alwayes more noble than passion or suffering But I do every where pity so great dryness First because demonstration is not an effect or of-spring of the understanding neither doth it any way supply meanes for Sciences or knowledges I have seen an Aethiopian swiftly to roule a Reed about in the hole of a Plank with a Towel placed between and not long after the Reed with the Towel took fire And then I have hidden a Reed in a bright burning Fornace and the inflamed Reed hath more speedily cleerly and perfectly shined When as nevertheless the Reed did act nothing but onely suffered an inflaming So that although the acting principle may now and then be more noble than the suffering one while the effect tends to perfection or while the Patient ought to be perfected by the Agent Yet while a pretious Pearl doth putrifie under the Dunghill I may not believe the Agent to be more perfect than the Patient I have sufficiently shewed elsewhere that in whole nature the Doctrine of Aristotle is vain and meer trifles how much lesse therefore could he subsist in the Court of understanding whose Being and operating do depend onely on the Soul For we Christians are constrained to believe that our intellect or understanding is an immortal Spirit Light and Image of the Almighty whose beginning as it exceedes Nature so it cannot be fitted or squared to its Rules Seeing it hath a most simple Being never to be divided into the strifes of Agent and Patient or into heterogeneals or divers kindes Seeing also that it dependeth immediately totally and continually on its original Type and so that without particular or special grace it cannot understand any thing because the object of understanding is truth it self Wherefore neither doth it understand with a perfect understanding but by receiving But that which receives onely that suffers but doth not act therein for neither is that proper to the understanding which comes to it by grace The will also while it suffers is more noble than while it wills to wit while it is ruled by the will of the Superiour Powers The Imagination indeed knowes by acting and therefore it is wearied and this Aristotle knew but not the understanding Because it is that which suffers in understanding by way of enlightning onely For it is a more troublesome servile and obscure thing to operate in understanding than to suffer because by suffering it receives a more noble light freely conferred on it Lastly seeing that in understanding it alwayes passeth over into the form of the thing understood therefore that which partakes of an unlimited light is perfected without weariness and labour of understanding and the light understood shineth in understanding in the light of the Intellect it self So as the things themselves seem to talk with us without words and the understanding pierceth them being shut up no otherwise than as if they were dissected and laid open Therefore the understanding is alway perfected by suffering and receiving But the imaginative knowledge or animal understanding which was known to Aristotle beholdeth things onely on the outside and frameth to it self Images or likenesses thereof according to its own thinking and with all wearisomness of labours runs about them into a circle It sees indeed the Rhines and husks but never reacheth at the kernel because the Imagination doth not enter things as neither on the other hand do things enter and satisfie the imaginative part For at most the imaginative part satisfies it self by likenesses if it hath long admired the outward Signate the inward sealer whereof notwithstanding it least of all embraceth For how unjustly doth it square that the Schooles should acknowledge the Soul to be the immediate Image of God and to divide the understanding into two supposed things which differ in Offices and effects For truly a two foldedness it self in the understanding disagreeth with the simplicity of him whose Image it hideth in it self throughout its whole Being I believe in the first place that nothing doth pertain to the knowledge of truth but faith and understanding Secondly That all truth doth issue from one onely and primitive truth Thirdly That all understanding deriveth it self from one onely and infinite understanding Fourthly Even as all Light from one onely Light Fifthly Therefore that the Essence of truth doth nothing differ from the Essence of the understanding Sixthly That our understanding is vain empty poor and dark Seventhly That all its clearness nobleness fulness light and truth do come to it by receiving and suffering Eightly That it is so much the more ennobled by how much the more it suffers by the light which is beyond all nature Finally the Schooles of the Heathens have failed of the knowledge of a true understanding And therefore man is not a rational living Creature But the predicament of a substance is to be divided into a Spirit and a Body A Spirit is abstract or withdrawn or concrete or joyned with a Body Man alone is a concrete Spirit but not to be placed among Bodies If his denomination be to be drawn from the more especial part and essential determination from the more famous thing signified Therefore man was to be denominated and defined from a Spirit and an intellectual Light CHAP. IV. The Causes and beginnings of Natural things 1. The Authour excuseth himself why he is Paradoxical 2. Some Bodies want causes in Nature 3. A fourfold order of Causes makes manifest the ignorance of Nature in Aristotle 4. Some Errours of Aristotle 5. That the form the efficient cause and the end of Aristotle are
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
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
than the stars yet the seeds of these are not more ignoble than the seeds of plants or annexed to the stars by the band of a greater subjection Because the Stars were before the Creation of sensitive things therefore it was meet that the Blas of men should not indeed follow the guidance of the Stars but only that it imitate the motion of those not as of motive powers but no otherwise than as by a free motion we do follow the foot-steps of a Coach-man or Post for so our bowels have perhaps assigned the Planets as their fore-runners For every bowel forms a proper Blas to it self within according to the figure of its own Star which also hence is called Astrall or Starlike Because it imitates the foot-steps of the Heaven as well in the priority of the dayes of the Star its fore-runner as in the Laws of appointments in nature Otherwise In infirmities as all the endeavour of nature is sumptomatical so then the Blas of man goes before and fore-sheweth future tempests whereas otherwise in health a humane Blas doth ordinarily follow after the remarkable successive changes of times or seasons But bruit beasts as they were created in a day before man so their Blas doth alwayes go before and fore-run the Blas of the Stars Wherefore many Prognosticks of a Meteor are drawn naturally from beasis And superstition hath had access thereto which hath added Divinings and Sooth-sayings to the credulous and superstitious Yet the Blas which is by the will of living creatures directed to a local motion surely that is by no means connexed unto a Supernatural or Coelestial circumvolving motion Because all carnall Generation flows out of the power of the Seed and the power of the seed from the will of the flesh Therefore fleshly generation hath a Blas of its own readily serving for the uses of its own ends flowing out of the Beginnings of its own Essence which are the will of the flesh and the lust or desire of a manly will Therefore there is in us a twofold Blas To wit One which existeth by a natural motion but the other is voluntary which existeth as a mover to it self by an internal willing Hence therefore it is impossible that the predictions of the Stars should rightly conclude in us It hath now been sufficiently demonstrated that there is something in sublunary things which can move it self locally and alteratively without the Blas of the Heavens and an unmoveable natural mover The will especially is the first of that sort of movers and moveth it self also a seminal Being as well in seeds as in the things constituted of these Moreover as God would so all things were made Therefore from a will they were at first moved For from hence whatsoever unsensitive things are moved they are moved as it were by a certain will and pleasure or precept of nature and have their own natural necessities and ends even as is seen in the beating of the Heart Arteries expelling of many superfluities c. For Galen hath artificially enough distributed the Pulses yet being by Aristotle deluded therein who supposed the end and efficient to be externall causes and thought the ends of Pulses to be their totall Causes For he passing by the proper Blas of the Pulses searched only into the ends and necessities of nature for which things sake indeed the Pulses should not be made but rather measured or modelled And therefore he hath distributed the differences of Pulses into a Scheme or Figure only by their ends And so that therefore he hath not reached their more potent and efficient respects Therefore he hath reduced the Causes of Pulses unto two heads of necessity To wit To the cooling refreshment of the heart to which end the Heart and Arteries should at once dilate themselves and to the casting out of smoaky vapours stirred up by heat For which cause indeed the Heart and Artery should at once presse themselves together and fall down at once for fear of choaking which two by variously interweaving them with their Correlatives according to strength swiftnesse weaknesse hardnesse and greatnesse he hath compiled the differences of Pulses by an artificial diligent search And I wish that his other writings did not bewray that these things were transcribed our of some other Authour But the Antients being not contented with two ends to wit cooling and refreshment and expulsion of smoakinesses have added a third which was the nourishment of the vital spirit by aire As if indeed aire could ever be made vitall spirit For if the Spirit be increased or nourished by aire adjoyned to it seening a Simple Body is not to be digested now only by mixture vitall spirit should be made of aire and now all things shall no longer be nourished immediately of those things whereof they consist Therefore it hath been the ignorance of the Antients who knew not the constitution of the vital spirit thinking that a little water being co-mixed with much wine or a little Tinne co-mixed with much melted gold should be made wine or gold I will tell here what I have perceived after that I made more use of discretion than of the sloath of assenting Therefore I began first to consider That heat was not primarily and of it self in the heart but to be a companion of the life and soul a sign and mean of operation in living creatures that are hot from the nature of the light of the Sun But in fishes that the life is of the nature of a cold light and therefore that it subsists without an actual that is a true heat And therefore that a Pulse is not made in nature for a cooling refreshment of the 〈◊〉 and puffing out or dispersing of smoaks a dissected Frog will teach For in a living Frog thou shalt see his Heart and Arteries to be moved his Heart at every Pulse or by dilating to wax red and by contraction or pressing together to wax more pale although it be not transparent Notwithstanding seeing the Antients thought heat to be the cause of Pulses yet there is none that hath decyphered that heat by its heats by what way reason and mean that heat is stirred up kindled and doth persevere in us because none hath meditated of life and forms And therefore none also of the efficient cause of Pulses None indeed hath hitherto doubted that heat springs from the Heart and none contesteth but that the young is at first nourished by its mothers heat untill that through maturity of dayes a fewel of its own be kindled in it But what that fewel is and why it being once kindled doth not presently dye and doth continue even to the end none hath diligently searched into because all have passed by the life The Schools indeed do feign a fiery heat in us contrary to Aristotle who will have this heat to answer in proportion to the Element of the Stars and hath distinguished it from an Elementary and Fiery one also that it lives
womb taste effect and end All which the Schools are hitherto ignorant of because erring in the use of the Gaul For in the first digestion the stomack is the receptacle but the Spleen doth inspire from it self a sour ferment into the meats and a sour Cream is thereby made But in the other the slender entrails are the stomack but the ferment is inspired from the gaul for the corruption and seperation of the watery part and a sharp volatile salt is changed into a Salt volatile one But that this might be done by a speedy touch I shall at sometime shew by some Handicraft operations To wit that the Oyl of Vitriol is by the only touching of Mercury converted into a meer Alum Vinegar and Salt c. Also straightway after drink there is oft-times a watery pissing made yet Salt and the mark of the first digestion is scarce conceived but that a notable part of the drink slides forth under an errour of the Pylorus and by consequence there was not made a seperation of the Urine from the bloud in the Liver Because the venal bloud is not as yet made in the Liver if the Chyle it self be as yet made or concocted out of meats in the stomack To wit when drinkers do very often make water after meat Therefore also Urine is made of watery drink yea out of drink from whence venal bloud was not made and so the generating of Urine doth there go before Sanguification At length the very veins of the Mesentery are the stomack of the third digestion which way the Liver inspires a bloudy ferment and a very red or ruddy salt venal bloud is the effect thereof For the wounds of the Gaul are presently mortal but those of the Liver not so If the eâ—ore the Gaul were likewise Choler death would of necessity follow every effusion of the Gaul Nevertheless the yellow Jaundise is not mortal although the Gaul as the same Schooles do teach is not onely diffused over the entrails but throughout the whole Body equally longly largely deeply and throughout its least part Therefore either a wound of the Gaul doth import more than the effusion of Choler or the Jaundise is not effused Choler or both is necessary Wounds of the Bladder also being inflicted above the share as successful Wurtz is witness in my judgement the Standard-defender of the more modern Chyrurgioâ—s are cured although the Urine together with its Gaul as they will have it cannot but be powred forth at that very time or moment Therefore the Chest of the Gaul hath a necessity and Integrity fast tied to the life by reason of sudden death Neither is it the effusion of that gawly superfluity which doth necessitate that speedy death Again Birds do live prosperously without Kidneys or a Bladdâ—r yet not without a Gaul wherefore there is a more conjoyned necessity of the Gaul than of Kidneys Because that the Kidneys being rockie and putrified the life is safe And then Fishes according to the Doctrine of the Schools do abound with very much phlegme and are destitute of actual heat they are onely nourished with cold bloud and watery food At length their excrements easily glistering they had no need of a spur the Gaul Wherefore seeing the ends matter and efficient cause of the Gaul attributed by the Schools should fail in a Fish surely we shall believe that the Liver is vainly deceitfully and by the errour of nature yea and of the Creator wearied unless we had rather acknowledge perpetual errours in the Schools and to contemplate some greater moment of a necessary bowel to be in the Gaul From hence therefore I determine the Gaul to be a vital Bowel and its very Body to be a bitter Liquor prepared of the best venal bloud containing the Balsam of the Liver and Arterial bloud But whatsoever it by chance casts back of it self into the bowel Duodenum is the excrement of it self and a Liquor now despised of the Gaul But that these things have themselves after this manner I have at sometime shewen under the impostures of Choler by the example of a Calf whoâ—e motherly and sweet milk waxeth sour and is coagulated in the stomach and therefore affords Runnet for Cheeses For milk is made a watery Cream but little of coagulated milk But that Cream contains Urine and venal bloud but another coagulated Body which of pale begins to wax yellow is made dung But that baggage straightway falling into the Duodenum doth proceed unto the Ileos being coagulated and waxeth of a Citron colour the more by how much it hath departed farther from the stomach and at length it waxeth green yet there is not bitterness in the yellow but a nitrous taste But in the green the smell of Dung doth now plainly appear But the wheyie Cream is presently drawn and supped up with greediness by the meseraick veins for the use of sanguification Likewise Milk is stirred in Infants whence also those that are the more young ones do cackie all yellow not from the plenty of Choler neither by reason of the domination of the Chest of the Gaul but surely because the ferment of their Dung is feeble Therefore the ferment of the Gaul doth not change the sourness of the stomach into bitter but into Salt for the reasons explained concerning the Spirit of life Spare me ye more tender eares because I ought to treat of Dungs I will therefore shew that the savour of Dung excludes the Gaul that it befools the use of the Gaul invented by the Schools and convinceth Choler of a fiction A Boy of four years old had fowled in Bed but being much afraid of whipping he ate his own Dung yet â—e could not blot the sign out of the sheets wherefore being asked by threatnings he at length tells the chance But being asked of its savour he said it was of a stinking and somewhat sweet one For among other things he had eat Pease-pottage but he complained that the undigested husks or brans of the Pease were notably soure for there is not an equal vigilancy of the ferment of the Gaul over thick and undigested Dungs as there is over transparent things and those things which are to be prepared into the dignity of venal bloud I came by chance unlooked for the same day and I diligently enquired a price being also added whether those things which he had eaten were bitter He answered negatively and the same as before Likewise Nuns did Board noble Maids sufficiently sober at their Table but they continually preached that they who did eat dainty fare should have their parts with the rich Glutton but that they onely should be saved who by the every way denyal of mortification did eat any the most vile things Therefore a noble little Virgin being very desirous of her Salvation and much moved by the aforesaid perswasion eats her own Dung and was weak or sick But she was called home again by her Parents and at length told
utmost of Three Hundred Years because they are those which some living Creatures do daily of their own accord reach unto but man very seldom and that not but in some unwonted places But why Long Life may be extended with so great a largness it comes to pass because it is on both sides received after the manner of the Receiver For the Modern Tree of Life should now no longer render me capable of the least Dignity or term by reason of the light of my Life being depraved by many storms the thred whereof they have cut off while it was as yet in the Flax. He shall fullfil thy desire in good things and thy Youth shall be renewed as the Eagle For neither is it said as of the Eagle because the former Youth of an Eagle is not restored But the Eagle is renewed no otherwise than as the Serpent puts off his skin and the Stag his hornes although in the mean time they do not cease to wax old under that renovation So that the Eagle hastens into grey Feathers Therefore I thus speak of Long Life not indeed which may be extended even unto the last day according to the rashness of Paracelsus as neither do I speak of a sound Life which is plainly free from Diseases but of that which under some certain kind of Protection of the Faculties doth for some good while enlarge the bound of Life Which meanes if they are administred unto a Child and strong Infant are to bring the same unto the aforesaid term if he proceed to use the same What if at length certain Climates do protract the Life shall that thing be denied unto a Medicine unto which there is a natural endowment of Long Life For oft-times he which is constrained to use Spectacles in the fiftieth Year doth afterwards again of his own free accord see clearly in the eightieth Year of his Age. Why shall not that therefore be done totally by Art which happens in the Eyes from a voluntary vigour But I have alwayes supposed that whatsoever was once Natural to wit in Nestor doth not resist a possibility of Nature Neither also doth it move me that Arch-Physitians have found this place untouched and dumb and therefore also have left it Because the Schooles do long since despaire to be wise beyond Galen who notwithstanding like an Apothecary doth substitute one thing for another and indeed hath set forth ridiculous Books of Preserving Health as for Long Life For he encloseth this in straight crooked athwart and circular rubbings to wit he acting great motion and being a great Circulater in these things which are of his own Invention even as an ignorant transcriber of others For as oft as he faileth from whence he may copy out serious things he so discovereth the wonderful poverty of his wit that he hath seemed to have doated throughout some Books in a figural friction or rubbing And therefore none of his successors hath hitherto counted the Books of Galen of Defending Health worthy of a Commentary or hath attempted to lift them from the ground but rather by a successive Interpretation every one hath bound that Doctrine of Galen unto the obedience of the huckstery of the Kitchin and Diet. For so through the craft of the Devil Long Life hath wandered into defending of Health and from thence into the Kitchins The Art therefore of some Years is Short and the Life Long if we must have respect unto the Hope of Life which the loose Doctrine of the Heathens hath neglected CHAP. XCII The Enterance of Death into Humane Nature is the Grace of Virgins The Index of the Contents 1. Why it is Treated of Death before of Life 2. A final Cause is not in Natural Things as neither is it the first of Causes 3. Some Absurdities of Aristotle 4. The Author prostrates this Treatise to the Censure of the Church 5. God indeed made Death for bruit Beasts but not for Man 6. What may be denoted by the Etymology of Death 7. The Devil could not make Death for Man 8. Man prepared Death effectively for himself 9. Of what sort the Immortality of our first Parents was 10. By what means Immortallity did stand in Man 11. Why the Mind is not capable of Suffering 12. The necessity of the sensitive Soul 13. The eating of the Apple did contain in it the second Causes for a necessity of Death 14. The inward Properties of that Apple 15. Man before the Fall wanted a sensitive Soul 16. The Mind Imprints its Image in the Seed 17. A chain flowing from the eating of the Apple 18. To what end the Author hath written this Treatise LIfe was indeed before that Death could be therefore although Life be before Death in Nature and Duration yet for this Treatise the Enterance of Death into Man's Life doth precede Life because I might not treat of Immortal Life such as it was from the intention of the Creator before the Sin of our first Parent but onely of the Length of Life or of the prolonging of Life whose end because it is closed terminated and defined or limitted by Death Death ought to be first determined of by its Causes as the remover of the bound of Life Truly I have not studied to imitate Aristotle in this thing who teacheth That the End is the first of Causes For I have elsewhere plentifully demonstrated that Aristotle was plainly ignorant of whole Nature Wherefore that his Maxime as well within as out of Nature is false Because if we speak of God the First Mover the Arch-type of all things and of the invisible World be it certain that with him there is not any Priority of Causes but that they all do co-unite into Unity with whom all things are onely one Likewise seeing whatsoever is made or generated in Nature is made or generated from a necessity of the Seeds and so that Seeds are in this respect the original Principles and natural Causes of things and do act for ends not indeed known to themselves but unto God alone From a necessity of Christian Phylosophy a Final Cause hath no place in Nature but onely in artificial things And therefore also from hence is verified what I have elsewhere sufficiently proved That Aristotle hath understood nothing less than natural things and that he hath deceived his Schools by artificial things And he is wholly impertinent in this place because he hath reduced artificial things under the catalogue of natural Causes Yea in more fully looking into the matter Aristotle remaines alike ridiculous For truly a builder before the bound or figure of Houses made out of Paper doth presuppose a knowledge of the Place an attainment of Meanes in the next place of Lime Bricks Stones Wooden and Iron materials a computation of which Meanes doth go before a Figure of the Houses And so neither also is the Final Cause if there be any the first of Artificial Causes in the Mind of the Author Therefore it is a
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
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
of things Lastly the Fluxes of ripenesles slownesses and swiftnesses And likewise they have not known the composures and resolvings of Bodies made as well by Nature as Art Likewise the necessities ends or bounds dispositions defects restorings deaths consequences of Seeds also of Ferments also their nearnesses and dependencies for that they diligently taught the natural Agent to be a forreiner and a stranger to things Also by way of consequence they have been ignorant of the births of forms as also of the properties proceeding from thence In whose place they have exposed fortune chance time a vacuum or emptiness that which is infinite although they are all strangers to Nature and those things which did contain ridiculous Disciplines Yea they have followed the Authour who believed the World to be extended from Eternity unto Eternity by its own proper forces or virtue and he contradicteth himself by denying an infinite Since the first moreover being to abide for ever to make all things in his eternal power doth necessarily include an infinite CHAP. V. The Chief or Master-Workman 1. The Archeus or chief Workman is the efficient cause 2. How it is in Seeds 3. The properties and differences of the same 4. The Composition of the natural Air. 5. The Birth of seminal Idea's or shapes 6. The seminal Garment of the chief Workman 7. The places of Hospitality with Curers appointed for the Seed 8. The Conjunction of the Stars imitated in Seeds 9. The first mover hath not the Vicarship in a man I Have touched at the birth and Causes of Natural things and least I may seem to have placed the efficient Cause undeservedly within I will the more fitly explain the Workman the Vulcan or Smith of generations Whatsoever therefore cometh into the World by Nature it must needs have the Beginning of its motions the stirrer up and inward directer of generation Therefore all things however hard and thick they are yet before that their soundness they inclose in themselves an Air which before generation representeth the inward future generation to the Seed in this respect fruitful and accompanies the thing generated even to the end of the Stage Which air although in some things it be more plentiful yet in Vegetables it is pressed together in the shew of a juyce as also in Mettals it is thickned with a most thick homogeniety or sameliness of kinde notwithstanding this gift hath happened to all things which is called the Archeus or chief Workman containing the fruitfulness of generations and Seeds as it were the internal efficient cause I say that Workman hath the likeness of the thing generated unto the beginning whereof he composeth the appointments of things to be done But the chief Workman consists of the conjoyning of the vitall air as of the matter with the seminal likeness which is the more inward spiritual kernel containing the fruitfulness of the Seed but the visible Seed is onely the husk of this This Image of the Master-Workman issuing out of the first shape or Idea of its predecessour or snatching the same to it self out of the cup or bosom of outward things is not a certain dead Image but made famous by a full knowledge and adorned with necessary powers of things to be done in its appointment and so it is the first or chief Instrument of life and feeling For example For a Woman with Child fashioneth a Cherry in her Young by her desire in that part in which she moveth her hand in desiring A Cherry I say in the flesh true green pale yellow and red according to the stations in which the Trees do promote their Cherries And the same Cherry sooner waxeth red in the same Young in Spain than in the Low-Countries Therefore a Cherry is made by Imagination So through the Imagination of lust a vitall Image of living Creatures is brought over into the Spirit of the Seed being about to unfold it self by the course of generation But since every corporeal act is limited into a Body hence it comes to passe that the Archeus the Workman and Governour of generation doth cloath himself presently with a bodily cloathing For in things soulified he walketh thorow all the Dens and retiring places of his Seed and begins to transform the matter according to the perfect act of his own Image For here he placeth the heart but there he appoints the brain and he every where limiteth an unmoveable chief dweller out of his whole Monarchy according to the bounds of requirance of the parts and of appointments At length that President remains the overseer and inward ruler of his bounds even until death But the other floating about being assigned to no member keeps the oversight over the particular Pilots of the members being clear and never at rest or keeping holyday Moreover as sublunary things do express in themselves an Analogy or proportion of things above So every thing by how much the more lively it is by so much the more perfectly it imitates the Stars so that sick persons do seem to carry in themselves sensible Ephemeries or daily Registers being skilful of future seasons Indeed in the bowels the planetary Spirits do most shine forth even as also in the whole influous Archeus the courses and forces of the Firmament do appear But the first mover hath no where had a member in men but onely under the Archeus of the wombe it meets by meditating by way of similitude as it were in the last finishing of created things For happily a Woman is therefore more stirred or troubled in her first Conceptions as she drawes with her other Orbs by her first motions As often as the wombe being swollen with the ascending Rule of Imagination doth suffer an animosity or angry heat it snatcheth the particular Archeusses of the bowels into the obedience of it self by striving to excel manly weaknesses and for the most part wretchedly deludes Physitians with a feigned Image The Archeusses of bruit Beasts are almost like unto mans Neither shall we draw an unprofitable knowledge of the shop of simples from the difference of Plants and their Sexes Because neither is it without a Mystery that in creeping things and insects being born in corruption alone Nature invariously sporting her self intends nothing so seriously as the proportionable differences of Sexes on both sides Wherefore neither must we think the same things to have been neglected in Plants although they may make one onely Seed blessed with a promiscuous Sex and a most fruitful of-spring But the most able effectress of the greater forces is discerned under the Signatures or Impressions of Venus she being very bright there is a care of the Sexes and now and then a hermaphroditical confused mixture For whatsoever Plants are femalls they do allure or procure the violent motion of the first mover Therefore the Natural Astrologie of the humane Seed frames its directions according to the general motion of the Heaven but it doth not beg it abroad for if
the disposing of instruments and the effect or thing produced 6. That heat is not an agent in seminal generation 7. Why Aristotle hath not known the truth of Nature 8. His Books of natural Philosophy contain onely tristes 9. How young men are to be instructed in the place or room of Schoole-Philosophy 10. Into what great Apolloes young men might climbe 11. The Prerogatives of the fire 12. What a young man so instructed might judge 13. Privations do not succeed in the flowing of Seeds to generation 14. There is no form of a dead Carcase 15. That generation and corruption do not receive each other 16. The Vulcan of life vanisheth without the corrupting of it self 17. Death is not the corruption of life 18. The distinction of privation and corruption 19. Of forms there is no corruption 20. The ignorance of Galen 21. His ridiculous Volumes concerning the decrees of Hipocrates and Plato 22. His books of preserving of health are foolish THE Schooles have so sworn constancy and their end to their Aristotle that even to this day they by putting one name for another do call him the Philosopher whom notwithstanding I certainly finde to be altogether ignorant of Nature and it grieveth me not to write down some causes which have enforced me hereunto and that for no other end than that hereafter as well Professors as young beginners may not through an aptness to believe and a custome of assenting be made to wander out of the way nor may suffer themselves hence-forward to be led by a blinde man into the ditch For otherwise I tell no mans tale nor am I more displeased with Aristotle than with a non ens or a non-being Therefore first of all Aristotle defineth Nature It is the Principle or beginning of motion as also of rest in Bodies in whom it is in by it self and not by accident Wherein I finde more errours and ignorances of the definer than words First therefore the word it is in sheweth that he speaketh of a Body really existing but not of his impossible matter 2. He denotes that such Bodies are not of the number or supposed things of Nature For truly it belongeth not to Bodies to be in Bodies by it self and not by accident 3. He takes away any accidents from the Catalogue of Nature as if they were without besides and above Nature because accidents are in by accident 4. He sets down that Bodies which have motion or rest by accident are likewise without Nature 5. That the Being of things is in Nature in Nature it self before the day or motion or rest of the same Because it must needs be that something first be before that it move be moved or doth rest And so the Principle of Being goes before the beginning of moving or resting notwithstanding Nature cannot be before its existence For if the beginning of motion or rest should be latter or an effect as to their Being Nature should be an effect as to its being a natural thing 6. What if God after Creation had enjoyned neither motion nor rest rest indeed according to Aristotle presupposeth the bound of motion there had now been a Creature and not Nature For God in the beginning created the Heaven and the Earth Now Nature was not understood by Aristotle to wit there was sometimes a Creature and it actually existed before or on this side Nature here defined 7. Bodies in which the beginning of motion is external and by accident suppose thou when 〈◊〉 heat of the Sun moves the Seed to increase or a Woman with Childe by accident transforms the imperfect Infant by her own Imagination should not be under Nature as neither that accidental beginning 8. To rest is not not to be moved but to cease from motion and so not to be moved is more general than rest Therefore Nature absolutely taken should be onely after the existence of Nature 9. If the beginning of motion in a moveable thing be Nature and the efficient cause be properly called the beginning of motion as he saith heat not elementary to be therefore it must needs be that the efficient cause is inward which is against Aristotle or that Nature in as much as it is the beginning of motion is not in Bodies most neerly or inwardly by it self 10. Every outward efficient cause is the beginning of motion in a thing by accident But every efficient cause according to Aristotle is external therefore no efficient cause external is natural which is contrary to his second Book of Physicks 11. Whatsoever things are moved by the Mathematicks and also a Mill moved by the Winde or a stream should not be moved by Nature But I believe that Nature is the Command of God whereby a thing is that which it is and doth that which it is commanded to do or act This is a Christian definition taken out of the holy Scriptures 12. But Aristotle contrary to his own Precepts of a definition takes the difference which he thinketh to be constitutive for the general kinde of the thing defined in Nature to wit the formall beginning of motion and rest But for the constitutive difference he takes the matter or Body wherein the said beginning of motion is But Christians are held to believe Nature to be every Creature to wit a Body and accidents no lesse than the beginning of motion it self 13. Death also although it be the beginning by it self of rest in a dead Carcase yet Christians do believe it not to be created by the Lord and so neither to be Nature and although it may light naturally on it yet that happens not by reason of the death but of its natural Causes But Aristotle in another place a like stumblingly touching on Nature saith Every power of the Soul seemeth to be a partaker of some other certain Body for neither dares he positively and simply to affirm it than those which are called Elements For even as Souls do differ so also the Nature of that Body doth differ the Seed contains the cause of fruitfulness to wit heat which is not fiery but a spirit or breath in the froathy body of the Seed and the Nature which is in that Spirit answereth in proportion to the Element of the Stars This Precept praised by the Schooles containeth almost as many Errours as Syllables And at length this Writer of natural instruction being exceeding doubtful knowes not what he may call or ought to call Nature For first he saith it to be a Corporeal power of the Soul and therefore he banisheth the understanding out of the powers of the Soul 2. He saith the power of the Soul which he afterwards calleth heat is a partaker of another Body than those that are called Elements As if it were a partaker onely of a Body above an Elementated one and heavenly 3. It is absolutely false and an ignorant thing that any power of the Soul is a partaker of the body although it be tied to the body For every
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
deepest things of Philosophy and of the most inward principles of nature and of the seminall resolutions and exhalations of any properties whatsoever At length to shew an emptiness in the air it is convenient more deeply to search into the thingliness or nature of its rarefying and condensing For first of all whatsoever I have hitherto spoken concerning the rarefying of the air that I confess hath been done for the capacity of the common sort else to speak properly although the air may seem to be pressed together and to be enlarged in the space of place yet rarefying it self doth not belong to the air its self that is that the very body of the air may be made thinner than it self in the same manner wherein a vapour is made of water Because I have already divers times shewn that a vapour is a Cloud of the atomes of the water rent a sunder from each other by the middle parts of the air interposing and that therefore the water in the vapour doth also alwayes remain water neither that it suffers any thing besides the extension of it self and division into atomes made by its seperater For if the body of the air be therefore made thin this should be either as it should be changed into another body more slender thin and simple than it self which is to feign a new and unheard of Element actually cold thinner than the others and more simple than the air Or the air should be made thin by the seperation of the atomes and the interposing of another unknown body and then the body coming between should admit of degrees of thinness And therefore the rarefying it self should not be so much referred unto the air as unto the unknown body coming between Nevertheless rarefying is not of the air but in the air and that not onely by reason of admitted smoaks as in the Handicraft operation of a dish but through a naked quality of heat as is manifest by the Instrument meating out the qualities of the encompassing air therefore as oft as rarefying doth appear in the air it must needes by all meanes happen through an increase of the Magnall Which sounds that a vacuum being increased in the air the pores of the air are enlarged and extended and so so far is it that by reason of heat the air by it self and in its own body doth sustain a rarefying and that the body of the Element is changed that rather it is coagulated at least is pressed together and that the little holes of the vacuum do extend themselves or that the Magnall it self is multiplied in the air Wherefore there is also an improper speech while we signifie the air to be tarified by it self when as rather it is thickned or pressed together by it self but the Magnall that is co-bred with it is therefore extended But from what hath been said before is deducted that the body of the air is under cold brought unto its just extention And again that which followes from thence is that cold is naturall or pleasant to the air But that the Magnall is contracted under cold But as oft as the Magnall is straightned the wayes or passages of the Stars to us are straightned And hence it is plainly to be seen why the Land of promise is very hot that is why in the more hot Zone there are the more happy confanguinities or neernesses of alliance of the Heaven with the earth the more plentifull fruits and the more savoury ones Therefore the Magnall is like light and is easily made and easily brought to nothing For that which is in it self the vacuum of the air is almost nothing in respect of bodies For it came forth from nothing also it may be reduced to nothing But not but against the will of the air because it hath need of this vacuum Alas how nigh to nothing is all nature which began of nothing In the aforesaid Instrument meating out the encompassing air by the heat or cold of the Sun the place of the air is seen to be greater or lesse but we perceive that at the rarefying of the thing contained the air is expelled whose breathing place if it then be shut up for want of air a sucking is felt Therefore by more fully looking into the matter the vacuum or Magnall of the air is increased and lessened but the Air is not rarefied So also the condensing or pressing together of the Air is not in respect of its body but onely of its Magnall or Sheath CHAP. XVI An Irregular Meteor 1. The Mysteries of the Rain-bow and the Images of the Sun 2. That before the floud there was no Rain-bow 3. That the Rain-bow was given for a signe of the Covenant yet that the cause thereof is not yet known 4. Yet the Rain-bow doth daily bring its own Covenant to remembrance 5. The Mystery of the Covenant is as yet under the Rain-bow 6. In what thing the Rain-bow doth denote the end of the World 7. The dotages or toyes of the Schooles concerning the Rain-bow 8. Things required of the Schooles 9. That the Rain-bow hath not its Colours immediately in a Cloud but in a place 10. That the Rain-bow is of the nature of Light 11. The existence of Colours immediately in place is proved 12. The Object of the sight is immediately in Place the object of hearing is immediately in the body of the Mean 13. Creatures of neutrality do subsist immediately in place without a body 14. Paracelsus concerning the Rain bow is refuted 15. The frequenoy of a Miraole doth not reduce that miracle into the number of nature 16. Some supernaturall things are ordinary 17. An Atheisticall and childish opinion of the Schooles concerning Thunder and Lightning 18. Wonderfull sights or visions in high mountains 19. The spirit all noyse or cracking is the Blas of the evill spirit 20. A Historie of Thunder 21. The noyse of Thunder how it putrifieth 22. Outward Salt preserveth I Have said that Meteors do consist of their matter Gas and their efficient cause Blas as well the Motive as the altering But the Rain-bow is irregular a divine Mysterie in its originall I judge the same thing of the Parelia or Image of the Sun whereby two or three Suns do appear at noon-day alike equally clear or lightsome But for Thunder it doth not alike include a Mysterie and monstrous token We being admonished by the holy Scriptures do believe by faith that the Rain-bow was given for a sign of the Covenant between God and mortall men that the World should no more hence forward perish by waters For first I draw from thence that the Rain-bow was never seen before the Floud Otherwise mortalls had justly complained For we have oftentimes already seen the Rain-bow and yet the World hath perished by a deluge what safety dost thou therefore promise us by an accustomed Rain-bow this Covenant is suspected by us it takes not away our fear The Rain-bow was therefore new to the World when it
substance But it is no wonder for truly they have not known some Creatures some whereof they have brought back into a substance to wit the fire substantiall forms c. but others they have surrendred into meer accidents as the Rainbow Light the Magnall c. The which notwithstanding I shall demonstrate in their place to be created things of a neither sort But let it be enough to have said it in this place But if the Rainbow should be immediately in the Air and not in a place it must needes be that by any little winde it should straightway flow abroad and be puft away by blowing together with a Cloud or the Air which is false in the Rainbow the which doth also remain a great while under the Windes sometimes without any presence of Clouds and yet in the same constant figure of a Bow or Semi-circle therefore the Rainbow seeing it is immediately in place it is a new figure of a coloured Light Indeed the Rainbow began supernaturally for a Sign and Mystery of the Covenant struck with Mortalls and since it hath at this day its Root in the Air without any matter yet after the manner of naturall things I do reverence its efficient cause and its presence and do ponder with my self that the Rainbow is at this day given for a Sign of the Covenant even as in times past Paracelsus supposeth the Rainbow to be the Evestrum of the Sun but the Evestrum he calls the Spirits or Ghosts of men The which from the absurdity of it self alone as sufficiently rejected I passe by For truly the Sun hath neither a Soul nor being as yet alive hath an Evestrum after its Buriall There are some who will laugh at me for these daily Miracles But certainly while I do more fully look into things I see divine goodness to be actually alwayes every where and immediately President or chief Ruler because all which things he in very deed even from end to end reacheth to strongly and disposeth of all things sweetly For in God we live are and are moved in very deed and act but not by way of proportion or similitude For truly when the Lord the Saviour said I am he to wit by whom ye are live and are moved he withdrew onely that his power whereby they were moved and straightway all the Souldiers fell on the ground And although the Instrument in nature whereby we are moved be ordinary yet there is another principall totall and independent cause of our motion and the originall thereof being a miraculous hand doth concur in every motion So also in the Rainbow the Sun and place do concur as it were second causes Yet there is another independent totall miraculous and immediate cause which hath directed the Rainbow to the glory of his own goodness and of the Covenant stricken not onely indeed with Noah and his Family but with the Sons of men his posterity even to the end of the World And so from the same originall and for the same end for which the Rainbow began it is promised to endure as long as Mortalls shall be and seeing it is a sign of the Covenant with the Sons of men but not onely with the Sons of Noah it also includes a certain Covenant or agreement Therefore there is a miraculous thing in the Rainbow that its colours are not in any body but immediately in place it self like light and that immediately from the hand of God without the concurrence of a second cause Nor is it a wonder that from the condition of the Covenant a supernaturall effect should interpose Because that in many places continuall miracles do offer themselves Therefore as the Rainbow is a sign of an everlasting Covenant and a Messenger of divine goodness so Thunder causeth an admiration and adoring of the power of God For there is nothing in the Catalogue or number of things whose rains the Almighty Creator doth not immediately rule Surely he every where inforceth his love and fear and so will have man to be ordinarily put in minde of his power According to that saying The Voyce af Thunder hath stricken the Earth For a sudden and monstrous Blas is stirred up in the Air. The Heaven is oft-times clear straightway also being without winde it is suddenly bespotted with a black Cloud For often times it thunders the Heaven being clear without any small Cloud And so Thunder doth not require a Cloud but if it doth suddenly stir up any it is made as the cracking noyse shakes the Peroledes and as Gas settles downwards into a thick Cloud being drawn together by the cold of the place Therefore the Doctrine of the Schooles is frivolous determining that an exhalation is kindled between the sheath of the Clouds that it dasheth forth Lightning and that there are so many rentings of that Cloud as there are sounds and cracking noyses For I have seen in Mountains wandring Clouds and most cold in the touching yet none of any firmness or strength that they being discontinued can utter so great a noyse or cast down Lightning of so great a power by a mooving downwards and with so violent a motion and that besides the nature of ascending fire I have seen I say Lightnings about me and have heard Thunder also under my feet Notwithstanding I have even least of all discerned those firmnesses of Clouds and trifles of Thunder I say I have seen Lightnings and Thunders diversly to play under my feet where at first there was no Cloud and a Cloud to descend as if it had been called to them by the voyce of the Thunder And so I have beheld Lightning with a magnifying of the Divine Power but not with fear although I have been twice in a house that was smitten with Thunder For I by so much the more admiring have praysed the magnificencies or great atchievements of the Lord by how much the nearer his effects were unto me I have seen also once nigh Vilvord and again at Bella in Flanders a certain black Sheath as if it were a long Horsemans Boot to fly among the Groves of Oaks or Forrests with a great cracking noyse having behinde it a flame as it were of kindled straw but great Snow succeeded it Therefore seeing Thunder hath no cause plainly naturall in the Clouds of a Meteor I believe that it hath wholly all its cause not above but besides nature and so that it is a monstrous effect For first of all we are bound to believe that the evill Spirit is the Prince of this World and that his Principality doth not shine forth amongst the faithfull unless onely in the office of a tempter For so it is said that the Adversary as a Roaring Lyon goeth about seeking whom he may devoure but that not from the office of his Principality Therefore he hath obtained the Principality of this World that he may be a certain Executer of the judgements of the chief Monarch and so that he may be the Umpire or
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
with us that we being diligently taught by the Schooles do even still believe that the whole governance and successive change of sublunary things do depend on a certain that is an unnamed unknown conjectural and uncertain motion of the Heavens on the scituation light and aspect of the Stars Not considering on the contrary that the gift of multiplying or generation was powred forth before the Stars were born and therefore that the blessing of generation and of successive changes following thereupon would be after a sort frustrate if the whole government of the inferiour things were from the Heaven and that also should be true That a man and the Sun doth generate a man For the first man that was formed was made of the mud or dust and was endowed with a Soul by the in-breathing of the divine Blast But I have already sufficiently proved above that the Heavens are neither to confer manners nor knowledge nor fortunes Now I will prove moreover that indeed they can neither give Life nor Form For truly these opinions of the Schooles have in times past so infatuated or befooled them that it hath stood believed that the immortall minde it self is naturally produced by the seed of man and the influence of the Stars and although the Church hath forbidden that thing yet the Schooles being even till now seasoned with the errours of the Heathen do teach that besides the minde of man all forms essences beginnings of all things and consequently that our life inclinations perfection of properties properties and fortunes do proceed from the motion and light of the Stars and perhaps moreover from their influence But I believe far otherwise for I profess that he who by the onely word of his good pleasure made the Universe of nothing is All in All and at this day also the way originall life and perfection of all things So that although second causes are and do operate as it were partiall causes directions of motions and all dispositions necessary to generation Insomuch that therefore the Almighty will in nothing more give his honour to any Creature yet he alwayes remaineth as the totall cause continuing the perpetuall parent of things the framer of nature and its governour by creating therefore I profess that as in the beginning nothing was made without him so also that at this day the creation of every form is a thing made of nothing by the very same Creator which thing I not onely speak in behalf of the matter once formerly created but also of any kinde of forms because as the form is as it were a certain light of the thing and the top of that light So none can cause or beget the forms of things but the Father of Lights who giveth all things to all nor is not far off from every created thing Neither may I believe that the Heavens do frame naturall forms of nothing or that they give the seeds or souls of things which they in no way have because Faith and also Religion do teach me that God is also at this day the immediate principle of things every where present working all the perfection of all things And therefore whatsoever is any where essentially that that thing doth owe to God its whole as much as it is can do knoweth or hath For Creation hath respect and sheweth a disposition unto a thing existing in perfection but the perfection of a thing is the proper internall essentiall form of every thing therefore its immediate beginning cannot be from any other than Creation And therefore is immediately from the one onely unutterable Creator of things The Schooles therefore thinking the contrary were deceived when they saw the light by it self to make fire thorow a Glasse I say they thought the light to be an accident but the fire to be a substance and in their thoughts of both they stumbled And therefore they waxing blinde at the natural light of the Sun flee together unto it as it were the Creator of the substance of fire doubting in retiring whether the Heaven should as yet frame the form of the fire or whether there were any other artificial light equivalent in this work For such a sluggishness of the Schooles doth alwayes remain that having gotten an example erroneous and supposionall they straightway slide to a generality least by diligently searching through particular kindes or Species they should be wearied and finde something which should constrain them to depart from the possession of a supposed knowledge I say they could not understand but that they should believe the light of the Sun to be a Creator and also of all essential forms But they stumble and fall in the place of exercise and being unconstant do run away For when they thought that one essential form of the fire was generated immediately by heat putrefaction and rubbing and now to be taken from another light without respect to the Heaven and its co-working they sand a recantation they fought against the Heavens and their own former opinion and will have the Creation of forms to be fetched back from these the which notwithstanding they do sometimes freely and credulously yield unto them as being uncertain to what Authour the birth of forms may be due wherefore when they saw fire to be taken or drawn from fire and so that in a combustible object there was fire potentially Straightway also by the same right that all seeds did contain a potential form and so far indeed that at length an actual form is brought and procreated out of a potential disposition which they call the power of the matter but surely ridiculous For at first they thought that the same thing did happen to the generations of all seeds which they had already experienced in the light and fire Therefore they afterwards began toughly to maintain that every substantial form but I do grant an essential form to any things whatsoever yet a substantiall one to none but to man by reason of his immortal minde or act was produced without a mean out of the power of the matter That is that it was created by the onely dispositions of the matter which is to say by accidents And as this knowledge of those forms was brought forth from the brain as it were Minerva the Daughter of Jupiter it was also doubtfull unconstant without sense as to the subject of its inherency and soon rent a sunder into divers Sects And indeed first of all S. Thomas reacheth that accidents do in truth indeed generate a substance but that is onely in respect of the substantial form whose Instruments they are In the first place here S. Thomas hath forsaken his Aristotle and will have the efficient cause to be internall sliding out of the bosom of the form and dependent on it in this respect the generating efficient cause thereof 2. He declareth these intricacies one substantial form doth not cause another of it self but its accidents do in truth do that Likewise Accidents do
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
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
there is not a certain product like unto love wherewith a man being stricken or anointed may by so much profit by how much he is deadlily smitten by another product Whence it is manifest that that poyson however it be produced by anger and be mortall unto a man yet that doth not happen through any contrariety seeing that a direct contrary is wanting unto it which doth equivalently or equally help and promote the life even as this poyson hurts it And so if these kindes of poysons do act by reason of contrariety now the Maxim is false That so many wayes one contrary is said to be by how many wany wayes another is so said Therefore it hath now beensufficiently shewen that poysons indeed are made from the anger of Beasts but it doth not therefore follow that the poysonof a Plant if it act as was shewen above by reason of its own naturall endowment implantedin it by God and not by reason of any contrariety that the poyson of bruit Beasts is more capable of contrariety than that of other Simples Otherwise the same thing is wholly to be judged concerning the poysons of those that have the art of poysoning Sorceresses c. For although they are compounded and given to the drinker to hurt the minde yet those do operate either naturally and so without an intention of contrariety or fight or they operate by the power of the Devil which is either solitary or singly alone and so is truly a hostile effect because from the evill Spirit an enemy or naturall And then not by the force of contrariety or fight but onely by the unfolding of its naturall endowment The which I have already shewen above to be void of contentious contrariety Furthermore through occasion of these things the efficacy of poyson prepared by animosity is to be explained it is known to the common people That the bloud of a Bull doth strangle him that drinks it but not the bloud of an Oxe or Cow And that thing I have elsewhere referred to the fury of the Bull with the desire of a dying revenge after the manner of Serpents But a Hog although he perish with anger perhaps therefore God forbad the bloud of living Creatures under pain of indignation yet that is done with a fear of death But the Bull is struck with so great a fury that he suffers no apprehension of death And so although his bloud be poysonsom yet not his flesh Because his fury approaching nigh unto death hath not space enough to defile his flesh But a mad Dog because he was a good while mad before death doth also infect his flesh Therefore fearfull Animalls as the Mouse Toad c. do centrally besprinkle their fleshes and bones with a certain fear Even as I have demonstrated elsewhere in the Plague-grave But hitherto hath that Maxim regard Morta la bestia morto il veleno The Beast being dead his poyson is kill'd which surely hath place in a poysonsom living Creature because between while he burns with a fury of revenge In brief if the vertues and endowments of Simples be adverse to us that proceedeth from Divine Ordination but net from the Idea or Image of revenge or hostile contrariety For these do far differ from each other to be contrary to any thing and to have hurtfull endowments in nature For truly this proves Gods order and variety of powers appointed in nature But that declareth Hostility an enemy to God and nature therefore they differ in their end That is in the institution and direction of God in nature which is in the order intention ordination and so in the whole scope of the minde of God according to which I consider contrarieties in Bruits and in Man and not in other Simples and least of all in the Elements And therefore to conclude the question is not here about a name if I shall overthrow the contrarieties of Elements and their fights and successive courses of Complexions in things falsly believed to be mixt even as also whatsoever hath from these Suppositions been hitherto pratled in the behalf of life a Disease Death and Remedies CHAP. XXIV The Blas of Man 1. The errour of the Schooles about the first Moover 2. Aristotle contradicteth himself 3. Blasphemy in a Christian 4. An errour hath slown from Science Mathematicall badly appropriated 5. The Blas of man doth imitate the flowing of the Stars 6. When our Blas doth go before and when it followes the Blas of the Stars 7. Why the Blas of Bruits goes before that of the Stars 8. A voluntary Blas is not annexed to the Stars 9. A twofold Blas in us 10. Whence unsensitive things are moved 11. Galen resisteth Aristotle in the Pulses 12. He sought into the measurings of pulses but not into the efficient cause 13. The use of the pulses with Galen 14. A third use unknown to Galen 15. The consideration of the Authour 16. That a cooling refreshment is not the end of pulses 17. Some suppositions 18. None hath treated concerning life 19. Contradictories concerning the fire of the heart 20. Whether a pulse be for the procuring of Colds sake 21. Why the pores in the inclosure of the heart are triangular 22. Wherein the venall bloud and the arteriall bloud do differ 23. The sensitive soul is the framer of pulses 24. To what end the motion of the heart is 25. The absurdities of the Schooles concerning radicall heat 26. The motion of the heart cannot be judged to be for cooling refreshment sake 27. Why a Feverish pulse is swiftly moved 28. A Thorn in the finger teacheth that from the swiftness of the pulse heat is increased but not cold 29. Five chief ends of the pulses 30. How the kindling and enlightning property of fieryness do differ 31. That the Spirit of the bloud is not from the Liver 32. It is a rotten Doctrine which confoundeth the ends of pulses with breathing 33. The necessities of pulses have been hitherto unknown 34. The use of the pulses hath respect unto the digestive Ferment 35. The sluggishness of the Schooles about these things 36. Why healthy Sailers are more hungry than themselves not sailing 37. The Air cannot nourish the spirit of life 38. An Alcali is formed by burning up 39. The wonderfull Coal of Honey and divers speculations of Chymistry are cleared up 40. The Common-wealth of Alcalies 41. The fabrick of the Balsam Samech of Paracelsus 42. An Alcali is made volatile and so interchangeably under the same formall property of a composed Body 43. Of the labour of wisdom 44. An Handicraft Operation of distilled Vinegar 45. Some Handricraft Operations of Chymistry are re-taken for the finishing of the venall bloud without a dreg 46. A new and unheard of use of the pulses 47. There is an unwonted pulse from the part grieving through a Thorn 48. Pus or corrupt matter being made why Sumptomes wax milde 49. Whence the hardness of an Artery may straightway be made 50. What a hard
in swiftness greatness which is abusive As also that the air should keep the quality of a cooling refreshment undefiled being introduced by little and little through so many windings of the Arteries In the next place neither should the Artery draw the air that the vital spirit may take increase thereby Because with the consent of the Schools the vital spirit is not made of air but of the vapour of the venal bloud elaborated in the heart to the utmost and ennobled with a vital faculty And it is a dull affirmation which supposeth the vital spirit to be nourished by a simple Element Seeing we are nourished by the same things whereof we are generated Wherefore seeing the in-drawn aire is an elementary body it hath not the nature of a sanguine spirit as neither seeing the air can ever be made individual by a humane determination it shall not be able to nourish a composed body as I have taught in its place Moreover It alwayes keeps the properties of a universal Element but doth not attain the condition of an Archeus For the aire is neither akin to us nor is it capable of a vital light And therefore the Artery shall abhor a Forreigner neither doth it admit the air into its family before it be elaborated in due shops neither doth nature attempt any thing in vain as neither to prepare the aire that it may be made that toward which it plainly hath not a possible inclination otherwise the vital spirit should be made in vain through so many preparations of digestions long-windings and shops of the Bowels if by so light a breviary and without usury it may be ripened from without For this hath deceived the Schools that it hath hitherto been believed that fire is necessarily nourished by air Therefore also that vital spirit as the Authour of all our heat doth want for its food the Element of air But I have already cleered it up above that the fire is neither a substance nor that it is nourished by air Yea neither by a combustible matter unlesse that in hastening to the ends of its appointments it doth require an inflamable matter for its object but not for its nourishment Also for want of an object it perisheth in an instant when it hath attained the end of its appointments Because seeing it is neither a substance nor an accident it also perisheth for want of an object for that its own object is also its subject And so also that is a thing most singular to it and hitherto unknown Therefore the supposition of smoakie vapours standing the end ceaseth for which the outward Air should be drawn through the Skin into the Arteries the manner ceaseth and the possibility ceaseth Again if the Arterie sucks the Air by the Pulse it should indifferently suck and such an attraction should be promiscuously endemicall and so hurtfull which I have observed to be false by often experience Especially because that as oft as a forreign or strange Plague is contracted from without by the breathing the suiting or setling thereof is not made but nigh the stomach which thing is made manifest by the sense of the place anguishes vomiting sighs head-aches and doatages And so that part in us which feeleth and formeth the first motions of apprehensions doth also feel the first onsets of the Plague I grant indeed that the Plague is contracted by the contraction of a defiled matter and that forthwith the pain as it were of a pricking needle is felt But this doth not prove that therefore the sucking of the Air is made by the Arteries when as the poyson it self is apt to infect the skin and forthwith to burn it into an Eschar Surely it is a far different thing for the Pest to be drawn inwards by the Arteries or to be allured by sucking and another thing by force of its own contagion to creep inwards by touching as it were by the stroak of a Serpent for emplaisters Baths and Oils do alter the skin and consequently they do either proceed to alter or do draw from the Center to the skin but not because vapours fetched from thence are drawn materially inward Then at length the Pulse is not after the manner of breathing which by one sigh doth blow out whatsoever is of Air in the Breast but the motion of the Pulses is interrupted by an opposite and therefore the expiring motion is most frequent no lesse than the inspiring and those successive motions do so much hasten that if they had attracted any Air that should enter for a frustrate end seeing it would be knocked out in an instant For truly that which is nearer to the mouthes that should also first be blown out And so the Air should not have hope ever to be more thorowly admitted or that it should satisfie the cooling refreshment of the heart Lastly a generative faculty is wanting to the vital Spirit whereby it should bring the Air into Spirit by a formall transmutation Seeing that power belongs to the Ferment and Shops without which venal bloud is not made For neither can venal bloud generate venal bloud and the chyle of the stomach being granted to be in a Vein or Arterie venal bloud should not therefore ever be made thereby or arterial bloud Therefore the Air although it should be a fit Body yet it could not be made the nourishment of the vital Spirit unless it had first been elabourated in the heart being quickned and enlightned therein individually according to a humane Species all whereof do resist an Element Therefore the frivolous device is made void and the cooling refreshment of the heart by the attraction of Air inwards by the Arteries is feigned And the Load-stone of Man celebrated by Paracelsus is feigned Seeing the Arteries do not suck inwards and the Air so introduced should be for a greater load to the Arteries than the feigned smoakie vapour of the Schooles If therefore the Arteries do not draw Air certainly much lesse should flesh do that being an enemy wanting the hollowness of the Air For indeed that the Air is drawn from without unto the heart by the Arteries as well for its cooling refreshment as its nourishment and increase of the Spirit of the Archeus is nothing but a meer device So is the invention of the Schooles alike frivolous that the necessity alone of expulsing the smoakie vapour bred in the heart should depress the Arteries For truly in the foregoing Chapter I have already shewen at large that there are other aims of the Pulses For whatsoever is made in the heart is either a pure Being and a meer refined thing and vital For there is no adustion corrupt matter dryth nor efficient cause of smoakinesses For it is an unsavoury or foolish thing thus to have compared the Fabrick or frame of life to destroying fire that it must be feigned the arterial bloud there to be burnt to and to send forth smoakie Fumes For if any forreign vapours do sometimes besides
nature disorderly touch the limits of the heart we straightway feel the numbers of beatings and the defects of intermitting storms But if an ordinary framing of smoakinesses should be in the heart how should they be seperated from the vital Spirit and by what trench should they remain divided from each other How should the expulsion of smoakie vapours be possible which should not also abundantly power forth the vital Spirit most intimately co-mixed with themselves And so as the Schooles have nothing of pure Doctrine do they also suffer no unpolluted thing no undefiled thing without an excrementitious and dungie smoakiness do they think that the essential offices of life do indifferently belong as well to a smoakie vapour as to the Spirit of life And so hitherto also to be co-mixed How should the depression of the Arterie thus far tend unto a good end and that appointed by the Creator which together with the smoakiness should also puffe out the vital Spirit thorowly mingled with it And so shall it forthwith bring death and destruction How had not that Vmpire of things most highly to be honoured even from mans Creation made death by the contraction of his Pulses Last of all if a smoakie vapour should be the Musical measure of the Pulses as they will have them what should be that seperater who should compel the smoakie vapours rather to depart into the habit of the flesh from without than thorow the chief Arteries with a straight line into the head Or if a co-mingled smoakiness doth indifferently hasten with the vital Spirit into the bosoms of the Brain why do they not continually disturb the Family-government of the Senses what if the pressing together of the Arterie be dedicated to the expulsion of smoakie vapours for since the Arteries are thumped sidewayes so also thus far they do bestow Spirit and vital Powers on the places thorow which they passe therefore that way also they should mutually expell smoakinesses which surely should be more pernicious to all the Bowels than to the Arteries themselves because these are judged to be refreshed by fresh Air but not the Bowels If therefore they will have smoakie vapours expelled by the pressing of the Arteries together let them first shew us that smoakie vapours cannot be otherwise purged than by the last or utmost mouths of the Arteries and that with the continual safety of the Spirit that is thorowly mixt with the smoakinesses Truly the Schooles do support their defiled Doctrine by a smoakie vapour and by a blinde perswasion of sluggishness do subscribe their Genius unto Galen Seeing therefore they have been ignorant of the matter heat residence content and circle of the Urine but have passed by the efficient cause of Pulses but have fled back chiefly to heats and colds and have neglected their true ends the whole significative knowledge of healing hath remained polluted Therefore the Schools are prophesied of as it were from a three-legged stool as well in the knowledge of Diseases as in the progress and end of the same which thing I shall hereafter much more plentifully prove Therefore Endemical things do affect or stir all things whereby and which way they enter to wit the Head Breast and the Dependants on these And by how much they do prevail by so much do they operate and effect For some do imprint a spot or defilement on the part and afterwards depart Such as are misty or clowdy things stinking things things putrified by continuance c. But some do enter in the shape of a smoak and are breathed into Minerals which are again divers wayes coagulated within For some are spewed-forth spittings if they are not hurtfull But others do for terme of life toughly adhere on the walls of the pipes of the Lungs and do exercise their tyranny for their entertainment Of this sort is whatsoever doth fume out of the veins of Minerals wherefore also the Fume of Minerals by reason of its malignity an Arsenical poyson have become Sunonymalls or things of one name to wit the Arsenick and smoakie vapour and smoak of Metalls fall together or agree in one Whence are hoarsnesses tremblings of the heart faintings Asthmas Pleurisies Inflammations of the Lungs Coffs spittings of Bloud Consumptions Imposthumes full of matter c. In the mean time it is not manifest that Endemicks or things proper to people in the Countrey where they live are drawn by the Arteries neither that the same are immediately affected But if Mercury doth bring forth tremblings that at least is impertinent to the Arteries Neither also do they therefore tremble into whom Mercury is driven by Ointments But they are bladdered in the mouth throat the Uvula falls down and their teeth are ulcerated do shake or are loose and wax black their head swells and they spit stinking things greatly Also Guilders Diggers and Seperaters of Mercury because they do inspire a deadly poyson into the head and Sinnewy parts they do work or effect Endemicks in us as much as they can CHAP. XXVI The Spirit of Life 1. The Doctrine of the Antients concerning a threefold Spirit 2. They have stated whence we must begin 3. The spirit of wine doth contain onely two Chymical Beginnings flexible at the pleasure of the Artificer 4. Vital spirit out of spirit of wine 5. How drunkennesse comes 6. How the spirit of wine and Aqua vitae or Water of life do differ 7. Whatsoever is stilled onely by fire doth go back from the virtues of its former composed body 8. The ferment or leaven of the stomack and of bread differs 9. The Plurality of ferments 10. Gas being unknown hath brought forth many absurdities in the distinction of things 11. The soul is in the Arterial bloud and not in the venal bloud 12. The Venal blood is without a spirit of the Liver 13. Drunkennesse 14. The progresse of the vital spirit through its offices 15. The declared disposition of the spirit it self 16. What things are by sense reckoned to be one are severed or discerned in their effects 17. From whence the spirit of life is Balsamical 18. The spirit of Aqua vitae only by touching looseth its oylinesse 19. It is presently made a Salt 20. The whole venal blood is turned into a Salt 21. Of the life of the vital spirit 22. The light is now and then extinguished in the matter of the spirit 23. There are as many particular kinds of sublunary lights as there are of vital lights 24. The definition of the vital spirit 25. The heat of life is not the Constituter of its own moisture 26. That heat is an adjacent to life 27. The undistinction of the Schools of the effects of heat and of a ferment 28. Whence heat is Escharotical or the maker of an Eschar in us 29. Whether the animal Spirit be distinct from the vital I Have discoursed already before of the Archeus as it were the Vulcan in the seed and after what manner he may dispose
Some of our Religious Country-men are almost for a whole year so cold from the Foot even to the Belly that they do not feel that they have feet wherefore they should likewise be longer lived than us yea and their Legs should be like young mens when as their whole Breast is crisped with old wrinckles if primogeneal moisture being consumed by heat should afford an unavoidable necessity of death And likewise as well Fishes as those Religious men ought to refuse the daily refreshments of nourishment because scarce any thing doth exspire thorow the pores or if heat should be of the essence of our life certainly the part languishing with continual cold should either die or at least should be changed into a Fish Whence it is plain that heat is onely an adjacent to our life and its concomitant token but not the primary foundation thereof Therefore the Schools may see how unfitly they have hitherto circumscribed the whole constitutive temperature of nature in heat For far be it hereafter so blockishly to phylosophize and not to know that the consuming of moisture by heat which is terminated with in-thickning is one thing and that which is wholly moved forward to transpiration by an extenuating Ferment is by far another For this leaveth no residence behinde it but that a Sandy Stone or Coal But if an increased heat doth sometimes rise up in us so that it is that which doth as it were burn the members gangrene them and like fire make an Eschar or now and then doth eat into the flesh like a Dormouse those indeed are the works of corrosive degenerating lawless Salts that are banished from the vital Common-wealth So also by laxative poysons and Fluxes the whole venal bloud is resolved into putrefaction and the venal bloud being resolve by other poysons into a liquor Sunovie or Gleary water poyson jaundous excrement c. doth flow sorth oft-times most sharp and oft-times raging without a Corrosive For such kind of errors do happen in the life for therefore in a dead carcasse they do cease as they by a proper Blas do put on the animosity of nature corrupted by the Life and the life doth enflame a sword whereby it doth manifoldly hurt it selfe even as sometimes concerning diseases At length whether there be any Animal spirit to be distinguished in the Species from the Vital or whether the disputation thereof be a true brawling about a name I have shewn what a thing is in it self whereunto a name adds nothing or can take away nothing The vital spirit doth climb through the chief Arteries into the head But in the heart or middle of the Brain there is one onely bosom which being beheld above seemeth double but its Vault being lifted upwards it sheweth a onenesse Moreover in this bosom the Arteries do end into a certain wrinckled vessel plainly of another weaving or texture than is the other compaction of Arteries Hereby indeed the vital spirit flowes abroad and exspireth into the bosom of the Brain for the service of the chief faculties to wit of the imagination judgement and memory Hereby also it proceeds to be distributed into the small mouths of the Sinews beginning from the Brain So that if it be to be called Animal as receiving or under-going in the Brain a limitation of the part it doth obtain the properties fit for an appointed function yet it doth not therefore seem diverse from the vital by its matter and efficient cause For truly in the largeness of its own vital light it is capable of all those Properties without the thorow changing of its native essence For that Spirit which is thrust forth unto the tongue doth exercise the tasting but that same doth not tast in the fingers but doth every where receive a particular Character of Organs or Instruments and puts on a particular property The which if thy mind carry thee to distinguish from the vital spirit there shall again be as many essential divisions of the spirit as there are offices and as many as there are services divided by the pluralities of offices In the mean time understand the thing and call it as thou listest For I am not contradictory to the Schools out of a stomackful passion for I being admonished by a superiour Authority ought only to have laid open their errours and to teach things unknown Let they themselves likewise disclose my errours or mistakes with an equal mind surely I shall rejoyce if so be that onely my neighbour do obtain the profit which I wish CHAP. XXVII Heat doth not digest efficiently but only excitatively or by way of stirring up 1. Heat is not the proper instrument of digestion 2. What hath deceived the Schools herein 3. The defences of the Schools 4. The rashness of Paracelsus 5. The anguishes of the Schools 6. They forgot their own Maxim concerning contraries 7. They have constrainedly made heat and the predicament of heat more powerful than fire 8. Digestion and Seething do differ 9. Ferments are angry because they are put after 10. What the univocal action of heat is 11. A fish digesteth without heat 12. There is no place for potential heat in things to be digested 13. An Argument of hunger 14. Another from the unity of specifical heat 15. The third from a Maxim 16. Another Argument 17. Why sowre belching after the savour of burntish ones is good 18. Why one sick of a Fever abhorreth fleshes 19. From the scope of healing 20. The admiring of Paracelsus 21. An error of the same man 22. The digestive sorce of Hens 23. The Authour being as yet a Boy learned the true cause of digestion 24. He knew resolving to be from sowrnesse 25. We grow old only through extream want of Ferments 26. The quality of a fermenting sowrnesse 27. Whence is the dislike of some meats 28. The forces of ferments 29. Mice accuse the Schools of errour 30. Why the Ferment of the stomack is divers from it self 31. A commendation of the Spleen 32. Degrees of heat and cold do vary 33. The errours of the Schools concerning the degrees of Elements 34. The degrees of Chymicall heat 35. The Authour hath made degrees of distinction 36. Moisture and drynesse are not to be considered as qualities 37. Why they do not admit of degrees 38. Hence trifles were introduced by the Antients into the doctrine of the Elements BEcause the whole foundation of nature is thought to hang on the hinge of heat and the Elements mixtures and temperaments are already banished far off therefore to establish the progeny of the Archeus and vital Spirits we must hence following speak of digestions The which because the Schools have enslaved to heat I will shew that heat is not the proper instrument of digestions Indeed the metaphor of digestion hath deceived the Schools to wit it being by a Poetical liberty borrowed from a rustical sense introduced they have made concoction of the same name with digestion And as they knew seething
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
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 name of the Philosopher despised the contradicters of his own and indeed false beginnings no otherwise than as Necromancers do require to be credited without demonstration Let eternal prayse and glory be to my Lord in all Benediction who hath formed us not after the Image of the most impure VVorld but after the figure of his own divine Image therefore hath he adopted us for the Sons of Election and co-heirs of his glory through grace Surely the condition of that similitude were to be grieved at and too much to be pitied which had hitherto subjected us under the Law of all calamities from our Creation even till now and that before sin we should onely be the engravement of so abjected a thing as if the VVorld had been framed for it self but not for us as the ultimate end but we for the VVorld whose Images indeed onely we should be to wit we ought to be made stony that we may represent Stones and Rocks And so we should all of right be altogether stony leprous c. For indeed seeing we are by Creation that which we are and a Stone should be made in us that we may represent Rocks Now death and a Disease were in us before that we departed out of the right way or fell Let Heresies depart For neither do we all suffer the falling evill neither do they who labour with it have it that sometimes we may represent Thunder or the Earth-quake or an unknown Lorinde of the Air its unconstancy But now if there were at least the least truth hereof verily he who suffers dammages according to Justice ought also to perceive the profits of the Microcosme even so that especially we ought to fly Seeing it is more rational for us sooner to shew our selves Birds than great Stones or storms of the Air or water Therefore let allegorical and moral senses depart out of nature Nature throughly handles Beings as they do in very deed and act subsist in a substantial entity and do flow forth from the root of a seed even unto the conclusion of the Tragedy neither doth it admit of any other interpretation than by being made and being in essence from ordained causes I observe also that Paracelsus Tartar being invented and introduced into Diseases hath not yet stood secure enough for truly he immingles Tartar also in the first Beginnings of our constitution and so neither doth he require the Seeds of things themselves out of Tartar but he will have Tartar to be radically intimately and most thorowly immirgled with the Seeds whereby he may finde out the Seminary of Hereditary Diseases Of which mixture he being at length forgetful calleth it ridiculous He saith that a VVoman having conceived by the Seed of man it doth separate snatch lay up Tartar into it self and that the Seed being as it were anatomized doth constitute it self the flattering Heir of that Tartar On the contrary that the Spirit of Wine is never so refined by possible circulations as that it doth not as yet contain its own Tartar in it As if Tartar were the chief Root of the Universe or an immediate Companion thereunto But I know if any forreign thing be materially in the Seed generation doth never follow Next that the Seed of Adam being materially prepared in Paradise had not generated a more perfect off-spring than that which afterwards after the fall was made in him Cain and Abel do especially prove that thing At length if Tartar should so intimately grow in Seeds that after many years from generation it should cause hereditary Diseases by materially separating it self from the whole surely that Tartar should not so soon be separable by the Magnet or attraction of a VVoman seeing if any thing be separated from the seed it is a Gas diametrically opposite unto Tartar For if the womb should separate any thing from the seed that should happen by drawing but such is the condition of drawing things that they draw for themselves and unto themselves and then cease but if the womb shall extract for separation sake there shall now be no fear of an hereditary evill because the womb hath a power of serving that which is hurtfull Lastly although Diseases shall come by degrees into the place of exercise yet they were never materially thorowly mixed with the Seed after the manner of Tartar that not Tartar not a gowty Chalk fore-existed in the Seed but that Diseases derived from the Parents do lay hid in manner of a Character in the middle life of the Archeus whose Seal doth at length under its own maturity of dayes break forth and frameth a Body fit for it self and so is made the Archeus of a Disease together with every requisite property of the Seeds For a Disease also is a natural constitution proceeding from the Seed consisting of an Archeus as the efficient cause It hath otherwise rustically been thought in the Schools that Diseasie Bodies do materially conflux unto the Generation of hereditary defects It also contains an Idiotism to exclude a Disease out of the number of natural Agents and corporal Beings seeing the matter also which they say is diseasifying is now and then obvious to the finger if it be thorowly viewed by the eyes If therefore a Disease be now reckoned among the Beings of Nature why should it not be established by a necessity of its own seed It is rude Phylosophy that Tartar had been from the beginning in the seed and that after thirty whole years it should begin the first principles of a Cream and should meditate of an Increase and as it were a particular Republique for it self and that wholly without the direction of the seed God made not death nor therefore hath he connexed Tartar unto seeds as the matter of Diseases For if so stupid errours should happen unto the seminal Archeus the Ruler of Nature hath already forsaken the Rains of the same and mankinde shall shortly go to ruine Also that saying of Paracelsus is absurd that not so much as the Spirit of Wine doth want its own Tartar For although it should be circulated for the space of an Age yet it shall never in very deed separate any Tartar For Paracelsus who never saw or found that Tartar of the Spirit of VVine will therefore be credited in his own good belief no otherwise than as elsewhere where he thinketh that water as oft as it hath ceased to be seen doth wholly depart into nothing and that something is created anew For it doth not follow a Salt is made out of the Spirit of vvine it receives a coagulation in the Salt of Tartar therefore the Spirit of vvine doth contain Tartar Because although every coagulated thing should be Tartar which it is not yet those Bodies do not contain those things which at length are made of them To wit Milk is made of Grasse of Milk Arterial Bloud and from hence the seed of man yet Grasse doth not contain a man in it self as neither
a cane through the defect of his mouth palate tongue jawes c. and therefore cheweth nothing and so touching not any nourishment with his teeth yet he daily affixeth a stone to his teeth no otherwise than he which eateth Likewise after every repast although the mouth and teeth be exactly cleansed by washing yet in the morning a new stone and stinking muscilage is conversant about the teeth which at least could not have remained of the meat and the which if it should be the Tartar of meats this should also be as often diverse as there are interchangeable courses of meats which the Carthusians have the same and alike smelling as the devourers of flesh have Likewise they who are fed with simple bread and apples have it no otherwise than those who do eat bread and likewise cheese Even those Irish who live by Trifoil or three-leaved grasse which they call Ciambrock instead of bread and water with the Norwayes who are content with raw and dried fish all do agree in the same stone except a few of a more happy disposition Therefore it was a frivolovs thing to have founded the invention of Tartar for diseases out of the Tartar of meats by reason of the tooth-stone which certainly in the first place doth not issue from a dreamed Microcosmical property because the Macrocosme shall never in chewing affix a stinking stone to its teeth If therefore the stone be not from the Tartar of meats neither surely shall it also be from the Tartar of drinks because seeing it is that which seldome toucheth at the teeth it swiftly flowes thorow and should sooner wash off the same Tartar than apply it Therefore I will shew from whence the tooth-stone may have its matter and efficient cause Because it will afterwards as yet be certainly manifest that the reasons of Tartar are vain Therefore it is an undoubted truth that the tongue is cloathed with a fimbrious or seamy coat like unto whole silk and if it shall wet any thing of the meat or drink in the mouth that this is conteined within those seams or hems until they are filled up with the same moisture Yet that is not any Tartar of the meats or drinks as if it were a coagulable body separated from that which is not coagulable but it is foundly the whole substance of the meat which perhaps became wet by the spittle and is deteined within that whole silk And moreover that filth being shaved off from the tongue yet it doth not attain the hardnesse of a tooth-stone with whatsoever lukewarmth it may at length wax dry It stinks Indeed yet not altogether by reason of the cadaverous smell of the stone of the teeth For if presently after feeding the tongue be shaved or scraped with a file or rubbed with a more course towel in the morning indeed thou shalt again scrape off lesse muscilage but not therefore lesse strongly smelling The like thou shalt find concerning the teeth Understand thou therefore that this ballast of the tongue doth spring not onely from the meats but also from the spittle and superfluity of the tongue For if the meat that is deteined in the hollow of a tooth the same excrement whereof is drunk up in the coat of the tongue hath remained there all night it breatheth forth a far more stinking vapour than the aforesaid shaved muscilage of the tongue So also between the gums and the cheek-bone how clean soever thou shalt wash thy mouth after supper every morning a certain white muscilage is co-heaped which being wiped off from thence by a towel and dried on it doth smell with a proper stink Therefore by an oblique passing thorow the matter I will give notice that this muscilage of the tongue is the special cause of the difficulties arising in the jawes consequently also those that are subject unto these evils to have freed themselves by a frequent filing or scratching to wit as after every meal or time of feeding and in the morning they do claw their tongue For truly the tender and neighbour parts abhorring this muscilage when it puttifieth do wax wroth through a horrid contagion on themselves therefore they do kindle a thin inflammation by reason of the presence of a guest that is a foreigner unto them But that tooth-stone is not the son of the spittle or meats seeing neither nor indeed both of them together can ever be coagulated into such an hardnesse and much lesse into a smell so stinking infecting ten thousand times every day the whole air of a stinking mouth and breath I have long since admired with my self that a generation or birth so frequent strongly smelling and manifest hath remained unknown for so many Ages and by so many wits of men Therefore as being afraid I sighed what therefore would the Schools act about more abstruse or hidden things I will shew what the Mistris of things hath taught me In the mouth nothing is conversant besides spittle meat and drink But the tooth-stone is of none of these but in its first rise is like a white snivelliness which on the morrow becomes of a pale-yellow colour thence at length it growes to the teeth into the hardnesse of the Stone of the Bladder from whose gums it begins to be of a clayish colour and in the teeth oft-times manifest with black spots yea and makes the tooth to be rotten and black So that the most hard and dry thing of the whole body that is the tooth doth also most speedily putrifie I have known indeed that the muscilage of meats and the spittle did grow together but never into the consistence of a Stone For which cause we must note that the tooth is nourished not onely in its bottom and root but also side-wayes from the gums themselves gums themselves that are bloody or lesse sound are witnesses which do not fitly to-here unto the teeth because they forthwith from the beginning of their indisposition do leave pits or little trenches at the tooth that is badly nourished and do tinge the tooth with the blacknesse of their out-hunted venal blood Then lastly also because the tooth is of a most acute feeling under the gum which out of it it wanteth Therefore in so great a livelinesse of sense the tooth lives and therefore also is nourished Therefore the excrement of the gums as it was of prepared venal blood for the nourishing of the tooth so also it hath received some kind of limitation or power of a tooth-like hardnesse Which excrement surely of the teeth when as it hath drunk up the muckinesse of the meats and drink it straightway also hastens to harden unto its appointed hardnesse For that which I have said in my Book of the Disease of the Stone concerning the stony seed and so of petrescency or the manner of making in stones that also not incongruously doth totally agree to the tooth for the framing of a tooth-like Stone For it once received the Seal of a Cream and Seed
looked back on them crooked-wise or by the by they being as it were shaken into the Head of a man of another World Sixteenthly I learned also that life understanding sleep c. are the works of a certain clear or shining light not requiring Pipes or Channels Seeing the shining light pierceth the vital light Therefore also the Soul doth retract diffuse and withdraw it self by a motion proper unto it and altogether diversly in sleep watching contemplation an extasie swooning madness doatage raging madness by its own disturbances voluntary confusions yea and the violent impressions of some Simples Because the minde doth embrace an entire Monarchy in spiritual things divided in many general and particular kindes no lesse than Bodies themselves shall differ among themselves so also shall lights Seventeenthly At length that the understanding being raised by invention and judgment with a reflexion on places on circumstances on things past said before premised and so on things absent as absent is made by an ultimate or the last endeavour in the Brain through the afflux or issuing of a beam out of the Midriffs as such an understanding doth presuppose memory But that those things which are concerning future or abstracted things without respect of circumstances as if they were present are wholly forged in the Midriffs And for this cause mad men do behold and prattle of all things as if they were present as though they did talk of present things Eighteenthly Therefore poysons which have a power of displacing the imagination do not primarily affect the Brain but the Midriffs onely Which thing the History of a Lawyer who had drunk Henbane-seed elsewhere by me rehearsed doth sufficiently prove For whatsoever the Stomach doth conceive that very thing is plainly transchanged and doth wholly passe into another Essence before that the least quantity doth from thence reach to the Brain and whatsoever thereof doth come thither is already venal bloud which hath put off all the qualities of its former condition in the entry of the first shops or at length it slides cut of the Stomach and together with the drosses is thrust out of doors And so no Simples after what manner soever they are taken are materially applied to the Brain Therefore it is false whatsoever the Schools do set to sale concerning pills for the Head Pills of light c. For truly neither do Pills allure any thing out of the Head neither doth the Head afford any thing which it hath not besides snivel which it sends unto its own Basin and not to any other place But if any Medicines or things do strike the Head alter it and profit it that wholly happens in regard of the Midriffs from which there is an unshaken action of Government into the Head even as hath been already sufficiently proved before Indeed they have rightly taught that giddinesses of the Head and Coma's or sleeping evils are stirred up by reason of a consent of the lower parts but neither is their Grain without Chaffe For the Schools have introduced grosse Smoakie and sharp vapours And then and that for the most part in such distempers they will have the Brain to be affected with the first or chief Contagion And therefore it s a blockish thing to have applied Remedies to the Head to the mark I say and without the Archer To wit because they have not known the true internal efficient cause and its connexions nor the accustomed manner of making Diseases and because they have plainly neglected the action of Government and the Conspiracies of light Nineteenthly Also lastly hence I have understood that the immortal and untireable Soul while it did of due right govern its own Body before sin it understood all things intimately optically or clearly and that without labour tediousnesses and wearisomness Because it did understand all things that were in its power in its own Center and unity without the help of Organs or Instruments But now being detained in a strange Inn it being as it were wholly hindered hath committed the diversities of Functions unto the sensitive Soul its Hand-maid In this place I presume to give a Reason of the thoughts of others who cannot sufficiently promise or grieve for my own For I have proposed to phylosophize concerning the more hidden Spring of Cogitations and of the most abstracted ones concerning the vices and exorbitances of floating and uncertain Cogitations yea we must pierce deeper when as we must take aim at the powers of vitiated Cogitations themselves and must come unto the fountainous and occasional causes of these vices Surely it is a matter hard obscure and unpassable wherein the speculations of the Schools the succours of Bodies do fail before the threshold yea and of Diseases whose causes and effects do fall under sense or are proved by the dissections of dead Carcases wherein I say the Patient or suffering imagination doth indeed enlarge it self but the Agent or active one is hidden In other diligent searches that which is vitiated is known by a knowledge of the whole but in those of the minde the cause and manner of a violated understanding should as yet be far more easily conceived than of a sound one because that a sound faculty doth more ascend unto the likeness of God but a defectuous one doth more incline it self unto the meditations of corrupted Nature And therefore that which is sound or entire in the faculties of the minde is not demonstrated by a former cause but that which is deficient doth after some sort make it self known by a rupture of the co-knitting of causes Also madness is alwayes of a most difficult learning because it contains in it a denying together with a privation wherefore in the case proposed I have judged of the same in another way whether perhaps by searching into the manner of making in any one kinde of madnesses I might finde an utterance for the other Therefore I have proposed that madness which ariseth from a strong and continued contemplation feat and passion Forthwith afterwards I concluded that the quality of the poysonous matter was to be known and the dispositions of Instruments which should concur when as any Simple being taken or something inwardly generated had stirred up madness But the knowledge of one sort of madness being attained it shall be the easier to measure afterwards the diversities of the same by descending into the ampleness of the manners or measures strength approaching application and variety of particular kinds For therefore I first of all reckoned to search into the Seat of the Sensitive soul to wit the exorbitances whereof do cause madnesses For truly I have considered that in what seat the animal form should abide in the same also the immortal mind should co-inhabite as being tied unto it which should refuse a duallity difference and diversities of mansions For neither was it meet for that mind to be tied to the body without a mean when as the Seed of man no lesse then of a
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
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
Bodies For if every thing be by its Causes and be thereby principated or made to begin it is a vain thing after the manner of Aristotle to believe other Causes and other Principles of things They are therefore Principles which never slide into each other by any whirling of successive changes For the first is stable perpetual the real beginning and prop and Seminary of Bodies And it is the last thing whereinto the dead or ended Tragedies of things do return But not a certain feigned sluggish and impossible hyle or matter But the other is the Principle of the begining of motion with every property of things to be acted under their Tragedy Yea truly seeing particular kinds do exist into general kinds no where solitary or without companions and they are individuals only which are and do subsist by a real Act. Principles ought to have been real and individually existing So indeed that the universality of the matter be individually limited by the activity of the efficient Cause Wherefore a falshood being granted to wit That all Bodies might be reduced into those Three Things by the motion of a proper dissolution yet it doth not also from thence follow that these Three things are the beginnings of Bodies Because an immediate resolving of Bodies doth not prove Principles but a diversity of kind of the matter being ultimated or brought to its last state And the last resolving of the last matter is a Witness only of the Seeds of the concrete Body but not of Principles Neither in the next place is there any reason why the Three Things may be called the First Things if three do return or may be reduced into two and lastly into one only thing Yea although in the Beginning three bodys should be seen trans-changably passing over into each other neither were they therefore to be reckoned Three rather than Two if of Three they may be presently after be made two only Therefore where the three things are found they are not the material beginnings of Bodies but the Bride-beds of the Seeds The which being worn out all things do of their own accord return into their original Element of Water But that those Three Things are not contained in any Bodies whatsoever and so are not necessary Principles is manifest because the Mercury which is drawn out of a Mettal is so single homogeneal simple and undivideable that it is impossible for Salt or Sulphur to be drawn from thence by Art or Nature But Mercury is never in any respect to be divided To wit it hath grown together onely from an elementary Water and the virtue of a most simple Mercurial Seed into an undivideable unpenetrable and unseparable Body the which among generated things hath not its like Otherwise it is like unto Water which in it self being defiled with no Seed hath on every side a co-like simplicity and impossibility of separation But inasmuch as I have sometime attributed unto the Water its Three Things that was spoken Analogically or by way of suitable resemblance as besides abstracted Spirits nothing is so alike in Bodies that it is not understood to be diversly affected according to divers dispositions and and as those dispositions must of necessity respect some diversity of kind of being For it is sufficient in the same place also to have admonished that the Heterogeneal parts of Water are in the most simple Body of an Element undivideable and really impossible by Art Nature and all Ages they consisting of the utmost simplicity Therefore although I have there called them the Three first Things of the Water yet they are not the Three of composition as the more formerly Beginnings of the Water but the Three things of heterogeniety or diversity of kind Which Heterogeniety at least mentally to be divivided into diverse things although the Water doth by the Law whereby it contains a Body contain Yet seeing it is an impossible thing that they should be drawn asunder from each other there is onely place for conjecture that although those things are not true Sulphur Salt and Mercury at least wise that they do in some sort answer unto them Therefore there is an instance in the Water no lesse than in the Mercury whereby the Three first Things are denied to be from thence accounted to be separated I seem to hear whisperings that I shall offend very many Artificers who with full cheeks do boast of the Oyle Salt Vitriol and Water of Mercury and that I shall convince them of a Lye or juggle while they promise the aforesaid things I answer That an active Imposture or deceitful juggle doth bring forth its own Imposture unworthy of life and happiness But that a passive imposture is worthy of pity But they who do not as yet discern the fallacy whereby they are circumvented do Argue First Gold they say a Body which is the most exceeding constant among sublunary things is dissolved into parts of divers kinds therefore also Mercury by a more strong reason Indeed they strain from the less to the greater Again they urge Nature hath known of the first Elements to compose Mercury therefore she hath known also to destroy it But the way of composition is not to make Mercury immediately of the Element of water but by dispositions of the matter coming between which are unlike So also the way of corruption in Mercury shall proceed by the same dispositions with a retrograde pace and a diversity of kind of matter Where thirdly Paracelsus saith the matter of things which cannot be destroyed by Art is at least wise destroyed by Nature Because all sublunary things which are not subject to death are at least wise subject to a bound or end Unto the first I answer That Gold is indeed the most constant of Bodies in the fire but it borrows the constancy of its separation from the Mercury And so if the Sulphur thereof doth include a Heterogeneal duality that doth least of all touch at the Mercury For Mercury being pure and distinct from combustible Sulphur which is more or less in the common Mercury doth plainly refuse all twoness or duality That is to say the nature of Mercury includes a perfect Homogenity or sameliness of kind But to the other I say that Nature hath indeed proceeded from the purity of the Element of water unto the composition of Mercury Yet that it cannot the admitted Seed of Mercury being once enclosed in the innermost parts of the water return to the destruction of that composed Body Because that Seed is nor mortal nor frail nor subject unto sublunary Laws as Paracelsus saith in his vexation of Chymists But the reason of immortality in Mercury is because the Seed and Fruit thereof in the constitution of Mercury are now one and the same thing Mercury in Mercury Neither hath Nature known to invent a manner of destruction in a thing so Homogeneal where the Seed hath become the Fruit by a most perfect and undestroyable or undissolveable union Seeing
It is made I say in Vegetables through the art of the Spirit of Wine which before was not in them from a disposition of the matter of a putrifiable juyce and agreeing resemblance of a winie Ferment For therefore the Spirit of Wine shall not be the Principle of Vegetables as all Vegetables divers in themselves do agree in this Spirit and might be drawn out of every one of them but the Spirit of Wine bears the reason of an Effect and Product In like manner therefore those three things are principated but not principles For shall the Blood want a Salt in distilling because it hath severed the Urine which Paracelsus calls The Salt of the Blood And If Salt be one of the Principles surely the venal Blood shall in supposition be Eternal if it wants a beginning or something shall be able to subsist of Mercury and Sulphur without the Principle of Salt which thing hath not seemed strange to Paracellus striving with his own Doctrine of the Three first Things when as he teacheth That the venal blood and flesh of Leprous persons is deprived of all Salt And from hence again his own History of Ulcers falls to the ground if the Ulcers of Leprous persons being without Salt are voluntary and not to be despised For he hath badly distinguished the Salt of the drink from the Salt of the Venal blood Neither hath he known the difference of the Salt in the external humour Latex from the Salt which is wiped out of the venal blood by distillation in the torture of the fire He being wholly ignorant from whence there was Salt in the Urine Salt being not frequently eaten Because the rank of digestions being unknown natural knowledge in Paracelsus was overshadowed with darkness and through the ignorance of Physitians the dayes of Mortals are cut short and burying places do become bossie Concerning a Quintessence or Fifth Essence also it hath been soberly enquired into hitherto as if it were a glorious thing through sluggishnesse to have subscribed unto others devises and to have stuck in fabulous Principles An Essence therefore is called by divers names For it is most principally understood of the most Great and Excellent God who is the True Immediate and the most Very Essence it self of all things from which the Being of things doth issue and depend unseparably in nature But an Essence for the actual being of things in the Abstract is the Life in living Creatures or in the Soul Otherwise it is a Form by reason whereof every thing is that which it is But the Life or Form is not by Chymists taken into the Essence because the thing being dead it doth return into nothing therefore have they considered of a certain most famous substance wherein the whole Crasis or constitutive temperature or mixture and perfection of a thing doth inhere as in Spices there is somewhat like Oyle which being withdrawn the body of the Spice remaineth as it were ungrateful to wit Cynamon its Oyle being withdrawn favours of the Bark of an Oak in its astriction or binding quality But in things tinged the Essence is a coloured liquor extracted from things which substances as they are more active so they have themselves by way of a Life or Form as to the residue of the Lump So that the name of Essence is plainly Metaphorical Wherefore very many things have not an Essence even as I have demonstrated concerning Mercury Chrystal great Stones and things Homogeneal or of one and the same kind Then in the next place a greater power and efficacy is oft-times in a thing being entire than in its separated Essence As is manifest in the Load-stone Carabe or Amber c. For very many Simples do loose their specifical property by preparing and more by separating and the fire In the Elkes Hoofe and Bezoardical things there is a certain thing which had rather be proper unto crude Simples But the Forms or Essences of Herbs will not be subject to the Artificer For many things do alike prevaile whether their Vegetative power they call it a Soul shall die or as yet exist in them But after that they have plainly withered or been dried up some Herbs do produce their Essence but many Herbs especially Water-Pepper do loose the same However therefore an Essence be taken it is an improper Name and a Fifth Essence is an unsavoury Epithite For truly what Essence they do promise either it is not equally in all neither doth it obey the Artificer or it is not drawn from any place whatsoever But under other things in the crudity of things it laughs at painful or diligent Labours Neither doth every sweet smelling thing sit in the middle but in the last Life For the Flowers of Jasmine of the Lilly of the Valleys c. by putrifying do loose their grateful Odour and Medicinal Virtues they wax sharp neither do they ever re-take their former Fragrancy But elsewhere the sweet smell sits under the middle Life which Odours indeed do keep their sweet smell in time of putrifying the which they send forth in Distilling as Roses This thing hath deceived Paracelsus and hath made him to think that the Essences of things do thus putrify and so he was ignorant that in Dung and dunged-Fields he dictated safe Mansions for ever Not knowing that the Offices of Seeds being loosed and dead all things do yield themselves to rest and at length do require their first Inne of Water or at least wise obeying a stronger seed coming over them they againe suffer themselves to be led into new Colonies and themselves to be brought into new Tragedies Yea there are many Simples which do find a fragrancy in the bosome of putrifactions which before they had not in their own Species Such as are Mosch Ziver Amber certain Dungs of bruit Beasts and putrifying Woods For a various putrifying by continuance ariseth in them whence their Seeds do draw a fragrancy to themselves and do transplant them into a new generation Therefore the Spicinesse if it be fast tied to the Balsame of the middle life is not overcome in putrifaction by a separation of parts and is the more fitly sequestred from corrupt things A Chymical Essence therefore is not properly a Fifth Essence seeing there are not Four others in a concrete Body neither is it extracted out of the Three things but is the Seminal part of the Sulphur of the composed Body Of the Sulphur I say Because the Sulphur is the off-spring of the efficient Cause and so more formal For Cynamon while it is without a spiciness is indeed as yet Cynamon even as the young or a foolish person are men I therefore name the best part of a thing the Crasis thereof whether the Spice or sweet smel do sent or not But in Herbs which are not fragrant I call the seminal or seedy Liquor their Crasis To wit I know that from every plant or seed and likewise from the trunk or stemme of some Plants
the giddiness of the head Doatages Asthmaes bastard Pleurisies the Convulsion Cramp the Disease of the standing of the Yard the Tympany furies of the Wombe yea and of the falling Sickness with some other affects divided in their particular kind do without controversie owe their beginnings unto windy blasts and vapours wherefore also they by an equal right enlarging the Catalogue brought down their searches unto the Book of Hippocrates Peri Phusiâ—n or concerning natural things That old man hath so altogether consecrated all Diseases to flatus's or windy blasts that he hath promiscuously confounded winds with the principles of life Therefore the more fruitful wits of the Schools began to search not so much into the nature and properties of windinesses as the suppositions of windy blasts being granted and yeelded to further to superstruct and build the nature and causes of almost all Diseases and to dedicate them to windy blasts vapours and exhalations climbing from beneath upwards or being thrust head-long downwards But when as they were not able wholly to deliver themselves out of straits nor that the edifice of so great a moment could stand firm because it was supported by no foundation of a more solide enquiry it was as it were the thred of an enterprise broken asunder by too much twisting Truly Hippocrates constrained a flatus into a predicament whether they should be partakers of life or death or at length of destruction and should contain the causes thereof or should be stirred up from Heaven by the Blas of the Stars and so should promise causal necessities of the heavenly circle or at length they should obey a sublunary or voluntary Law to wit he left it wholly undecided And so he left a broken method And that stood because there was not yet so great a necessity experience frequency and stubbornness of Diseases For it was not as yet known that the vital spirit had conceived the light of life which was that of the sensitive soul and that they were the immediate seats of the forms of soulified Creatures and so that they did contain the crasis or temperature of the whole Essence For none then had learned that the matter of that Gas the Water and so none had as yet dreamed that the vital spirit did differ from the wind of the World in the whole Element For truly the Schools had easily fallen down into this ditch of windy blasts and had stubbornly there remained but that they acknowledged the succours of purging Medicines and blood-letting in winds to be vain and foresaw that they should be in vain without the aid of both those succours Galen indeed had seen that Oyles and fatnesses did by degrees exhale through fire therefore he thought that winds also are awakened in us through a melted fatness or the inordinacy of the digestions because he was he who was not able to distinguish the Air or wind from an exhalation from a vapour and from a windy blast The Galenical School I say hath not hitherto known the difference between a windy Gas which is meerly Air that is a wind moved up and down by the Blas of the Stars a fat Gas a dry Gas which is called a sublimed one a fuliginous or smoaky or endemical Gas and a wild Gas or an unrestrainable one which cannot be compelled into a visible Body Wherefore the obscurity of the darkness of natural things hath remained unexcusable among those that are ignorant of the Art of the Fire The which doth instruct us in what degree watry Bodies or in what degree and order every fatness may flie away in the next place by what separation or by what Ferment Bodies may depart from each other may putrifie what all particular Bodies may carry with them by resolving in the next place by what means the Crases of Seeds and properties of a composed Body may shew themselves Lastly by what endeavour all of whatsoever is in us may be disposed into transpiration without a separation of parts They had heard indeed winds in the belly and then unhurtful rumblings and painful wringings they took notice of to be in the stomack and Colon but in Winter a plurality of winds wherefore they dreamed of an icy Phlegme in the bowels and hot Remedies to be applyed to cold Diseases Wherein the Schools do at first infold or ensnare themselves while they deliver the original of vapours and windinesses and do intend to cure and put these to flight by contrary Remedies as they call them For they contradict themselves in their principles or beginnings mean and manner For if windinesses in us are vapours or exhalations in us Surely there will follow upon the administring of hot Remedies against winds a greater exciting of pains and flatus's and stretching out of parts because vapours must needs be increased and torments be multiplyed as well by reason of stretchings out as the sharpness of the winds And that thing the Art of distilling doth prove throughout the whole Paracelsus although a Potentate of the Art of the Fire was not free from the storm of winds Because he was he which was ignorant of the nature of winds and of the Air that the matter of vapours of flatus's is a watry Gas that their efficient causes manners means as also matter is water got with child by a Seed Because he was he who plainly despised the authorities of Philosophy and endeavoured to bind nature under his own idiotism he was also forsaken God so permitting it by the light of nature who maketh such endeavours every where void Also no man ever attaineth unto Wisdom who hath thought to have come thereunto by himself For Paracelsus doth every where constantly perswade that we ought to feel the Diseases and defects of all things because we are hitherto every way an extract of the whole universe That we ought to express the universe as it were the Parent of a Son For so he will have us to contain winds and their varieties our wringings of the bowels also to answer unto the tempests of the Air. But I will not depart even a nails breadth from the famous Image of God that we do resemble the Macrocosme or great World rather than God in his Image For I believe that I am not a man that I might undergo Diseases and so resemble Pirke Olam or Holam Hapiroud but rather I know that I do undergo Diseases that I might shew a depraved and mortal nature but that I am a man for no other end than that according to the good pleasure of God I may represent his lively Image That man therefore divides the wringings of the bowels into four parts according unto the four accustomed hinges of the winds Whereof the Northern one he first of all placeth in the loyns whose wind in its colick should blow against the Navil But in the Navil he placeth the Southern one which in its colick should blow Diametrically on the back So also he hath disposed the Eastern one in the
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
brain through the coats thereof scull c. For there is never the room or right of a pledge for an excrement for there would be a daily need of a Chyrurgical borer or piercer no less for a Catarrhe than for snotty corrupt matter But why doth a Rheume cease to flow down presently after the tooth is rooted out For is it because it was forgetful of the wayes But if matter be supplyed beneath whither I pray shall this flow or in what part shall it fall down the which before was wont to enter thorow slender holes wherein the sinews do enter as well the inward as the outward and as well the upper as the lower side of both the jawes shall happily the tooth being pulled out the stomack cease or not dare any longer to afford vapours and matter for Catarrhs or the tooth being pulled out shall all the matter of Rheumes also of those which are to come flow forth together with the blood or the hollow of the tooth being stopped up by the flesh straightway grown up nor a passing forth being granted shall the Rheume therefore cease But the Rheume did not seek passage thorow the most hard tooth For why shall it not stir up a necessary Aposteme in the coasts next unto it why one tooth being pluckt out shall it oftentimes descend unto another tooth Is the channel changed when one is pulled out and doth it not any longer know how to flow down at least wise into the nerve of the tooth that was pulled out and into the flesh grown up and doth it more easily think of passage for it self thorow the tooth than thorow the flesh grown up from the plucking out why doth it not hold the way which it hath prepared and keep the passage for it self that way before the flesh grow up surely that Catarrhe is miserably deluded by the Chyrurgion which thinking to flow down into the tooth and finding it taken away should be compelled to return the same way unto a noble part which it may torment in revenge of the Chyrurgion A tooth therefore doth not ake from a Catarrhe but either the gum being uncovered it is made too sensible or else the matter of its last nourishment being badly digested doth putrifie about the root of the tooth Hence is pain For in this doth the digestion of the tooth and of the nail differ from the digestion of other parts that this is made in Kitchins inward unto it but the other in Kitchins co-touching with their root But that a Rheume doth not descend unto the inward parts the stomack lungs liver reins bladder veins arteries muscles and sinews is in part already sufficiently manifested from the common and feigned matter being taken away from its passage and from the manner of its making and partly because nothing can fall down out of the Head especially unto the stomack against our wills but it may be cast forth by spitting out by reaching For they do not swallow down the mucky snivel descending from the Head but at unawares Neither is a Catarrhe of that intention or disposition to expect sleep whereby it may oppress one at unawares Let Fables depart in healing Whatsoever therefore rusheth downwards from the head unto the jawes is a snivel natural or altered according to the indispositions of the keeper But that snivel is different from the spittle which is cast out of the breast by cough in the whole species of an excrement For what will the inconsiderateness of the Schools advantage them to wit whereby they command that the spittles rejected by coughing are to be lookt into whether they be watery frothy cleer liquid white compacted yellow or of an ashie colour whether round or running down c. why I say do they bid the dispositions of the breast or affects of the Lungs to be from thence divined of if the spittles are the very defluxing excrements or Catarrhs of the Head So indeed the Rheume of the straining or spungy bone obtaining a certain co-thickning from the snivel doth wet with a crude and watery muck because nature sends thither a capacious or received latex for the washing off of that obstructing muck or snivel For if the matter hereof should be brought up out of the stomack why when the spungy bone is stopped doth a healthy stomack rage with vapours How shall those vapours being co-thickned a little above the palate come down unto the fore-head in the shew of salt water nigh to the instrument of smelling to wash off the hurt from the bone prefixed to it For whence shall un-savoury and guiltless vapours draw forth so much salt in their passage which they may melt and carry down head-long with them that by their sharpness they may stir up frequent squinancies and other inflamations of the jawes why shall a matter lifted up from the stomack and only by its co-thickning into water because it is that which by handy-craft operation is proved to be of necessity without savour being first changed from it self a vapour falling down into the stomack cause so great troubles unto it which a little before with the rest of the Chyle was acceptable to the same Whence hath it that enmity for is it from the brain a principal bowel and rich in vital beginnings But if the vapour shall touch at least the lowermost plain of the brain as they say and presently after as soon as it shall come down unto the compleat bigness of a drop it falleth down and seeing there cannot be another third which may detain every drop therefore the perverseness of that hurtful matter shall not be from that small delay not from the contagion of a malignant part nor lastly shall there be a perverseness from a seed there received unless perhaps they shall shew that besides a co-thickning of the vapour into drops of water some other thing hath interposed Which they have hitherto neglected to prove But seeing that very many Comments have every where arose in huge Volumes Councels and distributions concerning Rheumy and Lungy affects It is my office to have shewn that nothing was ever more negligently blockishly and destructively taught by the Schools Because they have hitherto made no sin of less esteem than murder or manslaughter committed through carelessness only the earth covers the fault and they are excused by the delivered maxims of murder But I have from thence considered that the Devil Moloch doth sit President in their chairs and that they have hitherto made the world mad by Catarrhs Whose matter birth place efficient cause manner of making Case containing passage and society of co-bindings do fail at once and are false And therefore none but the old Serpent the father of a lye hath taught these things hitherto unto the destruction of mortals for truly whatsoever issues out of the Head is a muck or snivel and a meer excrement but not derived thither out of the stomack Snivel is white thick and slimy the keeper of
Catarrhe be feigned to flow down with a like success unto other and inferiour parts how therefore do the upper parts seem to be free from evil for seeing it should proceed from the same fountain the brain and through the same channel of the marrow of the thorn of the back why doth it not rather follow the path already opened doth it more largely fall down unto a weakened inclinable and affected part and commit new adulteries why doth it shake and seek new Innes Is that perhaps the delight of nature that through a whorish appetite it doth molest and divide new parts successively Finally that there is no place of refuge for a Catarrhe running down between the scull and the skin and the muscles cloathed with their own membrane hath been already before discussed Therefore there is no way manner mean connexion or dependance whereby a Rheume may in truth subsist And seeing no material thing runs down in those affects for which the Schools have rashly feigned Catarrhs therefore let the lovers of truth know that as oft as a strange or forreign Air odour ferment or forreign seed is received into the Spirit which makes violent assaults so often that spirit being defiled by the Archeus is excluded from the Communion of life But the genius or disposition of that conceived Seed hath no less parts whereby also the Spirit defiled by a strange ferment is sent unto remote rather than to nigh places As shall be said in its place concerning the joynt-sickness or Gout in the Duumvirate and elsewhere For so Mercury being even outwardly anointed doth affect the jawes tongue teeth Moreover when this defiled spirit shall come down unto the place of its sending it presently seasons the nourishment of the part with its own ferment transplanteth and translateth it according to the idea or likeness of the Seed and that Seed doth there interrupt the offices of digestions by successive blasts being drawn with strange dispositions Whence it at length stirs up a plentiful houshold-stuffe and doth oft-times characterize the impression there made on the implanted spirit with a brand durable for life These things the Schools beg for primary feigned humours and for the fallings down of defluxions from the one only brain I therefore am far from a Catarrhe who deny the matter shops efficient cause manner of making and defluxing thereof and therefore I also seperate the causes effect as also the cure far from the fictions of a Catarrhe Therefore salt soure sharp phlegmatick and cholerick humours do not fall down but as often as the defiled spirit hath passed thorow unto the places the first which shall come thither from a common endeavour and study of washing it off is the liquour or humour latex For the spirit being depraved by a forreign contagion is carried through the Nerves Arteries yea and through the very habite of the Body From whence the brain hath bore the blame and the sick do feel as it were the falling down of a defluxing humour and because the latex is designed thither by the veins not as a primitive cause of the evil although by accident it doth oftentimes nourish the evil the longer but for an easment and washing off therefore the Schools have as yet remained doubtful whether Rheumes should be dismissed from the Head through the sinews or between the skin or indeed through the veins out of the Liver at least wise in Gouty persons Therefore the Phlegme and Choler of the Schools do not flow from a Fountain or Flood-gate as if the Head were the one only sink of these And then neither do they fall down by reason of a steeper scituation or by reason of an easiness of passages For truly as in a dead Carcass there are no such defects but in live creatures only so whatsoever of these defects doth come to pass it proceedeth from a spirit which maketh a violent assault and from a vital beginning In whose family administration an ascending upwards is no more difficult than a descending downwards Seeing nothing of these in living creatures floweth by its own motion of weight but indeed is directed being sent unto its own certain bounds It also often comes to pass that the latex being defiled with a strange salt doth thenceforth infect the spirit so that the spirit is not therefore alwayes estranged by an external injury of Air or from a proper Air of contagion bred within but rather being stirred up by the latex because that is less lively it takes on it an animosity or angry heat And the latex accompanies it being troublesome as well through its aforesaid sharpness as through quantity and it enters as an importunate Souldier against the will of his Host Wherefore natural and artificial Baths do reconcile many of these sort of defects and overflowings to wit by consuming the latex they restore health rather than the loosening and drying Medicines of the Schools Vain therefore is the History and matter of a Catarrhe lifted up out of the stomack unto the Head vain also is the defluxing and falling down thereof between the muscles and the skin and deplorable Remedies from unknown causes Vain also are cauteries or searing Remedies to pull back and consume feigned humours Lastly vain are the Medicines of drying drinks seeing the evil or Malady is by the latex and a larger quantity of drink only occasionally bred Therefore it is manifest how wholesom sober drinking is for the liquor latex in respect of its appointment ought to be without savour but it waxeth sharp through the much drinking of pure and more sharp wine But the History and necessity of the latex is due in its own Chapter Thou shalt remember that all the fruits of composed Bodies do materially spring from water Let us therefore also suppose the un-savoury latex through a little help of a Seed presently to wax sharp For example For at the Spring-time a plentiful liquor drops out of a Vine or Birch-tree To wit if the bark near the earth be hurt it poures out an un-savoury liquour of the earth But if the wound be made in the stem or branches now the same juice is sharpish So it comes to pass in the latex being of its own nature without savour which through the contagion of things receiving doth at length wax sharp or becomes the heir of a strange quality For the Schools have neglected the latex because they have confounded the urine with the latex But it is a blockish argument to have co-melted the thing generated with the matter whereof as if the snivel spittle water between the skin and flesh and urine were drinks The Liver therefore being badly affected if it recal the latex unto it self truly it doth not thereby prepare urine but Oedemaes or the Dropsie Anasarca therefore I am not such a man as to call the Pleurisie Tooth-ach and other madness of furies non-beings For I know and grieve for their too much serious commands over us I do indeed admit of
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
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
the Eyes which might be fitly accused Wherefore this dissection being compared with the dreaming Vision of the Tertian Ague from the eating of too much Salmon I presently perceived why they were both at once recalled to mind while I was about to write the present Chapter to wit that through the opportunity of them both being remembred I might the more strongly insist about the true thingliness or essence of Diseases con-centred in the bosome of the vital spirit but that the dregginesses which the Schooles have reputed for the immediate and containing causes of Diseases are nothing but the external occasional Causes how intimately soever they should be admitted within the veines themselves CHAP. LXII A Disease is an unknown Guest 1. A Narration of things hitherto done 2. The Object and Intent of the Author 3. That the Art of the Medicine of the Pagans was an invention of the evil Spirit 4. A Prayer for his Persecutors 5. The Author searcheth out or espieth from his Persecutions that the evil Spirit was the Inventor of the Doctrine of the Pagans 6. The Labours of the Schooles from hence are vain 7. The Authors Anguishes 8. A Prologue of the thingliness of a Disease 9. The most immediate containing and essential Causes of Diseases 10. The necessity of a seminal Idea is collected 11. How far this Doctrine departeth from the Schooles 12. The true causes of things and of Diseases 13. The Schooles their ancient definition of a Disease 14. The first Contradiction of the Schooles 15. Another Stumbling 16. A Third 17. The Author teacheth in his Treatise of the Elements that there are not mixt Bodies as neither humors in Nature whence the whole foundation of the Medicine of the Schooles goes to ruine 18. A Fourth Stumbling 19. A Fifth 20. A Sixth 21. A Seventh 22. Against the distemperature of Elementary qualities in us 23. An Eighth staggering 24. A Ninth 25. A Tenth 26. An Eleventh 27. The Error of the Schooles is discovered 28. A Twelfth stumbling 29. An absurd consequence according to the position of the Schooles 30. The uncertainty of a predicament for Diseases 31. Arguments on the opposite part and against a feigned disposition 32. Tee true efficient Cause of diseases 33. The occasional matter 34. Wherein the whole thingliness or essence of a Disease may be scituated 35. Whence the Schooles have been seduced 36. Two false Maxims of the Schooles 37. Another delusion of the Schooles 38. What natural generation is 39. The Schooles deceived by Aristotle 40. Some ignorances arisen from hence 41. A Disease consisteth of matter and an efficient cause 42. Whatsoever is generated that is made by seminal Ideas 43. All the predicaments are in every Disease 44. The stip of Heathenisme in healing 45. That the definition of a Disease hath been hitherto unknown 46. A Disease is not a Being of the first Constitution yet hath it entred into the account of Nature 47. Wherein Diseases are distinguished from other created things 48. The Error of the Schooles from the subject of Inhaesion of Diseases and very many Absurdities issuing from thence 49. That those Absurdities are not to be connived at by Christians 50. A stubborn ignorance 51. Hunger is not a Disease 52. The Schooles depart from their own Hippocrates 53. Some neglects of the Schooles 54. The rashness of the Schooles 55. That the hurt of action is not to be regarded for the essence of a Disease 65. Whence that fiction sprang 57. The consequent upon a confounding of the cause with the symptome 58. A removal of the Cause doth not of necessity respect a withdrawing of the occasional matter 59. The Schooles being deluded by artificial things delude their young beginners by artificial things 60. How the Seed may differ from its constituted Body 61. A Thirteenth stumbling 62. Some knowledges chiefly true in the Author 63. What a kind of production of a Disease is made by a Blas 64. The efficient Cause in a Disease 65. A Disease pierceth the Life with a formal Light in a point 66. Some differences of efficient Causes 67. An example in the Stone 68. The Stone is not properly a Disease 69. While the Effect hath concluded the occasional efficient there is not the former Disease 70. The products of Diseases neglected by the Schooles are touched at 71. The Error of the Schooles about the Objects of Contrarieties in Diseases 72. Some Arguments against the Schooles that it may jerk them 73. The Products of Diseases Secondary Diseases together with a destinction of Symptomes and Fruits are resumed 47. Weakness or Feebleness what it is 75. An improper division of Diseases by the Organical parts 76. Whence there is a divers action of diverse things 77. From the handy-craft operation of the Fire of Pepper an Escarrhotick and Caustick are Thirteen Conclusions Paradoxes to the Schooles and diverse things are illustrated worthy to be noted 78. The Fire is but little profitable unto the Speculation of Curing 79. Some notable things concerning our heat 80. A various Classis or Order of the Occasions of Diseases 81. Hippocrates is explained with a connivance 82. That which Nature doth once despise that she never afterwards receiveth into favour 83. A Disease is of the matter of the Archeus 84. An explaining of Products 85. Our Nature is ruled by an erring Understanding after that it is corrupted 86. The Schooles again deluded by artificial things 87. To Produce differs from to Generate 88. The Schooles have onely thought of taking away the occasional cause 89. In us there is a Nature standing sitting and lying 90. A decree of Hippocrates is explained with the moderation of that age 91. Anatomy is frequent to excuse excuses in sins 92. The sloathful negligence of the Schooles 93. After what manner death and a disease have become the Beings of Nature since the creation and have received second Causes their producers 94. Two Objections of the Schooles refuted 95. A Guess or Presage from the unseparable goodness THe integrity of Nature being already at first constituted to wit between the Matter the Archeus and the Life or forme of a vital Light with the seminal and vital beginnings the ferments also the authors of transmutations being newly discovered also the elements qualities complexions and miscellanies of these their fights strife and cursary victories being rejected likewise humours and defluxing Catarrhes being banished out of Nature Lastly Flatus's Tartars and the three Principles of the Chymists being banished out of the exercises of Diseases it now remained that the defects and interchangable courses of Nature themselves should be intimately or pithily considered Wherefore before that I make a more profound entrance I have undertaken to prove That Diseases have not onely been unknown in the Schooles in the particular and therefore that their Cure hath radically layn hid but moreover That the very Essence of a Disease hath been hidden in the general Truly it is matter of grief that it hath been so ingeniously elabourated
in other Professions but that in the Art of healing alone men have been hitherto so stumbled through deaf Principles wherein notwithstanding Charity towards our Neighbour hath been penally commanded For all things have remained most obscure many things most false and those things which might chiefly conduce unto the scope of Curing untouched For there is no where a tractable acuteness but on every side a great dulnesse So that from what hath been said before there is none but may easily gather that whatsoever hath been hither to diligently taught according to the Doctrine of the Pagans and against a mutual Charity was the Invention of the evil Spirit Therefore indeed the stability of Paganish Theorems hath remained through the perswasion of the Devil which speculations notwithstanding through their easinesse onely at the first sight ought to have been suspected by any one of a sound mind Therefore nothing more hard inhumane and fuller of cruelty hath been received now for so many Ages among the Arts of Mortals than that Art which under a con-centrical subscription makes fresh experiments by the deaths of men The Professors whereof while they presume that themselves do keep the keys of knowledge they neither enter the passages themselves nor admit others who are willing to enter in but do drive away all by all wiles and subtilties Alwayes learning and never coming to the knowledge of the Truth according to the Apostle Oh Jesus my light my life my glorying and the helper of my weakness and corrupt disposition who in they own matters dost easily find out a passage with whom that is easie which with mortal men is as it were impossible Thou who hast made me to undergo all adversities I offer unto thee my calamities and the oppressions of justice Nevertheless thou hast always comforted me with thine unvanquished right hand afford me thine hand that if thou vouchsafe not to snatch me out of the deep pit of so many tribulations at least wise that through thy strength I may not sin against thee and that they may repent who have hated me undeservedly and that they who adore thy Power may acknowledge in me that thou alone art God the helper of the oppressed and the undoubted hope of them that trust in thee Let them be cloathed with contrition and find favour with thee and that I wretched man may sing forth the praises of thy greatness after this life For the rottenness of this Age is such that thy judgement being hidden the hypocrisie of mighty men professeth Faith in deceit and collects their wickedness under the shadow of Piety But in so great a tempest of my miseries unto the miseries of mortals and the defective errors of Physitians before the view of my mind I have attempted under thy command to record in writing That as hypocrisie hath trampled on me and my fortunes so I likewise know and that primarily that the father of lyes hath introduced the cup of ignorance and the bane of charity and health into the Paganish Schools lucre strewing the way under the beaten stormy path of Tritons For every young beginner that is to come shall admire with me that nothing hath been so unskilfully handled as those things which concern the life of mortal men For truly according to Thomas a Kempis it is all one with the Devil so he may render thee uncapable to serve God whether that be by true things or things appearing Therefore it sufficeth him so he shall but frustrate man of health and cut short his life wherein he might serve God if so be he shall make him a despiser of Divine aid by the appearing Doctrines of Pagans For the Schooles have written a thousand Volumns concerning the temperature and strife of qualities in the next place it hath been much and long interpreted by the Successors of Galen about these trifles and they have daily relapsed into new centuries and patcheries And at length they have squared unto those qualities feigned and excrementitious humours which should so wholly govern man as well healthy as sick that they should be chief over humane affairs as though the conditions manners healths appetites instincts inclinations slips or mis-deeds strengths valours defects events of fortune yea and the deserved punishments of loss or damnation and the adoptions of eternal life of mortal men should depend thereon A horrid surely and intollerable thing that these toyes have stood so long and that from things not existing and never to be and the which by the asserters themselves are accounted for excrements so serious and pernicious Fables have been co-feigned and believed And so that by the Schooles themselves scarce any thing hath been ever narrowly searched into which under such Principles may in very deed be truly true and good In the mean time I grieve I testifie it again not indeed that I have obtained the light of Truth from a long compassion towards my Neighbour but that it hath behoved me to lay open these Errors That is I grieve that the Devil hath deceived the Schools and will deceive them as long as they shall suffer themselves to be deluded by Paganish Fables and to be separated from the Schools of Truth But that that thing may be manifested I will by a Prologue declare it by the way and as it were by a positive demonstration For truly God made not Death And that is of Faith Therefore man became mortal from another thing than from God And seeing the scope or bound of most Diseases is Death it self because it is that which is nothing else but an extinguishing of life therefore a Disease and Death are Diametrically opposite to life Whence it follows that every Disease doth immediately act on the life But nothing is able to act on the life unless it be applyed unto it and well mixed with it But a Disease the enemy is not applyed unto the life promiscuously unless it shall besiege a part of the life and so shall sit totally or partially in the very life it self Which being done that part of the life besieged or overcome doth retire from the vital Air and the which being thus vanquished and become degenerate is made hostile unto the life as yet remaining or as yet constituted in its integrity Hence it necessarily follows that every Disease as it finds matter in the Organical or instrumental Air of life whereby it most immediately and inwardly riseth up against the life it self so in the same vital light it finds an efficient cause And so a Disease being thus instructed or furnished with matter and an efficient cause is entertained about the life Neither is it of concernment the while whether that contagion of a Disease be drawn from occasional Causes or in the next place be bred within in the Archeus through the errour of Life At leastwise it is sufficient in this place that the Life it self is on both sides the principal object for the hostile disease But seeing the Life it self
is a lightsome Being it acts not but by its instrument of the vital aire or by the Archeus as a mean between the light of Life flowing from the father of lights and the body But this aire or Archeus doth not act but after the manner wherein every seminal spirit acteth on the mass subjected under it that is not but by an imprinted mark or sealie Idea which hath known what and which way it must act Therefore all and every disease hath a sealie mark and as it were a seminal act which is expert of things to be acted by it self This Declaration therefore doth far recede or differ from an elementary distemperature from humours and the disproportionable mixture of those from the fight and contrariety of the elements of our composition because every disease is nothing but a Sword to the Life wounding or totally cutting it off For as a Sword doth exhaust the Life together with the arterial blood and vital aire wherein according to the holy Scriptures the Soul it self sitteth So a disease consumeth the same air of Life on which it afresh sealeth an hostile character drawn as well from occasional Causes as gotten through the errour of its own indignation This exact account of a disease being granted lo I come unto the explaining of a disease And first I will demonstrate from the very Theoremes of the Schools that the thingliness or essence of a disease hath been hitherto unknown Whence in the next place any one shall easily judge what hath even hitherto been done in the remedies and vanquishing of diseases I have oft-times promised that I will demonstrate that the Schools have hitherto neglected that is that they have not known the essence root or nature of a disease in its own universal quiddity or thingliness And seeing I have already from the Elements prosecuted that thing even unto a conclusion thorow all their privy shifts now at length by an Anatomy of particulars I shall also stand to my promises if I shall detect the same in the general and especially if I shall shew that thing no longer by the fictions of Elements temperaments and humours but by the very words of Authors whereby they corrupt their Young beginners as it were with a mortal contagion In the premises it hath already been demonstrated by me that the Ages before me being deluded by the trifles of the Peripateticks have been ignorant of the Causes to wit the Matter and Efficient of natural things Then also that a thing it self is nothing besides a connexion of both Causes and that this same thing is in diseases especially seeing a disease although happening unto us by sin is now admitted for a prodigal Son of Nature Truly the univocal or simple homogeneity of Causes in natural Beings hath compelled me hereunto whereby the efficient Cause is denominated from effecting but not from the Effect which is after the Efficiency Therefore the Schools do first of all define a disease to be an affect or disposition which doth primarily hurt the actions of our faculties wherein they do as yet very much stumble For truly first they name this Affect a distemperature of one or two qualities of the first Elements For so they rehearse the same thing because they consess a disease to be an elementary quality it self as it exceedeth a just temperature Therefore a disease shall no longer be that disposition resulting from the first qualities which they suppose immediately to hurt the functions themselves And so they feign the whole disease hereafter to consist in nothing but in a degree or excess of an elementary quality Again now and then they call the very distemperature of qualities not indeed a Disease but well the antecedent cause of the same They will I say have those four solitary qualities to be diseases whether they shall proceed from external qualities co-like unto themselves or whether they owe their beginning in the body to be from a strange disproportion of mixture Furthermore they afterwards combine those qualities in a bride-bed from the congress whereof they then derive their off-spring a Disease to wit they believe that the Elements are so subservient to their own dreams As that also qualities being joyned at their pleasure they have commanded them to answer to as many elements So that those naked qualities being even balaced with feigned elements and dreamed humours they have feigned to be Diseases themselves For in this place I declare the unseasonable yea sporting varieties of the Schools and their poverty greatly fighting otherwise surely I have sufficiently proved elsewhere by a Demonstration chiefly true That in the nature of things there are not four elements and therefore neither are they mixed that bodies which they have called mixt may be thereby constituted and by consequence that neither can distemperatures be accused for diseases As neither that ever there were four constitutive humours of us in the nature of things whereby it is sufficiently and over-manifest that the causes of diseases yea and diseases and the predicament of diseases have been hitherto unknown in the Schools Notwithstanding I will now dissemblingly treat with them by the supposed Positions of the same Schools Therefore the Schools sometimes repenting them of their sayings will have the elementary qualities and not unfrequently the humours equal to these not indeed to be diseases but onely the containing causes of almost all diseases Otherwise again that of those qualities being more intense than is meet a third or neutral one doth arise which they have called the Diathesis or Disposition or Disease it self And so however they toss the business they have hitherto commanded a disease to inhabite among qualities but humours although intemperate ones they for the most part driven out of the rank of diseases Indeed a Cataract in the eye although as a substance it doth immediately intercept the sight yet it cannot be a disease Therefore they have feigned a certain Being of reason and an imaginary relation or obstruction which might contain every property of a disease and might be truly a disease the Cataract being rejected And so by degrees a disease comes down unto non-beings and privations And now and then they for the essence of a disease do ridiculously distinguish a simple distemperature from a conjoyned one and again both of them from a humourous one when as a humour should be a substance void of degrees Indeed they have distinguished the societies of proportionable and disproportionable mixtures of the first qualities into pedigrees and then they have thereby erected specious Schemes and at length they have filled whole Volumes with those fables But at leastwise they have never admitted an evil or vitiated humour to be bred in us which may not presuppose some elementary distemperature to be mother unto it Wherefore a distemperature in the Schools shall be onely the cause of the cause and of the thing caused but it shall not be the thing caused it self or the disease nor in
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
arguments have believed every efficient Cause to be of necessity external and that therefore it cannot be united with the thing caused and therefore that neither is the thing generating a part of the thing generated when as otherwise in Nature that which mediately generates a Being is alwaies the internal vital Governour and assisting Architect or Master-workman of Generation and so he who for an End directeth all things unto their scopes causeth all things for himself and for himself acteth all things Therefore they being also deceived in Diseases have believed that the diseasifying Cause is external in respect of the body of man or at leastwise in the beholding of the Family-administration of Life For it hath not been known that Generation bespeaks nothing but a flux of the Seed unto perfection maturity of properties an unfolding of things hidden and a consummating of Orders unto their own ends First therefore Aristotle hath deceived the Schools teaching that Corruption and Generation do throughout whole Nature and that alwaies and of necessity by steps succeed each other And therefore he hath made a mental Being a meer negative non-being a naked privation the immediate Principle in Nature between Generation and Corruption Neither could ever the Schools understand that the same Workman which hath made a Plant of a Seed hath not failed in the generating of a Plant hath not as being banished departed as being worn out not died nor lastly that another hath been surrogated in his stead for the coming of a form whereof that Workman remains the immediate executive Instrument for ends foreknown by God or a participation of life but that he himself doth even onely and alwaies remain in the government of Life Hence indeed neither have they understood that the thing generated doth proceed from Causes really and suppositively not distinct from the essence of a thing yea nor indeed with any interchangeable course of causality Because the Schools have hitherto more diligently considered of Operations demonstrable by Sense Science Mathematical I say and artificial things diverse from Nature than the natures of things themselves seated in the Cup or bosome of essentiality For they have never heeded that the Instrument of Art the Artificer himself yea the Measures themselves of things measurable cannot generate any thing seminally in nature or introduce a seminal substantial or essential disposition for the transchanging of products Consequently also neither have they understood a disease as a real and substantial Being but onely in manner of an accident when as otherwise a disease is not a disposition not an accident hurting the actions and much less the hurt of an action it self proceeding from a duel of hurtfull Causes with out ruling Powers But a Disease is a real Being having its Causes the Material and Efficient stirred up by occasional Causes For if a Disease and Nature or our Faculties do stand in a diameter for so they will have them a Disease and a sound or healthy Life cannot be at once in the same immediate Subject therefore a disease cannot be a disposition which doth even bring a detriment unto our powers but such a disposition should be rather a fruit of the disease and a consequent more latter than the disease and the mother and nurse of weaknesses I therefore distinguish this disposition from the occasional causes and products of diseases But the fruits of a disease seeing they have respect unto the term unto which the disease generates those its own products they may also be co-incident or happen together with the Life and therefore some symptomatical fruits are among dispositions which thing the Schools have not yet explained To wit the defects of digestions motions c. And likewise weaknesses are dispositions which proceed indeed from the products of diseases even as by and by in its own place yet they are not diseases because they light into nature whereinto they are introduced by the strange violences of diseasie seeds and thus far are unially entertained in the life neither therefore can they have the nature of a disease because a disease cannot remain together with the life in the same point of identity But a disease retires out of the bosome of life no otherwise than as it separates it self out of health But Life is in it self a certain integrity or sound state of light with which a disease cannot co-habite as neither doth a disease subsist but in the vice of life or in life that is degenerate The which indeed is separated from the vital light it self and therefore also from the central point of life it self For as light which the Soul it self is is not life it self So neither is the light of life it self a disease it self But this sits in the ulcerous degeneration of the vital Archeus and so also vitiates the light hereof and therefore by reason of a mark of resemblance it participates of life and doth sometimes render it conformable to it self and doth wholly vitiate it which thing in the Plague is ordinary and manifest It hath not been known therefore in the Schools unto what predicament they might attribute a disease But I say that a disease consisteth of Matter and an efficient Cause no otherwise than as other Beings of nature do For the essicient Archeus in labouring by his own disjointings of passions and in bringing forth the Idea's of his own disturbances for whatsoever things are made in nature do arise are propagated by Idea's inclosed in seeds for otherwise the progresses of nature should be foolish which want an internal guide or leader procureth to dispose of some portion of his own substance according to the hostile ends which he hath proposed to himself and to the whole Body in that very kind of his estrangedness and at that very moment wherein the matter comes down unto the bound proposed to the efficient Idea a disease is bred Even so that every seminal disease consisteth in a real act which causeth an indisposition of the matter proper to it self that is of the very Archeus which makes the assault and being applied unto us I therefore have learned that every circle of predicaments are in very deed in Diseases after the true manner of other Beings by themselves subsisting in Nature For by this meanes I have found not Diseases in Predicaments but all Predicaments in Diseases For truly in all seminal Diseases I find an occasional matter which like a violent guest making an assault doth violate the Inne and right and disturbes the administration of the Family From thence I find that the Archeus himself is disturbed in all partitular Diseases for from hence also I consider another internal matter of a Disease to wit that part of the Archeus which he hath defiled by his own exorbitancy on which part he hath fashioned the Idea of his perturbation and the seminal efficient Cause of a Disease So indeed a true and real Being doth conserve in it self the respects of all the
most inward Beginning of Life and to be incorporated in us neither therefore that occasional Causes can be the connexed and constitutive Causes of Diseases for truly those Causes do as yet remain after life and yet Diseases cease But we must in no wise indulge Christians who are thorowly instructed by the Scriptures that they have even until now esteemed it for an honour to have delivered their minds bound unto the hurtful stupidities of Heathens They took notice indeed that there was that affinity of some Diseases with us that they were so connexed unto our Body in respect of an occasional matter that they could scarce be divided from a consent of the mind or be seperated from a hurt action as in Wounds instrumentary Diseases those deprived of the strength of Seeds For the Haw upon the Coat Cornea is that which immediately hurteth the sight as also the Stone doth without a medium stop up the passage of the Urine But the obstruction flowing from thence is a relation and Being of Reason the which as it acteth nothing so neither hath it the reason nor consideration of a Disease in Nature Nevertheless the Modern Schooles had rather to commit the Essences of Diseases unto Elementary discords than that they would confess the Bodies of Nature to bespeak nothing else besides a connexion of both constitutive Causes to them unknown For that reason miserable mortals have hitherto groaned under this burden of blindness expecting Cure from those who were fully ignorant of the constitutive Causes of Diseases Wherefore seeing a Disease ought to contain its own efficient Cause and its own matter within it self Hence it easily appears that hunger although like a very sharp Disease it kills in very few dayes yet is not a Disease because it doth not consist of Diseasie Causes whether it be considered as a sorrowful sense of the number of Symptomes or next as it consisteth of real defects Because for as much as the soure ferment of the Stomack even as in the Treatise concerning Digestions wanting an Object whereon it may act yet cannot therefore take rest it attempts by resolving the secondary humour and immediate nourishment of the Stomack for the Archeus is as well in hunger as in fullnesse the cause not onely of a Disease but of Health it self But a want of the matter of Food bespeakes a privation but not a Disease Wherefore we must altogether exactly note that Hunger although it doth cruelly slay as if it were a Disease yet that it is not a Disease in that respect to wit because the Archeus is in no wise diseasie in hunger From whence it ought to be clearly manifest that every Disease doth primarily and essentially respect its efficient Archeus For that cause it was rightly decreed by Hippocrates to the carelesnesse of the Schooles that hot cold moist or dry not indeed as such and concrete or composed are not Diseases or the causes of these but sharp bitter salt brackish c. For peradventure in the age of Hippocrates the occasional cause was not yet distinguished from a true Disease Indeed he knew a twofold excrement to be in us One indeed natural and ordinary and so ours but the other a diseasie one from its mother errour and a hostile propagation and the which we Christians know to have proceeded from the vigour of sin For when the oldman had distinguished this by forreign savours he supposed that if it were not a Disease it self at leastwise it was the adequate or suitable occasion of Diseases not yet then distinguished from a Disease The removal whereof at least should open both the folding doors of Healing But it is matter of amazement that he whom the Schooles do boast to follow as their Captain they have skipped over this his Text through sluggishness as also another Standard-defender of the same Captain wherein he hath declared that every motion unto a Disease Death and Health is efficiently made by the Spirit which maketh an assault And likewise wherein he saith that Natures themselves are the Physitianesses of Diseases and by consequence the makers also of Diseases if that assaulting spirit by its disturbance doth work all things whatsoever are done or made in living Bodies Indeed the Schooles have passed by many such things which did deserve to be accounted like Oracles because they being deluded and bewitched by four feigned Humors being traduced by the deep shipwrack of sleepiness drousiness and sluggishness have neglected the liquors which he himself nameth secondary ones as if a Disease might not be as equally possible in those as in the four feigned primary humours Therefore have they also neglected the Diseases arising from the retents or things retained of Digestions and transplantations because also they have been utterly ignorant of the Digestions and Fermentations themselves even as I have taught in its place Alas How penurious a knowledge hath graced Physitians hitherto whom otherwise if they had been true Physitians the most High had commanded to be honoured For they have considered a Disease to flow forth as an accident produced by its Agent a diseasifying matter wherein therefore that its own efficient is they have in the enterance been ignorant and the patient which they say is the Body of Man First of all They do not distinguish the Agent from the Matter which is most intimate hereunto Secondly Then They deny a Disease to be material because it is that which they suppose to be a meer Quality Thirdly Neither do they distinguish provoking Occasions from the internal Efficient because with Aristotle they suppose every Efficient Cause to be External Fourthly They separate the constitutive Causes from the thing constituted Fifthly They know not the Chain of Efficient Causes with their Products Sixthly They for the most part confound Occasional Causes with their Diseases and Symptomes Seventhly They somtimes look upon a Disease as a Disposition skirmishing between the Orders of Causes and the Body of Man Eighthly They had rather have that very later disposition arisen as they say from the fight of Causes to be a Disease the which to wit should immediately so they say hurt the actions whether in the mean time it be contrary unto a vital action or indeed it be the effect of that contrariety which shall offend the functions But I do not heed the hurtings of Functions for the Essence of a Disease but the operative disturbances extended on the Archeus do I contemplate of in Diseases For he doth often die without a sense of action being hurt who indeed suddainly falls down being in the mean time long diseasie or he that perisheth only by a defect of Nature Wherefore also I reckon it among other impertinencies to have tied up the Essence of Diseases unto the hurtings of the functions seeing that is accidental and latter to Diseases but not alwayes a concomitant Yea truly because a voluntary restoring of the enfeebled faculties doth follow health hence the Schooles have measured the Essence
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
our heat And so neither can our heat be called fiery as neither is the number of Two the number of Forty But besides a diseasie occasion doth sometimes burthen with its weight alone and by its hateful presence such as is that of a hateful guest Afterwards from the more mild beginnings a porous quality oft-times increaseth or groweth being of the order of Tastes Thirdly Or at length it stinketh Fourthly It snatcheth up a strange ferment And Lastly it threatens destruction unto us through the contagion of an unluckie poyson and the cruel seminal occasion of Diseases either comes unto us from far or ariseth from within It often-times also degenerates in its last qualities which the Schooles have neglected because as being content with their first humours they have fallen asleep There is something I say of a hurtful chaffe separated from the guiltless vitals and the co-mixed occasion of a Disease floateth among the good nourishments and hath even more toughly mirried adhered to and chosen its local bride-bed in the same But it on both sides stirs up the hostile properties of diseasie seeds by variously sporting in their Innes The Archeus therefore is not affected by heat and cold but from an excelling quality and strange fellowship of a taste and fashions the seminal Idea of a Disease And I wonder that the Schooles of the Greeks do profess Hippocrates to be their standard-defender yet that they have despised this hing of healing in him and have even sunk themselves into meer heats and the foolish wedlocks of qualities For a Disease according to Hippocrates is made of a good or before-condemned liquor being turned into an excrement Therefore I do truly pardon this as yet undistinction of that Age and therefore I call those superfluities not the Diseases themselves but the occasional Causes of these For an excrement being vitiated in its own or the last Kitchins of Digestions or sticking the longer elsewhere through the delay of its slownesse is first accused of sloath and afterwards through the activity of the place of its residence abhorring it as a troublesom guest is corrupted from that Title as it is destitute of the Balsame of Life For our Archeus-Faber or master-workman seeing he is never idle without blame neither is ever destitute of a local exchanging ferment therefore by a continual heat and warmth he doth more and more disturb excrements bred within or brought thither from elsewhere and shakes them into their appointed ends Therefore neither can any excrement long remain in its former state It is also altogether to be despaired of that Nature should ever receive that again for a true citizen which was once abhorred by her or againe adopt it by entring into a reconciliation such as is the fiction that of Phlegme Blood is made of burnt venal Blood yellow Choler and of this a leekie aeruginous or cankered Choler and at length a melancholly or black coloured humour for Nature cannot but alter a forreign contained guest which of its own condition is alterable and promote it unto its own ends And if that shall happen within the Innes of its own digestion the excrement shall be far more mild than if it shall be once brought unto others Cottages and out of its own limits Then indeed that adulterous fruit and Young applied to or placed in that part is refused as a strange ominous and tumultuary enemy into whom therefore the strange ferment of another harvest from the necessity of an unquiet alteration is introduced Whence of things retained which are at first simply troublesome are hurtful things made and at length the retained things or excrements are transchanged Wherein if a notable savour be not it doth at leastwise for the most part presently arise being designed by Hippocrates in the place cited for a diseasie signature For as long as a nourishable liquor is restrained by the bridle of the Balsame of Nature it of right enjoyes the savours of blood and assimilable nourishment all things are in a good state but it being once divorced from the Archeus it presently also assumes a forreign disposition So also a savour and through the agitation of dayes doth varie the degrees of its malignity That indeed is the sharp bitter and soure from which the old man doth search out by his oracles almost all Diseases to spring For this although in its quantity it be very little in weight light and scarce perceivable by the sight yet it is the true occasion of a Disease But a Disease it self sits more inwardly to wit in the vital Beginnings and those more active and commanding than those things which are called Excrements do For every seminal Disease and that which is cherished by an occasional cause as it began from a being immediately sensitive and the subject of concupiscence which is full of Passions and perturbations and inordinacies so also it hath its seat in no other thing than in the Fountain Prince and Ruler of all motions Yet by degrees it strives not with one onely weapon of malignity but it s More or Root being defiled doth also occupy the part it self and likewise deprive it of the continuation and communion of Life if besides it doth not burden it with the hurt of its impression or the filth of a ferment being drawn in a similar part it doth not threaten its extinction A Disease therefore begins from the matter of the Archeus as it rageth in us by a forreign Idea from a conceived injury which it judgeth that occasional Causes hath done it But let the concomitant action and that which results from the proper exorbitancy of its efficient Cause as the head-ach doatage c. be the Symptome But whatsoever Springs are caused by a Disease or by reason of Pain the Cramp the Government of the parts or a fermental Action if that do really subsist in its own Root that is the Product of the Disease But of Products some are ultimate effects left by a Disease as a Scirihus or dropsie after a Feaver or they do break forth in its being made As the pissing of muscilage or slimie matter by those that have the Stone The which do neither meditate of the propagation of another evil as neither of a Diseasie matter or of after products These again are like to their Causers because they are those which from the contagion of a ferment do creep farther even as is familiar with the Scab Leprosie Lues Venerea or Pox c. But others by proceeding inwards do wholy enlarge themselves and generate after an irregular manner As an Apnaea or shortnesse of Breath Convulsion c. from the Womb or Stomack So Wringings of the Bowels the Diarrhea or Flux Hemorhoides or Piles Dyscenteries or Bloody-fluxes and other evils of that sort do proceed as being made by sharp or soure things Yea the seed of Diseases being at quiet by intervals some unaccustomed and dis-continual thing is budded forth from the hidden seminary of the Archeus Such
as is the Falling-sicknesse the Gout Madnesse c. Truly in all these things there is a manifest Errour of the Schooles which teach That whole Nature is governed by a Ruler or a created Understanding not erring knowing all ends and for the sake of these acting after a most excellent manner For truly it is not to be doubted but that a Wound might be healed or closed without the Tumor Pain corrupt Pus and Inflammation of its Lips But that a Thorn may be drawn out of the Finger with greater brevity than that the Finger should therefore arise into a corrupt mattery Aposteme For the fat or grease of an Hare being annointed on it doth extract the Thorne in one Night Meanes are not wanting to the Archeus whereby he might perform that very thing safely and quickly even as he doth in some of his own accord but that our Archeus is subject to any kind of Passions as if he did conceive childish indignations from the least hurting of the Body No wonder therefore that the sublunary being of Nature by no means subjecting it self to Justice doth yeeld to or fall under its own inordinate Passions When as also the whole man whereof the intellectuall mind is President doth exceed the path of right Reason in many things At length that is remarkable that in the works of Art the efficient Cause is alwaies without and the Schools being deceived through the errour thereof have not known that in natural and substantial generations the Agent is internal For therefore they have banished the efficient Cause as external in the catalogue of natural Causes Yea it hath been unknown that both the Causes of natural things being connexed as I have demonstrated in its place doth not differ from its Effect but in the priority of flowing which thing hath deceived as many as have similitudinously contemplated of Nature by artificial things For neither have they been elsewhere more blinded than while they have introduced that incongruity of their own speculation into Diseases For they have not onely made artificial things like unto seminal speculatively but also in endeavouring to cure they have through a great confusion of falshoods bespattered the whole practice of healing with contrarieties For they have thought that to produce and to generate are altogether the same while in the mean time a generater bespeaks that he brings forth something from his own substance but he produceth who onely couples active things with passive although he contribute nothing of his own He maketh or doeth also who acteth any thing how he listeth Furthermore I also oft-times admire that while the Schools do constitute the benefit of healing in the removal of Causes after what sort they could place distemperatures within the rank of Diseases seeing the hot and most known of diseases doth both suddenly and of its own accord slide into cold and we are able presently to remove the intemperance of heat at pleasure without helping of the Fevers And then seeing they have never received the vital Cause which is the impulsive one in Diseases for the efficient Cause of Diseases they have determined of removing nothing but the occasional Cause For the Archeus although he be the true and immediate Cause as well according to the matter the which he brings vitiated and that out of his own bosome as also according to a seminal and efficient Idea yet the Archeus doth not shew the removal of himself But the Schools do act contrarily while they attempt their Cures by blood-letting purgatives and next by every means fortifying Life But upon what ground they do that they themselves shall see Moreover in Diseases Nature is standing sitting and laying Nature standing doth her self cure her own Diseases from a voluntary goodness as wholsome Fevers And likewise a Quartane which is cured by the proper guidance of Nature but not by the helps of the Schools And Nature standing can also presently walk the which belongs onely to Health But Nature sitting although she be able of her own accord to stand and at length to walk yet she is constrained to arise before she stands and therefore she ariseth with the more difficulty But if she attempt to arise by inordinate remedies she is prostrated from her seat and lays on the ground and being not a little shaken thereby is pained and sometimes dies of her fall Yea also while many that they may not be sick or ill at ease do make use of counsels or advices which do for the most part hasten old age and death and oft-times also deprive them of life But Nature laying along can never rise of her self as the Leprosie falling Evil Asthma Stone Dropsie c. Yea neither is it sufficient for her to arise for if the nerves or sinews are not confirmed they do easily relapse Furthermore Hippocrates will have a Physitian to be onely the Minister or Servant of Nature but Natures themselves to be their own onely Physitiannesses and that thing he thus commanded in his age When as otherwise a Physitian is the Patron and Master of Nature being prostrated which kinde of Physitian if the old man had not as yet acknowledged surely much less the succeeding heathenish Schools even unto this day Last of all dead carcasses are dissected which is done to excuse their excuses in sins for after a thousand years Anatomy the Moderns do scarce either the better know Diseases or the more successfully expel them They rejoyce indeed that they have found an imminent mark of any corruption in a part which covers their unfaithfull Aids or Succours with the Buckler of impossibility So indeed the world is deceived with a lofty brow For neither was that corruption there before the space of two days although the place might be pained long before So far is it from excusing the Physitian which is seasonably sent for that it rather lays open the fault of the same who to wit had seasonably or in due time dispersed the accused excrement For nothing of the parts containing is destroyed in live Bodies but it is first deprived of the commerce of Life And besides neither can it long be deprived of the Balsame of Life nor a mortisied part wait many houres in the lukewarmth of the Body which doth not likewise speedily putrifie stink and draw the whole Body into its own conspiracy Therefore from thence it is manifest that the corruption which is obvious in the Dissected dead Carcass was made but a few hours before and began but a few dayes before Death For corrupt mattery Imposthumes which are stirred up by malignant assemblies in the Lungs do indeed contain the Seeds of Diseases but the mortifying of Internal parts doth not many paces precede the day of Death One onely thing is at leastwise to be admired that the Schooles indeed have acknowledged a Spermatical or seedy nourishment whereby we are immediately nourished because it is that which they divide into four secondary humours yet that they have not
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
Fevers For I have seen some hundreds cured of divers Diseases by some Simples hanged on the Body without any removal of the occasional matter To wit Nature being busie about the rest Thirdly the fits of Diseases are oft-times ended the occasional Cause being present and remaining but it is altogether impossible for that to be while the containing and internal matter of the Disease is present In the next place there are Diseases which have no occasional Cause whose own connexed matter is neverthelesse excussed or struck out about the time of their period even as fire out of a flint They not having I say any other occasion of them besides Ideal impressions such as is the Gout falling-Evil Madnesse Asthma c. To wit whose perfect Cure consisteth in the removal of the seminal Character and incorporeal Ferment not likewise in the sequestration of any matter For so a certain odour being drawn thorow the nostrils hath strangled many without a material vapour or moist sent unto the Paunch However therefore they may strive with me they shall discern and confess with me that hitherto none hath come unto the knowledge of Diseases and that there hath been blindness in Healing hitherto Give leave to the truth It hath therefore been sufficient for me to have demonstrated that Diseases do lead their Armie into us by unknow Seminaries and invisible Beginnings according to that antient Maxim That every direction of Sublunary things depends on an invisible World Hence it hath come to pass that although Diseases have oftentimes been silent and have wholly ceased to be under the uncertain Cures of experiments yet nothing hath been hitherto acted from a fore-knowledge of the means and ends in Diseases of nature standing or sitting Because also they do very often of their own voluntary and free accord hastily run unto the end of their race But in Diseases of nature laying along or prostrated nothing hath been heard hitherto besides the despaires of incurable Diseases and the Lamentations of miserable men What things therefore have been assayed before touching the nature of a Disease let them be Prologues unto those things which remain to be by and by spoken concerning Diseases Where I shall professly touch at or reach the causes of all Diseases in the point of Unity Here only handing forth by the way that Diseases do now issue into depraved and impure nature plainly after the same manner wherein they at first began to be framed and issue And the Schooles will not deny that that thing lay hid to the Heathens and their followers Last of all new Diseases have lately happened unto us and antient ones do hereafter scarce any longer answer unto the names and descriptions of our Ancestours Because they have put on strange signes and properties whereby they go masked and deceive Physitians under the precept of the Antients For I conjecture that from thence there will be almost the greatest destruction of Diseases and so also that from hence the mercy of God will be so much the nearer unto Mortals For it hath pleased the most High to have sent Paracelsus in the forepastage who might propose unto the World the more profound preparations of Medicines so far as it was lawful But at this day afterwards he hath vouchsafed also to open the knowledge of Diseases Wherefore I shortly expect another to come whose Schollar I am not worthy to be For neither therefore hath the most High permitted my self to hope for the coming of the same man who hath sent me before as the publisher of his Praise For truly with him every Disease shall equally find its own remedies under the Stone or Harmony of unity together with the speculative knowledge of Diseases and Remedies I intreat the thrice most great and excellent God that he would preserve the same man from the vanity of arrogancy and from sudden Death sorely threatned unto him by hateful men CHAP. LXIII The Dropsie is Unknown 1. At length the Author shewes that there is the same ignorance of the Dropsie as of other Diseases 2. The Distinctions of Names used by the Schooles 3. He must first strive with the Schooles about the difference of occasional Causes 4. The hurtful ignorance of the humour Latex 5. The Errour of the Schooles is shewit with the finger 6. A cruel Remedy 7. A ridiculous Opinion 8. Some absurd Concomitants 9. A History 10. Absurd Anatomy 11. Some remarkable Histories 12. The Root of Grasse is examined 13. A Stumbling of the Schooles that they may fall 14. The Author answers by Eighteen Arguments 15. The occasional Cause is meditated of 16. The occasional cause is proved 17. Paracelsus is taken notice of 18. A most secure Remedy of Mercury described by Paracelsus 19. Some remarkable things 20. The Dropsie is described by its Causes and by Nineteen Positions 21. An Objection of Paracelsus is refuted 22. The poysonous furie of the Archeus of the Reines 23. A Maxime is preserved 24. The carelesness of the Schooles are to be admired at 25. The Author narrowly searcheth into some hidden things 26. The examination of a thing or matter which seems repugnant unto Science Mathematical 27. The difference of the Latex from the Urine 28. The use of the Kidneys being neglected hath brought forth the ignorance of the Dropsie 29. An Explanation of a new Question 30. The furie of the Reines is the Efficient Cause of a Dropsie 31. The manner of making in a Dropsie 32. It is prooved by a voluntary Cure 33. What the abstinence from Drink in a Dropsie may effect 34. Thirst doth in no wise dry up a Dropsie 35. After what manner the abstaining from drink hath cured the Dropsie 36. All thirst ariseth from the the Reines but not from the Liver as from the slender Veines according to the Schooles 37. The ignorance of Causes hath rendred the Dropsie neglected 38. The Vanity of Hydragogals or Medicines drawing out Water 39. A Remedy of the Dropsie 40. A remarkable thing concerning Briony 41. That the government of the Reines hath hitherto remained unknown 42. A Definition of the Dropsie by its Causes and manner of making 43. An examination of the Tympany 44. A History hath proved to the Nostrils what hath been said 45. The vanity of Carminating Medicines 46. Why Paracelsus perswadeth Dungs 47. Mercury is commended 48. A Bastardly and new Dropsie 49. The preparation of Precipitate and of the Arcanal or secretous Remedies of the Dropsie 50. Universal and pacifical secrets do as yet more powerfully operate I Have made a Treatise concerning Feavers and seeing that no seldome Dropsie is the Metamorphosis of malignant Feavers it seemed meet to me to subjoyne the Treatise of the Dropsie to Feavers yet afterwards when I saw that the Dropsie was solved or loosed by the Reins or Kidnyes I doubted whether the Dropsie were rather to be considered after the Treatise of the Disease of the Stone or whether by way of example I should subjoyn it to the
Treatise of Diseases For truly if the Belly swell through a defect of the Urine therefore the Dropsie seemed to be referred unto the forgetfulness of the Reines But the Stone hath expelled the Treatise of the Dropsie therefore it hath made a Treasie singular to it self But I shall be the less solicitous of order so my proposed Scope of curing be reached with fruit I have made it manifest that the causes of Feavers the Disease of the Stone Apoplexie Palsey Lethargie Leprosie Convulsion Plague Jaundice Colick Flux and other like Diseases are unknown Then in the next place I have alreadie atchieved to demonstrate the same ignorance to be about the knowledge of a Disease in general Now moreover I will shew that the same thing doth happen concerning the Dropsie as it were the heire of many Diseases In the Schools a Threefold Dropsie is observed to wit Anasarca a water between the Skin and the which they call a Leuco or white Phlegmacie as if it did arise from Phlegme and for the most part they confound it with a local Oedema or Phlegmatish tumour And then Ascites follows which is the Dropsie of a proper Etymology being forthwith manifest in the Belly and Legs And the Third is a Tympany or windie Dropsie concluded only in the Belly Because indeed the Abdomen or neather part of the Belly doth extend it self from a Flatus alone or being mixed with a little wheyishness and that no otherwise than as through water and at length that it doth miserably kill by choaking The Tympany is more rare and cruel than Ascites and is easily from the beginning distinguished from an Ascites Because the Patient being rowled on his side doth not feel the water to floate even as otherwise that thing is manifest in an Ascites yea truly Authors do scarce distinguish an Anasarca from an Ascites in its causes or place especially while this begins about the Ancles in the same seminarie place with an Anasarca and Oedema The which if they do enter the deeper into the Belly then they name them Ascites the name of Anasarca and Oedema ceasing And so the degree onely doth varie the species of the Disease in the Schooles But if the whole habit of the Body doth appear Swollen as it were through a poyson being taken they presently think that Phlegm hath committed the crime and do call it a Leuco-phlegmacie Wherefore the water between the skin seemeth again to be distinguished from Ascites onely by degree and therefore they have accused the Liver to be the one only Fountain of them both With the Schools therefore I will talk concerning the occasional causes for why seeing the ignorance of the immediate efficient cause hath hitherto made the Dropsie an unknown guest in us But I could never conceive that the Liver should be the cause of the Dropsie if the whole Dropsie be solved by the Urine and so the Liver doth not offend in generating Urine because it is that which is a natural product of the constitution of our nature so much as the Reines do offend in not emulging or sucking it out Wherefore the vice hath seemed to me to subsist rather in the Kidney than in the Liver And therefore I wholly even from the beginning do decline from the Schooles in the Seminary and Fountain of the Dropsie For because they blame Phlegme in an Anasarca Leuco-phlegmacie Oedema and a Cacochymia or an affect of bad juice that doth not seem to touch an Ascites the which they think to be bred from heaped up Urine or a certain whey of the Blood seeing in very deed they with an earnest countenance distinguish the Urine which they also signifie to be the whey of the venal Blood from Phlegme in its whole principles To wit while Urine is an excrement in its original But Phlegme is called venal Blood being not yet cocted unto maturity For therefore this swims in the Blood throughout its whole for such is their pleasure and is an entire part hereof Whereas in the mean time the Urine wheyie Latex and an Excrement was never fit for or dedicated to nourishment for we must not jest in the principles of Medicine in the Rules in the Causes of Diseases For truly it is seriously treated concerning the skin of man of subverting families yea and of the damnation of Souls For it is not all one whether the Dropsie doth depend on Phlegm or on a vriny Liquor and on both sides to have accused the vice of one Liver For there is a sluggish and stumbling progresse in the searching into Diseases while they refer perhaps two hundred Diseases unto the distemperature of one Liver They have forgotten the while the manners of making and sending Phlegme or Urine unto the bottom of the Belly and not far of elsewhere They have thought therefore that the water of the Dropsie is meere Urine or a metamorphyzing of Phlegme melted into Urine after an unheard of manner hitherto But at leastwise they have been Ignorant of the Latex to be distinct from the Urine among the principles of natural Phylosophy For even as the food is not dung although this be afterwards made of food So neither is the Latex Urine Furthermore it is so confessed that the Dropsie doth universally arise from the error of the Liver alone that when I had once Judged in a written consultation that Count Destaires or Stegrius did labour with a Dropsie of of his Lungs extended from the left part of his Midriffe into a swollen Arm the chief Physitians hissed out this my Paradox with loud laughter because I sought the seate of the Dropsie out of the Liver Yet when after death his Breast was opened perhaps two buckets of water flowed forth the which had run out or digressed between the left part of his Midriffe and Breast into his Arm and Fingers Anasarca therefore seeing it was as it were a lesse and beginning Dropsie it was derived by opening things into the Liver And likewise they hope that the remaining white Phlegme the more crude Blood Urine and Dropsical whey they confound those four in this place will be hereafter dried up by the one onely abstinence from Drink as a capital remedie For in the evening they see the Shanks or Legs that are Swollen in the morning as slender to have fallen They say therefore that the Blood is concocted in sleeping but to be wasted or consumed afterwards into nourishment neither dare they to affirm neither do they say whither it hath departed Neither also do they dare to say that in so small a space of the body and time so such Phlegme being turned into Blood is expelled out of the Legs by an unsensible transpiration of the Skin if they shall not maintain that two buckets of Blood are dayly consumed in a like proportion of one and every night and of the whole Body They are therefore constrained to feign that the more crude Blood or Phlegme being now once hunted out in the habit of
the disposition of an Excrement Because it s own and that which is native to it 1. This is the cause of an Anasarca or in speaking precisely the Water is not the Dropsie as the Anasarca it self neither is the Wind the Tympany it self but the Water in the Abdomen and the Latex in the Anasarca are the Products of the Dropsie As the Wind is in the Tympany Surely the Dropsie is a Guest received with a more inward society of familiarity and is more intimate unto us the which doth attempt the vital principles and faculties of Life before the Water be bred and so every Disease doth by occasional Causes immediately talk with the vital Beginnings wherein at length it findes its matter and efficient Cause 2. And then I have noted that seeing the Urine of all Dropsical persons in general is little and of a ful colour the Latex was the matter as of the Urine so also of the Dropsie For neither is it formally Urine but the matter hereof before Urine was made thereof by a co-mixture of other things and the receiving of a Urinal ferment 3. But I understand in the Dropsie a threefold matter To wit the first occasional such I have said out-chased venal blood to be And then a second which is the Water it self and the very Latex in the Abdomen which is a certain product And lastly the third matter hath its internal efficient arisen in the internal vital principles of the Archeus of the Reines 4. Like as also drink failing the Reines do notwithstanding as yet allure forth the Urine of Blood although sparingly 5. So also in the Dropsie the Urine is of the Blood not of the Drink not of the Latex The Reines do actually conceive frame and contein the Dropsie But the Abdomen or neather part of the Belly through the action of government of the Reines doth afford an Inne and the Kidney sends the Latex thither as the product of the Tragedy For it is not as the Latex is theevishly snatched away by another Bowel but the Kidney alone doth banish the Latex unto places subjected unto it 6. But the Latex being lesse chief in the accustomednesse of Life in an Oedema and Anasarca than in an Ascites it is also again supped into the Veines and slides unto the Reines that it may undergo the last determination of Life 7. An Ascites is regularly cured if the Kidney shall make much and abundanâ— of Vrine of its own accord or by a Remedy But it committeth a relapse if the Disease be not wholly taken away out of the Kidney 8. The Water between the skin or Anasarca by a retrograde motion draws the Latex into the mouthes of the Veines from thence through the Veines it is sucked into the Kidneys and expurged in manner of Urine The least quantity whereof onely doth exhale by transpiration And therefore they abusively teach that the Latex is Phlegm in an Oedema and that it is recocted into lawful Blood 9. Therefore the Command and Action of Government of the Reins doth extend it self not only into the Kidneys Ureters and Urine Vessells But besides into the hollowness of the Belly between the Peritoneum or wrapping Skin thereof and Muscles of the Abdomen and likewise into the several Divisions of the hollow Vein beneath its self even also into the Feet and Legs 10. The Reins therefore do not suffer the Latex to fall down through its own weight but do truely send it no otherwise than as they do truly again draw the same thorow all the blood of the Veines to wit until the Dropsie be cured by pissings 11. And which is more the Kidney doth alwayes co-operate and principally operate in the framing of a Dropsie It is therefore of necessity primarily affected Because it wanders from the ends of its acting 12. And seeing the Kidney is the chief effecter of the Dropsie although another member may now and then contain the occasional Cause 13. Therefore a Cure which is instituted by a removal of the Water is alwayes subject to a relapse and is for the most part attempted in vain Because a worthy or meet Cure is never instituted from the ultimate or last Agent 14. Therefore the Dropsie Ascites is alwaies an immediate effect of the Reins and so the Cure of the same doth expulsively require a restauration of the Kidneys whether the defect be occasionally stirred up or in the next place consisteth in the Kidney it self 15. Wherefore I do far retire from the Doctrine of the Schooles which the Reins being paspassed by and neglected doth continually behold the Liver and direct its desires of curing thither 16. But the Dropsie is not a wandring abuse or exorbitancy of the Archeus in the Kidney a stopping up thereof by a stone or muckishnesse But a certain sleepy or stupifying poysonous faculty in the venal blood which is expelled or in a like manner entertained through importunity whereof the Kidney doth first of all forget its office casts away the Rains of separating the Latex and straightway after also doth snatch up a fury while through an inordinate motion it banisheth the Latex into the Abdomen 17. Even just as I said before that a Kidney was exclusively shut against the simple Urine even until death 18. Indeed I meditate of a co-like devious or wandering quality of out-chased venal blood in the Dropsie through the occasional Cause whereof the Kidney is made forgetful of its duty and the seasonable removal of which poyson doth free the Kidney from its bond and so the Abdomen from the Water For when the Kidney seeth that an Error was committed by it and being well admonished by a right Medicine it earnestly repents and again suppeth up the Latex being dismissed unto it and drives it forth 19. Therefore the true Dropsie Ascites is in the Reins or to lose the stubborn bolt of the Reins is to lose the Dropsie even as to solue the congealed Blood is to solue the occasional cause thereof That is the immediate cause as well the material as efficient of a true Dropsie is the Archeus of the Reins erring to wit so far as he becomes Exorbitant and is as it were driven into a furie by the occasional Cause he begets an Idea or shape the which the implanted Archeus of the Reins himself being stubborn doth foster and nourish Whereby indeed he doth not or scarce separates the Urine or imploys himself in the care of his Office or of his appointment Yea neither doth he only pass by and neglect his own Offices but also being as it were in a rage dismisseth the Latex unto the Abdomen that he may as it were procure his own Destruction Therefore we must dissolve the vice of stubbornness in the Archeus so that pissing may follow if health be to be expected Paracelsus feigneth that in the Dropsie the venal Blood is by the star of Zedo turned into a muscilage but from hence into water But that its cure doth
of the Stomack But as a defect of Blood is restored by the more meer or pure meats and drinks So the defect of the Latex is recompenced by watery things it being that which experience teacheth Thirst therefore proceedeth from the governour of the Latex and not from the Bowel of sanguification for there is as much necessity of the Latex as there hath been hitherto dulness in the passing it by Some Authors do commend live Toads being fast bound to both Kidneys to lose the Dropsie by the Urine At leastwise I have seen a Country-man that had a Dropsie cured by an Adder tyed about his Belly and Reins For an Idea of fear is brought on the Reins whereby they loose their indignation Indeed by the same title thirst doth stir up an Idea of sorrow or of a denyed appetite whence the Kidney forgets its wroth From what therefore hath been said before the ignorance of Causes in the Dropsie is sufficient manifest and next with what great obscurity they have laboured about the distemperature of the Liver and emptying of waters how vainly they have thought of provokers of Urine of Vesicatories and of solutive Medicines and it is to be observed in this place that purgative Cholagogals or movers of Cholar have been wickedly given to drink to Dropsical People because they are such things which trans-change the Flesh and venal Blood into a stinking and yellow ballast without the help of a Dropsie But with the destruction of the a Hydropsical person But a hydragogal or mover of water differs from a Cholagogal because that being drunk down the Belly asswageth neither doth it expurge stinking things or excrements unless the force of a Cholagogal be adjoyned to an Hydragogall Therefore Mercury precipitated according to the prescription of Paracelsus cures every Dropsie not as it purgeth but forasmuch as it material passing through the Bowels dissolues the out-hunted Blood But if it together with that do provoke Vomit or Stool that is to the Dropsie by accident Take notice therefore of this that white Briony or white Vine being scraped or filed and laid on a bruise wherein the blood looketh black under the skin doth in few hours resolve that blood into water the which it likewise fetcheth through the skin Wherefore take notice that there is the profitable virtue of an Hydragogal or mover of water in Briony if thou shalt take away the solutive poyson from the same But surely I have observed if Antimony be turned into a liquor and afterwards into a pouder which purgeth only by sweat a remedy is procured which modestly takes away every Dropsie whithout fear of a relaps for truly it removeth as well the occasional Cause as the distemper of the raging Archeus it self For such remedies as are carried through the intestines their natural endowment remaining and being secure and the which are therefore apt to resolve the occasional Cause do free Nature of her impediments whence the Archeus of the Kidney percieving the proper madness of his fore-past fury doth open the veines suck to him and strain the water through according to his due and wonted manner and recompenceth with diligence the stubbornness of his fore-past fury by an excentrical and opposite motion of the Latex grieving that through disorder he intended his own destruction whence it is plain to be seen that the government of the Kidney over the Abdomen and Veins hath hitherto been unknown The Dropsie therefore is a Disease occasionally arisen from a bloody depraved matter as it were from a fermental Beginning at whose incitements the Archeus of the Reins formeth an Idea of indignation through the power whereof he shuts up the Urine-pipes and Veins corrupts and diverts the abounding Latex and transmits this Latex into the compass of the Abdomen or nether part of the Belly in the mean time he so straitens the pores of these Membranes of the Abdomen that they can let nothing of all thorow them even until Death But the Tympany doth very much differ from the Dropsie For there is unto it a different occasional Cause a different manner of making in the next place a different matter and also a different efficient Cause Therefore a different Disposition and a different Product For Water is not generated but Wind And then neither is a Tympany made through the Arbitration of the Kidney but onely by a poysonsom ferment of the spermatick or seedie nourishment sticking and defiled in the crooked bought of the Intestine sitting as President Neither also hath Anatomy hitherto viewed the veines to be swollen with wind neither ought the Liver to suffer punishment by reason of the wringings of the Bowels although aswel the Dropsie as Tympany may follow wringings or gripings Also if the Flatus's of the Intestine should be made by the Liver a Remedy is to be applied to the Liver but not a carminative Medicine to the Intestine or the Schooles make themselves guilty through a different manner of curing For if they were mindfull of their own Theorem that of the same faculty there is a found and infirm Action they had known that Belching and Flatus's are generated by the Bowels and Stomack And so that the crooked bought of the Intestine is no lesse apt for generating of Flatus's than the concave or hollowness thereof A Tympany molesteth from Liquors which were to be assimilated but are become degenerate For a Windinesse or Flatus is made in the Intestine from a certain indisposition of the Archeus of the place who then doth forthwith change meats which are nothing flatulent into a flatus Seeing therefore in the Tympany it is in the out-side or in the crooked bought of the Intestine the same flatulent indisposition is to be considered to be with-out-side as is within in the Intestine To wit it is made from a similar nourishment degenerating whereby a dungy ferment happening the very Archeus of the place being wroth and ill affected doth turn not indeed the aforesaid occasional Cause but the proper nourishment of the Membranes into Flatus's But for this purpose a part of the dungy-ferment doth passe from the inward cavity unto the outward bought of the Intestine And therefore that is not the unsavoury or four flatus of Belchings as neither doth it smel of dung because it is not of a dungy-matter but of a degenerated and cadaverous or mortified nourishment A certain man by the perswasion of Physitians sustaining an Incision on the side of his Navel who was judged to have the Dropsie and that they might draw out the water I being a Young Man and looking on the Chyrurgions Lancet or Fleam being drawn out his Abdomen presently pitched and he by and by died But a Flatus which hugely stank uttered it self and his dead Carcass smelt It is manifest therefore that the occasional matter and next the true matter and inward effecter with all the knowledge which credits a Physitian have remained unknown The vanity also of Remedies appeareth and
especially of carminating things which doe not respect the outward bought of the Intestine And vainly do they feign that Winds are dispersed by extenuation or rarefying For to what purpose do they hope to have Winds extenuated in a matter more subtil than Wind or what shall it profit for to render the Wind more subtile than it self if it then requires a larger room and doth encrease the troubles of its extension For it is a home-bred foolish Remedy drawn from Fables Cabrollius an Anatomist of Mount-pellier tells That he cured a man of Eighty Years old who by the perswasion of Rondoletius ate nothing but salt things and least he should be overwhelmed with thirst he mixed pickels or sauces made of Vinegar and Sugar with his meats He also fomented him twice every day with a Lixivium wherein Salt Alume and Sulphur had boyled And thereupon used Cows-dung for a Cataplasm and at length he escaped and survived being a Hundred Years old For those things are not administred in vain which do consume the occasional Cause Neither therefore doth Paracelsus vainly commend dungs seeing they are the salts of putrified meats unto whom it is granted to resolve the occasional matter of a Dropsie Surely there is on both sides a wonderful action of the Archeus as well where he deteins the keys as where he unlocks the Closets and expels his Enemy But Paracelsus approves of his Praecipiolum or Mercury drawn dead out of its Mine before other Remedies But other Simples according to the degree of assinity wherein they reach unto this metallick Mercury It is a Phrase of his own liberty I reverence and admire the endowments of Simples as they arose from God but not as they are consanguineal or akin to mineral Mercury I confesse in the mean time that that Mercury hath alwayes served or answered my desires Indeed the attainment thereof is difficult but the dose of two grains is sufficient being three or four times administred But Mercurius Diaphoreticus being once obtained it is sufficient for many thousands of sick folks as well for himself being a Physitian as for his successors Finally I have seen a bastard Dropsie whereof none hath made mention that I know of before my self For I have frequently seen that from an inordinate growth of the Liver the extension of the Belly did counterfeit a Dropsical Disease Yea also in those who have died of a Tabes or Consumption of the Lungs and in those who have been exceeding sean I have seen their Liver to have increased beyond measure although wholly without Blood That Mercury therefore slayes the increasing or growing faculty even as Quicksilver being cast into a tree bored even into its pith or heart with an Auger doth kill the same Therefore it belongs to the property of Mercury to extinguish the growing faculty of the Liver But that that thing may succeed according to thy desire the Mercury ought to die without any association of external Salts or fellowship of forreign Spirits yet thus it ought to die that a vital Being may remain in the Chariot which may be able in the middle life of the Mercury to carry it unto its appointed places I am thankful in the behalf of him whom the Fire hath taught me to understand Hither do I referre the Remedy of Stibium solulutive For truly those Remedies do resolve consume and brush off every occasional Cause elsewhere lurking and detained That indeed is the cure of Arcanums which is attained by a removal of the occasional Cause and any one of those secrets doth suffice the which do resolve cleanse forth and disperse without distinction whatsoever I except the Stone is besides Nature concluded in the Body For truly although of any kind of Diseases there are two pillars whereby the disease edifice is supported to wit the occasional matter and the matter with the Archeal efficient yet either of the two pillars being with-drawn the whole building goes to ruine which was superstructed upon them Therefore the secrets of Paracelsus do take away every Disease by consequence as they mow down the occasional Cause And then there is another more hidden way of another secret to wit whereby peace rest and comfort is brought into the Archeus to wit lest he being wroth do bring forth a Disease and rather that he may abolish it being bred Yea also that he himself may meditate of putting the occasional Cause to flight For so as a Thorne being thrust into the Flesh is drawn out by the fat of an Hare a common and milde Remedy Otherwise the Archeus is presently as it were angry with the entring Thorne doth make a tumult the place swels and a various exorbitancy of Symptoms is awakened that indeed corrupt Pus being at length made and the place putrified he may exclude the Thorne the which if they had gone more mildly to work had issued or rushed out even as it happens under the perswasion of the Hares grease In like maner I say there is an Arcanum or secret in nature which cures almost every Disease as it takes away the indignation confusions of the Archeus and commands this Archeus to be peaceable Of which Arcanum I first will endeavour to open the way Therefore in the Dropsie the Archeus of the Reins looseth the passages and riseth up against the occasional Cause that is to be put to flight no otherwise than as by a stubborn fury he seeks his own distruction and so a Maxime of Hippocrates shall be verified That Natures themselves are the Physitiannesses of Diseases but the Physitian onely their Minister Therefore from the Premises I conclude that there would be as yet a far more peaceable and desirable cure from a sedative or appeasing Secret than by the Secrets of Paracelsus For they make more for the preservation of long life of which in a peculiar Book CHAP. LXIV A Childish Vindication of the Humorists 1. The End of the Race proposed or published 2. It hath happened to the Author even as he had judged 3. The Clamours of those who are beaten 4. The more secret Arcanums are not to be openly revealed 5. The Author Answers unto Letters written unto him 6. Ten Reproaches I Had now set forth some small Works which have been hitherto unheard of to wit concerning a different kind of sharpish Fountains and especially of those of the Spaw and of the Original of Fountaines Concerning Fevers concerning the Disease of the Stone concerning the miserable state of the deceived Humourists and of the Plague That mortals might return the race of all natural Philosophy and might thereby safely learn the rise manner mean and progress of healing First of all the Book of Feavers reprehendeth the ignorant Schooles of Medicine about the knowledge of an infirmity so common whereby they might repent and excuse the publishing of this Volumn But concerning the Stone a Monster accidentally bred in us and touching the Plague as it were an irregular by-work of the mind that
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
the importunity of times or seasons quantities and strength In the next place there are occasional defects which seeing Good doth bring forth Evil by accident and doth oft-times proceed from our own vital powers are endowed with properties of their own as it were their seminal Beginnings therefore they immediately tend unto the vanquishing of our powers as their end The which therefore I elsewhere call Diseases Potestative or belonging to our Powers But neither is that a Potestative Being which the Schooles do call A Disease by consent and do think to be made by a collection or conjunction of Vapours But a Potestative Being contains the government of a constrained faculty as well in respect of the authority of Life as of the diseasie Being it self the which indeed is born by a proper motion to stir up a Potestative Disease of its own order Just as a Cantharides doth stir up a Strangury And that also is done through a power of internal authority and by the force of parts on parts So an Apoplectical or Epileptical Being being as yet present in the Stomack or Womb shakes the Soul yea and from thence transports the Brain together with its attending powers will they nill they into its own service A Potestative Being therefore doth not only denote a hurting of the Functions but also a government of the part and an occasioning force of a Diseasifying Being prorogued or continued on the subordinate faculties as on the vassals of an Empire It being all one also whether the parts are at a far distance from each other or whether they are near For they are the due Tributes of Properties Yea truly Hippocrates first insinuated that Diseases are to be distinguished by their Inns and Savours And I wish his Successors had kept this tenor But that Old Man being as it were swollen with fury presaged of the future rashnesses of the succeeding Schools and precisely admonished them That they should not believe that Heats Colds Moistures Sharpnesses or Bitternesses were Diseases But Bitter Sharp Salt Brackish c. it self But he sung these things before deaf or bored ears For truly the long since fore-past Ages being inclined unto a sluggishness of enquiring and an easie credulity snatched up the scabbed Theorems of Heats and Colds and subscribed unto them by reason of a plausible easiness and bid Adieu to their Master who having supposed that Diseases were to be divided according to their Innes divided our body into three ranks to wit into the solid part containing or the vessel it self into the thing contained or liquid part and into the Spirit which he said was the maker of the assault The which indeed is an Airy or Skiey and Vital Gas and doth stir up in us every Blas for whether of the two ends you will Which division of Diseases although he hath not expressly dictated yet he hath sufficiently insinuated the same For he wrote onely a few things and all things almost which are born about are supposed to be his And therefore I wish that posterity had directed the sharpnesses of their Wits according to the mind of that Old Man Peradventure through Gods permission they had extracted the understanding of the Causes of Diseases But they afterwards so subscribed unto the Authority of one Galen that they as it were slept themselves into a drousie Evil being afrightned while they are awakened by me But in the Title of Causes I understand in the very inward or pithy integrity of Diseases the matter being instructed by its own proper efficient Cause to be indeed the inward immediate Cause and to arise from a vital Beginning Wherefore also I name those external and occasional Causes as many as do not flow from the root of Life it self And therefore I treat of Causes which are the Disease it self For Bread being chewed and swallowed is as yet external because it may be rejected or cast up again So also the Chyle thereof being cocted in the Stomack is as yet external Yea and which more is after that it is become domestical and although it be made a more inward citizen of our family administration Yet while it is separated from that which is living and rusheth into the Kitchin of Diseases for that very Cause as it is become hostile so also it is to be accounted External in respect of Life So also a pestilent Air being attracted inward although it hath spread its poyson within and in respect of the Body be internal yet it is not yet internal in respect of Life And so neither yet is it the Disease it self to wit whereof it contains only an occasion in it self neither shall it ever lay aside that same occasionality But the Plague is while the Archeus the contagion being applyed unto himself doth separate a part of himself it being infected from the whole For the banishment whereof the remaining part of the Archeus doth Co-laborate and is earnestly careful that it may not be pierced by the Symbole or Impression and perish A co-like thing happens almost in the rest of Diseases For truly the Life is not immediately hurt but by a certain poyson of its own and proper to it which it hath suffered to be applyed unto it self CHAP. LXVII The Subject of inhearing of Diseases is in the point of Life THe Life which is perfectly sound hath no Disease because health presupposeth an integrity which a Disease renteth And so health and a Disease do contradict each other Also Life being extinguished is not a Disease neither doth it admit of a Disease into it Because in speaking properly that Life is a meer nothing and no longer existing But a Disease is hoc aliquid or this someting Thirdly in the next place a dead Carcass however poysonous it be or infected with corruption yet it is no way capable of Diseases Wherefore although a Body while it lives be the mansion of Diseases yet it is not the true internal efficient of Diseases much less also indeed have filths or excrements which are thought to be the constitutive Humours of us a right or property of Diseases But if any part of a Disease be to be ascribed unto inordinate fecuencies or dregginesses truly that tends wholly unto an occasional Cause For truly a Disease is a Being truly subsisting in a Body and composed of a matter and an internal seminal efficient and so also in this respect doth it far sequester it self from occasional Causes Especially because the internal beginnings of things do constitute the Being it self and are unseperably of its essential thingliness So indeed that if we speak of the Body or Soul as Humane both of them is rightly called a man although not an entire man So indeed the matter of a Disease is truly a Disease Even as also the seminal efficient thereof is truly a Disease although it be not properly an entire Disease Therefore seeing that a Disease is only in a live Body but not in a dead one it must needs be
that the Life is the immediate mansion of a Disease the inward subject yea and workman of the same But seeing Life is not essentially of the Body nor proper to the Body but that a Body without Life is a dead Carcass and a Disease is in the Life Of necessity also every matter or mansion and efficient Cause of a Disease doth not exceed the Limits of Life That is of necessity every Disease doth inhabite within the Case of the Archeus who is the alone immediate witness executer instrument as also the inne of Life but Apostemes Ulcers Filths Excrements c. Are only either the occasions of Death and Diseases or the latter products of the same raised up into a new scene or stage of the Tragedy Neither surely is it therefore a wonder that together with the Life all Diseases do depart into nothing if the Life be the immediate subject and mansion of Diseases But I long since admired that no Physitian hath hitherto known in what the essence of Diseases should shine But that they have wandred about Elementary qualities Humours Complexious Contrarieties and Dispositions Neither that indeed they have once observed that as filths are not Diseases so neither are Diseases in filths but that they live only in the Life it self and being included in the same do so arise grow and perish that seeing they are no where out of the Life they ought to be the intimate and domestick Thieves of the Life These things be spoken of the proper receptacle of Diseases Furthermore seeing a Disease is without controversie admitted to be a Being existing in us as in an inne and doth enjoy its own and singular properties and different Symptoms A Disease of necessity is not of the number of accidents because an accident is not of an accident combined with it and distinct from it self in the whole Species For truly sharpness or bitterness is not a property of whiteness blackness lightness or heat But every one of them do stand by themselves Wherefore if a Disease be a Being and not an accident if in the next place it produceth from it self not only alterations diverse dispositions weaknesses c. But moreover doth generate substances degenerating from the ordinary institution of their own nature of necessity also it ought to consist of matter and its own internal or seminal efficient Lastly seeing a Disease is internal as to the life it self it also follows of necessity that the matter of a Disease is Archeal and its efficient cause is vital And that I may speak more clearly every Disease is of necessity an Ideal efficient act of the vital power cloathing it self with a Garment of Archeal matter and attaining a vital and substantial form according to a difference of the slowness and swiftness of Ideal seeds which things indeed have been hitherto unknown by Mortals and those things which follow are as yet more largely supported with this position God made not Death and so far is he alwayes estranged from Death that he refuseth to be called the God of the Dead First of all also although Death doth sometimes invade without a Disease yet for the most part Death follows Diseases so that none doubteth but that that Death is the daughter of Diseases or the second Cause whereby and by means whereof the Life is extinguished That is Death is present but seeing God is not in any wise the Author of Death to wit by whom Death entred into Man who else was immortal and that no more or by a stronger right in the beginning of the World than at this day A Physitian must diligently enquire from whence Death doth causally invade from the beginning and even unto this day that it may from thence be manifest from whence a Disease hath drawn its integrity For truly although it be sufficiently apparent that Death doth contain as it were a privation or exstinction of Life so neither in it self or for its existence it doth not require any substantial form and much less a vital one But surely a Disease as such doth not bespeak a privation but a Being truly subsisting acting by an hurtful act of Life and ensnaring the Life So also it behoveth a Disease to consist in the form of its own thingliness which the Life can receive into it and be informed by it But seeing a Disease arose from the same Beginning as Death did neither is God ever the Author of Death It by all means follows that God is not the Author or Creator of Diseases neither therefore although a Disease hath a certain substantial form Yet it hath not Life nor a vital Light but what it hath borrowed from the Life it self to wit so far as it glistens in the Light of our Life or in that of Cattel But not that a Disease doth require or hath begged a vital Light from the Father of Lights for the being of its seed the which in it self is rather to be named a deadly or mortal thing and altogether estranged from the goodness of God the Creator Therefore although God alone doth create all the forms of all things and the Father of Lights doth give every essential form to wit a vital substantial form and so also the formal substance without any mutual competitor yet that hath not place in Diseases in the forming of which indeed man alone is chief Because the Life of Man alone containeth the second Causes of Diseases and Death Therefore because the Creator God denyeth that he made Death therefore also a Disease For a Disease standeth in the Life of Man and therefore all its quiddity or thingliness depends on the Life of man and that not only Seminally even as otherwise it is proper to all the seeds of any things whatsoever But besides also formally so that the Life of the Archeus or his Flesh and Blood are and do remain the whole formal Cause of Diseases or the effective Cause of the formes of a Disease For he who from the beginning refused to have effected Death or Diseases will never at length thence-forward be willing to have made Death nor Diseases For the Father of Lights will not give his Honour of Creating formal Lights unto any Creature except the Mortal formes of Diseases whereof as neither would he be called the God of the Dead Therefore Man remains the workman of his own Death who the day before was immortal as also of his own Diseases as if he were the Creator of Death So indeed that whereas God hath made vital Lights Man Createth Diseasie Obscure and deadly Idea's or Shapes and such an Idea doth as much differ from a vital Light as a black heat doth from Light Therefore the formal act of Death and Diseases sprang from the action of original Sin and shall so spring even unto the end of the World For the same Cause which in the beginning of the World made Death or the same second natural Cause which gave a natural entrance of Death into
humane Nature The same Cause also doth wholly at this day make Death and a Disease For it is repugnant with the Glory of the Creator not to have made Death from the beginning and afterwards when it was made by Man for him to have assumed to himself the Glory of knowing how to make it as if he ought to have learned that thing from Man But what hath been already spoken concerning Death that is by an equal right to be understood concerning Diseases Because that seeing Death and a Disease have issued from the same piont of their original therefore if God be said to give Diseases or Death it is not that now he will be the Creator of those things whose Fabrick he before wholly refused But he is permissively called the Author and Prince of Life and Death Because as he is the true and alone Author of Life and therefore doth govern it and suffer it at his Pleasure So he permits that this man doth yield or depart and the other Man fall and that second Causes do happen as well directly as irregularly whence Man dieth or a Disease groweth But the Creation of a Disease as of a Being subsisting from a seminal matter and efficient and of an Ideal and deadly evil never proceeded from God For while he had placed it in the will of Man that he might remain without Death or the same day to die the Death by the same step also he put it into Mans hand to frame Death and a Disease it self as a fore-runner and preparer of Death The entrance of Death into the nature of Man being considered even as I have elsewhere explained it by a remarkable Paradox doth most exactly prove that a Disease doth nor only consist in the vital part of Man but also that a Disease it self is bred by a seminal Idea out of the Archeus himself But I will briefly prove that thing From the concupiscence of the Flesh arose the flesh of Sin and therefore also a mortal Archeus in that Flesh and from thence by consequence also the Archeus forasmuch as he is vital acts in the flesh of Sin every action and produceth every formal hurtful and deadly act which God hath refused to do and hath suffered Man to stamp on himself the Causes of Death and Diseases Yet Man is not therefore a Creator although he maketh formal acts to himself or the substantial formes of Diseases or the hurtful ones of Life For truly that was granted unto him by virtue of the Word That on what so ever day he should eat of the Fruit of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil he should die the Death and should make guards-men appointed for his own Death And that from the very Nature of Death it self necessarily brought forth in the flesh of Sin The act therefore which is of the Essence Exsistence and Subsistence even as also of the propagation or fruitfulness of the contagion of Diseases doth altogether depend in the Life from the Life by the Life within which it is also enclosed Surely miserable are Mortals and most exceeding miserable are the Sick who have hitherto hired Physitians at a great and dear price who know not what a Disease may be from whence it may arise and in what it may consist and subsist But I admire that before me the more Antient as neither Modern Physitians have smelt this out because their sacred Anchor being for the most part in the hope of a Crisis and concerning Crises's they have devised very many things to excuse their own Ignorances For truly a Crisis or judicial sign in Diseases proveth nothing besides the Archeus if they believe their own Hippocrates who saith that Natures themselves are the only Physitianesses and helpers of Diseases For the Moon doth not make Crises's causatively but the Archeus alone who follows the Harmony of the Moon For the Moon measureth dayes hath more regared unto the proof of the actions of the Archeus than unto causality For the Moon is alwayes on the fourth day in an opposite place to that which she was in on the first day Therefore also the Archeus hath opposite powers or faculties who doth imitate the Harmonious motions of the Moon So also on the seventh day c. I conclude therefore for the knowledge of a Disease that a Disease hath either a Fewell or an excitement only from the occasional Cause or doth arise from a voluntary and proper motion and perseveres in its own contagion of a seed as while an Epilepsie or the falling Evil is once con-centred or the Gowt hath taken root doth indeed awaken of its own free accord as oft as it listeth Even as also the Disease ceaseth for two or three dayes or more and again returns at set Periods although the occasional cause in the mean time be alwayes present and so after a hurtful solutive Medicine being taken although it be expelled a few hours after yet the Archens being thereby defiled rageth and is obedient to the drunk contagion of the venom So also ready inclinations and hereditary Diseases Proper or Natural unto some one whole Family are co-bred with us Because they are Con-centred in the Life it self and are as it were the Characterical marks and imprinted seales of hurtful Diseases CHAP. LXVIII I proceed unto the Knowledge of Diseases 1. Medicine is the most occult or intricate of Sciences 2. Therefore the ignorances of past ages are excusable 3. In what thing Diseases may inhabit 4. The rise or original of Diseases 5. Whence a Disease began 6. Why a Disease is immediately in the Being of the first Motions 7. Why the essence of Diseases hath been unknown 8. A Disease hath married a vital Being 9. After what manner all seeds do issue from the invisible World 10. The rise of Efficient Causes and the property of seminal Idea's 11. All the seminal Beginnings of things are from an invisible Idea 12. How a seminal beginning receives its compleating 13. The Ideal power of seeds is declared by their ranks 14. Although Death and a Disease began from the same Beginning yet they differ in that a Disease hath Idea's but a Death not 15. The Schooles will laugh at Idea's But the Author carps at the ignorance of the Schooles 16. He proveth their ignorance at least by one Example I Have already oftentimes nor in vain asserted that Arts and Sciences have hastened unto a pitch but that the art of healing alone if it hath not gone backwards at leastwise to have stood at a stay and to have whirled round about the same deceitful point Hence also I have conjectured that the knowledge of Diseases and a Medicine depending thereon was to Man most difficult On which so many flourishing wits have for so many ages vainly bestowed their endeavours and that thing I do not hereby conjecture to be from a contingency or events alone to wit because the knowledge of Diseases hath even hitherto stood neglected But because in respect
But a Disease hath proceeded from the confusions and disturbances of an impure Archeus and being radically implanted in him hath so remained thenceforth unseparable to wit as to a formative power of infirm Idea's A Disease therefore growing together from Idea's as from its seminal efficient Beginning cloathes it self with a fit matter borrowed from the Archeus and ariseth into a real Being after the manner of other natural Beings And seeing the Idea is now formed in the Archeus he presently also begins to act these things neither is he idle but defiles a part of the Archeus In which part a ferment as the means of the efficient Cause is forthwith stirred up through an aversion from the integrity of Life and at length by assistance hereof he either defiles the more gross masse of the Body or at least-wise disturbs the family-administration of the digestions The Schooles I well know will deride the doctrin of Ptato because I have assigned seminal Idea's Ideal powers and formal activities unto Diseases for they will rather acknowledge four qualities environed with feigned Humours and do grin that these trifles are trampled on by me as not knowing whereunto the Causes Essences and Medicines of Diseases should be due Being ignorant I say that a more powerful near and more domestical Being hath mustred an army against the life of Man of whom also it was divinely said That a Mans Enemies are those of his House for they do every where notably accuse obstructions occasionally induced by the injuries of filthinesses as Diseases which obstructions do notably argue not so much the obstructer or also the thing obstructed it self as they have alwayes noted with a losty brow the majesty of an action passion and relation sound in the obstructer as if the obstruction it self or a relation it self should be a Disease but that the foundation of that relation should include the reason of a Diseasifying Cause Indeed the whole errour of the Schooles ariseth from the ignorance of a Disease which consisteth immediately in the life it self but not in dregs and filthynesses which are erroneous forreigners and strangers to the Life Good Jesus the wisdom of the Father of Lights with how great confusion of Darkness do humane judgments stumble unless thou govern them For truly while they have consecrated the Stone of the Bladder in the next place all the filths mixtures powers properties effects and liberties of effects activities and interchangeable courses unto the combates and wars of the Elements alone they have signified by the same method that they will not and cannot be wise beyond heats and colds For so they have hitherto taught without shame and judgment that the Stone doth wax dry is dryed and hardned in the midst of the Urine by heat and by the same priviledge of rashness or boldness they have neglected every thing the whole history of Nature and nativity of things and have made themselves miserable because ridiculous in the age to come Wherefore I have often complained with thee good Jesus O thou Prince of Life how difficult it would be for the Schooles who have been constantly nourished from their childhood with so great an harlotry of trifles and juggle of mists to have assumed the true Principles of things Unless thou hold the stern of the Ship and inspire a prosperous wind on the Sailes I guesse that the envious man will be ready to deliver up my Writings for Volusian Unlearned or wast Papers Help O God for the good of thine own Image that Seeds themselves may testifie the Archeus to be present with them who unless he be fructified by the onely conceived Idea of the Generater they do return into a Lump and dis-shaped Monster unto which a vigor is wanting no lesse of figuring than of unfolding of Properties Let Diseases witnesse I say although I am silent that they are Active Beings admitted into Nature by natural Principles Let them confesse according to Trismegistus that things superiour and inferiour are carried by the same Law of proportion and co-like Principles That by the meditation of one Thing Archeus or Principle all things do even to this day subsist and are continued That by the Meditation and Idea of that one they do receive the perfect Act of Superiour or Inferiour Beings What he spake is Truth and that Truth shall vanquish every strong Fortresse and pierce through all Solidities or Difficulties CHAP. LXIX Of the Idea's of Diseases 1. A division of the things to be spoken 2. The Spleen sits in the middle Trunk of the Body 3. The forming of real Images of the Phantasie is confirmed by an Example 4. Why an Idea descendeth from the Mother into the Young 5. Consequences drawn from thence 6. A measuring of the moderatenesse of Wine 7. The piercing of Idea's 8. A Child declines from his native disposition 9. What may be understood by an Agony 10. Most cruel Idea's 11. A most especial care of Educations 12. A difference in the motions of the mind 13. The doctrine of Desires 14. The rise and progress of Desires 15. A diversity of the Sin of Commission and of Omission 16. Why God hath endowed the Femal Sex with a peculiar favour 17. What the gift of a Sexual devotion may operate by it self 18. Why the Author hath treated of Morals 19. The Author repeats Eight Suppositions concerning the Idea's of the Archeus 20. The Author wanders about forreign Idea's 21. The foundations of Physiognomy 22. A Reason why Idea's are so powerful in us 23. What the Abolishment of the Cause of a Disease may be 24. A Diseasifying Cause is invisible 25. The Birth-place of Diseases 26. The Author brings forth that Divine thing of Hippocrates in Diseases unto the Light 27. Why Diseases do imitate the properties and activities of the Life 28. An Example in the Stone 29. There is need of two suppositions for an introduction of the knowledge of Diseases 30. A Conclusion drawn from thence 31. A Mechanical proof in a Bean. 32. The same in a Cancer 33. The progress of a Cancer 34. How the Beings of Creation do differ from the Beings of Prevarication or Transgression 35. The Thinglinesse or Essence of a Cancer 36. Some products of Diseases do lose an occasional causality 37. An erroneous Method of Curing hitherto kept 38. The Schooles their Causes of a Cancer are Erroneous SEeing therefore a matter and efficient Cause is required unto the Essence of a Disease and seeing the Idea is the Efficient Cause it self of a Disease both of them are to be explained And first of all I will describe the thingliness of Idea's their Efficacy and Fabrick that the Action and Nativity of effecting a Disease may clearly appear And first I will declare the Idea's conceived by Man And then I will treat of the Idea's of the Archeus And at length of strange and Forreign Idea's And Lastly I will deliver the matter making a Disease that from a Connexion of both Causes the thingliness
of a Disease and its immediate Essence may be manifest First indeed I have taught elsewhere that there is a certain unbridled imaginative force of the first motions not reduced into the power of the will being infolded in the Spleen And that the Almighty hath entertained a faculty of so great moment even in meer Membranes and almost un-bloody purses so that as well the Orifice of the Stomack as the womb it self may be of right and desert equalized to the heart To wit by reason of a notable Crasis or constitution of acting and likewise obedience performed unto it by the other Bowels From the prerogative of which power the spleen is scituated almost in the middle place between them both yet it is inclined a little more demissly or downwards because it hath undertaken the place of an entire root For it toucheth at the Stomack with its largeness in respect whereof a Duumvirate subsisteth But it reacheth the Womb with its other extream or end to wit being by its Ligaments annexed to the Loins And then I have said that although at first that which is imagined is nothing but a meer Being of Reason yet it doth not remain such for truly the Phantasie is a sealifying virtue and in this respect is called imaginative because it formeth the Images or likenesses or Idea's of things conceived and doth characterize them in its own vital spirit And therefore that Idea is made a spiritual or seminal and powerful Being to perform things of great moment which thing it helpeth to have shewn by the example of a woman with child For a woman with child if by her imaginative virtue she with great desire hath conceived a cherry she imprinteth the Idea thereof on the young even as of the plague elsewhere an Idea I say which is seminal sealing and of its own accord un-obliterable Because the Idea whereof waxeth green becomes yellow and lookes red every Year in the flesh at the same Stations of the Year wherein these Cherries do otherwise give the tokens of their successive change in the tree But why the Idea of a Cherry or Mouse is imprinted not on the mother but on the young and doth now presently wander from the imagining woman into another subject the which also hath oft-times began to live in its own quarter the cause is an uncessant nor that a feigned affection of the Mother whereby she naturally watcheth more for her Young than for her self Therefore the inward natural and unexcuseable carefulness of the Mother laying as it were continually on the Young directs the Idea bred from passions by one beam unto her Young And because the hand is the principal Instrument of activities therefore the carefulness descending unto the hand as it were for the defence of her Young receiveth the conceived Idea and proceedeth with it further on her Young But seeing Idea's are certain seminal Lights therefore they mutually pierce each other without the adultery of Union Therefore the conceived Idea of the Cherry through a supervening or sudden coming Idea of the Mothers care is directed unto the part of the Young where the hand hath touched the Body of the Mother For indeed there is alwaies a certain care for the end whereunto the hand doth operate The Hand therefore as the executive instrument of the Will deciphers the Idea of the Cherry conceived on that patt whereto the Mother hath moved her hand Whence it is even in the enterance manifest after what manner a cogitation which is a meer non-being may be made a real and qualified Being And then it is from hence manifest that the Spirit is primarily seasoned or besmeared with that Image and being once seasoned with some one kind of Idea it afterwards becomes unfit for the execution of other offices because the Idea being once conceived it is a Seal onely to perform things determined Therefore that Character of the seminal Image being once imprinted in some part of the Archeus causeth that it is thenceforth uncapable of other Offices For by reason of the skiey or airy simplicity of that Spirit the Idea's do so marry themselves unto it that the matter and its efficient Cause are not for the future separated from each other as long as there shall be an Identity or Sameliness of the supposed Character seeing the Idea it self is the seed in that Spirit which therefore cannot be spoiled of that Idea without its own dissolution For neither doth it just so happen to the Archeus as to Mettals which by melting return into their former State and do loose onely the labour of the Artificer It is alike as while a Woman with Child is affrighted by a Duck or a Drake For at that very moment the imaginative faculty imprints the Idea of the Being whereby she is affrighted on the Spirit So that that Idea is there made seminal and so indeed it doth not onely destroy the Embryo now formed but transformeth this Embryo into a Duck or a Drake Whence likewise is manifest not onely the Power and Authority of the imaginative but also that Idea hath drawn from the imagination a figurative Faculty and hath a seminal and figurative Power yea and a Power of Metamorphizing or Transforming And it follows from what hath been said before that a man of much imagination is of necessity also weakened in his Strength Because he is no otherways wearied than he who hath spent the day in tiresome Labour and should wholly fail aswell in Mind as Body unless he were refreshed with an acceptable Discourse a sociable Walking a pleasant Conversation and the more pure Wine According to that saying Wine moderately taken sharpens the Wit Neither is that moderateness to be delivered by ounces under the harsh Crisis of the Physitian while as by the Wise Man it is left free to every one according to his capacity Wine he saith was made for Mirth but not for Drunkennesse Sorrowful persons therefore being wearied exhausted and oppressed must be succoured with Wine even unto a chearfulness Therefore Idea's as it were formal Lights do pierce each other and imprint their own Images on that part of the Archeus whose Image and Seed they are Therefore the Idea's of inclinations do first pierce the Idea of the fructifying seed to wit for Manners Sciences Affections Diseases and Defects For therefore the Idea's of Women great with Child are easily co-knit unto constituting Idea's the which as they do oft-times corrupt manners otherwise good yea and also sometimes beget foolish ones so also they do not seldom amend other manners from the Womb Else for the most part Valiant Men are begotten by Valiant and Good Men For a Child by a rigid or tender Education begins to decline from his native Inclinations Then at length when he is endowed with some kind of Discretion by Exercises and Companies he falls into diverse Idea's of Affections the which he is constrained for the most part to obey for Life because they are implanted from
there is a Megrim and strangling or from a painful Aposteme of the foot a glans or kernel in the Groyn They have indeed named them consensual or co-feeling or secondary effects but have never acknowledged them even as they proceed from their own seed Even as hath been more largely demonstrated by me touching their ignorance of a Diseasifying Essence CHAP. LXX Of Archeal Diseases 1. The necessities of Archeal Diseases rushing on us of their own accord 2. The Schooles have on both sides neglected the First Mover in us 3. Aristotle Galen and Paracelsus have become mad about this Tragedy 4. An unfolding of the thing granted 5. A preparing of a Demonstration 6. The clearing up of a Question 7. An explaining of the Idea's of the Archeus 8. An Objection is solved 9. The passions of the Archeus have the Excentricities of another Market 10. The ignorances of the Author 11. The fourfold Troop of Diseases proves the Idea's of the Archeus 12. Hereditary Diseases do presuppose the Idea of a Disease to be connexed with a prolifical or fructifying Idea yet not to be produced from the intention of the Generater 13. The pleasure reflects the Archeus on its self 14. Death began from the Concupiscence of the Flesh 15. Why a Trunk in an arm doth not generate a Trunk 16. Why all the Diseases of Parents are not equally transplanted by an hereditary right 17. Silent Diseases do prove an Archeal Idea 18. The Diseases of an Astral or Starry Conjunction do prove the same thing 19. What Diseases may pertain unto an unequal strength 20. An unequal strength hath caused a beginning of the Fiction of a Catarrhe IT was already sufficiently shewn that the Archeus being even well disposed is estranged by humane Passions and Perturbations and likewise that by the forreign Image of a strange Archeus piercing him and that by the assumed destructive powers of purging Medicines and Poysons he is soon trodden under foot But while no vice of things taken doth presse him nor the stormes of external things do rush on us nor lastly Perturbations do shake it hath not been yet made known by what League Way Manner or by what Perswader and Guider the Archeus may voluntarily decline that he may defile a good thing brought so far into him by so great Labour I say a nourishable and spermatical humour under an unshaken health and what may straightway corrupt that which was prepared for and taken into the society of Life and from thence frame a dross so hostile that the Archeus may lead himself together with his Inne into the dammage of Life Of these things the Schooles have thought out nothing but that which concerns Rheumes easily rowled through their own weight and passable at that their own pleasure They have not I say made mention of the nourishable humour or liquor but onely of distilled mucks or snivels For without consideration they have leaped over this Brook and also the business of Healing hath remained neglected while they have hitherto neglected the very corrupter of these nourishable and spermatick Humours They have indeed rightly judged That nothing is moved by it self They have acknowledged indeed a First Mover and its Intelligences the motive Forms of the Heavens but the proper Movers inhabiting in the Seeds which should by Idea's prepared for them of their own free accord effect their own first movable Blas in us they have not sufficiently considered and much less have they drawn this Philosophy into Diseases and the business of Healing For it hath never been thought after what manner a seminal Being is Governour of Life may intend its own Destruction and stir up unto it self a mortal Blas seeing every thing desireth to be and remain Be gone thou Aristotle with thy whorish appetite of an impossible matter For I have else where given satisfaction unto those trifles even unto thy shame Galen being at the stroke of this Bell ere-while devolved into a Catochus snorted so that indeed he never so much as dreamed of this sound At length Paracelsus who thought the Essences of things and the liquours of these never to perish began the dissolution of Life from the disorder of the three First Things For he scarce believed the Archeus to decay who affirmed The Essences of Herbs being taken in Fodder not to die so much as in the dung of Fields Yea he saith The Archeus is never dissolved by reason of the faintings of Old Age but is stifled onely through corruptions ripened in the power of Nature And so neither doth he think the Archeus then to perish but being obvolved in strange things to be obscured and forcibly to depart as suspended from the office of acting and to return unto his first sacramental Being Surely these things are more worthy of Laughter and Pity than of reprehension For they have hitherto been busied onely about the products of Diseases and occasional things brought inwards For Paracelsus with his followers hath introduced Tartarous Humours into the innermost efficient Cause of every Disease perhaps neither before hurtful ones but when they should be coagulated at the last line of their extension or passage But I have heretofore rejected the Errors of that man and the false paint of falshood being now discovered I have better instructed a credulous posterity Because I know that the Archeus hath his own motive and alterative Blas naturally given unto him and proper unto him by a seminal virtue Because he is he who even from his first conception doth move figure alter encrease c. as well every living Creature as Vegetable at the beck of his proper appointment And so that the Archeus is he that makes the assault according to Hippocrates and without or besides whom nothing is moved felt or altered in soulified Creatures In the next place I know that the Archeus doth regularly move himself according to the Idea either left him by the Generater or another called unto him from elsewhere Whence also I have believed that it belongs to the same Being and faculty whereby through health every motion and alteration are made in an ordained regularity and whereby these same things are irregularly made Therefore a Disease no less than health must needs be naturally derived from the Archeus alone So that if Life and Health be by Images imprinted on the seed by co-like Images also but of over rash or preposterous Idea's Diseases are made But from whence may those Image-guests issue if no external thing doth shake him and no internal thing not so much as with an hereditary blemish doth disturb him For truly I have already treated of the humane Idea's of Affections Inclinations Passions and Perturbations but not yet sufficiently concerning Archeal ones while as the Archeus doth prove exorbitant through his own proper Luxury or immoderate Desire and like Protheus doth voluptuously transform himself For as regular Idea's from whence the Archeus hath all his Blas are implanted on the seed by the lust of
own Glass and with a plausible delightfulness the which hath even brought a self-love and a certain arrogancy in the first cradles of Nature yet diverse in it self by reason of the variety of Pleasures For while the Archeus doth with-draw and abstract himself as I have said yet he cannot but be in a Body as in a Place Therefore I call him abstracted not indeed from the Body but from his Court or ordinary Throne But an abstracted contemplation of the Archeus is not made in the Heart as if he did floate in the continual motion of agitation and pulses as neither are the bosoms of the Heart the Court of Counsel of the Archeus being abstracted yea neither in the very substance of the Heart but his Pallace it self is more inward To wit in the stable Spirit it self implanted in the spleen Indeed that same Image of his own self conceived in time of lust doth put on a particle of the Spirit whereby it is begotten which particle according to a Chymical account is the 8200 part of its whole And the which least particle therefore being thus decyphered passeth afterwards into the in-flowing Spirit domestique to the Heart together with the Idea of lust and desire But the Idea's of desire are only motive directresses even as else where concerning Sympathetical things and therefore the conceived Image of Mans Archeus is implanted through that direction in the material seed Wherefore as Death began from Venus or carnal lust So it is dayly hastened even as also the death of a Plant beginneth from a conceived seed as the vital faculty is thereby mightily diminished In the next place surely that is truly made and not by a phantastical deceit wherein such an Idea doth not only represent a total or entire humane Being but also individual inclinations properties and defects For from hence a trunk in one Arm doth not therefore generate an imperfect Arm because the formative Idea is a branch derived into generation not from else where than from the implanted Archeus of the Bowels Therefore hereditary Diseases do increase on the young from a Diseasie Being To wit the Idea being imprinted on the seminal Spirit seeing it is the very Disease as yet lurking and sealed in the first Life of the seed doth as yet sleep and expect its maturity until it being awakened and breaking forth from the disturbance of the Archeus be apt to bring forth its own products So indeed furies are bred in and propagated on off-springs together with the whole race of seminal inclinations Moreover also from thence it is evident that not all Diseases of the Parents are transferred on their off-spring but those only whose Idea's have defiled the Archeus of the Bowels in the Parents for neither is any occasional matter of the Gout or fury socially transferred with the integrity of a proper or natural seed For besides that that strange-born duality doth contain a barrenness of the seed also that supposed matter of the translated Disease should putrify it being vanquished by the importunities of the place and ferments and repetitions of digestions should stink putrify or vanish away in the successive multiplicity of dayes but it should not accompany unto the period of Life and stir up its own relapses But as to what belongs unto silent Diseases although acquired ones surely that thing they have proper unto them that they do rise again at the set periods of importunity For so the Falling-evil doth sometimes sleep for Months and Years yea and is never stirred up but by Venus Anger Grief Child-birth c. For neither is any matter in any place detained the fewell of the Falling-sickness Because it should either putrify wither be consumed or loose the Antient blemish of poyson The which seeing it doth not come to pass but remains for Life it hath therefore chosen another Beginning and immediate Inne than superfluities because it is sealed in the Idea of an active Being and that constant throughout the whole Life Therefore the Spirit of Life concluded in the Organs doth suffer its storms from its own Diseasie Idea's the which as oft as the inflowing Spirit receiveth from thence so often it presently brings the contagions of the same into act For as the poyson of the Falling-sickness is that which makes drunk is sleepifying and after some sort furious its original cleerly appears about the Stomach and afterwards is chiefly perceived in the Head and doth singularly affect the clients thereof So the Archeus of the Head stamps poysonous Images which are hateful to the very implanted Archeus and suspected of a poysonous Contagion and he is thereby easily made wholly Apogeal or most remote from his center Thirdly some Diseases are con-centrical in their matter and efficient Cause yet seeing they are Youngs conceived in the irregularity of the Archeus being become exorbitant hence they are ex-centrical in respect of health but con-centred in the more inward soyl of the Archeus For hitherto have the stars respect and they especially are moved at the conjunction of the Moon They do also fore-shew the hinges of winds to come For neither doth the Archeus shew himself to be obliged to the Stars unless through the importunities of Diseases Wherefore those Diseases are commonly called the Ephemerides or dayes-books of the Sick Therefore in those that are in good health the Archeus is not ruled by the Stars But because they do singularly follow the Moon which is the night Star therefore they do most rage in the night Therefore I call them the torture of the Night because it seems to be carried by a co-like Blas and to talk with its Stars and that thing surely doth not belong but to the Archeus seeing a more gross compaction of Body is not fit for this purpose they are therefore sealed in the vital Spirit implanted in the principal Organs but nothing is there sealed besides Ideal Characters The Archeus is a fountainous Being which by his own Blas doth stir up every assault or violation in us according to Hippocrates but he remains a fountainous Being how neatly soever Diseasie products are taken away For although he may sometimes vitiate as well things contained as things containing yet the Archeus reserves an imprinted vice peculiar to himself whereby he stirreth up every storm at pleasure Lastly Diseases which in the fourth place I call those under an unequal strength are inbred or obtained And because they bespeak strength they have manifestly enrouled themselves under the powers or faculties But it hath alwayes been a difficult thing in nature for a desired strength to be bestowed on all particular Organs without the complaint of some but that one doth alwayes prevaile over or is weaker than another Unto which indeed Humours or snivelly superfluities do not flow or run down from the guiltless Head even as it hath been otherwise attributed to feigned Humours and Catarrhs in the Schooles But rather the Archeus implanted in the more weak part observing the
Why sleep was sent in before Sin 10. The Seat of all Diseases 11. An unquenchable Consideration of Hunger and Thirst 12. That the most powerful Idea's of Diseases are framed in the Duumvirate 13. The largeness of the Power of Idea's is rehearsed 14. That Remedies for the most part do not dilate themselves without the cottages of the Stomack 15. The Schooles not heeding these things have erred in the application of a Remedy 16. A choice of Medicines 17. Remarkable things of the Stone for broken Bones BUt that the Roots of Life may more clearly be laid open I will compose some Beginnings or Essayes founded by me elsewhere and borrowed from thence into Positions 1. The Immortal mind the immediate Image of the Divinity after that it delegated the Government of Life unto the sensitive mortal and frail Soul although it delivered its Power unto this mortal Light yet it hath remained connexed to the same being co-bound unto it by the Symbole or Resembling mark of Life as it were the band of the nearest Knowledge Which sensitive Light of Life because it sits entertained in the Stomack as the Root of a Mortal Life therefore also the mind it self hath chosen its Bride-bed and Throne in the same place The which I have elsewhere more strongly profesly confirmed concerning the Soul 2. The Soul hath sowed its Faculties necessary for Life throughout the Organs of the Body Wherefore neither doth the Ankle See nor the Ear Walk as neither doth the Liver transchange Meats received into Chyle 3. The vital Faculty of the Organs in health sends forth healthy or sound Actions and the same as often as it is vitiated utters vitiated Actions 4. But the vital Faculty is not vitiated but by a Disease 5. Which Disease therefore is nothing but a real and actual Vice of the Faculty a positive Being I say and for that Cause consisting of Matter and an Efficient Cause after the manner of other natural Beings 6. But seeing the vital Faculty it self doth essentially include in it a Disease it self Hence it followes That a Disease it self is in the formallity of its Efficient Cause a Faculty not indeed vitiated but vitious To wit the which doth vitiate or hurt the vital Faculty And so a Disease is a Power very much like to the vital Faculties and that so intimate with them that also in some Cases it is united as well to mortal and hereditary ones as those that are centrally rooted 7. But a vitiated or hurt Faculty is either a particular one proper to some one Organ as Blindness Deafness the Palsie c. Or it is every way dispersed in the common vehicle of the inflowing Archeus by way of property of Passion of a secondary Passion or by way of Sympathy And indeed however and after what manner soever a Faculty is hurt at least-wise it is discerned and clearly seen every where to undergo a vital Vice and that every Disease doth immediately inhabite in the Principle of Life that is in the Archeus himself 8. For all Diseases in general do sit in the universal beginning of Life whether in the mean time the Archeus be particularly molested by some Organ or whether he be stirred up and enraged by the Fountain of Life and a quickned or enlivened Root For although that may vary the Species of a Disease yet such a variety doth not take away the maker of a Disease 9. The Sensitive Soul is chief over all its vital Faculties whether they are fomented by distributed Organs or next by the common Archeus At least from thence it dependeth that the Cure almost of all Diseases consisteth and is perfected in the radicall Inne of Life that is in the Seat of the Soul and Center of Life Unless sometimes perhaps a certain Organical part shall drink up a Disease proper unto it self and the vital Faculty its guest shall marry its self unto the same 10. Whence it becomes evident that almost all Curing of Diseases Wounds and likewise those that are Chyrurgical ones I except not is to be solicited in the Stomack and in its Duumvirate and so neither there to be incongruously sought after or solicited For so also oft-times the more outward defects are taken away by an internal Remedy of the Stomack being else vainly attempted by external Medicines It is no wonder therefore that Remedies do scarce exceed the command order of the Stomack or are materially farther dispersed Which things being thus premised by the way I will subscribe some Priviledges of the Stomack 1. And First of all That is a right proper and peculiar to the Stomack that it doth primarily Cook for it self but for the whole Body onely by accident indirectly and by an extraordinary right before the other Members Because Divine Ordination hath so suffered it to be that it may prepare a nourishment of the rude matter of the meats for all the others But the Stomack it self is immediately nourished by the Chyle confected by it self no otherwise than as the Root of Vegetables is nourished by Leffas the Juyce of the Earth But not that the Stomack doth allure Blood from the Liver for its nourishment as neither doth the Root of Vegetables fetch back again the Juice once dismissed from it self and dispersed upwards from the Bark that it may thereby be nourished Wherefore the Stomack enjoys a few Veines for the Office of so great an heap and a Vessel of so great capacity To wit because it is not nourished by venal Blood according to the accustomed manner of other Members but it is fed onely with the Chyle the which it afterward suits into a Spermatick Liquor agreeable to it self 2. But the Veines of the Stomack do not therefore diffuse Blood out of themselves neither doth the Stomack being hurt by a Wound weep forth Blood And the same right the rest of the Membranes have borrowed from the Stomack unto themselves 3. The Stomack-Veines do not transmit any thing of the concocted Chyle of Mcats or suck is unto them that they may derive the same unto the Port Vein according as otherwise the Meseraick Veins are wont to do And that thing I have else where more strongly confirmed concerning the Digestions 4. In the next place neither do the Veins of the Stomack imploy themselves in the nourishment of the Stomack 5. And therefore the Stomack-Veins being full of pure Blood have a free vital undisturbed faculty appointed for the sucking of the Chyle or dispersing of the Blood Either of which two notwithstanding is domestical to all the other Veines 6. Yet the Veins and Arteries being knit unto the Orifice of the Stomack are not in vain extended but the Soul being entertained in the slenderness of the Membrane of the Stomack as if it were not there yea being scarce tied to the place breathes forth the breath of its Life into the Organs to wit the Heart Spleen Liver Brain Kidneys Stones c. after an unsensible manner and through an
Name as they have acknowledged an Occasional that is a Remote Cause By Reason whereof I have commanded this Division to remain in their retained Sir-names CHAP. LXXV A Division of Diseases 1. The Essence of a Disease is Decyphered by way of Repetition 2. The Method observed in Explaining 3. The Division of a Disease 4. What Things may be called things received 5. What Received Injected things are 6. What Things Retained are HItherto I have spoken of Diseases as it were in stead of a Preface Now afterwards I will touch at the Scheme of the same For a Division also affords Members which being explained by course do bring Light thereunto Truly every Disease the which being once spoken may suffice for the future is framed indeed by the Archeus in his own self But in that part of himself wherein it is sealingly constituted it also materially there consisteth as it were in its proper and seminary Inne But for the most part it hath either an exciting occasional matter or produceth a Product from it self the occasional Stirrer up of a Secondary Disease But for its Efficient Cause it hath a diseasifying Idea Whereof as its matter is drawn and borrowed from the vital Archeus himself so also no otherwise doth the Idea spring from thence because it is that which is stamped and polished by the Archeus himself Therefore there are in the first place as many Species of Diseases as there are of diseasie Idea's For there are no more as neither any fewer Because every Disease draws its Beingness from a diseasie Idea of quiddity or thingliness By consequence therefore there are as many Species or particular Kinds of diseasie Idea's as there are diversities of Filths in us For whether those Filths shall enter from without or have been first unfolded within and have arisen from the Errors of Digestions or Lastly whether they have begun from a nourishable and vital Juice that is all one in this place In the next place also there are as many diseasie Idea's in us as there are Heirs of Potestative or Facultative Beings To wit as when a too violent solutive Medicine is taken For although it self be soon ejected through the Paunch yet the Venome of the same ceaseth not to remain domestical in the Stomack and Bowels To wit so that a stinking Flux doth persevere even until Death So also besides some Poysons having lost their primitive matter do sometimes by a lingering slaughter and long one being left on Posterity mournfully slay them And as well if that be received from without as if begotten within Finally so also Hereditary Diseases and their Consorts are seminally co-bred in us issuing from their own Idea's So indeed the Gout Falling-Evil c. do without a visible matter of Filths unfold their Harmonies and are prolonged for Life Because they have obtained Idea's to be confirmed in the Archeus or to be as it were intimately allyed and adhering unto the implanted Spirit the Governour And the which therefore do molest onely at their set Termes and Periods native unto them Which things being laid down and now known I consequently say that in the Expedition of the dividing of Diseases I will follow the variety of occasional Causes Not indeed that I would even from the Beginning invert the Names and every Conclusion or Limitation of Diseases unto the much tiresomness of the Readers who should either hardly bear such an every way Novelty or might attain it or follow it with too much trouble and therefore although I name an occasional Cause for Diseases yet I will not have it to be understood as if the occasional Cause were the Disease it self But rather that a Disease as an invisible Being may be understood to be occasionally stamped by an External matter Therefore First of all I appoint two general kindes of Diseases To wit Those Received and Retained But those things which are Received are Injected Conceived Inspired or at length Taken Which Four I will first expound by course And then I will soon after Treat of things retained as well in respect of the Body and Distributions as of Digestions and Transmutations Things Received therefore are those which do traiterously enter into us from without do disturbe or affect the Archeus so as that from Counsel hurtful to himself he frameth a Diseasie Idea within himself and Seals it in his own material part And so becomes a true Parent of a true Disease For things Received before their Enterance and Application did shew a Fore-Caution and Preservation but not a Curing Because indeed there was not yet a Disease Neither is Curing but from a Disease alone But from what time things once Received have made but even onely a privy Enterance and have been even Admitted by the way they do by and by Invert or Disturbe the whole Family Administration and quiet of the Archeus But things Retained do proceed from our Vice and Defect For Superfluities are for the most part either taken in or sprung up within in our own Possessions the which Being as it were Citizens expelled out of our Common-wealth as the Enemies of Unity and Concord they have no part in the Inheritance of Life with us CHAP. LXXVI Things Received which are Injected or Cast in 1. Why the Schooles speak nothing of things Injected 2. A Three fold Rout of Atheists is here found among Christians 3. The Ballance of Karichterus 4. A perswasion of the Devil 5. How much the Devil can act in Diabolical exercises 6. Eight Positions brought hither 7. The Devil hath not a free but a constrained Will from his depravedness 8. Satan miserably deludes his 9. Diabolical means do operate by the force of a Covenant onely but they have not on operative force in Nature 10. An objected Argument is Solved 11. The top of Operation in Bewitching Effects 12. Why the Devil is Impotent 13. The Devil can onely freely will Evil. 14. The Act of Man is proved in Bewitching Works 15. The Prerogative of Man in Operating 16. What the Desire may Operate in this Thing 17. Things Buried or Hung up how they proceed not the first Enterer being unknown 18. In vile little living Creatures there is a Directive Power of their own Will 19. After what manner Enchantments are transferred by a naked touching 20. Why a Repercussion or Reflection doth reach to a concoived Enchanting Verse or Miscievous Act. BUt I thus call Received things Injected they are those which are as it were Spiritual Wonders committed by the co-workman of Satan Of these things the Antients are silent Because they are those who also have neglected most Treatises of the more manifest things because they have known none from a Foundation For truly they had rather admit of the wickedness of inhumanity and cruelty than diligently to search into the knowledge of Injected things and acknowledge or confess their Ignorance thereof And they choose sooner to behold their neighbour fainting under the extreamest howlings than that
are not Identified or Samified in Union with the Archeus or a Member which is ill affected And so neither is it able to perform a stable Effect from a Union of the Agent with the Sufferer the which otherwise is granted unto Poysons Those therefore are touching Glasses which disperse the natural endowment which the Almighty glorieth in that he bestowed it on things cropped from and pulled out of the Earth the concrete body of that Glass remaining entire For as some things being hanged on the Body and born without the Body or more strictly tied to the Body do plainly take away very many sicknesses or at least-wise suspend them So some famous Remedies are stable and do produce a stable effect from themselves There are also others which not so much through the force of a touching and nourishing Glass as of an Odour easily passing thorow do prostrate great Diseases to wit those arising and cherished onely by an Indignation of the Archeus For there are also many Remedies which have a certain notable Taste whereby although they are not Digested by the Stomack by a passive transmutation yet they separate the pure from the impure although it be the farther remote from them as they draw the Archeus being as it were bound and obliged unto their endowments to cause such Effects Yet the Glasses which I name touching ones are therefore for the most part fixed without Odour and Taste and do move the Archeus not so much by cleansing and sequestring Impurities as by appeasing his Griefs Disturbances and a continual and successive substituting of Nourishing Idea's For Paracelsus dispraising all fixed Metallick and Mineral Remedies yet as being unmindful of himself commends Mercurius Diaphoreticus being very sweet yet fixed and not mutable in the Fire And the which notwithstanding is a contemner of every labour of the Digestions yet it doth in Diseases as much as a Physitian and Chyrurgion will of right wish or desire For the sweetness of its Sulphur sports in the Superficies but the Mercurial part being covered over by an external Sulphur lies hid neither doth it operate unless by a Glass shining thorow the Sulphur and so affecting the Archeus at its own pleasure Otherwise that sweetness of the Diaphoretick is of the Sulphur being drawn out of the fire of Venus which is of the same savour with the Diaphoretick Wherefore that Fire is harmlesly Anodine Soporiferous or Sleepifying an Appeaser of Pain and Allayeth all Worth Grief Motion Disturbance and Tempest of the Archeus And likewise it imprinteth on the Archeus a will of Resolving of all coagulated things In which respect it takes away every Disease occasionally materially and by way of violent assault which is attributed unto any Excrements whatsoever Likewise it is here plain to be seen That that Mercurius Diaphoreticus remaining indeed in the Stomack undigested nor piercing inwardly because it perseveres unchanged being fixed stubborn and untamed in the form of a Powder doth cause all the aforesaid Effects not indeed that its very self doth work those things effectively efficiently But because it stirs up the Duumvirate the performer of all things For these things ought thus to be done not indeed by an actual co-touching of Excrements which are banished and led forth bound but by the impression of its natural endowment for Stones have great Virtue on the Archeus the which is the Effecter of all Curing even as he is the very Original and Fountain of Diseases from whence indeed I have shewn above that every Disease doth immediately after sin thenceforth daily issue A Wounded man Cured himself onely by Garden-Nightshade and that without a Scarre Note how that may happen therefore by applying it about the Seat of the Soul What and after what manner it may inwardly appease and pacifie The same thing Assarum performeth Those things ought to be done without Fire In Stones there is great Virtue The Stone for Broken Bones it is a fixed Stone as also not Calcinable It Cures a Broken Bone being taken in by the Mouth And after what manner that may be done 2. Doth or may it not Cure the affect of the Stone Gout c. CHAP. LXXIX BUTLER I Have already in the foregoing Treatise sufficiently demonstrated that a Disease doth not exist but in living Bodies and that it hath not onely a vital body for its proper subject but moreover that the very intrinsecal Organ or Instrument of Life is the workman of a Disease and its internal efficient Yea I have demonstrated that both the matter and spiritual air of the Archeus himself is not onely the Object on which all the glasses of Diseases are first sharpened but also that it is the very matter whereof and about which the vehement motions overflowings and exorbitances of that workman do happen about his own destruction Indeed that such is the foolish off-spring of Sin while man turns himself away from God nothing but thenceforth foolishly to convert all things into his own destruction But seeing every thing in Nature subsisteth onely by a matter and an efficient Cause the which also I have elsewhere most amply taught in a peculiar Treatise and a thing in Nature doth therefore require to be defined onely by its immediate and proper matter and its internal efficient Cause for truly the whole essence of a thing and its existence are nothing besides a connexion of both the same Causes certainly now it is sufficiently manifest that a Disease is the very vital matter of the Archeus into which the seminal Character or Idea of the Archeus being ill affected is bred or inserted Whether in the mean time the Archeus doth persevere in that his abomination from the right path I say in a hurtful disjoynting or next shall spread the same Idea's of his Anger on some Product and shall afterwards cease that is even all one in a Disease seeing it is unto this by accident to be nourished or not from a violent assaulting Cause For truely the Archeus doth sometimes presently seal an Idea conceived by himself on some excrement of his Body the which he prepareth if he shall not find that excrement before prepared for him From whence also and wherein a Disease is thenceforth by it selfe able to subsist But elsewhere the Archeus doth not wander far without the matter defiled by him and therefore he doth either increase the same by a continual nourishment or through the conjoyning of a resembling mark is admitted into the implanted Spirit of the Organs and doth from thence as from a Tower either continually fight against the faculties or strength of the Members or at least-wise doth sleep and awake at set Periods because in the vital Principle he hath branded himself with the implanted Guest and houshold Inhabitant of Life and hath not flowed onely in the Spirit of the fluid Archeus Moreover whatsoever of filths is cast in admitted or bred up through an error of living whether that thing may follow the Family
for the most part mock every endeavour of Artificers so that when they are thought to be most opened they have slackened nothing from their antient bolts But Quick-silver although it seem to be a certain trembling thing and so also in this respect very passable yet there is nothing in the whole race of Nature alike con-closed even as elsewhere I have in a long Tract demonstrated against our fugitive Servants Therefore scarce the hundred thousandth of Artificers not only of labouring Servants doth obtain the Arcanums which are to be prepared of Sol Lune and Mercury There are therefore four Mettals besides which do more easily obey the guidance and desire of Artificers So that Paracelsus doth not vainly boast that with Lead alone he was able to vanquish perhaps two hundred sorts of Diseases And nothing doth so alike victoriously act into the radical moisture as the first Being of Copper or is more bountifull unto long Life than the Sulphur of Vitriol Because it is that which doth therefore point out the Sulphur of the Phylosophers Finally Mars although he be the cheapest in price and despised for his numerous off-spring yet he is not reputed by Paracelsus the last from his fighting Nature Truly Metallick Bodies are eâ—â—ally closed with the Seal of a safe or harmless Homogeniety or sameliness of kinde a cording to their Mercuries but their Sulphurs are never wroth with us they afford mutual converses if so be they are rendred familiar unto us Furthermore I a long time and carefully so meditated about the Stone of Butler that I thought of nothing else at the time of dreaming For I did oftentimes see the young ones of Chymistry taking preat gains who should pour forth bright-shining Trochies like unto the little Stone of Butler Wherefore I long afterwards attempted the framing thereof and at length although I affirmed something to my self to be undoubtedly the same little Stone which I had seen in Butlers possession yet the business succeeded not according to my desire And at length I knew that my errours had proceeded from an accustomed and antient errour of the Schooles For how many soever have hitherto intended to heal by a removal of the occasional Cause these consequently and necessarily have had need of a certain delay and quantity of a Remedy to wit whereby they might attain a superiority But they who shall hereafter intend to trample on a Disease only by a restauration and restitution of the successive alteration of the Archeus to wit they contending to induce a placable Ferment Surely these Men shall attain their scope by despising the quantity of a Remedy and only by the touch of a fermental Odour I therefore being as yet seduced by an antient Errour Ignorant of a Diseasifying Essence did believe that every great Disease was to be put to flight not but by the great quantity of a Remedy and a long delay of healing To wit I meting out the greatness of a Remedy not indeed from a Power of Endowment but from the meer and only abounding of its quantity For I after the manner of the Schooles deriving Examples from artificial things have also erred with the Doctrine of the same For I being seduced thought as two Horses do draw more strongly than one alone and a whole Loaf nourisheth more powerfully than a Crum thereof so likewise I thought that for a restorative Remedy of the Archeus the quantity of Ounces and Drams was required which might exceed the products of Diseases in strength and weight Indeed I had not yet laid aside the contracted blemish of an antient Errour whereby Diseases are measured only by their occasional Cause and the weight thereof but not by the true efficient Cause of Diseases For I being as yet sufficiently confirmed did not yet call to mind that every Disease was framed and governed by the Archeus of Life to wit by the Life it self And much less did I as yet thorowly weigh that the erring Life would not be conquered and subdued by the quantity of a Remedy Wherefore I soon again considered of what I said before To wit That the Tooth of a mad Dog of a Viper of a wood Serpent or Land Snake although their Spittle were first cleansed or wiped off in a Garment yet that it would kill by its touching alone without any of its quantity I considered likewise that a Liquor was known unto me wherewith the Hand being gently anointed and it being dryed up if the Chin of a Man should touch at that Hand the haires of the Beard Eye-brows and of the whole Body would a little after fall off For if these kind of Poysons do by a gentle touching extinguish the vegetative Life yea and that of the haires which do oftentimes grow after burial that also Porestative or Powerful Remedies to wit those which will restrain the Errours of the Life only by their touch would by an easie Compendium or breviary and without any perceivable quantity besmeare and pacific the Archeus Indeed I was the more slowly able to apprehend that thing being partly prevented by the aforesaid Errours of the Schools and partly because I saw that if Poysons did kill by one only grain they did the more powerfully and speedily effect that by one dram For I did not yet thorowly consider that all Diseases did proceed from the Archeus erring or enraged and so that a Potestative Remedy hath a super-eminent and no vulgar goodness whereby it restoreth the Errours of the wroth and angry Archeus And much less had I as yet thorowly weighed that therefore a Potestative Medicine ought to be inwardly admitted as it were without the knowledge of the Archeus Otherwise if he doth suspect his turbulency of indignation and alteration to be set upon or attempted by Remedies certainly he presently falls down into furies he will not admit of helpful things who being himself now Apogaeal or remote from his Center doth through his own Errour prove exorbitant and will rise up into a greater wrothfulness and conceptions of stubbornness the fabrick of his own Diseasifying Idea Wherefore I have most nearly approached unto the touchings of Butler with the top of the Tongue alone or unto Remedies administred in the weight of half a grain For I for want of a name have called the little Stone of Butler and a Potestative and Fermental Remedy of that sort after our mother Tongue Drif which denoteth a virgin Sand or Earth and likewise in sensitive Creatures a chasing or expelling Animosity or Sturdiness no otherwise than as boyling Sand doth shake off whatsoever forreign thing is inserted in it Therefore first I will shew the things required in Drif and afterwards the manner of its composition so far as is permitted to a Phylosopher I will declare least I shall prostrate Roses before Swine 1. Drif therefore first of all even as I have said requires that it be a certain Metallick Body Because it is that which by its long delay doth signifie
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
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
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
far more hard than those and in its Mine more separated from the mouth should refuse the inbred foot-step of dryness and a conceived hardness and then that it shall give up its name for a Clientship unto those Remedies And therefore whatsoever thing resisting the second and third qualities shall not obey a Medicine that being as it were untamed with the Elke and as it were Monstrous being harder than a Club and Fatal is Assigned to the Catalogue of uncurable Diseases From whence we may understand that the whole Method of curing the Stones doth stand committed not unto a perfect but onely unto a dissembled healing For truly they have earnestly laboured hitherto in nothing but in excluding the Stone already made but they have in no wise gone to prevent it in the making as neither hath any thing been consulted of for the rooting out of the impression or ready inclination to the Stone Therefore the curing of the relapses of the threatning stones hath remained imperfect As if by reason of that other Diseases cryed Triumph because that Providence being sufficient for all ends should seem to have dealt more liberally with them but that for the one Treacherous Lurker the Stone as having Hostilely and Traiterously entred it had refused Remedies But now I will give you the Decrees of Juniours by their Ranks or Orders And first indeed it shall not be for a Vice to have declined from their appointed Rules when as even hitherto we observe their Aids to be for the most part uncertain and do experience nothing but a feeble help and seeing our purpose is concerning the Life and safety of our Neighbours For if other Arts do profit dayly there is no reason as if the Virtue of our Mind were barren in us why the Rules of Predecessours should deter us from a further search into the truth and should thrust us into despair For by the onely Decree of Aristotle That we must not dispute against him that denies Principles Phylosophy being brought into obscurity hath so remained For if we following the Flock of those that went before us not because we must go so but because it hath been so gone must not command likewise neither must we be servants to the most free gifts of judgement The Fire therefore which is the finder out of Arts doth perfectly teach those of Hermes School by Mechanical and manifest workmanships That the Original of the Stone doth not consist of the matter and efficient cause assigned For neither for that reason is it a wonder that the causes being not sufficiently known improvident and unlike counsels have been hitherto described for this grief As to what therefore concerns its material Cause that is a certain Stonifying juice for for want of a true word of expression it is so called by me so intimately besprinkled on very many Liquours that it may seem to be well nigh Natural unto the same neither is it otherwise subject unto a Divorce than for that Cause of Calaâ—â—ties that it may render us perpetually mindful of our thousand-fold frailty Therefore it is not a muckie Snivel not Phlegm In the next place we do not think that any Excrement or Putrifyable thing of ours hath suggested a matter for the Stone but it is an Excrement of things a Traytor we have called it Tartar perfecting its Tragedy within by a Hostile Coagulation the which when it is not rightly separated in the Sheaths Dedicated unto the separation of an Excrement surely it creeps inwards as being mixt with the Natural and Vital Juices But it being at length called back unto examination because it is plainly unfit and uneffectual for Assimilation and the information of the Soul it either goes forth together with the Urine as it were repenting of its conceived Treason or if it shall the more subtilly marry the Vital nourishment it more inwardly or fully enters and presently after the time of its Digestion brings forth the dissociable affects of its own Family in us and Monstrous Conditions and Ensigns plainly Tyrannical whereunto Nature being at length trodden under foot is compelled to hearken All which things shall appear even by one onely and that not a Forreign Example For it is easie to be seen that every one of us being also very well constituted or in a very good frame of Body do send forth a Healthy Yellow Coloured clear Urine void of Sediment and Muckiness the which if it doth also happen to be the longer kept even in a clear Glass yet the space of some hours afterwards being passed we from thenceforth call it a Stony Urine because on every side above and beneath throughout the whole Jurisdiction of the Urine the Urinal is infected with a thin sand adhering to its sides oh what more plainly than the Tartar of Wine hath given the name of a Coagulable otherwise a Forreign excrement in us notwithstanding neither was there therefore any presence of a more grosse visible Lee nor were there any Testimonies of heat present especially while that Sand became Conspicuous For truly the Urin had already long before waxed cold before it had consulted of Coagulating But yet there is on both sides the like Reason Essence Cause and Property of the Stone arisen in us with that which of the same Identity and material subject is Coagulated abroad in the Urine about the Urinal I will add further that some detain their Urine for honesties sake for some hours without any appearance of Sands the which Urine notwithstanding being received in a Glass hath without all doubt separated its Stone in an equal time From hence therefore at least-wise it follows that the sliminess of matter is not for the material Cause of the Stone truly it consists in the Race or off-spring of a more hidden and therefore of a deeper search in Nature than that we should think its Natural Generation to be enclosed in sliminesses and the first qualities alone For whatsoever things are made in Nature we must reckon them to be made from a necessity and Flux of a Seed The Seeds therefore of Stones do lay hidden in the Juices until at length the Flux of the Seed being ripened the last Ordination or end of the same breaks forth into Act. Therefore we have taught above that the Stone owes it Family unto nought but a Stonifiable Juice after the Similitude of Fountains in the greater world And therefore they Err who contend that a Juice doth arise in the most clear and transparent Waters being furnished with a Stonifying Power as not seeing so being ignorant that a Stone doth arise in Phlegmatick Clayinesses and Muckinesses For truly that is not to savour any thing beyond Sense nor beyond Rusticks Wherefore an Analysis or solution by the fire is to be undertaken the which indeed as it proposeth a disclosure of Bodies so a certain Conjuncture of the same before our Eyes and promiseth a Man more certainty in his Study than the vain Dreamed Doctrine which from
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
of Long Life For first of all the Moon doth not heap up or expel this venal Blood although the purgation of the Womb be co-incident with the course of the Moon For that coincident is unto both terms or limits by accident for otherwise if that purgation of the Woman should be from the Moon it self verily all Women should be Menstruous on the same day and at least-wise those which should dwell in the same Climate Or at least-wise all young Virgins should likewise suffer the same with the new of the Moon which is false For if some Ships do follow one Pretorian or chief leading Ship which in a dark night hath a Lanthorn in stead of a Flag The Lanthorn indeed affords onely a Sign of their following but the Wind Stern and Governours of the Stern shall be the immediate efficient Cause of their following So the Moon like a Torch finisheth the task of her circle in four weeks and six hours So also a Woman for Reasons straightway to be added For the Woman ought to encrease and nourish her conceived generation from her own blood unto a just stature of the Young and to feed the Infant being brought forth with her own blood being turned into milk Therefore she had need of a greater plenty of venal Blood and therefore while it should not be supt up for those ends it should also become superfluous and by consequence be voided or expelled Yea although a Woman eats and drinks much less then a Man yet she abounds with more blood That is the shop of the venal Blood makes more arterial Blood in the Woman than in Men even out of a more sparing meat and Drink From whence it of necessity in the next place follows That in the Woman more is turned into a profitable nourishment and in the Man that more is changed into excrements But how it is manifest what or of what sort that superfluous blood may be let all know that the venal Blood of Man ought to be renewed in a space of daies wherein the Moon measures all her particular courses through the Zodiack For that is the space wherein the venal Blood is kept in its Balsam it being longer reserved it is corrupted For truly he that aboundeth with Blood it must needs be that by nourishing he spends the same on the family of Life or that he transchangeth it into fatness phlegms of the Latex or other drosses as Sweat or diseasie Excrements For the Woman hath small pores the fleshy Membrane under her upper skin doth enrich her with much fat neither therefore can she consume so much Blood superabounding in her as she daily makes or concocts The bound therefore of the course of the blood being finished that which is barren becomes all superfluous the which therefore Nature is busied in casting forth and sequesters it unto the veins of the Womb as unto its appointed emunctories For the blood departs unto those proper places nor those likewise strange ones because for the ends already declared the Menstrues is the superfluity of the Blood of the Woman alone And it becomes burdersome by the very title whereby it is superfluous And as yet by so much the more because then it puts off the vital Spirit no othewise than as some Wines after the Years end become strengthless For these ends therefore and by these means the venal Blood is made an Excrement afterwards a poyson and attaines worse faculties in going But at length it assumes the horrid properties of a new dead carcase For therefore the Menstrues of the first dayes is more infected than that which flows forth in the following dayes For although the expulsion of the Menstrues be the proper office of the Veins Yet the collection of the same even as also its renewing and sequestring do belong unto the Monarchal Archeus of the Womb. Therefore indeed that which is most hateful is the more speedily cast out of doors whereby it first separated it self from the good blood and for this cause it being the longer detained about the Veins of the Womb for that cause also it is the more poyson some In the next place although this Poyson masks it self with the shew of venal Blood yet the favour of the vital Balsam being by degrees laid aside it ascending unto the malignity of a cadaverous or stinking Liquor assumeth the disposition of a poyson and hath degenerated from the former nature and properties of Blood The which handy-craft operation proveth For truly a Towel that is dipped in the Menstrues if it be plunged into boyling water it contracts an un-obliterable spot for the future and the which at least-wise in the third washing falls out of the Towel it being made full of holes no otherwise than if it should be corroded by the sharp Spirit of Sulphur That which after another manner is a forreigner to the bloud of a Man whether it shall flow forth through the Nostrils Wounds Hemerhoides or Bloody-flux or next if it shall fall out from Ulcers like a more wan clot From whence also it is manifest that the Menstrues hath an aluminous tinging property any besides a cadaverous sharp poyson fit for gnawing or erosion But as it once enjoyed the Seal of the Archeus of Life whereof it being afterwards deprived it obtains a fermental faculty full of a powerful contagion as also hostile sharpnesses For that Blood through its divers degrees of malignity stirs up diverse passions within on the miserable Woman For when as it being once sequestred from the other blood unto the Inns of the Veins of the Womb hath received the aforesaid sharpness of malignity and from thence is supped back again into the branches of the hollow vein by a retrograde motion of revulsion which is made through large cuttings of a vein or symptomatical wrothfulnesses which are the stirrers up of Fluxes of the Womb it causeth Swoonings Heart-beatings Convulsions and oft-times horrible stranglings But if the Menstruous Blood being not yet derived unto the Veins of the Womb or plainly severed from the rest and so neither hath as yet had its utmost mischief or corruption It is detained with a certain inordinacy and stirs up divers conspicuous Symptomes in many places From what hath been said before therefore it is manifest That Women great with young Nurses weak or sick Persons blood-less Women those that are become Lean those that are not of a ripe age and swift or circular movers do want Menstrues because also Superfluities It is also false that all Menstruous Blood without distinction is poysonsom or hurtful And likewise that we are nourished and grow big in the Womb by the Menstrues For truly the venal Blood of the Woman hath not the condition of Menstrues before that untill it being unfit for nourishment is enfeebled or deprived of Life and brought bound unto the sink For neither doth he who drinks Wine drink Vinegar although this be made of that As neither is he fed with Excrements who eateth
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
by heat alone becomes a stone as they will themselves For because a stone melts not by fire even as otherwise mettals do therefore they conjecturing of Nature from a Negative have supposed they have untyed every knot And this grosse wit ought to have been suspected by every one long since if they all did not sleep a diseased drowsie sleep For what will they say of Sulphur which flowes or melts with the fire Hath frozen water or earth given a beginning to Sulphur because it melts Or what will they say of the condensing or co-thickning of Glass which is again dissolved by the same heat whereby it is made And what lastly concerning Salt which by one degree of heat is coagulated and waxeth dry and by another degree thereof is melted and a gain is dissolved by moist things Surely it is a shame to stay any longer in Aristotelical trifles and the Fables of Elementary qualities while we must diligently search into the causes and original of things Wherefore Paracelsus first taught our Ancestors that all Minerals which he believed to be materially made of the conjunction of the four Elements and elsewhere onely of the three Beginnings consisted chiefly of water and so that they are the fruits of the Element of water no otherwise than as Vegetables are the fruits of the earth But it hath not been alway unknown to me that all Bodies which are believed to be mixt are materially onely of water none excepted But that their Body is constrained or coagulated by the necessity of a certain proper and specifical seed for Ends known onely to the Creator from their cause which proposition I have proved to the full in the beginning of Natural Philosophy It hath also been hitherto neglected after what manner these seeds of things may come to light may cover themselves with the wrapperies of Bodies and dispose the same and how those very seeds may at length of necessity hearken to the importunities of Bodies Wherefore neither shall it be unacceptable in this place briefly to repeat the progress and flux of Seeds to their form and their maturities in Minerals out of the Doctrine by me elsewhere more largely delivered For indeed if a Stone be not made of a Stone it must needs be that stonifying includes the Generation of some certain new Being but every Generation presupposeth some kind of seed which may dispose the matter to a Being in potentia or possibility seeing nothing which is not vital is able to promote it self to perfection And therefore it would be a foolish and accidental perfection which should proceed from a Body without an internal Guide and an end appointed unto it Therefore if a Body be dispositively distinguished from the internal Efficient and doth issue in its production unto ends proposed unto it in Nature then also the Etymologie of a seed doth of right belong unto it because it proceedeth wholly from an incorporeal Beginning But this Beginning shall easily be granted by me to issue forth in vital things from the Image or according to the Idea framed by the Conception or cogitation of the Generater which therefore is called the imaginative power or faculty But that inanimate things have seminal Gifts implanted in their first Beings which after the manner of the Receiver do also proportionably after some sort answer to the Imagination the Sympathy and Antipathy of inanimate things do teach For a non-sensitive Body namely the Loadstone must needs after some sort feel the Scituation of the Pole or North star if it direct it self of its own accord unto it but is not drawn by the Pole even as in the Book of the Plague I teach by manifest Arguments Likewise that it feels or perceives Iron if neglecting the Pole it by a Choice inclines it self to the Iron which particulars least they should be here after a tedious manner repeated by me it is sufficient thus to have supposed them by the way Moreover This very Idea and perfect act of a new Being to wit the seminal efficient cause doth even in unsensitive things perform its office no otherwise than if it were strong in Life and Sense which Idea or imaginous likenesse cloathes it selfe with the Ayr of its own Archeus and by meanes thereof doth afterwards perfect the dispositions and Organs of the Body and at length compleateth those things which in the delineation of its own seminal Image are designed it for Ends known to God alone And in this respect also every Creature depends originally on God For this God hath freely put into living Creatures and plants a seminal faculty of framing such an Idea that is a fruitfulnesse of multiplying and raising up Of-spring by vertue of the Word Encrease and multiply to endure for Ages The which under the correction of the Church I thus borrow from the Scriptures In the Beginning the Earth was empty and voyd For surely it was beset with a double emptinesse or vacuity The which notwithstanding is not so said of the Element of water For the earth had not as yet minerals in its Bosom if it were void Indeed the earth was a meer and pure Sand not yet distinguished by a numerous variety and ranks of minerals But the Spirit of the Lord was carried upon the Great Deep of the Waters Not indeed that that carrying was not an empty idleness wanting a mysterie or a voluptuous ease of swimming but it contained the mysterie of a Blessing whereby the water might replenish the vacuity of the earth in one of its emptinesses with Fruits But on the other hand might satisfie the vacuity of the earth and fill up its emptinesse by Vegetables and living Creatures Therefore before the Light sprang up all mettals and minerals began at once in the floating of the divine Spirit Of which thing first of all the hidden lights of mettals imitating the Stars and the foregoing Testimonies which are wont to shine by Night in Mine-making Mountains do perswade me At leastwise the Spirit of the Lord which filled the whole earth being now earnestly desirous of Creating sealed by its Word the fruitfull Idea of its desire in the Spondill or Marrow of the Abysse of the Waters which in an instant brought forth the whole wealthy diversity of Stones Minerals and Mettals whereby it replenished the emptinesse of the earth with much usury which vaculty indeed living Creatures and plants were not able sufficiently as neither suitable to fulfill But the Pavement or Pantafle of the earth which this most rich of-Spring of waters was entrusted with for the filling up of its vacuity is called by Paracelsus the Trival-line the Womb that was great with Child with the seeds of minerals wherein the Lord implanted Reasons or Respects Endowments and seeds that were to be sufficient for Ages For so indeed the wealthy seed of Rocky stones and minerals is implanted in the Water that it may receive its determination and Ferment in the womb of the Earth But what the Virgin
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
drying of Clay that is made by heat Learn ye therefore oh ye Schooles of me an unprofitable and the least of young Beginners that heat is through occasion of the loines but not the occasion of the stone or of the adhering sand That is the stone is not from heat but heat from the stone even as heat ariseth in the finger from a Thorne being thrust into it but the Thorne is not there made by heat For ye have heard the wailings of the Strangury or piâ—sing by drops but not of heat in the stone of the Bladder even as otherwise ye have heard complaints of heat in the Disease of the stone of the Kidnies wherefore if heat were the efficient cause of the stone there would be far greater complaints in the stone of the Bladder Because this stone by reason of its greater hardnesse should also be the of-spring of a greater heat and drying than that of the Reines And the rather because that doth almost continually swim in the Latex or urinal Liquor whereas the Kidney doth not any thing detain the trans-sliding uâ—ine Surely the stone of the Bladder should have need of a violent heat For the diseased complain of a sharpnesse burning heat and pain But these things are not felt in the nest of the Stone even as in the Nut of the Yard Therefore Children have known how to distinguish of the sense and place of sharpnesse and pain but not the Schooles But moreover although the urine may seem biting and sharp as if there were the burning of fire as in the Strangury yet being voided it is not any thing more hot or sharper to the tast or more salt than it was wont or is meet to be There is an apparent burning and tartnesse of the urine not indeed from a true heat or any sharpnesse of the urine but onely by reason of the forreignnesse of some certain small quantity of sharpnesse through a Ferment being co-mixed therewith which thing the Strangury teacheth being contracted by new Ales and those as yet fermenting from a sharpnesse Therefore Macc or Saffron being taken for they must be sharp and hot Medicines yea reaching to the very place if they ought to help and therefore by their odour testifying their presence in the urine the aforesaid burning heat for the most part ceaseth For it is a Philosophical truth that the stone increaseth by the same causes whereby it ariseth and so on the other hand But stones being joined to our Chamber-pots do confirm that the stone is naturally made and at leastwise without an actual heat of the Chamber-pot and encompassing Ayr or that heat is not required unto its constitution therefore the stone is made and increased materially of the urine but not of a vital muscilage nor that it doth require heat for its efficient cause and much lesse an excesse of the same heat For the mucky snivel doth not appear rejected or cast forth unlesse the stone be first present in the Bladder and so the cause as slow should have come after its effect For I have observed that if any one did pisse through a thick Towel and found not a muscilage herein yet but a few houres after that time his urine being strained thorow and filtred into a clean Glass had yielded a thin and red sand equally adhering thereunto neither also had it fallen down more plentifully about the bottome than it stuck about the sides of the Glasse And that thing had thus happened in a cold encompassing Ayr. Wherefore even from thence any one ought to be more assured that that sand had not gone forth with the urine in the beginning of his making water because it was not yet bred neither that it was actually in the urine For otherwise it had stood detained in the Towel however thin it had been like the atomes of Potters earth Or if the Towel being not thick enough had deceived him yet at least it had presently rushed unto the bottome in the likenesse of sand or a settlement neither had it affixed it self in its making in so great a grain and with so great a distance of equality to the sides of the Vessel Because it had wanted a glew whereby it might have been able to glew it self thereunto In the next place seeing that sand wants a glew throughout its whole Superficies except in that part wherein it adheres to the Chamberpot or Urinal it is sufficiently manifest that at one and the same instant wherein that sand was made it was likewise also glewed thereunto For from thence any one ought to be the more assured if he had ever toughly laboured in a diligent searching out of the truth that since that sand applyed it self to the Glasse of its owne free accord that it was also generated far after the making water to wit in the immediate instant before its affixing but that it being affixed however the most small it was in it self it afterwards encreased by additions Which effects indeed as they are wrought by a common nature growing or glistening in the urine and not from a particular atome of sand which affixed it self to the Vessel Hence also it equally departed and that at once out of the whole urine For from this so ordinary and daily handicraft Operation if the love of Health were cordially seated in the Schooles they ought for some Ages before now to have known nor indeed from an argument drawn from a Similitude and far fetcht but altogether from the Identity or same linesse of the urine and stony sand it self that for as much as that sand had grown together from the matter of the urine to wit of the same matter from whence the stone also was and that indeed though a muscilage of the matter and heat of the place were absent for the pewter Chamberpot stands in the cold encompassing ayr and likewise without the suspition of the affect of the stone or an infirmity of the pisser for also any the unblamed urine of healthy persons generates this sand and applyes it self to the urine therefore the sand and stone in us proceeds from stony causes to wit the same from which the urine becomes of a sandy grain in the Glasse without us being also healthy persons Which thing being by me seen I seriously sighed and certainly knew that the Schooles had erred in the knowledge of the cause and that they do even to this day stumble in curing of the Stone the which notwithstanding they rashly assume to themselves and presume of I greatly bewailed the stupidities and false devices of so many Ages and more that the unhappy Obediences strict Clientships paines and deaths of the sick the untimely destructions of Families and lastly the spoyles of Widows and Orphans had happened under unfaithful an ignorant helpers who deceived the World with the name of Phisitians For then I knew in good earnest that I knew nothing who had learned my princiciples from such as knew nothing I therefore disdaining the
temperature of the seeds of their composed Bodies But the spirit of mans urine is neither sharp nor Alcalized but meerly salt even as also that of Horses is And that for this cause because the Volatile sharp matter of the Chyle of the stomach is by vertue of another ferment transchanged into a Volatile salt Even as elsewhere concerning the digestions of Animals I here give thee to observe by the way that in things transchanged there is not an immediate regresse or return unto that from whence they were transchanged no more than from a privation to a habit For that in transchanging the last life of the thing perisheth because the whole disposition of the middle life of the former Being is at once taken away by reason of the extinguishment of its former seed For therefore things transchanged do keep the essence of a new Being with a neglect of their former composed Body Therefore have I found any Remedy whatsoever unprofitable which I otherwise had believed to be very likely a dissolver of the Stone from its former composed Body Yet that is a truth that the spirit of Urine in the fundamental point of its nativity is salt and that by reason of that salt it doth more readily coagulate other Spirits than any sour or sharp spirit doth Milk Neverthelesse the spirit of urine doth not coagulate milk or the venal Blood Because the spirit of the venal blood yea and our vital Spirit is salt after the manner of Urines From hence indeed the spirit of the urine hath it self after the manner of an excrementitious spirit cut off from the blood and so by reason of a co-resemblance it is its Chamber-fellow neither do they act on each other And then also I observed that the spirit of Urine doth not more strongly coagulate those things which were already before coagulated For Bole Clay or the rocky or Chalk-stone do by degrees degenerate by the spirit of urine into a nitrous Salt and are rather dissolved Since therefore the spirit of Urine doth not coagulate Bodies already coagulated such as are Bole Clay c. As neither Bodies coagulable such as are Milk and the venal blood but it coagulates the spirit of Wine or the like thing which is entertained with it in the urine for as was shewn above after the fermenting of urine that urine containes also a spirit of Wine or Aqua vitae I desisted not seriously to enquire after what manner the stone is coagulated in us and in our urine 1. First of all it is an undoubted truth that Duelech is not of a calcinous or limy condition however Paracelsus may be carried on the contrary 1. Because a calcining degree of heat is wanting in us 2. And then because every Alcali is rather that which is destructive to a rocky stone than a Coagulater thereof 3. Because a Calx or Lime presupposeth a Chalky-stone and therefore Duelech should be calcined before it were a stone 4. From the composing parts of Duelech it shall by and by be made manifest that it is not possible for Lime to be in it yea nor that Duelech himself is calcined or doth send forth a Lixivium or Lye Likewise neither is Duelech of the nature of a gowty Chalk because he growes together in the midst of the urine but that Chalk is coagulated from the Sunovia But the Sunovie is a living seedy muscilage which degenerated in the journey of nourishment and from a transparent and Crystaline matter hath passed over into a thick white and slimy matter as of Gouty persons elsewhere from a matter without savour I say it is transplanted into a sharp one though the tartnesse whereof indeed it hath attained a thickness or grossness For then also it is unfit for a total diflation or transpirative dispersing of it self To wit whereby the nourishable Liquor is wholly consumed without any remainder But the Sunovie being once infected with a tartness its watery parts are pufft away but the gross remainder waxeth dry by degrees into the utmost dryth and hardnesse of a Sand-stone But Duelech attaines to the utmost hardness of it self in one onely instant of time The Gouty Chalk therefore differs from Duelech in its whole matter and efficient cause For therefore such a Chalk is hardned out of the water because indeed by drying Neither for that cause doth it imitate the hardness of a rocky stone but onely of a sandy stone I have spoken these things to that end that it may be manifested that Duelech differs from any other coaguted Bodies whatsoever in its different kind of Agent and matter And seeing notwithstanding I as yet knew not the manner or process of the birth of Duelech but I knew in the mean time that Bodies do nor receive the limitation of their hardning but by the actions appointments and properties of their own seeds Lastly Since I knew that whatsoever things do act corporally are altogether sluggish slow and idle as for the coagulation of Duelech therefore I enquired into fermental savours and Odours as the Authors of many seeds Therefore I found the savours and actions of Salts to be indeed famous ones but not any thing reaching the vertue of the salt of Urine And then also I beheld the more weak or feeble Salts which might follow the Race of Sulphurs But Mercury although it alone according to Paracelsus did contain the whole perfection of the thing yet I found it to be slow and feeble For as oft as I distinguished Salts and Sulphurs from their Mercuries I admired at their sluggishnesse and indeed at the dignities of these two Principles Wherefore I stuck in Salts for the searching out of the nativity of Duelech I confess indeed that Mercury being a flowing mettal in its nature and properties is never sufficiently known But that body hath deceived Paracelsus through a similitude of proportion he thinking because his Device had pleased him because he had endowed the watery matter of things with the name of Mercury that therefore the properties of Quick-silver and its natures without a peere being never to be sufficiently searcht into did agree as suitable to all Liquors which may be drawn out of Simples For all the Philosophers of former Ages confess that nothing in the Universe is not so much as by far to be likened to Argent Vive Yet it hath not been hitherto sufficiently unfolded that Argent-Vive or Quick-silver is a Simple actually existing body but not a constitutive part of things And so that there hath been nothing but a meer abusive passing over of a Name For this cause I as yet perswaded my self that seeing a non-Duelech was made of Duelech that ought to be done by the action of an Agent on a disposed matter And although I knew these and many the like things yet I discerned that I therefore knew nothing the more Wherefore I as yet more detested a wording or discursive Philosophy because it was that which stayed me before the Threshold of Nature
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
choyce form But because thou hast done thy will which alone is good I therefore ascribe unto thee all the Glory who hast in this Age disclosed this knowledge by the basest and little Ones of this World For that is according to thy accustomed manner and that for the greater Glory of thy Name For I knew that the one onely sluggishnesse of those who being deceived by the sweetnesse of the Odour of Gain have despised to distill a matter so stinking and base hath hindred both the Antient and Modern Physitians For Wisdom despiseth those who have refused perfectly to learn the matter whereof Dispositions Contents Properties Progress and Significations of the Urine by the Fire For neither have they lesse stumbled in the matter Content and Judgements of Urines than hitherto they have done in the stonifying of the same wherefore both the diagnostical or discernable Knowledge and also the judicial fore-knowledge of urines hath remained hidden even as we have from a Foundiation demonstrated in our Vronoscopia or Inspection of the Vrine the which I heartily wish that the more fervent Judgements would hereafter practise For truly I prepare my self for my Grave under hope that my Labours will not be unprofitable for humane miseries I will now proceed to reckon up my blockishnesses and the wearinesses of experiences For first of all from Duelech being dissected and distilled all alone by himself and also from the shavings of the Urinal Thirdly also from the urine being distilled unto the thicknesse of an Ecligma or Lohoch altogether the same Oyl and the same Crystals of liquid dung do arise For from Duelech there is left an earthy Lee being black brickle and burnt no longer rocky and scarce reserving any thing of the more fixed salt of urine Because the volatile Spirit is wholly throughout its whole changed into Duelech and at length into an earth with other parts of the composition being adjoyned unto it Verily for a sure signe that the fixed salt of Urine hath not the faculty of an active Runnet but is onely coagulated passively Furthermore That earth that was left of the distilled Duelech never lately descended unto the Bladder in the shew of a Pouder or Clay but it was a Liquor while it was in the urine which there afterwards thus hardened by the spirit of the urine For I long meditated that an Earth or Pouder however most Artificially it should be connexed to the spirit of Urine yet it would never grow together into Duelech and by consequence that the invention of Tartar for Duelech was also vaine For truly I had already beheld in the Glass that Duelech was made of the same spirits to wit distilled and clear Liquors matter and efficient cause whereof it ariseth in us Therefore I concluded from my proofes now mechanically made That if the urine together with its spirit of salt hath in it the spirit of a volatile Earth Duelech shall of necessity be generated from those two unlesse by the Dross which in the Book of Fevers I call the liquid Dung the salt of the urine be filled or glutted and for that cause be disturbed from coagulating For I have often observed that any one that had the stone being afterwards afflicted with the Jaundice hath beene free from the stone as long as the Jaundice bare sway And so Neither hath it been undeservedly asserted by me in the Treatise of Fevers that the aforesaid Dross being a stranger to Urines is mixed with them as it were a profitable Excrement But the Sands are corned or grainified as well in us as in Urinals at the very moment of Corning and being once Corned they also obtain the ultimate hardnesse of themselves but not that they are more and more hardened by degrees Therefore it is fabulous whatsoever the Schooles do devise concerning the stone being confirmed and not yet confirmed for the excuses of their confirmed ignorance and sloath For the sand that is newly voided from us or wiped off from Urinals is as hard as it will be for ten yeares after Let the same Judgement be also of Duelech I have also said above that unlesse the sand which is affixed to the Urinal or Chamberpot were coagulated in an instant it had wholly fallen headlong to the bottome neither would it be fastened to the sides and so proportionably distinct An heretical Preacher nigh Barclay in England being safe and sound in health in the Year 1629. striving after Dinner to draw a Book unto him from a high place was sorely smitten with a great weight and pain in the bottome of his belly and four dayes after he by certaine signes knew that he was burthened with the stone And eight dayes after that he dyed at London under the Knife of the Stone-Cutter But that stone weighed an English pound and two drammes beside Neither do I remember that ever I saw the like stone But an hundred pounds at Antwerp weigh at London 104. But Paracelsus admiring this appearance of the stone least a fiction should be wanting to his Microcosm calls it the stone of Thunder and thinks that it grew together in falling But that errour of his is manifold 1. For there is no place granted for its falling For truly the Bladder containes urine or no urine if no urine it is folded together like a wet Towel But if it be extended by urine seeing this is beneath Duelech cannot be formed out of the urine or without urine that it should be made without matter and fall downwards into the urine that it may be made in falling 2. He erres believing that the stone which is cast down in Thunder is generated by ordinary and wonted Causes but not by monstrous ones Otherwise if the matter that is natural to Thunder should be naturally coagulated in an instant such stones ought to be accustomed to all particular Thunders Neither should there be a Cause why a small stone of about three pound weight should pierce into the earth unto the depth of nine foot by its onely and naked fall unless it were thrust down with a stronger force even as concerning an irregular Meteor elsewhere 3. In the next place Duelech bewraying it self by a sudden Tyrannie proves that its generation is in a moment For nothing hinders but that he adhered to the Bladder with his foot and that being broken off through the steepnesse of his passage he fell down into the widenesse of the Bladder 4. Whatsoever is at any time condensed into a true Duelech whether it be a Central Kernel descending from the Kidney or in the next place growing in manner of a Bark every Generation thereof is alwayes made in an instant For indeed I have learned by my Mechanical Operations that Duelech and what quantity there is in him is wholly constituted of meer volatile Beings yet not that of a urine of three or four ounces of which quantity that of him that made water might be a Duelech of one pound could be generated Moreover
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
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
ones Through defect of the knowledge of efficient Causes they wander onely about the Products they not being solicitous of the Radical Framer and Cause are onely busied about removing of the Effect Not that they hope for a return of the Disease by leaving the Roots that they may thereby crop Fruit for I will not suspect that of a good or honest man but they being too earnestly bent upon Gain nothing hath hitherto been considered by the Schooles concerning the Framer of Diseases For as much as Medicine as I have said it from the Beginning so I again end therewith is the Gift of God But this God hath withdrawn his Gifts from those that are intent upon Gain nor those once thinking of his Command Be yee mercifull as your Father which is in the Heavens is mercifull from whom every good and lightsome Gift descendeth This therefore is the mournfull modern Tragedy of unsensiblenesse and pain which I have spoken of with an event altogether Tragical to the Sick AN UNHEARD-OF DOCTRINE OF FEVERS JOHN BAPTISTA VAN HELMONT Toparch in Royenborgh Pellines c. being the Author Whereunto is added A TREATISE AGAINST The four Humours OF THE SCHOOLES To the Reader John Baptista van Helmont Toparch in Royenborgh Pellines c P. L. wisheth Science Health and Joy An Index of the Contents of the Preface 1. This Treatise is rent out of the great Volume which is inscribed The new and unheard of Beginnings of natural Philosophy 2. The Authour's Testimonies of Dispraise against Physitians that refuse to learn I Have seen perhaps two hundred Authours concerning Fevers therefore it hath shamed me of the Title but when I more thorowly considered of the matter it self I saw that one and all of others sung the Cuckow 's Note and that they have alwayes subscribed the same thing to themselves from others words For from thence I discerned that since the dayes of Hippocrates Medicine hath stood at a stand if it hath not gone back at leastwise that it hath not profited because by new Centuries daily it hath gone into a Circle They have gone not whither they ought to go but whither they have followed blind Leaders which the most High hath not Created or chosen for Physitians but who have entred into Nature through the toren windowes of Heathenisme and Atheisme Surely it hath shamed me yea and grieved me that a Fever the most known or remarkeable of Diseases is as yet to this day altogether unknown in the whole course of its Tragedy Wherefore I seem to be the First who may determine of any thing of certainty concerning the knowledge and Remedy of a Fever For I have written a great Volume concerning the knowings and curings of Diseases surely great and unheard of from the very first Beginnings of true Philosophy indeed I have demonstrated unwonted Principles to be true and that by any kind of Demonstrations Out of this work I have rent this Treatise concerning Fevers and since I dayly saw abuses to increase in curing and I divined of no small destruction of mortals from thence Therefore I have set forth this Treatise without the Doctrines of Diseases akinne thereunto because I know that Paradoxall principles will offend very many who have studied more in assenting than in diligently searching although this kind of study attesteth a certain sloath and penurie of judgement In the mean time I hope that there will not be Lovers of the Truth wanting who earnestly breathing after the health of their Neighbour will hear even from now the most antient Physitian of the Dutch those things which they never heard from any other For it ought not to be burdensome to any to be able to learn by others labours although it be a tedious thing to those that are old to swallow this Testimony of Dispraise None hath hitherto known Fevers from their essence none hath begun the curing of them from Art because all in passing by the true knowledge of the Causes and manner of their making have neglected to seek out their Remedies They have shot forth their Arrowes against Heats and have passed by the true mark of the thing But since there is so great a malepartnesse and a certain singular insolency of the judgements of this Age indeed I have feared that this Vlcerous Age will not admit of my Work This small Treatise will shew as it were a cast Lot what the Lord hath determined concerning my Labours In the mean time they who have already grown old in their diminishments of the Veines and strength peradventure it will be hard for them to have departed from things accustomed I intreat them at least that they would see in What manner they shâ—ll preserve their own Souls and the cause of Widowes and Orphans which is committed unto all Farewell A Treatise OF FEVERS CHAP. I. The definition of the Fever of the Antients is examined 1. A â—ever hath been hitherto radically unknown 2. The definition of a Fever according to the Schooles 3. The chief clause cast forth even from the requisites of the Antients 4. A second defect of the definition 5. A vain privie shift of the Schooles 6. Some perplexities following from thence 7. Other hiding places 8. Others contradict things known by sense 9. A wan argument of these men 10. The thirst of feverish persons is examined 11. An argument from the remedy of thirst 12. An argument from a like thing taken from the drowsie evil 13. Another argument from thirst in the vigour of Fevers 14. It is the part of deadly ignorance badly to define a Fever 15. An argument against the Schooles concerning feverish heat 16. A second 17. A third 18. A fourth 19. A fifth 20. Feverish heat is not from the matter offending 21. Another argument 22. Athird 23. A fourth 24. A fifth 25. That a feverish heat is not of the peccant matter 26. The matter of a Fever heates occasionly only 27. Who is the workman of feverish heat 28. The original of heat besides nature 29. To make hot and to be hot how they differ 30. Heat is a latter accident unto the essence of a Fever 31. From whence a feverish heat is 32. A Fever is not heat essentially AFever goes before accompanies or followes most diseases Therefore I have owed a peculiar treatise unto a Fever no lesse than to the disease of the Stone Because although it be that which is most familiar yet it most especially fats our burying places and depopulates camps The disease is known indeed even from its entrance or beginning but not any thing hath been hitherto known by Psiyfitians in its causes manner of making seates as neither in its remedies even as in reading this little book shall be clearly made manifest unto any one that is seasoned with the studies of Phylosophy For indeed the Schooles define a Fever that it is a heat besides nature being kindled first in the heart and then derived throughout the whole body I will add according
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
occasional ones of diseases are bitter sharp salt brackish c. But that the spirit is he that maketh all assaults Galen Juniour unto Hippocrates by five hundred years afterwards easily stained much paper and by his prate allured followers unto himself But posterity having admired this prattle followed the same it hath always had that in the greatest esteem which was of the least worth And then the world every where grew aged in frivolous judgments always esteeming that to be of great weight which was most like unto its own unconstancy CHAP. II. The Schools Nodding or Doubting have introduced Putrefaction 1. The Schools have been constrained to devise another thing in Fevers beside heat 2. Another defect in the definition of a Fever 3. The Schools contradict the principles laid down by themselves 4. That the essence of Fevers is not from heat 5. They by degrees are forgetful of their own positions 6. The spiciness of Roses is most hot 7. Whether a Feverish heat be rightly judged by the Schools to arise from Putrefaction 8. A malignant Fever wherein it differs from other Fevers 9. A Crisis of Fevers by sweat is most wholesome 10. Why the Schools have fled back unto Putrefaction 11. A blockish comparison of heat in horse-dung 12. Why horse-dung is hot 13. A degree of the heat of a putrifying matter is not sufficient for heating the whole man in a Fever 14. Putrefaction is no where the cause of heat 15. Dung waxeth not hot from Putrefaction 16. Why they have not drawn a feverish heat from hot Baths 17. The ignorance of the Roots hath wrested the Schools aside unto the considerations and remedies of effects 18. Dung looseth its heat while it begins to putrefie 19. The great blindness of the Schools 20. Galen convicted of error 21. That the blood doth never putrefie in the veins and so whatsoever they trifle concerning a Sunochus or putrefied Fever is erroneous 22. The foregoing particulars are proved 23. The natural endowments of the veins 24. Either Nature goes to ruine or the Doctrine of the Schools 25. An example from the variety of blood 26. A ridiculous table of blood let out of the veins 27. An argument from the Plague against the Vse of the Schools 28. Again from the Pleurifie 29. The heats and turbulencies of the blood do not testifie the vices thereof 30. A wan deceit of the Schools 31. To suppose putrefied humours in Fevers is ridiculous 32. Against the definition of Fevers of the foregoing Chapter some absurdities are alledged 33. A frivolous excuse by a Diary 34. The foregoing definition of Fevers is again resisted 35. The unconstancy of the Schools 36. That the blood doth not putrefie in the veins 37. Corruption from whence it is 38. That the blood of the Hemeroides is not putrefied 39. A wonderful remedy against the Hemeroides or Piles by a ring And likewise for other Diseases THE Schools meditated that an heat did oft-times spring up through exercises not unlike to the heat of feverish persons the which notwithstanding seeing it was not a feverish one they indeed judged heat to be of necessity in Fevers not any one in differently but that which should be stirred up by putrefaction Now they are no longer careful concerning heat as neither concerning the degrees or distemperature thereof but rather concerning the containing cause thereof For neither hath a heat graduated besides nature seemed to be sufficient for a Fever unless that heat also spring up from putrefaction which particle surely hath been dully omitted in the aforesaid definition of Fevers Therefore the essence of a Fever is now no longer a naked heat neither shall this heat distinguish Fevers from the diversity of heat although a Species doth result from thence whence the essence is but from the varieties of the putrefied or at leastwise from the putrefying humours It was finely indeed begun thus to wander from the terms proposed that when as they before respected nothing but heat which should exceed the accustomed temper of nature they afterwards require heat and a subject of putrefaction which heat they will have to be kindled in an offensive putrified matter but not any longer first in the heart But seeing that of heat there is not but only Species in degree but very many moments or extensions of the same and there are very many particular kinds of Fevers neither that the specifical multitude of Fevers can proceed from one only Species of heat besides nature Therefore in the Essence or Being of heat another thing is beheld besides the degree of the same Heat therefore shall not constitute the Essence of a Fever but that other thing by reason whereof the diversity of Fevers breaks forth If therefore putrefying of divers matters be the efficient cause of the diversity of Fevers heat shall be thing as well caused from putrefaction as the Fever it self and so seeing the action of causality of the putrisied matter involveth some other thing in it besides heat it self a Fever shall not be heat Now the Schools do confusedly adjoyn very many things on both sides that if one thing do not help at leastwise another may help them So that although they toughly maintain the aforesaid definition and adore it yet they by degrees decline from the naked distemper of heat unto the putrefaction of Humours Neither do they stay in these trifles but moreover they flee back unto hot remedies as having forgotten their own Positions And that whether they attempt Purgations or next whether they shall convert themselves unto the proper specifical Rdmedies of Fevers For what is now more solemn in healing than to have given Apozemes of Hop Asparagus c. and to have seasoned the same with Sugar For what is more hot than the spiceness included in Roses whether thou respectest its savour or application without which notwithstanding the Rose it self is a meer dead carcase what doth every where more frequently offer it self than to have mingled the corrosive liquor of Sulphur or Vitriol being through the perswasion of gain manifoldly adulterated with Juleps for Fevers In the next place to have drawn forth those which they feign to be guilty humours by Rhubarb and Scammoneated Medicines Therefore before all we must profesly examine whether the heat of a Fever owes its Original to Putrefaction Wherefore first of all I have plainly taught That a feverish heat doth in no wise causally depend on the peecant matter And then I have learned that a malignant Fever alone differs from other Fevers in this that its own offensive matter hath a beginning-putrefaction adjoyned unto it The which if it shall afterwards creep unto its height until the putrefaction be actually made and shall remain within it straightway brings death of necessity But if it be driven forth in the making of the Putrefaction as in the Measills an Erisipelas c. it is for the most part cured Because health for the most part accompanies a motion to without
words in the confession of Physitians 9. An argument against black Choler in the Spleen and the privy shifts of Physitians 10. The true reason whence the Spleen waxeth hard about the end of a Quartane Ague and the errour of the Schooles is discovered 11. Some remarkable things in a Quartane 12. The manner of be-drunkenning and the Organs thereof 13. A notable thing concerning a Vegetable Spirit of VVine out of Juniper-berries 14. VVhy VVines are ordinarily gratefull to Mortals 15. After what manner the Arteries draw their Remedles 16. An impediment in abstracted Oyles which is not in the Salts of the same 17. The manner of making of the Cardiack or Heart-passion which they also call the Royal Passion 18. Divers Chronical Diseases are from the Stomach 19. The ignorance and sincerity of the age of Hippocrates 20. There is no Seat for a Quartane left in the Schooles 21. A few remarkable things concerning Madnesses are declared 22. The Seat of foolish Madnesses SUrely I have demonstrated in an entire Treatise that there never were Humours in Nature which the Schooles of Medicine presuppose for the Foundation of their Art and that Treatise should profesly have respect hitherto unless it had been erelong to be repeated in a work of other Diseases Because they have every where named all Diseases by those Humours But it shall be sufficient in this place to have demonstrated by the way That Fevers do in no wise owe their original unto those Humours whether they are entire or putrified ones Now I will speak something concerning a Quartane Ague but not that it differs from its Cousin-German Fevers in its matter and efficient cause or is cured otherwise than after one and the same manner and by the same meanes whereby other Fevers are overcome but because a Quartane hath never been vanquished by the broken forces of the Schooles and so it hath made mocks at the Commentaries of Physitians and their vain Speeches concerning black Choler concerning the Spleen as the sink of black and burnt Choler and of loosening Medicines bringing forth black Choler by a Choyce A Quartane Ague therefore hath long since exposed the Doctrine of the Universities and the promises of these unto Laughter as being vain Trifles and wan Fables without strength For truly a desperate curing by Arts hath made manifest the feeble help of Medicines the vain promises of Dispensatories and the undoubted ignorance of the causes of Fevers Good God! it is now manifest that Physitians cannot onely not cure the Leprosie Gout Palsey Asthma Stone Falling-sicknesse and other Diseases conteined under the large Catalogue of uncurable ones which are never cured of their own accord but they have not known how to take away so much as a Quartane Ague which patiently expects and deludes every endeavour of Physitians The which notwithstanding Nature cures by her own power to the disgrace of the Schooles For they who attempt their Cures onely by the cuttings of a vein Sarrifyings Leeches Vesicatories and purgings of the Belly and so by diminishments of the Body and Strength and stick wholly in Heathenish Doctrines are even excluded by Nature from the true knowledge of Causes and Remedies Because first of all None of their Medicines reacheth unto the Seat of a Quartane but it first paying Tribute through the Toles or Customes of every Digestion is stript of every Faculty requisite unto so great a malady For neither ought I to draw out that thing from elsewhere or to prove it by many Arguments Be it sufficient That the Succours of Physitians have been hitherto unprosperous For they purge and cut a vein and then they leave the rest to be boren by Nature And in the mean time they certainly know that they shall profit nothing by Remedies of that sort nor that they ever have profited thereby I wish at least that they had not done hurt They ought therefore to confess that Remedies and also all the suppositions of Art faileth them in this Disease Yea neither that the wonted privy evasion of uncurableness in other Diseases is of value unto them For all the powers of the Universities being conjoyned cannot perform so much as Nature can and doth do without them of her own free accord But moreover The same shamefulnesse of ignorance and every way impotency which a Quartane hath discovered in the Schooles They should be compelled to confesse in the other curings of Fevers also if those did not hasten to an end of their own accord Wherefore I now conjecture That the out-law a Quartane in the Age that is forthwith to come shall distinguish false Physitians from true ones whom the Almighty hath Chosen Created and Commanded to be Honoured The Schools therefore define a Quartane according to the account of other Fevers by a heat kindled besides nature first in the heart from the humour of black Choler being putrified and diffused by the utmost small brances of the veins into the habit of the body The seat of which putrified Choler they nevertheless acknowledge to be in the Spleen I importunately crave at your hands I beseech you let the profession of Medicine tell me what harmony they can ever utter from so great dumness And whether it be not to have blinded the minds as well of the sick as of young beginners with prattle Let them explain why that heat is not first kindled in the Spleen where the cause or humour sitteth which by its putrefaction as they say is the cause of an unnatural heat even as while a Thorn being thrust into the finger sticking fast therein the finger it self first rageth with heat and that long before the putrefaction of inflammation Why is a Quartane so stubborn if at every fit nature opens a passage for it self whereby it may disperse the putrified black Choler thorow the veins into the habit of the body even in the very rigour of cold and straightness of the veins After what manner shall the same black Choler in number be as yet putrified after a year and an halfs space and afford an hard Spleen if at every fit it be dispersed into the habit of the body How if it was from the beginning in the Spleen with so daily a fornication of putrified matter hath it not long since putrified the Spleen The which especially is accounted by the Schools to be nothing but a sink of the worst excrement After what manner doth a Quartane after so many moneths retire as better of its own accord to the disgrace of Physitians while as notwithstanding it shall of necessity be more dry gross and shall more putrifie than at its first fits Again What humour which from its rise is evil and putrified can be at length digested Doth nature become foolish that she at length after a divorce and a year an a halfs time begins to digest the humour which in the beginning she had refused to digest it being already before of necessity plainly putrified What reason is there of the
it self since it shall not produce any good to it self thereby For that Chyle or juyce being attracted doth as yet want foregoing means whereby it can ever be brought unto the perfection of arterial blood Otherwise the Arteries had drawn unto themselves more vexation but by a little sucking of a forreign liquor than they are able to wear out by long pains for the future I grant indeed that the Arteries do ordinarily and immediately attract a be-drunkening spirit of the stomack which is bred almost in every vegetable which is disobliged from the composed body through art only by vertue of a serment and at length is drawn out by the fire For example If the berries of Juniper are boyled in water under an Alembick an essential oyl and water do presently after rise up and are collected At length if those berries are then in the next place steeped by a ferment the distillation being afterwards repeated a water most gently burning or an Aquavitae is extracted yet less than if from the same berries an oyl were not first withdrawn Thirdly at last if the remaining berries being strained thorow a searse are boyled into an Electuary thou hast now obtained solutive Medicine excelling all the compositions of the shops An Artery therefore willingly snatcheth to it self the burning spirit of life a guest of the vegetable nature out of the stomack which the Grecism of the Schools never saw or knew the which otherwise nature by her first instruction prepares out of the digested Chyle surely she rejoyceth that she hath found a liquor with much brevity from whence she may make vital spirit for her self For in this respect Wines are regularly pleasing to Mortals they exhilarate the heart and do make drunk if they are drunk down in more than a just quantity For the spirit of Wine is not yet our vital spirit because it is as yet wanting of an individual limitation that the vital inflowing Archeus the Executer of our functions may from thence be framed Wherefore since neither the Mesentery nor Liver are ordained for the framing of vital spirit the heart rejoyceth immediately and readily to suck to it that spirit being already before prepared through the arteries out of the stomack Whence it follows If the arteries attract unto themselves the Spirit of Wine like unto vapours they shall also draw the odours of Essences For from hence are faintings yea and on the other hand restaurations But the arteries draw not Oils although essential and grateful ones because they suck not the substance of liquor and much less oils Therefore that a Medicine may be received by the heart and by this heart attracted inwards it ought to be that which yields a good smell and to be unseparably married to the spirit of wine Wherefore Wines that are odoriferous do more readily bedrunken than others because the odours which are married to the spirit of wine are most easily admitted unto the heart head womb c. But oylie odours being abstracted from their Concrete bodies do rather affect by defiling than materially enter into the Arteries For therefore through the immoderateness of Wine and the errours of life not only a meer spirit of Wine is allured into the arteries but also something of juyces together with it Whence at length difficult heart-beatings grow up in the gluttons of Wine and the meer or pure spirit of Wine by an importunate daily continuance strikes the reed of the artery within disturbs the local and proper digestions thereof wherefore also a part of the arterial nourishment degenerating stirs up divers miseries even durable for life For it happens in the Artery of the stomack that the spirit of wine joyning it self by its own importunity to the spermatick nourishment of the artery in the course of dayes stirs up un-obliterable Vertigo's or giddinesses of the head continual head-aches the Falling-sickness I say Swoonings Drowsie Evils Apoplexies c. For in the family-administration of this member as it were that of the heart it obtains its own animosities durable for life which are not to be extirpated but by the greater Secrets The same way also sudden or unexpected death hath oft-times made an entrance for it self because such a vitiated matter is never of its own free accord drawn out from thence For although the Archeus be apt at length to consume his own nourishment yet he doth not obtain this authority over excrements degenerated by a forreign coagulation and so for that cause not hearkening to the vital power or vertue For therefore that part hath assumed the title of the heart stirs up swoonings from an easie occasion Falling-sicknesses also after the twenty fourth year and likewise such affects as are attributed to the heart are accounted uncurable by those who have not much laboured in extracting the more potent faculties of medicine Hippocrates by leave of so great a man and of such an age I speak it was ignorant of this seat of the falling evil because he was he who being constituted in the entrance of Medicine faithfully delivered unto posterity at least his own observations and Medicinal administrations sprung from these For he said If Melancholy passeth into the body it breeds the Falling Sickness But foolish madness if it peirce the soul If therefore black Choler passing over into the body and soul causeth the Falling-sickness and Madness Whither therefore shall it proceed that it may generate a Quartane Ague The Schools especially rejoyce in so great an Author for their humour of black Choler But they are forgetful of a Quartane which far departs from the Falling-sickness and Madness For after whatsoever manner they shall regard it a Quartane shall either not be made from black Choler or this shall not be in the body nor in the soul while it makes a Quartane But as to what pertains to Madness and the Falling-sickness as if they were separated only in the diversity of passages or that the same humours did sometimes evaporate or were materially entertained in the Inns of the principal faculties Surely it is a ridiculous although a dull and plausible devise to have found out the cause of all diseases in so narrow a quaternary of humours For first of all The Falling Evil doth much more strictly bedrowsie and alienate the powers of the soul although Madnesses do that far more stubbornly or constantly Wherefore the aforesaid diseases are far otherwise distinguished let the Genius's of Hippocrates spare me than in the changing of their wayes and bounds And which more is the general kind of foolish Madness shall differ by its species in its proper matter and proper efficient as is to be seen in madness from the biting of a mad dog or stroak or sting of the Tarantula For the cause of things had not as yet been made known in the age of Hippocrates the knowledge whereof the Prattle of the Greeks hath hitherto suppressed Neither also are wrothful doatages made from yellow Choler bruitish ones from
black Choler and jesting or merry ones from blood Surely otherwise we should all of us be daily jocound doaters or deprived of blood For feverish doarages are especially fetcht out of a feverish matter creeping into the shops of dreams and not from elsewhere But not that it forsakes the body that it may enter into the mind And likewise a doating delusion should never happen in a burning Fever in a Synochus or continual Fevers but alwayes in Quartanes and black Cholery Diseases Truly a Doatage is already from the very Beginning of Fevers To wit where the Fever and the Cause of the Doatage are jointy in the Root For the malice being encreased and the Organs weakened by little and little the Doatage or Delusion ascends unto the maturity of its own perfection So in Wine and also in some Simples yea and likewise in feverish Excrements a hidden Doatage is covered neither doth it bewray it self unlesse the power thereof shall ascend into a Constitutive mixture At leastwise all things do by the same Royal wax according to the Genius of their own malice Rage on the Organs of the Phantasie even as elsewhere concerning Madnesses The Seed therefore of the doating Delusion lurked from the Beginning in the feverish matter which at length is promoted unto its due malignity If therefore Madnesses differ in their matter and efficient cause That is in their whole Species and Being Surely the Falling-sicknesse and Madnesse do much farther differ from each other and do more differ in a forreign Seed than that one onely black Choler being exorbitant in its Seats should bring forth both Even as elsewhere concerning the Dunmvirate Madnesses I will say in one word are all nourished by the arteries and in the Inn of the Hypochondrial or Midriffes According to that saying In whom a vein beats strongly in the Midriffs those are estranged in their mind Therefore also they oft-times want an exciting disturbance before they relapse into a Mania or bruitish madness Because this is bred by a perturbation very like unto that CHAP. VII The Succours of Physitians are weighed 1. Of what sort the Succours of Physitians are 2. The vanity of the same 3. The hurt of local Medicines and their feigned derivation 4. The water in Vesicatories was meer venal blood 5. An Objection solved 6. A Vesicatory or embladdering Medicine is more cruel than the letting forth of blood 7. To what end Vesicatories were devised 8. A Clyster why hostile to the bowels 9. A Clyster never reacheth unto the gut Ileon 10. Laxatives in a Clyster are the more sharp being hurtful as purging things are but less hurtful 11. A poyson hurts to have taken it inwards by whatsoever title and entrance 12. That Fevers are never drawn out by Clysters 13. They therefore hinder long life 14. A Clyster how it names Physitians 15. A fore-knowledge from the use of Clysters 16. It is a blockish thing to nourish by Clysters 17. A conjecture 18. The common sort of Physitians are taken notice of I have determined to examine the common Succours before I determine of the nature of Fevers But those are Scarifications openings of the Fundament-Veins Vesicatories and others of that sort and they all concut unto the diminishments of the blood strength and body And the which therefore have already been sufficiently condemned under universal Succours They are indeed foolish aids about the superficies of the body when as the Central parts labour and are besieged and the which not being freed from the enemy it is vain and hurtful whatsoever is attempted by the gestures of such Apes Surely it is a vain rudiment of hope to be willing by consequence to remove the root out of its place by taking away the guiltless blood from the skin which thing Prince Infanto the Cardinal by his exhausted veins the Circuite of his Tertian Ague nevertheless remaining hath confirmed to Anatomists with a mournful spectacle And likewise a Paracenthesis or opening of the belly nigh the navil in the dropsie ought long since to have extinguished the like kind of hope For there it is plainly an easie thing to draw out waters from the nigh Center and daily to draw from the fruit a part of the water at pleasure But in vain because not any thing of the root departs And so incision nigh the navil doth only protract life for a few dayes But let Vesicatories or embladdering Medicines be alwayes exceeding hurtful and devised by the wicked spirit Moloch For the water dropping continually from thence is nothing but venal blood transchanged For while any one scorcheth his hand or leg the fire calls not the whey of the blood unto the burned place Neither doth that water lurk in any other place and waiting to run to it with loosened rains while the skin should be at sometimes scorched The water should be deaf at the call of the fire neither should nature obey a commander from without What if a water swims on the blood which they call Choler surely that floats not as being separated from the blood except after its Coagulation or Corruption Embladderers therefore intend this but not Preservation and Healing That salt water therefore is not but is made it is not separated I say from the Blood but the Blood thereof is transchanged into water very like unto the Dropsie Flux and the like defects By so much therefore are Vesicatories fuller of danger than the cutting of a vein Because this is stopped at pleasure but that not the which after the cuttings of a vein and vain Butcheries of the body is at length dreamed of for the hinderances of a Feverish Coma and so for the adulterating of a latter effect For they rejoyce to awaken the sleepy or deep drowsie sick by reason of the pain of so many Ulcers And however thou considerest of the matter it is a cruel torture of Butchers For neither is the drowsie sick ill at ease because he sleepeth But he sleepeth because he is ill at ease And so to hinder the sleep is not profitable But that only prevaileth to take away the root of drowsiness They therefore who suspend the sleep only by pains do cruelly drive the sick headlong into death For they flatter the people in being cruel toward the sick party In the mean time they persevere in the office of a cruel and unfaithful Mercenary Helper For if the drowsie feverish person sleep or being pulled be daily awakened such stupid allurements perform not the least thing in Fevers Wherefore I am wont to give my remedies in at the mouth and food at set hours nor to regard whether he shall sleep or not I say that antient saying with the Apostles If Laxarus sleep therefore he shall be healed For the tortures brought on him that hath a Fever have never profited any one But as to what pertains to Clysters it is a frequent and shameful aid of Physitians I at leastwise in times past never perswaded and described Clysters
of the enemy and wine add heat therefore he who proceeds by Wine heals according to the conformity of nature Notwithstanding let us grant that Heat Wine being administred is the greater yea also that the Fever is the sharper For what other thing follows from thence than that the Wine shall increase the vital constitution And that that state is nearer to the constitution of young folks than that which proceeds by cooling things or without the administration of Wine for cooling means are more like to death to cessation from motion and to defect But heat from moderate Wine is a mean like unto life and a means which the Archeus himself useth For the Constitution of heat increased by Wine is nearer to the Vigour State and Crisis than if the strength being weak there shall be the more feeble heat by abstaining therefrom These things concerning the drinking of Wine But concerning the drinking of water Let the decision be that feverish persons desire not hot water nor do they thirst after that which is luke-warm but cold water is to be admitted in a slack degree in the highest heat of the state of the Fever Neither must we be afraid as I have said of a co-mixture of the extreames Because experience hath long since successfully shooke off this fear But in other stations of Fevers neither is cold water as neither is abundance to be drunk yet thirst is never to be endured not indeed under sweat But then let the drink be hot If thirst be urgent and the Fever hath not the fodder of drink the in-bred moisture is wasted But moreover That which they accuse concerning the crudity of water take thou thus Water springing out of sand is simple and the best and it is to be taken from the fountain it self But that which runs thorow Pipes or issues out of a clayie spring is now partaker of a mixt malignity But this water I call not so much crude as infected For water by it self deserves neither to be called crude nor cocted as neither is it ripened by heat nor doth it attain any thing thereby for it is sufficient so that its highest cold be blunted but none may use infected waters as neither any cold drink in the Plague and malignant Fevers But there is a larger reason for an hot remedy But neither do I ever perswade a remedy which may moderate Fevers only by heat but as Wine profits by comforting and by more throughly introducing succours coupled unto it So do remedies by cutting resolving and cleansing and in that respect the more prosperousty because they have the Archeus in operating agreeable to themselves For thus far he co-mingles his own powers with the powers of remedies that the occasional cause may be put to flight and that the more firm health may not presently receive its strength prostrated At length perhaps they will object against these things That since heat in a Fever is the effect of the spirit that maketh the aassult his being wroth It also followes that from the measure of heat the wrothfulness of the Archeus is to be measured and by consequence that whatsoever increaseth a feverish heat doth also increase a Fever I have answered before that there are many branches effects or various Symptomes of one root And that oft-times doating delusions Coma's or sleeping Evils intermittencies of pulses to wit things denoting an increased Fever do happen under the more mild heat Even as from a tender branch of an Acorn there is a greater leaf than from an old Oak There is therefore an Elenchus or fault in the argument to say the Fever is the greater in the man for I abhor that encreased Fever the which mortal increased symptomes do follow But I in no wise fear the Fever to have increased because the Archeus doth the more strongly rise up for the expulsion of the root of the Fever And if they in conclusion call that thing an increased Fever I little dwell upon it For so also the Schools perswade that we are not greatly to be afraid of accidents unexpectedly happening besides reason It is therefore to be noted That the Archeus is never enflamed in his whole For otherwise about the end of the fit the whole Archeus being dissolved or wasted should be the cause of fainting The Archeus therefore is enflamed in much or a little portion of himself And therefore the Archeus being encreased by Wine if more thereof be enflamed yet more of him is not lost and yet he more strongly strained the occasional cause than if the Archeus be not strengthened and encreased and a less part of him be enflamed CHAP. XIII The Essence of a Fever 1. Of what sort an Essential and Natural Definition is 2. Diseases are Beings subsisting by themselves and not accidents 3. Why Diseases inhabite in a strange Inn. 4. A Disease is not only a Travel nor a Motion nor a Distemper nor a Disposition 5. The Essence of a Fever which the Schools are hitherto ignorant of 6. There is therefore another Scope of healing than what hath hitherto been 7. That the occasional Cause alone distinguisheth Fevers 8. The cure of a Physitian is made easie THE definition of a thing is not to be framed from the general kind of the thing defined and from the constitutive difference of the Species's or particular kinds even as I have elsewhere demonstrated in Logicks Because besides rational and irrational if so be they are as yet the constitutive differences of living Creatures no differences of like sort appear in the Schools But a natural definition ought to consist of the material and internal efficient or seminal Causes Because those two are those which constitute the thing it self and that the whole and they remain unseparably essential in it as long as it self is and so they explain a thing by its causes and the properties of these Truly Fevers have a matter and an internal efficient cause after the manner of other Beings subsisting in them although all diseases inhabite in a living body because they are not Beings of the first Creation but begun from the curse of the departure out of the right way And therefore neither have they properly their own seminal Being which constitutes and nourishes them But they have an occasional Being from whence they are stirred up instead of a seed The which ceasing the Disease ceaseth As oft therefore as that which is not vital is inserted into a vital soil the Archeus is angry and becomes wroth that he may exclude that forreign thing out of his Anatomy The which I have perfectly taught in the entrance of this Treatise by a thorn thrust into the finger Therefore a Fever is not only an expulsive endeavour or alterative motion and much less the alteration and disposition it self as the Schools have otherwise thought but a Fever is a material part it self of the Archeus defiled through indignation For a part of the Archeus is defiled through anger
those shall either be ungrateful to the nature of the stomach and therefore they stir up vomit and stools So that only the incongruity malignity and ingratitude of things taken into the body are the cause why they move vomiting and stool and are forthwith expelled with those things which they threw down into their own Faction Therefore they procure perplexities and troubles But if the things dissolving are acceptable to Nature they are willingly admitted inwards yet the composed body suffers not any thing thereby as well in respect of the thing dissolving as of that which is dissolved For truly both of them are undigestible Therefore that composure remains safe as before it passeth through all the shops of the veins and at length for truly it cannot be changed nor by consequence pass over into the Family of Life is expelled with the sweat by transpiration In which journey whatsoever of filths those famous Secrets do touch at they dissolve them and snatch them away with themselves and so they heal Fevers and most Chronical diseases Whosoever therefore ye be who in healing have cordial charity towards your neighbour learn ye a certain Dissolver which may be homogeneal or simple in kind unchangeable dissolving its Objects into their first liquid matter and thou shalt obtain the innermost Essences of things and shalt be able to look into the natural endowments of these But if ye cannot reach unto that Secret of the Fire learn ye at leastwise to render the Salt of Tartar volatile that by means hereof ye may perfect your dissolutions The which although as being digested in us it forsaketh its dissolved bodies that are safely or unharmedly homogeneal yet it hath borrowed some of their vertues which it conveighs inward as the subduers of most diseases But for the obtainment of these things it is not sufficient to rub over Books but moreover it behooves you to buy coals and vessels and to spend watching nights in order So have I done thus have I spoken let the praise be unto God Because the Universities in their eighth Potion forbid to wit the Cutting of a vein except in the fulness of blood but they admit of it only in this because then the vice of Blood-letting cannot be sufficiently manifest and because in their tenth Position they now implicitely grant a Fever not to be a meer heat but that it is to be cured by heating and corroborating remedies they being all hot things Surely one of the two must of necessity be true To wit either that a Fever is not heat in its root or that they must not heal by contraries any longer Out of the Positions of Lovaine disputed at Lovaine under the most discreet Sir D. Vopiscus Fortunatus Plempius on the 26. of November in the year 1641. CHAP. XVI The Essence of Fevers is discovered 1. The life of Mortals is the efficient cause of Diseases 2. Herein is the raging Errour of the life 3. A proof of the foregoing particulars 4. The Authour wherein he disagreeth from the Antients 5. The internal efficient and its matter are proved 6. In what sort the Thingliness or Essence of Fevers may be formed 7. A Proposition 8. That Immortality once consisted from a natural cause 9. The Original of diseasie Idea's 10. What hath deceived the Antients 11. That the Archeus in his own Idea's of perturbations imitates the Imagination 12. The aforesaid Proposition is proved 13. A two-fold fountain of the Beginning of Idea's 14. A necessity of Idea's in a Fever is proved 15. The same thing by a numbring up of parts 16. An examination of the occasional cause HItherto I have disputed against the Schools as if I dared not to teach the Essence of Fevers Therefore since the fruit discovers its tree I am compelled for the sake of the Lovers of Medicine to add a supply whereby the Essence of Fevers being hitherto unknown may be the more illustrated and a manner of distinguishing between Judgement and Judgement and Remedy from Remedy may be granted to the young Beginner First of all I have shewn ably enough that the definition of Fevers have been hitherto unknown and therefore that the Essence and essential causes of those are as yet unknown And seeing the knowledge of things is not granted unto us from a former cause at leastwise it is strongly to be admired at that nothing hath been devised for the Essence of a Fever besides heat while as notwithstanding the History it self of Fevers might have been able sufficiently to have opened the Necessities Agreement and Constancy of Causes and at leastwise to have reduced Mortals from the ridiculous errour of heat unless a sluggishness it self of Mortals had been allured through the tediousness of a diligent search and the easiness of subscribing First of all I speak of the nature of man being corrupted such as it continues since transgression successively For a Disease was as yet an Exile as long as death was absent So indeed that a disease had not yet any hope for it self in possibility But after that death entred into the life every disease stood in a powerful army directed against the life it self so as that a disease intended to establish its nest in the vital Beginning not indeed by fighting as a certain external thing on and against the life But the forreign Guest drew his sword in the very life it self whereby he might cut off the Life his Inne and the Patron of his Essence For such was the corruption of mans immortality that he afterwards drew his own death out of the life it self For neither do I speak in jest far be it when I write of preserving the life of Mortals For indeed every Disease perisheth presently together with the life For neither do matters however hostile they may be feigned to be combate or wax hot any longer after death Wherefore every direction of the internal efficient cause ought to depend on the life it self For that which the Ancients have even hitherto before me called the Duel of nature also the lot of an Elementary complexion with solitary qualities or with the very offensive matter of supposed humours among each other All that I affirm to proceed effectively efficiently and immediately from the principle of life that is from the inordinacy indignation tumult terrour and abhorrency of the vital spirits But the excrementous matter and that which they have thought to be and called the offending or diseasie matter I call that which is produced detained or introduced besides nature from an erring or forreign occasional cause And so I call all such matter only the occasional matter indeed the inciting one and plainly external to a Disease because the presence of which matter as yet remaining the whole Fever doth oft-times cease and utterly perisheth Therefore the internal efficient and immediate formal Being is the very life it self and the immediate matter thereof is drawn and departs from the vital air as to a part of it wherein the
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
foot if this were caused from choler wherefore it is neither choler nor gaul but the meer excrement of the stomach and Jejunum or empty gut Because that yellow excrement which is ejected at the beginning of a Tertian comes not from the liver or gaul and so from the shop of Choler but it comes not far off from the orifice of the stomach to wit where its birth is but not from the Liver seeing it neither takes away the ague nor even diminish it And likewise it ought to be derived from the liver unto the stomach through unknown thwarting passages wherefore neither could it come thither easily nor readily even as otherwise it is quickly present in the like vomiting and choler nor safely nor unmixt and it should sail over far more safely from the gaul into the intestines and from the liver backwards through the veins of the Mesentery than unto the sensible orifice of the stomach Indeed as well the feigned shop of choler as the very seat of a Tertian it self is placed too far from the stomach that this may be the ordinary Emunctory or avoiding place in these maladies Why therefore is gaul brought rather unto the stomach than to the bowels which are far more prone and apt For if that bitter excrement be bred elsewhere than in the stomach it is altogether impertinently and through a guilty passage derived unto the stomach And likewise there is oft-times sixfold more of this yellow and bitter Balast rejected at one only vomiting than the largeness of the little bag of the gaul can receive The which therefore could not be the Inn of that gaul as neither could it obtain a capacity in the liver for its generation nor be entertained between the liver and the stomach without a mortal hurt full of confusion But if indeed it be gaul and the product of the stomach it self now the stomach hath stoln the faculty of making gaul from the liver and now choler and gaul shall be made out of the liver in a different Inn by a different Guide and equivalent workman from that whereby the simple bloud is prepared with it self or certainly there is no Choler of the essential composute of the bloud Is peradventure therefore this choler and this gaul which is rejected by vomit made in an irregular place and by an erring workman Therefore also of necessity it shall be neither choler nor gaul But there is nothing as yet manifested concerning another choler that of the bloud It is therefore an injurious thing to the bloud and to the inbred choler of this if there were any to be founded and proved by an excrement which is never prepared by the princiciples or in the shops of choler Yea from thence there is an equal right and liberty for whatsoever is supposed to be cholery to be compared in essence colour savour and in its efficient cause unto this poysonous excrement voided by vomit in a Tertian Ague and other nauseous effects and likewise for that which in the disease called choler is expelled as well upwards as downwards and in solutive medicines through a continual framing thereof And so now from hence it clearly appeareth that the Standard-defending inventers of choler have by a rash and undiscreet boldness introduced choler for an elementary apposition or making up of the bloud which they call its composition and have falsly affirmed that yellow and bitter vomited-up excrement to be gaul and choler from the efficiency of the liver and of the constitution of the bloud For how uncertain and stupid is the begetter separater sender conducter way and channel by which that choler should be designed from the liver unto the stomach by a retrograde motion unless they had rather that the obediences and necessities of these should be foolish But the Schools have never examined these things but with a swift foot they have skipped over the bridge and clay from whence they feared perplexities from absurdities as if they gaped only after gain the which notwithstanding they might have diligently searched into to their greater profit than to have daily over-added their own centuries unto the writings of Galen For neither doth an excrement less differ from the bloud than the dead carkass of a swine from a man For that carkass was at sometime alive but that excrement never lived But it hath been already proved that no choler is formed in the liver But if choler also be made elsewhere than in the liver from this supposition of the Schools also it was not true choler and much less from the essence of that to wit of an excrement shall the essence of Choler be capable of proof but if indeed Choler shall with any foot originally enter into the family of an excrement now for that very cause it shall be an Humour different from Choler the which notwithstanding the Schools do with a serious intention will to be intended caused and desired by our nature as if they were advertized by an Elementary necessity At leastwise none of a sound mind is able to understand why the veins of the stomach which I have demonstrated elsewhere never to be able to sup any chyle at all shall allure unto themselves as a freind that which the Liver and which the veins and the whole family-administration of the body have been once seriously averse unto as worthy of banishment which indeed so naughty a Fardle being begotten in some other place being a Bastard and Forreigner should be brought unto the stomack which possesseth the Sense Nobilities passions and tenderness of the heart Surely in an inverted and confused order of things should filths be thrust down unto a bowel expressing the harmonies of the heart if they should be adopted being as forreigners comming from elsewhere Who is that mad and straying guide which may thrust down such excrements to the stomach For noâ— the term of Choler ceaseth while as the reliques of yesterdays supper are supposed to be badly digested and to be cast back again as yet whole with an unchewing tooth yet yellow and bitter For neither are they correlative things that much Choler should flow forth into the stomach as oft as any notable vice hereof is present For after a liberal and troublesome supper even as also after the fit of a Fever loss of appetite sufferance of hunger bitter burntish belchings loathings weight giddinesse of the head c. are alike present wherefore it is easily to be believed that those sumptoms have also sprung from a like mother So that which I promised in the title it is nothing but a dissembled vomiting of Choler whereby the first inventers of Humours have credulously perswaded Choler They also say that therefore Choler is also drawn out of the little bladder of the Gaul unto an hungry stomach But by how sluggish a judgment that is confirmed and that filths are by a retrograde driving motion fetcht back unto the stomach let Phylosophers speak For hunger desires not iron or
But fear hath not obtained any command over the Gaul that a dread being concieved it can be powred forth into the mouth For if in the jaundise the Chest of the Gaul be so shut beneath that no Choler can flow unto the Duodenum therefore neither is the mouth bitter in the jaundise from Gaul being drawn upwards from the Duodenum or empty gut seeing there is not another passage any other way whereby Gaul could ascend into the mouth Oftentimes also in the jaundise after ash-coloured excrements of the belly they void yellow ones why therefore doth not the jaundise cease if the cause thereof now desisteth What if in the jaundise Rhubarb or any other drawer forth of Choler being received whatsoever is cast forth shall yeild the testimonies of yellow Choler why therefore a Cholagogal medicine being taken is not the jaundise ended if Choler slide down thorow the bowels at the will of the Physitian What if a forreign ferment or poyson doth oft-times transchange and cast forth the whole blood and flesh it self by a flux into a stinking and yellow liquour and the which the Schools say without controversy to be Choler If I say also from the stinging or biting of some Serpent any one suddenly falls under the jaundise shall therefore the little bag of the Gaul be forthwith shut Who rather from hence shall not judge that a certaine co-like poyson lurketh in every jaundise as the causer thereof which estrangeth the digestive and distributive faculty And so that Choler is not naturally from fire as neither from a right digestion and much lesse from the fruitfullnesse of native heat but that it is made in nature plainly from a disgracefull title And therefore that the excrements do wax pale yellow red and black no otherwise than from a vice as well of the digestive as of the distributive faculty For the dung of Infants is yellower than that of those of ripe years yet they are not therefore reckoned in the Schools to be more Cholerick The yellownesse of an excrement therefore is that which ariseth from the vice of its own putrefaction What if therefore the jaundise be not from a stoppage of the Gaul shall not consesequently medicines for the unstopping of the Gaul be in vain For so as some Serpents do from a property cause the jaundise so also some Insects do likewise cure the jaundise as also some Simples being only bound on the outside of the body To wit as they take away the poyson which estrangeth the aforesaid faculties but not that those wormes or simples do presently stop or unstop the chest of the Gaul Let them therefore remember that curative betokenings are not fitly drawn from things helpfull and hurtfull but more fitly diagnostical or discerning ones And the which I have elsewhere more fully profesly manifested The efficient cause therefore of the jaundise is a poysonous ferment besides nature which so badly affecteth the Pylorus that the digestive and also the distributive faculty are alienated And that poyson sits either in the Duodenum or is communicated farther of from the Ileon so now and then one that is bitten by a serpent is straightway afflicted with the jaundise But not that that stroak in the skin hath presently stopt up the passage of the gaul into the empty gut Therefore the jaundise is cured by the floures of Marigold Dandelyon and of many other the like things being applyed oft-times also by some Antidotes agreeable to the Pylorus Such as are Palmer-wormes earth-wormes yellow-wormes between planks and those things which do powerfully cleanse the first region of the body For neither doth Rhubarb Saffron Gourd the sharp leaved Dock c. Cure the jaundise as they are yellow but their yellownesse rather shewes their ordination to be for the wiping away of the poyson For Signatures bewray the internal Crasis or constitutive temperature of a thing but the Grasis it self doth not discover the thing A certain man of eighty years old and father in law to a Physitian of Bruxels for two years space continually dropped with a Strangury He was therefore thought to have the stone in his bladder At length his dead Carcase being dissected it was found to be free from the stone That Physitian presently boasted that he had broken away the stone from his father in law by offering him stone-breaking things But he had not freed him from the dropping strangury But his gaul was filled with some clots without the jaundise but a defect of the Spleen causeth the strangury of old men As I have elsewhere proved concerning digestions For the Jewes complain very much of black Choler and grief But they make use of the stone which is sometimes found in an Oxe his Gaul it is somewhat yellow and swims now and then in water although sometimes it be the more hard and black But the Oxe perisheth not by the jaundise but by the hammer neither is he ill at ease from yellow Choler although the chest of his gaul be stopped up with a stone large enough Lastly the Oxe that is fed with continual grass is stopped in his gaul Therefore so great a use of grasse roots in all Apozemes is wholly ridiculous 1. Before therefore I shall grant the gaul to be daily sent down for tinging of the excrements of the paunch it ought first to be manifest that there was Choler in the nature of things 2. And then that the excrements of man are endued with a notable bitternesse The which notwithstanding is elsewhere proved false concerning digestions 3. It ought to be manifest that the same paint which tingeth the urine and filths of the belly is not naturally generated in the very passage of the membranees which is called the intestine even as I have made manifest above concerning a Calf 4. If therefore the urine and dungs are ordinarily and naturally yellow and yet are not bitter therefore not from gaul or Choler Therefore it is no wonder if such an Efficient of nature erring such a tincture becomes the more plentifull and so that in the more heightned jaundise the urine waxeth also more intensly yellow daily in a jaundous person neither is it a wonder also if from the efficient and distributing cause erring such yellow excrements are derived throughout the whole body and that the jaundise and at length also death do arise For if in a gluttonous stomach there be made a bitter yellownesse from its digestion erring and that as well with-out as with-in the the jaundise as well in an healthy as feverish person and as well in an obstructed as open gaul In the next place if in stopped up gaul stones clots c. do appear without the jaundise If in the jaundise the urine be most intensly yellow and tinging without bitternesse and gaul and all these things under the errour of the digestive faculty alone and the distributive offending It is no wonder that the excrements of the belly look pale through a vice of both
â—â—â—gth returning to me and being cured staid with me at Vilvord for the space of half an year neverthelesse on the same day wherein she returned home the hidden Leprousie in Scalds again re-budded I have also known women who were readily inclined to a miscarriage although they travelled the Country in a Coach and the journy had prosperously succeeded yet in the river they felt a commotion in their womb and being carried from the bank by a Coach that thy slide into an excessive flux of menstruous blood And so the river strivingly imitating the heaven steals away the believed honour from the Planets I speak of Summer and so neither is cold in the tiveâ— then somewhat suspected to be accused Also the cold of Autumne in travelling the country withstood or hurt not so much as in the month called August the river nor the shaking of the Coach brought not so much hurt as a quiet saying At length not a watery vapour wandring about in the river For truly in journying the Countryon rainy days the declared calamities happened not As neither by living about fenny places but in rivers fit for flowing and ebbing a few hours hath brought on them these troubles of the Plague Wheals Leprousy and smal Pox which on lane did not arise For the water twice every day for sakes the ships and banks and the bottom is of a strong smelling stink through an hoary putrefaction wherefore the river speakes in silence and proves the hurts of its odour putrified by continuance which I shall by and by shew For that thing also is therefore proper not so much unto the sea shoat as to the bank of rivers For there is no hoary putrefaction at the falt Sea and sand of its bottom such as is in half-sweet or breachy rivers wherefore their waters are scarce ever altogether clean and they want an odour proper to themselves The Heaven therefore is free from our contagion as also being innocent of the accusations of the ignorant it wants the fault of revenge They are the Reliques of Paganism the which unlesse the School of medicine shall shun let it know that the giver of lights will not reach forth his benefits unto them CHAP. IV. A forreign new Plague or contagion ALL diseases have not come at once into the place of exercise surely the ages of our Ancestours were happy wherein but few infirmities had bent their sword against man weaknesse And the product following upon Adams transgression hath by degrees adjoyned the principles of nature with us For Astrologers do as yet to this day flee together unto the limited positions of the stars unto the wraths and un-co-sufferablenesses of their oppositions and the conjoyning combates of malignant lights whereby the first Fever first Apoplexy or first was bred For although I am not wont diligently to search into things past which may not profit but hurt and much lesse have I accustomed my self to enquire into those things the demonstrations whereof I could not obtain give make or hope for yet I could not but deride the folly of Paganisme referred on the stars For I could the more easily assent unto Astrologers if a Fever being once bred and an Apoplexy having arisen they had ceased when that constellation ceased Also if they could demonstrate in what Inn the while they should inhabite the displacing of severish stars being once divded or drawn into diverse parts Wherefore in the book of long life I first was constrained to describe the entrance of all diseases and death into humane nature from their original And so I clearly understand and seeingly behold that they were the reliques of paganisme whosoever hath dared to extend the offices and ordinations of the Stars beyond the text of the Holy Scriptures which saith that the stars are to us only for signes seasons days and years For if I should assent unto judiciary Astrologers I should suppose a feverish or Pestilent seed being once bred to have afterwards entred into nature not indeed that its generation did continue thence-forward as the off-spring of a certain curse but of creation But since most diseases do at length end into health if at leastwise they do not die with the sick themselves and for the most part without the raysing up of a new off-spring it should of necessity be that if they had at sometime begun by reason of unlucky lights a ridiculous or blasphemous word for a Christian neither could then begin without them at this day if those lights having thus con-joyntly encountred are to be judged the efficient causes of diseases Therefore I beleived after that I had more fully unfolded the re-solutions of hidden bodies by the fire that there were from the beginning the same principles and rootes of diseases which there are also at this day The which I have cleerly enough demonstrated in the section of the original of medicine in the treatise concerning diseases in general I have also believed that some diseases in the beginning were as it were in their infancy more gentle and that they had more swift progresses and also more easy extinguishments by reason of the former strength of humane nature yet that some diseases were in their beginning more fierce the which indeed do not so adhere to the root of humane frailty but are attained as companions with a Plague or contagion as being forreign For as natures were in times past more strong the which as they are the recievers so also the Physitianesses of diseases so now I experience the seeds of diseases daily to profit to make a more strong impression and to wax very fierce and that our nature by how much the longer it goes on and the more unseasonably proceedes by so much the more negligently also it hearkens unto remedies For indeed in the days of our Fathers the Lues venerea or foul disease till that time hitherto unknown arose together with its chambermaids and lackeys But the 1424. year and the siege of Parthenopolis or Magdeburg and the age of that Lues and the first nativity thereof is taken notice of At length whatsoever hath once grown tough in our possession although it may perish in those individuals yet it afterwards keeps its particular kind and scarce knows how to dye as long as the command of him remaines who sendeth a spot into the flesh As the Scurvy Plague of Hungany c. unknown to our Ancestours but our stripes increase daily because impieties also are multiplied Truly diseases are changed are masked are increased and do degenerate through their coupling therefore henceforward we must deliberate with a more earnest thought concerning more profound remedies but from the growing worse of a disease I have conjectured that a more secure art of healing ought to arise than that which hitherto by frequent blood-letting and the poysonous resolving of laxative medicines their bonds being conjoyned fore-timely draws mortals into the place of burial For I guesse at it because I see the Lues
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
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
legs and elsewhere For there are somethings in the air which are perceived by the smelling of the nostrils in the next place there are other things which are distinguished by dogs only And lastly there are also other things which are voyd of all odour although not void of contagion For truly the serment of a poyson as such may be free from smel Therefore every country produceth and suffereth its own sicknesses For why nature is subject to the soile neither doth every Land bring-forth all things Because diverse vapours are brought forth in the air according to the variety of the soile Which things I more fully sifting with my self have often admired that our life is extended unto so many years since we are environed on every side with so manifold a guard of most potent enemies since we admit the same so deeply within us and are constrained to attract them against our will And that not only by breathing but also by a magnet or attraction which sports aftes its own manner through the habit of the flesh For I who have been often and long present without-fear among the fumes of live coals and the odours of other things have reaâ—ly felt those odours and fumes not only to be derived in a straight line into my breast but also from thence into my stomach and therefore that our belchings do express those smoaky fumes conceived For so the breath blown out of the lungs resembleth the smells of Garlick and Onyons that are eaten although collected thorow the Nostrils but the plague is drawn in on both sides But a voluntary Pest which is begotten not from without but within bewrays it self in the arm-pits and groyn but seldom behind the ears For this Pest for the most part issues forth from drawn-in odours But that which is infamous in spots proceeds from an internal poyson being first smothered within and therefore the worst of all as it is for the most part intended or increased with the fermental putrefaction of suffocation But that which shews forth Carbuncles is either a strong expulsion which casteth farther than into the next â—munctory or which ariseth from the touch of a contagious matter or from an in-breathed poyson of the plague For that Pest which hath invaded from a co-touching although it be more slow than that which otherwise insulteth from an universal cause yet for the most part it is more deadly Because the Archeus implanted in the member is slain by this plague and from thence the part draws a pestilential Gangren for succouring whereof the whole Archeus is the more negligent he meditating of defending the bowels as fleeing betakes himself inwards and that mortal Gangren proceeds to creep Also remedies and their intention are for the most part idle for escharring of the outward parts and that afterwards the Escharre may quickly fall off For in this respect all Emplaisters and attracting things are administred but they are seldom administred as that they overcome the poyson it self But a plague from without as it is chiefly to be feared in the joynts so on the other hand that which is darted from within to without involveth the less danger And indeed that which is bred within doth primarily terrifie the Archeus and therefore it is sudden and very powerful But the poyson of a plague that is caught by touching after it hath insinuated it self into the Archeus because he is that which is the first living and the last dying and the only Ruler of things inwardly to be done being at length confirmed after the manner of poyson it easily infecteth the rest For truly the Archeus himself being once infected presently conceiveth a pestiferous image of terrour and the raines of governing the body being forsaken he communicates it to his Associates In the next place although sweat be profitable in every plague yet less in that which hath privily entred by an external co-touching at least it is in no wise therefore to be neglected Moreover in the plague of a particular individual person by whom the whole people in common are now and then afflicted there a fermental putrefaction doth for the most part begin within which being once suddenly laid hold of the poysonous image of an Archeal terrour is from thence the more easily committed That Pest is the more swift which is drawn inwards from the external putrefaction of an odour because it presently associates unto it two degrees to wit a putrefaction through continuance and a mumial and co-marriageable ferment But there is no need that that hoary putrefaction should be perceiveable by the nostrils with an aversness For if dogs which exceed us in smelling do sent an hoary putrefaction or the foot-step of their Master in the way our Archeus himself doth as yet far more easily smell out-those things which are within and therefore a putrified odour cannot hurt unless it shall find a mumial serment within whereunto it may couple it self Then indeed there is now forthwith a forreign matter nevertheless as yet wanting a contagion Therefore it behoveth that the matter be furnished with full conditions and with a formality of acting For these two are as yet as it were the occasional and provoking causes Again as concerning the Tartar of the blood there hath been enough spoken that it is a product of the Pest and that it waits for this or is made out of hand at the coming of the plague The first term therefore of making the Pest is an hoary putrified Gas the which seeing it cannot infect without a co-resemblance of appropriation it requires another correlative term which is a mumial ferment without which there is not an appropriation to wit the Archeus the receiver of the Pest For truly the poysonous matter of the plague being by contagion derived into us defiles not any one unless the Archeus shall lay hold of it and appropriate it to himself wherein surely the Archeus labours improvidently For from thenceforth the Pest conceiveth a terrour by his own phantasie but not from the sore fear of the man to wit in which phantasie of Archeal terrour the Archeus brings forth a pestilential poyson which is the very Idea of the conceived terrour being cloathed with the proper coat of the Archeus Alas then the Pest is present within and doth soon easily disturb the whole man The image of the Pestilence therefore consisteth of an Archeal air as of the matter containing whereon the poyson of the terrour of the Archeus is imprinted as the immediate efficient cause For neither therefore doth the poyson of the plague always defile any one whatsoever although it shall presently find an odour in us agreeable to it self because the mumial ferment although it be internal yet nevertheless it is only an occasional mean in respect of the contagious application or of the infection applied which appropriation immediately consisteth in a real and actual congress of the image bred by terrour which the Archeus conceiveth from the aforesaid
pestilent one which image I have therefore denoted with the name of terrour as distinct from an image of conceived fear whereby a living creature is affraid A pestilent terrour therefore doth not here denote any terrour or the dread of any calamity but onely a pestilent horrid poyson conceived in terrour as well by the man as by the Archeus of the same In this Idea therefore is scituated the essence of the Pest and the thinglinesse of this whole Book I confesse indeed that the images of any fear are easily changed into the Idea of a pestilent terrour even so as a woman great with child deriveth the image of a mouse on the undefiled flesh of her Young yea hath sometimes transplanted the whole Embryo into an horrid animal or monster Because as I have elsewhere taught concerning formes formal images do mutually pierce each other and the latter doth readily draw the former into the obedience of it self which Hipocrates calls a leading of seeds whither they would not Truly to convocate a diversity of elements and a combating assembly thereof for a mixt body and likewise of complexions humors and conditions inclinations and studies sprung from thence Lastly the divisions of climates angles or quarters ages proportions strengths bignesse and interchangeable courses for a succour of ignorance that hereby we may make the more greater and more difficult calamities may increase uncertainties may rule ignorances may beget doubts may patronize impostures and promote despairs of life is nothing else but to have laboured in vain For the perfect light of Sciences is like fire which burns up every combustible matter without exception Such a Science Hipocrates had in times past obtained CHAP. XIV The property of the Pest I Have demonstrated that the passions of the mind do destroy the appeâ—iâ—e as also prostrate digestion In the next place that the first motions of cogitations do obtain their own assemblies in the midriffs Therefore also I have dedicated the mouth of the stomach unto Mercury whereunto the Heathens have attributed the sharpnesse of wit as also the sleepifying white wand of truce I have also said that the plague is originally conceived from the terrour of man and that the air which being brought out of a pestiferous body is carried into us doth at its first assault rush into the spleen which presently shakes out the same and delivers it as it were by hand unto the Oâ—ifice of the Stomach From hence are dejection of appetite vomiting head-ach dotages faintings thirst the drowsie evil c. But the Plague which is made in us even as that which is drawn in from without have their own Inns wherein every one begins to rage But as long as the Idea of sorrow and fear do besiedge the Tartar of the bloud in the Stomach and as long as the image of the terrour of the Archeus is absent the Plague is not yet present In the mean time indeed it comes to passe if they shall keep themselves the lesse exactly that the Tartar of the bloud being more and more malicious doth at length terrifie the Archeus and he stamps a pestilent poyson on himself For Plagues which are bred onely through terrour are more swift and much more terrible than those which proceed from an infected air for this perhaps strikes many to the heart because the stomach seeing at least it is a membrane yet I have placed the perturbations and first assaults even in the Orifice thereof or in the spleen at least wise in that extream or utmost part of it self which lays on the orifice or upper mouth of the stomach and from hence a ferment is bestowed that is requisite for the necessities of digestion But the Schools themselves call the mouth of the stomach by the Ftymology of the heart For a wound of that place and a wound oâ— the heart do kill with the same sumptom and alike speedily For I have seen many whose head a strong Apoplexie had made plainly unsensible and dead yet that were hot in the midriffs many hours after For a Bride in a Coach nigh Scalds is saluted by Country Musqueteers and the bullet or a Musquet smites thorow the temples of her head not a little of her brain is dashed out and her head presently dies But she being being brought to Vilvord four leagues distant from thence her pulse as yet afforded testimonies of liâ—e Is not also the vital spirit being a certain ruler of the whole body in the womb and the which is onely a membrane after the manner of the stomach and the seat of far greater disturbances than the liver lungs and kidneys Truly the members in themselves are nothing but dead Carcasses but the spirit is the Governour which quickens those members which spirit and after what sort God hath planted where he would Indeed I remember that I have often seen that those who had the Tartar of their bloud corrupted by some kind of fear of the Plague but without belief or presumption of a contracted infection diâ— undergoe an uncessant anguish and combating day and night yea although they were wise and laughed at their own perplexities yet they were not able but that as restlesse they would present the image of fear conceived before their eyes For they were like unto those who were bitten by a mad dog who will they nill they have their imagination readily pâ—yable at the pleasure of the poyson At length in the very Tartar of the bloud sticking about the midriffs I have found a proper natural phantasie which the image of fear conceived in the spleen had feigned to it self So lascivious dreams do not always follow from the imagination of the fore-past day but for the most part also from the matter it self predominating in the Testicles no otherwise also than as one that hath a desire â—o make water dreameth that he doth continually make water Therefore the terrour of the man is the occasion of the Pest and the terrour of the Archeus is the efficient cause of the pestiferous image and poyson For it is as it were the Father of the Plague the which the poysonous image being once bred although it may cease at least wise the Plague conceived is in its own image For if the terrour of the man were a sufficient cause of the Plague of necessity also the Plague should always follow a pestilential terrour which is false even as also in an inâ—ant who is void of all terrour the Plague is received at pleasure From whence it is sufficiently manifest that the Archeus himself being affrighted is the primitive efficient cause of the image of the pestilence The plague therefore consisteth of a defilement to wit of a contagion in the swiftnesse of its course in the singulaâ—ity of its poyson in the terribleness of its concomitants lastly in a difficulty of preservation and curing But indeed I leave behind me the inquisition of that plague which is sent for a punishment by reason of the hidden
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