Medicines secretly hid and couched in the midst and Oyl of Bodies to be fetcht out and gotten by skilfull means of Alchimy even of that Art I say which is so much condemned of his Fellows and Companions To this Harbour also the best of his Fellows before and since him have fled and do daily fly apace from the toil and trouble of their fruitless and barren dead Sea Then let us shift our Sails and fly as far and further too I hope if Tide and Wind and all which we have at will fail not But first let us describe that Haven of Medicine and see what Marks it hath and how it differs from other Creeks adjoyning lest at our Journeys end we miss with more shame and grief and suffer shipwreck A Medicine is that which kills the force of that which hurts us and this it doth many wayes and yet all to one end which is the End of all doing and working as I said before for his Food and Sustenance then let us come again and sort our Speeches A Medicine heals us and kills our Enemy either by dulling or consuming it for when it meets with the contrary of even strength as when Oyl and Poison c. joyn then in Fight they neither eat up nor destroy each other but both are dulled and weakned and make one blockish thing which Nature casteth out for an unlike and unkindly dead thing which they call a Leaving or Excrement But in case it be of more strength and power than our Enemy then it quite destroys devours and turns him into his own Nature And this Consumer is either like the thing that hurts us In which sore even as every Herb of sundry qualities draws and feeds upon his own Juyce in a Garden so one Poison doth cure another and all purging and drawing things do heal us and all Fernel's hid and divine Properties work by plain reason Or else it is unlike and contrary after which manner As dry Sticks and Towe and Vinegar quench wilde Fires or other fat Fires before Water whose fatness feeds it for the stronger contrary quality quelling and eating up the weaker so doth any cold and dry thing as Bole Armin Terra Lemnia c. cure a rotten Poison and so are a great number of Cures done which onely course in word the Graecian Physick taketh though not in deed for we heard even now of two oother wayes of Healing which they themselves and other Folk did take unawares though Paracelse found out the name belike of late but he strayeth as much as they on that other side when he thinks all Cures thereby performed Now when the consuming Medicines have done their duties Nature expels them for Poison and unlike strange things according to the Graecian Rules because all their Medicines were by their own confessions such But if they had either Thought of the dulling Nourisher which as I told you takes the nature of Leaving or had known our Mens wholsome Medicines they would have made another reckoning But let them go and let us set out in time towards the Haven of Health If the Art of Healing be nothing else but the matching of hurtful things and their stronger Enemies but equality will sometimes serve the turn or Likes together and the world be full of both these kindes of Creatures following the nature of their Parents the four Beginnings which are as we see some like and some contrary one to another Then sure our All-healing Art is not impossible and wanteth nought but a Man well skilled in the Nature of things a Philosopher by name for I need not put in a Physician also to know that other part the causes of Diseases which must be matched because as Paracelse well saith in that he that knoweth the causes of Changes and Chances in the great World may soon espy them in the little But our nought-healing Leaches will step in and say Diseases are some so great and in all so many Mans wit so weak and shallow and the Medicine so hid and drown'd in the deep of Nature that it is not possible to finde them all or if they were found to apply them with such discretion as Nature might abide those poisoned frayes and battels within her And again that admit all this untrue yet there be some Diseases sent from Witch-craft and Sorcery and other means which have their Cause and so their Cure without the compass of Nature to let pass our tickle standing daily and hourly so beset with Destinies that a man can warrant nothing I marry Destinies are too deep and bottomless to return straight Homer-like upon them and therefore it were best indeed to let them go and the applying of the Medicines with them the rather because the other the former I mean is so slight a matter to a discreet and well-ordered Leach such a one as is pointed out by their old and famous Leader Hippocrates who both in this and all other duties of his Art hath made such speed and so far passed all his Fellows as none since which is a good time could ever overtake him no nor yet come so near as to keep the sight of him whom they had in chase and followed Then for those unsearchable and supernatural Causes as they call them if they flow from unclean and wicked Spirits as some think they are not the Stuff of the thing that hurts us though they sometimes dwell in and possess the Body but windy movers workers and disturbers of the peace and good order of our Bodies much like unto those fierce and sudden changes of Weather proceeding from the Stars and working the like effect in Mens Bodies so that sith the nearest Cause is Natural let the rest be what it will and the Cure be done by Natural Means as we see it sometimes amongst us And therefore Paracelse who puts the fault in the Faith of the wicked Witch a thing as far above Nature yet holds it curable with a natural Medicine which they call a Quintessence Although I am not unwitting that sometimes his Sickness is such he bids us withstand it with another as strong a Belief set against it But for my part I cannot reach it with my Conceit let deeper Heads think upon it How those Beliefs and Imaginations and other parts and powers of the Soul or Minde of Man can so fly out of their own Kingdom and reign over a forreign Body when we know the whole Soul and Minde so fast bound in durance and so like to be until it be the pleasure of the great Magistrate who hath committed them to let them loose at once and set them out at full liberty let old Wives buz of Hermotimus and such like Tales what they will But if those Diseases spring as some of Learning hold and with Reason from neither of both those two Roots named but from a foul and venomous Breath sent forth from a Poisoned temper of the Witches
Nature I had need send you back to the degrees of Kinde allotted and bounded out above by the Counsel of Philosophers whereby you may see if you consider well that a Beast standing in a lower kind of mixture can in no case be bettered and made a Man unless his temper be marred first and made anew and so his Life and Being put out and razed when as a foolish Man hath no such cause and reason being both for his Divine Minde though it be eclipsed by the shadow of an earthly Body in respect of his temper a degree above a Beast and in the state and condition of Mankinde fire abounding in him as his shape declares as well as in other Men though not so much and in the same point and measure And what is the cause Not because Nature meant it so but by reason she was lett and hindered by some cross thing laid in her way within the stuffe whereby she was driven to stray and misse and come short of her purpose like as the Mole Aristotle saith for all her blindness is in the same kind with all other hot and bloody perfect Wights which should have all their Wits and Senses because having all the parts of an Eye whole and perfect it is a sign that Nature meant to have gone forward and was lett with the bar of a grosse and thick Skin Now then we see the failes and errours of Kinde by Skill daily corrected yea and some hold opinion that the blemish in the Mole may be washed out and mended also that we may hold it possible to do the like in this fault of Folly Nay we may think it more easie than some of them because there is no several degree and whole kinde as if Nature had run this race of purpose which seemeth so in that work of the Mole but some odd and rare Examples and as it were Monsters in kind or more fitly Diseases left by Nature Descent and Inheritance sprung out from some ill temper of the seed of the Parents But how may this Disease be cured All things in kind by the course of Kind have both their highest and deepest pitch and end and as it were their South and North turns from whence they still return and go back again to avoid Infinity So these natural and left Diseases have their Race which they run and spend by little and little And when it is all run and all the stock of corruption spent which is within nine or ten Off-springs then they mend and return to health again such is the Race of Wisdom also and of all health of Body for the health of the Mind is inclosed within that other as we see by the Children which Wise men beget and so forth the case is plain and easie Then we see in this Matter how Nature inclines and is ready to help her self and if Art would lend his hand we may think the cure would be much more speedy and many parts of the time cut off and abated And as we find in sores and other lighter inward hurts this done by slight means of slender Skill so we may deem that by more mighty means more great and mighty deeds may be performed But what do I fetch about the Matter when it is above and as I think sufficiently proved that all left Leprosies and other Natural Diseases of the Body by those Heavenly and Mineral Medicines which I call the Cure-alls and Cure-the-greats may be quite cleansed and driven away and this is among the number of Left and Natural Diseases all sprung out from an ill temper of the seeds of Parents And to omit the rest if the Leprosie flowing from the foulness of the Blood of all the Body may be cured much more this which proceeds from the ill frame of one part onely that is from a muddy Brain Or if that Disease may be said to come from one part alone that is the Liver because it is the maker of all Blood yet that one is a most dangerous part if it be ill-affected because by need of Nature it sends to all places and so reacheth through all and striketh all by contagion whereas the Brain as other more keep themselves within their bounds and stretch no further But let us go further If a good and fine Temper through ill Diet and passions of the Soul hath often fallen from a good Wit to a kind of Madness scarce to be descried from the state of an Ideot then sure through the contrary cause a foul frame may be cleared and rise to Wisdom by as good reason as the Art of Reason hath any especially if those contrary Passions and Diet be holpen and set forward by meet Medicines which the Graecians know and teach and wherewith they make great changes in Mens Bodies But without all doubt and question if that our most fine clear and hot Aegyptian Cure-all came in place to help the matter for if the mightier Enemy shall in fight overcome the weaker as you all grant and thereon stands your Physick then shall this passing fineness and clearness when it ariseth in the Body like the Sun in the Morning scatter and put to flight all Mists and Darkness clearing and scouring mightily by his matchless heat strength and swiftness every part of the Body Neither shall you say Life will not suffer such violent and forcible dealing when as Life it self shall do it for what is that which made and mingled at first the foolish Body but a Beam of Heavenly-Fire carried on a Couch of Aether And what is this our Heavenly Medicine but the same as is above shewn at large Then let us put same to same strength to strength and if one before was too weak to break as it would and mingle the fond Body finely now both together one helping another and still with fresh supply renewing the Battel shall be I think able to overcome the work and at last to bring it to the wished end pass and perfection If you fly to the last Hold and Shift and say the time is now past and occasion of Place and Stuffe now lost and slipt away being too hard for Nature upon so hard a Stuffe and Place to work such exchanges If you look to her ordinary race in all things you shall see that she is able and doth daily rule square and frame very gross and unmeet Stuffe in most unfit Places to our thinking yea much more then these in this Work and not onely the thick and sturdy stuffe of Minerals cleansing the Rocks yet in unseen places down to the bowels of the Ground and that grosse and rude gear in the bottom of the Sea to make Shell-fish But also living moving and perceiving Land-Wights in the close Rocks as you heard before and in the cold Snow and burning Fire as those Wormes and Flies in Aristotle To close up all and end this matter at once If you remember how this our Heavenly Cure-all when he was
one chief and notable Rule in Learning that the Shape Nature Being Perfection and all the difference in all things here below springeth from the Mixture and Temper of the Stuff and Beginnings The Doing Making and Working-Cause that Makes Mingles Brocheth and sets all a running to be a piece of the finer part of the whole parted and packt up together in the SUN Of which finer part some remaining still in the Raw and rude Stuff secretly hid and placed othersome more freely in the half-made Stuff called Seed and in finer Seed yet more lively and in Man most at liberty excepting where I said it was free indeed from all kinde of Body And yet all these but one and the self-same thing called Soul Life Heavenly and Natural Heat c. This meant Divine Hippocrates when he saith Nought is made and nothing perisheth but all are altered and changed up and down by Mingling And again That no Wight can die unless all fall wherein he is most agreeable and jumpeth even with these Grounds and Rules and with the whole Web of our Philosophy If any man doubt of the other two Plato and Aristotle let him reade their Books with heed and he shall finde them where they speak naturally and by the light of humane Reason to draw still towards this one head and point of Truth though they seem to stray sometimes to the infinite Variety of divers-natured and conditioned Stars above causing the like endless odds and difference of all things Let us now I say set forward in our first dayes Journey to Long Life unfolding first What it is and the Cause thereof and lastly the Common and high way to it It seems hard for a Man to appoint what bounds of Life are large and long enough for BLISSE unless GOD who knoweth best both the measure of Happiness fit for us and the race of Time meet for it had first set and marked them So that the greatest Age and furthest Time that the lustiest Men and best disposed Bodies both by kinde and diet have at any time reached and lived may well by the grant and good will of our great Landlord be set the Bounds Stint and End of Life large enough to hold all the Bliss meet for Mankinde and the Mark which we may all aim and level our endevours at yea and with sure hope to hit and reach it and no further is about an hundred and fifty years as you shall hear anon Now if there do three Causes meet to the making up of Things and thereon leaneth all their Being the Stuff the Mover and the Meat of the Mover which is the Fatness of the Stuff then sure the cause of their long Being and Continuance in their Estate can be nothing else but the favour and goodness of those three Causes The Soul and Heat of Heaven is good and favourable to Wights to let the rest go far more dark and further off my Purpose when she pours her self plentifully upon them for there can be no other odds in one and the self-same thing in all places But the Fat Food of Life which they call the first Moisture and the finest piece of all the Seed lying hid and unseen in the sound parts of Wights and yet by skill to be fetched out and set before us must not onely be plentiful and great in store to match the feeding Soul but also Fast and Fine that by his Fineness he may be both friendly and like to Life and Aiery or rather Aetherial we must wear these Words with handling to keep himself both in Cold and Heat flowing and that through his Fastness or Closeness which they call in Latine densum or solidum that is through his much Stuff in a narrow room he may be more lasting and fit to continue Now the Stuff and Body is best when it is Fast and Fine also one to hold and hang long together and that other to give free scope without stopping or lett unto the continual and swift race of Life Then to make a sum of all The Cause of long Life is a fast fine Body sprinkled and seasoned with much-like first Moisture and store of heavenly Heat If this Matter needed any further proof I could easily by cutting up the Nature of Things so lay it open before you as your own Eyes should witness and see the same But if it need to some they shall see something and that sufficient to content them For the first Aristotle saith and we finde it true by Experience that they live longest in hot Countries for the Dry Sound Fast and Fine Bodies but chiefly for their Fineness yielding free recourse and passage unto Life for Age and kindly Death come of Rottenness which flows from the stillness of Heat and slackness to salt and refresh the parts Touching the rest to wit that much Heat and much good Fatness are a cause of Long Life mark the short life of those Wights that either want them by kinde as the maimed and imperfect ones or waste them by motion as the Male Greyhound of Lacedaemon was against the course of Kinde shorter lived than the Bitch for his pains in Hunting and the Cock Sparrow lives but half so long as the Hen and yet this but three years for their Venery The World is full of such Examples And behold again the Elephant on that other side for the great help and favour of all the Causes above the rest as may appear by their great fruits and effects in him that is Strength Bigness and Stomach being able to be the ground-work of a Castle of fifteen armed men to eat nine Bushels at a time and to drink fourteen Tun to endure and hold out much longer than the rest and to live Aristotle is mine Author in the story three hundred years in all Now we know what Long Life is and the Cause thereof let us see whether all Men reach it or no and then which way they may reach it At the first all Mankinde by the will and appointment of Kinde was Sound and Lusty and lived long and all the fail and corruption now adayes which falsly seemeth a weak Condition of our Nature crept in through Disorder in our selves by little and little and so by sowing still the like Children it spred it self at last deeply rooted over all and made it as it were a certain State Nature and Kinde of Man wherefore by good order in our Selves it may be reformed and brought back again unto the ancient State But how may we prove this If GOD and Nature have ordained Man unto a Divine End and Bliss above the rest and yet some Beasts as Theophrastus for a wonder complains live longer than our common rate yea and longer than any Bounds above-set certainly we ought to do as much and more by the rule of Nature and of all Right and Reason and so we did at first before we fell by
worthy Master Plato If that were the best Life or the Life of GOD why did GOD make the World He lived so before if that had been the best Life But because He was Good He would have other enjoy his Goodness and therefore he was busie in Making and is yet in Ruling the World And yet indeed it is no Business as we reckon it that is no Care and Trouble but an outward Deed and Action clean contrary to the inward Deed of a musing Minde onely shooting at his own good Estate which is Wisdome and Knowledge But if he deny all this as it is like he will because to encrease the heap of sin he grants no Beginning then what can be greater evidence than his own Writings one quite thwarting another as cross as may be for in his seventh Book of State he comes again and saith that Every man hath so much BLISSE as he hath Wisdome and Virtue even by the witness of GOD himself who is therefore happy and not for outward Goods What can be more divinely spoken and more cross to that former foul and godless Opinion Nay see the force of Truth he yields again according to his heavenly Master That to forestall the Place from the worser sort good Men ought to take Office upon them and to manage Affairs of State Yea and further If they refuse which if they be Wise they will quoth Zeno that they may be rightly compelled Then if his Wiseman hath Virtue in possession as no doubt he hath he must as we see by his own confession use it And the same reason is of GOD Himself in this great City of the World But Plato by name thinks these two so nearly tied and of kin together as he dare openly deny his Happiness to that Common-wealth where they be dis-linked and stand asunder Then we see that in the judgement of these two great Philosophers where they be best advised and in deed and truth the Divine Pattern of BLISSE which we ought to strive unto is no more nor no less than that worthy couple of Wisdome and Virtue knit together in that band of Fellowship which may never be parted and set asunder But you may say We have reared our BLISSE aloft and made it a fair and goodly Work but more fit for the dwelling of those single and clean Mindes or Spirits above which they call Messengers or Angels than for us Men so buried here below in these earthly Bodies as we be scarce able to look up unto it And therefore Aristotle both in his Book of Manners and of State with good advice often receiveth in enough of bodily and outward Goods to help this matter though not as any other cause of BLISSE than the Instrument is of Musick and so Plato we see nameth his Servants and Helpers Indeed I grant that this full and high pitch of Happiness I mean that measure above set is free and easie to free and lively Spirits but to us impossible without other outward means and helps which nevertheless shall not be counted as any part of the frame of BLISSE needful to make up the whole but as it were loose and hang-by steps and stairs leading up unto it Then if these be so needful as they be it were as much need to lay them down and in just account which those Philosophers do not lest if there be too few our Happiness should halt if again too many the idle parts might in time infect and marre the rest As we may fear of Plato his first three Delights although they be not hurtful of themselves Without more words the just sum is this To obtain so much Happiness as our Nature is able to take and hold the Body had need be first willing and obedient and then store of outward needful things to be at hand and ready These every Man knoweth But for the Body that is obedient when it is long-liv'd healthful young clear and temperate when all these helps flock together we may be happy if we will if any want we shall never do what we can as we shall hear hereafter Then let us marshal at last these things in Order and comparing BLISSE to a Family make that loving Couple Wisdome and Virtue as Man and Wife and Heads of the Houshold the five Properties of the Body like Children and Riches as Servants These again if the chief of the Houshold will suffer them to Marry will beget other two Bond-children to beautifie the same house Honour and Pleasure But the wise and good Housholder will in no wise suffer it lest his Houshold be troubled with more than may be ruled And although true and right Honour and Pleasure will perforce follow yet he shall not regard them but be minded towards them as those grave Men were towards Hellen and often use their saying Although they be such kinde ones yet let them go CHAP. II. Reproof of the common and lighter sort of Arguments cast against the Way to Bliss NOw that we know what is BLISSE and HAPPINESSE we may when we will go into the Way and shew how all Men may be Blessed wherein I am quite bereaved of an helps from the Grecians as men ever apter to speak and think well than to do and perform any thing though constancy and agreement in their Sayings would have left BLISSE as well as other good things in the power and reach of all Men And I must fly for aid into Aegypt a People so far passing all other Nations as it is better and nearer to GOD to work and do great wondrous things than to behold and look upon them For it is delivered to ancient and true Record that one HERMES a King and Law-giver of that Country a Man of rare and divine gifts in Knowledge above all that ever were found out a Medicine able to bring all men to that BLISSE aforesaid and left it behinde him in writing to his People and that it was after him a long time by the wiser sort closely wrought and used until at last it crept abroad and stole into Arabia when she flourished in Arms and Learning and there got the Name which it now commonly keepeth of the PHILOSOPHERS STONE And that from thence in the same secret and disguised manner for it is the wont thereof as becomes so deep a Secret it hath travelled and spred it self over all Nations now and then opening and discovering it self to a few of the better and wiser Company Then this is THE WAY TO BLISSE which I mean to take And withall to prove it no pleasant Dream and happy Tale if it were true as the common Proverb goeth of it but as it is in Nature an heroical and almost divine deed scarce to be reached or matched with any words so I vow it a true and certain Story a thing often done and again to be done as often I am unfit I grant and unable to bear so great a
Burthen but that the great desire I have both to defend the Truth from slander and to do good to them that love it makes it light and easie And again this hope upholds me That if I chance to stumble or faint at any time they will as gently and willingly lend their hand to stay me or at the least bear with the fall and misfortune Then for the common and viler Sort which either for lack of good Nature or want of good Manners use to wrangle about Words or twitch at Things I care not And because I know them not I will pass by them as unknown men for neither was Hercules able as they say to match with many-headed Hydra nor yet with the awk and crooked Crab. Then to turn my Speech which way were it best to set forward Not right and streight to the matter No Because there is such crying out against the Possibility of the good Works which our Medicine promiseth And that awk fore-judgement of the Matter hath been the chief cause which hath hitherto buried this Divine Art from the sight of good and learned Men I take it the best way of delivery before I come to the point it self to fetch about a little and shew the possibility of these effects and the way to work them by other and weaker means as well as by HERMES his Medicine For although it be not so Natural in marching forward to move the left and weak part yet I ween it right Artificial and then it shall agree with that good order of Art first of all to put by a few of the light things laid against this blessed Science Because albeit they be gathered but by guess besides all grounds and rules of certainty yet they have so wholly possessed the common people yea and some of the better and wiser sort likewise that without any further search or hearing of the Matter they have streightway cast it off for false and condemned it for as when sleep hath once taken the Fort of the Body the Senses yield and can do nothing so if wrong belief once get possession of the Soul Reason is laid to rest and cannot move again before that must be loosened and put to flight and scattered First say they sith there be seen in all places and times so many hundreds with great Pains Heed and Cunning to study this Art and to put the Receipts in practise sure if they were true and faultless as others are some should appear to hit the Mark and to gather the fruit of their Travel and not to live as they all do of all men most miserable Or at least because it is so ancient an Art it would have been recorded in some publick or private Writing besides their own which be it bound with never so deep Oaths as it is yet is it unsufficient proof and witness in their own case These be the most saleable Reasons and best approved among the People wherewith they use to batter this exchanging Science But mark how light and weak they be and easie to be wiped away for how could the Acts and Deeds of these Philosophers come into the Writings and Records of Men to begin there with them whose Fame nay whose Company they have ever shunned And when their own Records if they chanced to like of leaving any were not sown abroad and published to the World as is the use of Worldlings but left like precious Heirlooms unto some Friend of secret trust which was counted as a Son adopted upon Condition to keep it still within the House and Stock of HERMES from the Eyes and Hands of the World and Strangers running evermore like the wise Stars a contrary race unto the World that no marvel though they be both in like sort crossed by the World and mis-called Wanderers or Planets when in deed and truth they go better Now when they deem credit to be denied to the Mens own Report and Witness it is a sign that either their own Report and Witness is of light and little weight whereby they judge of others or else that their Thoughts are vain and phantastical puft up I mean with that new kinde of Self-love and overweening Wisdom to set up themselves and pull down Authorities of which sort it falls out most commonly in proof that while they strive to avoid the Lake of Superstition they run headlong unawares down the Rock of Impiety for if such a wilde breach and entry may be suffered to be made into the Credit and Authority of Writers which are the life of Antiquity and light of Memory great darkness and confusion will soon come in and overcast the World yea and so far forth at length as nought shall be believed and judged true that is not seen that even they which dwell in the main Land shall not grant a Sea A thing not onely fond and childish among all Men but also ill be to me if I speak not as I think wicked and godless amongst us Christians whose whole Religion as S. Augustine saith stands upon that ground Wherefore if we must needs believe Recorders of Acts and Stories yea though they be sometimes lewd men foolish and unlearned as if they were as whole and harmless as Xenocrates but especially although they had great cause to lie and to speak more or less than the truth who can in any common Reason refuse the solemn Oathes of so many good wise and learned Men for he that is Good for the love of Virtue it self he that is Wise to avoid the shame of Lying will speak the Truth What should I say of the learned Men whose whole care and practise drift and study is nothing else but to finde and set down the Truth But all is well and clear of all suspicion if it may be thought these Oathes and Protestations to have sprung from themselves of meer good will and desire to perswade the lovers of Wisdome and Virtue and not wrung out by fear of flattery Which may be easily judged in such Men as were all either Kings that needed not or Diogenists that cared not as it is clear in all their Eyes that are conversant in these kinde of Studies Wherefore such men as are so bold without sure ground of Reason to deny and deny still all that comes are in my Opinion greatly to be looked into for although they like Xerxes pull not down Religion with hands openly yet they are of another sort as dangerous that undermine it closely with wrong Opinions If our Men avowed such plain untruths as might be reproved by common sense and daily experience as when Anaxagor as said Snow was black and Xenophanes the Moon inhabited and full of Hills and Cities and Nicetes of old with some of late that the Earth the onely unmoveable thing in the world onely moved and such like ugly and mis-shapen Lies wherewith Greece over-swarmed then you had reason to use them with ill
by cleaning and quickning the Spirits and searching the Body be no little help and comfort in this Journey As we shall easily see if we mark how amongst all Creatures those that lead their lives in the cleaner Element do live the longer Fish than Worms and Land-Wights than These and Winged ones yet longer because the higher the better Air still Insomuch that Cardan dares think that if any dwell in Aether as Plato's heirs affirm they live for ever yet if ill Diet went withall it would marre as much as the other made and greatly cloy and hinder yea and cut short the race of their Long Life I am of the same minde for all other odde and private Persons of great Age and Long Life recorded as for some Italians in Pliny's time registred of one hundred and forty years and such other aged Men in Authors a Man might let in here a Sea of Examples but I must be short Neither would I name King Arganthon that lived a hundred and twenty years and reigned eighty thereof nor yet that old Knight of our Country Sir Allington yet twenty years older but that it is so strange in Nobility that they came as near unto that kindly course of Life as unto the goal and end of Long Life Then we see at length that it is not impossible as they say but an ordinary and easie matter to strengthen the weak Nature of Mankinde to enlarge the straits of his Life and to lead him on still to the ancient Age and Long Life appointed But I see them start and say that like as Cato in Affairs of State used to give Counsel unwisely though never so well as if he had been in Plato's Common-wealth and not in the Dregs of Romulus so I in matter of Diet and order of Body speak as if we lived in the former Golden Age which as Poets feign was under Saturn and not in the corruption of Jupiters Kingdom and that sith the World as it now goeth cannot be brought without a kind of Divine Power to rase out the old and make a new World and that in long time unto the first and kindly custom of Life I must if I mean to do wisely take the Men as I finde them and prove that all such weakness as is now among them may by Mans endevour and skill of Healing be upholden and led forth unto those bounds and that end of Long Life afore-set Albeit I have done as much as reasonably may be required at my hands in this place which was allotted out to shew the possibility of the Matter yet because I count it better by plainness of speech to do good which is the end of my Writing than by subtileness of Argument to obtain my purpose I will come unto you and venture upon that Point also be it never so hard and desperate hoping not that Fortune will favour bold Men but GOD good Men. Then as there are three Causes of Life and Being the Life and Soul it self and his Food the first Moisture and the frame and temper of the Body that holds them both so let us take them all in order and see how they may be preserved and kept together beginning first with the last because it is least and lightest It is enacted by the Law of Nature That no Body mixt or single shall or may live and preserve his estate and being without two helps or stayes that is Meat and Exercise each like his Kinde and of his Nature As in lone and simple or subtile Bodies for it is plain in the first row especially if they be Living as they term them though all things indeed have Life and Soul as we heard above the Hot ones crave fiery Meat and moving Exercise Moist ones as Wind and Water flowing Food and Exercise Cold and Dry things like and Earthly Sustenance and Rest for Exercise which is also like and preserves their State and Being But if all lone and simple things are within the Compass of this Law then Heaven may not be free nor exempted and they speak not altogether fondly that say the Stars feed upon the Sea and for that cause by good advice of Nature the Ocean so rightly placed under the course and walk of the Sun for although the Water be yet so far off and unlike them yet their power and strength is such as they are able by their labour easily to refine it and turn it first into Air and then into Aether a weaker like thing and their proper food That this is so the hungry Souls which are but Imps slipt off the Heavenly Body make it plain here below unto us when we see them still unwilling to tarry and unable to live amongst us without Meat as they bewray themselves by the plain expence and waste of the first moisture Nay take this one away if you will mark well and all lieth on the Ground Then there is an old coyl and fighting here below for Meat and Exercise that is for life and being which makes the cause of all action and doing rest and change and of all things and every one runneth easily and gladly to his like and if his strength be never so little greater he subdues digests and turns him into his own Nature and is strengthned by him But if he miss of his like food at hand and be much stronger he dares encounter and is able to quell unlike things also as I said of the Stars the mightiest things giving Might to all things in the World But in case the unlikes and contraries be of equal power and matches then neither devoureth and consumeth other but both are marred dulled and weakned which they call Consent and Temper and Mixture For Example Fire extreme hot and somewhat dry withall and Water very cold and somewhat wet meeting together in even powers and proportions of strength are both impaired but neither lost and destroyed But if this Water chance by the heat of Heaven to be taken in hand and turned into Aiery and fat substance though there be now two Moistures set against the drought of Fire yet because of the heat of Weather and Heaven abounding it is now become partly like to Fire and friendly or at least his weaker Foe and Enemy yielding himself for Food unto it and increasing his strength and Nature But if on the other side Air unto his exceeding Moisture matching the drought of Fire get some strength and watery coldness as appeareth in a thick and foggy weather it is able easily to overcome the Fire and eat him up Now for a mixt Body which is a consent and dulling the four first famous Enemies made and kept in tune and awe by the force and skill of an heavenly and natural Heat upon them it hath the same reason for when either for lack of Meat or driven by Violence this Heat departeth the friends begin to stir and fight for Food and Freedom until some
in a kinde of Learning to unlearn all as it were and begin again for their own Credit and Virtue yea and Profits sake also if they esteem the best to leave those gilded Pills and sugred Baits and all other crafty Snares wherewith the World hath been so long caught and tormented and to seek this one heavenly plain and to you that be Learned easie ready true and certain way of healing Diseases I think before-times they were not greatly to be blamed and accused but of dulness and weakness in Understanding in not espying and seeing this Perfection and supplying of all their Wants But now since of late they have been so often warned not with Words onely but with Examples of Learned Men Matheolus Gorraeus Fernelius Severinus Danus and other such like which have and do revolt and fly away from them daily yea and by the certain and sufficient both written and living Witness of the Deeds of Paracelsus it were Impiety to stand still Well few words will serve to Wise and Virtuous Physicians such as are of themselves forward But there is another and I am afraid the greater sort less honest more idle and covetous full of windy Pride and Words but empty of all good Learning with whom gentle warning no though the Truth her self should come in person would prevail nothing who care not it seems to behold half Mankinde to perish for want of help and succour rather than they would either blot their Credit increase their Pains or lose their Gains and which not onely speak foully and write foolishly against this over-flourishing Virtue but also like the giddy People where they catch the State banish the Men that hold and possess it Whereas if it were a good Common-wealth saith Aristotle the matter would be so far from Banishment as they would deem such a Man as well as the Laws for he is himself a Law exempt from all Obedience and judge him worthy to be followed and obeyed as a perpetual King This untowardness and crookedness in Men caused all our All-healing Ancestors from time to time never to abide their Sentence but to the great hurt and loss of Mankinde to go into willing Banishment You have established a kinde of Government among you to pursue the same Like a little wherein you rule alone over the weak and sorry Subjects of Mens Bodies Then their Health and Safety you ought to seek onely besides enough to maintain contented estate which Plato allows his Governours and not profit onely that were Tyranny both for Humanity and Religion sake for to omit Religion which they do lightly omit if a Leach begin once to make a prey of Men he is not onely no Man but a most fierce and cruel Beast not so fit to be compared and matched any where if you seek all over as with that mis-shapen Monster of India which Aristotle describes and calls Mantichora which being by Kinde or Custom I know not whether very greedy upon Mans flesh is with manifold and wonderful helps furnished and armed unto it first with a Face like a Man and Voice like a Trumpet two fit things to allure and toll him in and then if he fly with the swiftness of a Hart to overtake him and darts like a Porcupine to wound him afar off and with the Tail of a Scorpion as it were a poisoned shaft near hand to sting him furthermore lest all this might not serve by reason of Armours he hath Feet like a Lion fiercely and stoutly to tear him and three rows of Teeth on each Chap for speed in devouring Apply You and your Apothecaries the rest of your selves in secret for my part as I am sorry to see evil done so am I as loth to speak evil of it and sure were not the great grief and Envy I do bear and always did to see desert trodden down by such unworthiness and some little hope besides to hear of your amendment and so of the return of the Truth and her honours out of banishment you should have found me as I have been long and mean to be longer quite dumb and Tongueless both in this and all other Matters Do not think I speak of Spight or for hope of gain or for any such matter There is no cause God knows I am no Physician never was nor ever mean to be what I am it makes no matter Let us go forward CHAP. III. Of YOUTH ALbeit we live Long and in Health yet if our Bodies be weak and unwieldy as it is in Age it must needs lett and clog us much in this happy Race Wherefore the third help and step to BLISSE that is Youth was not idle nor out of Order Then what is Youth They know best that have lost it It is the most active fruitful and beautiful state of the Body These be the Marks and Differences whereby we may know it from all things else I mean Activity not in deeds of Moving onely but of Life and Sense also This is it which makes up the Nature of Youth The other two Marks are taken in not as needful helps either to Youth or BLISSE and such as may not be spared especially Beauty but because they be very notable Marks as I said to know Youth by and that as we heard of true Honour and Pleasure above so these will also perforce hang on and follow though they be unlooked for and unregarded Then this is the matter under-hand in this place This we must prove possibly to be kept and preserved unto our lives end yea and although it were lost before that it may be gotten again and restored And yet first as our Natural Heat is the cause of our Being so the cause of our best Estate and Youth is the flower and best estate of it that is his chief strength and quickness Then keep or recover this and all is done But we had need be sure of this that the flower of Heat makes us Young and flourishing and sure by proof and experience the best assurance in the World Let us look all over and we shall finde it so To begin with Plants although their life is dark and they be but lame and unperfect Wights for Plato gives them sense yet their flourishing and decay their Youth and Age as I may term them do clearly follow the quickness or dulness of their in bred heat caused by the two Seasons of Summer and Winter as appears in India where for the continual heat and moisture and Summer of the Country no Plant feels Age or fall of the Leaf that word is idle in those parts save Fen-greek because by a strange property besides the rest it hath strange cooling above the rest standing in Water first and then somewhat deeply from the Sun Nay amongst us we see those Plants which are Hot and Dry sound and hardy able to withstand the force of Cold to keep their leaves in Winter Moreover keep off that starving Cold
and cherish the Life within and you may help and amend Nature and make any Plant flourish and bear in Winter How is that But an easie matter plant it in a Stove and cover the Root with Horse-dung and the rest with Chaff and you shall see the proof if not the profit worth your cost and travel The same is seen in Beasts But let us leave the middle that we come not to the end too late Then why are Children and old Folk less active fruitful and beautiful than the younger sort but for want of heat for let the Sun the first day as Galen saith or before the Birth as I shewed be greatest in store bulk and quantity because it waxeth and waneth still with his food our first Moistner and this from thence decayeth daily yet this quality strength and activity which maketh him worthy the name of Heat is then little as drowned with over-much forreign and strange wetness like as we see in a green Faggot and unable to work his will and shew himself either to knit the Sinews for Strength or concoct the Blood for Seed and Colour before that forreign moisture be spent and gone which is not in long time Now for old Folks what is so clear as this that by reason of the daily decay of the food of Life the fainting heat le ts the strong knot of Strength and Lustiness slack and loose again and the good concoction and colour of Blood which before made Seed and Beauty to decline and grow to waterishness In the same case are sick Men and Women for the same cause And albeit Women have their Seed yet it is not hot and quickning Seed but a dead Stuff onely fit to receive Life and Fashion And admit they be more fair and smooth than Men which are hotter it comes by chance because the foul Leavings the blemish of Beauty by the force of manly heat are driven outwards when the slackness of the heat of Women suffers them to remain within and turn into Menstrues a thing more grievous and noisom in truth than Beauty is delightsome And thereof Aristotle very well calls her a Weak Man which our Tongue more fitly calls a Wombed-man and he makes the Male in all kindes to be that which is able to concoct the Blood and that which is not the Female Then if it be cleared of all doubt that the chief strength of heat is the cause of the flower of Age and Youth and nothing else in the World Let us take and stick to that matter and see how that may be maintained first and then restored I will not urge the way of upholding heat in Plants abovesaid nor yet the witness of the German who hath found out means for the same both in Plants and Wights as he teacheth in his High Opinions Nor yet make Account of those Examples which by course of Nature good Order of Life have done well and drawn near to this matter as of Lucia the Player who pronounced upon the Stage at Rome an hundred years together nor of Cornelia who bare Saturnine the Consul after sixty two years nor yet of King Massâ—nissa who about Ninety got a Childe and ever tâ—avelled both in Frost and Snow bare-headed nor of such other like notably marked with long continued Life and Lustiness I will come to the point at once Pliny such an Autbor reporteth that the whole Nation of India liveth long free from all Diseases well-nigh and grief of Body not once touched with ache of Head Teeth or Eyes nor troubled with spitting all the great Companions as we see of Age that we may gather by likely guess when they know not the Companions the thing it self is unknown to them But what needs any guessing when the same Man sor certain and in plain Terms assureth That in that part of India where the Sun being right over their heads casteth no shadow the Men are five Cubits and two handfuls high and live an hundred and thirty years never waxing Old and being when they Die as in their middle Age and chief Strength and Lustiness what needed more words If this Report be true as we may not easily doubt of such an Author then sure this matter is not impossible as they would have it but all Men if they lived in such an Air and took so good a race of Life as I described I must still fly to that succour might preserve their Youth and never was Old until the term and stint of Life appointed Or if this kinde of teaching be now somewhat stale and bare with wearing yet perhaps some other means may be found for the matter in the Store-house of Skill and Cunning. Let us see much more briefly than we have done before because this part is already well-nigh dispatched so straight is the link of all these helps that one can scarce be loosened without the rest and all must go together Then what means may we finde what preserveth this natural and heavenly Heat of ours the common use taketh hot Meats and Drinks and thinks that these preserveth Heat and Nature as simply as if a Man should put Lime to the Root of a Tree which he loved for as this hastneth the Fruit with Heat but kills the Stock with Drought and soaking up the lively juyce and moisture so in them their hot Meats out of kinde laid to the Root of Life quicken and stir up the Spirits the fruit of Life for a season but withall under-hand drink up and waste the first Moisture that is the whole Stock of Nature and so by softning thus the hardness of Age as if it were Iron in the Fire they make it seem for a time Youthful and Lively yet it is but a vain and empty shew and shadow and as Iron when it comes out of the Fire is the harder for it so they make their Age more unwieldy and draw it on the faster by that means And that is the very cause together with Care and Pleasure why Princes and Nobles by drying up their Bodies in that sort live not so long for the most part nor in so good Health as other Folk and depart especially at such times if the Report be true as those bushed Stars called Comets appear Because whether it be a stedfast Star or an Elemental Flame I am not to dispute such Questions here it is never seen but in very fine and dry Weather which consumes dry Bodies and sends them packing and besides though it be besides my purpose turns good humours into scum called Choler cause of Broil and Sedition and so making as we see the Bush-starr a plain sign of both these matters but causes of neither What then preserveth Heat Learned Men have brought in certain fine fat and aiery Meats as Butter Oyl and Honey and commended them for very great helps and means to preserve Life and Youth for both are done by one way and under one but
steps of Kinde and her most strange and unwonted changes but also set and venture upon the like by Skill yea and to pass further if any Reason will carry them and so at length they come I know not how nor whether by guess or knowledge to this Rule and certain Ground that it was possible for any Man put out by forcible and violent Death by natural means to Rise and quicken again and so to be renewed and as it were by a new Birth restored But what be their new and marvellous means which way is this incredible course performed After they saw not onely some parts of other Wights as the Tails of Lizards the Eyes of Snakes and Swallows but also the whole Bodies of cold and bloodless ones clean rased and destroyed naturally to spring afresh and to be restored As a Snake cut in pieces and rotted in Dung to quicken and every piece to prove a whole Snake again and such like they began to reach by device and practise at some further matters and to slay some hot and bloody Wights that spring not out of nothing but are bred by force of Seed and conjunction of Male and Female and by the like kindly corruption to raise them up again and renew them as a Bird burnt alive in a close Glass and so rotted and then inclosed in a shell to hatch it under a Hen and restore the same And other such strange proofs they ceased not to make until at last they durst be bold to think that any Wight even a Man and all might by the same course wax young and be born again still and live for ever This is the second way of waxing Young again and as great an Extreme as that other and as far from my meaning Though there be divers Reports and Stories flown abroad of Men that took the same race in themselves and others and found both good and bad success according as a Man that favours it will think as the Work was tended by them which were put in trust Medea sped well say they in proof upon Jasons father and made him Young again as Tully saith recoquendo But HERMES and the Poet Virgil and that Spanish Earl failed upon themselves as some hold but as others hold they had good luck and came to their purpose What should a Man say to this matter Albeit I do not chuse this kinde of Renewing yet I will not condemn it without cause and judge it for kinde impossible for I see no Reason but that the Story of the Snake may be full easily true because it is bred by it self and of more unfit Stuff in the same manner And for the rest all is one to Nature if the Stuff and Place be meet and currant having that her general Seed of begetting which I said was all one in all things in her bosom ever ready and thereby making yet as we heard before all seeded Plants without seed somewhere yea and perfect Wights both Water and Land ones And at first when the Stuff and Womb and her own Heat and all served very fitly having wrought Man and all so But now why is Seed given unto things Because Nature for want of the former helps as they could not last for ever is not able in all places to work the raw stuff of the beginnings so far to such perfection unless she finde both the stuff well drest and half made to her hand and an hot Womb like an artificial Fornace to help and set her forward Well then for this our matter and manner of restoring Man let us call it to the account of Reason and consider what is that Seed that makes Man and the place where he is made What is all the work Is it any thing else but a part of Man except his Minde rotted in a continual even gentle moist and wightly Heat Is it not like that the whole Body rotted in like manner and in a Womb agreeable shall swim out at last quicken and arise the same thing I cannot tell I will neither avow nor disavow the matter Nature is deep and wonderful in her Deeds if they be searched and unwound to the bottom I cannot tell I say Nature may suffer this but not Religion And yet it is a dangerous trial as our Men and the Poet found it by some Mens sayings They might more safely have made a proof upon a piece of themselves which we call Seed ordered by that skilful kinde of Recoction which hath been found true as some Report and I think it certain or perhaps more kindly and throughly but sure more civilly and religiously in the due place appointed for this is also a kinde of renewing of himself and waxing Young again when his Childe is as Aristotle saith well another Himself onely severed and set apart from himself But neither is this third kinde enough for us we must have the whole and unparted Man restored Then the fourth Kinde is it I mean which is indeed a Mean between all the rest especially between that empty Word and dangerous Deed aforesaid performing more than the one in the outside and less within than the other for this way doth not onely by a better race of refreshing it with Heat and Moisture renew the Skin but the Hair Nails and Teeth also though these by the same way of putting off the old ones But for the inward chief and needful parts hewn out of the Seed at first by the Natural Workman it shall neither make nor marre any onely change and alter purge and place them all in their former State and Soundness Youth and Lustiness Then let us see how we may be renewed and wax Young again in that order beginning first with those idle and needless things I cannot call them Parts of the Body which after we were made up and finished grew and sprung out from the Leavings of our Meat and Nourishment the Teeth Nails and Hair As for the Skin it is a part of the Seed or the Crust that overcast the thing when it was fully baked Then as these keep no certain course and order of Kinde in coming for to omit Hair that comes and goes upon every light Occasion some are born without Nails some with Teeth when others again have none before they wax old and such like disorders so no doubt by Skill they may come and go again without any hurt or great change to the Body Pliny tells of one whose Teeth came again after he was an hundred years old and upwards and I know not well whether the Souldiers in Germanicus his Host that by drinking of a Spring by the River Rhyne had their Teeth shaken out and loose had them come again or no But this is certain that there be Waters in the World which by a special quality make those Beasts that drink thereof cast their Hair Horns and Hoofs and so renew them What need many more words This part is
the last and lowest part being Servants and so to be used and yet very needful and not to be spared in this blessed Houshold for although we have all the helps of Long Life Health and Youth that may be yet if we want the service of Riches Poverty will besiege us and keep us under and cut off and hinder many goodly Deeds and Works of Wisdome and Virtue But what are Riches for the World and Philosophy agree not in this account No nor this within it self The World reckons store of Gold and Silver to be Riches Aristotle enough of needful things the Stoicks enough of Earth and Air To begin here These might be stretched and made large enough but that we know their straitness would they have us live by breath alone and never eat according to the guise which I set out in the Art of Healing Be it possible as it seemeth yet it is somewhat feeble as I shewed there and so somewhat halting and unperfect by lack of Youth and Lustiness for our first and perfect Life appointed besides the maims and hurts of Poverty which I right now touched Aristotle is somewhat strait also for so the Beasts are rich as well If he had put in enough of things needful for good Life wherefore we were made he had said much better yet not all for so should all the bodily means and helps aforesaid be counted Riches a great deal too confusedly Now much less can we rate the Golden-wealth right and true Riches because a Man may die with hunger for all this as he that sold a Mouse for two hundred pence died himself for lack of Food when the Buyer lived and this was done to let go feigned Midas when Hannibal besieged Casiline Then true Riches are enough of outward things needfull for good Life that is for our BLISSE above-set But because that golden and worldly Wealth is a ready and certain way and means to this out-barring Violence which no man can warrant we will use the cause for the effect in this place and strive to shew how all Men may get enough of Gold and Silver and that by weaker means than HERMES Medicine as the place requireâ—h although by the same way concerning the Stuff we work on that is by turning base Metals into Silver and Gold This is the hard matter which turns the edge of worldly Wits the brightness I say of this glorious thing dazles the Eyes of the common and blear-ey'd People because it is in their account the best and highest and most happy thing in the World when in deed and truth as it is the least and lowest and worst of all the helps unto BLISSE belonging so it is in proof and trial the less hard and troublesome both to Art and Nature the most ready and easie to be gotten and performed And to shew this we will make no long tarrying it were good first of all to enter into the way and order which Nature below keepeth in making the Metals under ground If I thought I might not run into that part of Socrates accusation for searching over-deeply the Under-ground-matters But I hope I shall not now by the mighty pains of Miners Spades and Mattocks the way is made so plain before me or else sure as they be indeed I would account them over-deep and hard for my Pen to dig in Then all under-ground Bodies which the Arabians call Minerals are either Stones or hard Juyces which we name Middle-Minerals or else they be Metals These as all other perfect things have all one Stuff Earth and Water and one Workman the Heat of Heaven as I said above for their Womb because they be but dead things as they call them the Earth will serve But for that Nature meant to make most perfect things in that kinde which require long time to finish them she chose a most sure and certain place even the deep and hard Rock it self not to the end the Earth might hide them as hurtful things and lean upon them with all her weight as Seneca saith very severely or rather finely for we know how he hunts after fineness like an Orator to whom it is granted to lie a little in a Story that he may bring it in the more prettily as the Orator himself confesseth Then the manner of the work of Minerals is this first the Water piercing downwards softens and breaks the Rock taking her course still that way where it is softest to make the cross and crooked race which we see of Wombs called Veins and Pipes of the Minerals But as the Water runneth to take the stuffe as the next thing in order it washeth and shaveth off small pieces of the Rock and when it stands and gathers together in one place by continuall drayning clenseth and refineth the same untill the middle heat of the Earth which is the heat of Heaven come and by long boyling makes it thicker and grow together in one body of many kinds according to the difference of the stuffe and heat which they call Hard-juices as I said or Middle-minerals This Workman continuing and holding on his labour though Agricola saith the cold and drought of the Rock now layes hold upon the stuffe and by little and little at last binds it into that hard form of a Metall Nay though Aristotle from the beginning gives the work to the same cause out of the heart as it were and best part of them wringeth out at last a clean close and heavy raw waterish and running Body called Quick-silver Here it standeth in perfection of this Minerall work except there chance which chance happens often by the means of that boyling any contrary hot and dry breath of the same kind to be made withall in the same place Then this meeting with that raw waterish and unshapen lump like Rennet with Milk or Seed with Menstrue curdles thickens and fashions it into the standing body of a Metall This Minerall breath our Men for his likenesse in Quality though their Substance doe greatly differ doe use to call Brimstone Now when this second and earthly heat is come into the work the milde heat of Heaven sets the stuffe which stayed before to work again and drives it forward and these two together by continuall boyling and mingling alter and change clense and refine it from degree to degree untill at last after many yeares labour it came to the top of perfection in Cleannesse finenesse and Closenesse which they call Gold These degrees if the Heat be gentle and long-suffering as they say be first Lead then Tinne thirdly Silver and so to Gold But if it be strong and sudden it turnes the weake work out of the way quickly and burnes it up and makes nought but Iron or at least if the Heat be somewhat better Copper Yea and sometimes the foulnesse of that eâ—rthly Brimstone alters the course of Nature in
piercing things to further the work of Boiling so after they have done and made the Metals clean and handsome if we mean to cleanse them further from the inward Filth and Drossiness we must take the same course but with greater force and skill even so much more as it is more hard to part away the inward and in-bred uncleanness then the outward and strange scurf and foulness Although I did set before divers differences and marks upon the Metals yet indeed they are but two to be counted of and there is no odds between them and Gold but in Closeness and Colour the rest as Cleanness Fineness Weightiness and Stedfastness in the Fire follow all under Closeness for a thing is close when much stuffe is packt up together in a narrow room which cannot be unless the stuffe be clean and fine before and when this is so packt up it must needs be weighty and stedfast also heavy for the much stuffe but stedfast for two causes both for that there is neither entrance left for the Fire to pierce and divide the stuffe and by division all things are spoiled nor yet any gross or greasy stuffe the food of Fire remaining Quick-silver as I said was clean at first and if it meet with a fine Brimstone to stay and fasten it which is often in hot Countreys it straitway I mean without any middle steps proveth Silver and then Gold But if that curdling breath be foul and greasie as it is most commonly it turns Quick-silver into foul Metals first and the work must tarry longer leisure to be made clean and perfect that is until such time as that foul Brimstone be clean purged out as it is onely in Cold. That Nature doth in due time and Art by imitation may part and drive away all that filthy Rennet this is a sign because it is no part of the thing How is that proved For that it is the Male-seed that begets makes and fashions all and nought begets it self but is made by a strange and outward Mover which is like a Carpenter or other Workman towards the work that he maketh That this is so it is plain by the Male-seed of Wights which is not the waterish stuffe seen with Eyes that is but a shell given for the safe keeping but an unseen Hot Breath of their Bodies whereby alone without the help of that shell many Wightes beget their Mates with Young as we may read in Aristotle and other good Authors but what makes it so plain as the barren Eggs which many Birds fashion fully in themselves by conceit of Lust wanting onely an outward quickning cause from the Male. Then how shall we purge out this foul and greasie Workman to make the work of any Metal close and well-coloured Nature would have done this in time by concoction without any other help But we must have to shorten the time fit for our use two devices one to breed Closeness and the other to bring on good Colour The first is a binding Skill the next is a dying Cunning for the first let Nature still be our guide and leader As she in all her easie changes useth to consume and raze out the weaker with the stronger like so we if we mean to devour and consume all the gross and greasie stuffe of the Metal that when all is clean and fine the Fire may draw it up close together we must encounter it with a strong Like What was that Brimstone or any other filth in Quick-silver and of what stock think you Did I not tell you it sprung out of a confused heap of Middle-Minerals and was a Mineral Breath and Vapour Then let us take the foul and sharp MInerals and in a strong Fire set them upon the Metal and they shall sure by searching and lifting round about quickly draw to them eat and drink up all the weaker like dross of the Metal and leave the rest which is unlike clean and untouched I need not stand any more about it Do we not see how Sope a filthy strong thing in battail and work with a foul and filthy Cloth takes and eats up the filth as his Food and Like meat and leaves the Unlike Cloth clean and spotless Nay to come neerer how doth Antimony that fierce and foul Mineral where he is set on work with Gold to cleanse him search and run all over the Metal take and consume his like meat and the strange and unclean parts leaving the rest as unlike and unmeet for him To be short if you mark well you shall find it the plain ready and kindly way not onely in all purgings but in every natural changing Then let this part go by and sith now the Metal iâ— as clean fine and weighty again as Quick-silver and as close and stedfast as Silver or rather more let us take the next Point in hand and bring on the Colour of Gold This standeth upon two Points It must have the fairness and lastingness of Gold That first is an easie matter in the proof of common Skill But here is all the cunning to die the Metal all over with an everlasting Colour To this purpose it had need be able to pierce the Metal and to abide all Fire That first is not hard again but how shall this be done Perhaps we need not strive before we lay the Colour to make it stedfast and abiding but like as Gold will so fast embrace and hold his flying maker Quick-silver if she be a little cleansed and made fit to receive him that no Fire shall depart them so the closeness of this our stedfast Metal shall defend and save the Colour But suppose it will not yet if Iron and Copper nay if the Middle-minerals may be bound and made abiding in the Fire as our Men hold and teach then their Colours may be stayed and made stedfast also What is remaining If you be not yet content go to School and learn to fasten and stay flying Spirits as they call them Cardane who denies it possible to make an open Metal close and stedfast yet allows this matter easie And sith we are here and he is so ready let us talk with him a little I marvel much at him a Man so well learned but indeed not skill'd in this Art the chief of all Learning that although he had spoken well a great while and allowed all Metals to be made all of one stuffe and to travel by one way of Concoction unto one end Gold and to differ but by one accident onely and chance of those degrees of boyling and thereby yielded that all the fouler Metals may be turned into one another and Silver likewise into Gold because it is nothing else but imperfect Gold and the worser part thereof wanting nought but Colour which is easie and a little closeness which by purging out of the greasie food of Fire may be given him yet for all this he
denies it possible to change any of the lower Metals into either Silver or Gold because of over-sudden Heat as I said of Iron and Copper being burnt they cannot be brought to their old Quick-silvery cleanness nor yet be made abiding and stedfast in the Fire This he would never have said if he had been brought up in our Trade of Learning He should have seen us easily lead the Metals back from whence they all came and then by means aforesaid stay them for he grants himself that all the cause of uncloseness unsteddiness and wasting in the Fire is that our fatty Brimstone and that it may be cleansed out of Silver Why not out of the rest also Will they not abide the violence Not at first but by little and little they will as Gentle and Wise Men know how to use them There are others also as well as he Erastus and such like that deny this Art of Changing if I thought these Men needed any labour of reproof who through ignorance of the points they handle blunder and rush in the dark cross and reprove themselves all about in such sort as they seem rather to move pity to the standers by than to make a challenge and to call forth an Adversary Then such Men I will exhort to be better advised by the view of certain plain examples which I will lay down before them and thereby wish them to stay their over-swift and fore-running judgments until they come to the trial and battel it self in that which shall follow Lead as the Workmen know is one of the greatest spoilers of his fellows the foul Metals in the World save them from the rage of him upon a shell of Ashes which they call a Test and he is counted safe sure and stedfast enough against all assayes Cardane tells of a Man at Millain which I know not how so dressed and armed his face and hands as he could suffer to wash them in molten Lead Might not then a tougher and hard Metal be more easily armed and fenced against all force and violence Nay you shall see more Wonders by the skill of Nature easily performed Clear Chrystal saves the Cloth that is wrapt about it from the rage of Fire so doth Oyl defend Paper insomuch that you may seethe Fish therein without either burning the Paper or the Oyl soaking through and all this is because the extreme and deadly feuds do save the middle thing by their fighting Is it then a Wonder if Iron or Copper be by some pretty slight or kindly skill defended from all Fire and made sure and stedfast To draw neerer unto you It is very well known that base and unripe Gold as it were a mean between Silver and Gold wanting Colour and Closeness wasting much away in time of proof and trial may by some of the lesser and lower degrees of binding be refined and made as good as the best Gold in the world Then is there any lett in Reason why the rest especially Silver by strong and more forcible means may not be bound and coloured and reach perfection To conclude if we may by tracing the Path of Kinde which she treadeth daily turn a Plant or Wight into Stone and a Mineral into a Metal and Lead into Tinne nay Lead into Copper as I will prove hereafter with so great exchange and increase of Colour and Closeness then tell me why by means fitted in proportion Lead or rather Copper may not be turned into Silver or either of these especially Silver into Gold Therefore to make up all Paracelse reporteth for certain that in Carinthia they commonly turn Copper into Silver and this into Gold in Hungary Though he names not the means whereby they made those exchanges yet we may easily judge those wayes of binding and colouring set down before that is lesser wayes then HERMES Medicine and yet sufficient to serve our turn and to raise that Wealth appointed as we may see by guesse of their common practise which else were empty vain and foolish as also by the light charge of Middle-Minerals in respect of the return and gain of Gold And if the praise of an Enemy be lightly true and uncorrupt let us hear what Porta a denier of the Art of Hermes confesseth upon his own experience that Quick-silver divers wayes may be bound and coloured and made perfect Gold and Silver and one way when it is with Brimstone burnt and made Cinabar very gainfully which thing Joannes Chrysippus also found true And further that in his due time and place Mercury by the smoke of Brimstone within one Moneth will be turned into perfect Luna I might press you with more as good proofs and trials of Men of credit but here is enough I say to stay your judgment for a while Let us go forward CHAP. V. Of VVISDOME and VIRTUE SIth now Long Life Health Youth Riches are dispatched and we have gotten such a goodly Quire of Helps Instruments and Means to Wisdom and Virtue that is to perfect BLISSE and HAPPINESSE what is wanting but Will and Diligence to bring all Men unto it unless there be some as there be many so lewd and fond by Birth and Nature having the difference defaced and being so far from their Kind estranged unto the kind of Beasts that although they lack not those helps and furnitures no nor Good-Will and Endevour to set them forward yet all will not serve to amend them and bring them to Wit and Goodness Then let us seek the salves for these two sores likewise that we may make it at last a whole and perfect Happiness let us I say bend our selves to shew the means how all foul and vicious persons may be cured and brought to health of Mind which is Wit and Goodness No cure can be skilfully performed without the cause be first known and removed The cause of Wisdom and Virtue and so of their contraries for one of these do bewray another I opened heretofore when I brought into the Bound and Houshold of BLISSE yet two other properties that is Clearness and Temperateness of Bodies But because we have no such grounds and beginnings as the Measurers have given and granted and it behoves if we mean to build any thing our selves to lay all the foundation let us take the matter in hand again that those two are the very causes and makers of this health of Mind that is of Wisdom and Virtue and then teach the way to apply the remedies To begin with Wisdom for that Knowledge had ever need to go before Doing and therein to let pass all the idle subtilties about the difference between Sapience and Prudence if I may so term it for once and use it not as one of them to be seen in general and everlasting the otâ—er in particular and changeable things c. because they ought evermore as I shewed at first to go together even as our Tongue better than either
sent into the Body to work Long-life Health and Lustiness did not onely strike and kill and put out of Being all foul and gross distempers his own and our enemies but also cherish nourish and feed our Bodies and bring it towards our own Nature even as far as we would by disposing of the quantity you may easily conceive the plain and certain way of this great exchange when you know his most clean fine clear bright and lightsome Nature Now we have dispatched the first part of BLISSE let us go to the second and because we have not done it before though we talked much thereof we will now begin to bound the Matter and make Virtue as Aristotle and Truth teacheth us A mean in our outward deeds and dealings with other Men or A Reason in Manners and Conditions as Plato termeth it all is one The cause of Virtue is likewise set out in the beginning to wit A temperate Body but I left the Proof unto this place which is all the hardness in this cure of Lewdness for if it be once known that Temperateness is the cause of Virtue we shall easily by that temperate Medicine so notable in the speech going before purchase and procure the same And why that is so it hath been so often worn before that we may quite cast it off and leave it being enough in this place to prove that a temperate state of Body is the cause and way to Virtue But first let us see whether all Manners flow from the Body or not and then from what State and Condition of the Body Among them that have searched the Reason and Nature of things the cause of Manners is laid upon the Disposition either of Stars or of Mens Bodies or of their Wills thus or thus framed either by the bent of Nature or by use of Custome Let us scan the matter and yet briefly They cannot flow from the Will of the Mind of Man lest all Men should perforce be good against our daily proof and experience because the Minde of it self as coming from goodness is good and alike good in all Men as I said before And sure no Custome can alter and turn so Divine and Right a Will to lewdness but by great force of Necessity which force cannot be sent and laid upon it by the Stars for whether the Stars be Wights or no they are all as I shewed above of one good strain and quality Or if they were not or whatsoever they be either in substance or quality they cannot touch the Mind immediately but must needs be let in by the loops of the Body and so change and dispose the Body first and by means of this affect the Mind for if the Mind it self a finer thing then the Stars cannot pierce out of the Body as we heard before then much less shall they make way to get in by themselves without the helps to our Mind allotted and as these are all bodily I mean the first helps so the neerest cause of Manners must needs flow from the Body And if the inward Spirits and Wits likewise do nought without the Instruments of the Body and follow the Affection and Disposition of the same then the appetite of the unreasonable Soul common between us and Beasts upon which Aristotle and his heirs do lay the cause of Manners is dispatched also and all the whole strain must needs cleerly run from the Body But lest some All-denier come and shake these old Grounds which you saw the Philosophers lay so long ago and so this Building might fall and tumble I will shoar it up with Experience a thing most fit to fill and please the sence of them which have nothing else but sence As all Diseases so all Manners spring either from the natural and inherited or from the purchased temper of the Body To keep the first till anon This we have either from the Air and Soil where we live or from the Meat which we take The Air followeth either the place of the Sun or the Nature of the Ground But this is somewhat too hard and thorny a kind of teaching let us inlarge our selves and unfold and prove how though I shewed the manner at large before the Air and Meat alters and changeth and maketh to differ the Bodies first and so the Manners All Astronomers and Philosophers no otherwise than we see by proof hold Opinion that where the Sun is either too neer the People as right over them or too far off as under the two Pins of the World there the Bodies are big and strong and the Manners rude and fierce whereas within the two Middle and Temperate Girdles of the Earth they keep a mean and hit the midst as they say both in Body and Manners for that acquaintance with him and his fellow-wanderers To come down to the Ground for I must be short we see that a fat and and foggy Land makes the Blood and Spirits thick and gross and thereby dull and slow and so the Men fond in Wit and rude and simple faithful chast and honest and still in that strain of Manners whereas a barren and dry Ground if the Sun be temperate therewithal as at Rome and Athens maketh the same thin clear and lively subtil and deceitful Men valiant unchaste and so forth of all other properties appertaining For meet Manners in Men are like the Virtues and Properties of Plants following both the sundry tempers of the Bodies when the Soul in them and Mind in us is one in all Then as the mixtures qualities and virtues of Plants are altered up and down according to their Food and Sustenance as to omit the outward nourishment of the Ground whereby Pepper brought out of Calicut into Italy will after a few settings turn into Ivy and such like the case is plain a cunning Gardiner either by steeping the Seed or Slip or better by enclosing the Root or Stock can give to any Plant any colour taste smell or power of Healing even so the temper of Mens Bodies and Condition of their Manners change to and fro upon the same occasion To let go that hold in Physick That distempered Meats do breed the like distempers in those famous Humors which make Complexions and their Conditions why are the Tartarians so Beastly and Barbarous in Manners but because besides their Soil they eat and drink the Flesh and Blood of Horses we see the Islanders of Corsica prove as bold cruel and false as Doggs whose Flesh they feed upon A man may range far in this Field but let us draw neer home It is not without cause that Plutarch Plato and other grave and wise Philosophers give so strait charge of care and heed in the choice of Nurses Is it not like nay in their opinion certain that the Child sucks in with their Milk their outward Shape and inward Manners Why not As well as Beasts that suck of strangers out
it weare off that Viperous kind aforesaid for he would then battel with our Nature spoil and overthrow the first moisture and the whole frame of the Body fo far would it be from nourishing the Natural Heat and Moisture from clearing and tempering the Body to cause Long-Life Youth Wisdom and Virtue And the reason of this reproof is because when every Poison is very barren and empty of Heat of Heaven and very distemperedly cold and drie in body set straight against our Hot and Moist Nature as appears by flying the Fire and Oil his Enemies The PHILOSOPHERS STONE was temperate in respect at first and is now exactly so and a very fine Oil and full of Heavenly Spirits and so for these three causes not onely most friendly and like to our Nature but also a very deadly Enemy and most crosse contrary to all Poisons CHAP. II. That the PHILOSOPHERS STONE is able to turn all base METALS into SILVER and GOLD ANd thus we have lightly run over the former part of Long-Life Health Youth Clearnesse and Temperatenesse which make up all good gifts of Body needful Let us now come to the outward help of Riches and borrow so much leave again as to use the Cause for the Effect and to take Gold for Riches and strive to shew that the Son of Gold is able to turn any Metal into Gold and not so sparingly now and hardly as we did before by those bastard kinds of Binding and Colouring though a little if it were without mispence of time and travel would serve our turn but as fully and plentifully as any of our Men avow to the amazement of the World They set down no certain summe nor stint which I will do because I have to do with thirsting Ears and because again I love not to run at random but to have a certain mark whereat to aime and level all my speeches Then let us say By this great Skill of HERMES and a little Labour and Cost we may spend with the greatest Monarch of the World and reach the Turks Revennue yea though it be Fifteen Millions Sterling as I find it credibly reported yea let us be bold and not as Socrates did when he spake of Love hide our Face for the Matter The Truth is vouchable before GOD and Man and will bear it self out at last though it be my luck still to be crost by Men of our own Coat HERMES Foster-children But what do I call them so Albeit Paracelse with whom we dealt of late was plainly so yet his Scholar Dorne which now comes in place is out of this account as cleerly This Man I say to excuse his own Ignorance hath learn'd a new trick in unfolding of HERMES Riddle that neither HERMES nor any of his Followers in saying they turn the four foul Metals Lead Tinne Iron and Copper into Silver and Gold mean plainly according to common speech but still Riddle and double the matter understanding the four Complexions of our Body which he busieth himself to match with those four Metals into good form and temper changed And these to be the Silver and Gold which they make at any time and that by this token because they fetch their Medicine as you heard even now out of all things Then he flieth out and lifteth up his Master with high praises for finding first and untwining the Knot and Riddle whereas there is nothing so plain both in Paracelse and all other of his Hidden Science as their Opinion as touching this matter Nay see the worthy Memory of the Man he himself in construing the words of his Master concerning the same Matter makes as well as he and the rest a plain division of this Work and yieldeth in open tearms that our Medicine serveth both for Men and Metals This Noble Doctor when I was a Novice and first-ling in this study as he mis-led me in other things which he took upon him to unfold so he amazed me in this before he himself knew the least of them But after I went forward and began to consider earnestly and weigh the things by their own weight and not by the weight of Words and Authorities the onely way to Knowledge I quickly saw the falshood of that new opinion and more plain reason and cause of belief for this point then for all the rest which he allowes and which I shewed before Then let us not stay for him nor for any thing else but let us march forward with all speed and courage And if it be never good in discourse of Speech to heap and huddle up altogether but for light sake to joynt the Matter and cut it in divers pieces let us do so too and prove first that the Son of Gold is able to turn Metals that are base into Gold then that he can change so much as to make up that Sonne I set as needful He is to turn Metals two wayes first as a Seed if a Man list to sow him upon them And then after his Birth by Nourishment or turning them into his own Nature And this is either into his Fathers which is his own after a sort or into his now-being and self same Nature Of these I will treat severally And first of Seed which cannot be denied unto Gold if all things have Life and Life have three powers and abilities to be Nourished and to Wax and to beget his Like also The second part is clear and granted among all Philosophers And that all things have Life it hath been often shewed before by their feeding and divers other Arguments But because it is a thing whereon almost all the frame of my speech leaneth and yet much in doubt and hardly believed among the Learned let us take it again and prove it by name in Minerals because they be both farthest from belief and nearest our drift and purpose Those things that have Diseases Age and Death cannot but live and we see plainly the Diseases Age and Death of precious Stones but most clearly in the precious Load-stone though he be foul in sight which is kept fed and nourished in the filings of Iron his proper and like Food when Quicksilver or Garlike quite destroyes him and puts out all his Life Strength and Virtue But how if the g Minerals by feeding wax and grow as well as Plants or Wights As Miners have good experience of that when they see them by those due and constant fits so dangerously voide their Leavings Agricola saith that Salt-Peter after that by draining it hath lost its taste and virtue if it be laid open in the Weather will within five or six years space grow and ripen and recover his power and strength again The same man telleth of one Lead-mine and two other of Iron which after they be digged and emptied within few years space ripen and grow to be full again and one of these every tenth year But admit these by the slight and
canvass of a crafty Wit may be shifted off yet they shall never rid the next that follows of Lead after he hath been taken out of his proper Womb where he was bred and nourished and fashioned into his form for our use requisite yet if it be laid in a moist place under ground it will wax and grow both in weight and bigness by many good Authors yea and by k Galen his own witness which although it be light otherwise yet is of weight in this matter because it maketh so much against his own cause Nay mark what G. Agricola reports that the same hath been found true on the top of houses and shewes where and how the proof was taken But to come to the very point Paracelse saith that Gold buried in a good Soile that lieth East and cherished well with Pigeons dung and urine will do the same and sure I dare not condemn his witnesse in this Matter because the rest that went before seem to say as much in effect and to avow the truth of this Story Then if it be so certain that Gold hath life there is no help but he shall beget his like also if Philosophy and common proof be received But they will say that nothing doth so that wanteth seed as many Wights and Plants doe and all Minerals No man saith so that knoweth what is seed Seed is no grosse thing that may be seen with Eyes but a fine and hot Heavenly breath which we call Life and Soul wherewith not onely the common soul of the World but also Wights yea and perfect Wights sometimes beget without the company and sense of that frothy stuff and shell as I said above but yet most commonly Nature takes the help and guard of that Body called Seed This was proved to be not onely a branch and part slipt from the whole Body but the whole it self sometimes as by kind in the four beginnings and in Minerals and in seedlesse Plants and Wights and by Skill in all Therefore Minerals and all have their Seed and their whole Body is their Seed Then as by Nature they are wholly sowne and die and or else under-moon things would prove mortall rise again the same encreased according to the wont of Nature even so they will above ground if we can by skill use them kindly which we may as well as Nature if we could espy her Footings not unpossible to be seen as I could shew you quickly if I might a little unwind the bottome of secrets and lay them open But I must take heed Then as the seed of Plants and Wights riseth again much encreased in store and bignesse because it drawes unto it and turns into his Nature much of the kindly stuff and ground that lieth about it to corrupt it Even so if you make the Metals a ground fit to receive and corrupt the seed of Gold it will after his due time rise again turning them or much of them into his own Nature Now Dr. Dorne may see if he be not blinded that this is no Riddle matter but a plain and certain Truth grounded upon the open and daily race of Nature which not I spied first as he spied out the subtill falshood but the same all the Troop of the wise Egyptians saw and taught before me yea and some of them that sit in darknesse as those worthy Leaches whose aid we took before Ficine Fernel and Cardane especially the two first because they bare good-wil to the truth of this Science But Cardane as a man that neither knew nor loved it halts a little for when he had all about held for certain that Minerals and all had life and were nourished and grew and waxed yet he buried the third point with silence But let us not urge this so much in this place because it is not the right Son of Gold and Stone of HERMES but a lesser skill and lower way to Riches fit to have been followed in the Second Book Then how doth the PHILOSOPHERS STONE and the naturall Son of Gold it self turn base Metals into Gold For that was the second thing to be handled in this place When this Child is born keep him in his heat which is his life and give him his due and naturall food of Metals he must needs if he be quick able to be nourished digest change and turn them into his own Nature much more easily than Lead and he in a cold place and rude and hard fashion was before able to turn strange meat and digest it And as I shewed above the change of natural things when they meet in Combate to be either throughour or half way that is either by Consuming to raze one another quite out and turn him into his own self-same Nature or when by mixture both their Forces are broken and dulled equally Even so in this great skilfull change we may so order the matter and match the two Combatants that is the Meat and Feeder Stuff and Doer with such proportion that one shall either get the Victory and eat up the other quite or both be maimed alike and weakened To be plain If we give this mighty Child and Son of Gold but a little Food the quantity I leave to discretion he will be able to turn it througly into his own self-same Nature and thereby to mend himself and increase his own heap and quantity But if you will make Gold which is your last end and purpose match your Medicine with a great deal an hundred times as much or so your eyes shall teach you and both shall work alike upon each other and neither shall be changed throughly but make one Mean thing between both which will be Gold if you will or what you will according to your proportion And if you perceive not mark how the comparison is somewhat base but fit and often used by our Men they make a sharp and strong Medicine called Leaven of the best wrought Flouer which is Dough and such another of Milk well mingled in the Calves bag named Rennet and how by matching them with just proportion of Flouer and Milk they turn them into the middle Natures of Dough and Curds Nothing so fit mark it well Nay sith you begin to call me to examples I will ply and load you with them and yet I will lay no strange burthens upon you no not the quick nature of the Scottish sea returning wood into Geese Nor yet the Eagles feathers that lying among Goose quills eat them up two more marvellous changes then all those that are professed in the Art of Changing yet I leave them I say for things too strange and far of my purpose here are many Waters and Earth which I am credibly informed by G. Agricola and others as good Authors are indued with the properties to turn any Plant Wight or Mettal into stone Cardane tells of a Lake in Ireland
and search all about and so scour and cleanse a great Mass of foul Mettals how many times more then a weak and gross Mineral binder fasten and bend your Mindes upon it we see how a weak waterish and earthly Breath in a narrow place within a Cloud the Gramide or Gunne all is but Thunder because he is so suddenly turned into a larger Element and lacketh room bestirs himself and worketh marvellous deeds what may we think then of the heaps of those fat vapours of Heaven and of that most strong golden body closely couched up together in a little room when they be in a narrow Vessel drawn out and spread abroad at large by a mighty fire and thereby still pricked and egged forward for as long as the fire holdeth they cannot be still nor draw in themselves again What thing in the sturdiest Mettal can be able to withstand them How easily shall they cast down all that comes in their way break and bruise all to powder May we not all say plainly that which the Poet by borrowed speech avoweth That Gold loveth to go through the midst of the Guard yea and pâ—ss through the Rocks being more mighty than the stroak of Lightning It is so fit as if it had been made for the matter I have heard that the extreme cold weather in Lappia and Finland which lie under the pinny Girdle of the World pierceth frezeth and cracketh the Rocks yea and mettalline Vessels Again that the poisoned Cockatrice by his violent Cold and dry Breath doth the same on the Rocks where he treadeth Then what may we judge of the force of our fiery Medicine upon the Mettals by these comparisons How fiercely and quickly were it like to divide breâ—k them having an extreme fire the greatest spoiler of all things to over-match the cold dry quality a much stronger Body then those vapors which carried thâ—se former qualities and both these sent with far greater speed and swiftness as appears in the difference of the Movers Lift up your Ears and mark what I say A deaf Judge had not need hear these Matters who hath not seen how Quicksilver enters cuts and rents the Mettals though many doubt and differ about the cause thereof Cardan thinks that like as we said of the cold Weather in those frozen Countries so this marvellous cold Mettalline water entring the Mettals freezeth their Moysture within them and makes them crack and fall assunder and therefore Gold soonest of all other because his moisture is finest even as sodden-water for his fineness freezeth sooner then cold Surely very wittily Paracelse deems this done by the Spiritual subtilty of the Body even as the understanding Spirits of the Air and the lively Spirits of Heaven use to pierce through stone walls and Rocks by the same strength without the force of qualities But I think it is rather for his stronger like Nature seeking to devour them else he would pierce you hand and leather and such like easie things which he leaveth untouched as unlike and strangers As for the qualities of Quicksilver it is a question what they are and which excelleth some judge her very Cold some again marvellous hot as Paracelse for one some most moist other dry But as she hath them all apparantly so I deem her Temperate like him that hath sprung from her and is most like unto her Gold I mean though perhaps the qualities be not all in her as in him so equally ballanced But let the Cause be what it will I love not to settle upon uncertain matters the great Spirit of Mettals after she is first wrought into Gold and then into his Son our Medcine shall be in any reason both for Soul Body an hundred times stronger and more able to do it Nay Antimony and Lead are much grosser then Quicksilver and yet we see how they rend and tear and consume base Mettals even to nothing But what say we to Plants there is as great difference in sharpness and ability to pierce and enter between them and minerals as is between a Thorn and a Needle and yet you hear above the gentle Plant of the Vine and the milde Dew of Heaven yielded stuff to an eating water able within three or four distillings to devour and dissolve mettals Then what shall not onely other sharp mineral eaters but this our almighty Golden medicine shew upon them which besides that wonderful passing sharp and piercing Body hath the great help which they want of that Heavenly fire and of his swiftness stirred up by a mighty Mover These things are enough to suffice any reasonable man if they will not stop their ears against the sound of Reason touching the power might and strength of our Medicine What is then behinde Yes many I heard them whisper that albeit this Stone of ours hath such thundring power yet it may not force to our purpose consuming all the Mettal as the guise and forcible use of so fierce things is without regard or choice of any part or portion But it is not alwayes I hope the guise of violent things I need not go far There is a natural stone in Asia which by a mighty and strong property ueth in forty dayes space to consume and make away all the flesh and bones of a dead mans body saving the Teeth which he leaveth ever safe and whole and therefore they called it in times past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Flesh-eater and made Tombs thereof for dead and Boots for Gowty men I could cloy a world of Readers with like examples if I might be suffered But weigh this one and our artificial Stone together why may not it as well have his choice and save a part in this great waste and spoiling They know not why And how then there are many deep hidden and causeless properties in the bosom of kinde and nature which no mans wit is able to reach and see into the World is full of them when Art is open and all his wayes known Indeed the World is full of late of such causeless and blinde Phylosophers which like as the Poet when they stick a little call upon Jove by many names to help to shore up the fall of a verse or stop a gap in the number so they when their eyes are dazled upon the view of a deep matter fly to Nature as fast and to her hid and unsearchable Secrâ—â—s to cover the shame of Ignorance as though GOD moved all with his finger as they say without any â—ween means or instâ—uments There is nothing done without a middle cause fore running if it were known as I think it is to some though never so dark and hid from others and therefore to come to the purpose as the reason of the natural eating Stone was clear to Agricola though unknown to Pliny and many moe the Reporters and found to be for the loose and light temperature of his Body apt